RepRap with Aluminum Extrusions == WIN

On 06.07.12, In 3D Printing, Arduino, Hardware, HiveBot, By jmil

Last Night We started the build of another one of these box-modded MendelMax printers. With extra hands we got the whole frame, the feet, all the motors, and a large number of brackets mounted and aligned in just a few hours. Even Morfin was surprised how quickly it all came together.

This design has already led to the design of the first printable upgrade: Compact Y-Rod holders. As you can see, this part was derived from MendelMax 1.0, 1.5, and some awesome rod clamps by Jonas Kuehling.

Now the build volume actually surpasses a MendelMax, sitting at 265x247x220 mm. And see how flat those 0.4mm printed layers are? That’s because this aluminum bot is super rigid, giving fast and accurate prints. Sweet!

If you can come up with a good name for this bot, I’d definitely appreciate it. Post in the comments if you feel inspired.

 
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Modified MendelMax RepRap Build starting Wednesday

On 06.04.12, In 3D Printing, Arduino, HiveBot, Instructionals, By jmil

Did you take Peejay’s Intro to Programming with Arduino class? You may have learned that Arduino’s are great for controlling 3D printers such as a RepRap.

Well, hot on the heels of our last RepRap MendelMax Build, I’ve been able to redesign the MendelMax to be a rigid rectangle… the upshot is the build volume is increased (especially in Z) without the footprint increasing. The build volume of this baby is 265x233x190 mm (or ~10″x9″x7.5″). The build assembly goes much faster, too.

Come on by Hive76 starting this Wednesday night to see or help put together another one. If you’ve been wondering about our upcoming 3D Printer Build and Operation Workshop with NextFab Studio, this is a great way to see what the fuss is all about.

Here’s a video of this box design Modified MendelMax printer on it’s first print. It’s been chugging along for a solid few days now, no problems so far. It’s printing so well, it’s time to build another one. Come join us!

 
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Intro to Programming with Arduino

On 05.22.12, In Arduino, Classes, By peej

OMG, we’re having a class!

You may have heard of the Arduino microcontroller before, but if not, we’re here to tell you all about it! This class will be geared towards those that have no experience with programming, microcontrollers, electronics, or even hackerspaces! Rest assured that those with some deeper digging questions will have knowledgeable members of Hive76 on hand to answer them.

With the purchase of a ticket, you will get 12 hours of instruction spread over 4 class sessions (that’s 4 three-hour sessions) and an Arduino “starter kit” of parts. You have the option of bringing your own Arduino ($55), if you have one, or choosing the package that comes with the Arduino ($75).

Sessions start on June 3rd and continue each Sunday, through June 24th. Class times are 1PM-4PM. Students must bring a laptop with a USB port (Windows, Linux, OS X), and a willingness to have fun.

Tickets can be purchased here. To clarify, students only need to purchase one ticket to attend all four classes.

Seating is limited to only 10 students! Tickets are expected to go VERY fast!

 
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Philly Tech Week – We’re Booked Solid

On 04.24.12, In 3D Printing, Arduino, artists, Classes, Events, Games, Hackers, Hackerspaces, Hacks, Hardware, MSP430, Philadelphia, physical computing, By Jim Fisher

Monday – MMMM  Microcontroller Madness

Tuesday – DIY Music Night

Wednesday – Open House

Thursday – Game Night Featuring Tetris Arm Wrestling Tournament

Friday – PTW Gala demonstration (offsite)

Events at Hive76 Monday through Thursday start at 7pm and 

ARE OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

Friday Gala Ticketing information available here.

 
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Timelapse: Building a RepRap MendelMax 3D Printer

On 03.05.12, In 3D Printing, Arduino, Cool Projects, Events, Hardware, HiveBot, By jmil

We got Matt Wettergreen’s MendelMax up and printing in two days. Thanks to all those at Hive76 who helped out with the build, especially Chris, PJ, Brendan, and Rob! Here’s a timelapse from the first day:

Below is a video of the finished bot printing with the latest Marlin firmware (smooth acceleration and fast travel times)! It turns out PLA sticks to a heated aluminum bed provided in the MendelMax kit. Wow. Completely Awesome. I couldn’t believe how little of the heat from the aluminum bed actually radiates away (you can only barely feel the heat an inch off the bed at 75 degrees celsius). That’s a huge feature.

Congrats to the Mike Payson and the MendelMax Team on their inspired Mendel remix. It’s a fantastic RepRap 3D Printer.

 
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We the People

On 02.29.12, In 3D Printing, Arduino, Hardware, HiveBot, Random, By jmil


High Resolution 2D Pen Plotting with a RepRap. Happy Leap Year.

 
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3D Printer – MendelMax RepRap Build Day – Sat. March 3rd

On 02.28.12, In 3D Printing, Arduino, artists, Cool Projects, Events, Hardware, Philadelphia, By jmil

This Saturday we’ll have Matthew Wettergreen here from Rice University to learn together how to build a MendelMax 3D RepRap printer.

MendelMax is the new rapid-to-assemble Mendel variant based on an extruded aluminum frame. Very rigid, very nice looking. Stop on by to check it out!

11 am – 8 pm
Saturday March 3rd @ Hive76

 
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Beagle Bone!

