After a few months of eager waiting, [Brook Drumm] has finally released the files for his paradigm-shifting 3D printer, the Printrbot. If you didn’t order one of these during the Kickstarter, you can now print your own set of parts.

[Brook] gave his Printrbot to the world last November with the promise of being extremely cheap, extremely easy to build, and having a relatively high print quality. The simplicity of the Printrbot was amazing, which probably led to the Printrbot getting $830k worth of funding on the initial Kickstarter. Although the files for the 3D printed parts are out in the wild now, there still aren’t any instructions on how to build it apart from a Flickr slideshow.

[Brook] promised to release the files for the Printrbot much earlier, but we’re guessing he’s been busy printing and assembling  the 1200 Printrbots that were claimed in his Kickstarter. While we’re on the subject of cheap 3D printers, [Richard Sum], the English gent behind the SUMPOD sent in a link of one of his $600 printers milling MDF and extruding for seven hours straight. We’re on the cusp of Star Trek-style replicators here, people.

Like many makers, [Chris] has a Panavise Jr. on his workbench that he uses for just about everything. The tiny vise is great for all sorts of tasks, and is often considered an indispensable tool. The only problem with the vise is the amount of time it takes to open and close the thing.

[Chris] estimates that it takes somewhere between 2 and 3 million turns of the crank to move the vise’s jaws from fully open to the fully closed position. He figured that his drill is far better at mindlessly turning circles than he is, so he sat down and designed a bit in Google Sketchup to spin the vise’s crank knob.

He fired up his MakerBot and printed out his first “Speed Winder” drill bit. It was decent, but he thought it could be better. After a handful of revisions, he was finally happy with the results. He says it works great, and has posted the model on Thingiverse so that everyone can print one of their own.

Continue reading to see how [Chris] created the bit along with how much time this thing saves him.

[Jon] has been developing a slick little RC robot in bits and pieces over the last year or so, which can constructed by anyone with access to a 3D printer. Servos and electronics aside, the entire thing can be put together in short order using the plans he posted on Thingiverse.

The robot makes use of four “caterpillar” type bots, which are all connected via a central frame. Once [Jon] had the general design for a single caterpillar bot down, he moved forward to create the robot you see above. His friend [Julián] lent a hand in the form of electronics and code, which allows the robot to be driven using a standard USB gamepad.

As you can see in the video below, the robot gets around nicely, climbing over obstacles with relative ease. While it is a bit loud, [Jon] says that’s due to the undersized servos they happen to be using at the moment. We think it looks great so far, but [Jon] already has plans to beef up the motors and add wireless control in the near future – we can’t wait to see it then!

Recently there’s been a increase in the popularity of OpenSCAD as the tool of choice in the 3d printing community. [Gavilan Steinman] is putting out a series of webTV shorts on the use of OpenSCAD. While it lacks a lot of the features of big CAD suits (such as the ability to generate drawings of your parts), the community has proven it’s effectiveness as a design tool. There are only two episodes out so far but they cover  OpenSCAD, mathcast, 3d printing, and a really neat robot design.  Watch them below.

A landmark in home 3d printing was set when [Dr. Ulrich Schwanitz] sent a DMCA takedown notice to Thingiverse.com on users [artur83] and [chylld's] takes on his Penrose triangle model. ([chylld's] take is pictured above) While the takedown itself is highly debatable, we do think it’s cool that home 3d printing has come far enough to begin infringing on the copyrights of objects themselves. Right now media pirating has the front stage, but it’s not hard to look a little further into the crazy sci-fi universe that is our future and see a battle being fought over the rights to physical objects.

[via Thingiverse Blog]

We figured we put you through enough posts about our CES badges without telling you how we did it or how to get one. This how-to will walk through the process of creating a badge from a dxf file for a logo. Then we will tell you where to get one.

To start with, you will need a 2D cad program, we used QCad. Later you will need OpenSCAD. Now, grab a dxf of a logo of your choice. Here, try our logo (R12-type dxf) so you can follow along. Open the logo dxf file in QCad.

You should now see your logo in QCad. This is nice and pretty and all, but it is not quite going to work with OpenSCAD. You are going to need to have separate layers for the separate parts. We had a layer for skull outline, face features, and a layer for each of the wrenches. Besides separate layers for separate parts, we are going to need to make sure there are no three spline points in a row as OpenSCAD will not be able to give you an stl. Plus, in this case, the wrenches won’t even touch the skull. Time to make some splines.

