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3D Printing News Briefs: March 10, 2020

The big story in today’s 3D Printing News Briefs is the postponing of the Materialise World Summit. Then we’ll finish with a little business news, as 3D PRINT UK is moving to expanded premises. Finally, starting this week, you can get QUANT-U’s 3D printed silicone midsoles at ECCO’s flagship Zürich store for a limited time.

Materialise World Summit Postponed

Every two years, Materialise holds its Materialise World Summit (MWS) in Brussels, Belgium, gathering together the industry’s thought leaders and decision makers so they can share ideas about the additive manufacturing industry. This event typically takes place in the spring, which was the original plan for this year’s MWS…but not anymore. MWS 2020, originally scheduled for May 14-15, has been postponed, due to, as the company’s Kristof Sehmke tells us, “the coronavirus and its impact on international traffic.”

MWS 2020 will now take place November 5-6, which makes it a busy month considering that will just one week before formnext in Germany. This isn’t the only major industry event that’s had to change its plans due to the COVID-19 outbreak – JEC World, originally scheduled for last  week, has been pushed back to May, and after several big companies originally planning to attend the upcoming SXSW dropped out, including Apple, Facebook, Amazon Studios, TikTok, Intel, and Warner Music, the Texas-based conference was called off. With California Governor Gavin Newsome declaring a state of emergency in California over the coronavirus, should we all cancel our plans for RAPID + TCT next month? Time will only tell.

3D PRINT UK Moves to Bigger Facility

Moving on to some better news, 3DPRINTUK has just finished the move to its new purpose-designed facility in North London’s Leyton Industrial Village. The service provider of polymer SLS 3D printing solutions for manufacturing applications was seeing increased demand for low volume production, and determined that a move was needed to accommodate the company’s current, and future, plans for expansion. 3DPRINTUK’s new home is larger, with nearly 10,000 square feet of space, and was custom-designed to hold the company’s EOS polymer SLS 3D printers, as well as offer a space for post-processing operations and a break down room that’s sealed to avoid powder contamination.

“At 3DPRINTUK we are able to work with our customers — and potential new customers — to illustrate when and why the SLS process will work for them. But we are not afraid to tell them when it won’t, either. This is really important to us, and something the industry at large is not very good at confronting,” stated Nick Allen, 3DPRINTUK’s Founder and Managing Director. “I think this approach has contributed to our growth, which has been organic year on year, and the new premises are testament to that. We are still settling in, but the printers have been working non-stop since we got here and we are looking to further expand our capacity in the near future.”

QUANT-U’s In-store Experience at ECCO

In 2018, the Innovation Lab at Danish heritage footwear brand and manufacturer ECCO introduced an experimental footwear customization project called QUANT-U, which uses real-time analysis, data-driven design, and in-store 3D printing to create custom, personalized midsoles out of a heat cured two-component silicone in just two hours. The QUANT-U experience is now coming to ECCO’s flagship Zürich store as an exclusive pop-up event from now until April 15, with a “unique limited collection” available to both men and women, along with the full customization service.

The process is simple – 3D scanners determine your orthotic fit in 30 seconds, so your midsoles have the correct shoe size and arch height. Then, during a walking analysis, wearable sensors will create an accurate representation of how you move around. The anatomical scan and the sensor data will help QUANT-U build a unique digital footprint just for you, which leads to customized, 3D printed midsoles within two hours. You can use the cloud-based service to print your own midsoles from any location and have them shipped to you, but at the upcoming ECCO pop-up event, you can just pick them up in the store. Book your fitting now!

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Dow, Dassault Systèmes, and ECCO Introduce New 3D Printed QUANT-U Shoe Midsoles

Dow, known for their historical innovations in chemicals, is lending their expertise to the ECCO Shoes’ QUANT-U line as they partner in creating a new system of shoe-making. Also collaborating with Dassault Systèmes, this power punch of leading companies presented the latest trend in materials, technology, and footwear in Japan recently at the ECCO Shoes’ Spring-Summer preview.

The QUANT-U customized footwear was introduced to other industry peers and experts, writers, stores, and fashion enthusiasts in the Asia-Pacific realm. ECCO’s independent cross-disciplinary design studio, Innovation Lab (ILE), heads up this new experimental line, offering customer-specific fit and consequent comfort—along with performance. 3D printing is the technology behind the project, and Dow’s liquid silicone rubber is the material making it possible.

Known as SILASTIC 3D 3335 Liquid Silicone Rubber (LSR), Dow’s new 3D printing material is used to create shoes formed from the wearer’s ‘individual biomechanical data,’ featuring silicone midsoles that adapt to the customer’s shape and typical movements. This form of LSR was created by Dow specifically for 3D printing. Featuring a low viscosity, the versatile silicone results in smooth fabrication processes, accompanied by the requisite high resolution and accuracy.

