As I have announced to my Kickstarter and patreon backers, I have some major PrintABlok related projects in the works. These aren’t going to be another kickstarter, but they will instead be released freely to everyone. In fact, Electroblok is going to inform an entire new YouTube series to teach Arduino programming. If you want to try out these projects, you can check them out on my discord. Just go to the #PrintABlok channel and check the pinned messages.
This focus on PrintABlock resulted in me making a little tweak to the connectors and the hole that they go into. Nothing major, all still 100% backwards compatible, just cleaning up some things that I kinda knew I needed to clean up for a while, but that, as a result, means I need to re-touch everything I’ve ever made under the umbrella of “PrintABlok”. You know, no big deal.
I’ve redone the base block set, including all the articulated blocks, and have reuploaded the fix to everywhere I upload 3D models. I’ve also updated the “source” so people can continue to make their own variations, but with the new connectors, should they be so inclined.
With this re-release I’ve also released some additional base blocks that were developed during the beast kickstarter. I’ll also eventually be releasing the articulated blocks for free, but if you bought into the Beasts Kickstarter, you already have those.
You may also notice that each of the blocks and plates have a number associated with them. The problem I was running into was figureing out how to organize everything. I was putting things in direcotries and there was a lot of overlap, like the “weapons” folders had models from both the mechs and beasts sets. Should they be associated with the mechs or the beasts? Should I have 2 weapons folders? This new numbering system is attempt at keeping the PrintABloks organized while just dumping all the files in one big directory where they can all be found, regardless of what set they were made for. The number systems is as follows:
- 100-149 are the base blocks.
- 150-199 are the articulated blocks.
- 200-299 are the Mechs.
- 300-399 are the beasts.
- 400-499 is reserved for SkyBloks (the next kickstarter).
- 800-899 will be Electrobloks.
- 900-999 are the “novelty” blocks, like the boxes and WritersBloks (though most of those are actually 932X where X is the letter or number they represent).
- 1000-9999 are for plates, where the first digit matches the first digit of the individual set they are plating for.
What’s going to happen when I run out of numbers? Wouldn’t that be an accomplishment? That is totally something I will figure out when it becomes a problem.
You can download the updated source and printabloks wherever you download 3D files:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4811991/files
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4171518/files
https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/47788-printablok-base-bloks/files
https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/47787-printablock-source/files
https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-142140
https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-printablok-source-112470
