MakerBot Industries

3D Printing is for the birds

Karsten needed something to hold his apple pieces to his bird cage and Thingiverse citizen webghost was ready with his 3D printer to help out.  Now Karsten does not need to evolve and webghost is a MakerBot hero!

The distribution of animal assistance devices on Thingiverse is quite interesting:

1. Apple slice holder by webghost http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:8784
2. Birdfeeder by araspitfire http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4847
3. Automatic dog feeder by 2robotguy http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5512
4. Automatic cat feeder by damonkohler http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4782
5. Cat food ball by mirk http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:8311
6. Cat toy by flintols http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5911
7. Cat food divider by shutterbug http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:8411
8. Cat waste scooper by gadgetguydk http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:340
9. Ferret hammock bracket by chooch http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5892
10. Pet treat dispenser (for cats) by ScribbleJ http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7837
11. Hamster food dish by smwombat http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2313

For those keeping score at home, that’s six for cats, two for birds, one for dogs, one for ferrets, and one for hamsters.  What’s your explanation for this distribution?

Apple Skewer for Birdcages 1.0 by webghost

This is a little tool that makes it easier to attach apple pieces to your bidcage. Special thanks to Karsten for needing something that holds his apple pieces! :)

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Birdfeeder by araspitfire

Turn a water bottle into a bird-feeder.

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DOG FEEDER (5in PCV PIPE) by 2ROBOTGUY

This design is still under development. The idea is to be able to buy a 5in PCV pipe from your local hardware store, print some parts, and assembly a dry dog food dispenser. This idea could also be tweaked for a cat feeder or Some how mount a stepper motor for an automatic animal feeder!

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Automated Cat Feeder by damonkohler

This is my Android-powered, automated cat feeder. A Python script runs via SL4A on the phone serving up a webcam feed and taking care of triggering the feeder on schedule. For more details, video, and code, see my blog entry here:damonkohler.com/2010/11/android-automated-cat-feeder.html

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Cat Food Ball by mirk

This ball is intended to give your cat exercise as they eat their food. I saw a ball like this at the pet store and, as I have extremely strong makerbot goggles, decided to design and print one. It's taken her a while, but my cat is starting to learn to use it.

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Cat Toy by flintols

I saw a cat toy and thought why should I pay $3 for that...so I went home and made something similar. It is also a good print capability test.

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Divide Cat Food into 3 servings by shutterbug

Our two cats love their wet food every morning. So much in fact, that they wake me up at 4:30 a.m. when they are ready to eat. But if they eat too much, they get too fat. So I divide each can of Friskies wet cat food into 3 servings. But I don't always divide it correctly at 4:30 a.m., so I decided to make this cat food serving guide. Print on Makerbot, and then press this into a freshly-opened can of cat food to help make the servings even.

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Cat Pooper Scooper ( by gadgetguydk

Taking care of two cats sooner or later involves some very nasty "sorting". Sorting litter from poop normally involves some sort of cheap plastic scoop, but since the shops were closed before I realised I needed one, I quickly threw one together in Illustrator. It's not very ergonomic, it's not very durable, but it takes 2 minutes to cut and fold and gets the job done. This is version 2.0 scaled up about 20%...

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Ferret hammock bracket by Chooch

After my ferrets' hammock fell a few times, I decided to create a mount that I could screw in securely, while also easily clip on and off the hammock clips. The bracket has been in service for almost a year and the hammock has not fallen since. The bracket can easily hold ~10lbs of ferrets when they decide to all stuff into the one hammock.

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Pet Treat Dispenser by ScribbleJ

