MakerBots, RepRaps and UP!s: It's 3D printers!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Hobbies, Crafts, & Houses > MakerBots, RepRaps and UP!s: It's 3D printers!

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Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

Cuddlebottom posted:

How much of a market for Mendel printed parts is there these days? I see them on eBay but can't tell if they're really selling.

There is a checkbox after you search on the left under "Show Only" that lets you see completed listings and whether they sold and for how much.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2011 14:15

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 07:28

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

Cakefool posted:

Anything with a large 3d mass that didn't need to be solid for reasons of weight/cost/strength.

Is there some kind of diagram or description about how this 3d printer works? It seems to me you would only need to allow air to get into the space and let gravity keep the liquid at the same level as the reservoir for a hollow shape. I have no idea how to picture how this thing works though. The youtube video is not much to go on, it just looks like magic(which is cool!).

# ¿ Apr 11, 2011 20:46

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

Sun Dog posted:

How did the scanner see and render parts that were hidden, like the little axle thing that screws the jaws open and closed? That was the part I was wondering about. Seems to me a modeller would have to come in and tweak that part before printing. Is that what they did, but left out of the video?

That was just video magic. What they actually did was scan it, use the 3D model for most of it and then made a new gear system for the wrench. If you look closely, the threads are not the same as the original.

edit: Bringing that poo poo into space is kind of a dumb idea. At least from the Earth. You have to bring the hardware and more material than the tool itself. I am not trying to say the technology is dumb or anything but it is the wrong application for this. Coming up with something that can turn moon dust or Martian rock into the material to produce tools would be a big thing though.

Obsurveyor fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Jul 9, 2011

# ¿ Jul 9, 2011 20:09

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

I decided to hop on the 3D printer bandwagon with part of my tax refund. I am going with a new design made mostly out of Makerslide: The Hadron ORD Bot.

All the blue is anodized aluminum. It should be pretty rigid for higher speeds. 216mm x 216mm x 200mm build area.

The Makerslide is extremely versatile, you can hide all the wires for the steppers inside the extra channels for a very clean build and you can have adjustable limit posts in the T slots(you can see one on the left if you look closely).

4 to 6 weeks for kits to start shipping. I am going with a Makergear extruder and RAMPS driver setup.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2012 07:59

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

Claes Oldenburger posted:

No one here has an ultimaker do they? I'm looking for someone to possibly test print a model and send it to me, using netfabb to get the tiniest outer layer possible. I've posted on the ultimaker forums but no one wants to do it or no ones responded.

My guess, after spending a night of reading about 3D printing, calibration, and high detail printing is that what you are asking for(if this is how you asked on those forums) is too vague.

What exactly do you want? Perhaps you should post a picture of the model and some specifications about the wall and layer thickness you are looking for. Why do you want this done? To decide whether you want to buy and build an Ultimaker or not?

What you are asking for might not be how anyone who read your request actually gets detail prints done. netfabb looks like it is pretty expensive. Even if someone achieves your specifications, there is no guarantee you would be able to replicate them without you putting in some time to achieve it. Firmware, software and settings look like they change very often. Today's hotness might be tomorrow's old news.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2012 18:43

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

Claes Oldenburger posted:

guess who seems to be back onto his twitter and almost done his project...
http://3dhomemade.blogspot.com/

I was going to make a post about that update after I saw it too. I think he is probably doing it the right way, rather than selling a bunch of stuff he does not have and then having to fulfill orders and support people. I have been reading a thread on the RepRap forums about a guy running a Mendel store and selling way, way too much to be able to meet demand. One customer even went to Holland for a weekend to help the guy catch up and apparently all his advice fell on deaf ears. The guy is also putting his cart a bit ahead of his horse by working on new iterations of hardware before even finishing sending out orders for the previous gen(he is a one man shop!).

I will definitely be sticking to places like Ultimachine and ebay, who only sell stuff that is available.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2012 22:48

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

quote:

I'm starting to run out of PLA so I ordered a truckload from http://www.supply3dpla.com/ mostly because it ships from Sweden. It's supposed to be really cheap chinese filament but hopefully it won't burn my house down or anything

From what I have read, oval shape and inconsistent diameter are the two common characteristics of cheap filament.

Anyone have any good, general 3D printing forums to recommend. The RepRap forums are kind of terrible. If not, some links to good bloggers with lots of helpful and insightful blog posts?

# ¿ Feb 18, 2012 23:12

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

error1 posted:

Aurium posted:

Have you tried another gcode generator like slic3r?

If you make the switch, this guy has a nice series of blog posts on dialing in your machine for slic3r. I plan on using them as a starting point, once my machine is built.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2012 05:17

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

error1 posted:

He looked perfect until it got to the pointy ears. The PLA warped upwards a little and the nozzle crashed into the ears, dragging strings around.

You might try running a fan on the PLA during that section to help cool it a bit faster so the lower overhang layers can better support the new ones. I guess PLA stays warmer longer than ABS which leads to that type of stuff happening more often.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2012 16:03

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

Flewdefur posted:

I'm a bit disappointed to see so much oozing from the Ultimaker. I knew it was a problem, but that's worse than I was expecting.

Has anyone tried to use a shutter on the print head to prevent this? Maybe some kind of valve integrated into the nozzle or an external shutter which slides over the nozzle output.

I have been reading about Ultimaker and the issue with oozing comes from the Bowden design extruder. Starting and stopping the feeding of the filament causes hysteresis because of the long line of filament running to the extruder. The longer the line, the more hysteresis.

A shutter might work but that makes the extruder more complicated and heavier. I think it also just delays the problem. As soon as the shutter opens, the pressure of the extra material accumulated while the line is pushing and pulling in hysteresis will squirt out.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2012 19:01

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

peepsalot posted:

I just wish there were daily builds, cause I'm apparently too dumb to work out the build process to try this stuff before it gets put in an official release.

What operating system? Where did you get stuck? It looks pretty simple to get going since you are not really compiling anything, just setting up a perl environment to run the slic3r code.

quote:

The IRC channel #reprap on freenode is amazingly active and where I get 99% of my help and new information. Nearly all of the "big shot" community contributors/developers hang out there and are mostly quite friendly and helpful.

Thanks, I may have to check that out.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2012 19:44

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

It is pretty crazy to see you go from:

error1 posted:

to:

error1 posted:

between posts with what I assume was just a little bit more calibration. I really want my kit so I can start playing with this stuff now.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2012 21:07

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

nesbit37 posted:

I made a quick and dirty jig last night that allows a camera to rotate around an object so I could quickly scan geckos (who will sit still for a little bit but not long enough to get pictures with a point and shoot)..

Fixed camera + lazy susan = dizzy geckos that won't move as much?

# ¿ Feb 22, 2012 16:29

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

nesbit37 posted:

I know you are joking but the opposite, actually. I tried that first and the gecko started freaking out. It kept wanting to look at some point in space it picked when I set it down, so when I started rotating the gecko on the lazy susan it kept spinning itself in circles trying to get back to stare at that same point. I felt bad for the gecko, but it was pretty funny and totally useless for 3d scanning.

Well that sounds perfect then: Put a 1-2" border around the lazy susan that the gecko can see. Maybe a tropical scene or something, dunno what geckos look at. Then, when you turn it, the gecko continues to see what it wants to see and not move too!

kafkasgoldfish posted:

And how exactly did you come upon a dismembered head?

Dummy head from the Call of Duty night vision goggles.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2012 19:06

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

I have this crazy idea of a hybrid laser scanner/CNC carver. You have a gantry in the form of a cube/rectangular prism and a 4th axis rotating platter. You scan the object in with the laser, camera and the 4th axis. Then you mark up parts of the 3D object for cutting, scribing, drawing on with a pen or heck throw on an extruder and print to it(if possible). This is really just to compensate for my terrible artistic skills.

ReconstructMe got me thinking about this more. The Kinect could probably even work for the scanning portion if the Windows version with the close-up feature works for close objects.

I bought some MakerSlide today(hopefully my order got in while it was still in stock, it is totally gone from the website now, less than 8 hours later and it just came into stock again today) to play with this idea a bit more once I know more about running belts and gears with a stepper. Anyone have any references on those H-style movement 3D printers? I think the Ultimaker has one and the Phlatboyz HBot is based on it.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2012 00:38

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

Twerpling posted:

Around Mid-December this thing exploded due to the chocolate gaskets failing and I really haven't touched it since. I designed a Kinect mount that goes on the front for 3D scanning. The issue with Kinects is the minimum distance which is something like 2 feet, hence the open frame.

