D.i.y 3D Printing

[Belakor]

Posting this up to see how many others here are interested in D.I.Y type projects like the Cupcake CNC by Makerbot Industries or the RepRap project.



There's more on the Cupcake CNC over on their wiki if you're wanting to know more. There's also a ton of cool stuff to print (or laser or whatever) over on the Thingiverse, which is a site they've set up for sharing the digital files for making things. If you've got the equipment you can actually download all the source files and build the Cupcake yourself





I ordered my Cupcake CNC a while ago and just had it arrive Monday afternoon:



A box of awesome. I had planned on doing more myself but it was easier for me to buy one and get that running and then look at building another myself... or maybe two but they'll come after I build myself a RepRap



Everything unpacked and the body fitted together quickly:



There's something cool about stepper motors that I can't quite describe... you can see the three of them in the second photo



I thought this was funny, I built the two "dinos" (they hold up the plastruder) and set them aside. A little while later I looked at them and it was like they were gasping at what they were watching on TV :lol





There are some more photos of the build in a set on Flickr



And the basically finished product:





I had planned on painting it metallic green but I couldn't bring myself to cover up all the wood grain and possibly cover the laser engraved lettering so I stained it instead. All I need to do now is hook up the ATX PSU (which should be here in a few hours) and buy a multimeter so I can get the correct length of nichrome wire for the heater barrel. I also have to finish wiring up the endstop cables with RJ45 connectors and then it's ready to start printing in ABS



ONce it's running properly I'm planning on using it to print some of the smaller greeblies for my various prop and costume projects as well as non-prop related things like a whistle



This is one of the first videos I found of the Cupckae printing something, it's not mine (obviously) but it's too cool not to post:

Anyone else building or looking at building one of these or anything similar? I know there's a few out there

 

[drgon47]

Do want. I have been eyeing this and the Rep Rap for a long time now. Post of some videos once you start printing stuff plox.

 

[mightymints]

damn it, a friend showed me one of these the other day, very much want one!



Edit, Eric already posted

 

[Adulese]

Must have. I wonder what kind of size stuff you could print out ...



- Adulese

 

[Belakor]

Do want. I have been eyeing this and the Rep Rap for a long time now. Post of some videos once you start printing stuff plox.

Cool, I was looking at getting a RepRap first but there's the whole chicken and egg problem where you need a RepRap to make a RepRap. I will be doing some videos of my prints once I'm up and running

I just need to find the firewire cable for the DV cam so I can import the footage... I'm also hoping I can record direct form the cam so I can record both the machine printing and the operations happening on the host computer at the same time.

damn it, a friend showed me one of these the other day, very much want one!



Edit, Eric already posted

Haha cool! Good to see there's more people that know about and are interested in them. I should be able to come up with some more reasons for prop builders to have one once I'm up and running

Must have. I wonder what kind of size stuff you could print out ...



- Adulese

Currently we're limited to a 100 x 100 x 130mm print area, though there's a tall version being worked on now that prints up to 100 x 100 x 350mm. It's still early days though, I think there's less than 200 kit machines out in the wild right now (I'm #156) so things should get real good in the near future

 

[23Magnum]

Cool, it's a tiny Fuse Dep. I used a big one in college. They're fun to watch as long as it's not too big a piece.

 

[Flyerfye]

Having one of these is one of my goals in life. Would love to hear about it's capabilities and limits once you get down to experimenting and creating stuff!

 

[Yodajammies]

OOooh, love the staining. Give me ideas for my makerbot when it comes to fruition. We're still waiting on the store to get more electronics boards in store. *shakes fist*





Can't wait to see this badboy in action.

 

[bevbor]

My congratulations to you. That is amazing thingy

 

[mightymints]

the first thing you need to make it do is play the halo theme.....

 

[Loess]

That's a nice looking machine.

 

[Belakor]

Cool, it's a tiny Fuse Dep. I used a big one in college. They're fun to watch as long as it's not too big a piece.

Yeah Most builds I've done so far I've spent sitting in front of the machine just watching it work, it's fun just to see it go!

Having one of these is one of my goals in life. Would love to hear about it's capabilities and limits once you get down to experimenting and creating stuff!

Sure thing, I'll post up what I find out about the limits and such as I go. There are bugs and stuff that I've come across but it's still early days, there's less than 200 of the kits out in the wild right now I think with another 100 or so on sale at the moment but things get fixed pretty fast.

OOooh, love the staining. Give me ideas for my makerbot when it comes to fruition. We're still waiting on the store to get more electronics boards in store. *shakes fist*





Can't wait to see this badboy in action.

I love going through and seeing all the customized bots that are out there at the moment, lots of cool ideas for finished... like the Metalab one that looks like a monster with teet. I had a few big plans for mine but I think the staining turned out pretty well and now that I've added a little more blue to it I think it's starting to look quite cool!



