CNC Fabric Cutting
neufeld.newton.ks.us
neufeld.newton.ks.us
Depending on the material and tolerances, you can cut through significant stacks simultaneously to save time, and with the correct settings and setup you get very little splashback or other wetting.
Since the 60,000+ PSI stream is coming out of the nozzle at something like mach 2, the water is travelling too fast to make the edge wet!
A competitor to me (offering laser services) has started offering water-cut plywood, which boggled my mind - I would have expected that to be a terrible idea!
There are pros and cons to waterjet cutting but for what it's worth, it can cut virtually anything. There are a lot of techniques for reducing splashback and other wetting/soiling from the tank. We cut wood fairly often. Some people like how laser singes the edges better, but to each their own!
I'm very impressed with what you're doing - particularly as I actually had a similar idea a couple of years back, rooted in a plan to perhaps move country (within EU) and so was wondering how I'd a) move my equipment and b) set up shop when there. That sort of spawned a lot of thought about modular container-based systems, and how I'd fit various sizes and types of CNC machines in them. Then I wondered about the use of on-site CNC services for large construction developments - I could imagine the benefit of having a few accurate machining shops in containers that can quickly turn around finished interior elements straight from site measurements, etc.
As we know though, an idea's worth precisely nowt if unrealised, so I'm super-glad to see that someone has!
Best of luck to you!
Blade - Cuts well, but drags material
Roller - Cuts well, but needs heavy downforce and overcuts the fabric border
Scissors - A mechanical nightmare
The author suggests a reciprocating blade might solve the issue, but introduces other complexities (it destroys the material underneath.
A reciprocating blade seems like a much more complex solution than trying to solve a fabric rigidity issue or heaviness issue from a rolling blade. Like, if you are already considering a sacrificial material, why not sandwich the fabric between two rigid, high friction materials, and have the knife cut through all three?
I think about this a lot, as the partner does a lot of sewing, and a significant amount of time is spent on cutting pattern pieces. It seems like such a solvable problem, but also, such a challenging problem.
I believe the hobby machines just use rotary cutters but the industrial space is more interesting: - vibratory blade - ultrasonic blade - heated (sealing) blade
BTW laser cutting (non-synthetic) fabric is totally possible and is used in industry, the "hobby" type laser cutters do need some tweaking to get good results: https://www.troteclaser.com/en-gb/knowledge/tips-for-laser-u... Leather does produce a smell that may raise objections ;)
EDIT: No need to trust my memory:
https://wardjet.com/waterjets/water-only
https://textilelearner.blogspot.com/2015/07/fabric-cutting-b...
---
Incidentally, this was a long time ago (~1980?), and another thing we saw was a computer whose operator explained that to boot it up, they had to go through a sequence involving toggle switches on the front panel. Someone commented that it sounds impossible, and the operator said it gets easy after a while.
They also had some stations for design work with basically a drafting table and a mouse-like device with a ~12 key keypad on it and I think a glass with a reticle, presumably for aligning with points on a blueprint or something like that.
That thing was always a hassle with maintenance though and sometimes things on the intensifier would explode....
Programming it was pretty cool. Different than the routers I programmed. We had a camera system rigged up that could take photos of the slab. The cad files were then loaded in and dropped and arranged on the stone.
The guy that did it at our shop was really good at matching everything. Connecting the veins for pieces that needed to be joined or mitered.
One thing I found interesting about water jets is that you absolutely do not want to be cut by one. The force is strong enough that it can inject the abrasive garnet into your bloodstream. The machine I actually came with instructional tags to pin to the shirt of anyone headed to the ER.
That would have been pretty cool. One of the biggest holdups to our schedule used to be waiting for customers to confirm layouts before cutting. They always come into the shop to verify.
We used old unsupported software called stonecam from Park Industries. Only one guy still working there had any experience with the software. We ended up having to recalibrate the camera on the machine while I was there. It involved manually configuring variables in text files with variable names written in a mix of German and English. Apparently the software was written by one German guy who vanished some time ago who never told anyone else how it all worked completely.
They'd switched to officially supporting AlphaCam a while ago. We had licenses for our two routers for alpha cam but they were ten grand a piece and the boss was holding out as long as possible before switching the waterjet over.
>The force is strong enough that it can inject the abrasive garnet into your bloodstream
Oh wow had no idea about that. I figured you absolutely did not want to get your body into the flow, but never heard that.
