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I've seen this sort of debate before. Truth is, blueprints if reasonably priced are going to be 1/20th of the price of building a good machine. This guy is throwing away his weekends, vacation days and everything else on this, and probably using design software that's really drat expensive too. There's nothing wrong with asking for $100 or less for his time and effort, and it's a good motivator to keep him working hard. Even the Free Software Foundation encourages projects to sell their software, but obviously with "free" software they can just be copied so projects generally have to figure out a value added way to do it or just guilt the community into paying. The best plan is probably to open source older versions of the machine designs but keep the most recent ones locked away pending some very reasonable fees.
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May 16, 2011 01:04
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In the end, he's just scared that if he just opened it wide open he'll get screwed. It's a genuine and reasonable fear, but at the same time it really hasn't happened. Thus far, in the homebrew community if you are making better things, people buy from you. The negative reaction he's getting is largely because of the larger homebrew community has succeeded on openness, and he's doing the opposite. El_Matarife posted:I've seen this sort of debate before. Truth is, blueprints if reasonably priced are going to be 1/20th of the price of building a good machine. This guy is throwing away his weekends, vacation days and everything else on this, and probably using design software that's really drat expensive too. There's nothing wrong with asking for $100 or less for his time and effort, and it's a good motivator to keep him working hard. Even the Free Software Foundation encourages projects to sell their software, but obviously with "free" software they can just be copied so projects generally have to figure out a value added way to do it or just guilt the community into paying. Except hardware already has built in copy protection. Physical objects need to be bought from someone. For open source software, anyone can just copy one for free and instantly. Building a reprap, on the other hand, you need to source dozens of bits, and spend hours and hours assembling it. If you assemble one it from scratch, and source basically every single part from the absolute cheapest source, you save yourself basically 200 off a kit. And spend tons of time on it, and frequently you wind up with a collection of inferior bits, such as drilled dome nut extruders. Or you could pay quite a bit more and have a very polished kit, because you've effectively paid someone else to do all this research for you. He's already stated he's going to be building these things to sell. If he's already put the necessary research to build them at profit, then he's already done the hard bits. Any real cost savings will come from either inferior substitution, in which case he has a quality advantage or genuine innovation/better design, in which case if its an open device he'll benefit from being able to incorporate it. Claes Oldenburger posted:Ohhhh. He has already said he wants to release the info and plans through crowd funding, so maybe he just wants to recover some of his losses before he lets it out to the community? Again, I don't have a problem with this, but as a point of reference, makerbot did it in the reverse order. The founder of makerbot basically started with the reprap project, found that it was difficult to get a high quality machine out improvising everything, and made a company building better kits.
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May 16, 2011 01:35
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helopticor posted:So apparently I might be able to access to a Thing-O-Matic in my area. I'd like to make a really simple object with it, but the problem is I know almost nothing about 3D modeling. Thanks Doc Hawkins and techknight for your other suggestions, but OpenSCAD, which Videodrome mentioned, was exactly what I was looking for. I just wrote down coordinates of vertices and calculated which triples of vertices correspond to triangle and then I got my STL file which I can then send to the people with the Makerbot.
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May 17, 2011 22:34
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helopticor posted:Thanks Doc Hawkins and techknight for your other suggestions, but OpenSCAD, which Videodrome mentioned, was exactly what I was looking for. I just wrote down coordinates of vertices and calculated which triples of vertices correspond to triangle and then I got my STL file which I can then send to the people with the Makerbot. I just did my own first OpenSCAD project on Saturday - it's so easy! I'm going to write a post on the Ponoko blog about it tomorrow. I was totally intimidated by the source files I'd downloaded from other people on Thingiverse but you really do just start with a simple couple of shapes and build up!
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May 18, 2011 00:53
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I finally got the new rev of my construct-o-tron built: FIX YOUR lovely HTACCESS FILE BEFORE EVER POSTING AN IMAGE HERE EVER AGAIN Right now it extrudes chocolate. When the head mechanism I designed gets here from the machinist, it will extrude 5 other materials simultaneously. Granted, chocolate and ABS don't really go together, but I have some plans. Devious plans. Somebody fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Feb 22, 2012 |
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May 18, 2011 03:23
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Here's a new super-small model from Vienna. It runs almost five grand, but it's apparently got resolution of a twentieth of a millimeter!
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May 18, 2011 06:58
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Doc Hawkins posted:Here's a new super-small model from Vienna. It runs almost five grand, but it's apparently got resolution of a twentieth of a millimeter! Whoaaaa, that's on the same principle of the alien head one! But obviously smaller, and the resolution is half of the alien head one!
