3D chocolate printer available for taking orders Jan.22, 2012 Maybe you heard about it, 3D printers is becoming consumer 3D printers. But how close they are to our daily life? Fortunately for us, 3D printing is finally starting to offer the combination of affordability and usability. Printing chocolate is not news, but 3D chocolate printer is now available for purchase, is news. Essential Dynamics, the company behind the Imagine 3D food printer, showcased the Imagine 3D printer at the International Consumer Electronics Show 2012 and announced that they were now accepting orders for the Imagine 3D printers. Why does Essential Dynamics believe that their system is unique? This Imagine 3D food printer comes fully assembled and priced at $2,995 plus $299 S/H. There is not much technical information available on Essential Dynamics' website, except that Essential Dynamics created a brand new 3D community Mongasso for sharing 3D designs for imagine 3D food printer. Source:psfk & essentialdynamics
The shape of things to come: A consumer's guide to 3D printers CES 2013 proved to be something of a coming out party for consumer-facing 3D printers. Sure MakerBot earned a fair amount of attention at last year's show with the announcement of the Replicator, which snagged its share of awards from various press outlets. This year, however, saw a relative deluge in 3D-printing representation, with strong showings from 3D Systems, FormLabs, MakerBot and the cloud-based 3D printer, Sculpteo. Even with so many companies rising to prominence, the dream of truly mainstream 3D printing still feels a ways off -- if that is indeed where we're inevitably heading. These nascent days are an exciting time, with a diverse array of companies and organizations vying to be the first to bring the technology to our homes. Most of these work by melting plastic (largely Lego-like ABS or biodegradable PLA) and squirting it out through extruder heads. 3D Systems 3D Systems has been in the 3D-printing game since before the term was coined. Bits from Bytes Eventorbot Fab@Home
openscad tutorial In this OpenSCAD tutorial series so far we’ve covered the basics of the OpenSCAD interface, how to make 2D forms, how to make some basic 3D forms, how to position those forms in 3D space, the different ways to combine forms, how to create mashups of one or more existing STL’s and OpenSCAD forms, and how to use modules to reuse your code to make your life easier. Although I described the last three tutorials as “intermediate” levels, that’s really only because you learned the basics so quickly from the first few tutorials. With just the basics you can literally design anything you can imagine. The “intermediate” lessons will let you do a little more and make your life a lot easier. Before we get started, the image is from BoriSpider‘s OpenSCAD tutorial homework. I’d like to include a picture of your homework next time. You may remember one of the first tutorials was about creating flat 2D forms using some simple commands. Homework assignment Bonus Section 1: The Tutorials So Far
KamerMaker DIY BioPrinter We started out by messing around with an old inkjet printer that we literally saved from a sidewalk somewhere. There's already plenty of interesting things you can do with an low-end off-the-shelf inkjet printer, but they do have some limitations, which we'll get into in the next Step (or skip straight to Step 3 for how we built our own bioprinter from scratch, that you can see in the first picture above). Undressing the Printer We disassembled an abandoned HP 5150 inkjet printer for use as a bioprinter. There's a little momentary switch that senses whether the cover is open. There's also a momentary switch inside the paper handling mechanism that senses whether paper has been loaded. Once you've got your printer all undressed, and figured out how to activate the cover-closed switch - print something! Cartridges Prep Next task is prying open an ink cartridges, so you can fill them with something more interesting. Alternatively, you can cut off the lid using your favorite power tool.
Lasersaur build - SolidStateDepot From SolidStateDepot Lasersaur This page is here to document the rough pricing of they diy laser cutter called the lasersaur. More info is available at the nortd labs lasersaur page [1] Our goal is to bring the total price down as low as possible. Big fish These items look grossly overpriced on the BOM[2] water chiller - $400 Some people seem to run 40w tubes without cooling. Smaller savings There is probably some savings to be had by price checking locally whenever possible to avoid shipping and handling fees. Added costs There are some things we will need to look into purchasing that are not on the list. IR blocking goggles exhaust fan and tubing fire extinguisher possibly air assist compressor? To do Continue squeezing the price down.
