Blog /

Tantillus 3d printer is now available for purchase

John / May 16, 2012 / 3D Printing / No Comments

My pal Brad (aka Sublime) has been working hard over the last 4 months or so to fine tune his custom designed, pretty much from scratch, portable 3d printer. He’s finally able to offer it for sale via an Indiegogo campaign.

As has been mentioned numerous times on this blog, I have been helping with the prototype and am about 80% complete on my build of a wood cut version of Tantillus. My hope is to have it up and running for the Vancouver Mini MakerFaire next month.

I have to say, it’s been pretty cool to witness the process that Brad has gone through. Lots of hard work and planning has gone into this project and I’ve been on the ground floor for it all (and hopefully maybe even contributed a little bit too).

I’m looking forward to seeing Brad’s project succeed and be an excellent example of open source product development.

I invite everyone reading this to check it out if you’re interested in an awesome, portable 3d printer. You can also read more about the Tantillus on the new website Brad has set up to support it.

Tech Tuesdays: Use your smartphone with your bike and your ski poles

John / May 15, 2012 / Media, Technology / No Comments

This week on News 1130 radio in Vancouver, I discussed these items:

Neva – Evolution of the ski pole: New ski poles keep you informed as you hit the slopes by wirelessly connecting to your Android iOS device, giving you updates on weather conditions, elevation, temperature, incoming calls/SMSs, and has an open API to allow for even more data to be displayed on the pole’s OLED display. (source)
Audi e-bike Wörthersee: Another car manufacturer joins a growing list offering an ‘e-bike’ using a carbon fibre frame, motor assisted pedals get up to 50 mph and let you tune the bike using your smartphone. Still just a concept at this time. (source)

Vancouver Mini MakerFaire 2012

John / May 15, 2012 / 3D Printing, Hacking, Technology / No Comments

We’re just over a month away from Vancouver’s 2nd installment of the Mini MakerFaire. Last year was the first one in Vancouver and it was a blast.

I spent nearly the entire weekend browsing the booths, chatting with people and buying far too much electronics at the Solarbotics table.

It was also literally the first day after I had finished assembling my MakerBot 3d printer and was stoked to see some other bots in the real world (I bought my kit without actually ever seeing one in person).

This year should be even more fun as the organizers have secured the PNE grounds for this year’s event so it will be even bigger. It’s not just 3d printer stuff either…all kinds of creative arts, crafts, demos, robots, photography, seminars, workshops, etc.

I’m looking forward to being there as a ‘Maker’ this year as our 3d printing club will be setting up a ’3d printer village’ with somewhere around 15+ 3d printers (all different kinds) scheduled to be onsite during the weekend with more being added to the list all the time. We’re hoping to have them all running and printing stuff for people to take away as a sample of what the technology can do.

Can. Not. Wait!

Early bird ticket pricing ends soon so get your tickets now! Fun for all ages!

Jay Leno explains 3D printing…in 2009

John / May 14, 2012 / 3D Printing, Technology, Video / No Comments

Surprisingly great explanation of the 3d printing (and scanning) technology that Jay Leno uses to fix cars in his collection…from 2009!

The technology in the video has gotten better and way cheaper now but the concepts are the same.

via MAKE

Tech Tuesday: Find your way indoors and an app for couples

John / May 8, 2012 / Media, Technology / No Comments

This week on News 1130 radio in Vancouver, I talked about:

Find your way inside a mall or supermarket: GPS works great for getting from a to b in your car but doesn’t work so well indoors. A new technology will help you navigate your way around inside a mall or supermarket. You scan a code upon entering the location and then a compass and pedometer knows your location based on the starting point and can help navigate you to the cereal aisle. The MST-Smartsense Sensor is a proof of concept device being tested right now that could someday become an app on your smartphone. (source)
Pair – the app for couples: A new iPhone app will help couples stay in touch without having to overshare stuff on Facebook, Twitter, etc. The app lets you send text messages, doodles, reminders and todo lists for free between you and one other person only. I like that you can also send a map of your current location to your partner. You can even work together on a drawing if you’re both online as well as the ‘ThumbKiss’ feature that lets you see where your partner is touching. Great for people separated by work travel or a long distance relationship. (source)

Quadding on the Kettle Valley Railway in Coalmont, BC

John / May 8, 2012 / Travel / No Comments

This past weekend, I visited a part of BC I’d never been to before…Coalmont which is just west of Princeton.

We were attending my girlfriend’s father’s 65th birthday party.

While they were camping down by the river, we stayed in the awesome Mozey-On-Inn Motel in town (5 minutes away), a great little 3 room motel:

We stayed in the Barber Shop room (the largest of the 3) and we had a shotgun above our bed…you know, just in case.

As my girlfriend’s family are avid ATV’ers and members of a riding club, we were able to borrow theirs over the weekend. Coalmont seems to have a lot of ATVs thanks to the Kettle Valley Railway corridor (aka the KVR) which is a well used trail for getting between Princeton and Tulameen.

With hundreds of miles of trails, it’s a great place to go quadding. This was my first time and it was a ton of fun…the kind of fun that makes you want to get your own quad.

Quadding is some dirty business…days later and I think I finally got all the dirt and dust out of my sinuses.

The campground was just around the corner from Granite Creek (aka Granite City), one of BC’s many ghost towns.

It’s mostly just a few collapsed buildings now but is steeped with history and plenty of ghost stories.

I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen so much wildlife in one weekend. Saw two bears and well over 30 deer during the trip, plus some lamb, sheep and a bunch of chickens.

It was nice to get away for a weekend that for the most part (aside from the motel’s wifi), had no internet or even cell service.

Things got a little crazy at the birthday party…

(don’t worry, it was just the empty packaging the fireworks came in…we’re not that crazy!)

