3D Printed Shirt

📷 Image redacted — claim this model to add your own media 3D Printed Shirt V2 After seeing various designs for 3D printed fabric panels over the last few years, I decided to try my hand at printing a shirt after receiving a new Prusa MK4 printer. The ability to print a perfectly consistent first layer made this possible. The first version of the shirt was done in 15 panels and took 70 hours of printing time. More recently I received a Prusa XL. With it’s larger print size and larger nozzles, as well as the multi-material capability, I was able to produce a second version of the shirt in PETG and TPU which prints with 8 panels in only 30 hours. The printed shirt is actually quite comfortable to wear. The structure of the tiles allows for some airflow behind them so it's not too warm. The movement of the fabric is pretty awesome: Due to the weight (the assembled shirt weighs about 2lbs/0.9kg) a second person is recommended to put it on and take it off. For reference, I'm 6'/183cm tall and weigh 175lbs/80kg. Connecting Rings The shirt tiles are inspired by LoboCNC’s Fast Print HexMaille Fabric , which uses print-in-place connector rings and hexagonal tiles. Printing with a 0.6mm nozzle, I used 0.32mm layers and 0.9mm extrusion widths to make 18mm hexagons. The wide extrusions produce a much stronger print, and allow printing to happen much faster. Setting seams to “Random” ensures that the rings do not have a single separation point and makes them stronger. Support parts are provided for the outer edges of the panels to properly form the outer connecting rings. The bottom fill pattern is set to concentric to improve the finished look of the shirt. I used Overture PETG in gold for the hexagonal tiles in this print. Design Process The shirt was designed in Shapr3D on an iPad Pro 12.9". I took a picture of a shirt with about the fit I wanted laid flat on the floor and traced around the edges. I laid a grid of the hex tiles onto this outline, then decided where the panels would be split. Aligning the tiles so that there is symmetry along the center line and along the centers of the armholes makes things join correctly when the armholes are assembled. From there I used the shirt outline to remove the areas around the edges, then manually created the edge tiles. The stretch edge reinforcement was designed around the edges, then subtracted from the tiles. From there the dog-bone connectors were placed to strengthen the shoulders and upper panel connecting points. The design was done over the course of a week, printing was done over 3 days, and final assembly took about 4 hours. Magnetic Closure The front seam is held together with 4mm x 4mm round magnets which are manually inserted into holes along the edge. The holes are sized for a friction fit. Pressing the magnets completely into the holes is essential and I found that stacking a second magnet on top of each increased the closing force. The magnet’s polarities should be alternated to help align the seam when it is closing. The hexagons along the seam were each extended by 0.6mm with a 0.6mm bevel on the outer side to simulate separation between them when closed so that the seam is almost invisible. A happy side effect of using magnets is that the shirt has a kind of organic “special effect” feel when it closes. The magnets pull it quickly into place. It gets a great reaction when people see it in person! TPU Edges One lesson learned from the V1 shirt was that much of the weight is carried by the edges of the armholes and the back of the neck. This version adds a multi-layer strip of TPU along these edges which is embedded into grooves in the PETG tiles. The XL has no problem handling this with it’s multiple tool heads. Adjusting the filament profile for the TPU to have the same bed temperature as PETG prevents the bed temperature from changing while printing the PETG. I used Fillamentum Flexfill 98A in a light gray color. This provided the right amount of strength and flex. Double Sized Panels To eliminate the horizontal seams in the panels I came up with a trick: I printed a lightweight support bracket which slides onto the end of the XL’s bed support. Just before the top rings print on each of the upper panels a pause is inserted which parks the tool and allows the previously printed lower panel to be placed with all of the connecting rings overlapping. The print is then resumed and the top rings get printed with the lower panel now joined in place. To make sure the print resumes cleanly I added a small rectangular thin walled object which is placed first in the slicer object list. This object is printed first on each layer, so when the print resumes any ooze from the nozzle will end up in this sacrificial piece. 