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Leveraging a 3D printer “defect” to create a new quasi-textile

Author: DoreenMichele

Score: 135

Comments: 44

Date: 2020-10-30 04:43:24

Web Link

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eecc wrote at 2020-10-30 11:53:56:

Read somewhere that there’s a whole field of research dedicated to mathematically designed, non-flat textiles.

If you think of it, all we do currently is cut and sew flat tiles of deformable cloth to approximate whatever curvature, but if you can print the material with the curvatures embedded it’s an interesting path to explore

LeifCarrotson wrote at 2020-10-30 15:11:28:

Nike Flyknit shoes have this technology:

https://www.nike.com/flyknit

They weave different densities and materials in different sections of the upper to make some areas stronger, some more breathable, some stretchy, etc. You may have seen it referenced in some of the recent furor over the Next% carbon midplate.

nicwolff wrote at 2020-10-30 15:53:26:

North Sails' 3Di tech? They make precisely curved sails for racing yachts.

https://www.northsails.com/sailing/en/innovation/3di-technol...

eigenvalue wrote at 2020-10-30 13:54:23:

Seems to me like this works on the same principles as these big machines used to make plastic netting for fruits:

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Fruit-net-machine_620...

But $300 is a lot more accessible than $5,000, and it's a lot more customizable.

Cactus2018 wrote at 2020-10-30 16:38:34:

There are some great 'how its made' videos on youtube under combinations of search terms like

  circular loom weaving machine

Plastic netting for fruits

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FG2d97nxSg

Lexus CF printing promo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kttvDaUIWCs

kallistohak wrote at 2020-10-30 10:25:43:

Finally someone solved the problem of sold out toilet paper in the pandemic

curiousllama wrote at 2020-10-30 11:53:09:

PLA toilet paper - It has holes, no absorbtion, sharp edges, and takes an hour per square to print.

Sign me up!

NikolaeVarius wrote at 2020-10-30 13:36:18:

I transitioned to sea shells to fix this problem

snovv_crash wrote at 2020-10-30 14:27:39:

3 3D printed sea shells?

NikolaeVarius wrote at 2020-10-30 14:53:11:

Wood infused for that all natural feeling

pstuart wrote at 2020-10-30 15:51:43:

Bidets are a worthwhile investment.

pontifier wrote at 2020-10-30 07:31:46:

This is fantastic. I'm reminded of the 3D printed broom from a few years ago. I remember being blown away in a similar fashion then. This type of under extrusion can create very thin filaments, but the Gcode to generate these structures isn't easy to create with the traditional model=>slicer=>Gcode software stack.

I've been out of the loop for a couple of years though, so I'm interested to know if this has evolved much.

rhklein wrote at 2020-10-30 07:38:08:

I wrote a G-code Importer for Blender recently.

Having access to the toolpaths directly lets you do some interesting things conventional slicers can't do.

https://github.com/Heinz-Loepmeier/Blender-Gcode-Import/wiki

I've been experimenting with storing extrusion multiplier info inside Blender to make weighted extrusion values based on a texture.

thdrdt wrote at 2020-10-30 11:58:12:

Gcode for this type of 3d printer is very easy to understand and generate.

Some years ago I did some experiments with 3d printing in 3d (printing wire frames in 3d).

But it takes time to get the feed rates and print speeds right.

Edit: an example of wireframe printing:

http://www.creativeapplications.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/...

curiousllama wrote at 2020-10-30 11:45:45:

I wonder if they just used a custom slicer. In undergrad, I wrote my own slicer and used it to do silly things (less "can I make this?" than "What would happen if?").

I would imagine they took a similar (though, obviously, much more intelligent) approach here, just thinking directly in terms of slicer features, rather than in terms of models.

meekmind wrote at 2020-10-30 07:35:25:

I think it's fair to say there have been sweeping changes.

londons_explore wrote at 2020-10-30 09:50:24:

I've run a 3d printer with the extrusion rate way down before (to try and produce very thin surfaces), and the results were _far_ less consistent. I got big holes in my parts and massive dribbles and blobs in other places.

I wonder how these results can be so so so much better in comparison?

himinlomax wrote at 2020-10-30 13:10:21:

It looks like it works not by constantly underextruding, but only intermittently. The parts where the strands join are overextruded if anything.

lylecheatham wrote at 2020-10-30 17:26:19:

I'm pretty sure it's actually just a continuous under extrusion. It becomes periodic in nature because material gathers under the nozzle and then it hits the blob from the previous layer and gets pulled off. It's a similar effect to how droplets form and fall off of your faucet when the flow rate is low. This also leads to the diagonal angles seen as the Z-height goes up.

It's usually hard to get this to happen consistently, which they've done quite well.

I've got no citations, but I worked in FDM Additive Manufacturing for a few years, and spent 4 months of that designing extruders for a name brand company.

londons_explore wrote at 2020-10-30 22:29:46:

What surprises me is quite how consistent it is. The blobs look perfectly consistent over thousands of layers, which seems very unlikely - even a tiny perturbation would grow bigger in each successive layer and eventually cause the blobs to be chaotic in nature, even if the first row was consistent.

corty wrote at 2020-10-30 10:09:49:

From my limited expirience, temperature of the extruded material must be in some narrow window, too cold or too hot and it will clump. Even within the window, the production of sticky hairs (what one would aim for in this case) varies a lot with temperature.

