Fabbaloo Blog

The Zortrax M200 3D Printer

General Fabb — Thu, 23 May 2013 18:00:11 +0000

Zortrax is launching their new M200 personal 3D printer on Kickstarter, with a focus on ease of use and aesthetics. They say they "want 3D printing to be a great experience."

Unlike typical filament-based 3D printers that use ABS and PLA plastic, the M200 is specifically designed to print ABS, PC-ABS and Nylon.

The M200 has multiple ease of use features, including: pre-assembly, factory calibration, dedicated and simplified software and very robust components made from "aluminum, POM, DryLin, FR4, stainless steel and brass". The specially designed software, ZSuite, includes an ability to generate "easy to remove" support structures, which is extremely important as the M200 seems to have only one extruder: your model and its support must come out of the same extruder!

For aesthetics the M200 includes a smooth-looking aluminum case with a bright control display that "fits the room". The M200 is designed to operate very quietly, although we do not know the decibel level statistics. This is definitely not a laser-cut wood machine kit.

Technically the M200 offers a reasonably sized 205 x 205 x 190mm build volume, suitable for most prints. The interface between computer and machine is done via a memory card - no WiFi or LAN networking exists on the M200 yet.

Zortrax's product launch is raising funds to greenlight their manufacturing partners to start punching out the anodized black aluminum housing and various moulded parts that make up the M200.

The resolution specs for the M200 are impressive, offering four settings from 0.3mm to 0.1mm. Judging from the sample images, prints appear to be quite good, particularly considering that some of these models will have had support structures physically removed after printing. Another feature is high-quality; the prints seem to be much more well defined that the usual stringy extrusion prints you see elsewhere.

The M200 is available for pre-order on Kickstarter now, at a price of USD$1899. For that you'll get an assembled M200, the accompanying ZSuite software and 1kg of pure white ABS.

From all appearances, the Zortrax looks like a pretty decent machine. It has excellent specifications, two years of development, and the management team has focused on getting the key features right and avoided non-core features.

Via Kickstarter

Michigan Tech's 3D Printers for Peace

General Fabb — Thu, 23 May 2013 17:01:01 +0000

The recent development of 3D printed weapons has caused others to strive for more peaceful uses of the technology.Michigan Technological University, a.k.a, Michigan Tech, has launched a new competition: 3D Printers for Peace.

The contest requires you to design a 3D printable object that is peaceful. Wait, what does that mean? They explain:

We are challenging the 3D printing community to design things that advance the cause of peace. This is an open-ended contest, but if you’d like some ideas, ask yourself what Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, or Ghandi would make if they’d had access to 3D printing.

Ghandi and 3D printing. Hm.

The contest, like most, is judged based on innovation, printability, feasibility, presentation and, of course, peacefulness. It's open to "anyone in the United States or Canada", so others will unfortunately be unable to compete for the three prizes: a fully assembled Type A Machines Series 1 3D printer, a RepRap Prusa 3D printer kit and a large pile of 3D printer plastic.

If you have a peacemaking idea on your mind, you'd best prepare a design and send it to Michigan Tech before September 1, when contest entries close.

Via Michigan Tech

3D Hacker's Many Services

General Fabb — Thu, 23 May 2013 16:00:33 +0000

We were contacted by Andrew Mazzotta, who, with Adam Pirie, have created "3D Hacker", a multipurpose website serving the needs of the 3D printing community.

The website acts much like a "3D Printing Kijiji", where members can add listings in several categories, such as: parts, kits, printers, software, tools, tutorials, jobs, events, clubs and more. Some listings offer items for sale, while others are merely advertisements or announcements. Regardless, it's a useful service for the community.

The service is not exactly free, but it's close. 3D Hacker charges a whole USD$1 to perform anti-spam verification. If you happen to be able to afford the USD$1, you'll be able to post listings. For salable items, 3D Hacker facilitates contact between buyer and seller.

At the time of this writing, there are quite a few items at 3D Hacker, including a number of unusual 3D printer kits we've not seen before, for example, the "Impresora 3D Argentina" from Buenos Aires.

Via 3D Hacker

FabFabbers Opens

General Fabb — Wed, 22 May 2013 18:00:40 +0000

Yet another 3D model sharing site has opened: FabFabbers. Like many such repositories, FabFabbers permits members to upload models, showcase them in listings for download by visitors. But what differentiates this repository from the rest?

There are two features we found particularly interesting: uploaded models can actually be stored on GitHub, which is a very popular software repository with sophisticated versioning services. You can, for example, update your model to a new version and it would automatically be reflected at FabFabbers.

The other interesting feature is live OpenSCAD in a browser window. You can code in OpenSCAD on the left side of the screen, while your adjustments appear in a 3D rotatable window on the right.

At this point there are well over 100 items in the FabFabbers repository, but we suspect more will be arriving soon.

Via FabFabbers

Platige Image's Astonishing 3D Printed Sculpture: Biostagog

General Fabb — Wed, 22 May 2013 17:00:29 +0000

A collaboration of artists and technicians has created one of the most amazing 3D printed sculptures ever attempted. Polish company Platige Image required a "statement" for their headquarters in Warsaw and we believe this massive sculpture delivers. They say:

The installation was supposed to be an interactive, “living” element in the building, a phenomenon existing within the lobby space that would create new situations that engage people, visitors and employees alike.

It's a wall composed of over 800 individually designed 3D printed pieces and creatively lit to develop unique optical experiences for those fortunate to stand nearby. As a static sculpture it is seamlessly beautiful, but its real magic occurs when the complex lighting is applied to the 3D surfaces. This is best seen in their video below:

BIOSTAGOG from Platige Image on Vimeo.

