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!
Very cool design from Thingiverse user msruggles, printed as shown above by user Linkreincarnate, who reports some reification issues with the model requiring hand finishing. Gonna keep an eye on this as it develops.
This lovely object is more than just an interesting gewgaw: It’s called a “turner’s cube”–so named, I think, because it is a challenge for one who turns on a lathe rather than eponymously–and according to Bob Warfield, “[i]n the old days, novice machinist’s [sic] were handed one and told to work out how to make one of their own.” Bob’s got a cool page describing his efforts to make one manually and then using a CNC mill, with some bonus commentary on this thread by CNC Zone member widgitmaster, who made the cube pictured above, using the jig pictured above, on a big engine lathe. Beautiful!
If you haven’t checked them out already, Zaggo‘s mini documentaries on the 3D printing phenomenon are a must see. [Via the MakerBot Blog.]
Shapeways now carries my material of choice for jewelry making: sterling silver. We are very proud to offer Sterling Silver as our latest production material! In the past we did a test with Silver Ring Poems and Cufflinks, but now you can order any design in brilliant shiny Silver, until at least November 7th. We’ll […]
This link came in the mailbag from one Junior Veloso, of Singapore, who has produced this very impressive homemade photopolymer-based 3D printer. Traditional stereolithography uses a scanning UV laser to cure the liquid resin, one layer at a time. A DLP printer is similar, but uses a micromirror-based video projector to expose each layer, as shown in the diagram. Junior’s version exposes each layer for four to eight seconds, resulting in print times on the order of several hours. The resin has to be opaque to prevent “shadowing” from light transmitted through the printing layer.
Rick Pollack of Shaker Heights, OH, printed this cat design with the help of support structures that are printed along with the main object, but the extruder prints the support materials at a cooler temperature. This makes them easier to remove. Readers, have you played around with support materials settings in Skeinforge? [Thanks, clothbot]
Madscifi and Johnrpm of the RepRap Forums are showing some excellent results from their DIY inkjet print head.
