3D printed velcro is something you have to try
Check out my 2nd channel, TT Racing: / @ttracingyt
Velcro is cool but fully 3D printable velcro is better (or maybe I’m just biased). In this video, I explore the models available on Printables and then convert my favourite to be fully parametric in OpenScad. What will you make with 3D printable velcro?
Printables page with OpenScad file and some pre-exported STLs: www.printables.com/model/5685...
0:00 Introduction
0:42 What is velcro?
1:57 How does 3D printed velcro work?
Velcro competition on Printables: www.printables.com/contest/39...
Plastic Velcro! Super Strong “Hook and Loop” BowieInc Connector! : www.printables.com/model/5495...
Printable Velcro by MM Printing: www.printables.com/model/5438...
Printable VELCRO by eried: www.printables.com/model/3330...
4:38 What material is best?
6:20 Strength testing
8:44 Parametric version in OpenScad
OpenScad free download: openscad.org/downloads.html
12:22 Example usage
Import scad files with Freecad guide: wiki.freecad.org/Import_OpenS...
13:41 Conclusion
Buy quality and affordable filament from X3D. Buy 3, get 1 free and a free sample pack with every order: www.x3d.com.au
Get Quality Resins from 3D Printers Online. 5% off storewide for Teaching Tech subscribers [Code: tech5]
3dprintersonline.com.au/
Take a look around and if you like what you see, please subscribe.
Support me on Patreon: / teachingtech
1:25 how did you get microscale footage that crispy? That is an insane level of quality.
All this time I thought it was just plastic and string loops but they were actually human-like fingers all along.
@@BurittoSandwichAlways has been
What
@@BurittoSandwich LoL you have no idea what you're talking about...you can clearly see that an electron microscope is used as it has the characteristics of those type of images!
DUDE YOU ACTUALLY MADE ME GO BACK TO SQEE IT AGAIN
People are so smart, its insane
A person is smart, people are dump panicky animals. -K
A dog wrote this
And so stupid at the same time
@@kaseyboles30what?
@@SDSypher Quote from the Movie "Men In Black". Seemed appropriate here.
This is more like what’s sometimes called “mushroom tape”, like 3D Dual Lock. That uses mushroom-shaped towers instead of the hook and loop of Velcro. Regardless, this is really nice work and a very thought-provoking video.
one example is 3M Dual Lock. I love it for mouning USB Hubs as its more rigid than velco.
I was going to mention this. it's satisfying to play with.
Aplix (another manufacture) also has a similar product.
I use it to stick a power bank to my phone 😂. I imagine they don't come from their molds like that, but like straight pins and then they melt their tips into their final shape. Wouldn't it possible to replicate that, even if the pins end up looking more like lollipops than mushrooms?
@@ecumenicalheretic interesting idea! You could try to print a blob on top or squish the pins down with the hot nozzle
Would have been interesting to see how the various different materials worked with each other. Combining a ridged side with a flexible one.
I was thinking that too. It might also be interesting to use a dual extrusion to have a more solid backing plane and a less firm velcro patch
perfect idea for AMS
I don't know if I'll ever use this 3D printed Velcro, but this is truly awesome work which I'll keep in mind. Thanks for the OpenSCAD work too, you're efforts are impressive!!
Seriously love what you do! Teaching and providing!
I spotted this on Printables the other week and printed a small sample piece out and was blown away by it.
Stuff like this is why you're my favourite 3D printing channel and educator! You're awesome!
thank you for what you do. you are actually the one who got me into 3d printing!
Would love to see that in PrusaSlicer to "paint" that structure on 3d models like they've done with some other joints.
I liked Senna's jacket, as a Brazilian, Senna was one of my heroes. The best pilot ever.
Great for a stack of computer components that don't get very hot, but can slide if bumped: attach a DVD drive, an external hard disk, and a hub - print the holders separately and just stick them together without committing to a single large print to hold them all that must be reprinted as things change.