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May 18, 2011 07:07
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Where do you get 5 grand from? The article says €1200, which is what, $1700? I think the price of the resin is going to be the important thing for the liquid based ones, and there doesn't seem to be anything about that in the article unfortunately.
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May 18, 2011 07:43
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I am curious but not exactly worried about the price of the liquid resin. I mean, ABS is cheap but so what? It's not like it's the low price of ABS that gives me the green light on things in 3D printer land at the moment.
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May 18, 2011 15:38
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Mister Sinewave posted:I am curious but not exactly worried about the price of the liquid resin. I mean, ABS is cheap but so what? It's not like it's the low price of ABS that gives me the green light on things in 3D printer land at the moment. I've been looking around and the prices i've been able to find are $4.50 per cubic inch. A kilo is about 250 bucks with 24 ounces of liquid resin. That alien skull apparently cost about 12.50 to make with 1.5mm sidewalls, so ballparking that is about 2.5 cubic inches or just over an ounce. Unless my math was horribly wrong, it means that those little smaller models are really practical, and bigger stuff (like giant lego men  ) may be a wee expensive.The way I think of it is like, paying for the more expensive resin is just paying for the higher resolution :P
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May 18, 2011 16:19
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Are the three printing services listed in the OP (ShapeWays, Ponoko, The Game Crafter) still the main 3d printing services to check out? I'm looking to prototype an automotive grille emblem, and I'm thinking that ShapeWays Details material (Object FullCure acryllic stuff) is my best bet if I want it to be weather-proof and I want to be able to paint it with glossy paints. Thoughts? POKEMAN SAM fucked around with this message at 19:46 on May 18, 2011 |
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May 18, 2011 19:19
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Ugg boots posted:Are the three printing services listed in the OP (ShapeWays, Ponoko, The Game Crafter) still the main 3d printing services to check out? i.materialize is the third main 3D-printing-and-more-on-demand service. They do some serious poo poo. They 3D printed The Thinker to help repair one of the statues that was stolen and hacked to pieces for scrap: http://i.materialise.com/blog/entry/3d-printing-rodins-thinker (The Game Crafter doesn't really count, it's just neat.) I recommend Ponoko by default just because I write for their blog, but I haven't actually printed anything with any on-demand service yet. I just did these replacement analog sticks on my MakerBot (and wrote a post about them) but I was thinking of trying them on Ponoko to make them smoother: 
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May 19, 2011 05:29
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I just tested my new relay board and heated build platform. Function test OK, will just see how it does with a real print hopefully this week sometime.
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May 19, 2011 06:18
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Twerpling posted:I finally got the new rev of my construct-o-tron built: Do you have some videos or a webpage or anything for this? It looks and sounds awesome. Somebody fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Feb 22, 2012 |
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May 19, 2011 07:14
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Twerpling posted:it will extrude 5 other materials simultaneously. Granted, chocolate and ABS don't really go together, but I have some plans. Devious plans. Milk chocolate, dark chocolate, bitter- or semi-sweet chocolate, and ganache (two kinds)? 
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May 19, 2011 07:38
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I started a thread on hackerspaces yesterday, and thought it deserved a mention here. We have a half finished rep-rap at our space that we hope to get up and running as soon as we're done moving and actually have time to work on it.
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May 19, 2011 18:21
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techknight posted:I just did these replacement analog sticks on my MakerBot (and wrote a post about them) but I was thinking of trying them on Ponoko to make them smoother: Is it possible to sand ABS or whatever plastic you're using? What about using it as a positive for a mold? A molded version might come out way cleaner.
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May 19, 2011 18:57
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El_Matarife posted:Is it possible to sand ABS or whatever plastic you're using? What about using it as a positive for a mold? A molded version might come out way cleaner. I wonder if plastic tool rubberized grip coat wouldn't be good for analog sticks. http://www.flickr.com/photos/34519968@N03/4149603694/in/set-72157622911002038/ And yes, ABS sands beautifully. It finishes very nicely with fine, and holds shape well against coarse. Aurium fucked around with this message at 19:52 on May 19, 2011 |
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May 19, 2011 19:48
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Two things - first, as mentioned ABS can be "post-worked" beautifully. You can saw it, sand it, drill it, screw it together, etc with ease and impunity. It glues well too (assuming and ABS glue or solvent is used.) Secondly, photos tend to really exaggerate the rough look. I mean, don't get me wrong, they do look like they are squeezed out of a syringe layer by layer because they basically are, but photos tend to make it look "rougher" than it feels and works. You're correct that they're not much to look at until post-worked though.