📷 Image redacted — claim this model to add your own media Heat Bed Extension This consists of a left and a right side, plus two copies of a cross brace. Four 4mm screws are used to join the brace together. Once assembled it slides onto the heat bed support frame. Twist Connectors The vertical seams are joined with a small triangular pin on the tile and a twist lock piece that pushes on and turns. Cleaning out the interior of the snap lock part and removing any stringing around the pin will make the assembly process easier. Note that there are 4 variants of the twist lock pieces. Dog-Bone Connectors Along the shoulders and between the upper panels a dog-bone shaped connector printed in TPU is used to join the panels together. These pieces can be press fit into corresponding cutouts in the panels. They hole the panels firmly in place, but have some flex as well. Repair Tiles and Rings In case a tile or twist lock pin breaks, there are STLs for “patch” tiles and lock rings which can be super glued in place. The four bottom tiles at the seams use glued connectors. Panel Layout Panels, support, and stretch STLs are labeled from A0-4 and B0-4. 📷 Image redacted — claim this model to add your own media Panel Import The 10 panels can be done in 8 prints. For each panel there are between 1 and 3 STLs (see the layout image). Some panels have a stretch STL: A0, A1, A2, A3, A4. Some panels have a support STL: A0, A2, A4, B0, B1, B2, B3, B4. For each panel import the corresponding STLs into PrusaSlicer as a single object. Rotate 270º, then position in the center. Panels A2 and A4 can be printed at the same time, the same for B2 and B4. Be sure to set the extruder for each part. Sacrificial Rectangles In each of the 4 prints for the top 5 panels you should add a Box Shape. Drag it to the top of the object list to make sure it prints first on each layer. Set the size to X: 50, Y: 20, Z: 3.85. For this object set: Fill Density: 0% Bottom Solid Layers: 0 Top Solid Layers: 0 This will result in a thin walled open center rectangle where a purge will take place after the layer change used to join panels. Height Ranges The layer heights must be specifically controlled around the boundary between the tiles and the connecting rings. Add Height Range Modifiers to all of the objects in each print: 0.52-0.77 = 0.25mm 0.77-0.97 = 0.2mm Pauses To join the upper and lower panels, print the lower “B” panels first. Then for each of the upper “A” panels, insert a pause at the 3.53mm layer. While the print is paused, use the bed extension and position the corresponding lower panel with its connecting rings overlapping the lower posts on the upper panel. When the print resumes the layers will be permanently joined together. In order to park the tool during the layer pause where the upper and lower panels are assembled, change the “Pause Print G-code” in Printer Settings to: G1 F{min(350.0, travel_speed)*60} P0 S1 M601 G4 P100 T{current_extruder} S1 L0 D0 Nozzle Cleaning The gcode for the XL as shipped can be a bit finicky about getting the first layer perfect. This is because the nozzle temperature for cleaning is too high. It’s defined as 175ºC for PETG, but for the filament I used that caused oozing during cleaning. Dropping the temperature to 160ºC and manually making sure the nozzle sides are clean before probing resulted in perfect layers every time. In Start G-code in Printer Settings find the line that starts M109 T{initial_tool} , then change the 175 towards the end of the line to 160. Find the line G28 Z and add a line after that - G1 Z50 . This will drop the bed by 50mm while heating the nozzle so that you have room to inspect the nozzle and make sure it doesn’t have melted filament around the sides. Print Settings Start with 0.32mm Speed Seam Position: Random Bottom Fill Pattern: Concentric Top Fill Pattern: Monotonic Solid and Top Infill Speed: 90mm/s Enable Dynamic Overhang Speed: 0%=20mm/s, 25%=23mm/s, 50%=27mm/s Wipe Tower Extruder: set to the extruder used for the PETG parts Wipe Tower Width: 50mm Wipe Tower Angle: 0º Extrusion Width: set all to 0.9mm, except Top Solid Fill: 0.8mm Output Filename Format: {input_filename_base}_0.6n_{round(total_weight)}g_{print_time}.gcode Filament Settings Filament Cooling for PETG extruder - Full Fan Speed at Layer: 4 Bed temp for TPU extruder - First Layer: 85º, Other Layers: 85º (Tiles and supports: Overture PETG in gold, Flex: I used Fillamentum Flexfill 98A in a light gray color.) Display Stand STLs are included for a display stand. Print the top and bottom parts along with 6 copies of the center pole. The top piece fits on the bed when rotated 45º. The pieces can be snap fit together for form a stand.