So full of win!

So it was, yesterday AltLab meetup was full of win.
It started with someone showing off his project, Laser Tag... no, no laserish paintballish kind of laser tag, it was more grafitti tagging, but using a laser pointer, a video projector, a camera and a kind off nifty software :)
Everyone played with it, and headed back inside, it was a kind of chilly in the back alley.

Next, João Neves and me went on a date with Violeta... It was a kind of threesome, but Violeta is AltLab Cupcake 3D printer!

I tried printing a part from a Wallace, bat as usual, Violeta didn't finished the print, and I was using my computer, so the plot thickens! :(

The problem is in the printer, now we're certain of this! We scavanged AltLab junk... err... the nice and very organized wharehouse for ATX PSU, and tried a few, but that didn't, so we plugged the original one back, and it worked! Violeta is printing again, at least two parts for Franky (a mini-mendel) withou a hitch, the future will tell us.

And the pièce de résistance was the first test of a stereolithography printer... "waht?!!?" it's a 3D printer using photo sensible resin as a medium, very impressive piece of technology.

 They made some exposure tests to understand how long they need to expose the resin for a perfect cure, it's around 15 seconds and they-re ready for the next layer :)

A full of win day!

Slice it and Dice it... Part 2!

Not everyone has a 200mm plate to print parts, not even me.... hell, I haven't got a printer... yet, but that's another story.
Someone asked for 100mm batches on my RepRap Wallace (Nema 17 and M8 rods edition), so I've fired up Blender and tried to make the best out of it.

I've uploaded a "Thing"

That's right, I've posted a "thing" on Thingiverse! But what's thingiverse? Well, thingiverse it's a repository of things you can print, there's no need to know about 3D modelling to own a 3D printer, you can go to thingiverse and download something you need/like and print it.

But what have you uploaded? Well, there's a new "guy" in town, is name is Wallace, after Alfred Russel Wallace, and he is a it, it's a 3D printer. Basically I just followed the instructions in the OpenScad file available in the original post, which was designed with smaller motors in mind, but luckily, the mastermind behind it, coded the file in a way you can change the settings of the motors and rods in a fast and easy way.

So, I've changed the configuration to Nema17 motors and M8 rods (sturdier and bigger printing area), generated new STL files and then I used Blender to produce a 200x200mm plate which allow you to print all the parts at the same time.

If there's a popular demand, I'll try to make a 100x100mm array, for printers with smaller building area.

Take a look here!