Joe’s Makerbot now runs Sailfish

Sailfish is a firmware upgrade for Replicators and Thing-o-matics by the acceleration wizards Jetty and Dan Newman. And this is another reason why open source is more awesome. It was an adventure that took a few days to sort out entirely. The hardest part of the initial setup instructions was the usual “Press reset a moment before pressing the Update button in RepG” …

My son’s bowser costume so far

Yes, the bracelet and horns are 3D printed, but I think I’m most proud of the shell he made himself. My other son is going to be a bat with wings he’s made himself. [Sniff]. Daddy’s little makers.

Natural vs White

It was difficult getting a picture to really show the stark contrast between these two prints. Just realize that the minor difference you see in the picture is a major difference in real life. On the left is “Natural” abs, the same that came with my Replicator. On the right is “White” donated by Joseph Chiu (aka Toybuilder). The white is …

3D Printing Tidbit – Unloading stuck filament

Sometimes when unloading filament when the plunger starts backing the filament out I’ve seen something happens and the filament does not move. When this happens switch to load mode and push the filament in a bit and then switch back to unload. more often than not the hot filament will actually pop out before the plunger starts moving. I should mention that …

Replicator Tidbit – Filament feed tubes

See those tubes where the filament goes in? Used to be I had them way lower because when I was mounting  the filament rolls on the back on my replicator I wanted to be able to use the tube guide to bring them closer to where the filament was coming out. However, mounting these tubes lower creates a pull on the print head which …

TARDIS Ring featured

Before I had a 3D printer I tried my hand at selling a TARDIS ring through Shapeways. It’s still there, but I can offer a better price self-producing them. However, a month ago Shapeways featured my ring on their blog. I was unaware. Then cheezeburger.com features the same and sure enough I hear about that before it’s off the “Must Have …

Meet me at MakeSLC this Wednesday

I have no idea why you would want to, but if you would like to meet face-to-face the guy who is writing every post on this blog including this one you can this Wedensday the 17th at MakeSLC (650 S. State Street, Salt Lake City). I’ll be bringing the Replicator and talking about how owning one has changed my life. For …

Will 3D printing replace traditional manufacture?

It seems to be a topic on many people’s minds today. Here’s some reading material to get you started: Will 3D printing make global supply chains unnecessary?EU Looking to 3D Printing to Help Revive Manufacturing.What’s the Dreamweaver of 3D Design? That last one kind of made my point for me. Of the multifacted discussion of the disruptive effect of 3D …

Well, yes I would download a car, thank you

The headline reads “3D Printer DRM Patent To Stop People Downloading a Car” and every reaction I’ve seen has been doom and gloom. But either I’m not reading this article right or everyone else isn’t because when I read the article here’s what I took away. It is a patent troll who’s putting his finger on the patent before anyone …