If you find this next part too complicated now, you can skip ahead, but when you go to “Compile and Render” in OpenSCAD, and it reads that your object is not simple, you will not be able export an STL because you get the error “Object isn’t a single polyhedron or otherwise invalid! Modify your design..” you will have to come back to here to fix your splines. Turn off all layers except for the one you want to touch up. Make a new layer to replace the old layer. Name the new one new_foo or rename the old one to old_foo. However you do it, keep it clear and this will be much easier. Now, highlight the old layer, you should see the points used to create the splines. Set your snap to endpoints (Snap -> Endpoints) and start drawing a spline (Draw -> Spline -> Spline). Pay attention to the cursor information in the lower left of the window. If you have three spline points along a line, OpenSCAD will not like it, so you will have to alter your spline slightly by skipping the middle of the three points. How do you know if you have three spline points along a line? Well, for the most common case in grid-drawn splines, it is when the x or y coordinate does not change for three points in a row (ie a spline with points: {(1,1), (2,1), (5,1)}, the y-coordinate does not change). Straight lines may also have a problem, but there is not much of a reason to make straight lines out of many straight lines.

Each part of the logo with it’s own color for clarity. Save a copy of the dxf as an R12 dxf, OpenSCAD likes it better. Now, let’s make it three dimensional. Start OpenSCAD and have the OpenSCAD User Manual up in your favorite web browser. Here is the final code to get the whole thing working, copy and paste it into OpenSCAD:

logo_offset = [-104.281, -142, 0];
logo_scale = [0.65, 0.65, 1];

union()
{

	scale( v = logo_scale )
	{
		translate( logo_offset + [0, 0, -1])
		{

			dxf_linear_extrude(	file = "hack-a-day_logo-4-1.dxf",
						layer = "wrenches_a",
						height = 4,
						center = false,
						convexity = 10);
		}

		translate( logo_offset + [0, 0, -1])
		{
			dxf_linear_extrude(	file = "hack-a-day_logo-4-1.dxf",
						layer = "wrenches_b",
						height = 4,
						center = false,
						convexity = 10);

		}
	}

	intersection()
	{

		difference()
		{
			scale( v = logo_scale )
			{
				translate( logo_offset + [0, 0, -1] )
				{
					dxf_linear_extrude(	file = "hack-a-day_logo-4-1.dxf",
								layer = "skull",
								height = 25,
								center = false,
								convexity = 10);
				}
			}

			scale( v = logo_scale )
			{
				translate( logo_offset + [0, 0, 3] )
				{
					dxf_linear_extrude(	file = "hack-a-day_logo-4-1.dxf",
								layer = "face",
								height = 50,
								center = true,
								convexity = 10);
				}
			}		

			translate( v = [ 0, 0, 0 ] )
			{
				sphere( r = 15 );
			}	

		}
		translate( v = [ 0, 0, -10 ] )
		{
			sphere( r = 30 );
		}
	}
}

Hit F5 to do a compile and you should get a rendering of the Hack a Day logo in the upper right of OpenSCAD.

The logo_offset and logo_scale variables will center and scale the logo. The value for logo_offset depends on where the center of the logo is in the dxf file.

The union() will make all of the things in its brackets one thing.

The scale()s you see will scale the things inside their brackets by a certain factor based on the passed vector.

The translate()s move the things inside their brackets an amount determined by the passed vector.

dxf_linear_extrude() is like a play-dough factory, it extrudes a shape based on the passed information: dxf file, layer, and height. The center variable determines if the extrusion is centered at z = 0 ( center = true) or if extrusion starts at z = 0 (center = false). The convexity variable seems to look ugly at low numbers.

The intersection() makes a thing from two intersecting things inside its brackets.

The difference() takes the first thing in its brackets and removes the rest of the things in its brackets from the first thing.

Sphere() makes a sphere of the passed radius.

To help you visualize this process, disable all of the dxf_linear_extrude() and sphere() lines by putting an asterisk (‘*’) in front of them.

Remove the asterisks from the first two dxf_linear_extrude() and compile to have OpenSCAD union, scale, move, and extrude the wrench layers of the dxf. This should yield a pair of crossed wrenches:

Let’s add the skull outline by removing the asterisk from in front of the third dxf_linear_extrude() line and compile:

Replace the asterisk from in front of the fourth dxf_linear_extrude() line with a pound (‘#’) and compile.  This pound symbol will highlight the thing it is in front of in pink, helping you to see where it is and what it is doing since you normally do not see it because it is being removed from the skull.

Remove the pound symbol, compile, and you will see how the eyes and nose are formed by the removal of the dxf_linear_extrude() of the face layer from the dxf_linear_extrude() of the skull layer.