I can also imagine that the material plays a huge role, but I cannot say because I've only really used PLA.

eudes_ochoa wrote at 2020-10-30 18:15:01:

here's the author explaining how to achieve the print:

https://twitter.com/FormanForm/status/1315759308450062336?s=...

jstanley wrote at 2020-10-30 11:42:58:

The desired result is that you get a series of pulses of extrusion rather than random under-extrusion, so if you can't get consistent pulsing by adjusting temperature and extrustion rate, you could always hack Marlin to do it on purpose. I expect that is what they've done.

Munksgaard wrote at 2020-10-30 09:30:20:

Out of curiosity, what printer would they be using for something like this? I've been considering getting a 3D-printer for a while, but I don't know enough to decide which one to get.

lsllc wrote at 2020-10-30 12:40:52:

I did an Ask HN [0] on this topic a few months ago and the answer was a Prusa I3 MK3S if you can afford it and the Creality Ender 3 if your budget is smaller.

I did get the Prusa I3 MK3S and it's just incredible, I'm astounded by the quality of the prints and the printer itself. I've already designed a number of parts in Fusion360 and printed them with a variety of different filaments (Flex, PLA, PETG) and having a lot of fun creating things!

[0]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24032659

klohto wrote at 2020-10-30 10:16:48:

Just get Prusa. It’s used both by professionals and amateurs. In case it won’t be enough for your use, you will already know enough details about 3D printing to choose your next printer.

curiousllama wrote at 2020-10-30 11:51:56:

This model is what I first got, and liked. Fun to put together and mess with. Won't print anything crazy, but will be plenty fun to play with.

https://shop.prusa3d.com/en/upgrades/183-original-prusa-i3-m...

kevin_thibedeau wrote at 2020-10-30 16:15:13:

If you want to print fast get a delta.

typerandom wrote at 2020-10-30 10:00:52:

It looked like they were using the Prusa I3 MK3S.

cannedslime wrote at 2020-10-30 11:22:37:

If you have the money and want a high quality FDM printer, buy a prusa. If you are on a budget get something like an Ender-3

londons_explore wrote at 2020-10-30 09:48:50:

Is the extruder speeding up and slowing down for each "blob" in the texture? Or is the extruder going constant speed and you're relying on surface tension to make the blobbyness?

rhklein wrote at 2020-10-30 09:58:03:

Most like some postprocessing in the gcode to multiply the extrusion rate by some factor for each blob.

curiousllama wrote at 2020-10-30 11:48:20:

Probably some combination. They used a cheap printer - I can't imagine those little prusa motors and gears are particularly precise with high-frequency, micro changes, even if they can get good consistency

lylecheatham wrote at 2020-10-30 17:32:03:

You'd be surprised actually! Prusa uses no gearing between the motor and the primary drive gear and it's a 200 step/rev NEMA 17.

You can transmit high frequencies quite easily, and I've actually seen bad stepper motors with high cogging torque transmit that periodic torque as an extrusion defect into walls with the correct thickness.

mrfusion wrote at 2020-10-30 13:44:22:

This seems cool but my imagination doesn’t seem to be working today. I can’t seem to think of any interesting applications of this.

2muchcoffeeman wrote at 2020-10-30 14:01:47:

There is literally a video with applications in the link.

mrfusion wrote at 2020-10-30 14:05:48:

I skimmed it. I guess I missed that.

bigiain wrote at 2020-10-30 06:10:49:

Hmmm, I wonder if a dual extruder printer using conductive filament in one nozzle could print flexible fabric circuit boards? Embed cabling for leds/elwire directly into the fabric?

Firerouge wrote at 2020-10-30 06:38:15:

I suspect it would be exceedingly difficult to get enough conductive materials in the mix, while also sufficiently purging to insulate between different traces/threads.

Perhaps printing an outfit entirely from conductive threads could be used to create a grounded Faraday cage suit/dress.

noodlesUK wrote at 2020-10-30 07:47:58:

Such conductive garments already exist in the form of fencing lamés, and other special-purpose wear which is used by electricians.

A fun fact is that whilst wearing a fencing lamé, one is generally impervious to tasers and stun guns.

anonymfus wrote at 2020-10-30 13:54:51:

Also as a cheaper alternative one can wrap themself in foil tape.

bigiain wrote at 2020-10-30 06:54:04:

Purging might not be a probelm with dual extruders? The "trick" that makes it possible might not work without all the filament coming out of a single extruder nozzle in a connected spiderweb though...

jeffrallen wrote at 2020-10-30 12:15:13:

Wow. Mind blown.

chrischen wrote at 2020-10-30 09:38:55:

Very interested in the badminton shuttlecock implementation. Wonder if it can be superior to current plastic shuttlecocks.