Brad (aka Sublime) was the first to show up with his Prusa Mendel shown here printing a part on my coffee table:

and he also brought along a nearly complete prototype of his fully printable, mini 3d printer. Look how cute it is! Note the pop can for scale inside.

Check out the super tiny hotend he made (although he is considering using a J-Head after seeing the ones we recently ordered):

Derek also brought along his Citadel Mendel prototype printer:

It was pretty cool to see so many printers in one place (my living room & kitchen counter) and that 2 of them were incredible prototype designs.

With Eugene’s help, I also got my new J-Head hotend setup:

Just need to wire it up to my Prusa and (finally) start printing.

This is definitely shaping up to be the year of 3d printing…it seems every day major media is covering different aspects of how this technology is changing the game.

UPDATE: Brad has just posted about his mini printer with a lot more details and specifications. Sounds like it is getting a lot of (justified) attention in the RepRap community.

One method I’ve used is 2D extrusion which how I made the page keeper gadget for a coworker.

Another method is called solid modelling. There is a relatively new website, called Tinkercad, that gives you the tools to create 3D objects right in your browser, for free. It is built on the WebGL platform so requires a modern browser (and in some cases, modern graphics cards) to run it…I used Chrome as Safari doesn’t currently support WebGL.

Using a number of different shapes you can add or subtract the shapes to build up your design.

You choose the height and the size of the shape using direct numeric entry or a slider.

Choosing the workplane allows you change the level or angle you’re working on.

The measure tool allows you to create a positionable ruler to assist with measurements of your design.

The top left menu item, “Print 3D”, is how you export your model. You can either export it to an *.STL file (which is compatible with other 3d software packages as well as the software I use to print with my 3d printer) or you can send it to a 3d printing service like Shapeways.com if you don’t own a 3d printer. They’ll print it for you, in a number of different material options and ship it to your door.

Here’s their quick start tutorial that should give you a better idea of how it works:

I wanted to design a mount that would allow me to attach my GoPro camera to a remote control quadcopter. I couldn’t find a design on Thingiverse so I toyed with modifying some other GoPro mounts on there for the purpose but nothing looked like it would work any better than simply duct taping the camera down.

I also didn’t want to modify the quadcopter at all so opted to use the same mount point for the battery which already has velcro to hold it in place. I did find a mount online that someone designed and printed with a 3d printer who was selling it but there wasn’t any good detail photos of it so I had to come up with my own version and used my calipers to measure everything.

It took a few iterations before I found a design that worked:

The final version (I had to print two of them):

Here’s the results of this mount attached to the quadcopter with GoPro camera installed:

Turned out pretty good! Now to design one that fits underneath the quadcopter for an unencumbered view.

Another cool thing about Tinkercad is that you are given a permalink to your design that you can share. Then others can make a copy of it and make other things with it. I did this with something I found on Thingiverse, a tool holder for my 3d printer, that was a cleverly designed mount for tools that are commonly used when operating the 3d printer. I thought the same object, minus the tool parts, would be great for mounting my webcam onto the printer. The creator of the tool holder had used Tinkercad to create it so it was easy to duplicate it and then erase the unneeded bits to make this:

So I made a couple versions, a big and small one depending on what you wanted to attach to the platform.

So far, I’ve been really impressed with Tinkercad. I’ve found it the easiest way to get designing something, without all the usual technical stuff. It did take a little getting used to and it was a little tricky to figure out the workplane stuff, but once I spent a little time with it, it got much easier. I also now have two different designs that I have successfully printed and are working great.

There’s also a newer beta version you can try out at labs.tinkercad.com.

I know some of my readers are self-proclaimed coffee snobs…I get that. I’ve made many attempts at home with too many coffee makers, espresso machines, etc to count. I like the Tassimo since it’s single serve and easy to clean/maintain. I just wish the T-discs were more environmentally friendly or at least refillable.

Anyways, after a lively chat with a coworker and our local baristas, it was suggested that I give black coffee a try. They said it would take at least a few days to get used to it and then I wouldn’t look back. I could also use a little milk or creme to ‘take the edge off’ since I’m used to sweet & milky lattes.

So I decided since I had all this new coffee to sample, might as well give it a shot.

So, since Sunday I’ve been skipping the usual $5+ latte (I even have syrup at home to make it just like at Starbucks) and give ‘regular’ coffee the good ole college try.

I’ll let you know if I’ve been converted next week.

UPDATE: Success! I’ve been converted…well, at least not loathe to try a non-latte coffee on a regular basis. I may spoil myself occasionally with one though…perhaps like my friend, Lee LeFever who likes to earn his latte during the week and save it for Fridays.