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May 19, 2011 22:55
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techknight posted:i.materialize is the third main 3D-printing-and-more-on-demand service. They do some serious poo poo. They 3D printed The Thinker to help repair one of the statues that was stolen and hacked to pieces for scrap: http://i.materialise.com/blog/entry/3d-printing-rodins-thinker Wow! They are spendy... I've got a part that I want to prototype and am about to buy/build a rapman or a rep-rap mendel to print it. A rep-rap will require 3 pieces to be made then glued together. (Not sure about on a rapman) So is an L shaped thing that's 9 x 8 inches and 5 inches tall. Not very intricate... ~$2k from i.materalise and $4500 from Ponoko. Just thought I'd share that...  Chris
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May 20, 2011 05:15
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I really wish all the 3d printing companies had their per cm3 prices publically available.
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May 20, 2011 11:59
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techknight posted:Do you have some videos or a webpage or anything for this? It looks and sounds awesome. Not yet. I need to get it into 'constantly working' mode by getting some boards made. Right now the wires keep falling out and stuff keeps breaking because it is just kludged together. Mister Sinewave posted:Milk chocolate, dark chocolate, bitter- or semi-sweet chocolate, and ganache (two kinds)? That's the plan. For serious.
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May 27, 2011 23:11
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Using your RepRap for B&E, http://gizmodo.com/5807191/how-to-print-keys-to-any-lock
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Jun 1, 2011 04:20
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^^^ Well, use it for the "E" part anyway. I learned a tip which I should have figured out long ago. I am making some fixtures to fit onto some existing crap. After printing out my meticulously-measured-and-3D-designed objects, the sunofabitches don't fit. PVC shrinks a wee bit but enough so that my 34mm cover is no longer actually 34mm ID and will not fit onto this pipe end I want it to go on. Not without sanding. Which is of course unacceptable. If I was going to start sanding this poo poo to make it fit, then what am I printing 3D crap from scratch (to fit) for?  PVC's shrinkage is supposed to be about 2%. That seems more or less backed up by my measurements. I spent all afternoon tweaking new models to be slighty bigger than needed - then fretting about remembering that "34mm cover.stl" is not actually 34mm anymore - when I realized what I should have been doing is nothing of the sort! Correct method: 1. Make 3D model with correct dimensions. 2. Fire up printer. 3. If the drat thing is not trivially small AND needs to actually be accurately sized (i.e. 34mm ID needs to be 34mm ID not 33.4mm or so) then simply: 4. SCALE 1.00 ->  
The Eyes Have It fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Jun 1, 2011 |
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Jun 1, 2011 19:33
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Mister Sinewave posted:^^^ Well, use it for the "E" part anyway. Yes but did it actually fit properly the 2nd time around?! 
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Jun 5, 2011 02:04
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It looks like the guy behind the Phlatprinter might be getting into the 3D printer market. I caught a bit of his last web show and it looks like he is working on a UV based system like the one posted a while back.
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Jun 5, 2011 02:29
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Sponge! posted:Yes but did it actually fit properly the 2nd time around?! Yes, it did. It took a couple iterations (literally 2) to fine tune, but in the end scaling to 1.025 did the trick. 1.02 was REALLY snug. Actually too tight, it went on but only just and it put up a fight. 1.03 was too sloppy and needed a single layer of painter's tape to take up the slop. 1.025 was just right, slides on as it should with a slight friction fit to it to keep it snug. (I'm using Sketchup so probably somewhere in there is the fact that circles are polygon-y and not perfectly smooth by default somehow affecting the fit but I don't know, I'm not a 3D modeler nor do I have any particular  for it, I just use the tools to get the job done.)Side note, if anyone has a Makerbot and no heated build platform, get one. It's so seriously totally completely absolutely required that I can't believe the time I wasted loving around without one. Christ, the first 20(?) batches of Makerbots went by without one but god only knows how. Well, it was useful after I customized start.txt for my unit because as provided it's literally broken. Seriously the HBP has made the difference between my Makerbot sitting on the shelf for ages because I can't get dick-all useful out of it so why bother firing it up, and me going through almost my entire ABS supply in a weekend making custom interfaces and holders to funny pipe sizes for my project (since all the off the shelf fixtures are either unsuitable, unavailable, or would require too much reworking.) The Eyes Have It fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Jun 5, 2011 |
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Jun 5, 2011 03:12
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http://gizmodo.com/5809662/bikinis-made-from-3d+printers-are-custom-fit-for-each-womans-curve/gallery/1quote:This bikini, called the N12, is the world's first 3D-printed bikini. It's a sexy design that uses small discs held together by springs. The cool thing is that the designerss want to use women's body scans to create perfect fitting bikinis.
