MakerBot Industries

Stubby Screwdriver Handle by tomlombardi

Recently I moved one of my daughter’s pint-sized bookshelves from one wall to another.  This isn’t as trivial a task as you might first think.  As you may or may not know, it is recommended that children’s furniture above a certain height and weight be secured to the wall. ¹  The new location that had been selected for the bookshelf was almost right next to a corner – about four inches away.  The problem was that I had a hard time finding a screwdriver short enough to fit between the wall and the bookshelf!  In the end I was able to locate a small cheap screwdriver that came with a some-assembly-required piece of Swedish furniture.

That said…  had I been half as smart as tomlombardi, I would have just made one!

I needed a stubby screwdriver for a project and I almost bought one from a hardware store…Duh! I can print one! All you need are the 1/4″ hex bits which most people already have.

Stubby Screwdriver Handle by tomlombardi

I needed a stubby screwdriver for a project and I almost bought one from a hardware store...Duh! I can print one! All you need are the 1/4" hex bits which most people already have.

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1. In case of the child climbing the furniture or an earthquake having a big piece of furniture strapped to a wall might keep your child from being trapped underneath. [↩]

Dueling Masters of Space-Time by smcameron

Thingiverse citizen smcameron has shared with everyone his family’s totally original game featuring a custom board and game pieces. ¹  As cool and fun as this game sounds from the description and instructions, my favorite part might just be the title, “Dueling Masters of Space Time.”  The pieces move in a vaguely chess-like fashion with a screen preventing the players’ view of one another’s board for an interesting amalgam of chess, battleship, and stratego.

With a quality 2D and 3D printer, you could probably make any kind of board game you could possibly imagine.

Dueling Masters of Space Time by smcameron

Here are game pieces and board artwork for a board game my Dad, my brother, and I invented back in 1980.

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1. In fairness to smcameron, the above picture features the entire game, although apparently without the 3D printed pieces.  It was such a good picture I just had to use it. [↩]

X Buckteeth Leader parametric by timmytool

If you’re rockin’ a Thing-O-Matic, consider installing this clever upgrade from timmytool.  This little plastic part allows you to customize the belt height in your X axis to the height where your X belt naturally rides.  If the place where the belt is held in place on the X carriage is too high or low, it can create additional vibration and noise.

Plus, it kinda looks like a wacky robot face.

X Buckteeth Leader parametric by timmytool

I've found that the x idler pulley tends to ride up against the top y carriage wood. This creates noise and other problems. There are bearing and belt holders and all manner of x axis improvements but I've yet to see one to fix this. The idler rides up due to the belt being pulled up to mesh with the x carriage belt teeth. My solution is to customise the teethes position to match the belts natural path. This is based off of Joakim's x follower openSCAD file so it can match its customization for a perfect x axis sliding action, print his and mine as they replace 2 separate parts. All comments and suggestions welcomed, heck just comment

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Japanese hirajiro castle by arnsteio

How’s this for a first-time contribution to Thingiverse?  Arnsteio’s first design shared on Thingiverse is this incredibly intricate and detailed Japanese hirajiro castle.

This is a small Japanese “hirajiro” plains castle from the sengoku period. Bases were simply made of earth so for the castle to survive the vagaries of weather and earth quakes, superstructures had to be light. Hence we see simple walls, small houses and open-work towers. It is meant for use when wargaming, and will be suitable for campaigns in Japan in the 1400s and 1500s – I will use it for the Kawanakajima campaigns.

Awesome work arnsteio!  Please keep the models coming!

Japanese hirajiro castle by arnsteio

This is a small Japanese "hirajiro" plains castle from the sengoku period. Castle bases were simply made of earth so for the castle to survive the vagaries of weather and earth quakes, superstructures had to be light. Hence we see simple walls, small houses and open-work towers. The model is meant for use when wargaming, and will be suitable for campaigns in Japan in the 1400s and 1500s - I will use it for the Kawanakajima campaigns. I have made it for use with 10mm wargaming armies, though it would work equally well for larger or smaller scales. The ashigaru figure I placed in the courtyard for scale is 10mm foot to eye. He is a ripoff of Erik's excellent bride and groom from thingiverse.com/thing:3495 (and he's based on the bride, no less!).

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Rubber Band Ties by lasivian

One of the most noble uses of a 3D printer has got to be making the world a safer place.  Thingiverse user lasivian described the reason behind his rubber band ties:

You might have seen these under other names, but most of them were no good for me because my girlfriend is allergic to latex.

Enter the printer and a box of latex-free rubber bands from a local office store.

Rubber Band Ties by lasivian

You might have seen these under other names, but most of them were no good for me because my girlfriend is allergic to latex. Enter the printer and a box of latex-free rubber bands from a local office store.

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Keff's Weeping Skeleton Vampire Mummy Earphone Winder

Thingiverse citizen Keff just shared this awesome “Weeping Skeleton Vampire Mummy Earphone Winder.”  The earphone cord works perfectly as a faux-bandage around the mummy’s head.  This is absolutely my favorite earphone winder of all time.  Keff says of his creation:

I got a little carried away making a winder for my new earphones.