That's a neat idea!
except double sided tape exists, and dosent require hours of re-printing and trying out different variables to find what isnt garbage.
I believe you can get command strips that work nearly exactly like this but much tighter. would be interesting to see comparisons between that, especially since command velcro is rated super high for it's size, and both sides are the same.
6:40 - Michael, on the material data sheet for hook and loop products, a standard woven strip can hold: 12 PSI in shear, 6 in tension, and 2 in peal strength. It looks like you have about 30in^2 (3" x 10"). It would take 360 pounds of force (or 1600 Newtons) to shear the sheets. Please don't hurt yourself, or your floor.
This is entirely incorrect. There is no standard hook and loop. The peel, shear, and tension strength depends on what hook is mated to what loop. Also peel is performed at 1"x7", shear at 1"x4", and tension at 1"x1" if I remember correctly.
@@TheJDIMSTR No, that is correct. Go onto any manufacturers website and pull the Technical Data Sheet for their products. The strengths are always listed as per area (either inches squared or cm squared). The hold strength is linear per area or material. Second, that is the standard. If you have an issue with that contact the sales teams and argue it with them. The Woven Polyamide (Nylon) product is the most manufactured and most ubiquitous material they sell. That makes it THE STANDARD. Also, that is the "basic" product for those companies. So the baseline, is what I listed. You can only go "higher". What you are talking about is a PEEL Test. I am familiar with those test. I run those tests. They are to used determine the adhesive strength of composite materials, laminates, etc. For example, you would use that test to see how well the hook or loop strip was adhered to its mating material.
I hit like as soon as I opened the video. The fact that something like this is actually possible amazes me. Thanks so much for letting us know!
Well that was cool! I super appreciate you sharing and working to improve the design. Videos like this inspire more people to enter into 3D Printing which compounds development and creativity!
Wow! Awesome! Excellent work! Thank you for sharing and creating the parametric version !
I like this as an alternative to magnets for making objects that connect together temporarily, modularly or in configurations. Such as webcam mounts, cable hook holders for running cables, workstation configuration, light fixturing, etc.
Outstanding. I am truly impressed with this nice work. Also, I certainly enjoy your way of teaching. Thank you.
wow even more amazing things I didn't even imagine, putting out some bangers lately
This seems more similar to dual-lock (mushroom hook) type fasteners rather than velcro (hook & loop), which also use plastic symmetrical towers rather than two different surfaces (hook & loop) to stick to each other. Strong, but a lot more fiddly than actual velcro and takes much more force to close. In terms of your OpenSCAD customizer values, it would be more useful to have the generator specify an X/Y coverage area in millimeters rather than a number of tower pairs because as you demonstrated, changing the other parameters makes the total size of the pattern change which makes this design difficult to integrate into other designs as-is.
I think the interference value could be set in mm of tower overlap/mm of tower gap as well, which shouldn't change with scale
I love that this video comes all the way back around to "Instead of modeling and printing the exact thing you need, you can just make a large generic sheet of 3d-printed velcro and cut it to size!" ... Which is what you can do with normal velcro lol
In the end that was the easiest solution I figured.
yah but normal velcro is like 23 dollars for some small strips. have you guys ever gone and bought raw velcro to use for projects? good quality stuff is NOT cheap. It would be way cheaper to print this. Also, not everyone lives in a place where its easy to just get velcro. if i wanted velcro id have to drive 1.5 hours or wait 7 days for a shipment.
@@MrKyle700 I would also trust this to hold far more weight than velcro.
@@AlbertScoot Um, no. I'm pretty confident real Velcro is _much_ stronger.
I wonder how many cycles this can go through before the towers start to delaminate. There's strength in numbers when loaded but unsticking pulls individually on the towers. In any case, this is pretty cool, gonna have to try it soon
Even worse the popped off tower would stay locked in the other side and jam future attempts to Velcro that piece unless you pop out the bits
I'd probably print this in PCTG. Similar properties to PETG but with the interlayer bonding of TPU in my experience
I was thinking of cranking the nozzle temp up high in order to make it stronger - might increase stringing also.