The footwear team also expects its future customers to benefit from:

  • Elasticity and recovery
  • Optimized energy return
  • Cushioning
  • Added foot stability

Photo courtesy of QUANT-U

What also sets this new 3D printing venture in fashion/accessories/shoes apart from the others is the timeframe: less than one hour to create, in-store. Overall, the project between all entities culminating in the retail QUANT-U product took two years of development—with a recent press release stating that this brings together 50 years of footwear knowledge on ECCO’s part, and over 70 years in silicone elastomer experience from Dow. While SILASTIC brand silicone rubber was created by Dow over 45 years ago, this type of modern elastomer is helpful in rapid prototyping, the fabrication of complex geometries, and suitable in industrial applications like consumer goods, automotive, electrical, and more.

Photo courtesy of QUANT-U

“The QUANT-U collaboration showcases one of the infinite opportunities SILASTIC™ 3D-printable liquid silicone rubbers are opening up for designers seeking part design flexibility and the processing advantages of additive manufacturing along with the performance advantages of silicone rubber,” said Charlie Zimmer, global marketing director for silicone elastomers with Dow Performance Silicones.

Fashion and clothing designers around the world are enjoying countless new opportunities today thanks to 3D printing, and the same goes for a variety of different footwear—whether in ballet shoes, high heels, running shoes, or other unique products and projects like QUANT-U–which seem poised to change the face of shoe shopping for consumers open to progressive technology.

The QUANT-U shoes will be available for the first time from the general public on the 20th of April.

What do you think of this news? Let us know your thoughts! Join the discussion of this and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com.

[Source: QUANT-U]

Photo courtesy of QUANT-U

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ECCO Steps Forward with 3D Printed Custom Silicone Midsoles

German company ViscoTec, which manufactures systems required for conveying, dosing, applying, filling, and emptying medium to high-viscosity fluids for multiple industries, including automotive, medical, and aerospace, is well-known in the 3D printing world for its two-component print head for viscous materials like silicone. The Bavaria-based company, which began working with 3D printing four years ago, employs about 200 people worldwide, and is now putting its print head to the test through a collaboration with Danish heritage footwear brand and manufacturer ECCO.

ECCO, a family-owned business founded in 1963 with factories and subsidiaries in China, Indonesia, Portugal, Slovakia, Thailand, and Vietnam, has a vision of becoming the top premium brand for leather goods and shoes. The latest innovation to be introduced by the Innovation Lab of ECCO is called QUANT-U, an experimental footwear customization project.

QUANT-U relies on three core technologies: real-time analysis, data-driven design, and in-store 3D printing. The project combines these technologies to create custom, personalized midsoles, in just two hours, out of a heat cured two-component silicone.

Most everyone likes personalized products such as shoes, but due to the necessary cost, production time, and expertise involved in making custom footwear, they’re typically not available to everyone. But thanks to ECCO’s partnership with ViscoTec, this is going to change.

3D printing of silicone midsoles with ViscoTec printhead.

In order to specifically coordinate the material properties and the process, ECCO had to rethink its approach to customization, and now plans to utilize ViscoTec’s print head technology and two-component silicone to 3D print customer-specific midsoles for its customers, so each person can enjoy their own tailored fit and comfort.

According to the Innovation Lab ECCO website for QUANT-U, “A midsole is the functional heart of the shoe. It plays a key role in the performance and comfort of your footwear. Two years of research has proven that replacing the standard PU midsoles with 3D printed silicone can tune its inherent properties; viscoelasticity, durability and temperature stability.”

The QUANT-U process has three steps, starting with using scanners and wearable sensors to measure the customer’s feet and build a unique digital footprint. This biomechanical data is then evaluated and interpreted using a sophisticated algorithm, and a unique configuration is generated through structural simulations and machine learning.

This augmented pattern is optimized for each person’s respective feet and activity level by making adjustments to its densities, patterns, and structures, and the final 3D printed midsoles are personalized according to the customer’s own orthopedic parameters for a far more comfortable fit than you’d get with typical store-bought midsoles. Within just a few hours, you’re able to take home your custom 3D printed midsoles, along with your chosen pair of ECCO shoes.

Thermal cross-linking of the individual silicone layers.

By 3D printing the two-component silicone, ECCO is able to optimally counteract the high mechanical stresses we often deal with in everyday life; this is thanks to the midsole’s algorithmic designs combining with the silicone’s unique properties. By utilizing 3D printing, ECCO will be able to fabricate large quantities of personalized midsoles.

Using ViscoTec’s print heads gives ECCO several unique advantages, such as the usage of heat cured two-component silicone and precise 3D printing results, in addition to making sure that the silicone is uniformly mixed in the static mixing tube.

The footwear industry, which often utilizes 3D printing, has been growing fast over the last few years, with its global market expected to reach $371.8 billion by 2020. We often see 3D printed insoles and midsoles available for purchase now, and ECCO’s collaboration with ViscoTec and its unique 3D print head will certainly help keep it in the game.

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[Images provided by ViscoTec]