November 2015 ~ Home Tips Trick

MeshPoint Rugged Internet Access Point

MeshPoint is a great project developed by some of my friends which should help people endangered in emergency situations and emergency services staff to get rugged and reliable internet access point.

It is developed extensively with help of 3d printers (Ultimaker 2) and I will post a more detailed article soon. This technology is currently being used to provide internet access to refugees in Croatia. There will be several versions of rugged enclosure with batteries, 4G access and mash WiFi.

MeshPoint homepage:

http://www.meshpoint.me/

Please support them and up-vote them on:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10649446

Read the full story on Medium:

https://medium.com/@mesh_point/how-the-refugee-crisis-gave-birth-to-a-cool-hardware-project-80c83280b2d1#.tcyik1mji

Here is one of the early prototypes:

Fully functional 3d printable DIY car jack

Fouche 3D Printing team developed fully functional printable DIY car jack. They are well known for their large machines and big working 3d printed objects.

If you want to make it yourself, files can be found here:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1164155

Fouche homepage:

http://www.fouche3dprinting.com/

Video of it in action:

And Prototype 2 is really working nice....
Posted by Fouche 3D Printing on Monday, November 30, 2015

Raspberry Pi Zero 5$ Computer for Your Next 3D Printing Project

Raspberry Pi foundation released 5 USD computer: the Pi Zero. Yes, it is truly revolutionary at 5 dollars. It will certainly find many applications in DIY projects and 3d printers.

Here are the video introductions:

More detailed Adafruit overview:

Raspberry Zero tech specs:

A Broadcom BCM2835 application processor
1GHz ARM11 core (40% faster than Raspberry Pi 1)
512MB of LPDDR2 SDRAM
A micro-SD card slot
A mini-HDMI socket for 1080p60 video output
Micro-USB sockets for data and power
An unpopulated 40-pin GPIO header
Identical pinout to Model A+/B+/2B
An unpopulated composite video header
smallest ever form factor at 65mm x 30mm x 5mm

Zero homepage:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-zero/

Here is the Adafruit step-by-step guide on how to design 3d printable enclosure for the Zero:

... and here are more details on how to test and 3d print the enclosure:

You can download the file HERE,

Here is the first Raspberry Pi Zero hack adding a wifi module on it:

http://hackaday.com/2015/11/28/first-raspberry-pi-zero-hack-piggy-back-wifi/

You can add an ethernet port:

http://raspi.tv/2015/ethernet-on-pi-zero-how-to-put-an-ethernet-port-on-your-pi

...or audio output:

https://learn.adafruit.com/adding-basic-audio-ouput-to-raspberry-pi-zero?view=all

... and here is the more detailed review by Hackaday showing some problems and disadvantages:

http://hackaday.com/2015/12/01/raspberry-pi-zero-or-minus-one/

Things have truly changed trough the time...

Water shadow art with 3d printed sheets

Swiss artists made this 3d printed project where they uses sintered sheets that produce shadows in water pond bottom and show words of a haiku. Cool.

Project homepage:

http://www.drzachsuchy.ch/#!haiku/chm5

Sintered 3d sheet

RevoMaker Multi-directional 3D Printing with Embedded Electronics

RevoMaker uses hacked standard 3-axis FDM 3d printer and a laser cut cube core to print on its six sides. Cube core element can contain electronic components so ypu can make compex geometry objects with active components.

From project description:

We present “RevoMaker”, a self-contained 3D printer that creates direct out-of-the-printer functional prototypes, using less build material and with substantially less reliance on support structures.

By modifying a standard low-cost FDM printer with a revolving cuboidal platform and printing partitioned geometries around cuboidal facets, we achieve a multidirectional additive prototyping process to reduce the print and support material use. Our optimization framework considers various orientations and sizes for the cuboidal base.

The mechanical, electronic, and sensory components are preassembled on the flattened laser-cut facets and enclosed inside the cuboid when closed. We demonstrate RevoMaker directly printing a variety of customized and fully-functional product prototypes, such as computer mice and toys, thus illustrating the new affordances of 3D printing for functional product design.

RevoMaker presentation video:

RevoMaker project homepage:

https://engineering.purdue.edu/cdesign/wp/revomaker-enabling-multi-directional-and-functionally-embedded-3d-printing-using-a-rotational-cuboidal-platform/

How to Make a Concrete 3D Printer

Muhleman developed a concrete powder bed 3d printer that uses hacked Shapeoko CNC router mechanism.

It uses sand and cement mixture and a liquid soil hardener called polypavement as binding agent. Powder bed is loaded manually :-) but a mechanism could be developed in the futre.
Printed objects are rough but the concept is interesting for artistic purposes and concrete furniture where you can get more complex organic forms.