@@timwright7738 Good idea
I would guess a ton less than fuzzy velcro. 3m makes plastic ball on a tree style strips and those have significantly fewer cycles than the fuzzy kind
Great gift to the community - thank you!
Would be good if there was a formula for calculating how much surface area holds how much weight. With pool fence certification, everything is geared around a 25kg child. I've got some hanging lanterns within the NCZ of one of the barriers that most likely would need to be gone when getting a certification - but to add on a hook-and-loop fastener that is rated to say 10kgs then when the certifier chokes on their coffee at the blatant code violation, you can calmly ask them to test how much weight it holds and watch their disappointment set in when they realise they're not getting their extra re-assessment fee later.
You gotta make these tests last 24 hours, most failures of Velcro happens after days/weeks/months of stress
but thats why velcro is meant for quick connections that arent really supposed to last weeks or months. If you need something that does then Im sure there are better solutions than using velcro. You know, like actually bolting them or connecting them in a normal way.
@@SpydersByte then why its used for cable managment huh
@@thomaskletzl6493 thats not a situation where the connection would be stressed so it wouldnt have trouble staying together. He specifically said "after days/weeks/months of stress".
@@SpydersByte You are under the wrong impression. Combat rated velcro is a thing. There are several protective vests and fast release but long term wear scenarios where velcro is used. It requires maintenance and it is more than the stuff you get from cable holders. But you need to look up things before you fire off about designed purpose when there are both special and general purpose of the same thing. Oh and velcro has been in war since around Vietnam so you are way behind the facts being common enough to findout if you researched at all.
@@rallyfeind first of all, in what kind of combat use is velcro being used for weeks or months at a time? Second, I said its for quick connections, which is exactly why theyd use it on body armor and the like. I didnt say that its *impossible* to make a strong bond with it, simply that that is not its design purpose so if youre expecting it to hold up under months of stress then youre probably expecting too much. Also if youre claiming that they use "special purpose" velcro then youre only further supporting my statement that *normal* velcro doesnt hold up in those situations. I made no claim about special types of velcro.
i'm not sure about this, because it could be that the tiling of the pins is not exactly hexagonal, but if it is, you should be able to rotate the halves in 60 degree increments and they should mesh properly.
They aren't hexagonal. they are 2X:Y
@@mytuberforyouthanks for the correction
I've been waiting for this for more than 2 years haha.
Thank you Michael for content like this!
Muscles also use this principle of strength in numbers. Each piece actually creating a force is microscopically tiny but there are so many that animals can push and pull pretty hard.
It's the same for the interlocking of the Yellowbook pages. The friction adds up very quickly and it becomes impossible to rip apart without tearing the spine.
Intuitively I guessed this would fail at the layer lines. Interesting to see how strong it is, going to give it a try.
Thanks! This is great. Very cool concept
thank you very much for the inspirations. it got me thinking and started to play around with it, which led me to other tools and helped me organize and set up my print area. good video with good explanations and thanks for testing it with different materials!
Fantastic! Thanks a bunch, Michael! 😃 Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
The strength test was surprising. I didn't expect the PETG velcro to be as strong as it was. Its strength reminds me of the Yellowbook test the MythBusters did back in the day. Individually, the friction between pages and the velcro is really small, but you add enough pages or hooks, and the strength increases drastically. Also, similarly to that MythBusters test, the weakest point was actually at the base/spine.
Again a great Video. Thank you!
You may be interested in checking out 3M Dual Lock Reclosable Fasteners. Very similar product but they use mushroom shaped pins to increase connection suface area and require a steep engagement/disengagement angle.
This is cool, it can definitely improve a number of different designs I've seen.
