If you’re a maker, 3d printing is an incredibly useful tool to have in your arsenal. Not only can it help bring your projects to life faster, but it can also offer unique results that would be difficult (or impossible!) to achieve with traditional methods. In these blog posts, we’ll provide you with some essential information and tips regarding 3D printing for makers—including the basics of how to get started, plus creative tutorials for spicing up your projects. Whether you’re already familiar with 3d printing or are just starting out, these resources will help take your game-making skills even further!
The MakerBot CupCake is a thing of beauty, an open-source 3D printer whose $750 price undersells the commercial alternatives by a ton. Plus, you get a fanatical group of users who’ll help you debug any problem. Yes, the Dimension uPrint can make tighter models and outputs them quicker, but $20,000 excludes most amateurs. Then there’s […]
The $1,500 closed-source UP! Personal Portable 3D Printer (PP3DP) does its thing, putting the heat on open alternatives like the Mendel and MakerBot. We have been developing the UP! printer for more than one year, it is completely based on our own efforts, we have not used open-source solutions for this design. We understand and […]
I haven’t seen this guy, Gavilan Steinman’s, work before. I like the clear, straightforward way that he explains how he used his Darwin RepRap machine to fabricate a better extruder head for it, and then, used the improved Darwin to fabricate a Mendel (the next-gen RepRap model). Looking forward to seeing what else Gavilan does. […]
From the Shapeways blog: Congratulations to Improbablecog whose Kickstarter project has already reached 101% funding with 7 days still left to go. This is a win win win win situation where: The backers get a little something from Improbablecog, depending on their level of investment from a sticker to a custom designed piece of jewelry. […]
Like modeling your projects using Sketchup, but wish that you could go one step further and see if they work before spending time printing them? Well, you might want to have a look at Sketchyphysics. It’s a physics simulator that you can use to put your creations to life, and presumably work out the bugs […]
Like OpenSCAD, but want to be able to use it from any device?
Interesting concept from Peter over at the RepRap: Builders blog, who has successfully made some cuts in a CD case using an experimental 1W laser cutter with a Z-axis control that allows the laser diode itself to reciprocate up and down, kinda like a saber saw. This action moves the beam’s focus, where it cuts most effectively, up and down through the material at each point along the cutting path. I have wondered about dynamically-variable-focal-length CNC lasers before, and although I’m probably in over my head, here, it seems like there should be some way to do it optically without having to physically move the whole laser head up and down. Everyone’s a critic! Nice work here, Peter. [via Hack a Day]
