Friday, February 1, 2013

Textile 3 D Printers

The Polyester and Nylon chip makers should feel extremely pleased that it is only now a matter of time before a 3 D Printer application will be rolled out for people to have their own garments printed out of a machine.

All it would take is a polyester chip, which will be fed to the printer and then the software makes a garment, which will be as your size. You can always scan your own body for the measurement and key in the details.

Few hours later, out comes the ready to wear garment.  What more, it will be as per your design and colors. Because the 3 D Printer can also put in a kind of Jacquard design and colors as per your choice.

You view the garment on your screen and approve for its shape, size, colors and everything else and out comes the garment. No stitching, no washing, no dyeing , no other fuss.

The first will be the easy garments like socks, stockings, gloves , inner wear and it will then go to all the complex garments.

For your next party, you will visit a garment printer and view various designs and press the start button.

Interestingly, the Adidas shoe is the first 3 D shoe, which gets out of such a mold. However, I still don't know, if it is a printed product or molded product. But at-least the thread makers have lost their Nylon bonded thread market forever now.

But you could well print your own sports shoe in few hours.

Polyester chips are around USD1 a kg and a garment normally is not more then 400 gms. Which makes the material cost as 40 cents and then the inks around another 50 cents and thereafter the printing cost.

With say less then USD5, you will now have a nice colorful 3D garment .

The only challenge will be to give the crimp to the extruding polymer. But a 3D printer can also give a crimping effect .

For applications like tents, hose pipes, geo textiles, agro textiles, etc, the printer can print the polyester along with the metal.

It is an interesting world in Textiles waiting to explore.


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