Design tips for creating 3D digital models for printing on a MakerBot
I like the idea of making a crayon mold with my MakerBot. I even have a draft design sitting on my hard drive. However, what’s a good shape for a crayon mold? Triangular crayons, square crayons, fat crayons, thin crayons, flat crayons, smiley face crayons, Christmas crayons, Halloween crayons, Valentine’s Day crayons, Easter egg crayons…
If you could have any1 shape crayon, what shape would you choose?
I’m working on designs for MakerBot printable bearings. The proof of concept tests so far have been very promising. I’ve printed one that’s a little larger than a 608 bearing and turns quite well.
The secret is that I’m not using printed ball bearings, just the printed casing. :)
My final proof of this part will be to install it in place of one of the bearings holding the Z axis in place.
Domonoky uploaded his “Glowing Logo Cube.” I’m loving this thing. The second I saw it, I thought of The Pandorica from the season finale of this last season of Doctor Who. Here’s a papercraft version of the Pandorica from AFT Downloads, a website devoted to Doctor Who papercraft:
That image below is from Peter McKinstry’s online gallery of amazing work he’s done for Doctor Who and other super cool things.
.jpg "The Pandorica")
All I would need to do in order to create a printable Pandorica would be to make a 3D printable version of the Pandorica faces, slot them into the glowing logo cube frame, and drop it into the base.
I love love love the idea of repurposing a MK4 plastruder into a plastic welding gun. Although, you could probably build a reasonable welding gun out of scrap parts even if you had only a MK4 – since it really only requires the PTFE barrier, barrel, nozzle, and some nichrome.
Actually, Bre just drew a picture for my introduction over at the MakerBot blog. I like the picture mostly because it makes me look WAAAY cooler than I really am. :)
Peter Jansen’s latest post about selective laser sintering (SLS) is nothing short of amazing. Most of his posts on the RepRap Builders blog posts deal with his adventures and research into SLS fabrication – basically directing a laser over a bed of powder to fuse powder in successive layers into a 3D object. Since the object is being created in a bed of powder and any new layer is supported by the powder above it, the powder print media becomes it’s own support material.
His latest post diverges from his adventures with SLS 3D printing and details his efforts at building a DIY laser cutter. His idea is for a “reciprocating laser” which would change the focal length or the height of the laser above the material being cut. Peter points out that commercial high power laser cutters essentially brute force burn through the entire depth of the material to be cut. They’re so powerful that it doesn’t matter that the laser is out of focus and “cooler” at different depths.
He has demonstrated a proof of concept using much lower power laser to cut material by lowering a much lower power laser as it cuts material. The downside is that the lower power laser requires a much longer time to burn through the material – having to hit the same area several times at different depths to cut all the way through. His proof of concept setup was about the size of a CD/DVD drive – since CD/DVD drives, motors, and housing provided most of his building materials. So far he’s been able to burn through most of two CD case backs – about 2mm together. He’s hoping to push it to cut thicknesses up to 3.0mm to 4.5mm.
The incredibly small size of his setup means that it can only very small pieces of material. However, this gave me two ideas:
One of my favorite movies is The Mummy, and the coolest prop in the movie is a hexagonal puzzle box. When I get a chance, I’d like to design this object too. Here are some photos and informative links I’ve found:
Sure, it’s frivolous. However, I like the design challenge inherent in replicating this prop, getting the pieces to fit, perhaps even getting it to spring/pop open.
| Mummy Puzzle Box Stats | |
|---|---|
| Measurement of height | 6-7/18″ |
| Measurement from front to back | 3-3/4″ |
| Measurement of width, all sides | 2-3/4″ |
| Measurement of width, corner to corner | 2-3/4″ |
| Measurement of height | 1-1/2″ |
| Measurement of width, from base | 5″ |
| Measurement of all links | 1-1/4″ |
| Color | Antique Gold |
| Other design details | Top shows Seti I’s Horus name (men-maat-re), flanked by Anubis on the left and a male figure on the right, separated by vertical lines. Sides are inscribed with haphazard hieroglyphs including “Son of Re” and “Amen-Re.” |
In continuing with my Doctor Who fanboy prints, I’d like to create a Time Lord Seal coin. Coins are cool. The BBC put up the design file associated with the Time Lord Seal from The End of Time.
To the right is a first draft print of my latest designs for the sonic screwdriver. It’s next to a USB cable for scale and perspective. There are several things I need to fix:
I’ve posted my sonic screwdriver designs to Thingiverse for people to tinker with and, hopefully, improve. I would sincerely appreciate any help anyone can provide when it comes to designing the upper half of the sonic screwdriver – especially the moving parts.
Of all the bits to get working on my MakerBot, the Plastruder MK4 was the most challenging. There were so many ways for some critical component of the Plastruder to go wrong. You could:
From the description of the new Plastruder MK5, it sounds like the improved designs solve all of the above potential problems!
Update: Beak90 offered several other possibilities!
And, one more I just thought of:
