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 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!

3D printing in glass

The Solheim Rapid Prototyping lab at the University of Washington was in the news last March for developing a new 3D printing process that uses ceramic powder as an inexpensive alternative to the pricier substrates that are currently the de facto standard for powder-bed processes. Well they’ve done it again, this time with 20 micron glass powder, which is formed into an object by layerwise application of a liquid binder. When the part is complete, it can be sintered in a kiln to produce a continuous glass part. The official UW online press release includes a telling quote from lab co-director Mark Ganter: “It became clear that if we could get a material into powder form at about 20 microns we could print just about anything.”

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan
MakerBot z-crank

MakerBot z-crank

One of the hassles of my MakerBot is having to raise and lower the z-stage (the up-down platform holding the plastic extruder) by tugging on the rubber belt. Tug, tug, tug, just to get the extruder into the right position for beginning a print. Zaggo in the Thingiverse made a printable crank to solve this […]

Continue Reading Becky Stern
Printing braille

Printing braille

This is interesting, some examples of a Makerbot printing out braille, langfordw writes – This is still a work in progress but the MakerBot actually seems to print braille rather well. I can’t read braille so I can’t judge for sure whether it’s readable but it certainly seems like it. The trick is to get […]

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Geographic jewelry

Earth Brooch Silver is a piece of jewelry made from a custom-selected piece of topography, 3D printed in wax and then cast in silver. I’ve been working with my friend Matt Mechtley to print out geographies on my MakerBot using USGS data, but these folks have got it down! Via Core77.

Continue Reading Becky Stern4