The Dyer-Bot :

Our project consists of making collections using only natural dyes from recycled materials (avocado rinds, coffee, tea, unsold flowers...) and local plants (woad, rubia, reseda...).

We want to make a pigment exctracting and textile dyeing machine. The machine will be ecological and its conception and making will be Open Source and shared through dye-lab.com

Why ?

Environmental impact of standard textile dyeing is tremendous. Unfortunately there is no technology made for dyeing natural fibers ecologically and no open-source dyeing machine available for designers. This infographic illustrate synthetic dyeing impact and the alternative solution we want to create.

Click on the picture to zoom in !

This project will help growing local economies world wide and will complete two others open source textile technology projects : OpenSource Loom and the electric fiber spinning wheel. The dyer-bot will be useful for :

-Designers

-Artists

-Dyers

-DIYers

-Developping countries

Rosa Tapioca :

We are a young parisian fashion brand producing in France and using ecological textiles. We want to go deeper into sustainable development by creating our own natural colors. We work with a Textile Engineer and we have been studying natural dyes for years. You can discover our collection on our website, rosatapioca.com. The first naturally dyed collection will be out in 2013.

The Dyer-Bot:

We want to make a machine for extracting pigments and dyeing textile so we can dye our own collection on a small scale.

The dyer-bot consist of an inox Vat with an heating belt, a circulation pump and a filter. It will be monitored by a computer. The conception and making of the machine will be published on dye-lab.com

The dyer-bot will dye garments, fabrics and yarns. There is no equivalent machine existing in the industry and it will take natural dyeing further. Its has three main advantages as compared to other textile dyeing machine.

1- Cheaper: the dyer bot will cost less than every other industrial dyeing machine suitable for natural dyeing. Moreover, free recycler dyeing materials (tea, avocado rinds, unsold flowers) can be easily used with it.

2- Easy-to-use : the machine is tought to be used by people with no knowledge in dyeing so they can make their own colors. The process will be made as simple as possible and published on dye-lab.com.

3- Grow local and ecological economy : it will allow to reduce transportation and geographical concentration of toxic industries.

Dye-lab.com : Open-Source exchange

The dyer-bot will be made as an open source hardware, in the first french FabLab (the FacLab of cercy-pontoise university).

On dye-lab.com we will share natural dyeing recipes and how-to guides for making and using the dyer bot.

Le récupère-couleurs : machine de teinture textile écologique et Open Source par Rosa Tapioca

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