Lulzbot’s TAZ 6 has been released. Lulzbot’s printers consistently place in the top three of any 3D printing list, and the TAZ 6 will likely be no exception. [James Bruton] was one of the lucky ones who got a review unit, and first looks are promising. The TAZ 6 has the auto bed leveling found in the Lulzbot Mini, and a ‘power tower’ for all the electronics. There are completely unconfirmed rumors (or someone told me and I forgot who) that the power tower will be available separately at some point.
The most impressive circuit we’ve seen this week month year is the dis-integrated 6502. It’s a discrete 6502 CPU, about a square foot in size. It’s slow, but it works. RAM and ROM is easy to make embiggened, which means someone needs to build a dis-integrated 6522 VIA. Who’s game?
[Jeremy Cook] wanted to learn another CAD package, in this case Onshape. Onshape is the ‘first cloud-only CAD package’, which has one huge bonus – you can run it anywhere, on anything – and one huge minus – it’s in the cloud. He designed a bicycle cupholder.
Last week, several thousand Raspberry Pi Zeros shipped out to retailers in the US and UK. For a time, Pi Zeros were in stock in some online stores. Now? Not so much. Where did they all go? eBay, apparently. It’s called arbitrage, and it’s the only risk-free form of investment.
Remember those ‘bed of nails’ toys, that were basically two sheets of plastic, with hundreds of small pins able to make 3D impressions of your face and hands. No, there is no official name for these devices, but here’s a Kickstarter for a very clever application of these toys. You can use them to hold through hole parts while soldering. Brilliant.
You should not pay attention to 3D printers on Kickstarter. Repeat after me: you should not give money to 3D printers on Kickstarter. Here’s a 3D printer on Kickstarter, promising a 3D printer for $74. I own several hats, and will eat one if this ships by next year.
Remember bash.org? It’s being reimplemented on hackaday.io.
While there’s nothing impossible about building and selling, for profit, a $70 printer, I wouldn’t be surprised if:
1.) it can only print PLA
2.) it is not rigid enough to print quickly
3.) the heat bed isn’t heated
4.) the extruder is unreliable and/or hard to maintain
5.) this is vaporware
Except that the bill of materials for almost any printer is between 300-400, of which a good chuck is in electronics.
You forgot 6.) There is some “lock in” scheme, cheap printer, expensive materials? Pay-per-print?
I think it is possible to make it… i bet they use cheap and small steppers.
This guy did it with small steppers, saves a lot of money, can drive them with much cheaper ULN2003.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:945156
But even he admits the thing is a bad idea.
Of course actually being able to source the materials for little money and delivering the thing are different problems.
One can certainly get the BOM for a decent quality printer well below $200 with tin can steppers, a tailored controller, abandonment of aluminium extrusions, quantity 1000+ and such stuff.
But this “printer” is $54 and a BOM doesn’t include the thousands of hours of design required, this tailoring, manufacturing, packaging, shipping, much less a dime of profit.
How much should cost a 3d printer with:
-Small paste extruder(can print Nutella, plaster, clay and stuff like that)
-~ 12cm/5inch diameter bed and 6cm/2.5inch height,
-No power source(two usb cables that can connect to two usb ports of a pc or to the computer and a phone charger)
-About 15-40mm/s printing speed(slow, very slow)
-H-bridges only with NPN transistors and firmware delay
-Teacup firmware
-Manual calibration(no endstops, etc)
I’m thinking about Kickstart it :)
Last I knew, those “bed of nails” toys were called “pin art”.
“You can use them to hole through hole parts…” Pfft! I can do that with my drill!
I can do it with a 555!
I’m not a fan of Kickstarter, but PinJig looks like a great idea! Carbon fiber or plastic, as long as it doesn’t damage anything. I’ll watch and might throw a donation if it looks legit a month from now.
The PinJig is amazing!! At $200, I’m having trouble seeing where all their costs are. Completely guessing here, but it seems like they must be targeting small scale manufacturers for that price?
A metal pin flips down and touches a metal joint that you are trying to solder, I don’t foresee any problem with that at all.
Truth
Yeah, get rid of the metal. They said carbon fiber was an option but it should be default.
Hell, why not just use wood?
Haha. Your right! I’ve got toothpicks above the sink and sponges below. All I need to do is drill. I might only need the sponge.
Makes me sad that this is what people are resorting to in order to turn a profit. I just want to play with a micro controller. How is science going to make leaps while people like this do things for the love of money?
They aren’t going to make profit if we just won’t buy the overpriced Pis.
Instead of those pins and latch, may be a $1 big sponge can be used to hold down through hole parts for soldering?
Through hole parts (except connectors for mechanical reasons) are so yesterday. :P
What I mean is use the sponge as a big array of springs to press down the components against the PCB instead of the complicated nails and latch.
That’s a good idea, I’m conflicted. I would donate to your sponge-solder-assistance Kickstarter! It really is that simple, isn’t it? I over complicate things with clips and tape, but a fireproof version of the ‘My Pillow’ would probably do just as well.
Next time I solder, I’ll grab a pile of fiberglass insulation. I flip-flopped too many times today.
BTW: There are high temperature silicon sponges. They go all the way up to 260C – the peak temperature for reflow. If I can hold through holes parts with my bare fingers while soldering, then these are way over kill.
http://www.silicone-sponge-supply.com/Silicone_Sponge_Silicone_Foam/Low_Compression_Set_Silicone/low_compression_set_silicone.html
Thanks! I have something similar in the garage I can use.
I wonder how hard it would be to build a complete discreet-transistor replica of one of the early computers or consoles using the 6502 CPU. Maybe the KIM-1 would work. You would need the 6502, a pair of 6530 RRIOT chips, 8 6102 RAM chips, a 556 dual-timer chip, a 565 Phase Lock Loop chip, a 311 Comparator, a pair of 74145 BCD Decoder chips and about 1/2 dozen assorted TTL logic gate chips.
This “bed of nails toy” was invented by Alexandre Alexeieff and Claire Parker around 1932 in order to make animated films.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinscreen_animation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb6Drqycw1U
The 101Hero 3d printer seems to be on Indiegogo rather than Kickstarter. Also, they seem to be advertising the cheapest perk that includes a 3d printer as $49, whereas the $74 perk is for two printers.
Brian – thanks for the mention!
Also, after spending a bit more time with Onshape, it seems like a really good system. Pretty cool to pull my models up anywhere.
Never realized how awful that indiegogo.com site is, they run scripts from dozens of places, and enabling a few doubles that. For me that is a big fat NOPE.
Ugh. If you browse with Chrome on Android, close the task when you are done. It’s not all the time but some websites like that force the phone to stay awake while the screen is off, just for JS-based ads!
The Lulzbot ad placements are really feeling forced lately.
Woo! free ads! ;)
Just kidding. That isn’t a paid ad from us. /me shrugs
Ya, we will be making the ‘power tower’ available separately. We have some built already, we just need to get the product set up, get them off to the warehouses, etc. So that should be soonish. Same story for the new aluminum plate heat bed, iirc.
The work instructions will give you a good idea what is in there (genuine Mean Well power supply, genuine ultimachine rambo, reprapdiscount GLCD, fancy cabling, ferrites, etc.).
https://ohai.lulzbot.com/project/taz6-control-box-assembly/taz-6/
Took shipment of my 101Hero yesterday. I haven’t had the opportunity to assemble it yet, but I did open the box and verify all the parts are there.
So is this “hat eating” going to happen on a livestream, posted to YouTube, or what?