Tag Archives: dalek

Your mamma was so rusty

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I recently watched this bit from Doctor Who.  Cybermen and Daleks insulting one another?  Heck yes!

  • Our species are similar, though your design is inelegant.
  • Daleks have no concept of eh-leh-gance.
  • This is obvious.  But, consider – our technologies are compatible.  Cybermen plus Daleks.  Together we could upgrade the universe.
  • Request denied.
  • Hostile elements will be deleted.
  • Exterminate.
  • Open visual link.  Daleks be warned.  You have declared war upon the Cybermen.
  • This is not war.  This is pest control.
  • We have five million Cybermen.  How many are you?
  • Four.
  • You would destroy the Cybermen with four Daleks?
  • We would destroy the Cybermen with one Dalek.  You are superior in only one respect.
  • What is that?
  • You are better at dying.

Blueprints for building a Dalek

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You must already know by now that I am a fan of Doctor Who.  I really wanted to build one as a kid – and had even heard the BBC had long ago published and gave away designs on how to make your own.  Then, about a week ago I saw this blog post showing a form letter kid received from the BBC in the mid-eighties after inquiring about the plans.  The letter from the Doctor Who Production Office politely and patiently explains the plans, originally released in 1973, included cost projections that were out of date.  There’s a short disclaimer saying the kid should not use it for commercial purposes, etc.  And, they close with an apologetic not saying they are unable to assist with finding suppliers.

Yesterday morning another blog post went up linking to the actual plans themselves!  There’s also a link to Project Dalek – a fan site for people who share information about the Daleks they are building.

Edit: Each page of the plans are scanned and online as separate GIFs, one set as black and white and the other set as grayscale.  I’ve zipped the scans and turned each set into a separate PDF.  I’ll upload them shortly.

New Design: Dalek Cookie Cutter

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I’ve uploaded my designs for a Dalek cookie cutter to Thingiverse.

I don’t even eat that many cookies.  It’s just that these are just fun to design.  I realize there’s an SCAD Thing on Thingiverse for creating cookie cutters.  However, I’m just not familiar with SCAD and Sketchup with a few key STL plugins is SOOO easy to use.

My design process is essentially:

  1. Draw silhouette of object in Sketchup
  2. Use the “Offset” feature to create an outline of the object around the flat silhouette of the object
  3. Delete the interior outline
  4. Use the “Push/Pull” feature to raise the outline to about 2cm
  5. Export as an STL
  6. Run through NetFabb STL automatic repair
  7. Upload to Thingiverse with a witty description
  8. Write a blog post about it

I’ve posted a few times about useful Sketchup plugins, so if you’re getting started with Sketchup and MakerBot that’s a good place to start.

Beco Block Connections

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I really like the connection mechanism behind the Beco Blocks. 1  It appears to allow a wide range of movement and rotation in the joint.  There’s a lot of applications that come to mind:

  • Beco Block Voltron. ‘Cause, you know, I really really want a printable Voltron.
  • Beco Block Leonardo Robot. ‘Cause my robot’s hips keep breaking! 2
  • Beco connector Z axis crank. There’s a crank for everything, why not a Beco Block?
  • Beco connected printruder. Why not just snap the extruder together and hold it in place with fewer bolts?  Or, if that’s too fragile, why not a printruder that snaps into the printed dinos?
  • Beco connector dalek hinges. All that is stopping my dalek from ruling the universe (and time!) is some freedom of movement.

In furtherance of these possibilities, I’ve taken the smallest male/female Beco Block and sliced it between the male/female connector parts.  My idea is to start grafting these connector parts into other designs.  I need to fix up the files a little – but when I get them usable I’ll post them up to Thingiverse.

  1. Having only printed one block, I suppose I can’t really speak about it intelligently.  Then again, ignorance has never really been an impediment to me talking/typing before… [↩]
  2. I’m not kidding.  It’s pretty sad.  First his left shoulder, then his right hand, then a hip, then both hips. [↩]

New design in progress: Dalek components

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I think it would be great to have a printable Dalek with a movable eyestalk, ray gun, and suction cup arm, and rotatable head.  I’m working on building such an animal.  I see the small eyestalk, gun, and arm to be the big challenges here.

I’ve got a reasonably rotatable head – by lopping off the head from the digital design files, adding a little stump, and putting a hole into the Dalek.  More as this progresses.

Plus, since I’ve recently really improved my print quality (and increased print time!) I’m looking forward to re-printing this thing.

First part prototyped!

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I’ve just prototyped my first part for a client!  What fun!

He sent over some design files, we discussed some of the constraints of the MakerBot Cupcake CNC (overhang limits, printing resolution, ABS warpage, build sizes), went back and forth over several iterations of the design, and today I printed it up!

In getting ready to print his part I had tuned my ‘bot over the weekend.  The part has the absolute smoothest sides I’ve been able to print on anything to date with minimal stringing.  I’m really really proud of that print.  The resolution came out so well I want to reprint several prior prints – such as the TARDIS and dalek.

Anyone want a second hand TARDIS?

New print: TARDIS

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InnovationByLayers – you rule.  Thank you for modeling and posting this.  I’ve really wanted to print out a TARDIS and a Dalek.  I downloaded the file, ran it through Skeinforge, and started printing away.

1 hour and 8 minutes later:

TARDIS

TARDIS

I am very happy with this print.  You can see some very minor vertical variation in the model, which is quite exaggerated by the photographic angle, but it’s probably about 0.33mm or so.  The variation is barely noticeable.   I suspect I could get better resolution if all four of my Z axis threaded rods were straighter, but I also think my time/effort is probably better spent dialing into the correct Skeinforge settings.