Full construction guide with plans and operational instructions can be found at:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Concrete-3D-Printer/?ALLSTEPS

Here is a video of it in action:

Aurora Flight Sciences 3D Printed UAV with Jet Power

Project description:

Aurora Flight Sciences, a Virginia-based manufacturer specializing in advanced UAV systems, is pushing the envelope of UAV design by teaming up with Stratasys to create the world’s first jet-powered, 3D printed aircraft.

Using 80% 3D printed parts, the UAV is composed of Stratasys’ ULTEM™ 9085 lightweight material to achieve flight speeds of over 150 Mph. The high-speed system boasts an impressive 9 ft wingspan and weighs in at only 33 lbs.

Press release with much more information:

http://www.aurora.aero/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/SSYS_News_2015_11_9_Stratasys_Corporate.pdf

Full Armor Suit 3D Printed for Cosplay

Natasha Spokish spent 500 hours designing and 3D printing this ubercool cosplay Nova Terra armor suit.

Here is imgur album with much more pictures of the design and build process:

3D Printed Nova Cosplay (Starcraft/Heroes of the Storm)

Fabcore Open Source 3D Printer

If you are still interested in new FDM 3d printer development projects here is Fabcore from France. It is open sourced and still under development.

Technical specifications:

200 x, 200 y, 200 z
Drive core in x and y axis
Step version available at Fabrap
Extruder GT2
Hotend 0.4mm, 1.75 pla
Can be customized for ABS

Video of Fabcore in action:

Fabrap homepage in French:

http://fabrap-3d-printers.com/

Files to build it can be found on Thingiverse:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1116747

Repairing fridge light switch with 3d printing

Nicholas Durdan, well known for using his 3d printer to repair broken parts on his Ford Focus made a DIY 3d printed replacement for a broken fridge light switch.

It is a perfect example of how home digital fabrication is changing the nature of replacement part economics.

Identify the broken part...

... design the replacement piece ...

3d print and replace!

3D Printable DIY Tube Horn Speaker Setup

Here is a simple and interesting design of 3d printable DIY speaker in tube horn configuration.

Detailed guide, files and BOM can be found at:

http://www.instructables.com/id/3D-Printed-Horn-Speaker/?ALLSTEPS

Armor your feline friend with 3d printed spikes

Sometimes you just need to put some 3d printed spiked armor on your cat ....

Files can be found here:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1095858

Bobo the armored cat

How are large city and terrain map models 3d printed and assembled?

Here are two projects that demonstrate how you can make very large models of cities or terrain by connecting smaller pieces in larger frame.

3D Printed Model of San Francisco

Video description:

Behind the scenes 3D printed model of San Francisco:
Connex 500 printed 3d model of a portion of San Francisco. The model was created to aid real-estate developer Tishman Speyer in telling the story of urban development in the rapidly changing SOMA neighborhood. It can help with urban planning and building construction decisions that are better understood with the kind of physicality that only a real-world 3D replica offers compared to digital images or digital models.

3D Printed terrain map of Canton Bern in Switzerland

3drucken.ch printed this terrain map of Canton Bern in Switzerland, made in scale 1:25'000 out of 340 tiles. 4.9 x 4.5 x 0.17 m. ca. 75kg PLA used, 12'000h total print time on 7 Ultimaker printers during 7 months.

Automatic Design of 3D Printable Robots by Disney

Disney Research released their software demonstration which shows how it is possible to automatically design 3d printable robots that can move with different cinematic and motion systems.

You basically just input what you want a robot to do and algorithms calculate the 3d printable design. I see dark future for human engineers job security.

Now it is used for small robotic creatures, but I can see it being used to developed large military mechas or smaller mission customizable war bots.

From project description:

We present an interactive design system that allows casual users to quickly create 3D-printable robotic creatures. Our approach automates the tedious parts of the design process while providing sample room for customization of morphology, proportions, gait and motion style.

The technical core of our framework is an efficient optimization-based solution that generates stable motions for legged robots of arbitrary designs. An intuitive set of editing tools allows the user to interactively explore the space of feasible designs and to study the relationship between morphological features and the resulting motions. Fabrication blueprints are generated automatically such that the robot designs can be manufactured using 3D-printing and off-the-shelf servo motors.

We demonstrate the effectiveness of our solution by designing six robotic creatures with a variety of morphological features: two, four or five legs, point or area feet, actuated spines and different proportions. We validate the feasibility of the designs generated with our system through physics simulations and physically-fabricated prototypes.

Project homepage:

http://www.disneyresearch.com/publication/interactive-design-of-3d-printable-robotic-creatures/

It just needs to be bigger and carry some lasers!

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