MakerBot Industries

From SmartPlanet.com, via SlashDot:

Students from Stanford and Finland’s Aalto University have developed a prototype laptop that can be disassembled in less than three minutes without the use of any tools. Once it’s taken apart, the laptop’s materials can easily be recycled. SmartPlanet talks to the inventors about their design concept and gets a hands-on demo of the process.

The video above shows how this laptop with a very modular design can be quickly disassembled without the use of tools. If you’ve ever taken apart a laptop, you know the pain and frustration that comes from trying to find and keep track of the nigh infinite number and variety of screws that hold these things together. As these students demonstrate, it just does not have to be this way. Interestingly, there may not be much of a need for a modular designed laptop as long as the components themselves were sufficiently modular. This is the kind of thing I’ve come to expect to be uploaded to Thingiverse.

Just imagine printing a custom laptop case, slapping in some totally modular parts, and rocking out on your new laptop 3 minutes later.

Hey MakerBot Operators!!!

A Seattle MakerBot User Group Meeting

MakerBot Operators have informally been gathering together to bring MakerBots face to face. They meet each other, trade tips and tricks, and MakerBot Operators may even in some cases be eating sushi together. We know that when MakerBot Operators get together, awesome things happen and we are setting up this challenge to encourage this because more awesome is more better! (Pictured above: S.M.U.G.r -Seattle Makerbot Users Group and RepRap Mendel – Photo by A. V. Passow )

Here is the challenge! Form a regional group if you haven’t already, make sure you’ve got a dedicated MUG (MakerBot User Group) Mailing List, gather the MakerBots before March 15, post a picture of two MakerBots or more, and get a MakerBot Care Package!

What is a MakerBot User Group? We define it as a group that meets in real life and has it’s own mailing list dedicated to MakerBotting.

Every MakerBot User Group that enters this challenge will get a MakerBot Care Package in which there will be LEDs and we’ve got a special package to go out to the group that gets the most MakerBots together in one photo at a MUG. One entry and one care package per group.

Can you have a MakerBot User Group meet at a hackerspace? YES, but remember, you’ve got to have a dedicated MakerBot mailing list for your MUG. That way you won’t mix the drama of who needs to do the dishes at your hackerspace with the drama of who’s hogging the communal MakerBot.

What about Maker Groups and Robotic Clubs? Same deal. You’ve got to have a dedicated mailing list for MakerBot action within your group and meet and bring MakerBots together.

If you’re MakerBot Operator Group has just met, that doesn’t count for this challenge, you’ve got to meet between today, February 22nd, and March 15th to get your MakerBot Care Package!

Here’s the MakerBot User Group Challenge details:

1. Form a group if you haven’t already. Get them together.
2. Meet. Put at least two MakerBots side by side.
3. Take a photo of them together. Humans are also allowed in this photo!
4. Upload the photo to the internet on flickr or facebook or your own site.
5. Email us the link to your picture mug@makerbot.com along with your group’s name, mailing list url, and a legit mailing address so we can get you your care package.
6. One entry per group submitted no later than March 15, 2011 at 11:59pm EST.

All participating groups who meet this challenge will win a MakerBot Industries Care Package and there will be LEDs. (LEDs are a core MakerBot value)

Don’t belong to a group? Find one in your area on the regional groups page.

No group nearby? Form one! Come up with a name, get a google group for your mailing list, and send us a paragraph tempting local MakerBot Operators to gather. Send it to mug@makerbot.com and we’ll announce your next group meeting on our blog!

TLDNR: MakerBot is having a challenge to get MakerBot Operators together to be more awesomer.

Cardboard shelf with printed plastic brackets

This weekend my wife and I decided to organize our DVD collection. ¹  We decided to make a shelf out of some left over cardboard.  The shelving unit itself is little more than a pre-existing cardboard box with two pieces of cardboard stuck inside to act as a divider.  However, you can’t just bolt a piece of cardboard to the wall and expect it to stick.  If it is bearing any weight, the cardboard will slowly tear around the screw.  In order to get around this problem I printed some plastic disks the size of silver dollars with a small hole in center.  One screw through each of two disks (to help distribute the weight of the shelf), the cardboard, drywall, and the stud in the wall.

[Maker Dad Tip: Let your daughter go nuts with some crayons and markers on the new shelving unit before you bolt it to the wall.]

Since I didn’t know how many of screws would be needed I printed up four disks.  As it turns out the shelf was stuck tight to the wall with only two screws.

Later in the day my daughter decided she wanted to have tap shoes, so she asked me for them.  This was an easy problem to solve.  I grabbed some 2″ blue tape from my robot work area and taped the remaining two plastic disks to the bottom of her shoes.  She clomped and stomped away happily.

There’s probably a dozen more uses for these ridiculous plastic disks.  Game pieces, gaskets, washers, spacers, ammo for a disc gun, or wheels.  What else?

