Tag Archives: 3dprinting

MegaMax 3D Printer

Posted on by the_digital_dentist
MegaMax 3D Printer

MegaMax 3D printer based on MendelMax but bigger and minus plastic parts.

This is my on-going project at the Milwaukee Makerspace.  It is a 3D extruded plastic printer with about 1 cuft build envelope.  I want to print life-size human skulls (among other things) from CT scan data.  The printer is made mostly from salvaged parts and materials so the cost has been very low.  When it’s finished it will have a heated 12″x12″ bed (13″x13″ if I can find an aluminum plate that big) and dual extruder so it can print in two colors.

I have learned a lot on this project- some things that work and others that don’t work so well, and how to use a milling machine to drill holes precisely and square the ends of the 8020 extrusion pieces used to build up the frame of the machine.

I could not have done any of this without access to the people, materials, and tools at Milwaukee Makerspace.  Every time I go there to do some work on this project someone says something that gives me new ideas for improvements to the design.   I frequently find materials and parts left for me on the machine’s cart by other members who know what I’m trying to do.  If you have a project idea find your local Makerspace and get busy- there is nothing that will get your creative juices flowing like being around a bunch of people with similar interests and different skills and experience!

A Visit from MakerBot

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

MakerBot Industries

Milwaukee Makerspace Members, mark your calendars for the evening of Monday, June 25th, 2012 as we welcome the fine folks from MakerBot Industries to the space. They’ll be here to show off their Replicator and talk about 3D printing. (Rumor has it they may even provide us with some food & drink!)

MakerBot is one of the original names in affordable 3D printers. (They even got their start at a hackerspace.) They also brought us Thingiverse, which provides “digital designs for real, physical objects”, produce the awesome MakerBot TV, and kick out some great blog posts as well.

If you’re not a member, you can still attend the meeting. Besides seeing what MakerBot has to show you, we’d love to give you a tour of our space and have you meet our members. Just stop by around 7pm, the door will be open. :)

3D Printing Meetup

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

Milwaukee 3D Printing Meetup

3D Printing is getting more and more popular, and we’ve got a bunch of members who have built printers, or are building printers, or just know a heck of a lot about 3D Printing, so we figured we should meet up and discuss the topic.

So if you’ve ever wondered what in the world a MakerBot was, or heard of RepRap or Printrbot, or just wanted to see an actual 3D Printer laying down molten plastic to make a real-world object, well… we’ve got just the ticket.

Join us for the first Milwaukee 3D Printing Meetup! We’ll be meeting on Sunday, July 1st, 2012 at 1:00pm. We won’t be at our space because we’ve partnered with our friends at UWM for this one! Details are below.

UWM’s Kenilworth Square East Building
1925 E. Kenilworth Place
3rd Floor; Room 368
Milwaukee, WI

If you’ve got a 3D Printer, feel free to bring it! If you don’t have one, check out the different ones at the meetup. Bring some questions, and we’ll provide the answers. And of course we’ll show off things you can print and we’ll melt some plastic. :)

Note: This event is FREE and open to the public! Everyone is invited.

3D Printer (x 3)

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

3D Printers

Last night after the weekly Tuesday night meeting we had a quick show ‘n tell featuring three different 3D printers.

From left to right: a MakerGear Prusa Mendel, a MakerGear Mosaic, and a Printrbot.

We’ve also got a member building a 3D printer of his own design, and at least one member with an old-school MakerBot CupCake.

Speaking of MakerBot, we’re expecting a visit from the MakerBot folks near the end of June. They’ll demo the MakerBot Replicator for us and get all geeky about melted plastic, which is what 3D Printing Nerds do. (We’ll post an update when we have all the details.)

RepRap Build

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

MakerGear RepRap

It’s not a secret, but I haven’t really posted here about here it yet: I’m building a MakerGear RepRap Prusa Mendel.

I’ve posted a few photos of it in progress in the Make Flickr Pool, and Make mentioned a few of them, but I really need to start writing more about the process. (I’ve posted stuff on Google+ along the way, mainly to get feedback/share with a few other RepRap builders.)

I’ve still got a number of hours to put into it before it’s ready to extrude, but if you want a bunch of posts from someone who already finished theirs, and is doing all the tweaking and documenting it, check out Brazen Artifice. Lots of great posts there!

Once it’s done I’ll be sure to bring it to the space for a demo.

A Tribute to Steve

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

Apple][+

If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been spending a lot of time with the MakerBot at the space lately. (And yes, it’s now much quieter and doesn’t force you to yell in the lab when it’s running.)

Last night Dustin stopped by to work on calibrating it a bit more. (He maintains one of the MakerBot Thing-O-Matics at Discovery World.)

We made a bit of progress by tweaking things in Skeinforge, and after much calibration test printing I thought we should print one “fun” thing before the night ended.

We chose the 1:9 scale model Apple II+ from Thingiverse. It seemed a fitting tribute to Steve Jobs.