3D Printer Prizefight: MakerBot Replicator 2 vs Formlabs Form 1 The demand for affordable personal 3D printers has skyrocketed in recent years, with new models and designs popping up all the time. Budget-conscious enthusiasts, designers, engineers, and small-business owners can still choose from plenty of inexpensive and kit options, but the higher-performance, better-equipped designs seem to have gained the most traction. Two of the best and most talked about 3D printers, the MakerBot Replicator 2 and Formlabs Form 1, were on the scene at the Maker Faire in New York City earlier this fall, giving us a good opportunity to compare both printers' features and sample prints. MakerBot Replicator 2 MakerBot first started making a name for itself in 2009 with the introduction of the Cupcake extrusion printer kit. The Replicator 2, announced in mid-September, is MakerBot's latest attempt to push into the commercial 3D printer market. Formlabs Form 1 Formlabs' goal is to bring stereolithographic 3D printing technology to the masses. Print Resolution Summary
Guest Post: Cory Doctorow for Freedom to Read Week | Blog | Raincoast Books ← Back to Blog by Dan Guest Blogger + YA Fiction / February 24, 2013 Freedom to Read Week is an annual event that encourages Canadians to think about and reaffirm their commitment to intellectual freedom, which is guaranteed them under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. To mark this year's Freedom to Read Week, which starts today, we asked author Cory Doctorow to contribute a guest post on libraries and technology. Libraries, Hackspaces and E-waste: how libraries can be the hub of a young maker revolution Every discussion of libraries in the age of austerity always includes at least one blowhard who opines, "What do we need libraries for? Facepalm. The problem is that Mr. Libraries have also served as community hubs, places where the curious, the scholarly, and the intellectually excitable could gather in the company of one another, surrounded by untold information-wealth, presided over by skilled information professionals who could lend technical assistance where needed. Cory Doctorow
richrap @ blogspot A list of DIY high resolution DLP 3D printers Sep.11, 2012 Unlike the Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) technology we usually see on Makerbots and repraps, new generation of hobbyist printer uses light-curing resin and a DLP projector to build 3D objects. These printers use Digital Light Projection technology which produces objects with incredibly fine detail. How does it work? DLP is a much faster printing process that is capable of printing very high resolution models - each 0.1 mm thick needs about 8 seconds to cure. Here are some DIY DLP 3D printers being developed by enthusiasts for early adopters. B9Creator Price: Starting at US$2,375(Kit), US$3,375 fully assembled Michael Joyce, the designer of the B9Creator launched his Kickstarter campaign to help raise enough funds for first production run. Build Size: 77 x 102 x 203 mm (X-Y 0.1mm)/38 x 51 x 203 mm ((X-Y 0.05mm) Resolution: X-Y 0.05~0.1mm Z 0.1mm Build Speed: 12-20 mm per hour resin cost: US$100 per kg MiiCraft Price: Starting at US$2,119 Sedgwick Lunavast XG2
Smoothing 3D prints with acetone and without patent violations Austin Wilson and Neil Underwood from the North Carolina makerspace Fablocker invented a great, simple process for smoothing out 3D prints using evaporated nail-polish remover in a large jar. The process produces a beautiful finish and sidesteps a bunch of dumb patents for polishing 3D printing output. They're still experimenting with the details, and the fact that the first experiments turned out such great looking pieces is cause for excitement about where this will go when it's fully refined. ABS-based printed parts are placed in the jar with the acetone and heated to 90 degrees Celsius on the hot plate. Slick Trick Adds Much-Needed Shine to 3-D Printed Parts [Joseph Flaherty/Wired]
Open Book on "Low-cost 3D Printing for Science, Education and Sustainable Development" Low-cost, three-dimensional (3D) desktop printing, although still in its infancy, is rapidly maturing, with seemingly unlimited potential. The hope is that this cutting-edge 3D technology will open new dimensions to science and education, and will make a marked impact in developing countries. This book gives a reasonable, first overview of current research on 3D printing. Download the PDF (Low-resolution, 10MB) Download the PDF (High-resolution, 150MB) Download the ePub (black & white, 13MB) Download the mobi (black & white, 24MB) Converted to ePub and mobi by Marco Rainone. Download the ePub (full color, 15MB) Download the mobi (full color, 28MB) Converted to ePub and mobi by Marco Rainone. Get the iBook version for iPad (from Apple iBook Store) Note: the iPad version contains enhanced multimedia contents not available in the other versions (e.g. videos, interactive 3D objects, etc). An italian translation of the book is also available. Leave your comments on Thingiverse Table of Contents