Prevent Wheel Theft with 3D Printed Screws: Ford’s Solution

Ford is clear, the future of wheel safety goes through 3D printing . And we are not referring to printing the tire, but to the parts that will prevent you from stealing it. That is, the company is working to create screws and a key that will be the only one that you can remove to change the tire if necessary.

Screw-3D-Ford

Goodbye to wheel thefts

Car wheel theft may seem somewhat rare and even strange for more than one, but if Ford is working on this it is because there is a need. And it must be very unpleasant to park your car at night and the next morning find it without the wheels and on four blocks of bricks. If, in addition, you have spent a good sum of money on high-end tires, even more.

To solve this problem, after the idea of one of its experts in 3D printers, the company began working on a system of screws printed in 3D, stainless steel and would have an exclusive drawing. So to remove them would require a unique key and that would also be printed following the same technique.

To achieve those unique patterns, Ford makes use of software that interprets a short phrase said by the user. To be more exact, the shape of the sound wave is generated by the printable circular pattern that will shape the screws and the unique key. Although it will not be the only option to create these patterns, you can also use other data provided by the user and allow you to draw these exclusive drawings.

The idea is fine, but how safe it really is. According to Ford, the system is very safe, so much so that they say it would be impossible to replicate one of these keys, even with the use of some type of wax mold. The reason is that these patterns include a series of indentations and variations in thickness that would cause the wax mold to break when you want to remove it from the screw.

Ford and the use of 3D printing

In short, 3D printing on bass metal is true that many industry can change. Ford saw it coming and that is why in 2018 it invested 65 million dollars in the Desktop Metal company. Since then, many other companies have done it too. And Ford has already used this type of techniques in the manufacture of other parts of its current range of vehicles.

Now, with the printing of 3D screws they believe that they will give more value and security to their customers, and incidentally they will open a new market in everything related to the customization and configuration of a car. An extra that could complicate deliveries somewhat by time issues, but not in excess. The important thing, those users who spend a good amount of money on tires can sleep more peacefully.