MakerBot Industries

You might have missed your chance to attend the live, pre-sold-out Impossible Girl show at the new MakerBot Workshop space, but here are a few glimpses of the fun.

Check out the live stream archive above and slideshow below!

Just a week after I bemoaned its absence, here we are: a printable Fleur De Lis.  Once again, Thingiverse rises to the challenge.  Is there anything that Thingiverse users can’t do?

I’m going to go with a “no” until definitively proven wrong, with an irrefutable proof in formal logic.  Thanks for continuing not to disprove me, phibroptic!

Fleur De Lis by phibroptic

My wife, and her old sorority, are big fans of the Fleur De Lis. (A decorative lily.) Also used (in various forms) by scouts, sports teams, and many others. When I finished assembling, testing, and calibrating my Thing-O-Matic, This was my first print as a way to thank her for indulging my nerdy obsessions. I didn't design it, I pulled it off the Google Sketchup warehouse. It can be found here sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=4cf07fb6cf4105169eeaab05b21288d and design should be credited to user Frisky Dingo.

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Rotary Sprinklers by Supermange

If you’re using Google Sketchup for designing 3D printable models, you may have noticed that exporting to STL’s using some of the various plugins can be very hit-or-miss.  After checking out Supermange’s rotary sprinklers I was reminded of this quick fix for a very common design problem in Google Sketchup – the “flipped face.”

Looking at the screenshot above, you’ll notice that the facets of the object are either a white-and-light-gray tone or a dark-gray-and-darker-gray tone.  As a surface modeler, Google Sketchup doesn’t much pay much attention to whether a surface is on the outside or inside of a model.  However, once you turn it into an STL, this can create problems.

Fortunately, this is an easy problem to fix.  All you need to do is right click on the darker face (such as much of the top right flange of the model above) and select “Reverse face” from the menu.  While you can select multiple faces at once and flip all of them simultaneously, this still leaves a minor, and somewhat tedious, problem of detecting the flipped faces in the first place.  If they are too numerous or tiny to locate, you might be better off using some STL correction software to fix the flipped faces.

As most of you already know, Space Month coincides with the end of an era.  The final shuttle mission has touched down, and there are many questions about the future of spaceflight  here in the U.S.

However, the good news is that there are some amazing designs on Thingiverse to help commemorate the occasion, not the least of which is RotoScan’s detailed, multi-part model, complete with launch pad.  We might not be able to go to space ourselves, but now we’ll be able to simulate the launch process, complete with boosters and fuel tank.

This isn’t a great consolation — many of us space-o-philes had hoped that there would be a robust successor program in place by the time the shuttle program wound down.  The silver lining for those of us in the DIY world is that this will hopefully open up possibilities for new, innovative ideas from inventors and engineers like you.

Space Shuttle on launch pad by RotoScan

This is a model of the Space Shuttle that stands over 12" high. It started out as this model from Google's 3D warehouse. sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=4c41b6547d241ffd9aa9d7f676c1fd7e&prevstart=0 All the parts come apart so you can configure it in many ways. - On the launch pad fully assembled - Launched with boosters attached - Boosters detached - just the Orbiter and fuel tank - Orbiter by itself

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Thingiverse User Supermange has uploaded a design for a rotary sprinkler, thus making Thingiverse just that much cooler… water cooled in fact. He doesn’t have a MakerBot so he’s reaching out for help with prototyping. He doesn’t have a lawn either, so it’s not really going to be that practical for him. But it’s cool. Rotary sprinklers are cool like bowties are cool except that they turn your hose into an afternoon of fun and wetness. They go back and forth and do what they are told and they don’t even have a computer or arduino attached. They could water your lawn or your garden too.

The mechanics of it remind me of the Syvwlch’s clock escapement project. Very cool. Could you run a clock off a hose using this mechanism? Only the users of Thingiverse would dare to find out!

I love so much about this project. The designer wants it for no other reason that it should exist, it’s an opportunity for collaboration and shared development, and it’s just so freaking cool to see something like this show up as 3D printable. I also think it’s great that Supermange just decided that rotary sprinklers are cool and committed to showing us all how cool they are by whipping up a design in sketchup. If you’ve got spare time and the interest, help him bring the future of sprinklers to a MakerBot near you by prototyping the design and giving him some feedback or jumping in and making a derivative.