I shot a TON of GoPro footage (stills & video) over the weekend…just not sure anyone is interested in a 2 hour trail ride video of me driving over logs and eating dust.

The 3d printer that keeps on giving

John / May 2, 2012 / 3D Printing, Technology / 1 Comment

I bought and assembled my first 3d printer kit last summer, a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic (the device in the middle).

Since then, it’s printed the Reprap Prusa Mendel printer (on the left) which I assembled and gives me a bigger build area. Both of those printers have contributed different parts (in ABS and PLA plastics) for the prototype Tantillus printer on the right which is nearly complete and will be ultra portable (possibly even battery operated).

My Thing-O-Matic has also printed dozens of Prusa parts kits which have lead to (hopefully) dozens of other printers coming online as well…and it just keeps going. That doesn’t include the hundreds of (non-printer related) objects all the printers have made as well.

That’s kind of cool when you think about it.

Tech Tuesday: Hobbit backlash & cardboard Ikea digital camera

John / May 1, 2012 / Media, Technology / No Comments

This week on News 1130 radio in Vancouver, I talked about:

Peter Jackson screens 10 minutes of the new Hobbit movie and gets some surprising feedback: Jackson got a fair amount of pushback about the visual quality of the 10 minutes he shared with theater owners and selected folks recently. The main issue was that the cameras used to capture the movie are shooting at 48 frames per second (and in 3D) which results in a super fluid look that looks almost too real with some viewers saying it looked more like video than the lushness of the previous Lord of the Rings trilogy (shot at 24 frames per second). Jackson countered that any new technology can take a bit of getting used to and once viewers watch the entire movie and not just a few minutes, they’ll adjust to it just fine as they’ll forget about the technology as they get engrossed in the story. (Source)

Ikea unveils reusable, cardboard digital camera: as part of a press kit for the recent Milan Design show, Ikea included a little cardboard digital camera with 2.3 megapixels that has caught the attention of photographers everywhere thanks to it’s low tech look and specs. It has a USB plug for downloading about 40 shots from it’s internal memory and lacks a LCD screen on the back. You delete your photos by pressing a recessed button with a paperclip. Looks like the limited edition camera will be given away soon in stores to promote a new furniture line. (Source)

Tantillus & Prusa 3d printer build updates

John / April 26, 2012 / 3D Printing / 1 Comment

A brief update on the build status of my prototype version of Brad’s (aka Sublime) forthcoming Tantillus 3d printer and my Prusa Mendel Reprap printer.

Last weekend, Brad & I mounted most of the printed parts, motors and hardware for the extruder and build platform. Part of that exercise was for Brad to see how difficult it was for someone else (me) to assemble the internal parts (it’s tricky!) and for us to get an idea of how to document the build process for others.

Mechanically, it’s complete except for the bowden cable. We still need to source some tubing for the 1.75mm filament I plan on using. Brad’s also been fine tuning some of the printed parts to better match the sourced vitamin hardware.

Last night I started wiring the LCD panel and encoder wheel as well as mounting them to the front of the printer. As I’m building the wood cut version, I had to drill holes in the front. The lasercut acrylic version will come pre-drilled (and it’s seethru so the LCD will be on the inside).

I used this LCD cover I found on Thingiverse and it fits perfectly and cleans up the front nicely although I may reprint it in ABS instead of the PLA that is shown which is semi-transparent so the backlight leaks through.

The LCD & encoder are wired the same way as the PanelMax addon is that I recently integrated into my Prusa:

This is thanks to the excellent printed parts and tutorial TommyC posted on Thingiverse. It really makes a huge difference in using the Prusa without a computer…I simply slice my 3d models using Slic3r, then put the gcode file onto a microSD card (I’m still using my SDRamps board and not Tommy’s SD card reader in the PanelMAX). Power up the Prusa and navigate to the file and click on it. The bot then starts heating the bed, then homes the axis and starts printing as soon as the hotend is to temperature. I’m using Marlin with the Prusa now but am still having issues printing taller objects as I seem to have something off in my Z height configuration. You can see in this photo of two Yoda’s…the one on the left was printed using Sprinter firmware and the one on the right is with my Marlin build (latest as of last week):

A little squished vertically thanks to Marlin settings. More troubleshooting & recalibration to come!

I’m still waiting for my RAMPS 1.4 kit and power supply to come in before I can fire up the Tantillus but they are enroute so hopefully very soon.

UPDATE: Fixed the Marlin issue by turning down the current on the Z driver…it was overheating due to being on during the entire print at a high current so was basically going into protection mode on every layer, hence the weird behavior. My Sprinter config had the Z axis disabled when not in use which also works in Marlin but it works better if it’s always on. (Thanks to Brad for solving this!)

Tech Tuesday: Anontune & GoPayments

John / April 24, 2012 / Media, Technology / No Comments

This week on Tech Tuesday, I discussed these stories:

Anontune – the social music platform from Anonymous: a decentralized music discovery and sharing service that finds music from numerous sources around the internet and easily aggregates their sources in one place. You can import a playlist and Anontune will create a listenable version you can share without having to upload your music as it will find it on the internet and supply links to all the sources seamlessly. As they aren’t hosting the music, Anontune can’t be shut down – at least that’s their premise. Users won’t have to give up personal information to participate either. It’s still just ramping up but has the potential to be a major disruptor in the music space, not unlike Napster was previously (source)
Intuit GoPayment system is live in Canada: another option has been released for Canadians that allows you to use an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to swipe credit cards with no monthly contract with 2.7-3.3% transaction fees. Android and Blackberry support is coming soon. (source)

Every Tuesday, I discuss new and interesting technology items on News 1130 radio.