I didn’t do it strictly via Tassimo though…with some Starbucks & mystery cafeteria coffee thrown in the mix over the past week. Thanks to everyone that commented here and on Facebook…machines like the Tassimo work for me since I don’t live beside a coffee shop with a Clover machine, nor am I interested in spending the time in the morning brewing my own the conventional way. Certainly on the weekends, I’m able to spend more time but during the week, with my commute, it’s a drive-by coffee experience or none at all. The environmental impacts of this approach aren’t lost on me either (as I noted in the post above). Maybe I’ll soon be able to recycle the t-discs in my 3d printer?

I followed the very thorough tutorial on PCPro so I won’t be going over the steps in this post. I did use Windows 7 for the install since the tutorial specified it. Not sure if there is Mac tutorial out there but the steps involved should be doable on a Mac, just like the Preware hack I did previously.

The nice thing about this hack is that you still retain WebOS and have the choice upon booting to pick which operating system the tablet will use.

I’ve only played with it for a little while but despite the alpha build status, it seems to function pretty stabily and fast. In fact, just as good as any Android phone I’ve owned. Emphasis is on phone here since the Android build being used isn’t the tablet (Honeycomb) version, so the TouchPad feels like a big phone. But you can access the Android Marketplace (make sure you do all the steps in the linked tutorial to enable this). Upon logging into my Google account, it even synced all my apps down that I had loaded on my Nexus S.

I’m looking forward to see how this hack evolves and makes use of a decent hardware platform like the TouchPad which many people were able to scoop up for cheap during the recent fire sale when HP exited the tablet business.

There is also a bunch of people interested in using Android to control their RepRap 3D printers and there are a few projects working on that right now. My TouchPad would be perfect for that so I’ll be keeping a close eye on this aspect.

Update: Looks like an alpha of Ice Cream Sandwich (aka Android 4.0) has been released.

In no particular order:

1. Lomokino & Lomoscope (~$100, Lomography)
   I love the concept of this retro film movie making camera from Lomography that uses 35mm film stock to shot about 60 seconds of footage. Sure you can probably fake it with half a dozen iPhone apps but that’s not nearly as fun. Get the bundle as it comes with a projector as well.
   
   
2. Star Wars peppermill ($20, Think Geek)
   
   Think Geek has some of the coolest stuff that you won’t find anywhere else…and this R2D2 peppermill is one of those things. I recently got this for my birthday from my girlfriend and can confirm that Droids DO in fact make the best pepper.
   
   
3. Arduino! ($30-$100, multiple places)
   
   As regular readers here know, I’m a big fan of Arduino microprocessors and there are no shortage of fun projects and kits to check out, regardless of age or skill level. It’s also the brains of my 3D printers. SparkFun has a great starter kit, as does Solarbotics who also has a couple awesome robot platforms to put those microcontrollers to work. Adafruit also has some great kits and lots of other fun stuff. In Vancouver, you can get Arduinos from Lee’s Electronics on Main Street and they also have the SparkFun kits
   
   
4. A 3D Printer – ($500 and up)
   
   A little higher up the $ scale but I definitely know a few people that would love to unwrap a 3D printer. I’ve written extensively about my experiences with 3D printers. This is a kit from Mixshop in Toronto that is only missing the plastic printed parts which can be bought from ebay for around $75 (I also print/sell them). Definitely for those geeks that like to build things from kits and aren’t afraid of a little soldering. Of course you can also go the route I went and get a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic which is a bit easier to build with a higher price tag ($1,324) or you can spend a little more and get it fully assembled ($1,624). Not sure if MakerBot can deliver to Canada with their lead time + customs but the previous links are for Canadian reseller that has them in stock.
   
   
5. The F-Stop Watch ($35, PhotoJoJo)
   
   This is a pretty slick and inexpensive watch for any photographer. PhotoJoJo has lots of other great stuff for the photo geek.
   
   
   
6. Xshot Extendable Hand Held Monopod (~$25, multiple)
   
   I bought one of these a few years ago and they now have a newer version that is even more compact. I primarily use it with my GoPro to help me get above or below the action. It works with just about any kind of compact still or video camera, you know, when you’re ziplining through the trees in Whistler. Great for taking self portraits as well. I got mine at London Drugs but I can’t find it on their site but it’s definitely in stores. Photojojo also has them.
   
   
7. Gift Cards – (various)
   
   Don’t be afraid to give a gift card to a geek…if you know they have a favorite place to shop for their stuff, they’ll appreciate a gift card more than you trying to guess what they may need.

Happy shopping!

Technically, I’ve got everything I need to assemble the 3D printer…just a lack of time lately. I’m hoping to fix that this weekend though.

I’ve got all the electronics now and just need to wire them up.