Replace the asterisk on the first sphere() line with a pound symbol and compile.

Depending on you viewing angle, you may not see the pink sphere appear within the skull. Click and hold on the image and move your pointer up. The object should now rotate with your pointer until you let go. Rotate it around to see the back of the skull.

This should help you see that the first sphere is still within the difference() and was thus removed from the skull extrusion. Remove the pound symbol from the first sphere() line and compile. Notice that neither the eyes and nose extrusion or the sphere() removed anything from the wrenches. This is because the wrenches are outside the difference(). It helps to keep things hollow as printing the object will use less material and you can do things like this:

Putting an LED inside the skull would have been difficult without making the skull hollow. Plus, where would the brain go?

The way it is now with a flat face is okay, but it would be better if the skull had a more rounded appearance. Remove the asterisk from the last sphere() line and compile.

The skull now has a rounded face. Inside the intersection(), we created the difference() that created the skull with the flat face and a sphere. You can see the sphere by putting a pound symbol in front of it and compiling. The intersection() makes an object only where both of the parts are at. You can see this even better by putting a pound symbol in front of the difference() and the last sphere() line.

So, how can you get your hands on one of these things? We can think of a few ways to get one, but the best two would be to either make one or have one made for you.

If you have access to a 3D printer, you can make your own. We used a MakerBot CupCake CNC. The files to make your own badge are on Thingiverse.

If you do not know or do not want to associate with someone that has a 3D printer, you can have a badge made through Shapeways.

[oomlout] has released this Opensource robotic arm. It is 5 axis, using cheap hobby servos. The total cost, including having it cut at thingaiverse.com is roughly $150. The plans include all the pieces, down to the servo controller. This means that you’ll have to supply your own microcontroller and programming. They do state “We can guarantee it is loads of fun to play with, and we think potentially very useful for more serious pursuits.” and we would like to test that guarantee. We’ve been keeping an eye out for this ever since the servo switch assemblies.

[via Hack a Day flickr pool]

Kit builder oomlout—we’ve featured their servo bot—needed to produce a lot of precut wires. After cutting and stripping more than their fair share, they decided to apply some heavy engineering to make things easier. They constructed a machine to do the job for them. It has three main components: a servo driven wire feeder to measure the length, a two servo wire stripper that uses an exacto blade, and finally a wire cutter made from snips and a drill motor. The machine is controlled using an Arduino. They’ve published all the plans and code to Thingiverse incase anyone else wants to build a similar machine for their own kit shop. A video of the machine is embedded below.

[via Hack a Day Flickr pool]

As the video above shows, [Zach Hoeken] is continuing to improve on his peristaltic pump design. The moving parts in peristaltic pumps never contact the fluid being moved. Instead, they interact with the outside of the tubing that’s carrying the liquid. In [Zach]‘s design, multiple skate bearings roll across the outside of the silicon tubing, squeezing the liquid through. You can get a better idea of how this works by watching the first video. The newer version appears to be pumping much better. We’re not sure if that’s because of faster motors or from switching to two bearings instead of three. This definitely looks like a good choice if you’re planning on building your own cocktail robot. You can find the plans on Thingiverse.

Sometimes describing how a lock actually works can be the hardest part of teaching someone about lockpicking. [Mike Gee] has designed an acrylic lock that may just be the ticket for these situations. All of the pieces are cut from clear acrylic. As you insert the key, you can see it raise the four pins up to the shear line. He says that it will definitely take some tweaking as you assemble it to get it to function smoothly. Embedded below is a video of the lock in use. You can find plans on Thingiverse.

[Thanks, cnelson]

In [Bre Pettis]‘s latest “things” video, he talks with [Adam Mayer] about his geared business cards. [Adam] has designed several versions of these cards that have functional gear systems in them. There appears to be a simple two gear one and a more complicated planetary gear set up. The designs have been uploaded to Thingiverse, so you can download and build your own.

Google just announced the release of SketchUp 7. SketchUp is a 3D modeling program with a fairly robust free version. They’ve added quite a few features and the one that caught our eye in particular was dynamic components. Dynamic components have behavior specific to the object. The example in the video above shows a staircase changing the number of steps as its height is increased instead of distorting the overall staircase shape. The new version also allows for interaction, so model properties change based on user actions.

Google has always encouraged sharing of objects created in SketchUp. Thingiverse launched today with a similar emphasis. The site is built to encourage the exchange of plans for physical objects. It supports many different file types from plain images, AutoCAD dxfs to Eagle schematics. Many of the designs already posted are made to be cut out by a laser cutter or built by a 3D printer.

[via Make]