Nowadays, if we try to search on the internet, everyone is selling dry/prepreg carbon fiber. But what's different between them? Why are they both dry carbon, but the pricing is still varied? To understand this, we must figure out how to produce a dry carbon product.
Here are some detailed steps about how most of factory produce a dry/prepreg carbon fiber product:
1. 3D Scan Original Parts;
2. Make a Digital Data For Making Molds;
3. Get a 3D Print Parts To Check The Fitment;
4. Make a Mold;
5. Produce a SEMI-Finished Product For Fitment Test;
6. Paint The Product With Clear Coat;
7. QC System;
8. Storage;
We are not going to list all the detail about the production of a dry carbon product, but we will list some key point will infect the quality and cost about the product.
1. The First Thing Is About Fitment Test. Let's Talk About The STEP 3, Get a 3D Print Parts To Check The Fitment.
As we all know, fitment is always the crucial point for a carbon fiber product. No matter how perfect the product looks like, if it can't fit on the car, it doesn't make any sense.
Most of factory will get a 3D print part for fitment test before they start to make a mold. But most of time, the 3D printer can not print precisely for some details of the part, especially some edges of the parts and detail fitment. So you will need to have full experience to understand what details you need to improve when get the mold and start the production. To learn these experiences, most of time, you will have to print twice or maybe over times to figure out the issue. In that case, you might spend a lot of money from starting development. This also means when your product comes out, it will set a high retail price.
2. The Second Thing Is About STEP 4, Make a Mold.
In our factory, we are not focusing on custom parts, because the cost of custom parts in our factory is very expensive. We only use metal mold to produce the product, and this will stop most people do custom parts in our factory. It might not be a wiser choice to use all metal mold to produce the product, but we are certain this is the best way to produce the best quality product.
There are 3 common molds in the market, fiberglass mold, carbon fiber mold and metal mold (Aluminum or Steel). The difference between these molds is durability and cost. I don't even need to introduce that you will understand the strength of the metal mold is always higher than other molds, also the cost is higher than others. But does that mean by using a metal mold to produce a product is always the best option?
If you are talking about the quality of the product, then of course, using a metal mold to produce a product must be the best, from the strength, edge, fitment, and weave. If you can get 2 products for comparison, you can see the difference. But if you are talking about cost-effectiveness, then it might not. It depends on what products you want to produce and how many products you expect to sell. For example, if you want to produce some product for McLaren F1, then you can not expect to sell like hundred sets of products, because it's a rare car. So you can choose to use a carbon fiber mold to make the product. But if you want to make a product for BMW M3, then it's worth spending the money for a metal mold.
3. Now Let's Talk About STEP 5.
There are 2 main things that will affect the quality of a semi-finished product.
a. The experience of the labor. This is really important, let's think about it, if you are making a big diffuser, and you are missing a small detail of the product, like just a corner, and you take 3 hours to finish a diffuser but it comes out with a small defect that you can't fix, what are you gonna do? Even we have full training and experience to teach a labor how to make a perfect semi-finished product, but we will still get hundreds of scrap products in a day. The production of carbon fiber products is manual work, if the labor with a bad mood today, he will probably take a day to produce 3-5 pieces of scrap products for you, and this is going to be a disaster for the factory.
b. The choice of the raw material - THE PREPREG CARBON FIBER.
The only thing that you need to know is that the quality of the prepreg carbon fiber is varied in this market. The only thing can affect the quality of prepreg carbon fiber is the machine that they use to produce prepreg carbon fiber, if that machine is more precise, the quality of the prepreg carbon fiber will be better. And how to get a precise machine to produce the carbon fiber, this is a hard question to answer. But you can understand, that not everyone is using A+ prepreg carbon fiber to produce a prepreg carbon fiber product.
4. The Final Thing Is About STEP 6 - THE CLEAR COAT.
To be honest, if you want to ask me, what's the best thing about the Sooqoo product? I have to say the clear coat is the best. I have to admit that the clear coat we are making now is not the best (I mean now, the day I posted this article, but maybe a month later, it's not the same anymore), but I mean the flatness is not the best. The yellowing resistance must be the top of the industry. It's a shame that customers will only see this after years ago, and I believe 50% of customers will sell their car in 2 years, so they can't see this advantage on our product. Yellow resistance is the hardest thing in the carbon fiber auto parts industry, like 50% of products will turn yellow after a year on the car, it's up to the weather (20%) and the tech of production (80%). That's why we can be proud to tell customers, if the parts you get from us turn yellow in a year, send some feedback to us, we will send you a replacement for free!
I am sure I am still missing some details about our production, but if you have a chance come and visit our factory, we will be welcome to show you everything about the detail of our production!
I hope you guys can learn something from this article, I just want to make sure you guys can buy the parts with the quality you like. I will try to post some video on the Youtube channel in the future, please make sure subscribe our Youtube channel and follow our Instagram page, we will keep posting something new!
Anything you guys are interested in the technical of carbon fiber, please drop a comment anytime, we will try to post some new content that you want to learn asap!! Much Love!