Great post and great pedagogy. Thanks a lot. It's always a pleasure to be notified of each and single post of yours... despite your monotone tone😉
transformative video - thanks!!!
I've been designing some geothermal greenhouse/duck-coops. They transform twice a year to swap between a winter-coop and a summer greenhouse. I've planned a system of cranks to roll the winter skin down over the south side. I've been looking for a way to adhear the insulated skin to plastic covered uprights. But UV rated Velcro, and of the sizes I need, is prohibitively expensive. This likely solved my problem. I think ASA velcro will be perfect!
I wouldn't mind watching a short OpenSCAD tutorial
This was pretty interesting. Didn't know about this being possible until your video. Very cool!
Love the hoodie! Great video as well!
This could be a game changer. I’m impressed.
Great video! Thanks!
What an awesome idea! These days, I'm working on a 3D printed arm that I can clamp to my desk to hold my second monitor wherever I want (in height, depth, rotation, and with a ball head to choose the monitor's angle). Adding patches of "velcro" to it could be super useful for cable management add-ons. I might actually add velcro bars on the sides of the main tower in a new iteration!
As a big fan of OpenSCAD i tripple-approve for idea, execution and tools used 🙂
that looks great
Textures like this always end up in my mouth.
I may have to redesign my pedalboard for my guitar rig. This sounds interesting. Thanks!!
Isn’t that test technically shear strength?
Your videos are always great Michael, it would be interesting to see how well they old up hanging pictures! Can you test how mu h weight they can hold when placed on the back rather than the end of the print?
I would suggest testing with a 75D TPU like NinjaTeks Armadillo or a PCTPE (Nylon and rubber blend) like Taulman PCTPE. I use both. Phenomenal layer adhesion, very strong, and semi rigid. I think for this application either one would give better results.
Yeah -- that's the obvious question -- what is this print like in nylon or similar!?
It could work best as one side PLA and one PETG. You would get some elasticity in one side but rigid and hard on the other.
those don't stick together too well and I don't think cura can help with that with this scale
I was thinking of using PETG with TPU. TPU might act more like the fuzzy side of a regular velcro to make it more bendable without breaking apart as easily.
You could always make the opposite (Negative) of what shape you want, and import it into a slicer as a negative space
Great idea.
Well this is awesome! I will have to noodle with how I can incorporate this into my designs.
Impressive!
Dear Michael, thank you for this and your other awesome videos! I just subscribed as I've been forgetting that multiple times despite watching almost every video you put out. This idea is really cool and could be very useful - I will try that out. Maybe, we could come even closer to a real hook and loop system by choosing e.g. petg and deliberately (in other use-cases) bad temperature and cooling settings to get an enormous amount of stringing which could form "loops" (like super small bridging towers) and hooks for the other side. I hope someone comes up with a suitable idea to circumvent the layer adhesion problem of those basic cones. Maybe we could subdivide rows of those cones and print them on their side individually to profit from the better print orientation and then afterwards interlock those rows (melt together?) to a velcro pattern.
Thanks for the great video
Finally! My stringy prints are of use now!!
Great video!
LEGEND!
For some 3d models where I want to customize I use Blender and it's Boolean modifiers. I imagine if you rendered the large matt of velcro, but wanted it in the shape of the heart you cut by hand, you could instead just overlap the heart model and the velcro model and apply a boolean to get the desired shape, though I can imagine that some of the edges would need finessing to prevent weird islands or floating geometries.
nice work
Just a note on the finer printed velcro (from MMprinting) that you showed off, you should be able to get the two pieces to mesh after rotating either piece 60 or 120 degrees.
Very nice, informative and interesting video, thank you.
Loving the micro scale animation.
Look at 3m Dual Lock, that‘s a similar system, but commercial(ly produced). I‘m pretty sure their design is well optimized, I have some of it in use and it works really well. Could serve as inspiration for further 3D printable velcro designs.
time to go print this 👍
great to see. glad i subscribed! can we 3d print out velcro sheets in a COLUMN or a ROLL? to save space, on smaller 3d printers?
