Has anyone tried extruding onto fabric? Is the extrusion liquid enough to seep into and bind securely with a fabric material at the extruder tip?

If so, this opens up some possibilities :
A RepRap T-Shirt with a 3d plastic printed logo.
(Later on) T-shirts with electronics printed directly on. You can get a geeky t-short with a wireless network detector, butit's basically a plastic box with electronics attached to the short. Simple LED circuits might be possible, or printing an attachement clip for your own rep-rapped box

Also, you could use fabric as a base material, leaving it attached. Extrude onto the back side of velvet and trim off the excess when finished. This would leave one side with a fabric finish - like a paperweight, or to provide a soft covering for 'feet'.

If if sticks, but is only semi-permanent, it could potentially be used as a bed material. The flexibility might help to allow a little bit of shrinkage or curl without detaching the object, allowing it to stick where otherwise it would detach. it might be easier to peel off a fabric rather than detach from a board.

Of course, I might be barking up the wrong tree - until I've built my own reprap, I can't test it...

:-)

I have extruded HDPE onto felt and it does stick: [hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

---

[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

Thick-threaded fabric is certainly something we should try! Printing on polyester would probably be messy though... If you don't glue it down though, it will probably not be able to resist the object from curling up (warping).

---

Regards,

Erik de Bruijn
[Ultimaker.com] - [blog.erikdebruijn.nl]