(click on the thumbnail for the full-length photo) This is an internet-controlled pet treat dispenser. The model pictured has dual chutes and canholders so it will dispense two treats simultaneously, since we have two cats. That's not a necessary component, you can use a single shaft and canholder. The idea here is to put a webcam where it can view the dispenser, possibly something to make a noise to attract the cats, and then give them a treat. In our case, the 'webcam' and noise will be provided by a Rovio. The electronics are arduino-based and can be attached directly to a PC via USB or controlled more remotely with a bluetooth dongle. There is a (very) simple Perl CGI that will activate the pet feeder over the internet. For the record, the plastic used in my photos is: Blue and Green PLA from: diamondage.co.nz/pla.html Natural PLA from: makergear.com/products/filament Printed on my Thing-O-Matic. WIP WHY: * Not completely tested, but it WILL be complete by the end of the day, with more photos and demo videos!! * The joiners I was experimenting with in the STLs below are not really good, especially the part with 4 is basically impossible to get together, although it may work a little nicer in more flexible ABS; these prints of mine are all PLA. * My initial tests show the treats I'm using are tend to jam up in the canister instead of falling into the hopper. My initial plan to fix this is to chop up the treats into smaller bits by hand and load them in the canisters. If that does not work, I may have to resort to printing the entire mechanism somewhat larger, and/or designing some kind of agitator for the canisters. * Documentation below obviously WIP. * Software to be (written and then) provided! QUICK UPDATE: Testing various treats, sizes, shaking the cans, and stuff... we're stuck with the problem that the treats bind up in the can instead of falling into the holes. The next step in solving the problem will be to add some kind of better agitation to the treats that are still in the can. This will require redesigning some of the parts, unfortunately, which I'm doing now. UPDATE (2011-04-18): I've got a new design for the gears, gearbox, and canholders that might help alleviate the jamming problem. I'll post them after a test. - supplemental: I posted the parts, although they are untested and still printing here. UPDATE (2011-04-20): New parts tested and they work MUCH better. I think it could still be improved somewhat, and there's a bit too much room in some places, but I can probably run with this design as-is.

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Hamster Food Dish by smwombat

This is a replacement food dish for our hamster, Chester. It is designed to fit into the hole in the plastic shelf. The upper lip keeps the bowl from falling through the hole in the shelf.

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Poor Man's OpenSCAD Screw Library by aubenc

Screw Library by syvwlch

This morning, you are waking up to two OpenSCAD screw libraries, released within hours of each other. While they were created for slightly different purposes – aubenc‘s focused on traditional 3D printed hardware and syvwlch offering a tool that works for generating threaded rods or lead screws with custom threading angles — we are the richer for having both of them available to us.

If you haven’t yet dived into this parametric design application yet via the OpenSCAD Institute of MakerBlock tutorial series, then this is a great time. These new libraries, and a host of other recent innovations by WilliamAAdams, offer some pretty broad shoulders to stand on to unlock the mysteries of OpenSCAD.

Or you can simply take advantage of the work they’ve done and simply 3D print that bolt you’ve been needing!

Screw Library by syvwlch

This is the Thing page for the Screw Library I am working on. I could be talked into releasing it as Public Domain, but have left it as CC-BY-SA for now, at least until it's fully stabilized. The latest code is available on GitHub here:github.com/syvwlch/Thingiverse-Projects/tree/master/Threaded%20Library Currently, the library allows you to create a threaded rod with a trapezoidal profile, like the Acme or metric lead screws that are so common in CNC machines. The trapezoidThread module creates the rod along Z, centered in X and Y, but not in Z. Same logic as cylinders with center=false. The parameters are the following: length // axial length of the threaded rod // used to calculate how many turns to create // the rod is NOT trimmed to this length!!! pitch // axial distance from crest to crest pitchRadius // radial distance from center to mid-profile threadHeightToPitch // ratio between profile height and pitch // default value is 0.5 profileRatio // ratio between raised profile and pitch // default value is 0.5 threadAngle // angle between the two faces of the thread, in degrees // std value for Acme is 29 or for metric lead screw is 30 // default value is 30 RH // true if thread winds clockwise along shaft // i.e.follows the Right Hand Rule // default value is true clearance // radial clearance, normalized to thread height // default value is 0.1 backlash // axial clearance, normalized to pitch // default value is 0.1 stepsPerTurn // number of facets to create per turn // default value is 24 You can create a triangular profile thread by setting profileRatio to zero, but that is cumbersome. I will create a separate module for that and add it to this page, later. UPDATE: I have added a trapezoidThreadNegativeSpace module to create a negative space of a thread with the proper clearances to screw on, as long as you give it the same parameters. It can add two chamfered holes at the entries. It takes the following parameters on top of the ones needed for trapezoidThread: length // thickness of the part to be drilled out by this object countersunk // depth of the 45 degree chamfers, normalized to pitch // default value is zero, no chamfer I have also added a trapezoidNut module which uses the above negative space module to create a hexagonal lead nut with the right clearances to screw onto any thread that shares the same parameters. It takes the following additional parameters: radius // outer radius of the nut

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Poor man's openscad screw library by aubenc

