I haven't been very active on the forum recently, I've been studying for my engineering degree (research into ultrasonically assisted drilling of carbon fibre and titanium stacks) and working on a side project with some friends and of course riding.
The project isn't directly related to cycling but does use lots of carbon, anodised aluminium, leather and GPS, so has some similar elements! We decided to create as light a suitcase as possible, whilst integrating a weighing system, GPS tracking and bluetooth. The point of the scale is for the scale to weigh its contents, taking itself into account. The case is GPS trackable by iPhone/Andriod app.
I thought you might be interested in seeing some of the manufacturing process.
We started the design phase almost a year ago and after many iterations this was the final design for the prototypes. We had experimented with a patterned outer surface of the case and went as far as making moulds and laying up the carbon but the shape had mould fill issues and a poor finish of the shell so we went with this more reliable design.
We then had moulds CNC machined out of billets of aluminium, which we then polished by hand. We then planned the lay-up schedule, ply sizes using paper, as well as calculating the area of carbon needed.
The carbon was then laid into the moulds and vacuum bagged. The bagged moulds were then put into an autoclave. Unfortunately I don't have pictures if the moulds bagged up.
Excess resin was trimmed off, the shells cleaned up and we started drilling and mounting the hardware.
The PCB for the scales is designed and made by us, as are the "forks" for the wheels.
The two prototypes we've made are now finished. We're just fine turing some finer points such as the leather lining, pockets etc. Here are some close-up shots and one of a full case. We've aimed to manufacture to the highest standards we're capable of. The scale technology could be easily applied to bike travel cases, as could the manufacturing method of the shell.
All of our production has taken place in Slovenia and the design at the University of Warwick in the UK.
It has taken us a lot of effort to get to where we are but we are really proud of what we have achieved. Our major goal is to launch on Kickstarter to gain funding for production. We're aiming to go live at the beginning of June.
If you like our case I'd really appreciate it if you could like our Facebook page (sorry for the shameless plug!)
https://www.facebook.com/eljagu.us/timeline
http://eljagu.com/
https://instagram.com/eljagu_/
I hope you like what we have created! If you have any questions I'd be more than happy to answer them
.Max and the team at ELJAGU.
