MakerBot Industries

Firefly Bracelet by neurothing

I love everything about this thing.  It’s jewelery, it’s a bug, and it’s got an LED.  What’s not to like?! While this isn’t the first insect on Thingiverse, it is easily the shiniest.  It’s a four-part print – bracelet, two wings, and body that are assembled with hot glue.  I rather like the contrast in textures created by the different build orientation of the four printed pieces.

As with any multi-part print, I wonder whether this design could be modified to print all of the parts in a single plate and assembled without tools or glue.  Given that the body is printed upright (Probably to accommodate the cavity for the LED, battery, and leads) , I’m fairly confident all of the parts could be arranged to be printed as a single STL file.

Neurothing mentions his plans to sell these at the upcoming Maker Faire in New York.  Just imagine – if this design could be assembled without additional tools or glue, nuerothing could print them before your very eyes, peel the raft off the build platform, drop the parts into a bag with the LED and battery, and send you on your way.  The production of the thing could become part of the sales experience, rather than just a precursor to the transaction.

The answer is “better than the original.”

Better than the original

I had first seen Ian Johnson‘s Soap Dish on Thingiverse months ago, thought “cool,” and moved on.  A few days ago I stumbled upon Ian’s Flickr photostream and finally got the full story.

This is the original soap dish from Pottery Barn. It rests in a fixture attached to the wall, from which it has fallen many times and broken. It can’t be replaced because the line has been discontinued, but I want to continue to use the fixture, since the pedestal sink doesn’t really have room for a soap dish.

Ian designed a replacement soap dish in halves, so it would fit on the MakerBot print platform and asked Will Langford to print the parts for him.  He then glued the two halves together with black ABS drain pipe cement from the hardware store, dipped the dish in an ABS cement/acetone bath to smooth out the texture, sanded it smooth, painted it with his ABS dip to give it a glossy finish, and then gave it several coats of white liquid plastic.  For more information on Ian’s exact process as well as his photos of the intermediate stages, check out his photostream.

I am very excited to announce that MakerBlock will be joining us as a blogger here on the MakerBot blog. You may know MakerBlock from MakerBlock.com where he’s been posting around 1.5 posts per day for the last year or so. We didn’t just hire him because almost everybody says we should… the guy can actually write and his writing has a great voice and he has been dedicated to sharing his thoughts about MakerBot. Please join me in welcoming him to the MakerBot blog!