MakerBot Industries

Slicing with style

Gian Pablo’s excellent tutorial on how to manually edit Skeinforge profiles on Mac OS X got me thinking that manually editing Skeinforge profiles isn’t exactly intuitive for just about any operating system. ¹  For instance, Windows Vista will store Skeinforge settings in one of two locations.  These profiles are located either in a sub-folder where you have ReplicatorG installed or a sub-folder of your user profile.

1. Location of Skeinforge Settings in ReplicatorG
   • replicatorg-0024\skein_engines\skeinforge-35\skeinforge_application\prefs
2. Location of Skeinforge Settings under User Profile
   • C:\Users\USERNAME\.replicatorg\sf_35_profiles

The settings folder within the ReplicatorG sub-folder should contain a series of sub-folders with the stock profiles:

• SF35-cupcake-ABP
• SF35-cupcake-HBP
• SF35-Thingomatic-ABP
• SF35-Thingomatic-ABP-Stepstruder
• SF35-Thingomatic-ABP-Stepstruder-1.75
• SF35-Thingomatic-HBP
• SF35-Thingomatic-HBP-Stepstruder
• SF35-Thingomatic-HBP-Stepstruder-1.75
• SF35-Thingomatic-non-heated

It seems that when you create a new Skeinforge profile within ReplicatorG the new settings profile will be stored under your User Profile.  The profiles themselves are basically a collection of text documents laid out in the exact order you would see them in when viewing Skeinforge.  Changing the settings manually is merely a matter of opening one of those text documents in a text editor and changing the relevant values.

1. Photo courtesy of pj_vanf [↩]

I’ve been using a 1/16″ aluminum build surface on my Thing-O-Matic for weeks, with really good results. Now you can buy an aluminum platform from Makerbot, and cover it with wide Kapton tape for the ultimate build surface. I’ve been using this combination on my Cupcake CNC for a while, and it is great: parts adhere really well and there is no warping. (Top tip: wipe the platform with acetone before printing for even better adhesion.)

However, this poses a challenge: sometimes parts stick to the platform so well that it can take a real effort, and a lot of force, to get them off. On the Cupcake, I would just detach the build platform and lever the piece loose. However, on the Thing-O-Matic, the platform is fixed, and you end up applying a lot of force to the X&Y platform as you try to release the piece.

One solution is to just double up the aluminum plate, and hold it on with bulldog clips, as described here. However, I went for a quicker solution in the short term.

Wing nut holding heated build platform for easy removal

I just put M3 wing nuts on the bolts holding the platform (you only really need 4, one on each corner, not 6). When I’m done printing, I can just detach the HBP connector (power off first!) and quickly unscrew the wing nuts. This allows for easy access to the printed piece from all sides, plus I can apply quite a bit of force without affecting the structure of the Thing-O-Matic.

At some point, I’d love to see a quick release mechanism for the Thing-O-Matic platform, like this one, but for now this is really saving me a lot of time and effort.

I’ve known Gian Pablo for a long time as comembers of NYCResistor and now he’s joining us as a part time blogger here on the MakerBot blog. He keeps his bot at Noisebridge, the SF hackerspace and he’s obsessed with optimizing and using the MakerBot to get things done. He’s also a dad, so I expect we’ll see him blog about MakerBotting as a dad as well! Welcome!

When putting together my Thing-O-Matic, first with a Mk5 extruder and then a Mk6+, a perpetual source of frustration was attaching the thermocouple to the thermal block. It seemed like tightening the nut would rotate it, and it would come loose. Moreover, more than once the stresses of assembling and disassembling the extruder would loosen it as well.

Fortunately, there is a simple solution:

Mk6+ heater block with groove for thermocouple

I used a Dremel tool with a diamond grinding bit to make a groove in the side of the heater block, where the thermocouple fits. It grips the thermocouple wire as the nut is tightened, and prevents it from rotating loose. With this simple change, I can always get the thermocouple installed on the first try, and it feels really solid.

The annual Jell-O Mold Competition is coming up again, with plenty of opportunities for MakerBot Operators and Thingiverse makers. The teens portion of the competition has already been using MakerBots to print molds — how might you use your MakerBot to make objects out of Jell-O or other gelatinous substances? Check out the Call To Entry below!

Jell-O’s Big Adventure

The Jell-O Mold Competition has taken Jell-O out of the cafeteria, but the time has come to take it out of the kitchen altogether and into the world at large! This year, Jell-O takes New York.

To get things wobbling, we took Jell-O out to the city and into the classroom for a Jell-O Mold Workshop for NYC high school students run in partnership with Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum and Eyebeam Art + Technology Center, with additional support from Smart Design–now it’s your turn to get in on the adventure.

This year’s competition asks designers to explore the everyday uses of this wobbly, delicious, shape shifting medium.

Designers will compete for cash prizes, a year membership to the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, gifts from Papabubble, Holstee, and more!

A crack panel of respected judges including Allan Chochinov of Core77, Emily Elsen of Four & Twenty Blackbirds pie shop, and Josee Lepage of creative agency Bondtoo will announce the winners at 8pm on Saturday, June

25, 2011.  The judging and awards ceremony will be held at the Gowanus Studio Space in Brooklyn.

Enter today!

Usually, I try to say something clever about these items, but this time, I’m going to have to defer to guru himself:

while browsing through thingiverse I found a huge number of dragons but I also noticed a serious lack of wizzards.

End quote and ’nuff said.  Take some time to hone your support material settings and then unleash some magick!

