3D Printed Garment in a Single Stroke: New Possibility with Cosyflex

January 19, 2016 written by
3D printed textile

Cosyflex™ is a long held dream come true in the textile industry courtesy Tamicare, the parent company that rightly defines its potential and attempts in the field as ‘textile reinvented’. The UK based firm has been developing and patenting as unique system to mass produce 3D printed textile.  Cosyflex™ is world’s first ever technology developed to 3D print finished textile products. The system reduces the processing stages of 3D textile from a humungous cycle to three step process for manufacturing 3D printed textile.

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Founder and CEO Tamar Giloh explains “Our Cosyflex production system allows 3D printing to be used for mass production for the first time ever. Instead of creating items one at a time, Cosyflex enables high volume high density production from a small footprint at costs far below traditional manufacturing processes.” Tim Harper, an expert in graphene, smart textiles and medical devices is helping Tamicare open up new markets. Initial work on printing graphene has shown that it is a highly promising material for applications ranging from medical and fitness monitoring through to smart bandages, the partners report. “The Cosyflex system builds a garment layer by layer. Any one of those layers can be textile, polymer, latex or printed electronics allowing us complete freedom in the way we design smart textiles,” Tim Harper comment.

The first production line has been launched and gone into operation in the company’s native region Manchester. The system is capable of producing three million items a year. In addition, the technology implied is reported to virtually eliminate waste and utilizes eco-friendly recyclable materials.

Many current smart textile applications require conductive fibres to be woven or knitted into the material or applied to the surface of a finished garment. Cosyflex allows sensors and wiring to be printed along with the rest of the garment in a single process. This helps realise a long held dream in the world of smart textiles, where the garment is the device, the company says.

The company is already attracting attention from major brands who like the idea of being able to print an entire garment or shoe upper in a single process. CTO and co–inventor of the technology Ehud Giloh explains: “Sports shoes can require over a hundred individual operations during manufacturing, but Cosyflex reduces this to three. The same is true for many other complex designs. This allows companies to produce in one location what previously required a complex global supply chain.”

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