iSUN3D Brings 3D-Printed Elastic Shoes to MICAM Milano

iSUN3D, the footwear division of Chinese materials maker eSUN, will exhibit at MICAM Milano from September 13 to 15, showing its FlexOne elastic resin and HSL 100 series large-format printers built to produce complete shoes at volume rather than just custom insoles.

FlexOne eliminates the mixing step

Most elastic resins used for 3D printed footwear require two components mixed before printing. FlexOne is a single-component elastic resin, sold ready to pour into the resin tank. The company says that cuts pre-mixing time, removes waste from mixing errors, and stays workable for more than eight hours after opening, so leftover resin can be recycled back into new batches.

Material specifications are strong for footwear use. Tear strength is rated above 50 kN/m, roughly twice what a standard elastic resin delivers under ASTM D624. Tensile strength exceeds 20 MPa, about three times ordinary elastic resin. Elongation at break sits above 250%, with full recovery. Durability testing records more than 1 million Ross Flex cycles, which iSUN3D says extends service life 6 to 30 times beyond conventional elastic materials. The resin is certified non-irritating, non-toxic, and free of heavy metals.

HSL 100 printers built for shoe volume

The HSL 100 and HSL 100 MAX printers use a 16-inch platform with 40 cm of build height. At a print speed of 100 mm per hour, each machine can produce two pairs of shoes in three hours. Post-processing is limited to centrifugal and ultrasonic cleaning, no secondary curing oven required.

Those specs point toward batch production, not one-off customization. That is the gap iSUN3D is trying to fill: most 3D printed footwear today is prototype or small-batch. A printer sized for a 16-inch platform with a two-pair-per-three-hour throughput is built to compete with conventional shoemaking lead times.

From insoles to full shoes

iSUN3D has been making 3D printed orthotic insoles since 2017, currently producing more than 3,000 customized pairs per month through a network of over 150 retail partners. That work contributed to China's national additive manufacturing standard for customized orthotic insoles and earned recognition from the country's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

MICAM Milano marks the company's shift from insoles to full footwear production at scale. The 102nd edition of the show runs from September 13 to 15 at Fiera Milano Rho, with 758 brands from 29 countries across 378 Italian and 380 international exhibitors.

For a trade show built around leather goods and traditional shoemaking, iSUN3D's presence signals that 3D printed footwear has moved past the prototype and orthotics phase and into volume manufacturing. FlexOne and the HSL 100 MAX pairing is pitched exactly at that transition: fast enough to compete with conventional production, with a single-component resin that removes the material handling complications that have held elastic 3D printing back from factory floors.