Robot Poker in California

Roxy ordered a set of poker playing robots to, get this, actually play poker with. The first set I made to sell on etsy never sold. It just sat on my desk and was eventually scattered by my children so this necessitated a custom print. But it was worth it for this picture alone. Turns out these robots are a …

3D Print ‘n Play

There’s a sort of make-it-yourself movement among board gamers called Print ‘n Play. Basically, instead of getting a box of cards and a board you get a PDF for the board and cards that you print out, cut out, and play yourself. It saves on manufacturing costs so you can get the games cheaper. And of course 3D printing can …

TARDIS Transformer has a Matt Smith head

With the bow tie it was either him or Patrick Troughton. The process of making this head involved getting some reference pictures online, importing them into Blender, doing some rough shaping, and then using Blender’s sculpt tools to finish the job… or so I thought. But the roughs looked enough like Matt Smith to me at least in Blender, that …

The Perils of Detail

My cub scout son suggested before last week’s weekend camping trip that we all get whistles in case of emergencies. a while back i figured out which 3D printed whistle was best so I whipped out the STL and printed a few more copies. A number of things has changed on my side since my last printing, most notable of …

I Have a Transforming TARDIS, Your Argument is Invalid

Alright, the design isn’t mine. It was actually created by Ellindsey on Thingiverse so at least 90% of this thing’s coolness need to be attributed back to him. Every joint on this thing is 3D printed. In fact the only non-3D printed parts are the pieces of paper that make the windows look white which are totally optional. But I’ve still …

Stress test? Pshaw

TurnRock’s Super Stress Test is designed to push the limits of what home 3D printing can do… theoretically. In reality this was hardly a test at all for my Makerbot. I know I keep lauding it here, but I am really impress with the small details that MakerWare handles so well. So to really stress the test I reprinted the …

Making a glasses holster for Gabe

My second son, Gabe, recently had to get glasses, just like his Dad. But, like any child, he has a hard time keeping track of them. So I build a case for them that he can keep with him wherever he goes, clipped to his hip. The files can be downloaded on Thingiverse, but if your glasses are a different …

A second shot at a Modibot

After my last go Wayne Loosey actually contacted me and asked if I’d like to test a few accessories for modibots on my next go. Well that motivated me to give this another shot. Did a couple of things different this time: Scaled everything to 130%. This was to hopefully increase wall thickness and fudge the tolerances. Mostly successful, except …

Makeware makes a superior Pick of Destiny

Both prints were made with the same model. The one of the left was made with RepG and the one on the right with MakerWare. For some reason RepG got all the details backwards. It raised the recessed portions, the recessed the raised portions, I don’t know what is going on. To be sure the original model is far from …

Home printing a Modibot

I’ve mentioned Wayne Losey’s Modibot before (and subsequent rantings about using 3D printing for manufacture). The basic “Mo” Modibot is available for download on 3DBurrito. So how well does a model created for SLS printers to use as little material hold up when printing on a home 3D printer? The final verdict is this is as challenging a print as …