Print on fabric, fold in place speaker cover

This was the winning entry I designed for a 3d printing challenge by Joel Telling @3DPrintingNerd. Sophy Wong, Just Blaze and him were kind enough to award me the first prize, a Prusa Mini :)

(sorry for the thangs ads, @printables ;)

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This speaker cover adapts to a 176mm speaker with 6 screw holes (Ø166mm hexagonal pattern).

It prints flat with a layer of fabric embedded between the first layers, and then folds in place to form a nice cover that is both decorative and has a very good sound performance.

My print settings and instructions :

• Layer height : 0.3mm
• Perimeters : 3
• No need for supports
• Insert a pause at Z=0.5mm (and lift the print head to Z=~120mm)
• Slow down the first layer over the fabric. I went for 20mm/s

Use an "open" fabric so that it is as acoustically transparent as possible. If you can breath easily through the fabric it should be ok (although I know nothing about acoustics :).
I could print successfully on specialized speaker cover fabric, but also on more "normal" thin fabrics. Extensible fabrics give a better result as you can stretch them when you lay them down and they wont release like plain fabrics tend to do. I managed to print on tights, which is promising because there are so many colors and patterns available.

How to insert and make the fabric bond to the plastic :

• Add a pause to the print at 0.5mm height and make it lift the print head (120-150mm at least)
• Lay down the fabric stretching it a little bit if it is extensible. I made it hold in place on the print bed with magnets.
• If the fabric is not tulle or some very “open” fabric, iron (with a real iron, not the printer's iron function) over the fabric so that the plastic underneath starts to melt and bond.
• Resume the print

Once finished printing you have to cut away the excess fabric.
For natural materials (linen, cotton...) I used a sharp and long cutter blade.
For synthetic fabrics, what I found out to be the easiest and cleaner way was to cut it away by melting it with a very pointy soldering bit.

Voilà !