3D Printing & Imaging

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 makersโ€”including the basics of how to get started, plus creative tutorials for spicing up your projects. Whether youโ€™re already familiar with 3d printing or are just starting out, these resources will help take your game-making skills even further!

Haz MakerBot… now what?

Haz MakerBot… now what?

The Twin Cities’ communal workshop, the Hack Factory, bought a MakerBot CupCake 3D printer. Working for about six hours, some of my cohorts assembled the X and Y stages and partially installed the assembly in the body. With any luck we’ll be printing this time next week. We’re all excited to finally have a 3D […]

Printable mechanical CFL dimmer idea

Printable mechanical CFL dimmer idea

Interesting concept from Thingiverse user 12meyer. All kinds of potential problems here, so this is more of the “way to think outside the box” kind of shout-out than the “where can I invest in your start-up” kind. One can, of course, dim fluorescent bulbs electrically, but it turns out to be kind of a PITA. The idea here is to exploit the spiral shape of the bulb itself to make an opaque cover that screws on or off to block more or less light, respectively.