OpenSL 3D Printer: A Stereolithographic printer, For Everyone. What is sLAMPS? sLAMPS is an open design for a 3d SL (Stereo Lithography) resin printer. I've been working on it for the last few months and have gotten it to the point where it is ready to print -- once I get a good supply of resin. How does it work? The printer works using a galvanometer and mirrors to steer a laser into a cured vat of resin. Why do I need funding? I'm seeking funding for two reasons: 1) To be held accountable for my design to ensure that this design makes it into your hands before people are mistaken into spending a lot of money on something that doesn't need to be that expensive. 2) To accelerate my prototype. Big purchases? Well, the funding, if received, would go towards: * Resin Development / Manufacturing / Supplier. * Laser Cutter. Why aren't you selling lots of full, assembled printers? The printer in its current state is still very much a beta. What have you done so far? * Designed and printed several interations of plastic parts for the printer * Built sLAMPS 1.0
The Robo Personal 3D Printer Yes, Robo is another one of those new 3D printers that appear on crowdfunding sites, but what makes it different? For one thing you'll immediately notice that it's got a very attractive case - and that's just the start. Each new filament-based 3D printer startup focuses on a particular aspect to make them stand out. Robo's focus is cost. They aim to be the lowest priced personal 3D printer they can be. And it's not a basic machine, either. While their Kickstarter campaign successfully concluded with them over-raising USD$649,663 of their USD$49,000 goal, you can still order a unit at their website. It seems that price is definitely a factor for consumers shopping for 3D printers.
3D Printed Robotic Hand by Christopher Chappell Our Kickstarter campaign is to develop a humanoid robotic hand and arm that is of far lower cost than any other available. We believe that this will open up robotics to a far wider market of makers and researchers than has ever been possible. This should then trigger an explosion of creativity in the areas of robotics, telepresence and ultimately prosthetics. Project background can be found at the Anthromod website. Photos of the printed prototype How you will help With your Kickstarter pledges we can take the prototype design and optimise it. By pledging even a little you can receive part of the arm that will be functional. Features of the arm Current features of the prototype ·The arm and hand have 6 degrees of freedom that can be actuated (1 thumb, 4 fingers and 1 wrist). ·The arm uses a tendon system, with the movement being provided by 5 Hobby Servos. 5 being the current number that can fit into the forearm. ·Small elastic bands allow the joints to open and close smoothly. ·Joint Models.
Fully expandable RigidBot 3D Printer reaches funding goal in one day Mar.27, 2013 A sturdy, customizable 3D printer RigidBot is just launched on Kickstarter. Designed by Provo, UT based Michael Lundwall, RigidBot is customizable and fully expandable in the X, Y and Z directions to fit all your individual prototyping needs. "Using the injection molded plastic joints, you can adjust the size by swaping out the metal bars with longer or shorter ones." says Lundwall. The design of RigidBot 3D Printer based off of the RepRap 3D printers and remains simple and clean. It uses Sanguinololu 1.3a electronics with a ATMEGA1284. You can buy RigidBot fully assembled or in kit form. Here are some 3D printed samples: Owl printed in wood - ABS - PLA Coral Vase designed by Dizingof Lamp Shade For $325 you will receive a complete RigidBot 10"x10"x10" PLA Kit, including everything you need to make your 3D printer and 6' of PLA material.