I ended up going with RAMPS 1.4 that I bought preassembled from Ultimachine. They seemed to have the best reputation and easiest shipping options for me. I also got my heated build platform from them as well. I’ve got the RAMPS mounted to an acrylic mounting plate from Lulzbot.com (I bought just the plate, not the kit, by mistake so had to find some compatible hardware to mount it and fortunately, they posted the mounting clamps on Thingiverse so I was able to print them myself) as I liked how it looked. It also has room to hold an LCD or keypad which I’ve also purchased although I haven’t landed on specifically which firmware to use yet that will ultimately dictate these extras usefullness. My plan is to ultimately be able to print from SD cards using the LCD/keypad combo directly but that’s another hurdle I’ll tackle when the main build is finished.

A friend cut some glass and I now have a 20cm x 20cm heated build platform…nearly double the size of my MakerBot’s!

The Y-axis motor has been mounted as has the lower thick sheet, belt and bushings.

I’m still concerned my bushings are too stiff so will be attempting to loosen them up this weekend using the heat gun on the smooth rod trick I’ve heard about.

And lastly, I’ve figured out what I’m going to do about the extruder and hot end. In the photo, it’s just sitting on the rods for the X-axis and not mounted nor fully assembled. I’m going with Greg’s Accessible Wade’s extruder and the standard hotend for the Wade’s that I got from Mixshop.com. I’ve been waffling back and forth over which diameter to use for the extruder given I have so much ABS plastic filament and PLA is generally harder and more expensive to get in Canada. But I’ve decided to go with the 1.75mm PLA filament for now, as I had originally planned. I bought the parts to make two complete extruders (one in each diameter) so I could always swap it out at a later point if I decide to change my mind.

The biggest challenge during this process is the constantly evolving Reprap community. While I’m half way through my build, a number of revisions to parts I’ve already printed have shown up that makes me ponder reprinting the new parts vs going with what I have and swapping out later. Also, as you can see from the various parts listed, I’ve had to literally source parts from all over the place. Places like Mixshop and others are now starting to put together complete kits for sale but I guess the benefit of sourcing things from all over, it gives me more control over the options that I build into the Prusa.

It’s definitely not for the faint of heart and unfortunately it’s a fairly technical process…but it is a hell of a lot of fun to work on.

As a side note, I just sold my first complete set of Prusa printed parts to someone locally so they can start building their own 3D printer:

I’ve already started printing another set. Contact me if you’d like a set to build your own 3D printer.

One thing that I wanted to do from the beginning though, is try out the electric vehicle on my own personal commute. I live in Port Coquitlam and drive to North Vancouver every day. It’s about 70 kilometers round trip. Last week, GM Canada loaned me a Volt to try it out on my local commute.

As with previous posts, this is more a overview of the technology in the car than a traditional car review… so I’m going to focus on a couple of things including the realities of charging an electric car at home, driving one on my daily commute and what you can do with GM’s smartphone app for the Volt.

As I’ve mentioned before, the Volt is meant to be charged with a regular 110V wall outlet. It has a dedicated port on the front left side of the car (complete with push button on the key fob and on the driver’s door to open it). It’s a proprietary port for use with the cable reel that is located in the trunk. I had initially spent way too much time looking for a long extension cord inside my house before I realized the cable reel had plenty of cord to go from my garage outlet to my carport without issue. Using this method takes a depleted battery about 10 hours to charge to 100%. This gives you anywhere from 40 to 80 kilometers of electric travel depending on a number of factors including road/traffic conditions, what you have running inside the car (air conditioning, heated seats, charging up your phone, lights, etc). The gas engine tops up the available range to just over 400 kilometers with a full tank of gas & fully charged battery.

If you want to charge it faster, you can get a 220V outlet installed (think of your washer/dryer connection) and the Volt will charge in 4 hours.

Unfortunately for me, at my office, I wasn’t able to find any parking stalls that had ready access to a wall outlet. I’m sure they exist, I just wasn’t able to get a stall that had one during my loan period. So I had to go all day at work without charging that meant I’d get to see if I’d get to go my full commute under battery power.

On the days that I had the car, I seemed to have had some of the worst traffic days in quite a while so it took longer than normal to get home. At the end of the day though, I usually only had to dip into the gas tank for a couple of liters of gas to get home with the battery getting depleted just minutes from my front door. I think during my whole week of usage, I used less than 10 litres of gas.

Since this is a GM vehicle, it came with OnStar and the model I had included the full navigation system which is an optional add-on to the base Volt.

One thing I really liked was the ‘Traffic Events’ that would pop up on the screen via the OnStar service. It was pretty consistent with what the local news radio station was reporting (slightly more realtime) and also reflected the reality on the road in front of me. The events popped up a few kilometers from where they were and showed me exactly where the accident was located and even suggested alternate routes if any.