Chocolate gaskets?! I did a little more looking and I guess the "near mode" for the Kinect is just disabling some filters they have and smoothing the data more for closer things. 40cm seems to be the absolute minimum sensor distance of the Kinect. I think I am probably going back to trying a line laser and video first.

I built up a little Lego model last night of how I thought these H-assemblies work and it functioned! It was super fragile because I threw it together with random pieces and I used a piece of thread for the belt but it worked as expected. I think I may rebuild it so I have working model to figure out the Z axis movement now.

This is getting more into CNC machines but for it to move really fast for jogs, I need as light of a spindle as I can get. Since I am not looking for sub-millimeter accuracy right now(it would be for foam stuff), I think I am going to take apart a Dremel MiniMite, remove the battery, make it wired for power, maybe make it variable speed and print a new case for it once I have a 3D printer.

# ¿ Feb 29, 2012 15:18

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

helno posted:

I have a CNC machine made for foam and to reduce weight it uses a flex shaft rotary tool. Allows for pretty fast rapids.

I thought about a flexshaft but I want a really big volume(across all three axes). I figured wires were easy to lengthen and very light.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2012 04:07

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

quote:

gun stuff

This guy is trying to 3d print what looks like AR15 lowers.

My Rhythmic Crotch posted:

I was hoping someone here might have additional info not found on Veloso's blog, but it looks like no such luck. I'm still highly skeptical about it. If they are "close" to shipping kits, we should be able to see an estimated price, BOM, more photos, printed object characteristics, something to indicate that this is more than just vaporware...

There are guys in the #reprap channel building resin printer's like Veloso's with DLP bulbs(for the UV setting resin). I believe the guy selling them the custom resin is getting it to them for $40/quart. I am not sure anyone other than the guy selling resin has actually gotten a print yet, they are all working on their light sources.

Obsurveyor fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Mar 10, 2012

# ¿ Mar 10, 2012 00:34

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

Obsurveyor fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Mar 22, 2012

# ¿ Mar 22, 2012 04:21

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

devians posted:

Someone convince me that a mendel max is a terrible idea and i shouldnt build one...

It would only be a terrible idea if you have huge sausage fingers because you are going to slotting a ton of T-nuts. Some people are no longer fond of the A shape frames either. You don't have a lot of room for error in cutting the extrusions to length, so you need to be able to cut them with accuracy or just get em cut to length from Misumi.

However, for that you are going to get a machine that will be extremely easy to align and square up versus the Prusa. The thing will be rock solid and once you get it calibrated, you will probably never have to mess with most of it again. The extrusions are modular so you could theoretically use them in a future project or for prototyping other stuff if you move on to another design. Those aluminum extrusions(check out the black ones from Misumi!) will look very slick and impress everyone that sees it.

Obsurveyor fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Mar 22, 2012

# ¿ Mar 22, 2012 15:33

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

insta posted:

Any benefit to running all 6 endstops on RAMPS? I can get endstops cheap as hell.

They keep your machine from potentially damaging itself if some kind of erroneous gcode tries sending it outside the limits. The faster and bigger the machine gets, the more likely you are to want to have them.

ReelBigLizard posted:

I'd like to know this too. Also - what's the benefit of opto endstops over microswitches?

They can be more repeatable than a mechanical switch. Mechanical switches also technically have a limited lifetime but I don't think that is really an issue. However, a lot of people are moving away from optos because of the trouble they have with ambient light interfering with their function.

Use mechanical switches first, if you find they are not repeatable enough, just go straight to Hall effect sensors. They use magnets and are extremely accurate and reliable.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2012 12:50

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

If you are interested in something that might be a little less expensive(especially the resin) keep an eye on the Lemon Curry project. It is open source and will be using slic3r, I believe. They are sourcing projectors from China that are ready to go for resin based printing. From what I have seen from the author on IRC, the prices seem way better than even Junior's "basic" product.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2012 13:40

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

Don't forget the super expensive resin you will be purchasing from him too! $350 per liter compared to $40/liter for the lemon curry guy's resin.

A year ago, Junior Veloso could have offered these kinds of prices, people would have ate them up and it would be cutting edge poo poo. Anyone who purchases this stuff today is just a sucker.

Obsurveyor fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Apr 1, 2012

# ¿ Apr 1, 2012 17:45

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

Claes Oldenburger posted:

He says the resin price will be 150 per kilo-ish.
Mind you he said his printer would be around 1500 so he could be totally bullshitting everyone.

That's still more than 3 times as expensive as Bucktown Polymers(lemon curry dude).

