I decided to try my hand at making an angel Moroni. The result is before you. The angel Moroni is a statue that decorates the tops of many temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints. Overall I’m not 100% happy with the result, but my attempts to fix it haven’t turned out well. So I’m just going …
CyBot posable toy
I said I wasn’t going to do it, but PinShape’s toy contest convinced me to take the joints I made for my Cymon robot and make a more generic modular robot toy. Introducing CyBot! The goal was to make these bots more home 3D printer friendly than modibots, more stylish than like beco blocks. There is no ball flatening like …
Printing NinjaFlex
I’ve had a roll of red NinjaFlex for an embarisingly long time now (a few months). It’s just been waiting until I sorted out my extruder issues. This weekend, finally I decided to make it happen and try this stuff out. Short version, NinjaFlex is flexable, but not stretchy. It is the most inaccurate and crumby filament I’ve used, so …
How to fix bad filament
If you’ve ever bought filament from a bargain supplier you know you’re rolling the dice. And occasionally you get that roll of filament that no matter what you do it’s a bad print. You try printing higher temp, lower temp, slower, faster, you build an enclosure, you try a fan, and whatever you try the result is the same. Icky …
Fixing Andy’s Guitar
Andy Cohen of the 3D Printing Today podcast sent me a mesh that he said wouldn’t slice very well. So I crack it open and see if I can figure out what’s wrong with it. This is, in a way, supplemental material to the segments I’ve been sending them for the 3D Printing Today podcast, but it’s a bit out …
How to support a ring
In modeling and iterating the rose ring for my wife I made a lot of mistakes and I thought I’d enumerate the lessons I learned about making ring without regards to the YHT rule. Increasing the support angle to 45 degrees is mandatory for ABS. Tilting the ring 30 degrees will prevent the supports holding the top up from passing …
Saving money on PinShape, Sculpeto, or Shapeways
I mentioned before that there’s been some learning involved in using PinShape. Because PinShape partners with Sculpteo to print your stuff, understanding how Sculpteo prices their prints, which is similar to how Shapeways prices their prints, is key in bringing prices down. First of all, a big print is a big print. There’s little to nothing that will bring down …
Me on the 3D Printing Today Podcast
Andy and Whitney of the 3D printing today podcast put out the call for guest podcaster I decided “what the heck.” Could be a good chance to pass on some knowledge and maybe plug my book a bit. The first episode with my segment in it has gone live. 3D Printing Today Episode 36 has my introduction and a little …
To smooth, or not to smooth?
I like having the ability to smooth my prints with so much more ease than before. But just like before some things are better left without the smooth finish of an acetone sauna. Such was the case when I printed another pair of CoinAge boards. I decided to smooth one of them to see if it would improve it. It’s …
Lego Gold Idol
A coworker of mine when they saw my Golden Idol asked that I make a Lego version for his kid. I thought it would be easy enough, forgetting that its never easy. The modeling part with smoothly enough. Find a presumably compatible Lego brick model and a little boolean jiggery pokery and the model is done. But then I printed …