My Second design of a small geometric sculpture that explores the battle between cake and pie

INTRO
It seems to be the month of construction sets on Thingiverse, so here is another entry in the category.

Contraptor is a DIY open source construction set for building Cartesian robots. It is basically 1" aluminum Erector set with linear motion extensions. While it's in development and sometimes things don't work as they should, functional robots have been assembled from it: contraptor.org/contraptions

The set is designed to be made with the simple tools of a basic workshop. A lot of materials for Contraptor like aluminum angle, threaded rods and fasteners can be found in a hardware store. In the spirit of modularity, it uses Makerbot/Reprap electronics and Arduino/Sanguino controller.

In addition to DIY plans, we're working on Shopbot-able kits that can be manufactured in small quantities by anyone willing, from open source drawings.

Contraptor components and assemblies are modeled in Sketchup and are hosted on Google 3D Warehouse, mostly for ease of accessing from within Sketchup. Thingiverse is the best place to host DXF/SVG sources and part lists for components, so there will be more Contraptor things coming (hopefully including printed ones from the community :).

Apologies for the long read, on to the thing:
/INTRO

Perforated angle comes in lengths from 1" to 24" and can be used as a structural component, as well as a linear motion rail for sliding elements. Attached DXF file and part list are for 1-ft long perforated angle.

Sketchup source:
sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/search?q=contraptor+angle

The human powered internet cafe looks at the issues of renewable power generation and aims to educate users to the energy requirements of surfing the internet.

Users are asked to peddle the exercise bikes in order to turn a dynamo which would in turn power the computers. If users fail to peddle hard enough the computer monitors will begin to flicker encouraging them to peddle harder.

The thing would ideally be placed in public areas where all forms of society could view it and try it out for them selves, thus educating as many people as possible.

This is a spin-off of the Wobble Arrester by twotimes:
thingiverse.com/thing:2151
I love his idea, but I had a hard time getting the offset linear guides to work properly - my prints always had a sort of blobby section right at the top, which took my bushings out of alignment and caused binding. No doubt I still need to work on my skeinforge skills.

Anyway, I figured that ideally the Z-rods should be somewhere in the middle of the Z-stage - in other words, between the drive screws. This should reduce binding and in the event of a crash won't load the Z-rods and bushing clamps as badly. It also turns out that there's space enough to add the standard makerbot rod mounting scheme: through holes with external covers, although the covers are a little different due to space constraints. I have uploaded DXFs that can be used as templates for modifying your top, middle, and Z-stage; if you have access to a lasercutter you could use them to cut drop-in replacements to the standard makerbot parts.

I certainly don't want to step on any toes, but I'd like to see Z-rods as a standard option, so I tried to make this mounting arrangement easy to implement on the production side. Unfortunately I couldn't find a stock part for the bearing mount, but it should be easy to machine in quantity if it comes to that.

The bearing retainer comes in 3 flavors: 3/8" through hole for use with bearing inserts, 1/4" through hole for use without bearings, and 3/8" without counterbore for printing. (Note that if you intend on printing you'll have to use a non-headed bushing or relieve the underside of the Z-stage to accommodate the bushing head.) Just choose your poison.

EDITED TO ADD:
I noticed an error in the modified Z-stage DXF, so I have removed the old file and uploaded a corrected one. The first version would still work fine as a template to modify an existing stage, but not for cutting a new one. Please download the updated version.

I have been building an extended Huxley based on the standard parts but with slightly longer frame rods etc.

When it came to cutting out the Y-Chassis (Squashed Frog) and print bed I couldn't find a suitable CAD file with hole centers and dimensions. I prefer to drill corners that have an internal radius as trying to cut them with a saw is very tedious.

The files here are reverse engineered from the Y-Chassis .STL file and the dimensions for a standard print bed and an extended print bed.

The master .SVG file was created using Inkscape on Ubuntu and is set up as layers so that you can turn off the stuff you don't want to print when creating templates. There is also a .PDF for folk without access to Inkscape.

This is my second DIY 3 axis cnc machine. It is designed in solidworks 2008 (~50-60 hours) and built mostly out of MDF. Provided are all the source files and drawings in both solidworks and edrawing formats. This machine is possible to make with just some hand & power tools, but I used my first cnc machine to make most of the smaller parts.