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Jun 8, 2011 04:29
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Yes I'm sure that's the only possible use they would have for the body scans of women. In the coming years it will be interesting to see how many of the "airport pornoscanner LOL" crowd cheerfully sign up for custom-fit clothing that requires a body scan.
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Jun 9, 2011 04:14
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Bre Pettis was on Colbert tonight to show off the MakerBot. Thingiverse is now extremely slow but there are many amusing abuses of the 3D scan they did of Stephen Colbert's head: http://www.thingiverse.com.nyud.net/thing:9104/variations Edit: I think this is my favourite one so far: 
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Jun 9, 2011 05:32
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There's an IndieGoGo project (like Kickstarter) up right now for sub-$500 Huxley RepRap kits by eMAKER: http://www.indiegogo.com/eMAKER-Huxley-3D-printer-kits
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Jun 11, 2011 20:31
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Finished building and troubleshooting my Z-extender kit this morning: The Z-stage can now move up to 194mm! Here's my first tall test print, a 185mm beer bottle: 
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Jun 19, 2011 19:05
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You guys with printers, how much $ worth of plastic would you say is used to make the previous bottle or the blue spirally shotglass thing? I'm just kind of curious after the initial machine purchase, what kind of costs go into actually printing stuff. Can you go batshit printing 24-7 for pennies or should you probably be picking and choosing when to print, etc. How much worth of plastic would it be to start printing pairs of funky lensless sunglasses for example?
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Jun 19, 2011 19:42
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With the ABS you are looking at something like $0.25 per cubic centimeter. Mostly due to the fact that you have to buy filament ABS rather then granule and because the machine cost is a factor. If you buy in bulk you should see something around $0.05 per cubic centimeter.
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Jun 19, 2011 20:13
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I saw this the other day. I don't know what kind of machine it was printed on but the detail is incredible. http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1455808 16" wingspan 3d printed Grumman hellcat.
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Jun 19, 2011 20:37
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helno posted:I saw this the other day. I don't know what kind of machine it was printed on but the detail is incredible. He says he got it from Shapeways. Apparently, there's a "White Strong & Flexible Polished" material you can have it printed in.
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Jun 19, 2011 21:30
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techknight posted:Finished building and troubleshooting my Z-extender kit this morning: That's pretty cool (and clever), I might pull the trigger on that myself someday. Pweller, you can go pretty nuts on printing really. A 5lb spool of ABS lasts a fair amount of time for some casual printing. Keep in mind also that 1 cc of ABS doesn't equal 1 cc of printed model, because the models are only solid on the outside (unless specified otherwise). On most models the inside is mostly empty space, filled with a honeycomb/grid sort of structure. On that Z-Extender thing the pieces will be pretty solid, but the average object is mostly empty space inside. The real bottleneck in my opinion is the time printing requires. It's a slow-ish process so you kind of want to make it count when you do it. The Eyes Have It fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Jun 19, 2011 |
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Jun 19, 2011 22:56
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helno posted:I saw this the other day. I don't know what kind of machine it was printed on but the detail is incredible. I just found out about 3D printing about a week ago and have been doing research into what type of machine I need to buy, pretty much I like the quality of stuff I see come out of shapeways (mostly because I can't get any quality pictures from any other makers) but I spoke with these guys: http://botmill.com/ And they said their finished print quality is really good, and will send me an example. I am just wondering if any of you guys have one of these botmill machines? The Axis or Glider? How is the quality print of them? Or has anyone heard about these machines? How do they stack up comparing end result prints in quality to other mendell knock offs? More or less I need a machine to do as good a print as the that hellcat. Do any of the cheaper 3D printers offer that kind of quality?
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Jun 20, 2011 10:22
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flick3r posted:More or less I need a machine to do as good a print as the that hellcat. Do any of the cheaper 3D printers offer that kind of quality? At the moment, you can't buy a machine that can print that hellcat for less than $15,000. All of the hobbyist devices you see in this thread use plastic extrusion without any support material, which can't print serious overhangs like that model has.
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Jun 20, 2011 20:21
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Zhentar posted:At the moment, you can't buy a machine that can print that hellcat for less than $15,000. All of the hobbyist devices you see in this thread use plastic extrusion without any support material, which can't print serious overhangs like that model has. The one i'm following hopefully will be cheaper than $5,000. A guy is testing resins and working on patents and stuff but you can follow his blog here http://3dhomemade.blogspot.com/ It could be a while though before anything comes out that you can actually purchase, because he wants to get it right, wait for patents to go through, and he's building his own software for it.
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Jun 20, 2011 22:53
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