I noticed a lot of them use Cleat Clips instead of conventional Hook and Loop. Notably Velcro makes lines using those as well. Of course using more advanced manufacturing equipment they can make them a lot smaller. It is notable that many of their "professional" lines use Cleat Clips.
I’d be curious to see how the materials would have interacted. Say PETG on one side and PLA on the other, etc.
3M Scotch Dual Lock system is very similar to these designs. There are little stems with small ball head on top (mushrooms) lined up in wavy pattern. I have bought some and they work better than velcro. You need like a spatula to separate the two apart.
man, I haven't even try 3d printer myself, and it already took so far, can wait
This is so cool
Amazing. Very surprised at just how strong it can be
I would love to see a sample tested to failure, perhaps something with the bolt-boss you demonstrated for better work-holding during the test. I’d also be interested in how different materials interface with each other; like one TPU side stuck to PETG or PLA.
This is very cool. I'd love to see someone try to print a more traditional version. Small nozzle width loops and a bunch of hooked nozzle width strings and see if it works at all.
My guess is that would be very fragile. The print orientation would cause the hooks and loops to be very weak, and by design they'd probably have to be small and thin.
@@MrAnim8orVideos Yeah, I think some custom G code could make it work very well. For example what if you had a thin nozzle that actually printed each hook in one consistent movement. The problem is the spacing then, you couldn't have a ton of density, but they'd be much stronger. Would be fun to experiment.
Awesome Video
Great trick!
the demonstration with your fingers sold me. take my sub. take my like. more finger stuff.
What a nice jacket you have!
Thanks for going to the trouble of experimenting with different materials and parameters. That's something many of us would be curious about, so it saves us collectively a lot of time. Did you do any experiments to see if infill percentage made much difference?
the metal mushroom type used by the American military is incredible and extremely strong !
It's tempting to print an array of tiny vertical needles and then play a heat gun over them, similar to the way actual Velcro is made. Will it adhere?
Would have liked to see a vertical strength test as i mostly use velcro to attach power bricks and stuff to the underside of my desk
If you add a rigid sleeve to slide over your plates once joined you will get a connection that will never separate without the plastic itself failing. For the design that has larger pins if the base plate has dents in it and the pins have a bump that matches then once it snaps into place there will be no room for horizontal movement.
Wow, what a *fantastically* useful video! My immediate thought was to use it for a tool wall. I don’t like the hexagon-based walls; besides being ugly, they force you to use a fixed grid, inefficient when trying to arrange tool-holders as tightly as possible. I have a tool wall that’s just plywood , with 3D printed tool hangers stick on with 3M Command adhesive strips. I’ll very rarely move the hangers, but didn’t want to mar the backboard when I did. It works fine, but the Command strips are kind of expensive. 3D Velcro would be ideal for this use! The only thing is that I’d prefer the backplate to look “clean”, without the stringiness of PETG. Maybe I could use PLA for the backplate and then PETG for the backs of the hangers? I need to experiment with it a little… - But this is a fantastic solution to add to our bag of general “removable attach object A to object B” bag of tricks! THANKS!!! 👏👏👏👍
no way you didnt let us here the clicking of the interlocking parts, would of been so satisfying
Love the Senna hoodie!
The MM Printing model is more like 3M's Dual-Lock self-mating fastener than traditional hook and loop.
thank you for the video Tom Cruise!
As a Brazilian myself can't ignore your hoodie, Senna was amazing!
Love that sweatshirt!
4:07 you can turn the small, hexagon based one as well, just by 60 degrees instead of 90.
lol perfect timing, I was going to buy some to build something for my window but never mind, may as well use this
The one I designed last week got 3.5 million views. definitely an interesting concept
would you please make a step file available to edit in onshape or other software??