On 12.16.11, In Arduino, Internet Of Things, Philadelphia, physical computing, By pez

Just bought myself a Beagle Bone as an early Xmas present.  I’m tempted to write a long, gushy tome about it, but for the sake of folks reading this, I’ll restrain myself.   I’ll just offer that if you like Arduino, you’ll adore Beagle Bone — in my view, it leapfrogs every physical computing platform out there,  and it’s cheap too.  I got one for $80 + shipping — about the same price as an Arduino with an ethernet shield — and the BB is about 1000x the machine.

To begin with, it has node.js baked right into its Ångström Linux OS.  This node.js installation is extended with a “Wiring-like” API.  Then add the fact that BB “sketches” (for lack of a better term) are edited right in your favorite browser, using the Cloud9 IDE.  Cloud9 is clean and simple and it supports the essential IDE features that you might expect — a decent editor with code colorization, management of the files that comprise a project, an interactive debugger etc.  The idea of a web-enabled physical computing platform that is itself programmed using a web interface seems so obvious and so “right” that it feels like it was always meant to be.   Pure elegance meets sheer genius.

At any rate, the fact that this puppy is an outstanding physical computing platform with righteous networking capabilities makes it about the perfect platform for Internet Of Things architectures, so that’s where I’m focusing for now.

Since I have a background in process control systems and a bit of a bias towards Philly-grown tech,  I settled on NimBits for my back-end.  It has all the attributes of a real process control historian with a cloud architecture and some nice bells and whistles to boot.  Since NimBits counts an XMPP based API among its various access methods, I wrote a little study to see if I could send IMs using node.js.  Turns out it’s incredibly simple (check out the picture)  This app doesn’t push stuff to NimBits (yet), but it’s only a half-step away from it — and being able to have a physical computing platform send you IMs is pretty darn useful in its own right.

Keep an eye out here for more Beagle Bone and Internet Of Things stuff.  We live in fascinating times!

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Insane 3D Printing Resolution: Putting UltiMaker Under the Microscope

On 09.26.11, In 3D Printing, Arduino, Cool Projects, By jmil

high resolution Yoda printed on Ultimaker
Last week I got to attend the Open Hardware Summit and Maker Faire NYC. Both events were really excellent.

There were so many wonderful things it was hard for me to pick a favorite. That is, until I hit the Ultimaker Booth. Ultimaker is another open source 3D printer offshoot of the RepRap Project. Erik de Brijn, Martijn Elserman, and the rest of their team have been hard at work perfecting v1 of the Ultimaker (and now Ultimaker+). The quality of this machine continues to amaze me (I’ve seen a previous beta version in person at Botacon). New this year, when mixed up with the newest firmware Marlin (which was recently ported to 3D FDM printers and is based on GRBL, the same firmware codebase picked to run Lasersaur), the Ultimaker is able to get insanely high resolution prints. You can get the Marlin firmware for RAMPS and RepRap from HERE on Github.

High mag of Finger on Ultimaker Print. Scale Bar = 1 mm.

Erik gave me one of the high res Yoda prints (Thanks Erik!) which I put under the microscope last week. You can see with the scale bar… we have 162 pixels = 1 mm. The average layer height in that pic is around 12 pixels, or 0.074 mm (That is 74 microns). And that orangey low res looking thing on the left? That’s not a print… that’s my finger. Click the image to see in higher detail!

Apologies to my buddy Dave Durant, but Ultimaker just beat your high res Cupcake record. And they’ve gotten even thinner layer heights than those, recently. Join their google group to learn more and stay apprised of the latest.

w0w. The future for FDM is so bright. Really Amazing.

 
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Monthly Monday Microcontroller Madness: Motors!

On 09.09.11, In Arduino, artists, Code, kinetic art, MSP430, Study Groups, By pez


After speaking to a few folks that expressed an interest in the MMMM workshop, it became apparent (a) most folks were newbs who want to learn the basics and (b) everyone wants to control motors.  Excellent!  We’ll do that.

Although motor control is potentially a vast and complex topic, with highly specialized branches, the basics are fairly easy to learn — and they’ll take you pretty far.   So … we’ll be prepared to present the following items:

  • DC motors
  • H-bridge circuits — these let puny microcontrollers run fairly powerful motors
  • Stepper motors — just a little more complex to program than DC motors and they use H-bridge circuits too
  • Quadrature Encoders — these are a  simple and accurate way to read the position of something

We’ll also try to discuss some organizational items — like the logistics of future workshops and the use of the MMMM GitHub, so that we can build up assets collectively, share them with the world and manage changes and contributions in a free-and-easy-but-organized way.

If you are coming , please bring:

  • Yourself — If you’re a newb, welcome — If you’re an MCU Yoda, then attend you must and wisdom to newbs impart
  • Some ideas
  • A laptop if you have one
  • You may want to install VMWare Player or VMWare Fusion before you arrive
  • An MCU development kit if you have one or …
  • Some money if you don’t.  We’ll have some development kits that you can buy.  Plan on at least $10 for the kits and some parts that you can use for small learning projects.
  • A bread-board if you want to build some live circuits to keep.  We’ll have breadboards to loan, but if you want to take one home, it has to be one that arrived with you.

    • That’s about it — see you all Monday.  To whet your appetite, there is some prototype code below for reading a quadrature encoded position detector (not really elegant enough for a final effort, but it’s a start).  We’ll have you writing stuff like this in no-time.

    (more…)

     
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