"Toggle these programs in at location 10000", literally there would be toggles to enter the machine location 10000 and the series of instructions that would be pasted into it.
It doesn't. Water is a really poor cutting agent. The water is just used to propel abrasive garnet at high pressures. If there was a cheaper and better way to move the garnet then someone would have already done so without water.
And what's really going to bake your noodle is there is an additive called...wait for it...SUPER-WATER that helps maintain stream coherence out of a high-pressure waterjet nozzle, allowing even more effective water-only cutting.
Those machines are probably a bit expensive for private use, but theoretically this seems like it is a solved problem.
Industrial users have real problems that they are highly incentivized to solve. If they solve it a different way from you, you should ask "Why?" and "Can I adapt their solution?".
Basic CNC control seems to mostly be a solved problem these days, there are lots of options that product reasonably good precision using stepper motors, lead screws, and some open-source software.
The challenge for CNC cutting fabric for low cost/low volume applications seems to revolve around what to use to make the actual cut. In this segment, there does not appear to be a clear option for something that works reliably, without a lot of material waste, and within the budget of a bespoke garment producer.
As purely a passing interest I recall trying to find a platform years ago but being disappointed with what I found.
I've always wanted to design the 'perfect' (for me) laptop bag but found the task daunting. This is coming from someone whose worked with Lasers/CNC Mills/CNC Routers/3D Printers/traditional mechanical & electrical CAD enough to be comfortable with the concepts of computer aided design and machine operation.
What I've found works best for me is:
- Seamly2D (https://seamly.net/) and Valentina (https://gitlab.com/smart-pattern/valentina) - these are two forks of an open-source project. They do pretty much everything I want them to do.
- Clo3D: https://www.clo3d.com/ - horrendously expensive subscription software ($50/month or $450/yr) but there are.. Uh... Less legal options available online. My favourite aspect of this particular software is that it lets you view the constructed object (usually a garment) in 3D and run physics simulations on it.
I've tried Optitex and Gerber as well but despite being the standard in industry, I don't find them to be great pieces of software. Of the two, Optitex is much better than Gerber but both are really hard to use.
I think Clo3D is probably the most approachable option but it does cost. Seamly2D/Valentina have a steeper learning curve than Clo3D but they're also much more capable when it comes to design and in particular, parametric design.
- You don't need a whole lot of power for the kinds of synthetic fabrics you'd want to wear. I use a 20W laser from AliExpress that outputs ~7.5W of actual energy.
- Safety is definitely a big concern. The biggest problem is that a lot of synthetic fabrics produce lethally toxic gases when cut with a laser. However if you build an enclosure, you can filter the exhaust to ensure that it's safe.
- Don't know why liability is a problem, not American.
- It won't scorch most synthetic fabrics, it will melt them. However this is often a good thing, as it seals the edges so that they won't fray.
They also have a huge advantage: they're cheap and easy. My 1000x1000mm laser cutter cost me ~$120 from AliExpress. Just had to screw it together and it worked out of the box.
At the very least, you can use it to cut out paper patterns for you or put cut marks onto the fabric.
It's nothing life changing but it does what it says it does.
It doesn't need to be expensive for a job like this. It's just:
- An Aluminium profile frame
- Stepper + belt driven axes
- A laser module
- Probably <$10 worth of control electronics (an Arduino and some cheap stepper drivers)
- A cheap DC power supply
I'm pretty sure the most expensive part is the laser module but those go for ~$30-40 on their own.
You're not permitted to take photos of the machine. Textile cutting isn't my thing, so I don't know how it works, but I found it mildly interesting.
I can't read about CNC's without whistling the tune.
The hypothetical use case "Made to measure suits for women" is one that a human with scissors does just fine. I suspect a single person with scissors can do this in less than an hour. The tailoring and sewing is FAR more time consuming.
The point of CNC is either to 1) enable repeatable volume or 2) enable something that couldn't be done before. This falls into neither category.
They want to take critical measurements and automagically generate the pattern for the suit.
Kind of like the custom bra manufacturer that was making the rounds a while back I suppose.
Something like "cutting the fabric" didn't even rank on why the business failed.
Having consistent fabric pieces would go a long way to reducing that variability.
By removing that cutting, I'd cut 3h of work down to ~40 minutes.