I also liked the heads up display with navigation right above the steering wheel with key turn by turn directions (I was being audibly told by the nav system to do a legal u-turn when possible in this photo):

The free OnStar RemoteLink app is available for iPhone and Android smartphones in their respective marketplaces. It gives you a lot of control and information about your car at your fingertips. Everything from being able to lock/unlock & start your car remotely, being able to monitor & review your battery life, tire pressure and other vehicle diagnostic information to even honking the horn.

One particularly cool feature was the navigation tab which would give you the ability to search out a destination on your phone and send the routing information to the car. You can also set reminders for charging the vehicle and schedule the charging to begin at specific times if your electricity is cheaper during different times of the day.

One thing I can say after having a few non-geeks in the car during my time with it is that the dash and display screens can seem overwhelming to the uninitiated. Personally, I loved it but I can see how the large console area with it’s plethora of buttons, busy dash and touchscreens can be confusing. No doubt there is a lot going on in this car. Fortunately, you can turn off the screens and just drive normally if that’s your thing.

I really enjoyed my ‘real world’ week with the Volt. If I was looking to upgrade my car right now, I would give it some serious consideration after reviewing my annual gas expenses and mileage. It’s just too bad my home province of BC doesn’t have any rebates for eco vehicles like many other provinces do. It would make the purchase price that much more attractive.

UPDATE: Looks like BC is finally getting on board with rebates for cars like the Volt beginning December 1, 2011!

Bre’s passion for this technology was a huge reason for me buying my own Thing-o-Matic 3D printer and getting into 3D printing in the first place. I think the video captures this quite well along with perfectly explaining the reasons why I think 3D printers are a huge disruptive technology that is in people’s hands right now, thanks to people like Bre.

I decided to print all the plastic parts with 30% infill except the pulleys and gears which I did at 50% infill. I used a 0.28mm layer height, 0 extra shells and 2.88mm ABS filament in Print-O-Matic to print them on my Thing-o-Matic.

I followed Gary Hodgson’s excellent Visual Guide to Prusa on my iPad…made it really easy to see what order the parts needed to be attached and assembled.

I’m still waiting on some PLA bushings I ordered from eBay that are needed before I finish assembling the frame. They should arrive next week sometime.

As you can see from the photos, I opted to go with the army green coloured plastic parts. They printed really well and I think the end result looks pretty cool. I still have to assemble the extruder which I printed in ‘nuclear green’ but I may reprint it in a better matching colour (I can always sell the nuclear green parts).

The Prusa beside my Thing-O-Matic

After much research, I decided to order the necessary electronics for the Prusa from Ultimachine. I’ve placed my order for their pre-assembled RAMPS (RepRap Arduino Mega Pololu Shield board – basically a stack of electronics that runs the Prusa), Kliment’s SD RAMPS (an add-on that lets me print from SD cards without a computer attached), a heated build platform (which almost doubles the print area from my Thing-o-Matic) and a few pounds of PLA (green and blue) so I can print as soon as it’s all assembled.

Cost so far (including shipping and taxes) in case you’re interested in building your own:
Mixshop motors & hardware: $325
Ultimachine electronics & PLA: $364
Total: $689 not including plastic printed parts

Keep in mind I did purchase some higher end and brand new parts. You could easily bring this cost down by getting used motors from ebay, sourcing cheaper electronics (or buy them unassembled to save some money if you can solder).

That’s it for now until some more parts arrive or I assemble the extruder. I’ll leave you with this video that I hope to replicate soon enough when the electronics arrive and I get to test out the stepper motor operation:

Aside from a larger build platform which utilizes a slightly different way of printing from my MakerBot (both the extruder and build platform move at the same time vs just the build plafform on the MakerBot), I’ll use it to print with PLA filament which is corn based instead of ABS plastic. As well, I’ll be using a smaller, thinner filament size (1.75mm vs the 3mm ABS I’m using with the MakerBot). PLA smells like candy when it’s being extruded and is bio-degradable too! Unfortunately, it’s not food grade so you can’t print candy..yet!

During the recent Vancouver Maker Faire, I got to see a number of Reprap printers up close, including those built and maintained by Wade himself, the man behind the geared extruder design I’m going to be using.

Hardware and motors have already been ordered. Just need to print all the parts for the frame & extruder (the green/red items in the illustration) and decide on a hotend and electronics package.

Total cost should be ~$500.

I found this incredibly detailed video of the process of printing with the Prusa Mendel on YouTube that should give you some more information if you’re curious about the Prusa:

Update: Already have Wade’s Geared Extruder printed:

Turned out awesome in Nuclear Green…the whole Prusa will be printed in this color of ABS. Printing the gear with 50% infill seems like a good torture test of any 3d printer: