Ferrario revealed that Idra spent three years and just under $2 million to develop the giga press. But like many rule-breaking inventions, the first giga press Idra presented publicly, at an industrial trade fair in Germany in 2019, was greeted with ridicule.
“All potential customers laughed at the idea, saying we could never make it work,” Ferrario said in a videoconference with Automotive News Europe from his office in Travagliato, Italy, east of Milan.
Undaunted, Idra’s 2019 product catalog included an item known as OL 5500 CS, its first giga press. The number 5500 corresponds to the clamping force of the press in metric tons. A year later, production started on Idra’s first deliverable giga press.
Idra has now sold 22 giga presses. Seven are in operation, five are being installed at customers’ plants, and 10 others are in line for delivery.
It’s mostly a difference of scale.
Before the introduction of the process, die casts using up to 4,000 tons of clamping force were able to create structural castings with a maximum of two cavities, generally referred to as shock towers.
By increasing the clamping force to 6,100 tons, Idra created a press capable of a multicavity casting, with up to four shock towers in one injection. In practice, the giga press can produce a rear underbody frame in a single piece.
