Per the recommendation of some folks here on 3D Hubs I’m putting up a design I created recently which got featured on YouMagine and listed on AdaFruit.
The strap has gone through a few little design iterations, and came from the need to hold a printable gauntlet I designed onto my arm, without having to go but nylon strap material and buckles. However once I printed it I quickly saw that it was a lot more useful for other things I hadn’t even thought of. So apart from working for wearables, I’ve used it add a “handle” to my coffee, have a handle for my broken Nalgene bottle, a temporary belt (using 3 or more connected together), cable management, connecting things to my belt, a make-shift sling, or you could even use it as a tourniquet in an emergency. Obviously there are a lot of uses also that I haven’t even thought of.
The only material I’ve printed these in so far is NinjaFlex (blue and white colors) but I know someone successfully did using Taulman Bridge. I would imagine it will work with any flexible filament, but the amount of uses will definitely be affected by the material. NinjaFlex is incredibly stretchy and flexible while also being strong so I highly recommend it the most, but I’m curious to hear about any how it works with other filaments.
As for printing details, I use an E3D Volcano hot-end (direct drive extruder) with the 0.6mm nozzle. The strap is basically 100% infill, as I printed it at 0.3mm layer height (i.e.300 microns) with 4 solid top and bottom layers, and I set it to print with 2 vertical shells. The strength on them is pretty incredible and I have yet to break or tear any that I’ve printed. I’ll eventually put up a YouTube video with a better description and the various uses and ways of connecting them together hopefully soon.
Here are some photos I’ve taken so far:
I added this last one because it shows that you can connect extra strap back over on itself so it’s not “flopping around”. =]
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This is a really great use of the Flexible filament! Once you’ve got the YouTube video post that as well we have the YouTube embeds working here on talk
btw. Which printer did you print this on?
Oh great I’m glad to hear the embedded YouTube links will work. =]
I printed this on my modified gMax 1.0 by gCreate (http://www.gcreate.com), although my model is no longer available. The newer ones have a better design though and a larger taller build volume. Regardless I can’t recommend their printers enough for the size, price, quality, and support.