3D Printed Consumer Products

Yes, 3D printing customizable components is particularly useful for sporting goods. For example, Rawlings produced a baseball mitt with 3D printed thumb and pinky inserts. A student in South Africa designed a customizable 3D printed golf putter, featured on this episode of The Cool Parts Show.

The baseball mitt was produced through Carbon’s Digital Light Synthesis with FPU 50, a flexible polyurethane.

The putter was made with 314 stainless steel through laser powder bed fusion on an M290 machine from EOS.

Additive manufacturing’s complex design and customization capabilities can be beneficial for the fashion, jewelry and cosmetic industries.

Examples include:

• Hilos’ custom heels and Retraction Footwear’s flip flops that promote circular fashion and sustainable manufacturing
• A collaboration focused on enabling the production of functional stainless steel accessories for the jewelry and fashion markets
• Adjustable “pucks” for L’Oreal that resulted in a 33% cost reduction and 66% time savings

3D printing offers boundless customization and often requires less lead time than conventional manufacturing methods that would require tooling to be produced.

One example of this is Retraction Footwear’s approach:

“The company’s 3D printing process applies material only where it is needed, generating far less waste than conventional shoe manufacturing. The flip-flop design features an air cushioning system inside the sole which farther reduces the material used, and each design is right-sized to the customer. The thongs are manufactured with just 12 desktop 3D printers, each optimized to use only 50W of energy, or about as much as it takes to operate a standard light bulb. The product itself is made to order, preventing wasted inventory and providing the consumer with shoes that will last longer because they fit better. Retraction Footwear even has a vision for the end-of-life scenario — customers can return their unwanted thongs to the company, which is working to develop a recycling solution to turn old shoes into new filament. When it does, the circular economy loop will be complete for its product, enabling both sustainable production and consumption of these shoes.”

Read the full article here.

Yes, and one study has found that 3D printed glasses have a higher wearing comfort, are more stable and sustainable than any other glasses. Source: EOS Conducts Sustainability Study for Eyewear Frames

Fitz Frames is a company that 3D prints eyewear with the mission to solve the problems with kids’ glasses: cost, time, fit and durability. Read more about the company’s use of additive manufacturing and augmented reality, and watch how Fitz Frames pivoted from eyewear to PPE in just ten days on this bonus quarantine episode of The Cool Parts Show.