Concept |¶
The Arduino for Textiles¶
The core of the project is to create a business-oriented initiative that supports a textile design community through a low-cost automated jacquard loom, courses, sale of community-created designs, creation of other hardware, on a open software & hardware initiative.
The core idea is to develop a CNC semi automathic jaquard loom.
Background¶
In Mexico, there is a centuries-old tradition of artisanal textiles that is very important in several states of the country. These crafts are mainly made on pedal or backstrap looms, and the designs are limited.
It is estimated that in the Puebla - Tlaxcala region, where I live, 15% of the companies are dedicated to textile production, so any advancement in this sector can lead to significant economic progress.
The Idea¶
At the Ibero-American University in Puebla, where the fab lab is located, we offer a degree in textile design. One of the skills that the students must acquire is the design and production of flat fabric. To achieve this learning, the students learn to weave on a manual loom with various frames that allow them to create their designs, both in decorative figures and in the different types of weaves used in the textile industry.
To carry out their weaving practices, the students use manual Canadian looms of the Dorothy type by LeClerc.
This loom weaves pieces up to 15¾" (40 cm) wide, a practical size for schools, hobbyists, and occupational therapy. The four harness levers may be set on either the right or left side of the loom. The Leclerc Dorothy Table Loom is collapsible for storage. It includes 12-dent reed, 400 wire heddles, a shuttle, a reed hook, lease sticks, two beam slicks with cords, and instructions. The Dorothy is made of red birch with a colonial finish.
Once the students have learned the basics of flat weaving, they are introduced to more complex Jacquard-type fabrics.
The jaquard loom was developed in 1804 by Joseph-Marie Jacquard. The Jacquard loom is a weaving machine that lets the user create textiles with complex patterns using perforated plates that function as guides to tell the machine how to weave the treads[Wikipedia]. Of course, this explanation is vague and doesn´t really explain what it actually does. In order to demonstrate how this machine works I´ve found this video created by Macclesfield Museums.
In the case of prototyping jaquard looms there are two machines that hold the marker, the leader is the 50,000 USD TC2 loom by digital weaving Norway followed by the 37,000 USD AVL jaq3g. Our University decided to invest on a TC2 jaquard loom.
The Thread Controller 2 (TC2) is a Digital Jacquard loom manufactured by Tronrud Engineering Moss, Dept. Digital Weaving Norway. The TC2 loom is a tool that assists during the “Innovative or the Creative” phase of the making of the textile and is designed primarily for Sampling, Rapid Prototyping or Product Development purposes. Many of our customer also use the loom for creating one-offs/ special commissions (textile artists, for example) and mass customization. The loom is computer-controlled and manually-operated because it is designed to be operated by the creator/ designer/weaver.
The TC2 allows the user to make a perfect quality sample with the desired fibers, weave structures, warp and weft densities and colours – within hours! Changes are instant; start & stop as many times as required, without problems. The point is that with a TC2 loom, you get the samples at the latest ‘next day’ and you get them where the decision-makers/ customers are. One can make a sequence of samples varying for example the scale of the design, weave structures, warp and weft density/colorways etc. With the TC2 loom, it is possible to evaluate the design visually as well as the actual hand or the feel of the fabric.
So the the challenge comes as ¿How might we have the capabilities of a TC2 jaquard loom with the cost of a Dorothy loom?
Previous iterations¶
Several students have tried different ideas for a CNC loom and have prototyped them at the Fab Academy.
Fab Loom 2.0¶
With Octavio's project, we learned several things:
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The use of servomotors to change the state of the loom's heddles was not suitable due to the speed of change.
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The energy demand of the device was going to be a problem, as 4 servos were needed per centimeter.
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If we wanted a functional device, it was necessary to reduce the size of the components needed to change the state of the loom's meshes.
Digital Fab Loom¶
With Franco's project, we learned:
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That it was possible to change the idea of the loom to something semi-automatic, moving away from the concept of current looms and greatly simplifying the design and necessary parts.
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The switch to a semi-automatic loom significantly reduced the cost of the loom.
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That energy was one of the main problems to solve. This loom used electromagnets to hold a small metal bead that served to select the heddles. Since there were 160 heddles, the energy demand was extremely high, vaporizing the tracks on the electronic boards.
Mechaloom¶
Hector's Project was built after the pandemic. During the pandemic, two concepts based on electromagnetism were tested. Of which one turned out to be attractive due to its instantaneous and very low electrical consumption.
With that idea, Hector's loom was developed. With Hector's project, we learned:
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That the grip for lifting the nets would have to be more powerful since the magnets did not always have enough strength to lift the threads, which makes us think that it might not be the best method, so we need to consider a plan B for the grip of the heddles.
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That a board with an H-bridge was necessary for each thread to miniaturize the design.
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That the electromagnetic coils used were larger than strictly necessary.
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That the loom control software is more complex than previously thought.
5 Ws who, what, when, where, why¶
_ ¿How might we have the capabilities of a TC2 jaquard loom with the cost of a Dorothy loom? _
who¶
Design schools, Textile Designers and students, Hobbyists that want to build their designs
what¶
Create a business-oriented initiative that supports a textile design community through a low-cost automated jacquard loom, courses, sale of community-created designs, creation of other hardware, etc
when¶
The objective is to Kickstart Fourth quarter 2025
where¶
LoomOne is a web oriented initiative.
why¶
Textile designers, schools, and enthusiasts do not have an accessible way to fabricate or prototype Complex Design flat woven fabrics.
Flat fabric design is NOT trivial. It is a complex task with many inputs like different ligaments, different threads, different graphic designs, different tensions, etc.
References projects, research papers, expos, performances etc¶
A number of projects have tried to develop a CNC jacquard loom for designers and enthusiasts in addition to the TC2 and AVL looms. The looms follow instructions, but they have challenging issues that LoomOne seeks to solve.
The first issue is speed; both machines depend on passing over each mesh individually to alter its state.
The second issue is the heddles' size and the number of threads they can manage using this state change approach; they can only handle one or two threads per linear centimeter, which is far from becoming a designer fabric.
Carnegie Mellon Textiles Lab¶
They present an inexpensive tabletop loom that ofers fully computational patterning while maintaining the flexibility of handweaving. The loom can be assembled for under US$200 with 3D printed parts, and it can be controlled straightforwardly over USB. This loom is explicitly a hand loom: that is, a weaver is required to operate the weaving process and may mediate row-by-row patterning and material specifics like yarn tension.
The Carnegie Mellon approach combines the flexibility of fully analog handweaving with the computational affordances of digital fabrication: it enables the incorporation of special techniques and materials, as well as allowing for the possibility of computational and creative interventions in the weaving process itself. In taking this approach, they aim to serve a range of end users including artisans and researchers, whether for skill-building, for rapid prototyping, or for creative reflection.
Kurt from Retro Tech Journal¶
A similar approach comes from Retro Tech, where at the heart of the loom is a long row of cams sitting on a square shaft. The square shaft locks most of the cams in position but has one section that can rotate to spin a single cam. The main idea is to have the cams not do the lifting and lowering of threads directly, but to have them shift some hooks back and forth. If the hook was over a bar, then the bar could do the work of raising and lowering the threads.
The entire project is documented at Retro Tech Journal includes a video of the machine working
LoomOne main features¶
LoomOne aims to combine the simplicity of the LeClerc's Dorothy loom with the efficiency, precision, and complexity of the TC2 loom by Tronrud Engineering.
LoomOne targets to
The main technical specs of LoomOne are:
