Example #1:

3D Printed Dress and Jacket

The dress, named Rose, was certainly the centerpiece of the collection presented at the Met Gala.The garment was worn by model Jourdan Dunn, consists of 21 3D-printed rose petals – each petal measures 53 cm and weighs 0.4 kilos.They were produced on a SLA 3D printer – the process was managed by Protolabs’ 3D printing department.Each petal includes a coat of primer and a coat of chameleon-effect automotive paint.Besides, the dress is modular: petals (up to 37 in all) can be added to increase the length of the dress.

In 2016, Ministry of Supply released a 3D-printed jacket for $250 that quickly sold out.Because the jacket is 3D-printed, it has no seams, which makes it very comfortable to wear.Although it has no seams, the garment still has joints to fit the outline of the body.

The jacket was made on a 3D robotic knitting machine, a process that uses less material than traditional knitting.It’s thought that using traditional methods wastes 15-30% of the material.

Example #2:

3D printed accessories

Every day, more and more jewelers are using 3D printing to produce rings, bracelets, necklaces and similar products.

What you see above is a sterling silver bracelet that mimics patterns found in nature.The maker, Nervous System, first 3D printed the model in wax and then cast it in pure silver.

Metal 3D printing is a perfect technology for watchmakers, both for prototyping and production of end-use pieces.

The Lo Scienziato timepiece from Panerai uses a fully 3D-printed titanium housing made by direct metal laser sintering (DMLS).If you want to see the Panerai on your wrist, you’ll have to pay up to $170,000. 

The actress Katie Holmes wore a 3D-printed collar produced with resin machine on her dress. It represents pearly purple palm leaves and required 56 hours of 3D printing and finishing.

VIP TIE is an Italian company known for its 3D-printed ties.VIP TIE combines luxury and innovative high-tech design.The whole process of making one tie can involve a complex mix of complementary procedures and materials: craftsmanship, embroidery, 3D printing, exotic leather, mother-of-pearl, carbon fiber, silver, gold and silver plated solid.

XYZ Bag is an Italian brand behind the Dada collection of customizable 3D printed handbags. Each bag is connected by a leather strap and a 3D-printed outer shell with a fabric lining.For each bag, the customer has to choose between several design options based on 3 different products.Once the model is selected, it is designed in CAD software.

The company uses SLS technology to make components, although they have recently integrated the one developed by HP, Multi Jet Fusion. These bags cost between 290 and 330 euros, which is quite expensive, but also reasonable for 3D printing products.

Example #3:

3D printed footwear

The big companies in the shoe industry have been developing solutions for mass customization for years.Not only does 3D printing allow these companies to prototype faster, it’s also a great solution for mass customization.

Companies in this field, including Adidas and New Balance, have started producing 3D-printed midsoles .Nike, meanwhile, is experimenting with 3D-printed “uppers”.

Annie Foo is a high-end footwear designer who uses 3D printing technologies in her manufacturing process.She explained that she has always been so obsessed with the combination of existing footwear manufacturing methods with modern technologies and materials to create something new.She uses 3D modeling software to design complex shapes to make her shoes look more aesthetically pleasing.Her final works for the runway were made with HP’s Jet Fusion 4200 machine, using PA12 (nylon).

IF YOU CURRENTLY own a pair of running shoes, the odds are that the midsole. The shock-absorbing layer between the inner and outer sole. Therefore, it is made from molded ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA), which is squishy, resilient foam. Check out what’s better about 3D printed shoes.

As a cushioning material, EVA foam isn’t bad. It’s elastic, affordable, and can be dyed a variety of colors. But an EVA midsole offers the same degree of support throughout the shoe, and what you really want is different levels of support across different parts of the foot. Also, EVA breaks down and compresses with repeated use. So this degradation is the reason many runners replace their shoes every few hundred miles. For these reasons, shoe companies have been actively experimenting with materials to replace EVA.

Two years ago, running shoe giant New Balance teamed up with Somerville, Massachusetts–based 3D-printing company Formlabs to develop a new type of sole. Now the duo are debuting TripleCell, a footbed technology whose components are made of a proprietary photopolymer called Rebound Resin.

For its first shoe in this lineup, New Balance is re-releasing its classic 990 Sport with a TripleCell heel. The $185 runner is lighter, more supportive, and more durable than the EVA version. Two more performance-oriented models with TripleCell components will be arriving within the next year.

Rough and Tough 3D Printed Shoes

3D-printed shoes aren’t precisely a new idea. For example, Adidas has also begun developing similar automated 3D-printing facilities. That might allow customers to order digitally printed, personalized products.

