As cloud-based 3D printing continues to burgeon, the world of sports equipment manufacturing has begun to evolve as well. Two months ago, engineering.com reported on a high-performance 3D-printed hockey helmet that was developed using the latest additive manufacturing innovations.
Now, a three-way partnership between Rawlings, Fast Radius and Carbon has led to the creation of the REV1X glove. Light, durable and flexible, the glove eschews the traditional ensemble of felt, plastic, wool and foam in favor of complex lattice inserts for enhanced ball control and durability.
“The lattice insert is a major milestone in glove design and brings the latest in additive manufacturing technology to baseball,” said Philip Desimone, co-founder and chief product and business development officer at Carbon. “The integration of digitally manufactured lattice offers several performance improvements for players, including weight reduction and variable stiffness in the thumb and pinky. By latticing the finger padding, the weight of the glove is reduced, which increases acceleration by reducing the moment of inertia—all without sacrificing protection, durability or playability. For the player, the lighter weight means a faster reaction time and a more controllable glove, resulting in better fielding.”
A Seamless Transition from Design to Production
The REV1X glove represents the first time a significant technological innovation has been made to baseball gloves in over 50 years. Rawlings, a premier manufacturer of baseball equipment since 1887, is the official supplier of baseball gloves, helmets and face guards for players in major leagues as well as minor leagues. Having recognized the need for a more wear-resistant glove that would facilitate player performance, Rawlings created a brand new design that would not need to be “broken in” like traditional gloves and fits the shape of the player’s hand.
“The complex lattice structure is designed with detailed player feedback to add stiffness in the regions where it is necessary and soften regions where a certain flexure is required, adding another dimension of control in the design,” said Desimone.
Numerous MLB players were consulted during the design phase of the project. Chief amongst them was New York Mets’ four-time all-star shortstop player, Francisco Lindor, who is also serving as the face of the REV1X glove in the U.S.
“Traditional ball gloves take a long time to break in because of the characteristics of the natural materials,” stated Rawlings’ senior director of ball gloves, Ryan Farrar. “In a glove, you have several layers to work in before you can form a nice pocket. Shell palm, shell liner (where your fingers go), palm liner, and the 3-finger padding. That is a lot of material to break down when breaking in a glove, but that is also why a glove that is constructed out of high-end material can last a long time.”
The bulk of the design efforts went into re-thinking the plastic/wool stabilizers in the pinky and thumb. FPU 50 lattices proved to be excellent substitutes due to their weight-to-thickness ratio and their ability to perform over long periods of time. However, translating Rawlings’ vision into an industrial-scale production proved difficult. Fortunately, this is exactly where Fast Radius excels.
As a digital manufacturing leader in end-to-end production, Fast Radius is committed to assisting manufacturers through all facets of creating products. Fast Radius’ Cloud Manufacturing Platform helps clients select the most advantageous production method—additive manufacturing, urethane casting, CNC machining, injection molding—and aids them in optimizing their design through feedback, analysis and simulations. The Cloud Manufacturing Platform also pairs clients with a suite of Fast Radius-owned micro-factories to produce parts, or third-party manufacturers located nearby. The result is an augmented design for the product, reduced production cost and time, and very little transportation costs.
In the case of the REV1X glove, Rawlings had already identified Carbon’s digital light synthesis (DLS) as the most viable method for printing their design. The company collaborated with Fast Radius to come up with the most accessible way to migrate from prototyping to mass production.
“There were a lot of iterations of the Carbon DLS part, and we worked closely with MLB players to make sure that the parts were performing up to their expectations,” said Farrar. “That is the great thing about additive manufacturing. We can print multiple variations on the same day and get them right into baseball gloves. That really helped with getting this product to market.”
Housing the largest fleet of Carbon DLS printers in North America, Fast Radius was more than equipped to handle mass production of the REV1X glove. Several rapid iterations later, a process was finalized for producing the parts reliably at scale.
The real challenge was deciding which material to use to print the lattice, as well as how to establish repeatability and quality for large-scale production. After going through several iterations, Rawlings settled on using flexible polyutherane (FPU 50) as the material of choice for the lattice. A flexible, semi-rigid material designed by Carbon, FPU 50 was the ideal choice for the lattice due to its tensile strength, and resistance to fatigue and high-velocity impact.
After selecting the material, the next logical progression for Rawlings’ project was establishing the best way to replicate the lattice. For this, Fast Radius relied on the Cloud Manufacturing Platform which stored all necessary information on the design, specifications and geometries of the lattice. Rather than keeping this information in disparate platforms, the Cloud Manufacturing Platform integrated all aspects of the production into a single interface.
Once all the information for creating the parts was pooled, prototyping tests were conducted on the Carbon DLS equipment. Often, manufacturers run into costly, time-consuming failures that could not be anticipated because they used different equipment for prototyping and production. Fast Radius circumvents this issue by prototyping on the same devices that they plan to use for production. Through their collaboration with Fast Radius, Rawlings was able to speed up the product development cycle to less than 10 months.
“Our Additive Launch service and expert engineers made it easy to test and go through several revisions fast so Rawlings could get to market quickly,” explained John Nanry, co-founder and chief manufacturing officer at Fast Radius. “Since we were testing on the same Carbon DLS equipment we used for production, we were able to scale as soon as we locked in a production plan. The biggest challenge to consistency came from working with FPU 50. The material was well-suited to the application, but it can be difficult to post-process. We dialed in printing and developed custom post-processing techniques specifically for these parts. We were ultimately able to improve yield by four times over initial tests. We also have quality programs in place to ensure Rawlings receives consistent parts every time.”
The Future of Sports Equipment Manufacturing
Lattices are extremely customizable based on the material used to create them, the geometries used to design them, as well as how material-heavy they need to be for a specific function. They can also be combined with other materials like smart foams and conventional padding to further aid their function. Given the versatility of lattices, it comes as little surprise that Fast Radius has more plans for exploring their applications in sports.
“There are huge possibilities for 3D printed lattices in sporting goods,” Nanry said. “Lattices can be designed with almost any geometry or density, so they unlock almost unlimited performance potential. Here at Fast Radius, we’ve been experimenting with 3D-printed lattices for a variety of sports applications—the sky’s the limit.”
There are currently four different types of REV1X gloves available at $399.95, in sizes ranging from 11.5 inches to 12.75 inches. For more information about the glove, visit here.