A little while back I did a little experiment, live streaming on Justin.tv a modeling session so you can see me do my thing. . This one was a piece for Just Game. Find out more about them at https://www.facebook.com/justgamecompany or http://justgamehome.com/. I've held off sharing it here until I could offer a time-lapsed version in case you didn't want to listen to me babble for an hour an a half. Making that time-lapse had it's own challenges. But I've finally worked it all out so I can offer you a modeling session and a shorter time-lapse of the same:
At speed:
8 minute time-lapse with music:
Let me know if you like this sort of thing and I'll try to do it more often. I'm willing to make this a regular thing if it has an audience.
Andrew Mazotta recently visited Shapeways an had an interview with Bart Veldhuizen who, incidentally, was one of the people who bought Blender and released it free and open source. (By the way, I'm totally writing a book that's all about Blender.) So an all around good guy and awesome to have Andrew interview him.
I like Shapeways. I'm on Shapeways. I really appreciate what they're trying to do. But unfortunately I'm not thrilled with how much Shapeways costs. That's the reason I don't have more things on Shapeways. To bring cost down your things either need to be whispy thin or you need to plate 20 or 100 of them and then sell them yourself on etsy. (It seems Shapeways has an initial base cost plus material, so to bring the overall cost down spread the initial base cost across more materials.) And then if something is the wrong size or anything there is no return policy because it's not like they can resell the item to someone else. Plus that initial cost deters first time designers from buying their own things so they don't discover that their models are too fragile to work.
Obviously Shapeways has found it's niche with some people willing to spend $15 to make their transforms able to gesture with their fingers. (And I've already lauded modibots.) But since shapeways is too expensive for really solid things it seems it's relegated to the realm of novelty toys or jewelry, which doesn't do much to advance the field of alternative manufacturing.
But like I say, I love what these guys are doing and I wish them well. I just wish they were cheaper too.
I guess I haven't weighed in on the whole "3D printed food" thing. I thought I had. The machine that NASA has bankrolled is, to me, hardly a 3D printer. It's a nozzle on a CNC machine, but that's where the similarity ends because this can only really make one thing. It's a food-o-matic, which is pretty cool but has been done before with pizza. Now, I'm all for automating food preparation. In fact I'd be thrilled if I went to Taco Bell and my food was made with minimal human interaction. Sure there will be hundreds of disgruntled underpaid teenagers free to do something creative with their lives, but that's a risk I'm willing to make.
In my mind in order for a food machine to be called a 3D printer you'd need to squeeze soylent (no, not that soylent) through a tube and flavor it as it came out. Mind you I don't know how well it would handle anything more complex than "sweet/sour/salty/bitter/sriracha" and texture would be another problem, but at least you could make, literally, whatever you wanted. But really until we have hydrogen recombination on-the-fly and can order tea, earl gray, hot printed food is probably a bad idea.
I can't help but think that the timing of this video could not have been better. While the conversation is turning towards the potential dangers of 3D printing, it's good to remember that 3D printing can also do very, very useful things, a point I've made on numerous comments around the web. Please take a moment and watch this video, as well as the Magic Arms one if you haven't seen it already, to see the force for good a 3D printer can be.
3D printers aren't going to be the end of the world. They're a tool and they can make great things. Of course all I use mine for are chess sets and jewelry, but that's not the point.
For those who don't know, a stepper motor is the basic muscle of a 3D printer. Instead of other motors which are basically "on = go, off = stop" a stepper motor is told how far to move and it does, which makes it perfect for, say, telling the arm of a 3D printer to go to a specific location and start drawing.
This iteration is rough to say the least. Basically it's a frame that you can use homemade windings and electronics to make a stepper motor with. It's got a minimum step of 7.5 degrees, which is rough but it's a start and could be geared down. Talk on Reddit about making it more 3D printed is encouraging, but until someone undertakes to do something it's all just talk. I don't know if this stepper is significantly cheaper than just buying a stepper motor either. But it's exciting nonetheless. 105% cool.
I love projects like this. Partially because they're cool. Partially because it's one less project I want to try. Oh don't get me wrong, I wouldn't mind making one some day, but being able to skip the design and experimentation phase is priceless.
I've been working on my fully 3D printed engine that I mentioned a while ago, but it's still having trouble. I'm feeling like a total overhaul redesign is in order... which I really don't have time for. Hopefully this video will help people understand how it's supposed to work. Progress continues.
The files on thingiverse have been updated with the latest iteration.
There are some people who are afraid to update their makerbot firmware. It's really not that bad. Sorry about the crappy and dark video, but I just wanted to show what it was like.
The take away's from this are:
Don't leave your bot plugged into the USB when its turned off, it can ruin the board.
When the update says "Try to press the reset button just before you press 'Update'" ignore that. If you're using Windows you may want to go the other way.
If at first you don't succeed, don't take it personal. Try, try again.
The rapidly blinking light I mention is on the motherboard but can be seen through the hole for the power switch.
As ABS filament is exposed to moisture in the air it swells causing the filament diameter to change over the life of the spool. The default filament diameter setting in ReplicatorG is fine on average, but for fresh rolls of filament it is set a little too low causing troubles for new users. Measuring or testing your filament diameter has been my silver bullet in terms of solving print problems as well as making parts with tight tolerances fit.
EDIT: I just noticed I said the default diameter in RepG was 1.68 or 1.63. That's my disnumericism (like dyslexia only with numbers. It's a thing). They're actually 1.86 or 1.83 which can be too high for new rolls of filament.
So it looks like they're using a photo booth so they're using a 123D Catch like software to create the 3D models then they're using a powder sintering printer so they can print in full color, which is going to be the costliest and slowest part of the whole process. To be clear I don't think this isn't printed as you wait. This will be more of a "Pay your $100 and we'll ship it to you when it's done."
And rumors are this is a $100 service and for a limited time only. I guess being this on the cutting edge isn't as profitable as Disney hoped.
After my Makerbot vs Cubify side-by-side I was really excited to see the actual throw down. This is actually a few month's old but who cares, it's new to me.
Kathy: "Coloring book simplicity." "In the cloud." "Coloring book." "Cloud."
Bre: "We share everything." "We made this for everyone"
Sometimes pictures don't do a design justice. I've finally figured out a coupling that will mate with itself and print successfully and stable. I'm really happy with this one. New chess design and new print coming soon.
Sorry it took me so long to get this report out. Apparently my new webcam software doesn't do compression and uploading a 3 minute video takes all day long if the file size happens to be 3 gig. Who knew? Learning.
If I do any more replicator or 3D printing videos it will probably be that youtube channel so subscribe if you'd like more. I don't know if I have time to do very much of this sort of thing, but if I do it'll be there. And here.
I'm not reporting on every success or failure any more. Mostly because I've lost count and I don't want to bore anyone. So I'm only going to report on interesting things and this is interesting, alot.
This alot is interesting because it's not parts printed seperately and assembled, it's printed all at once using the dual extruder, and it was... mildly successful. Funny thing, the white on the tooth didn't take for a few layers. I figure it's because the white wasn't doing anything for so long there while the black printed all the layers before it that when it came to be white's turn it needed a little lead in time. I've been pondering how to give it that lead in time. Either I could print a useless tube next to the alot so that the white is printing the whole time or I could have it start a few layers below the beginning of the tooth with a little white shape hidden inside the alot where no one will see it. Like a little heart.
Yes, I think my next alot will have a little heart.