How to justify your Thing-O-Matic to your significant other!

As everyone knows, any good relationship involves negotiation and compromise.  Thingiverse citizen Bluemetal was able to justify the purchase of his Thing-O-Matic 3D printer by pointing out all of the things around his house he’d be able to fix.  This has lead him to fix his car’s luggage compartment cover (a savings of at least $550!) and a rotary sprinkler (a savings of at least $9.99).  This doesn’t even begin to contemplate the amount of time, travel, gas, and wear-and-tear on his vehicles he’s saved by just making the replacements he would otherwise have to go out and purchase.  While Bluemetal certainly isn’t the first person to use their MakerBot to print up replacement parts and save themselves money, he appears to be the first to be keeping a running tally of the amounts saved by using it.  It sounds like Bluemetal is well on his way to having his Thing-O-Matic pay for itself.

Here’s Bluemetal in his own words:

Being (or trying to be) a maker is not easy. Justifying your investments to your Significant Other requires some careful planning ( measure twice – cut once! ). My infra-red camera was justified with potential savings in our heating bill as I used to find cold air leaks around our +100 year old house.

The 3d printer was not that easy at first. I tried the cute things like a Gear Heart with some success but the real opinion former was to repair the cover for the luggage compartment in my car. After trying super glue and loosing the broken piece, I tried to buy just the plastic part and was informed that it was not possible and that the whole cover would set me back some USD 550.

My Thing-o-Matic saved the day! Using Google SketchUP I was able to create an exact piece (in 2 parts later glued together) to fit in the broken cover and secured firmly in place in some screws. The repair (made in orange plastic on purpose) is barely visible when in use but it has been shown several times to my Significant Other – who now feels that my investment in the 3d printer has been partially justified. I just need to find some USD 1000 worth of broken things fixable with pieces of plastic!

Even if you don’t have a significant other, there are still lots of ways you could justify a purchase of a 3D printer to someone who would be willing to help.  Some have created Kickstarter campaigns, while others have lobbied their parents, schools, or even employers.  Like Bluemetal, just think of some ways you can use your 3D printer to make or save money, resources, or time and put together a persuasive argument.

What’s your best 3D printer justification story?

How to justify your TOM to your significant other! by Bluemetal

We have all been there! How do you explain a several thousand dollars investment into another "toy"? My significant other (SO) had some issues with the amount of money and specially time I spent with the TOM. Not even thingiverse.com/derivative:9461 won her over (though it did get some extra time credit over all).I needed something significant ( in monetary terms ) to bring her over to our side. In my case, I had the (mis)fortune of breaking the end of my cars luggage compartment cover. The cover can be used in the 5 and 7 seat configuration so it has extensions that lock to the ends to make it longer for the 5 seat set up. The broken piece that connected to the left extension was around a bit and I tried the usual super glue cure with terrible results - not only it did not glue properly, it actually made me loose the broken piece altogether (now I see it was divine providence!). Upon contacting the dealer to try to buy the offending plastic part and after being politely told to stop being foolish and that Plan B (a whole new cover) was going to cost USD 550, I saw the light! :0What if I fixed the cover and saved USD 550 (plus tax)? Hero for a few days maybe and even, just maybe a "isn't nice that you bought the 3d printer thingy?" Lofty goals but the difference between courage and ignorance is usually not that big.

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Around the Botcave we have been marveling at MakerBot staff member Tony Buser‘s incredible Mars Exploration Rover, and greeted his latest print (with black-on-yellow solar panel textures, and new dimpled, pose-able hinges) with cheers when he brought it in today for us to put it in our Mars/Moon landing display case.

Well, we aren’t the only one to notice Tony’s model. Check out Wired.co.uk’s “The Coolest Objects to Come Out of a 3D Printer” slideshow: featuring Tony’s rover, a few other Thingiverse notables¹, our friends at Nooka, and even a MakerBot 3D printer!

Here is a quote from the Wired.co.uk article that I appreciated:

…while robots can recreate themselves and advances in medicine are becoming increasingly 3D printing based, it’s easy to overlook all the awesome, if slightly less important, stuff that designers and printing communities are churning out of 3D printers.