Shrunk down an Arduino to the size of a finger-tip! by Open Source RF RFduino: A finger-tip sized, Arduino compatible, wireless enabled microcontroller, low cost enough to leave in all of your projects! The RFduino has Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy built-in, which enables it to wirelessly talk to any smartphone that has Bluetooth 4.0. Currently we have several open source apps built for the iPhone which were used in our demos. Open source Android apps are next. The RFduino has a Nordic 32 bit ARM Cortex-M0 processor, so it has more power then the UNO, however it still runs the same, simple Arduino code the UNO runs, so there is no need to learn any new programming language or environment. The RFduino GPIO lines all support, Digital IO, Analog ADC, SPI, I2C, UART and PWM. The RFduino is similar to the Arduino UNO or DUE, except the RFduino is a fraction of the cost and size, in addition has wireless smartphone connectivity built-in! Up to now, adding wireless to an Arduino required an additional wireless shield which adds cost and size. - Armen
Makerbot, Ultimaker and Cb printer: customer support comparison | A girl with a 3D printer 3d printers are fun, but you will eventually have problems and will have to write to the customer support to solve them. Maybe after months of faithful usage like it happend to our Replicator or just after unboxing and trying to assemble the creature, but sooner or later you will have to write an email and ask information or spare pieces to who sold you the machine. Sometimes it’s a nice experience, sometimes it’s awful. You already are sad/annoyed/angry because your printer isn’t working and a good user support will brighten or darken your day. So here are our experiences so far, let me know yours! Cb-printer: I’ll start easy, the error was theirs. Makerbot: after working perfectly for months on one day we heard a pop, a bad smell and the printer was dead. Great support, would love to recommend it Ultimaker: I already wrote about the problem we had in my assembly post and won’t get into details again. Based on the user support I would never recommend Ultimaker
CES 2013: Cubify's New CubeX 3D Printer Wins Best Emerging Tech Award 3D Systems seemed to be the only 3D printing company out in force at CES, perhaps because it was at last years' that they debuted their Cube 3D Printer. This year they pulled the sheets off of not one, but two machines: Their updated Cube 2, a faster and more accurate update to the original, and their larger CubeX, which can print "basketball size" (10.75" x 10.75" x 9.5") in both ABS and PLA. Whereas the Cube 2 still rings in at an affordable $1,299, the base model of the CubeX will set you back $2,499. That's for the single-head, or one color at a time, machine. But they're also offering CubeX Duo and Trio models, dual-head and three-head variants with slightly smaller build areas than the single-head, that come in at $3,249 and $3,999, respectively. Their booth was pretty mobbed—I had to wait for a lull to sneak some shots in—and judging from the questions I overheard attendees asking, laypeople still don't seem to know much about 3D printing.
Maxifab 3D Printing Framework by Ryan Robinson A 3D printer is a computer peripheral just like a normal printer, but instead of printing a picture of an object, 3D printers can actually print the object themselves! They can do this because the “ink” inside of a 3D printer is actually plastic and it creates the object layer by layer by responding to commands given by the software.The end product is produced by a process called additive manufacturing. Any solid plastic object that fits within the printer's build envelope can be made. The build envelope is the printable space of the machine. Until recently this amazing technology was only available to large companies and their rapid prototyping departments or sub contractors, but now these exciting machines are becoming available and affordable to the average public. The Maxifab 3D Printing Framework aims to address some of the limitations of those other designs. The Maxifab 3D Printing Framework builds on the RepRap project's ideals, but not its design.
Pirate3D aims to bring affordable 3D printing to the masses Mar.25, 2013 Five years ago when Brendan Goh and Tsang You Jun took part in a business competition for a project to make a prototype of a milk bottle which changed colour depending on the temperature of its contents, they experienced a big problem, prototyping. Prototypes cost $1,000 and took many weeks (months sometimes) for one prototype to be made in China. Irritated at this process, Brendan Goh and Tsang You Jun, two young students at NanYang Technological University started looking for cheaper alternatives. "We bought a reprap which was terrible and broke down so frequently and then finally put down $2000+ for an Ultimaker. " says the team. "While it made the most beautiful prints (way better than the MakerBot) and still does, it was unreliable because of the parts it was made off and it was extremely sensitive to the environment and being moved around. (New office) The company's flagship product, the Buccaneer, is currently in the prototyping phase. (Photo credit: Tan Chong Yaw)
FORM 1: An affordable, professional 3D printer by Formlabs Are you frustrated that low-end 3D printers don’t have the quality to make the true beauty of your designs real? Do you dream of having the power and resolution of a truly professional machine on your desktop? We’ve created an easy-to-use system that rivals the output of high-end printers at a fraction of the cost. Our reason for starting this project is simple: there are no low-cost 3D printers that meet the quality standards of the professional designer. We’ve been hard at work for over a year, and with your help, we’re ready to take the Form 1 into full-fledged production. We’ve gone to extraordinary lengths to design a complete 3D printing experience: The Form 1 printer is engineered to produce high resolution parts with the touch of a buttonForm software is intuitive and simple to use so you can spend less time setting up prints and more time designingThe Form Finish post-processing kit keeps your desktop organized so that you can easily put the finishing touches on your masterpiece