"This is our newly produced 'lightweight' wheel, which is compounded with carbon fiber and polymer material. It will be mass-produced in the future with a unit price of less than 70 yuan." the company has reached long-term cooperation with Didi sharing bicycles and Emma electric vehicles. In the future, they will provide tens of millions of "lightweight" wheels.
On the market, carbon fiber "lightweight" products are small in quantity and high in price. Pan Weirun took out the carbon fiber wheels of a high-end mountain bike. The weight is indeed very light, but the single price is 400-600 yuan. "It is expensive in terms of manufacturing process." Pan Weirun explained that about 80% of domestic carbon fiber composite products are hand-laminated, that is, a layer of carbon fiber cloth and a layer of polymer material mixed with glue, repeated on the mold Made by stacking and drying. The production cycle of a mountain wheel hub is about 3 days.
The production efficiency of the hand lay-up process is low. In the highly automated industrial era, it has directly led to the failure of carbon fiber "lightweight" products to achieve popularity. The latest set of production lines developed by "Laifu Mould"-ultra-long carbon fiber composite material molding equipment, makes mass production of carbon fiber "lightweight" products possible.
"This set of equipment can uniformly glue carbon fiber and high-molecular materials at a certain temperature at a certain ratio, and finally can be molded by injection molding, compression molding, injection molding and other methods." Pan Weirun said that their first product was Didi shares the wheel hub of a bicycle. The production time of a 24-inch wheel hub is 2-3 minutes, and it is about 400 grams lighter than the same-sized magnesium-aluminum alloy wheel hubs on the market.
Innovative innovations are bound to face numerous difficulties, and "Laifu Mold" is no exception. The longer and more carbon fiber, the stronger the product, but the more difficult it is to fuse with the polymer material, how to deal with it? After mixing a high proportion of long fibers with high-molecular materials, the fluidity is poor, and it is easy to block the injection gun. What should I do? How to control the proportion of carbon fiber and polymer materials when the equipment is running at high speed? … All these difficulties were overcome one by one in countless days and nights.
The reporter learned that this new set of equipment has applied for a total of 10 patents, of which 3 are invention patents. "The first step is taken, and the next road is good." Pan Weirun said that he will continue to improve the production line, expand product categories, improve product performance, and extend the downstream industry chain. At the same time, new equipment and new molds will be “copied” in batches and promoted to the industry.