This is my humble take on a screw library to be used in your OpenSCAD scripts. If you are serious, please be, you'll better use thingiverse.com/thing:8793 syvwlch. Anyway, I had this thing for months in the lost projects folder suffering from some serious issues, well some of them remain (it doesn't render) and once the dust has been shaken it compiles quite nice and printable things. Instead of functions, this thing uses loops. Instead of rotate polyhedrons, this thing draws the polyhedron in a new set of points. Just a couple of comments to help using this thing: - I've found that a resolution of something like 1.5mm (PI/2 is what I use the most) works very well for threads that will be used with nuts made with a resolution of 0.5mm. - I've printed the threads with a very low infill (0.2) but for the nuts, setting up this value (I've used 0.45) helped a lot with the overhang issue. More pics @ aubenc.imgur.com/screws_threads_an_other_polyhedron_games

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The MakerBot Family of Stepper Motors

Good news! We’ve launched all three of the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic’s motors for individual sale in the store this morning! We have had lots of requests to make the Threaded Rod Nema 17 and High Torque Nema 17 available, and now we can. The third motor shown is our new NEMA 17 model with a 5mm shaft, which now ships with our bots.

We can’t wait to see what awesome devices you build with these great motors- send in your photos!

Threaded Rod NEMA 17 Stepper Motor

High Torque NEMA17 Stepper Motor

Hybrid NEMA 17 Stepper Motor

Curvey bits in 3DTin.com

If you haven’t checked out 3DTin.com in a little while, it’s definitely worth another look.  When 3DTin.com appeared a few months ago it could only be used for designing 3D objects out of cubes.  Designing with just cubes can be quick and reasonably easy, but the end result can have a rough texture.

Since then, Jayesh Salvi, the creator of 3DTin.com has been hard at work developing even more functionality.  He’s added 11 new shapes including cylinders, cone, wedge, sphere, and several variations on these.  You can even specify some of the parameters for these components – such as the radius or height of a cylinder.  Once added, these new parts can be rotated and flipped to suit.

This new functionality is going to allow people to design even more interesting and detailed objects.  These would be amazing additions in any 3D design program, but their inclusion in a browser based program that can export directly to Thingiverse is just plain incredible.

Cho Oyu and Ngozumpa Glacier by bld

I have written before about the interesting mapping projects appearing on Thingiverse lately, but MakerBot Operator bld‘s Cho Oyu and Ngozumpa Glacier is the first I’ve seen of Thingiverse users creating 3D printed maps/scale models of terrain that might be useful for planning actual real-world mountaineering expeditions.

Cho Oya, on the border between Tibet and China, is the 6th highest mountain in the world. The Ngozumpa glacier at its feet is the longest glacier in the Himalayas, and has been a crucial area of scientific investigation regarding the effects of global warming on the region. bld modeled the NW and SW quadrants of the glacier for “a friend’s expedition to study the glacier.” And while bld promises to post further recipes for how to mine primary sources for creating models from any geo data, nonetheless the thing post for this object is a lesson in how to work with the data to create printable, accurate-to-scale models.

In particular, I found the following helpful:

I found that the default scale of the Blender displacement maps was too flat. I did a test print and used calipers to get the scale right. Each pixel in X/Y is 90-m. To get the vertical relief correct, I measured the height of known parts of the map (summit of Cho Oyu and a nearby valley) and compared this to terrain maps in Google maps and the width of the model (200 pixels multiplied by 90m).

Cho Oyu As Seen From Gokyo (I want to go to there)

Cho Oyu and Ngozumpa Glacier by bld

Cho Oyu, 6th highest mountain in the world, and the Ngozumpa glacier below it. Model has 4 quadrants (NW, NE, SW, SE) including Cho Oyu and the north end of Ngozumpa (NW), the southern end of Ngozumpa (SW), and two quadrants to the east including Mt. Everest (NE and SE). I printed the NW and SW quadrants for a friend's expedition to study the glacier. UPDATE: See thingiverse.com/thing:16851 for instructions on making your own.

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Hey folks!  We just wanted to share a few photos from our booth at Blipfest last week.  Not only did we have a great time, but the blipsters seemed to really enjoy it.  There were a lot of folks who already knew about us (and were excited to see a Thing-O-Matic in action) and a whole lot of other people who got their minds blown up by the future.  I even bought a backlight for my gameboy.  And it was great to see Bubblyfish in action.

