3D printing is close to my heart too.

Between my own project and the news world this has been a very busy week for this blog. Thank you for reading.
Of course everyone is excited about the baby that Doctors made a 3D printed stint for and saved his life. It's awesome, it's 3D printing, and it's a baby, all the making of a good story.
But lest we forget this is the second heart (at least) that has been saved by 3D printing. Tal Golesworthy, a boiler engineer, looked at his own heart, failing due to Marfan's syndrome, like a bulging pipe and decided all it needed was a wrap.

Iterative design in medicine. Custom fixes for each heart. A faster, easier surgery performed while the heart is beating. No drug treatment afterwards. And 3D printing.
I have a personal attachment because when I was younger there was a time I was being tested for Marfan's. Back then I was having a very grim picture painted for me and thank goodness they were able to rule it out. However if I had been diagnosed it's comforting to know that the coming together of 3D printing  medicine, and a very extraordinary man who knew the solution to a very ordinary bulging pipe problem could have saved my life, today.

Now that's a proper Bauhaus set

I don't know why but the version of the Bauhaus set where everything is more cubical always appealed to me more. Fortunately TeamTeamUSA on thingiverse made one that only had a few small problems, like the knight not being printable without supports and the queen being a work in progress. So fixed up these two problems and printed my own out and my modification can be downloaded on thingiverse.

Now I can have a Bauhaus vs Bauhaus game... if I ever actually played chess.

Everything you want, lubed with snake oil

Step right up folks! See a 3D printer that can print in full color! Get prints so flasless that you don't even need to see them only $400! How about a 3D printer without the printer for a measly $75? Get the most of of your 3D printer with these special, never before seen plans! All this and more can be yours! Each order comes with a special snake oil to lube your rods with.

3D printing is definately the new hotness, but that also means it's also the new exploitable. 3D printing does some amazing stuff, it's true, but unless you dig a little deeper some savy predator will play up it's hype (excellent read, please follow this link if none of the others) to line their own pockets.

I'm not saying the people behind those examples I mentioned are necessarily bad people, mostly because I don't want to be sued. But at the very least they are selling themselves up considerably more than they probably should be. I feel it's a more than a little dishonest.

Let's examine BotObjects claim to full color prints mixed with 5 different colors of PLA. Can it work? Well, yes, RichRap kinda proved that (but, I mean, look at that thing). But anyone who's changed filament colors can tell you that it takes about a meter of extruded filament for the colors to completely clear out of the nozzle. They're not doing colored prints, they're changing the colors mid way so you can make striped prints. No full color Kianu from a BotObjects printer. Defantly not worth the price tag they're putting on it.

And while they mentioned PVA for support there's no example of that on their site. That's becauase while some have managed it, it's more fiddly than an Automated Build Platform.

In the past I've mentioned my feelings on the 3Doodler and just yesterday on the kickstarter for models you can download for free on Thingiverse.

On the flip side printrbot has been nothing but upfront about their attempts to bring price down, and I respect them. They're struggling but they're not giving up. I'm rooting for these guys.

The point when you see the worlds "3D" and "Print" to market something approach it with skepticism and doubt. Especially if they're confident. Double especially if you've never heard of them before. Because cheap home 3D printing is a new and exciting field and not anyone knows what they're doing. Don't give in to the hype and don't give in to the snake oil pitch.

Kickstarting what's already free

I've been doing it wrong this whole time. Working on the weekends and lunch hours, putting my models up for free when what I really should have been doing is KickStarting basic modeling projects. Never mind that this has already been done over 400 times, and in many cases better and more comprehensive. Plus every single one of those use less plastic and take less time. This is just a bad idea.

Somehow 3DKitBash's KickStarter has nearly reached their goal, or maybe even reached their goal by the time that you read this. This is shameful. I understand wanting to be paid for your work, but this adds nothing. Why are people paying for it? I could not, in good conscious, do what they're doing with the smiles they have on their faces. I just couldn't do it. How do I get a hold of the people supporting this so I can tell them not to?

On #utahmakers

bill2or3> I'm going to kickstart a ramp, for jumping sharks
bill2or3> for kickstarter.

I don't hate KickStarter. In fact there are at least 2 projects that I want to KickStart when my current project is done. But hey, if I can get a grand every time I model a replacement pull handle, maybe I should do that. Micro-kickstarters FTW. Set the goal small enough so that by the time people realize they've been had I'm out the door with the money.

Printing a music box

Wizard123's Music Box on Thingiverse is one of the most amazing things I've seen in a while... if it works. I printed up the SMB one in ABS first and the results were not encouraging. The construction was genius, there's a hole to make putting the first gear in place easier and the rest go in well enough with a little flexing after that, so that's good. But the sound was only suggestive of the song it was trying to play and the tines started breaking until only an hour after it sprang off the build platform they were broken.

So I decided to try it again in PLA to see if perhaps the more rigid properties of PLA produced better sound and the results were much better.

It sounded great and for some reason the tines are lasting much longer, tho that may be because I'm not overextending them by going the wrong direction this time. However the song I chose didn't exactly work so I'm going to try a different one, but the experiment was very encouraging.

PLA is defiantly finding it's place in my arsenal. I still feel that for commercial objects ABS offers more longevity and better tolerances, but PLA is becoming more useful lately.

EDIT: PLA tines broke after a few hours with my kids too, so it's no more durable in the end.

Coloring filament with Markers

Way back in the day (like, maybe 2 years ago) when filament color selection was scarce 3D printers would color their filament with a marker on the incoming filament. Clever contraptions were constructed to color the filament sufficently. Since I've had a hard time finding a semi-transparent purple PLA filament for a project Idea I have I decided to try this technique of old myself.

I used the Mega Felt Marker Topper by RyGuy which didn't hold the Sharpie markers I bought very well.

On the left is a clear pawn for reference. This time I used the knight from the archichess01 set by clayantor, scaled down as usual. In the middle is the first attempt with the markers falling out a lot and me not noticing. Slight purple tint. On the right is one where I tried my best to keep those sharpies in place and the result is promising. I think I'll be able to use this technique for my Lantern Corp ring project, But next time I may use a different marker holder next time.

Fully portable 3D printer

Joseph Chiu recorded this video of the portable 3D Printer Bukito from Deezmaker using some of Joseph's filament to print upside down and on the go.