Fully Printed Engine V0.1

It’s a good feeling when something you’ve made gets attention on Thingiverse. Even if it’s something you made a long time ago that never really worked the way you wanted it to. Hopefully, tho, someone can make a good version of my old desk toy. In the meanwhile: Here’s the engine designed to harness the power of those springs. I …

Printing springs

I want to build a totally 3D printed engine and use it to power some little things. So while I’m waiting for my red filament to come in so I can finishe the chess sets my current experiment is this: The hope is to make something that will store enough energy and return it, but not too harsh. So far …

This is why I don’t track Whovians

When sales of TARDIS rings started taking off I thought it might be fun to get a map and track the places I’ve shipped to. You know, to make a map of whovians of the world. Then I thought better of it because I’d basically be making a population map. See, I can sometimes think my way through a bad …

Chess sets day 3 and 4

So after running out of black… I ran out of white. Managed to get 1 white chess set and 3 incomplete red ones that I’m just going to finish up and get sent out without dual printing them. Frustratingly inefficient. I’ve placed orders for more black, white, and red filament through Joseph Chiu (aka Toybuilder) who will soon enough be dipping his …

5 minute dice tower

I’m still looking for something to use all my checker’s pieces on. I remember and old game that was a bag of tokens and a wiki of rules but for the life of me I can’t find it. If any of you have any idea what it is I’m looking for please don’t remain quiet. But while stumbing around google …

But what to design?

A Christmas design contest and the grand prize is a years worth of filament? That would save me a ton of money. The only problem is coming up with a design that’s a slam dunk in under a month. Maybe one of you could beat me to the win. Good luck.

Chess Production Day 2 1/2

The day started with a few clean up pieces from failed chess sets. A few rooks, a bishop. Then I decided to take the rest of the day off from printing chess sets to print a few things I’ve been meaning to get to for myself since my lovely and talented assistant can help me with the big batches. Then, …

Chess production day 2

This time around feels like a very different experience than last time around for so many reason. Filament diameter. Filament diameter. Filament diameter. I measured, swear I did. 1.81mm. They both worked. Then suddenly… they didn’t. Every joint was too loose. Of course I didn’t figure this out until I got home and 4 batches had already printed. Fortunately there’s a fix. Clear nail …

Robot Chess Sets back in production

There has finally been some demand for my Robot Chess sets and I’ve finally sold out of my original 10. Apparently Boing Boing put them on a holiday gift guide which links to either this blog or the makerbot blog, which links to the thingiverse page, which links to the etsy where you can find the chess set. Phweao. I’ve attempted to …

3D Printing Tip – ABS plus Tower or Skin = No

So apparently my recent printing problems was no fault of the mk8 upgrade or Sailfish. I was having trouble printing some pocket tactics pieces so I experimented with the tower plug-in before I found out what it did. (Dumb.) What tower does is it stays in the same area doing several layers before dropping down and doing another area. The problem with …