3d Printer hacks

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3D Printed Mini Vectrex

August 29, 2015 by 10 Comments

With the more common availability of 3D printers, making miniature models of retro computer and video game gear is one way to nerd out and not fill the house up. [Jason] was looking around and noticed that no one has modeled the Vectrex video game system and stepped right in to fill the void with a working 3d printed miniature model of the unique early 80’s video game system.

For those who don’t live and breathe retro game systems, the Vectrex is a 1982 8 bit game machine unique in the fact that it comes with its own monochrome vector graphics CRT in the console. [Jasons] model features a 2.2 inch LCD with a SPI interface.

Emulation is powered by a VoCore SBC sporting a 360Mhz MIPS CPU and a modest 32 megs of ram, which is more than enough to handle the 8 bit math and wireframe graphics. The emulator used is a port 0f VECX with the display rerouted to the LCD screen instead of using standard SDL interfaces.

The case was modeled in Sketchup, and the whole lot is powered by a 3v3 lipo battery.  Join us after the break for a quick video of the mini model running the introduction to “Mine Storm” which was the onboard game original to the machine.

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Building A Business Around Generative Design And Marvels Of 3D Printing

August 28, 2015 by 8 Comments

Generative design is a method of creating something by feeding seed data into an algorithm. It might be hard at first to figure out how someone would build a business around this, but that’s exactly what Nervous System has been doing with great success. The secret is not only in the algorithm, but in how they’re bringing it to life.

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You Own Your MRI Brainscan; Do Something Interesting With It

August 25, 2015 by 46 Comments

The most complicated and fascinating gadget you will ever own is your brain. Why not pay tribute to this wonder by creating a 3D scale model that you can print yourself? If you have had a full-head MRI scan, it is simple to take this data and create a 3D model that you can print out on any 3D printer. Here’s how to print your brain.

To begin, you are going to need an MRI scan. Unfortunately, the low-field MRI that [Peter Jansen] is working on won’t quite cut it (yet): you’ll have to get the pros to do it. The type of scan also matters, because we want a scan that focusses in on the brain itself, not the bits around it. What type you get depends on what your doctor wants to know, as the radiologist can run a lot of different scans and analysis of the data to show different types of tissue. After looking through the scans that I got, I settled on one that was labelled eB1000i(BRAIN) With and Without Contrast. To a radiologist, that information means a lot, telling you what type of scan it is, and that it was done with a contrast agent, a metal dye that is injected to make water-rich tissues (like my brain) more visible. The number refers to something called the diffusion weighting, which helps the doctor look for swelling that can indicate things like strokes, tumors, etc. There’s a good guide to some of the jargon here.

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Metal 3D Printing With Your Printer

August 23, 2015 by 23 Comments

Over in Italy, [Robotfactory] has a new setup called CopperFace that they claim allows you to essentially electroplate 3D printed objects with a metal coating using copper, nickel, silver, or gold.

We’ve talked about electroplating on plastic before, but that technique required mixing graphite and acetone. The CopperFace kit uses a conductive graphite spray and claims it deposits about 1 micron of plating on the object every two minutes.

We couldn’t help but wonder if the graphite spray is just the normal stuff used for lubricant. While the CopperFace’s electroplating tech seems pretty standard (copper sulfate and copper/phosphorus electrodes), we also wondered if some of the simpler copper acetate process we’ve covered before might be workable.

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MIT’s Glass 3D Printer

August 22, 2015 by 34 Comments

How hot does your 3D printer’s hot end get? Most low cost printers heat up to 240°C (464°F) at the most because they contain PEEK which starts to get soft if you go much higher. Even a metal hot end with active cooling usually won’t go much higher than 400°C (752°F). Pretty hot, right? [MIT’s] new G3DP printer goes to 1900°F (over 1000°C) and prints optically clear glass.

By changing design and print parameters, G3DP can limit or control light transmission, reflection and refraction. The printer uses a dual heated chamber. The upper chamber acts as a 1900°F kiln while the lower chamber serves to anneal the structures. The print head is an alumina-zircon-silica nozzle.

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Hello RAMPS, Meet ESP8266

August 20, 2015 by 17 Comments

The proliferation of  DIY 3D printers has been helped in large measure by the awesome open-source RepRap project. A major part of this project is the RAMPS board – a single control board / shield to which all of the other parts of the printer can be easily hooked up. A USB connection to a computer is the usual link of choice, unless the RAMPS board has the SD-Card option to allow the 3D printer to operate untethered. [Chetan Patil] from CreatorBot built a breakout board to help attach either the ESP8266 WiFi or the HC-05 Bluetooth module to the Aux-1 header on the RAMPS board. This lets him stream G-code to the printer and allow remote control and monitoring.

While the cheap ESP8266 modules are the current flavor of the season with Hackers, getting them to work can be quite a hair tearing exercise. So [Chetan] did some hacking to figure out the tool chain for developing on the ESP module and found that LUA API from NodeMcu would be a good start. The breakout board is nothing more than a few headers for the ESP8266, the HC-05 and the Aux-1 connections, with a few resistors, a switch to set boot loader mode and a 3.3V regulator. If you’re new to the ESP8266, use this quick, handy, guide by [Peter Jennings] to get started with the NodeMCU and Lualoader. [Chetan]’s code for flashing on the ESP8266, along with the Eagle board design files are available via his Github repo. Just flash the code to the ESP8266 and you’re ready to go.

One gotcha to be aware of is to plug in the ESP module after the printer has booted up. Otherwise the initial communication from the ESP module causes the printer to lock up. We are sure this is something that can be taken care of with an improved breakout board design. Maybe use a digital signal from the Arduino Mega on the RAMPS board to keep the ESP module disabled for a while during start up, perhaps? The video after the break gives a short overview of the hack.

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Giant Stepper Motor Gets You Up To Speed On Theory

August 20, 2015 by 27 Comments

Few hackers have trouble understanding basic electric motors. We’ve all taken apart something that has a permanent magnet DC motor in it and hooked up its two leads to a battery to make it spin. Reverse the polarity, reverse the spin; remove the power, stop the spin. Stepper motors (and their close cousins, brushless DC motors) are a little tougher to grok, though, especially for the beginner. But with a giant 3D printed stepper motor, [Proto G] has made getting your head around electronically commutated motors a little easier.

While we’ve seen 3D printed stepper motors before, the size and simple layout of this one really lends to understanding the theory. With a 3D-printed frame, coils wound on nails, and rare-earth magnets glued to a rotor, this is an approachable build that lays the internals of a stepper motor out for all to see and understand. You can easily watch how the rotor lines up as the various coils are energized in a circular pattern, although it might be more revealing to include bi-color LEDs to indicate which coils are energized and what the polarity is. Those would be especially helpful demonstrating the concept of half-stepping. We’d also like to see more detail on the controller electronics, although admittedly all the video-worthy action is in the motor itself.

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