# ¿ Apr 2, 2012 20:37

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

kafkasgoldfish posted:

Unfortunately we have no way of knowing whether that is an apples to apples comparison. Veloso made it sound like he came up with his own formula.

All he has is a theoretical formula that he thinks might but also might not be $150 per kg and might but then again, might not do all the things he lists.

I am assuming the stuff he uses in the videos, based on his past posts, is much more expensive than his new economical, theoretical formula.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2012 00:19

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

Haha! In an effort to rope in more suckers, Junior Veloso has hidden the number of people who have contributed for each of his rewards. There is no way he is going to make it on the $2k and $4k levels. He needs to get a lot of people buying up the overpriced instructions. The problem is that this technology is so new due to his purge of information and closed source, nobody who would normally just throw money at this kind of stuff really understands it well enough to take the plunge. Everyone who does understand it can figure out that it is way over priced and there are free alternatives.

In fact, someone linked me to a crazy awesome looking open source program that uses your GPU to slice stuff super fast last night: ChemShapes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efiLcJ5tDvk

Obsurveyor fucked around with this message at 11:58 on Apr 5, 2012

# ¿ Apr 5, 2012 11:55

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

techknight posted:

Edit:
Wait, maybe the whole campaign is disabled for now? The "claim this perk" buttons are gone, too.

Edit 2:
That must be it, you can still see the specific backers under the funders tab: http://www.indiegogo.com/veloso3dprinter?c=pledges

Wow, you're right. I didn't even notice that pledging was totally gone.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2012 12:39

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

My Rhythmic Crotch posted:

Apologies if this has already been posted, but somehow I stumbled across this: http://www.chemshapes.com/

They just released a realtime slicer application, free software of course

I posted a link and this video a few posts back but it might have got lost by the Veloso discussion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efiLcJ5tDvk

# ¿ Apr 6, 2012 01:29

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

My ORD Bot kit is supposed to arrive in the mail today, so I will be assembling it later today. If I can get a camera setup that I like, I may live stream it through the Reprap Google Hangout. I will post more info if I do.

Super pumped to finally get started building this thing!

# ¿ Apr 18, 2012 14:20

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

Cakefool posted:

Edit: they claim 0.3mm typical for a fast/smooth print, possible to print at 0.1mm if required

Just keep in mind they aren't using a .1mm nozzle so you're not going to get .1mm features. You're always going to be limited by the size of the nozzle as far as feature resolution.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2012 16:41

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

Linux Assassin posted:

For example your extruder might only be able to lay down a .5mm tube of plastic, but because you have an extremely well tuned printer you can law down that tube of plastic with .02mm (20um) accuracy- you would therefore be able to print a ring with a 30cm radius, .5mm thick (minimum size tube of plastic you can lay down), that will over its entire circumference be off less then 40um (potentially 20um on one side, and 20um in the opposite direction on the other).

But you couldn't have .1mm raised script which is what I was talking about. I guess accuracy would get you smaller negative relief features in some cases but you would never be able to get positive features smaller than the nozzle itself.

"Print at .1mm" is a loaded statement, so you have to be very clear about what that means and what it doesn't mean. I guess I wasn't.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2012 22:39

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

I got my Hadron ORD Bot kit up and printing this weekend:

The wiring is a bit of a mess until I have time to take it all apart, drill holes in the extrusions and hide it all. I am going to wait until I get some stuff out of it as-is though.

I am using IMPLA(impact modified PLA, it has rubber in it) and blue tape with an unheated bed. The springs make the bed wobble too much when this thing moves fast(and it can move really fast) so I need to replace those with standoffs. I also got some glass to put on top because PCBs aren't very flat by themselves. The trivase I printed came out pretty well but there is definitely some Z wobble from the solid couplings(they should have been flexible couplings-split style).

I got kind of lucky with this one. I still need to do a lot of tweaking for wider objects with longer perimeters.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2012 22:15

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

hobbesmaster posted:

From a while ago, though this is a slow thread. The reason using your laptop (or desktop) for a display driver in something like this is a problem is because it takes longer for a pixel to be projected than a transatlantic ping. Actually its worse, it may take longer than a transatlantic ping, or it could come up immediately. You have no way of knowing!

This really, really doesn't matter in the slightest for these resin printers right now. The exposure times for layers is in the order of seconds, it doesn't matter if it takes slightly longer. Frames drops don't matter when it is a static image that is being changed once every 10 seconds.

