Stratasys announced the “TechStyle Fabric Alignment Station”, and it’s quite interesting.
This is a specialized accessory used with their J850 TechStyle full color fabric 3D printer. Fabric 3D printing is something that’s long been experimented with by DIY makers: it’s the process of 3D printing extruded polymer onto a sheet of fabric that’s held tight to the build plate. It’s possible to emboss symbols and structures onto clothing in this way.
Stratasys’ TechStyle J850 is a variant of their full color PolyJet process that’s optimized for this unusual fabric 3D printing process. They call it “3DFashion” technology.
The TechStyle J850 has a shallow build volume, but allows for a fabric section to be strapped down to the build plate. The PolyJet process can then build full color textures onto the fabric.
But there’s a problem: if you put the fabric on the build plate, is it aligned properly? Will that 3D printed logo appear exactly 23mm above the pocket on the golf shirt? This is an alignment problem, as the TechStyle J850 allows you to place the fabric wherever you like on the build plate.
I suspect that Stratasys saw TechStyle J850 users struggling with this issue, and likely inventing a number of homemade techniques to ensure alignment. This is commonly done with other manufacturing equipment, including laser cutters and CNC mills.
Stratasys’ solution to the issue is the new alignment station. They explain:
“This unprecedented additive manufacturing fashion solution eliminates the trial-and-error traditionally associated with aligning designs on finished garments, reducing costs, improving production times, and promoting more sustainable production by minimizing material waste.”
They don’t specifically explain how it works, but from the images it would seem that the station allows the operator to pin down fabric on a build plate in the correct alignment. I suspect there’s a projector at the top that projects the required pattern onto the fabric, allowing the operator to shift it to match.
Once the fabric is aligned and secured, the build plate is moved to the TechStyle J850 for printing. Perfect alignment on each job.
This would be most useful for those using the TechStyle J850 for low volume production of fabric items. Those operations would require highly consistent results from job to job, just like production.
In the end, this isn’t that surprising: a new 3D printing process ends up requiring new accessories. But for those using the TechStyle J850, it will be quite welcome.
Via Stratasys