Wizzard by guru

while browsing through thingiverse I found a huge number of dragons but I also noticed a serious lack of wizzards. So I made this one in blender. See local-guru.net/blog/2011/05/16/3d-printed-wizzard for my printing adventures

This thing brought to you by

Nicholas C. Lewis who is part of the crew over at Open3DP have come up with a 2D inkjet printer that’s on a XY coordinate system. Can you guess what happens next?

They’ve done an amazing job documenting it, check it out! A “Thing”, a video a flickr album and ablog post. Keep up the good work!

I’ve been working with Lynn Hershman on some interesting projects, including a large-scale interactive installation that was shown at the Sundance film festival. The piece allows users to browse an archive of videos featuring work by contemporary women artists, using virtual flashlights that illuminate a simulated room.

I was able to use my Makerbot to make some small but critically important parts for the physical interface, parts that would have been difficult to make using any other techniques. Using the Makerbot and OpenSCAD, not only was I able to build the part (with help from friends), but I had it very, very quickly.

Wii to flashlight adapter ring

Keep reading for more details on what this little part does, and why using the Makerbot was the best option for building it.

Read the rest of this entry »

"Do you enjoy warm candy?"

This just looks like an instant classic to me.  There are just a few things that people always like to print – MakerBot coins, bottle openers, Pink Panther women, heart-shaped boxes, to name a few.  Bradley’s Heart-Shaped Candy Dish looks like a real contender to me.  It’s simple, pretty, and functional.

Although, I just can’t help but think of a robot asking me, “Do you like warm candy?”¹²³

Heart-shaped Candy Dish by Bradley

Here's a thing to use as a thoughtful gift to thank those significant people who have been so supportive (patient and tolerant) of all those (frustrating) hours you've spent tinkering, tweaking and hacking your 3D printer to produce a decent print. I designed it in Alibre Design.

This thing brought to you by

1. Because, you see, the plastic and automated build platform would be kind warm. [↩]
2. I kinda lied.  I was really thinking of a Dalek asking me “DO YOU LIKE WARM CANDY?” but I didn’t want to go there. [↩]
3. Um, I guess I just did. [↩]

Kinect Camera Tripod Mount with Embedded Threaded Insert

Before your imagination carries you to embedded systems or even cyberpunk, I should warn you: I’m talking about a simple hack to integrate hardware of the nuts, bolts, and threaded inserts variety. ABS plastic is sturdy and easy to work with — but for fastening and unfastening many many times, metal hardware can be an advantage.

I wanted to make a sturdy 3D-printed camera mount for MakerBot’s current artist-in-residence Kyle McDonald who is doing work with the Kinect. I liked a few of the Kinect mounts that I found online at Thingiverse and elsewhere (particularly the Kinect mount to camera tripod by Henkka and Kinect Tv mount by Chooch) but Kyle requested something that could really lock down the Kinect mount for longterm, rugged use. (Also, the four outer holes on a Kinect are just the right size to create threading for M3 bolts.)

When I found a bunch of 1/4-20 threaded inserts in the BotCave, I thought: “Why don’t I build my model around this hardware?”

Creating the Model

I built my mount using Tinkercad, a solid modeller, so that I could continue to tweak my model after every time I printed it. Bonus: you can jump in and make your own version of the mount with whatever baroque embellishments appeal to you. Edit the part online at: tinkercad.com/p/acc0d8eff4d75895

Rather than aiming to trap the threaded insert with a second 3D printed plug¹, I designed the model so that I could perform post-print extruding to seal the hardware into the part. Essentially, I added a enough millimeters to the tolerances around the parts I want to seal in that I can extrude plastic down into the cavity to seal it in.

Embedding the Hardware

For a few months I have used a “partymode” script to extrude in intermittent bursts for filling in voids in prints that need just that one last dollop of love. This script heats up the nozzle and omits turning off the heater at the end of the print ((And not turning it off at the end of the print — a bit risky if you don’t watch what you are doing.)) so that I can run it series for short periods of time.² You can create a script like this for yourself — or you can use the options for setting the extrusion time in seconds using the control panel in RepG 24 and 25.

Here are the steps I took after printing the base model.

1

Place the hardware in the socket prepared for it in the model. Warm up the extruder to about 230 degrees Celsius and set the stepper extrusion speed to about 1.5 to 1.9. If you have one handy, thread a bolt into the insert to prevent any plastic from slipping into the mounting point itself.

2

Set extrusion to 10 or 30 second at a time and bring the part to fill up to within a couple of millimeters of the nozzle. Fill the cavities around the mounting spike just like you might with a hotglue gun. I move the part in a tiny circle so that the plastic can fill the cavity fairly evenly. Fill a little bit higher than the top surface.

3

Having completely filled the bottom cavities, I pull the part out of the MakerBot. While the plastic is still warm, I press the plastic down into the cavity firmly with my fingers. A flat screwdriver or a tiny file can work well to clean up any excess or stray threads. After pressing the plastic flush, I flip the part over to fill in the top cavities.

4

The completed, filled top cavities. As the camera pin and the threaded insert will be locking down, filling the top is more to taste — as long as he extrusion at least reaches the plastic extruded into the other side a tiny bit.

Now I have a Kinect camera mount with the hardware locked in place for easy use!

What projects of yours would benefit from this approach?

1. which would work really well — feel free to design a snap-in and share it back with folks! [↩]
2. Afterwards, you can sand the “filler” back flush with the surface of the model with some sandpaper. [↩]