I think it’s fair to say a good time was had by all.

Worthless Dice by blarbles

I’ve recently learned a few tricks with Inkscape to help me better use my Unicorn. ¹  Since then I’ve discovered that Inkscape can be used to import, edit, and export to DXF files. ²  This is especially relevant given my recent OpenSCAD tutorial that covered converting DXF paths to 3D solids.

Inkscape comes with a DXF exporting function, but it doesn’t seem to work well with OpenSCAD.  I believe the reason for this is that Inkscape exports DXF files in DXF R13 format which uses certain features that are not supported by OpenSCAD.  There are several ways to work around this:

• Use an earlier version of Inkscape. Around about Inkscape version 0.46 or so, it would export DXF files in R12 format – which OpenSCAD can understand.
• Break all curves into lines. Nudel posted his method for exporting to DXF files using any version of Inkscape. ³  Basically he suggests breaking all curves into their component lines.
• Use a different plugin. I have found using the “Better DXF Output” plugin would save my Inkscape drawings as DXF R12 files, which OpenSCAD could interpret.

Once you’ve got your DXF file, don’t forget to check out the OpenSCAD tutorial on extruding 2D objects.

1. Inkscape is a free open source vector drawing program. [↩]
2. Photo courtesy of blarbles’ OpenSCAD tutorial homework! [↩]
3. I’ve updated my OpenSCAD tutorial to link to this post as well [↩]

Castle MakerBot by Renosis

Thingiverse citizen Carmiac recently put together a “Bot Bling challenge.”  The winner was to receive $35.00 from Carmiac himself and MakerBot kicking in some LED’s!  The challenge recently concluded with the winner, Renosis for his “Castle MakerBot.”  From Carmiac:

Congratulations to Thingiverse user Renosis for winning the BotBling Challenge!  His Castle MakerBot entry has everything, great design, complete files, options galore, and over the top awesomeness.  The only thing missing is a moat!

Big thanks and kudos to all the entrants, and stay tuned for my next challenge!

Renosis’ “Castle MakerBot” entry includes:

• Four turrets
• Coat of arms, with 7 different logos in three different positions
  • MakerBot logo
  • Thing-O-Matic
  • Cupcake
  • Unicorn
  • RepRap
  • RepRap logo
  • Open Source Hardware logo
• Medieval torches
• Stained glass window
• Gen4 Interfacenumeric keypad firmware hack
• Runic keypad labels

He even included all the source files for his work.  These included a PDF of the keypad labels, DXF files for some of the logos, Sketchup files for stained glass window, and OpenSCAD files for everything else.  If you’ve ever needed to turn a MakerBot into a castle, this is hands down the only way to go.

Popular Mechanics: "Top 10 Coolest DIY Projects from MakerFaire"

The MakerBot crew was in attendance at MakerFaire 2011 – Bay Area this past weekend — where the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic made quite a splash. Check out a little of what Popular Mechanics has to say about our latest DIY 3D printer kit:

MakerBot Thing-O-MaticMakerBot Industries is a pure example of the maker ethos: Not only has the company created an interesting machine, but its machine’s sole purpose is to create things. Provided with the right instructions, it can print just about any 3D shape into plastic.

It can be hard to explain why exactly someone might want a 3D printer, so the crew put together a demo: a facial scanning system housed inside a 7-foot-tall dome built by maker Michael Felix, the joints of which were created with a 3D printer. Inside, fellow maker Kyle MacDonald uses the infrared camera bar from a Microsoft Kinect, along with software he wrote himself, to capture 3D models of attendees’ faces, which are then printed into plastic statues. The whole process, from flesh to plastic, takes only 45 minutes.

Kids watching a MakerBot for the first time

I had the distinct pleasure of helping out at the MakerBot table this last weekend at Maker Faire Bay Area 2011.¹ After watching dozens of kids and adults exposed to a 3D printer for the first time, here’s the main difference:

Adults: “Wait, can you make anything?”

Kids: “You can make anything!”

While adults may find a 3D printer interesting, somehow kids just seem to “get it.”  Somehow seeing the machine run and looking at a few finished pieces next to it, kids seemed able to completely understand that they could use a 3D printer to make anything they wanted.²

1. Photo courtesy of Bre [↩]
2. Check out all the clock parts on the table! [↩]