Industrial Grade Purifying Equipment

Prototyping, custom part creation, and visual display models

Kebaide Purifying Technology produces industrial grade purifying equipment and filter cartridges.These products span a range of heavy-duty applications from cars to factory machines. Filter cartridges are designed to filter oil, water and gas.

Kebaide Purifying Technology specializes in customized parts to tackle the specialized needs of their clients. They are currently supplying purifying equipment and cartridges to Bao Steel, one of the largest and most advanced steel factories in China. While Kebaide is fairly new to their industry, 3D printing has allowed them to optimize their industry practices and offer their high standard of quality products.  

Various 3D printed models featuring a non-standard end cup model with a gap for a rubber ring.

For the established industry of purifying technologies, most users have adapted to the standard line of products available.  For Kebaide, 3D printing has allowed them to offer specialized and custom parts, in addition to lowering the costs of standard equipment.

Before 3D printing, Kebaide struggled with

1. Outsourcing. This slowed production and increased costs significantly due to the involvement of a 3rd party.
2. Variation. Custom parts were created typically by hand due to the lack of specialized equipment.Tolerance variations had to be accounted for with each rendition.
3. Rejection. Designs were frequently rejected by certain factories due to their lack of tools or inability to create such a small production part.

By applying 3D printing, the company was able to

1. Produce components in house reducing time and cost.
2. Maintain product consistency
3. Increase sales capabilities by creating scale models for display and demonstration

Process:
Kebaide Purifying Technology produces industrial grade purifying equipment and filter cartridges. To begin a design, a tech staff member at Kebaide designs the original electronic profile.  This is done in cad and eventually exported or converted into an STL for use with 3D printing.  Once designed, this gets printed on the Raise3D N2 that’s located in-house. This initial model will be tested on as they execute safety and fit tests. After passing initial testing, a completed functional prototype will be made. If the piece approved, it will go to mass production manufacturing.

Another feature of 3D printing for Kebaide is the ability create exact replicas at a scale.  By creating a small-scale 3D model, vendors can transport and display samples of the finished product.

Display-sized models of purifying equipment. 

Challenges:
The purifying industry is a long-standing industry that many clients have adapted to and regularly use.  Most of these users only require a standard product, but for those requiring a non-standard piece Kebaide is able to leverage their 3D printing tools.
Before implementing 3D printing, Kebaide outsourced all of the production and prototyping to separate factory.  Even for standard parts, the factory produced parts primarily through intensive skilled labor.  This resulted in long delivery times and models also had a degree of variation that had to be accounted for. Additionally, when producing specialty and non-standard designs, the requirements could easily fall outside of the factories capabilities.  In cases like this, if the price or order of parts is too low, it’s very likely that these types of factories will reject the prototyping order.

Solution:
Kebaide now uses a Raise3D N2 to rapidly produce both standard and non-standard parts and prototypes for their clients.  This 3D printing technology is both faster and cheaper than the alternative of outsourcing. With each part being produced through technology, parts can be replicated the same way every time which significantly lowers the variation in products that are produced through outsourcing. In general, this is able to reduce the overall management costs for Kibaide in the EVT phases of design.

As an added benefit, Kebaide is better equipped to market and promote their products.  With portable display models, their ability to vend and pitch their products within the scope of a desk or a suitcase; vastly increasing the capability and flexibility of their sales force.

Model of an end cup filter cartridge