Hex chain (scale) mail
Made by Bluebie, uploaded
Description
Printed in PolyMakr PolyFlex - a flexible material a little stiffer than NinjaFlex - and easier to print. All the little posts stuck to the loops with oozy stringy bits, but it's still kinda a cool material. has a rad cyberpunk aesthetic. modified the layout a little but otherwise the same design. I think I might try make a derivative for flexible filaments where each tile is bound to the next via a couple of tubular linkages, to give the same sort of aethetic, but without any moving parts, for quiet easy printing of soft conforming objects. Could make for some pretty fricking rad wearables!
Feeling pretty happy with the PolyFlex. Worth getting some!
Hmm, I wonder if it would make sense to create a model with an intentionally connected backing (take advantage of the flexing), and maybe use a filament-swap so the hexagons are a hard material. The raised-post nature would add some lateral give that a simple backing-layer would lack.
I don't have a multi-material printer, so I can't do multiple materials on the same layer, but I do rather like the idea of hard tiles that attach to a rubber lettuce like a sandwich. I'm currently modelling a design where the tiles are hard just by being printed totally solid. Seems to be going well. So long as the couplings are thin/soft enough, the tiles will seem relatively hard and maintain that nice contrast and shifting gap ^^
Right on!
For multiple-materials, I was thinking it would be a filament-swap, which would be a feature of whatever's spooling the gcode (firmware or driving-software). I don't know what printer you're using, but hopefully it has some sort of pause-at-z feature, which is also an excellent way to add colors and details to prints! :)
As for multi-head printers, they're a can of worms, usually involving jams and spotty looking prints due to the oozing. My first printer was dual-head, but after awhile I just gave up and starting using one at a time. However, once I found out about sailfish's pause-at-z, it opened up a ton of options! (including embedding hidden magnets into prints)
Ah yeah. My printer can pause at z, and I might try that later. I think it could work well, but concerned that the flexible materials might not stick strongly to the hard plastics, or might peel away when worked enough times.
I'm also curious about trying making a system where a rubber webbing is printed, and hexagon shells which each have 3 legs that click through holes in the rubber webbing, and then each side would take half of the six little leg holes in the web, effectively clamping around the web. I think it could look and feel really rad, and allow for arbitrary shapes by combining multiple parts of the rubber webbing! It would also mean both sides of the hexagons would be face down on the build plate, so could have a very nice surface finish.
Hah! Nice idea!
I like the idea of being able to lego-fy the flexible webbing. That could also be a nice way to create entire mosaics! :)