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by samplatt 161 days ago
Cory Doctorow waxed lyrical for many years about the ability to 3d-print clothes and other Maslow-hierarchy needs. Even the most experimental of designs haven't approached that yet... and I think we'd now be scared of increased PFAS levels even if we could.
2 comments

3d printed shoes are… almost a thing(1). Clothes, not so much… some experimental high fashion fabrics, but nothing you’d wear under normal circumstances.

But to your point about PFAS, afaik no common 3d printing materials contain PFAS - at least not filament ones, i don’t know much about the resin printing world.

1. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4id0-vvu-u0

The only place PFAS is used in an FDM printer is the filament guide some printers have. That's a Teflon tube that the filament travels in towards the hotend. Bowden style printers tend to have a long tube, direct drive printers sometimes have a short tube fully contained in the hotend assembly.

I don't see how PFAS can be used as a filament in FDM printer. It's not a thermoplastic, that's one of its advantages as a material.

Is filament that different from the plastics we already make clothes out of?