To start, here’s a really short video with a plug for my book showing how easy it can be to model a heart token for Love Letter. My intent was to print out 13 of them and have a picture of them with the game here for you. That picture would have gone here. So why is there no picture? …
Open letter to slicer makers
There’s a lot of talk about this hot new slicer called Simplify3D. Simple to use but easy to configure. Hey, I’m all for that. MakerWare is a nightmare to configure. Plus any tie I can sever with the big jerk Makerbot the better. However, I did a little exploration with the help of some friends and discovered some things that …
Modio, knocking one thing off my todo list
Sorry I haven’t had anything cool coming off my print bed to talk about. I have a backlog of jobs from MakeXYZ and 3DHubs to fill. I promise I’ll get to something cool soonish. In the meanwhile here’s some lighter news from the world of 3D printing (as opposed to yesterday’s grim post), Modio is awesome. When I made my …
Not cool is not strong enough to cover this, Makerbot
As I said on G+ where I saw this, there is literally no way I can give Makerbot the benefit of the doubt on this one. Makerbot’s patent lawyers have issued a patent application for: A bearing that provides contact force to engage a filament with a drive gear has a movable axis that can be controllably moved toward and …
And then there were two… almost
I’ve been printing with only one extruder for a while now, since the right thermocouple went out while I was fixing the left extruder. I got the replacement thermocouple a while ago but I’ve been putting off fixing it while I finished other projects. That was until the ceramic tape on the left extruder started going out. Welp, no putting it …
Splitting the die
Got a fun job on MakeXYZ for a family d10, a 10 sided dice with the names of the members of this family on each side. They wanted it in blue, I offered to make it in glow-in-the-dark blue I got from Craig at Addicore, because glow-in-the-dark is at least 20% cooler. The initial print did not go well. The …
3D Printing TIP: Designing with supports in mind and the YHT rule
If you want to learn more about designing for home 3D printers, my book, 3D Printing Blueprints, contains everything a beginner needs to know, and more than enough to teach a more experienced 3D designer as well. This post is just a little slice of that knowledge, but if you want more, I encourage you to get the book. There are …
You may now call me “Master”
I promise, this is a one time thing. The only time I will post anything on this blog not directly related to making or 3D printing. But I’m bursting with pride here and have to tell everyone. As of today I have been awarded the degree of “Master of Computer Science” from the Utah State University. This has been a …
Sometimes you just gotta focus
I’m in the middle of a couple of things, waiting until their done before I report on them here. The right extruder is still out of commission, the replacement heater block I got doesn’t fit the heater element (and Makerbot doesn’t sell official heater blocks any more so I’ll probably have to drill it out), I’m building a new enclosure, …
Pirate3D has launched their Thingiverse competitor
EDIT: My upload just got rejected. Apparently on top of a known printable object with pictures of it printed they wanted 3D renders of the objects. Funny, thingiverse has created their own 3D renders from day one. And there was nothing about this when I was uploading it the first time. Treasure Island needs content. If they’re going to make it …