But rather than focusing on the shoe’s appearance, New Balance decided to find ways to improve its performance. The company gave Formlabs a formidable list of properties the new material would be required to have.

“What you don’t think a lot about with footwear is the demand that we put on this midsole material,” says Katherine Petrecca. The general manager of New Balance’s Innovation Design Studio, in a phone interview.

“It has to last for several hundred miles of repeated impacts,” she says. “It has to work for a 110-pound female runner like Jenny Simpson and a 230-pound basketball player like Kawhi Leonard.

These things are going to be outside, it has to be stable for UV and hydrolysis … It has to be able to withstand heat tunnels in the manufacturing process and bond to all these other materials.”

Formlabs chief product officer Dávid Lakatos and his team went through hundreds of iterations with the formula to achieve the final product. Besides printability, two of the most important properties of the material were energy return and elasticity.

“[The design] has to be able to give back energy, to have a good feeling when you’re using them to run and walk,” Lakatos said in a phone interview. “[It] also has a 330 percent elongation before it breaks … We’ve learned more about how the dynamics of human anatomy work when walking on the surfaces than in almost any other industry.”

3D Printed footwear: Made in America

For New Balance, 3D printing has a number of other advantages besides providing highly detailed foot support. In general, footwear is a very inventory-heavy industry—for every style, you might need to make men’s and women’s versions in fifteen different sizes. Therefore, in several different colors, and each with many different tooled components.

Petrecca imagines that the ability to quickly print multiple designs on a single printer. Therefore, that will have a huge impact on New Balance’s ability to continue manufacturing parts of its shoes in the United States and the United Kingdom. The company is currently working with Formlabs to outfit a new manufacturing facility in Methuen, Massachusetts.

Scaling up won’t be easy; currently, the TripleCell 990 Sport is only available in a limited-edition run of 500 pairs. Right now, 3D printing is still a process that’s used mostly by product designers to create prototypes. Formlabs is working on developing a whole new market of reliable 3D printers. That can manufacture products reliably and consistently in greater numbers.

“One of the dirty secrets of 3D printing is that previous 3D-printing platforms have been extremely prone to failure,” says Lakatos. “Imagine if Apple bought a hundred CNC machines for machining the MacBook Pros, and how each one looked depended on which CNC machine was used. That would be completely unacceptable, obviously.”

While TripleCell pieces are currently being manufactured with Formlabs’ older machines. Both companies are currently developing a more powerful and higher-volume printer called the Form 3L. This new machine will leverage existing LFS technology but use a new light processing unit, which promises to offer greater speed and reliability.

 Shoe designs

Formlabs has pioneered the use of pliable, resilient photopolymers in 3D printing, via a process called low force stereolithography (LFS). Once a design is uploaded, the company’s Form printers draw highly intricate patterns in liquid Rebound Resin. Hence, which cures when the light hits it, resulting in a hardened 3D shape.

This process allows Formlabs to create a detailed lattice pattern in the sole. That lattice provides different levels of support to different parts of the foot, rather than using separate tooled components that are then glued together.

In the original 990 Sport’s heel, New Balance combined a polyurethane outer rim with an EVA midsole and thermoplastic polyurethane heel cradle. In the new version, the company has fused these three separate parts into one seamless, springy piece. “One of the things that’s really exciting for us is that it provides a very different experience for the runner,” says Petrecca. “It feels more like a resilient trampoline than foam.”

But that’s all in the future. For New Balance, the hope is that within the next few years, it will be able to sell a high-performance, customizable running shoe made almost entirely by digital manufacturing. “The sheer performance landscape that we’re going to be able to open up with 3D printing is exciting,” Petrecca says.

Source: WIRED

Human Heart: Using Patients Cells

A team of Tel Aviv University researchers revealed the 3D printed heart. That completely matches the immunological, cellular, biochemical and anatomical properties of a human patient. Until now, scientists have been successful in printing only simple tissues without blood vessels.

“This is the first time anyone anywhere has successfully engineered and printed an entire heart. A heart replete with cells, blood vessels, ventricles, and chambers,” said Prof. Tal Dvir of TAU’s School of Molecular Cell Biology and Biotechnology. Therefore, who led the research for the study. He was assisted by Nadav Noor, Dr. Assaf Shapira, Reuven Edri, Idan Gal and Lior Wertheim.

The process involved taking a biopsy of fatty tissue from patients. After which the cellular and a-cellular materials were then separated. While the cells were reprogrammed to become pluripotent stem cells. And therefore efficiently differentiated to cardiac or endothelial cells, the extracellular matrix (ECM). A three-dimensional network of extracellular macromolecules, such as collagen and glycoproteins, were processed into a personalized hydrogel that served as the printing “ink.”

