TyPope

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I think Dids has the right of it here. These castings all appeared at the same time as if they were moved outside in bulk rather than piecemeal for cooling. Most of these castings were likely inside for quite some time and likely cooled off long before they were moved outside. For example when they did CyberRodeo they had a bunch inside the building and none outside.

They move them in and out as space is required.
1,221 degrees...

Let's say you want your aluminum piece to be room temperature to prevent expansion/contraction issues when you bond it to the rest of the Cybertruck parts. What kind of heat will 100 pounds of aluminum give off while it cools?

Q=cmdT, where c is the specific heat of Aluminum. The specific heat of aluminum is 0.22 Btu/lb F and dT is the change in temperature (1221-75). So we have Q= 0.22* 100 * (1221-75)= 25,212 BTU

25,212 BTU is less than the average house's furnace output but when you have a bunch of those heating up the building, it can certainly raise your cooling needs by a lot.

Tesla has been storing the castings outside and using them regularly. It makes no sense to move castings in and out to make "room" in a building that is underutilized currently. You don't like to see parts that are going to be internal to your vehicle sitting out in the rain/weather so there must be a good reason to have them out there. Why would Tesla make castings faster than then need them? Testing production rates? Maybe. More likely, they build enough that they have time to cool down outside where your air conditioning doesn't have to counter the heat from cooling parts, open doors, limited power availability (when your electrical is provided by the temporary switch yard).

Once full power is available, you'll see them indoors with heavy venting and cooling. Till then, outside they go. Well, if the windows stay tarped, you probably won't see them indoors...
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greggertruck

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Q=cmdT, where c is the specific heat of Aluminum. The specific heat of aluminum is 0.22 Btu/lb F and dT is the change in temperature (1221-75). So we have Q= 0.22* 100 * (1221-75)= 25,212 BTU
2x2 doesn't equal four.

Tesla Cybertruck IDRA 9000T Giga Press Already Almost Fully Assembled in Giga Texas! e83fe858-2f35-4fe4-a5ce-02e297f015fc_text
 

HaulingAss

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1,221 degrees...

Let's say you want your aluminum piece to be room temperature to prevent expansion/contraction issues when you bond it to the rest of the Cybertruck parts. What kind of heat will 100 pounds of aluminum give off while it cools?

Q=cmdT, where c is the specific heat of Aluminum. The specific heat of aluminum is 0.22 Btu/lb F and dT is the change in temperature (1221-75). So we have Q= 0.22* 100 * (1221-75)= 25,212 BTU

25,212 BTU is less than the average house's furnace output but when you have a bunch of those heating up the building, it can certainly raise your cooling needs by a lot.

Tesla has been storing the castings outside and using them regularly. It makes no sense to move castings in and out to make "room" in a building that is underutilized currently. You don't like to see parts that are going to be internal to your vehicle sitting out in the rain/weather so there must be a good reason to have them out there. Why would Tesla make castings faster than then need them? Testing production rates? Maybe. More likely, they build enough that they have time to cool down outside where your air conditioning doesn't have to counter the heat from cooling parts, open doors, limited power availability (when your electrical is provided by the temporary switch yard).

Once full power is available, you'll see them indoors with heavy venting and cooling. Till then, outside they go. Well, if the windows stay tarped, you probably won't see them indoors...
The weather will not harm the castings.

One reason Tesla makes the castings in advance is to accommodate unexpected shutdowns of the machine due to a failed component, software issue or other temporary event. Without a backup store of castings, the entire production line would have to be shut down while the machine was brought back into service.
 

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1,221 degrees...
There is a giant furnace in the room where they are casting these and the rest of the building is almost certainly insulated from that and there are massive circulation fans cycling the air out regardless.

A big part of metallurgy is temperature management during various phases of the process. Dumping them into an unknown environment while cooling is going to get inconsistent results.

While I doubt there are big concerns with “cooling” them off outside when it’s 80 degrees outside, I find it highly unlikely they would park 900 degree chunks of metal outside in the rain or in 40 degree weather.
 

TyPope

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They may not be putting them outside while they are still hot but they are NOT putting them on the assembly line at 1,200 degrees, that's for sure. I suppose you could argue for some buffering but back when in school, they used extreme buffering as an example of what NOT to do in industrial engineering. Imagine finding an error... maybe the mold isn't filled all the way because a gauge was off... But, you have 10,000 of the castings parked outside. OOPS. (See early Harley Davidson handlebar production/quality control fiasco in the early 80's for reference)

Setting them outside prior to use on the line isn't the long term fix either but Tesla seems to do that In Germany as well...
 


