It’s Thing #16909 from faberdasher, directly enlarged from Thing #12208 by emmett (who is also a central node in the Thingiverse cube gears phenomenon). All of these complex bevel-geared kinetic sculptures can be traced back to the mechanical papercraft of Haruki Nakamura, which was, I believe, first adapted for fused-filament printing in Thing #4683 by […]
You probably all remember Printrbot, the quick-build, low-cost 3D printer design from Brook Drumm that took Kickstarter by storm, last year. Brook’s stated funding goal for the project was $25,000, and it ended up netting more than $830,000. Since that time, unsurprisingly, Brook has been a very busy man. Saturday we got the interesting news […]
As soon as I saw this, I thought, “why didn’t I think of that!?” Thingiverse user Brian Beebe designed an Electro Wire Stripper, a wire stripper that indicates when you’ve cut through the insulation. As soon as each blade comes into contact with the wire, it closes the circuit to turn on the LED, letting […]
Veteran Thingiverse user Tony Buser has printed a model (intended to be an approximation of the fractal Hilbert curve) using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as a support material. Once everything is printed and cooled, the PVA is dissolved away in a glass of water, leaving only the polylactic acid (PLA) model. This technique, when perfected, should […]
Don’t risk breaking any bottles next time you carry beer to a party. Now you can make your own 6 Packer, a laser cuttable six pack carrier designed by Thingiverse user timogiles. Since it’s designed in OpenSCAD, an open source parametric 3D modeling program, you can easily change the material thickness, bottle diameter, fastener size, and hand grip size and cut a 6 Packer to your own specifications.
I love the look of this Prusa Mendel RepRap 3D-printer fork designed by Thingiverse user Mecano. Shown above is a concept rendering of his second prototype, Prusa Air 2, which hasn’t been built yet, and below, the physical prototype of Prusa Air 1. Among Manuel’s stated design goals for the project were “a little beauty,” which I daresay he has already achieved, admirably.
If you’re planning on getting a 3D printer for yourself, the decisions about what to buy, and who to buy it from, can be daunting. If you’re trying to buy a gift for a 3D printing enthusiast, and don’t necessarily share his or her passion for the subject, they can be downright overwhelming, not to mention expensive. Fortunately, there are quality gift options short of buying a whole printer, and we’ve listed some great ones, below, from lowest to highest price. On the other hand, if you’re ready to take the plunge and buy a whole printer, our preferred makes and models are listed at the end of the guide, again in order of increasing price.
