Talk:Giga Press

LK Machinery presses

Another machine appears to have been built in parallel, already painted red+white but this time branded Impress DCC 6000 (ie. nominally uprated to ~6,000 tonnes-force (59,000 kN) closing force). The machine was openly visible in the background during an industry event + factory tour of LK Machinery (parent company of Idra), on 2019-11-27 in Shenzhen:

• "Expert craftsmanship casting the future – LK 40th anniversary event" (with tour photographs). Shenzhen. 2019-11-27. Archived from the original on 2020-05-15. Retrieved 2020-05-15. IDRA, sister brand of LK, delivered 5500T die casting unit to a North American customer in 2019. Also the world's first 6000T die casting unit will be delivered to a US customer, for new energy vehicle structural parts manufacturing. … After the seminar, the crowd attended the factory open house of Shenzhen Leadwell Technology industrial park, to gain a better knowledge on smart die casting equipment, IDRA Xpress die casting machine and the world's first 6000T die casting cell. … During the factory open house, LK Group debuted the world's first 6000T die casting cell, named as IMPRESS-PLUS DCC6000. … most powerful die casting unit in the world.
• "First show of the year for LK – EUROGUSS 2020 has come to an end". 2020-01-14. Archived from the original on 2020-05-15. Retrieved 2020-05-15. 80% of the non-ferrous metal casting parts are used in the automotive industry, … In 2019, a new energy vehicle manufacturer in the US placed an order for 10 sets of 6000T die casting cell for automotive structural parts manufacturing.

Given the number of people that photographed the LK-built machine on the tour, the likelyhood of getting CC-BY-SA photograph for the article in the long run is increased!

The machine in the background is probably the second machine for Lathrop referenced by Elon Musk in the 2020-04-14 interview "One coming from Italy, and one coming from China." with potentially nine more to follow…, in which case the Idra machine ordered during the Dusseldorf trade-show for China might have gone somewhere else.

—Sladen (talk) 10:58, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Korea

• "LK: Leading Korean Manufacturer commits to LK Impress-Plus DCC4000 and DCC6000 Die-Casting Units". Foundry Planet. 2020-12-20. Retrieved 2020-12-20. … 5G base station products are higher heat dissipation performance … process of assembling and integration of the complete 4000T unit with peripheral equipment in the customer's factory by LK technicians … And the 6000T unit is on the way to the customer plant.

After three to Giga Shanghai, LK appear to have sold one DCC6000 to Korea, probably a Samsung supplier(?). —Sladen (talk) 20:25, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Audi

• Branner, G.; Wanke, P. (2012). "La strategia lightweight di Audi" [The Audi lightweight strategy]. Technical papers. Die Casting & Foundry Techniques. No. 1. Ingolstadt. pp. 83‒90. "required car quantity decisively influences the body architecture … Audi R8 (30 entities/day): profile-intensive car body structure … Audi A8 (160 entities/day): cast-intensive car body structure … so-called Spaceframe® … parts made of aluminium die castings with tailored mechanical properties for yield strength and strain are applied. … front suspension housing (trimal®-05, AlSi10MnMg), … connector between side member and door sill is manufactured by the use of a self-hardening alloy Castasil-37 (AlSi9Mn) for the first time. … time- and cost-consuming heat treatment is no longer necessary … omission of heat treatment increases the dimensional stability of the thin-walled casts. … vehicle only contains self-hardening alloys (eg. AlSi9Mn)
• "AUDI delegation in Idra for a training course" (Press release). Idra Group. 2019-05-06. Retrieved 2020-05-28. team … have come from Ingolstadt to IDRA to attend a training course on the most advanced technologies in the field of Diecasting. … The course, which lasted from 22 to 26 October [2018] covered the features of latest generation IDRA presses … A course session was dedicated to NoX technology that provides high levels of vacuum into the die cavity and is suitable for the production of structural castings

—Sladen (talk) 15:32, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Fremont

Permits for a casting building (project F20-0048) at Tesla Factory in Fremont:

• Molinar, Robert (2020-05-05). Tesla F20-0048 - Castings Demo. Permitting (building permit application). City of Fremont. Remove car wash equipment including tank, filters, pumps with associate piping and accessories as well as associated electrical and civil components … $576 paid
• Molinar, Robert (2020-05-20). (Elec) Tesla F20-0048 Casting Arch and associated MEP. Permitting (building permit application). City of Fremont. Architectural and MEP for pre engineered metal canopy structure. … $6,843

