With the continuous improvement of personalized demand in the mannequin industry, there are more and more kinds of orders, while the demand for the same product is becoming less and less. For a set of mold hundreds of thousands of Mannequin industry, the market is becoming more and more difficult, there is an urgent demand for a new process to Mannequin industry again upgrade.

In November 2020, Anwise and COSMOS approached IEMAI3D to discuss the possibility of 3D printing mannequin. We believe that 3D printing (FDM) technology is very suitable for the mannequin industry.

First of all, 3D printing has high freedom, which has great appeal to mannequin manufacturing who do not want to open molds. 3D printing (FDM) is slicing of 3D models then stacked on top of each other to form a solid product. In this process, users only need to build a 3D model, choose the appropriate 3D printing materials, and use the 3D printer to print directly, without opening a set of molds to assist the product molding.

No matter how the user’s design is changed, it only needs to make corresponding modifications on the 3D model, and then import the slicing software to convert it into Gcode that can be recognized by the 3D printer for printing. Instead of having to reinvent the design, make moulds or make painstaking hand-sculpting, users with a 3D printer can get a newly designed mannequin in 50 hours.

3D printing (FDM) technology has a wide variety of materials. IEMAI3D recommended PLA, PETG and ABS 3D printed filaments to ANWISE and COSMOS. These three filaments have been proven to meet the needs of customers in a variety of application scenarios.

PLA (polylactic acid), a material made from starch (usually corn), has little impact on the environment. It is a derivative of starch, renewable, and a biodegradable material (which degrades itself in soil) that is environmentally friendly.

PETG (Polyethylene terephthalate glycol Modified) is a rugged material that is easy to use. It has strong impact resistance, making it an alternative material for PMMA and PC.

ABS (acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene) is a thermoplastic polymer material with high strength, high stiffness and easy to process. Because of its strong physical properties, heat resistance and chemical resistance, it is usually used as a plastic casing for equipment.