Aixtreme Racing is a Formula Student team of 40 passionate engineers from the University of Applied Science Aachen that have been designing and building prototype race cars since 2007.

The team is reaching a new milestone by developing their first-ever electric vehicle. This transition has opened the door to new technical challenges and innovative approaches, including the adoption of advanced 3D printing for lightweight custom parts, reliable housings, and rapid prototyping. It’s a pleasure to see how passionate, talented engineers are using 3D printing to push the boundaries of innovation.

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According to Luis Do Carmo, Head of Powertrain & LV-Electronics, “We are very happy with our Raise3D printer. Our printed parts are quickly processed and easy to slice. The workflow integration is smooth, and the print quality consistently meets our needs.”

Challenges Before 3D Printing

Before integrating 3D printing into their workflow, Aixtreme Racing primarily relied on composite structures, as well as aluminum and steel milling, to manufacture their parts. While effective, these traditional methods had notable drawbacks such as long lead times, high production costs per part, and a dependence on machine availability and workshop capacity. 

Other concerns included the high material waste, especially for parts that didn’t require metal strength. But most of all, the team found very limited agility when iterative changes were required. The transition to an electric vehicle also introduced new demands, such as the need for flame-retardant and electrically insulating components—something that is very difficult to achieve cost-effectively while using conventional methods.

Selecting a 3D Printer

To meet these challenges, Aixtreme Racing turned to 3D printing for its rapid, flexible, and material-efficient production capabilities. Not only did the technology provide faster development of lightweight custom components but gave the team greater independence from external suppliers and workshop scheduling bottlenecks. This gave the team an improved ability to prototype and test complex geometries quickly and easily while providing reduced material waste compared to milling processes. 

After researching the alternatives available to them, the team chose to purchase Raise3D products specifically because their faculty advisor had experience with the Raise3D Pro2, and was impressed by the print quality, reliability, and seamless workflow capabilities it offered. Raise3D printed parts had been mounted on previous vehicles, though not as extensively as planned for the upcoming e-car.

The Raise3D Pro3 was selected for its generous build volume, more than sufficient for the team’s relatively compact parts, and the option to upgrade to a Hyper Speed Extruder if faster print times were required in the future.

Materials and Applications

Aixtreme Racing primarily uses Polymaker’s PC-FR filament for their high-voltage tractive system enclosures, which demand flame-retardant, electrically non-conductive properties in compliance with Formula Student regulations. Additionally, the team has been experimenting with a UL94 V-0 rated TPU 95A, which delivers additionally flexible components such as vibration-dampening parts, seals, small molds. Besides producing high-voltage and low-voltage enclosures for PCBs and cell fixations, Aixtreme Racing also uses PETG, PLA, and PC materials to print tools, test fittings, small molds, and prototypes such us the Red Stack Enclosure below.

Raise3D’s Open Material Program allowed the team to access pre-configured material templates for PC-FR, minimizing setup time and ensuring consistent print quality. “We really appreciate the consistency of the prints and the seamless integration between the Raise3D cloud platform and the ideaMaker slicer. So far, all our prints have worked out very well — even without deep prior knowledge in 3D printing,” Luis Do Carmo said.

The team relies heavily on ideaMaker for slicing and RaiseCloud for managing print jobs remotely. Features they particularly value include pre-configured material profiles for reliable, out-of-the-box performance; centralized job management via RaiseCloud, which allows multiple team members to manage prints independently; and efficient printer queue management, with minimal downtime between jobs.

For information: 

Raise3D: https://www.raise3d.com/ 

Raise3D Demo Videos: https://www.raise3d.com/demo-video/

University of Applied Sciences Aachen: https://www.fh-aachen.de/en/