Personal Jacquard Weaving

Personal Jacquard Weaving
Lea Albaugh, James McCann, Lining Yao, Scott E Hudson
CHI '21: The 2021 ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Session: Wearables, Tangibles, and Fabrics
Abstract
We present an inexpensive tabletop loom that offers fully computational patterning while maintaining the flexibility of handweaving. Our loom can be assembled for under US\$200 with 3D printed parts, and it can be controlled straightforwardly over USB. Our loom is explicitly a \emph{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. This 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 -- for skill-building, for interactive design, or for creative reflection.
We describe the mechanical and electronic implementation of our loom and show examples of its use for personal fabrication.
DOI:: doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445750
WEB:: chi2021.acm.org/
Pre-recorded Presentations for the ACM CHI Virtual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, May 8-13, 2021

[@ericastier1646]

Absolutely stellar explanation video, you explained extremely well in 5 minutes and in a pleasant manner how weaving works. I have never understood how it works, it always seemed to me that it was not supposed to work because i thought a thread would have to go through a loop and be caught on the other side. Now i see there are no loops. Probably the most brilliant explanation i have ever seen about anything !

[@sennabullet]

Amazing!! Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Can't wait to try building one!

[@mhrichak]

Very informative, thank you!!

[@gauravjoseph4831]

Amazing Tech!

[@krisspohn8518]

amazing!

[@shaaraftet3797]

awesome

[@river1711]

Fantastic! Can this be used with any material? I’m curious about the application of creating custom carbon fiber weaves.

[@malakmkelghuel]

Waaaaww 👏👏👏👏

[@ericastier1646]

Is this also how persian rugs are hand made ?

[@jesperhansen7224]

How do you get all the warps lifted again?

[@buzztard]

My understanding is that only two motors are enough in this configuration: one to lift all of the threads, another to then run the selenoid then sets the pattern, and then the first motor lowers it in place. Pretty ingenious approach, albeit much slower than individually actuated one.

[@buzztard]

*solenoid. This also solves solenoid direction: when lifting, all the stops need to be released, and that could be just another solenoid triggering the spring loaded release on all the stops. Then solenoid just needs to push individual stops to click into locked position before the whole set is lowered. I'm so impressed by the approach.

[@jesperhansen7224]

@@buzztard Two motors might have been enough (but I doubt it). However there ARE not two motors here. Also, all the sliders would have to be (temporarily) moved to their "open" position so all the wires can be pulled up (by some means), then moved back to the "closed" position. While the usual mechanism can open a slider, I see no way to close it again. Perhaps it's all done manually. Nothing about this is shown, and if manual, it would of course make it all a lot less impressive.

[@leaalbaugh929]

It's an undeniably manual process: 1) the weaver drops the entire heddle bar down, past a pusher bar which pushes all the sliders to the "bead can pass through" position, then 2) lifts it back up again, with another pusher to reset the sliders. The "reset" position of this loom is one where every warp is raised, and "selecting" drops them; this is sort of inverted from a standard loom, in which the selected warps are raised from a neutral position. (Of course, sinking shed looms do exist, as do countermarche looms which split the warp both up and down.) I think youTube won't let me link to a non-youTube video, but you can see it better at ~0:25 of the video at this page: lea.zone/jacquard_handweaving.html The "two motors" are 1) the stepper "x-axis" motor which positions the solenoid, and 2) the solenoid. One could definitely imagine another motor handling the lift/reset. Personally, I kind of wanted to build our heddle mechanism onto a floor loom and do the reset with a lift pedal, but the portability of the tabletop model won out.

[@martinoroubata6998]

Wonderful how much does it cost ?