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They may not be putting them outside while they are still hot but they are NOT putting them on the assembly line at 1,200 degrees, that's for sure. I suppose you could argue for some buffering but back when in school, they used extreme buffering as an example of what NOT to do in industrial engineering. Imagine finding an error... maybe the mold isn't filled all the way because a gauge was off... But, you have 10,000 of the castings parked outside. OOPS. (See early Harley Davidson handlebar production/quality control fiasco in the early 80's for reference)

Setting them outside prior to use on the line isn't the long term fix either but Tesla seems to do that In Germany as well...
Yeah, definitely cooling them before bolting them to the rest of the bits.

I do think the outdoor parking is odd, only thing I can figure is they are worried about getting the plug pulled on their natural gas supply and they are stockpiling. A couple hundred like we see on and off in Texas isn’t surprising, but they have huge stacks in Berlin.

In Texas, very possible they are tight on space due to construction in that area and once the GP is settled in they will have space again inside.
 

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How long do you think an aluminum part stays hot? I propose they put them outside because they don't want to store them inside and it has nothing to do with temperature of the casts....
Still lots of energy that HVAC has to evacuate very quickly. Would be a good heating system in the winter. I hope they have some form of heat recovery to cool down the mold that preheats the incoming ingots, or so it can be used elsewhere in the factory, otherwise its a massive energy waster.
 

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My FIL thinks his 4.0 second 0-60 is fast in his Lightning. I am SO happy he got HIS truck and he ISN'T rubbing it in my face right now, but damn it's hard not to be like "doggggg... you got jipped". It's freaking beautiful but 100k and NO heated steering wheel even? odd. But dang nice! Serves a demographic for sure.
If you want to go faster in a QM CT you just need to put the suspension down, put a skirt on and have at least one fan that really sucks:

 

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Ref the storing of the castings:
When Monro and Associates took the Model Y apart a while back Sandy commented on the machine work on the casting.
I assume the machining takes place on the line but could it be that they are machined off the assembly line and then taken to the line as needed?
Stored outside in raw form, moved to the machining area for finishing and then sent to the assembly line to be installed.
Just my WAG for what it's worth.
 


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But it IS a press... it presses with the force of 9,000 tons to keep the two halves of the mold together while it is being cast.

If it isn't a press, IDRA has screwed up calling it a press while selling 24 of them so far...

It IS a press.

To be fair, IDRA calls it a Gigapress at times and a die casting machine at other times... within the same page. But, the page's title is "Gigapress - Welcome to the era of the Gigapress"
You are right, IDRA named it a press, which it isn’t, knowing full well that it is a die casting machine. I wonder who put that name into their heads, but they have made the best of it as a marketing idea.

Having a clamping force doesn’t make it a press. A stamping machine is a press; it presses a die onto the material and forms it by so doing. A brake is also a kind of press.
 

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I doubt Tesla cares about drone crashes which does not impact manufacturing or construction.

If a drone landed on someone or impacted equipment it would be a concern.

The roof one I could see being an issue for example. But a drone hitting a tree in the parking lot… meh.
At the time Jeff ‘landed’ his drone on the roof there was nothing going on up there and it certainly had no impact on manufacturing as they weren’t making anything yet, let alone on the roof.
 

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Hmm, you can't really test without the Cybertruck chassis molds/dies but it might be possible to do some significant tests using the Cybertruck chassis molds/dies without having a IRDA Gigapress.

The IRDA Gigpress's job is to reliable, accurately, rapidly, forcefully(9 tons) open/close clamping of the huge molds many multipe times a minute.

It might be possible that the makers of the huge Cybertruck chassis molds could have tested the molds without having a IRDA Gigpress.

The mold makers would need a aluminum melting system, aluminum injection system, cooling system and just use a manually assembled static rigging structure of 9-tons clamping pressure to keep the 2 molds/die halfs closed during a test. The mold makers do not need to make a finished part every 2 seconds. They could take hours or days to setup (assembly/dis-assemble) for an individual test while the test itself only lasts less than a second.
9,000 tons approximately once per minute.
 

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At the time Jeff ‘landed’ his drone on the roof there was nothing going on up there and it certainly had no impact on manufacturing as they weren’t making anything yet, let alone on the roof.
But then he had to have an employee go up on the roof and fetch his drone.

Not a huge deal unless it happened a bunch.
 
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greggertruck

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But then he had to have an employee go up on the roof and fetch his drone.

Not a huge deal unless it happened a bunch.
Jeff lost one up there too
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