opensource

3 New Open Source Tools To Aid In Battling COVID-19

During times of uncertainty, Michigan Tech’s Open Sustainability Technology (MOST) Lab doles out three new open source tools in response to the ongoing pandemic. The MOST Lab With advancements in technologies like 3D printing, people can share their designs with people across the world from them in a way that allows them to replicate medical-grade… Continue reading 3 New Open Source Tools To Aid In Battling COVID-19

The Defensive Patent License

A large portion of the 3D printing community is within the open source world, while the rest is commercially oriented. Conflicts have occurred, but now there could be a way to reduce them. 

Open Source Metal 3D Printing

We ran across an interesting project that’s attempting to create a system for 3D printing metal at very low cost. The idea is to do for metal manufacturing what was done for plastic manufacturing with current open source 3D printers.    The project, by Andreas Bastian, is entitled “An Open Source Selective Laser Sintering 3D… Continue reading Open Source Metal 3D Printing

The Flashforge Creator 3D Printer

If you think the Flashforge Creator looks quite a bit like MakerBot’s original replicator, you’d be correct. It seems that Flashforge has used the Rep’s open source design to produce their version, the Creator. But there are some differences as we’ll see.    The Creator is sold in two models, the Creator, which includes two… Continue reading The Flashforge Creator 3D Printer

Free For You: A 3D Photo Booth

Computer engineer Jeremy Herrman has developed an amazing software configuration that dramatically simplifies the process of scanning humans. Or anything, really. It’s the software you need to set up a kind of 3D Photo Booth, called ScanBooth.    Readers who have attempted scans of people with open source gear will know very well the issues… Continue reading Free For You: A 3D Photo Booth

Bre’s Not A Bad Guy

One has to sympathize with Bre Pettis, CEO of MakerBot. While he’s had huge successes in the past few years, most recently by announcing the professional-targeted Replicator 2, he’s also caught some flack from the open source community.    As we explained the other week, some members of the open source community are upset because… Continue reading Bre’s Not A Bad Guy

The B9Creator 3D Printer

It seems that KickStarter is chock full of 3D printers kits these days and every week there is a new startup company with an improvement to the latest designs. This week we’re looking at the B9Creator 3D Printer.    Michael Joyce’s B9Creator is a resin-based 3D printer, unlike most other inexpensive 3D printers that are… Continue reading The B9Creator 3D Printer

Open3DP is Now Open3DP

The busy folks at the University of Washington’s Solheim Additive Manufacturing Laboratory in their Mechanical Engineering Department have opened up again.    Opened up? That’s right, they were “intellectual property” closed for several weeks as their legal department imposed a rather crushing IP regime upon them. However, they’ve managed to overcome this by convincing their… Continue reading Open3DP is Now Open3DP

Open3DP is Now Open3DP

The busy folks at the University of Washington’s Solheim Additive Manufacturing  Laboratory in the Mechanical Engineering Department have opened up again.    Opened up? That’s right, they were “intellectual property” closed for several weeks as their legal department imposed a rather crushing IP regime upon them. However, they’ve managed to overcome this by convincing their… Continue reading Open3DP is Now Open3DP

Playing With FreeCAD

Can’t afford a big-time 3D CAD modeling software program? You’re not alone and you’re not without solutions. There are free 3D modeling software options, including the very popular but impossible to learn Blender. But Blender just isn’t CAD. Each 3D modeling system is best used for certain kinds of designs and if you are designing… Continue reading Playing With FreeCAD

Design with ImplicitCAD

Have you heard of OpenSCAD? It’s an open source software project that can be used to produce 3D models without a visual interface. How’s that work again? You write a kind of computer program whose instructions gradually generate all the pieces of your model. It’s a grand idea that we’ll delve deeper into in the… Continue reading Design with ImplicitCAD

Homemade Stereolithography?

Dissatisfied with your plastic extrusion-based home 3D printer? Looking for a mechanical build challenge? Perhaps you’d be interested in checking out the Laser 3D Printer on Instructables.    This project describes how to build a stereolithography (SLA) machine. You should know, however, that the SLA build process is quite different from typical RepRap-style 3D printers… Continue reading Homemade Stereolithography?

Hi Res Home 3D Printer Update

We’re perusing Junior Veloso’s blog – he’s the fellow who’s developing a very high-resolution personal 3D printer. The device is quite different from most home RepRap-derived 3D printers in that it doesn’t heat and extrude plastic. Instead, Veloso’s printer uses light to solidify resin, layer by layer. The results are pretty amazing – click the… Continue reading Hi Res Home 3D Printer Update

What is OHANDA?

OHANDA is the Open Source Hardware and Design Alliance, an initiative that has developed “Four Freedoms” that can be associated with an open design to ensure proper open source use. Their idea is to create an icon that may be displayed on hardware to indicate the permitted usage, similar to a “CC” license in a… Continue reading What is OHANDA?

AdderFab!

We’ve been following the folks at Open3DP for a while now as they proceed through experiments in 3D Printing. Lately they’ve been working on perfecting printing molds that have revolutionized the production of RepRap Prusa Mendel 3D printer parts. However, we now see they’re working on an entirely new project: an inexpensive, presumably open-source powder-based… Continue reading AdderFab!

Metalcasting Breakthrough

Those inventive folks at the University of Washington are at it again. This time they’ve been working on a simple formula for cementenous metalcasting. In other words, material with which you can make an effective mold for molten metal casts. At one point, they were using this recipe:    1000 parts VersaBond 250 parts Maltodextrin 250… Continue reading Metalcasting Breakthrough

Open CASCADE

Readers might be familiar with Open CASCADE, but for those who aren’t it’s an open source software development framework that “includes components for 3D surface and solid modeling, visualization, data exchange and rapid application development.” The software is produced by Open CASCADE S.A., who make their money by providing consulting, support and custom development, as… Continue reading Open CASCADE

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… Continue reading Definitive Guide Complete?

Let’s Download Some Hardware!

Bryan Bishop and Ben Lipkowitz talk about their new open source venture: SKDB. What is it? It’s a open source hardware distribution framework that takes cues from the highly successful software world. The software world was held back for decades by centrally controlled proprietary paradigms, but blossomed when open source principles took hold. Today we… Continue reading Let’s Download Some Hardware!