Kniterate: Bringing garment manufacturing to your desktop
It’s been more than a month since our last newsletter. It’s about time we sent you an update about our 3D printer for clothes!
We’ve left the factory and moved to Shenzhen, the electronics capital of the world. We are adding the parts our engineers have been working on.
It’s nice to be back at HAX, the accelerator program that we were part of earlier this year.
We are really happy and proud of how the printer is coming along and we’re getting ready to show it to the world as we approach our Kickstarter campaign.
From Making to Manufacturing
The DIY and maker culture has guided much of our work. From OpenKnit to our time at HAX, we’ve used tools and materials that are available to anyone. Without the democratization of these technologies, projects like ours would not be possible.
As our time at HAX was ending, we realized that without a technological and industrial partner it might take us a long time to create the product that we dreamed of delivering to you.
To do this, our prototyping toolkit has adapted. From 3D printing plastic parts in a work space to machining metal in a factory. This change allows us to make the best quality components for you to produce the best apparel. After all, if you buy a 3D printer for clothes, you want it to print amazing garments!
How Industries are Changing
Computerized flat knitting machines make most of the world’s knitwear. These machines cost upwards of $50,000. We are bringing this technology to your desktop, by joining our strengths with those of a manufacturer with 30 years of experience.
Francesc Pera, one of the first people to hear about OpenKnit, is a textile engineer from Barcelona. He has been an adviser to our founder Gerard and forecasted that, as our product evolved, it would converge towards industrial machines. How right he was.
This summer our goal has been to take everything we’ve learned from making prototypes at Kniterate and integrate it with our partner’s technology. We are building a smaller, lighter and cheaper version of an industrial knitting machine.
You can read about the trend of companies providing innovators with compact versions of industrial tools in this Forbes article.
Thanks for reading!
The Kniterate Team
