MAKE Makes a MakerGear

There are two kinds of personal 3D printer owners these days: those who like to build the printer from a kit and those who'd rather pay more for an assembled version.  

 

If you're one of the former, you'll be interested to know that MAKE Magazine is running a series of detailed posts describing their experience in building MakerGear's Mosaic 3D printer kit. The series, written by Sean Michael Regan, includes seven episodes: The frame, The X, Y and Z axes, The extruder, The Platform and The Electronics. 

 

As all MAKE Projects, this one is very detailed with plenty of step-by-step instructions, images, parts lists and tool requirements. Easy! 

 

Via MAKE

Definitive Guide Complete?

Make Magazine has produced a complete list of open source hardware projects, ranging in categories from 3D Printing, Arduino, Clocks, Development Platforms, Green Energy, Games, Medical, Robotics and many other areas. The category of interest to us, is of course, 3D printing. There we find the major open projects listed:

• Contraptor
• Fab@Home
• MakerBeam
• MakerBot
• RepRap

And that is indeed the list of the major projects, but we wonder whether there are other smaller projects that might be considered for such a list? Over the past two years we've written on several independent projects attempting various angles on 3D printing. But at least so far, none have reached the heights these five have made.

Via Make

MAKE Makes a Character

Shapeways provides a wonderful and simple way to create many types of objects. Their software does have restrictions, but don't fret - you can always use your own 3D design software to produce, well, what ever you desire. And that's precisely what John Park did at MAKE magazine.

Using MAYA 3D software and a cute character concept, John built the basic shape first, then posed it by twisting the shape. After some final smoothing the design was sent to Shapeways for production. It's just that simple. Except for the 3D modeling part.

Via MAKE

Geometric 3D Art

Bathsheba Grossman is an artist that specializes in that geometric zone where art, science and mathematics link together. She produces very unique designs, and many are available for direct purchase over the web. Pictured is the 3 and 3/4 inch long "MG" metal piece, priced at US$325. According to Bathsheba:

I use a lot of technology. 3D printing in metal is the main way that I work, and I also do a lot with subsurface laser damage in glass. This isn't because I love gadgets; it's much more trouble and expense to use new media instead of the more mature techniques that most sculptors enjoy. I do it because the shapes I have in mind aren't moldable, and I want to make a lot of them. Those two constraints, taken together, turn out to be remarkably constraining: ordinary sculpture technology just does not do the job.

Via Bathsheba.com and Make Magazine

3D Science Fiction

Wouldn't anyone like a boss like Phillip Torrone's? The drafter had access to a Spectrum Z510 3D Printer at work, and his boss let him test the system in an unusual way:

Whenever we had to reset the system or replace the print heads, we would run a test file through. My boss at the time, a science fiction fan like me and a general all around cool guy, let me run some .stl files of my own as tests.

Phillip then printed out numerous science-fiction objects from 3D designs he cobbled together from others, or made himself. This illustrates the importance of having a ready-to-go library of 3D models, one of our wishes for 2008. Great work, Phillip!

Via Make Magazine