The design was created by collaborator Bridge using Grasshopper to mathematically generate each of the 800 shapes. An overview of the Grasshopper generation tree is shown above (click for larger view).

These individual pieces were then 3D printed on an array of RepRap 3D printers provided by ZMorph. Apparently, "5 machines where used 24 hours, 7 days a week for 3 months to print it."

Platige Image is a company focusing on creative endeavors. As for this endeavor, we think they nailed it.

Via Platige

3D Printed Bullets?

General Fabb — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:01:08 +0000

A new video has surfaced of experiments with 3D printed bullets. The video, produced by popular gun video enthusiasts Taofledermaus, shows three actual firings of said bullets.

One firing involves 1/10 of an ounce (3g) of powder, another is 1/2 an ounce (14g) and the third shows a very unusual shape, which fails miserably. The first two appear to work very well, to the surprise of the experimenters, who seem to have not seen 3D printed items previously.

The "bullet" is mounted on the a shotgun shell and fired from a shotgun. It does contain a small bit of lead because the bullet would not otherwise contain enough mass to work properly. The experimenters also suggest that firing in a rifled barrel (spirally carved) would dramatically increase the accuracy of the bullet.

While this development is not totally unexpected, such ammunition would be easily detectable as gunpowder residue would be significant. Another issue is the production time for these would be hours per bullet; no one is going to mass produce ammunition using this technique.

Via YouTube

Voronoization

General Fabb — Tue, 21 May 2013 18:00:40 +0000

You may have seen those fascinating 3D models that seem to have replaced the normal shape with a strange, smooth skeletal networked form. The complex structures seem impossibly difficult to design with conventional 3D modeling tools, and indeed they are. Perhaps they've been made with mathematical 3D model generation tools operated by a PhD? Sometimes this is the case.

But did you know there's an easy way to do this yourself with almost any 3D model?

We found tutorials describing how to create "Voronoi" shapes. But what is a "Voronoi"? According to Wikipedia:

A Voronoi diagram is a way of dividing space into a number of regions. A set of points (called seeds, sites, or generators) is specified beforehand and for each seed there will be a corresponding region consisting of all points closer to that seed than to any other. The regions are called Voronoi cells.

That's exactly what many of these strange 3D models are doing: a regular 3D model has been "Voronoized". It's actually quite a simple process to do yourself using the free open source tool MeshLab. The process involves these basic steps, which you can see in more detail in the tutorials linked below:

Ensure your 3D model's mesh is composed of many faces
Randomly add points throughout the mesh
Apply a Voronoi filter on those random points to create regions
Cut out the Voronoi regions, leaving just the connectors between cells
Fatten up the connectors as required
Smooth and refine the result

We tested this approach several times and found it to be relatively straightforward and providing decent results, as you can see above.

One caution: the Voronoi version of your 3D model will follow the outside surface, meaning that the top of your Voronoi model may require support to successfully 3D print. Solid objects become hollow, with just the voronoized surface and nothing inside.

We used these tutorials to learn how to execute this process. Be warned, however, that some refer to older versions of Meshlab that were slightly different from current versions - but it's easy to relate their instructions to newer versions.

And of course, you'll need Meshlab, too.

3D Printing The Enterprise

General Fabb — Tue, 21 May 2013 17:00:37 +0000

There's more 3D printed Star Trek with a view of this video by PC Magazine, who took on the task of 3D printing the Starship Enterprise on their 3D Systems Cube personal 3D printer.

It's a time lapse video, obviously, as 3D printers simply are not fast. This shows one of the main challenges that consumer 3D printing must overcome: wait time. It can take many hours to print anything substantial, particularly if printing in a higher resolution. For now, early adopters will accept such delays, but a larger mass of consumers won't.

Which company will invent a speedier way of 3D printing?

Via PCMAG

CGTrader's Massive 3D Print Competition

General Fabb — Tue, 21 May 2013 16:00:11 +0000

There's a lot of 3D print competitions lately, but this one seems to involve more prizes than we've seen before. CGTrader's "3D Printing Competition" seeks fully 3D printable models to be uploaded before June 30th, when they will be judged by CGTrader staff.

What makes this competition different is the quantity and quality of prizes. Winners receive: an Ultimaker 3D printer, multiple 3D print services, filament coupons, retail shelf space for sales, publicity and CGTrader credits.

Prizes are awarded for the "Best 3D Printable Portfolio", based on submissions from a designer's uploads during the competition as well as for the individual "Best 3D Printable Model". Two runners-up in each category will also be selected and will receive smaller, but still substantial prizes.

Who will win? The judges will decide based on quality, innovation, uniqueness, presentation and of course, printability.

If you're a designer with cool ideas, you should check out this competition.

Via CGTrader

Now You Can Go Where No One Has Gone Before

General Fabb — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:00:28 +0000

Cubify launched a new dynamic 3D model service specifically for Trekkies: Personalized 3D Printed Star Trek Figurines. If you never had a chance to appear on the show (and who could have?) you now can put yourself in a Star Fleet uniform.

The USD$69.99 offer requires a bit of input from you, as do all dynamic model generators. You'll need to provide images of your face as well as a choice of gender, pose (including "tricorder", vulcan salute, phaser, at attention, etc), shirt color (Don't Pick Red whatever you do!) rank, weight, height and a message.

The new Cubify service will take those parameters and automatically create your own figurine with their color 3D printers. After a short trip in the mail, you'll have it in your hand.

At this stage the service only offers uniforms from the original Star Trek series - but they may be offering more in the future as there is a poll on the site asking which uniforms visitors prefer: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager.

No word on "Enterprise", for some reason. Hm.

Via Cubify