1. Sorry about the ridiculously terrible photo.  I’ll see about taking another one soon. [↩]

Dual Extruder / Dual Material Makerbot by ScribbleJ

ScribbleJ has done it again!  Not wanting to waste his MK5 extruder he built a mount for it to sit next to his MK6 and wrote some custom code and put together another mind-bending Thingiverse entry. While he says it’s not ready for prime time yet, it’s a huge step forward to printing with dissolvable support material. Don’t forget to check out the video of the dual extruder in action:

Profileinator - By David Durant

This last weekend I was fortunate enough to catch up with Dave Durant to talk about how to calibrate my 3D printers. Not only has Dave written a number of amazingly detailed posts on properly configuring Skeinforge for 3D printers, but he’s also written an amazing program for determining the proper settings. ¹  Although this program has been out for two months, I hadn’t given it a shot until just this Saturday.  Oh!  If only I could capture the lost hours I’ve wasted calibrating my machines when I could just have used this program!  You, gentle reader, need not toil away in front of your machines and may simply use Dave’s program powered by MATH and SCIENCE.  Here’s a quick walk through of how to use his program:

1. Install Dave’s program
   1. The program is just a single executable file that will generate an XML file for storing saved values.  To run, just open the executable.  To uninstall, just delete both the executable and the XML file.  The ZIP file contains more than this single executable, so unzip those if you want them too – but you don’t need them.
   2. You’re going to want to open the program now.  Don’t worry about any of the settings just yet – we’ve got an important step next.
2. Measure your filament’s diameter
   1. Dave’s program works by taking a measurement of the volume of plastic entering the extruder and then providing the values you need to account for the volume of plastic as it exits the extruder.
   2. To calculate my filament’s I took measurements of the filament over the span of about a foot at ten different points.  At each point I measured the filament twice – at 90 degree angles from each other.  Here are my readings (yours should differ).  The first two values on each row are the two readings at each level.  The third value in each row is the average of the first two values.  The 11th line is merely an average of the ten prior averaged readings.
      1. 2.98    2.85    2.915²
      2. 2.84    2.98    2.91 (Average of 2.84 and 2.98))
      3. 2.81    2.86    2.835³
      4. 2.88    2.81    2.845
      5. 2.82    2.86    2.84
      6. 2.86    2.79    2.825
      7. 2.85    2.85    2.85
      8. 2.84    2.81    2.825
      9. 2.92    3.15    3.035
      10. 2.85    3.01    2.93
      11. 2.881mm⁴
   3. As this is the only reading you’ll be taking of your setup, be sure and do it carefully.  If you get this right, you’ll never agonize over Skeinforge calibrations again.
3. Enter your filament’s average diameter into Dave’s program
   1. Try out these settings:
      1. Gear diameter:  If you’re using the MakerBot MK5 Drive Gear, it should stay 10.58.
      2. Filament diameter:  This is where you enter your averaged measurements from the last step.  Mine was 2.88 – yours will differ.
      3. Gear swell mod:  For the moment, just enter “0.90″ if you’re using ABS and “1.0″ if you’re using PLA.  This is where some of the voodoo math comes in.
      4. Flow rate min/max/fudge factor:   0.5 / 5.0 / 1.0
      5. Feed rate min/max/increment:  30/30/5
      6. Thread height min/max/increment: 0.36 / 0.36 / 0.05
      7. Thread width min/max/increment: 0.75/0.75/0.05
   2. Click “Go” to get your recommended settings!
      1. If you entered different values for the minimum and maximum values for Feed rate, Thread height, and Thread width, you’ll have a number of options to choose from.  If you want a profile that will “just work” try out those settings above.  Dave’s first Skeinforge guide defines all of these things, but a very quick overview is as follows:
         1. Feed rate is how fast your XY platform will be moving as you print.  30mm/s is a nice safe bet for speed.  35 should work reasonably well too.
         2. Thread height is the layer height.  Layers at 0.36mm each will give you a good solid, quick printing object.  More layers per millimeter will give you a higher Z resolution.
         3. Thread width is the width of each extruded thread as it is laid down.  Thinner threads will give you a higher XY resolution.
         4. Flow rate is how fast the extruder takes in plastic.  This is the magic value you are solving for with Dave’s program.
4. Enter your recommended settings into Skeinforge
   1. Enter “Thread height” into Carve -> “Layer Thickness (mm)”
   2. Enter “Thread width” into Carve -> “Perimeter Width over Thickness (ratio)”
   3. Enter “Thread width” into Fill -> “Infill Width over Thickness (ratio)”
   4. Enter “Feed rate” into Speed -> “Feed Rate (mm/s)”
   5. Enter “Flow rate” into Speed -> “Flow Rate Setting (float)”
   6. Enter “Feed rate” into Speed -> “Travel Feed Rate (mm/s)”
5. Print!
   1. Print happily secure in the knowledge Skeinforge is powered by SCIENCE!

Fair warning – I’m leaving out two of the coolest features from Dave’s program.  I’ll cover both of these features next time.  However, for right now, as long as you provide his program an accurate reading of your filament diameter, you can basically just tell it how fast you want to print and at what resolution – and get all the settings you need.

1. 1. Configuring Skeinforge:  Basic Settings with David Durant
   2. Configuring Skeinforge:  Five Critical Settings with David Durant
   3. Configuring Skeinforge:  Configuring the Latest Version of Skeinforge with David Durant
   4. Configuring Skeinforge:  Creating a New Profile with THE David Durant
   5. Configuring Skeinforge:  Tuning a New Profile with THE AMAZING David Durant

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2. Average of 2.98 and 2.85 [↩]
3. Hey!  Now you’re getting it! [↩]
4. Average all of the averages above [↩]