# ¿ May 30, 2012 17:02

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

techknight posted:

I think that's a pretty unfair characterization of Veloso. A lot of folks don't agree with his pricing, or assumed that his efforts would be at least partially open source, but I wouldn't go so far as to call him a weasel.

"Weasel" is a very apt description in my opinion. Literally nothing on his campaign was new. It was all stuff from blog posts from 6 months to a year or more ago, every image, every video(even the intro).

He censors every negative or even questioning post on his blog and did it for about 200 posts on his project(he even lies in the comments on the project stating that they weren't removing posts, you can go find it today probably).

His videos are actively deceptive, giving the impression that what you are seeing is produced by the resin and machine he is selling when neither have actually been tested, seen or in the case of the resin, even formulated, yet. People demand an image of the new machine and the only thing he produces after a month is a tiny CGI picture. The reason some think he is doing this is because they think as soon as any of the major patent holders see something concrete, he is going to get slapped with lawsuits for patent infringement.

quote:

I was definitely in the camp that thought his project would be more of a community thing than a commercial one.. Maybe it was the slightly-off english that made the website seem like it was more of an amateur thing?

No, at one point he stated it was going to be open. However, as soon as he got a whiff of the money that could be made, he scrubbed his blog of any and all posts and videos with details of the machine and statements about it being an open project.

# ¿ May 30, 2012 20:11

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

Linux Assassin posted:

I'm also betting he is committing a least some levels of copyright infringement against the open source community.

Well, to be fair, I don't think he has distributed anything to anyone yet so there is no infringement going on... yet. It is still disingenuous to crow that you have written everything yourself from scratch though.

# ¿ May 31, 2012 02:48

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

The reason for the policy is that you can't dispute the charge 30 days after it has been processed and get it automatically rolled back.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2012 13:40

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

The downside to the Ultimaker is the Bowden-style hot ends means that you're going to have to do more fiddling upfront to figure out the settings to keep the hysteresis down.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2012 03:48

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

UberVexer posted:

Their solution is to buy another nozzle.

A 0-day warranty is ridiculous for as much money as you pay.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2012 11:52

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

Locus posted:

Taking UberVexer's advice on the last page to look at a RepRap kit, I'm seeing this one, which looks pretty nice. The kits are $1,300.

http://airwolf3d.com/

I mean, the name is ridiculous, but I like the look and features of it. Hmm. Anyone have any information or gut reactions about it?

If you're going to assemble a kit. Get a Hadron ORD Bot kit. For an extruder, all you need is to buy a Wade's extruder from ebay and a J-Head from the maker. For electronics, you can get a RAMPS assembled kit for $185 from Ultimachine. Add a $35 30A power supply and a MK1(don't buy a MK2 they are bad) heated bed. You can even save some more money and get a Chinese Arduino MEGA1280 off ebay and the drivers from pololu and just stick them on an assembled RAMPS board.

The nice thing about Hadrons is there are way fewer parts than assembling a RepRap and a lot less finicky about getting everything square. All aluminum so the thing is rigid as heck.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2012 23:46

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 07:28

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

Cockmaster posted:

1. It looks like it'd be pretty bulky relative to its build size.

A few inches but it's not much different than a Reprap. The benefit is that you can grow your ORD to whatever size you want very easily with just an extrusion and belt change. I've already doubled my Y axis and I have the extrusion to widen my X as well(I bought an extrusion from Misumi that lets me use my old Y Makerslide axis as my new X).

quote:

2. There's no convenient place to stick the power supply and electronics.

You put the electronics on the back carry plate of the ORD. That's what all the mounting holes on that plate are for. It has standard layouts for RAMPS and I think some of the others work too. But yes, with the default feet, there is no nice place to put the power supply. However, if you print or, in my case, have some laser cut some slightly taller feet, you can put the power supply underneath the ORD bot.

PLA is probably not going to be dishwasher safe. The hot water will probably deform the plastic. ABS could probably make it through the dishwasher since it has a higher melting point. Untreated printed objects(ABS or PLA) should not be used for food(unless it's a one time use) because of the small voids where molds and stuff can grow. You need to treat it with something to fill in those voids. I have seen people talk about using some kind of wax but I don't know if anyone has ever done it.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2012 17:04

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Hobbies, Crafts, & Houses > MakerBots, RepRaps and UP!s: It's 3D printers!

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