The machine uses chinese linear rails and ballscrews from ebay seller linearmotionbearings2008. With the 1.8Nm stepper motors I use with geckodrive g540 it achieves 10m/min rapids and 5m/min feedrates. The working area is about 110cm x 60cm x 10cm.

Expected cost to build a machine like this from scratch is 1000-1300 euros. It also took me over 80 hours to build.

For my wedding in October 2011 I asked my fiance if I could build something, she only asked that it not be tacky. This is what I came up with. It's a modular folding photo booth. I designed the model in Sketchup, programmed it in Autoit, and gave it a nice Glados voice. I needed an input device and I decided to make a serial comm button. I took a 555 timer and made it generate a 4.8kHz square wave. At 9600 baud this translates to UUUUUUUU plus one garbage character when the button is released. for now it only uses a Webcam to take photos but hopefully I will be find a deal on a canon power shot sometime in the next months to upgrade it. Since the printouts are resized, the small webcam resolution isn't noticable, however it won't be suitable if i wanted to incorporate the singles frames into a album. I'm working on some upgrades using the twitter api so I can have the booth update me whenever it is taking photos. This way I can tell it's status and share photos easier.


Here is a video of it's assembly and the software.

youtube.com/watch?v=jNGg821bC7c

I built this CNC router from designs I saw all ver the place and like the idea of using aluminium channel and steel. I simply built the table then measured the gantry to suit. You can build any size this way as long as you re-enforce properly. The control board came from HobbyCNC and the motors are NEMA 23. The power supply I built (simple 24v 7A).

This Machine is an an experimental prototype created for the purpose making light weight hollow castings from rapid setting resins cast into rubber molds.
-Centrifugal force allows liquids to flow evenly to all interior surfaces of an mold and cures to an solid state while in motion within minutes.
- ideally the motion of rotation could be optimized toward the shape of an object and the speed of an curing material so that the casting would have even wall thickness no greater than necessary to support the structure of the shape.
_This process would also lend it self well to casting waxes into rubber molds to produce patterns in an lost wax process for metal casting in an foundry situation.

This is my design of a peristaltic pump or hose pump if you translate it directly from german.

I built this pump for reseach to gather basic hands-on knowledge of the inner workings.

If you have a MakerBot/3D Printer you can start right away. I built it in a few hours with common parts i had at hand.

Unfortunately you definitly NEED a very flexible silicone tubing, to get it really working. I did my first try with a short piece of tube i cut from our fish tank - this was definitely to hard for the ABS. unfortunately i was to eager to pump some water, so i did, but the contraption got too hot and broke.

The Pictures are from the rebuilt, but this time i'm waiting to get the silicone tube.

Currently there are no mounting holes for a motor. i used my electric screwdriver for testing. Gearmotor is planned, but i had to determine the required torque with this build.

Solid Works Drawings of a Mendel that is all metal, uses linear bearings on all axis and dual belts on X and Y to cope with extra weights involved.

This printer was started as a result of my friends astonishment of what i was able to make using a cordless drill and a hacksaw. my repstrap didn't sit flat or square it wobbled, i used lead screws to drive all the axis' as a result it was slow best speed i could get was 1000rpm ~650mm/min, but at that speed the frame wobbled and the resulting prints had waves in 6 different directions :P

My Reprap Prusa is still in it's early life stages. Amongst some of the problems I have had to solve one is the X end motor parts which are a little flimsy.

One problem that this created for me is that tightening the X carriage belt is difficult. The reason is that there is a fair amount of flex in the plastic part. I have read others who feel that the part has been stripped down a little too much and now is flimsy. Obviously you could create a new part with some more plastic in there to make it sturdier.

However this means getting your printer up and running just so that you can strip it down to add the improved part. I was looking for another way to strengthen the part. In my parts cupboard I had some aluminium angle bracket which I shaped and bonded into place.

I have created an SCAD file with the parts in it, though obviously this is to give a model to work from not to print from.

With this alteration the X motor end becomes rock solid and tensioning the X carriage belt becomes a lot easier. I can't comment on if it improves the print quality noticeably as I won't have before and after to compare but I would imagine it would help if you are having backlash problems on the X axis.

This is a fork
You can Eat with it
You can stab things with it
You can launch it with a device made to launch such objects


This thing has changed the world, can you?