Hey Keff – if this is you carried away, don’t ever let anyone carry you back!  This is AWESOME!

Keff's Weeping Skeleton Vampire Mummy Earphone Winder by keff

I got a little carried away making a winder for my new earphones.

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Deck Box for a collectible card game by SirGronk

This card game deck box by SirGronk is such a perfect example of what it can mean to have your own 3D printer.  Since no one mass produces and sells deck boxes for his particular card game, he just designed and printed his very own!  This might even prove to be an interesting and viral little business.  Since you would need an opponent to play against, there’s going to be at least one other person who could potentially be interested in such a deck box.  And, perhaps the people they play with as well.

Don’t forget there are other examples of MakerBotted deck boxes for other games too!

Deck Box for a collectible card game by SirGronk

I play a collectible card game (CCG) called "Vampire: the Eternal Struggle". The V:tES decks have more cards in them than the standard Magic decks. 102 cards in sleeves don't fit in most available deck boxes. So I learned Google Sketchup and made my own. It's not fancy, but it's solid and fits really well. I also put the V:tES logo on the front of the box for added customization and opponent jealousy. Hooray for my first uploaded design!

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Poke Ball Deck Box by 67restomodder

I created a parametric box script in OpenSCAD to make some custom storage boxes. My 11 year-old son asked if I could make him a box to hold a deck of Pokemon cards. He requested it have a Poke Ball on the front of the box and on the lid. I am anticipating he will be asking for more of these. I included the OpenSCAD script. It is parametric and has the ability to create a box and lid in any size with dividers (in both X and Y). It can also round the corners as desired. The Poke Ball decorations can be easily removed and/or replaced with anything you desire. Enjoy!

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Game Card Holder (configurable/SCAD) by Zarquon

I just drew these in my office at lunch. I'm new to scad so I'm sure there is a healthy number of bugs. Seems to work out well during my test print though. This is a redraw of the Game Card Holder thing by condac. I've migrated them to open scad so they have some configuration options. These include: 1. resizable for different cards 2. choose which tabs/slots to add (make a 2x2 block, avoid dangling tab on end or whatnot) 3. [simple] lid and adjustable walls to make deck box The lid barely fits in (default is no clearance). The bottom can warp enough to make it really snug. When the box gets larger you may consider reducing the clearance ratio for the lid (to less then 1.0) to make it snugger and making the walls larger. The larger deck box (the catan one works like a charm) in the picture needs a rubber band on it to stay closed when full. Note: The tabs on this adjust in size with the card size. This means they are not compatible with cornac's tabs or different size cards tabs.

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Paper Folding Models by aubenc

Thingiverse aubenc has shared his amazing origami-inspired OpenSCAD designs.

Few ages ago I was using a piece of paper “quite a 2D thing” to get 3 dimensional models, so this is a tribute to a couple of my first ever “made things”.

Aubenc’s analogy of likening origami to designing 3D printable models is an excellent one.  I also find it especially interesting that there are so many people interested in origami who are also MakerBotters – George Hart, Chris Palmer, and Chris Connors to name a few.

Paper Folding Models by aubenc

Few ages ago I was using a piece of paper "quite a 2D thing" to get 3 dimensional models, so this is a tribute to a couple of my first ever "made things". It's a quick OpenSCAD that don't take in account some important aspects to make the models easyly printable. Take a look to the instructions and the scad script itself for more info. Some more pictures: flickr.com/photos/aubenc/sets/72157628926382411/

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Thingiverse use RyGuy gets a special shoutout for presentation on this design: an 8-bit version of the indispensable piggy bank.

While we of course love saving our pennies for a rainy day, we may have selected a different design if it weren’t for the excellent photographic documentation, showing off our super-bright fluorescent plastic.  Also, check out the staging: it uses actual money!  Very appealing.

Cheers to RyGuy for making Thingiverse look very pro!

8-bit Piggy Bank by RyGuy

Yes, this is a fully functional 8-bit big money piggy bank! My 3yr old daughter need a safe place to keep all her high-stakes rock/paper/scissors winnings. She sat down with me in-front of a clean Sketchup session and we began to construct a piggy bank that Mario would approve of. Check my screen shots, I uploaded a plethora of images including object dimensions. I printed this in ~6hrs using no support on my Thing-O-Matic's ABP. My RIG: TOM # 4890 MK6+ 1.75mm .4 nozzle ABP with aluminum plate topper and titanium belt covered in kapton

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Foam Dart Pistol by SuperAmi

Thingiverse citizen SuperAmi resized vik’s Foam Dart Pistol for printing in a Thing-O-Matic and added a few features – such as a sight.  I love that these little guys are clearly taking the brand new gun sights very very seriously.¹²

I can also appreciate that each of the guns has a different colored muzzle.  This is probably one of the very best reasons I’ve seen for having multiple colors of plastic on hand.  Easy color differentiation means there won’t be a dispute about who has whose toy – and of course, allows for additional kid customization. ³

1. I would suppose you’d really need a gun sight if you were wearing an eye patch. [↩]
2. Then again, I’m not sure that lining up a gun sight using your eye patched covered eye is the best move. [↩]
3. Pink!  PINK!!! [↩]