The differentiated cells were then mixed with the bio-inks. As a result, they were used to 3D-print patient-specific, immune-compatible cardiac patches with blood vessels and, subsequently, an entire heart. The 3D printing process takes around 3-4 hours.

First-Ever 3D Heart

“This is the first time anyone anywhere has successfully engineered and printed an entire heart replete with cells, blood vessels, ventricles, and chambers,” said Prof. Tal Dvir of TAU’s School of Molecular Cell Biology and Biotechnology, who led the research for the study. He was assisted by Nadav Noor, Dr. Assaf Shapira, Reuven Edri, Idan Gal and Lior Wertheim.

The process involved taking a biopsy of fatty tissue from patients, after which the cellular and a-cellular materials were then separated. While the cells were reprogrammed to become pluripotent stem cells and efficiently differentiated to cardiac or endothelial cells, the extracellular matrix (ECM), a three-dimensional network of extracellular macromolecules, such as collagen and glycoproteins, were processed into a personalized hydrogel that served as the printing “ink.”

The differentiated cells were then mixed with the bio-inks and were used to 3D-print patient-specific, immune-compatible cardiac patches with blood vessels and, subsequently, an entire heart. The 3D printing process takes around 3-4 hours.

“This heart is made from human cells and patient-specific biological materials. In our process, these materials serve as the bio-inks, substances made of sugars and proteins that can be used for 3D printing of complex tissue models,” Dvir said. “People have managed to 3D-print the structure of a heart in the past, but not with cells or with blood vessels. Our results demonstrate the potential of our approach for engineering personalized tissue and organ replacement in the future.”

With the 23rd Winter Olympic Games underway in PyeongChang, South Korea, Chris Mazdzer became the first U.S. athlete to medal in the men’s singles. The Minnesota-based branch of the company has done its Olympic duty.  By lending its FDM technology to prototyping and tooling the fastest sled possible. 3D printing winter Olympics is amazing, isn’t it? let’s have a look at it!

Stratasys partnered with the team to 3D print molds for customized parts. Therefore, the team then implemented into sled prototypes. The quick pace of the turnaround of new molds enabled. The team to make quick changes to sleds and experiment with new designs closer-than-ever to the start of the competition. Two U.S. athletes, Justin Krewson and Andrew Sherk of the men’s doubles. I even used some of the 3D-printed molds for parts on their sleds during competition at PyeongChang.

3D printing to the demands of the Luge

Luge is a sport involving one- or two-person sleds. Therefore, can reach speeds of nearly 90 miles per hour. Athletes race face-up and feet-first down an icy track. They steer the sled by either using their calves to flex the runners or by using their shoulders to shift their weight.

When a sled part is being made, a mold, also called a tool, is created to form the part’s shape. Any design change in the sled calls for a new tool. Hence, which can normally take several weeks to create.

One of the biggest advantages of using 3D printing is customization. Traditionally, athletes would all use one generic sled. Now sleds can be made as long or as wide as an individual athlete and in a fraction of the time.

“We need precision and we also need the ability to make tweaks and 3D printing. Is where it’s at for this kind of thing,” said Gordy Sheer, marketing director for USA Luge and a 1998 doubles luge silver medalist. “As we learn more about aerodynamics and optimizing our designs. Therefore it’s nice to be able to have the ability to make those changes quickly.”

It is not the first time that 3d printing gives an Olympic athlete a chance to compete:

In 2016, Brooks Running and FATHOM were come together to prototype a pair of personalized sprinting shoes featuring 3D printed spike plates for American decathlete Jeremy Taiwo.

3d Printing For Footwear

Creating a spike plate with the correct flex, stiffness, and rebound is critical to a fast start and sustained speed. For a track and field athlete, especially a decathlete. In order to test a design, shoe manufacturers would traditionally rely on injection or compression molded parts. A process that takes a long time to prep and produces. Just getting from concept to prototypes to manufactured parts can take up months. Therefore, especially if there are design changes that affect the production tools.

By leveraging a blended approach, using 3D printing early on in development. Hence, all the way through production, teams are drastically compressing product development timelines and reducing the total cost of ownership. The companies are making products better and faster for their customers.

It goes to show there is a big market for 3D printed shoes. Although it may take some time until all consumers see the merit of purchasing such a pair. There are many companies available who will help you in getting the shoe exactly as you want. Hence, there is a lot of buzz going around the 3D Printed industry and everyone wants to make a mark of its own.

If you are a 3d Printing Passionist you actually can 3D print your own stuff. That can be more comfortable and appealing to cater to your demands. 3D printing also made it remark by 3D printing winter Olympics 2018 yes or no? Get a 3D printer right now just at Store.

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