3D printing has encouraged communities of designers, modders and printers who are endlessly creating new things to produce through 3D printers, and sharing their designs. Sites like Thingiverse allow designers to profile and improve upon their digital designs, which take on a new physical reality when another user prints them.

Mars Exploration Rover by tbuser

Articulated, snap together, Mars Rover! No screws, glue, or support structure needed (although some glue in a few places wouldn't hurt). All the parts can be posed, turned, twisted. The wheels turn and the legs even pivot like the real thing to go over obstacles! Unfortunately, it is not autonomous.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Exploration_Rover2011-07-19 Update: V3 fixes a problem with plate 5 that was causing some pieces to be too close together and get merged, makes the axel holes in the body a little tighter, half the panels in the plates have been flipped so that the shiny side of all pieces printed on a HBP can be on top, I made the dimples on the panel tabs larger so they hold together better, and I also added squares to the panels to make them look more like solar panels.2011-07-16 Update: I uploaded a new version of everything with a few changes like dimpled tabs for the solar panels (thanks to gpvillamil) and slightly larger holes to make it easier to snap bolts into. I also added a variable to the openscad script called tolerance that you can use to make those holes slightly larger. If you print the tolerance_test.stl you can use it to help find the right tolerance for your printer. The holes range from a tolerance value of 0.0 to 0.6 in 0.1 increments and the files I uploaded are 0.2

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miniature version of a real existing house by BonsaiBrain

This thing was a christmas present for my parents: My childhood home in 3D! It was hard work to come from the sketch to the printed miniature version of the house. The final result consists of 11 parts. It was designed with openSCAD. One can easy look at each floor separately. All parts are resized to ~1/65 scale to make them printable on my reprap mendel. The parts wese printed of PLA with a slice thickness of 0.2 mm. The complete prining time was about 65 h. To make sure the roof will not brake away from the printbed, I glued it with a hot-melt gun - easy to remove from PLA and from the printbed, but sticky enough for that purpose. Hope you have fun with it - my parents had! For more information look here: ifeelbeta.de Greetings BonsaiBrain

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Bucket O' Octopi by yeoldebrian

In the tradition of barrel of monkey's these guys are meant to link together en masse. They can form chains or even checkered sheets by connecting on all four corners. This thing was originally conceived and designed by MakerBot's own Matthew Griffin (http://thingiverse.com/mifga). Enjoy and please send comments, we're still working on it! Check out v16 for our latest and greatest version! the sc55 version is the version that they are printing at MakerBot lately....

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1. Ah, indefatigable Barrel ‘O Octopi! [↩]

We’re very pleased to lend our new workshop space to the Impossible Girl this Thursday evening.  I’m afraid that her entire audience has already been pre-booked through a very clever Kickstarter campaign, and thus you cannot attend in person.  However, there will be a live stream of the concert, which will start at around 7:30pm.

Read more about Kim’s awesome project after the break! Read the rest of this entry »

Bathtub U-Boat by Skimbal

Michael Curry, also known as Skimbal on Thingiverse, was recently interviewed by NPR regarding his incredible designs on display at Maker Faire Kansas City.  Michael discusses how his MakerBot 3D printer has been a creative outlet and even how it has also helped his career in this down economy.  If you haven’t seen Michael’s work yet, you definitely need to take a look at his “Designed Things” page on Thingiverse.  His designs are usually large multi-print pieces, incredibly intricate, and seem to always push the boundaries of what’s possible with a single 3D printer at your disposal.

Check out the link for the full audio interview along with some photographs from the event!

A father-and-sons team of MakerBot Operators have just put together their first bot — and completed their first print. Jeremy, Ishan, and Akash sent in the video they made of this experience to the Customer Support team.

Watching the video this morning reminded me of my first day interning at MakerBot, watching an idler pulley print on a production CupCake with a MK4 toolhead. Pure magic. I particularly enjoy how this team keeps busy during the entire print, experimenting with spool holders and doing their best to keep their fingers out of the machine, despite overwhelming curiosity.

Congrats to Jeremy, Ishan and Akash!