—Sladen (talk) 15:36, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Same permit "Presentation and Jenson Hughes documentation required at time of building permit for canopy." (2020-07-02 Fire Review) + "Permit documents to include print of ICC ESR 2823" (2020-06-26 Building Structural). —Sladen (talk) 13:49, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Fremont photos

• @Paul91701736 (2020-08-17). "We want to encourage use of the pictures, so they are all licensed CC Share-Alike Attribution" (Tweet) – via Twitter.

This should allow sourcing some images of the factory/Giga Press/DCM1 construction. —Sladen (talk) 19:18, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Heavy Press Program

They may be the largest modern high-pressure die casting machines in the world. The Heavy Press Program build larger machines during the fifties. The largest Machine had almost double the power of the Giga Press — Preceding unsigned comment added by Klaus Leiss (talk • contribs) 09:33, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

The Heavy Press Program machines (eg. Alcoa 50,000 ton forging press) are huge forging machines for solid metal—not one-per-minute die-casting machines for liquid metal. Thank you for giving the heads up! —Sladen (talk) 20:28, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

More cites

• Fritsch, Thomas (2020). "Already an icon - Idra's Giga Press is not just XXL, it signals the new way of thinking in die-casting". Global Casting Magazine. Vol. 10, no. 4. Foundry Planet. pp. 34–37.

Seems to be a reprint of one of the paper articles. —Sladen (talk) 21:54, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Volvo is also switching to Mega casting. The press manufacturer has not been chosen yet. TGCP (talk) 12:51, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Berlin images

Wolfpack:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqMsr0DtIdw&t=6m (2020-12-19, side-on + top-down)

Tobias Lindh (CC-BY permission):

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUe57IovTME&t=9m4s (2020-11-28, side-on)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owmxrm183hM&t=11m (2020-12-19, side-supports being unloaded)

—Sladen (talk) 15:42, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Content removal

On 2021-05-02 the diffs show removal of ~30 kB of prose + citations (in Special:Diff/1004142010/1004987451), without prior discussion. I'm not normally one for performing large-scale reverts, but the result looks somewhat like a messy press release. Any suggestions for a way forward? Tony Mach, would you be able to share the thinking/intent? —Sladen (talk) 14:04, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Tony Mach: …would like to understand the thought processes/concerns before making more changes. For the moment have rescued (Special:Diff/1004989816/1005032644) the bare minimum in the WP:LEAD:

1. mass, to reduce confusion between force (tonnes·force) and mass (tonnes);
2. specification used by Tesla, so that rating (tonnes·force) makes more sense again.

—Sladen (talk) 15:09, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Tony Mach: …have done a further minor tweak to restore the correct WP:LAYOUT. Please consider replying here if at all possible; as it would be great to try and better understand what was trying to be achieved. —Sladen (talk) 00:16, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

In Wikipedia we try to ensure that adding/editing content has its sources and WP:CITING; for reference, but also to allow readers to find further detailed information themselves (a bibliography).

The seventeen edits removed content, and later removed citations. Nine edit summaries were identical "Removed superfluous minutia", and four further edit summaries were left blank—thus leaving little insight into the why-thinking for the benefit of other editors.

Page Views presently shows the article as having ~13,000 readers per month—those readers are not best served by leaving the article in its present state for extended periods of time. In the period until precise reasoning for the edits can be obtained, a WP:BRD looks like a sensible cause of action. —Sladen (talk) 04:31, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Further paging on User Talk:Tony Mach#Giga Press (in Special:Diff/1005410443). —Sladen (talk) 14:51, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

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The casting process for the Giga Press system is described in detail in the Environmental Impact Report filing for the Giga Berlin factory:

• Tesla Manufacturing Brandenburg (2020-06-30). 3.1.2 A002 Gießerei (Casting) (PDF). Anlage und Betrieb [Plant and Operation] (Environmental impact assessment). Antrag für eine Genehmigung oder eine Anzeige nach dem Bundes-Immissionsschutzgesetz (in German). Grünheide: UVP Verbund. pp. 83‒84. Archived from the original on 2020-07-02. Retrieved 2021-02-06.{{cite report}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)