I don't know what parts you're doing yourselves but have you seen they've just put laserless kits up on the store?

http://store.makerbot.com/cupcake-cnc/laserless-makerbot-industries-cupcake-cnc.html

Everything you'd need except for the lasercut bits

My congratulations to you. That is amazing thingy

Thanks, it is pretty awesome!

the first thing you need to make it do is play the halo theme.....

Oh…. I never thought of that! Having it play the Halo theme would be awesome!! I need to learn more about converting music to Gcode so I can do that

That's a nice looking machine.

Someone I know said that it looks like a little time machine, which I thought was quite true (especially with all the blinky lights ). It also looks a whole lot like the classic Macs I have here so it fits in quite well





I did a quick video of the Z stage stepper playing Daft Punk late the other night:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/belakor/3967955385/

and one of the Imperial March from Star Wars the next day:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/belakor/3969534451/

I'll do better one's once I have some time





Here's some photos of the prints I've done so far, I've been so busy printing I haven't had a chance to post more or even be on the computer for anything other than starting prints…

I haven't done any real cleanup of the parts so they're a little messy



Marathon logo and the flaming ODST logo:





Bunch of different prints, dodecahedron, whistle, 608 idler pulley, pen plotter...





Autobot logo and some lego compatible buttons:





Pen plotter and a couple of quick drawings





I don't have a DXF to Gcode setup running yet so they're not actual drawings but hacked up Gcode for 3D models, which explains the messiness of the logo… which should look familiar

I must look at hooking a scalpel or something up in the pen plotter to cut out vinyl...





Right now I'm running a bunch of parts for the RepRap, just small stuff to start with but I'll get all the parts done eventually and have another 3D printer.





Still learning Skeinforge (the software for generating Gcode for the Makerbot), trying to find good settings for solid prints and not have them as open as some of the earlier ones (like the Marathon logo)

 

[LastSpartan]

How hard was it to build?

 

[mc halo3]

I remember you telling me about this,looks epically awesome too,especially the autobots logo.Good going man.

 

[Belakor]

How hard was it to build?

Not very, the hardest part was probably building the heater assembly and even that was pretty straight forward. Pretty much it's just a matter of slotting the parts together and securing them with a nuts and bolts. There is a little soldering to do on the endstops (all through hole stuff no surface mount) and some wiring but nothing major.

There's also a good group of people available for help (http://groups.google.com/group/makerbot/).

I remember you telling me about this,looks epically awesome too,especially the autobots logo.Good going man.

Thanks The Autobot logo turned put pretty well but the larger version should be much nicer. I scaled it down to 35mm high just to speed things up but it lost a lot of detail because of that.





Hooked the extruder back up this morning and I'm about to try printing the red dot from the ODST M7 SMG, don't know how well it will work (it's pushing the limits of the machine) but it's worth a shot I might try modeling and printing the frag grenade from Halo 3 soon as well.

Going to try and pick up some fancy coloured plastic sometime soon too!

 

[mc halo3]

Simply epic,if you could print an iron sight out,that would be awesome.

 

[Achille]

Ah, you New Zealanders have all the coolest stuff! I've been drooling over these things for a while now.



Quick question, because I've been a little confused over this lately. Is it supposed to act like a normal CNC (subtractive sculpting) unless you put on the "Plastruder"? Does it then act as a rapid-prototyper? If so, why bother getting a RepRap, if your Cupcake can do both?

 

[Belakor]

Ah, you New Zealanders have all the coolest stuff! I've been drooling over these things for a while now.



Quick question, because I've been a little confused over this lately. Is it supposed to act like a normal CNC (subtractive sculpting) unless you put on the "Plastruder"? Does it then act as a rapid-prototyper? If so, why bother getting a RepRap, if your Cupcake can do both?

Right now it's more for additive sculpting since the main toolhead is the "Plastruder" (plastic extruder for anyone wondering).There was a mount up on the Thinigverse for attaching a Dremel to the Z stage, which would then make it subtractive, but I don't think anyone ever did anything with that... though I'm planning on digging out my dremel in the next few days and modeling a new mount for it, see if I can't get this thing working like a CNC





The main reason I want to make a RepRap is just for the experience really, to be able to say I built a 3D printer on another 3D printer. It has a bigger build base too which would be handy for some stuff!





Some of todays prints:





The last one of the Superintendent is a really quick (and crappy) paintjob so it photographed better.

 

[TyrDropProps]

What dimensions is your RepRap gonna have?

As apposed to the 10cm x 10cm x 13 cm of a Makerbot?



and wouldn't setting a Dremel to CNC require different tolerances and movement speeds in proportion to the bits and Dremel speed?

 

[dconkid]

and wouldn't setting a Dremel to CNC require different tolerances and movement speeds in proportion to the bits and Dremel speed?

No, but it will torque everything in the frame in a way it's not supposed to.



Additive machining is advantageous and doable because it doesn't require the big, rigid frame of a CNC milling machine.