…this cite was previously used in the article, but removed (in Special:Diff/1004982433) then replaced with {{citation needed}} (in Special:Diff/1004987451). —Sladen (talk) 15:47, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Special:Diff/1005420493 adds an overview based on reading p.83‒84 this cite. That could in-turn be re-summarised down to a shorter introduction paragraph, and there's a better description of the vacuum and degassing in two of the other trade-magazine cites. Comparison is harder, as it requires something to compare to, and nobody else appears to have attempted die-casting at this size before. —Sladen (talk) 20:09, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

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The article was tagged {{Cleanup-PR}} (ie. "…, sensationalism"). There appear to be two quotes that might be heading in the direction of being sensational: one from Jérôme Guillen (unibody casting) and one from Elon Musk (producing 1:1 cars like model cars). Both of these are used and presented as direct quotes to (hopefully) aid the reader in obtaining a high-level understanding. The article text itself appears to be boringly neutral, and correspondingly cited. Tony Mach: which *precise* words, or sentences are/were of concern in placing the {{Cleanup-PR}} template? —Sladen (talk) 20:33, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

2+ weeks later. Still no insight/feedback into the precise details. —Sladen (talk) 14:16, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Texas - 2021-02

"As of 2 February 2021, all major components of the first Giga Press at the Austin site has been craned into place."

• Randy (2021-02-03). Daily Progress Update - [2021-02-02 17:00] (offset 4:20). Tesla Terafactory Texas Update. Retrieved 2021-02-05 – via Youtube.

(Cacheing here until the recent edits can be clarified) —Sladen (talk) 14:08, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Close up footage

• Tesla [@tesla] (2021-02-05). "World's biggest die casting machine … It can cast front & rear vehicle underbodies in a single piece each — down from 70+ parts for same sections previously" (Tweet). Retrieved 2021-02-05 – via Twitter.

—Sladen (talk) 16:42, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

2018

Found another article; …from 2018(!). Seems the "Giga Press" terminology not yet being used; but lots of juicy technical details:

• "Idra introduces the world's Largest Die Cast Machine". Asosiasi Italia Pemasok Foundries. 2018-02-01. Retrieved 2021-04-08. largest R&D program in the recent history of the company … largest ever platen size (over 3.3m by 3.3m), its strongest ever tie bars (450mm in diameter), … Platens are available in forged steel or cast iron with the availability of a NiCr coating answering the requests and needs of our customers. … Rolled thread tie bars reduced to almost zero the risk for tie-bar failure. … capable to produce castings well beyond 80 Kgs in weight over an unbeaten maximum allowed projected area. … Mechanical components have been designed to standardise the modular assembly concept and reduce the number of spare parts while increasing reliability. … hydraulic design based around Parker valves with high flow manifold blocks supported by the addition of accumulators for rapid closing, cores on the moving platen and a compact pump group that has allowed us to achieve dry cycle times of 30 seconds for 4,000 ton models. … Injection velocity exceeding requirements of 10 m/sec … 22 m/s² from 0,4 to 10 m/sec injection velocity

—Sladen (talk) 13:28, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Citations

In Special:Diff/1144495161/1142265875 (3 months ago) this article appears to heave been expanded to cover a factory in Mexico, but also tagged with {{Original research}} in the same sequence of edits (by N2e). In reviewing the article, pretty much every sentence is cited. N2e: what do you feel could be improved? —Sladen (talk) 13:23, 11 July 2023 (UTC) (At the moment, I'm minded to remove the OR tag, unless something specific can be pointed to).

Yes the article seems quite well cited overall. Certainly no need for an article-level orig research tag, although some of the prose in places implies some OR on the part of the author of the Wikipedia article (e.g., "...suggests an identical die layout, with maybe a 5th wedging die underneath...", unless the source said that "suggests" bit, in which case an attribution should be provided for such language ).

So at most, a few inline OR tags might be warranted. Maybe where all the detailed steps are listed with no source provided (at the "Steps and machinery involved:" prose in the article. But otherwise, unless there is Talk page consensus to the contrary, I'd support removal of the article-level tag now. N2e (talk) 13:22, 13 July 2023 (UTC)