Besides Darth Vader heads, a 3D printer can make actually useful stuff. Like this citrus press.

So it's not a nice-looking designer piece of cookware. And it isn't endorsed by Jamie Oliver. But you made it yourself, on your own 3D printer. And that's worth something, isn't it?

This is a wing nut or knob for a 1/4" threaded rod designed to comfortably fit fingers.

Since the model is fully parametric, the hole size can be adjusted to match your rod, or the number of finger holes can be adjusted, etc...

The model works well with 3, 4, and 5 wings. More wings would fit if the radius was increased or the finger hole decreased, etc.

Note that the hole is conical, a bit larger on the bottom to make threading it easy. The knob should self thread onto the rod.

This is a pendant from the Improbablecog: Division of Human Adornment line.

I print them in stainless steel through the Shapeways service, and have also made them available to be printed at cost at: shapeways.com/shops/improbablecog


This piece has been released under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License, through funding collected via Kickstarter, due to the support of the following patrons:
BJ Becker, Boon Sheridan, brepettis, Brian Hawkins, CatFord, Edvard Immonen, Edward Henderson II, GothicCharmSchool, Helen, Ian Nusbaum, Jack C, Jake von Slatt, James Ian Burns, Jess, Jezcabelle, Johnny B Jackson, Katt Tewksbury, Kim Dancy, Lastwear, Leila Smith, Libby Bulloff, Lucas Richter, Lyssa Chartrand, Malcolm Tredinnick, Marguerite Kenner, Melody Burdett, morbidity.unlimited, Nick Setten, Patrick Ball, Peter Simon, Raymond McCauley, Robert Schouwenburg, Sara Mitchell, Sigrid Ellis, strand, Sue Jackson, Theodore Minick

Because of their contributions, you are free to print this model at cost, download the original model files use it, modify it, and even sell physical copies, with the following restrictions:

- All derivative work must be released under the same license.
- You must attribute the original design to Noah Beasley or Improbablecog, and to the URL improbablecog.com

Also, if you do anything cool and interesting with this model, please drop me a line and let me know about it! I would love to promote your modifications, and point people your way to see it.
If you do decide to sell physical prints of this model, that's also allowed so long as you attribute the design. I would be glad to list you as a local reseller on my website as well if you let me know about it :)

That's it, otherwise have fun!

For more information about the work I do, check out: improbablecog.com

Used img2scad - github.com/l0b0/img2scad - on the Thingiverse favicon with misc. parameters.

Parametric OpenSCAD Funnel

Thanks to MakerBlock's great tutorials blog.makerbot.com/?s=OpenSCAD+Basics, I am able to make things in OpenSCAD easily. I easily figured out the parametric stuff just by looking at some other OpenSCAD designs. Now I am making parametric designs.

I was going to upload a funnel I made inspired by the Foo Funnel thingiverse.com/thing:1234 designed to be bigger and carry more stuff through it, but then I thought, why not whip up a parametric funnel? So here it is.

The script naturally makes it in most printable format and centers it. I just turned it upside down for the picture.

This is an OpenSCAD script for the generation of a stepper motor gear set, to your exacting specifications.

I'm sure there's other scripts like this out there, so here's what makes mine cooler than theirs:

* I made it!
* It's ANIMATED! Yes, OpenSCAD has an animation option, and this set will take advantage of it. It seems like Thingiverse may not render a GIF though, so here's a link to a copy: scribblej.com/wadesgears.gif (obviously, that's animated through 1 gear length so it's only 5 frames).
* I made it!
* The perfect companion to: Parametric Tensioner: thingiverse.com/thing:6492
* I made that, too!
* Goes great with: Stepper Motor Mount thingiverse.com/thing:6549
* I made it!


... that's about all I got, really. Based loosely on TheRuttmeister's excellent herringbone gear set here: thingiverse.com/thing:5795

THANKS to the entire crowd on IRC Freenode in #reprap, #makerbot, and #makergearv2.

SPECIAL THANKS to GregFrost for his involute gears script and some special handholding while I was writing this.

We have a hand-wound impeller fan bellows for the log fire in the dining room and it makes a devil of a racket when you turn the handle. My wife hates it so I made a much quieter version that runs off a couple of AA batteries. Basically it is thingiverse.com/thing:7350 with a handle and battery holder stuck on, but I've improved the parametrics a bit.

If I run it off 12V it beats my 110mm forge blower!

as promised, here's my fully configurable drag-chain!

A) width, height, length are obviously changeable.
B) you can also change the maximum upper and lower bending angle
('0' means it's not possible to bend in that direction)
C) you as well can specify the connection axes: inside or outside
D) finally it can be chosen whether or not the top should be opened or closed
- just have a look at the provided OpenScad screenshots!

Remarks:
A) the print tolerance as well as the maximum allowed angle is specified not by a parameter but by a single variable at the top of the script
B) as the closed version is stable enough, the inner hole is rectangular;
the open version has an elliptic hole to add more stability to the inner corners...)

-- I'm closing this now; it already takes quite a long time to compile/render (while it still is rated 'simple' by OpenScad)
...plus: I really don't know what more to add... ;-)

I decided to revive the venerable iris box by redesigning it in OpenSCAD and making it printable with fewer parts and less assembly. It's also somewhat larger (though now the dimensions are easily adjustable with OpenSCAD), the tracks are redesigned to give more rigidity when closed, and it now opens and closes according to righty-tighty, lefty-loosey. The ring is also aesthetically redesigned and the base interior tapers down the wall thickness to give a little more internal volume.

This thing is to link two chassis to make a 4WD vehicle, still need a bit of work because they tend to touch the ground so I needs some kind of lock to prevent this.

You can run with these scissors!

They do actually work on some softer (and thicker) materials, but they don't always cut regular 80g letter.

To improve the design, the pieces should be mirrored, so that when you apply lateral force with your thumb, the blades would get tighter together, not separate.

This part was made with Tinkercad. Edit the part online at: tinkercad.com/p/acc099f43a602b9f

In principle, a Reuleaux triangle -- a shape of constant width -- can be used to drill an almost square hole. I wanted a toy to illustrate the principle.

So when you put this together, and turn the crank, it shows how the triangle can move to create an almost square hole.

It's complicated by the fact that to drill a square hole, the center of the triangle must move, and the path it moves along is not circular. So I have joined the crank to the triangle with an Oldham coupler, which allows off-center rotation.

There are a couple of other Reuleaux triangles out there:
- thingiverse.com/thing:1082
- thingiverse.com/thing:1088
- thingiverse.com/thing:5456
- thingiverse.com/thing:1755
but they don't come with the crank :)

MMMMM Cupcakes! Ever wonder how the one armed man eats cupcakes? Now's your chance to find out, see my design for a prosthetic 'hand'. With a Cupcake CNC printer you can make your own prosthetic hand to practice eating cupcakes, dress up for Halloween, scare your mother or as I had envisioned provide prostheses to areas affective by war, disease, natural disasters or the like. Using a Cupcake CNC printer and a basic hand and wrist design will allow for inexpensive production in areas with little resources. The fact that the printer is portable and affordable allows for someone like myself (a prosthetic technician) to travel to places like Haiti and make be low elbow prothesis on the spot for victims. The opportunities to assist people with low cost prosthesis are endless with the Cupcake CNC printer!!!
And if you don't know an amputee or don't want to scare your mother this design can be used as an in home grabber for hard to reach shelves (I just make my gorgeous tall wife do it for me) or as claws for your robot army as they take over the world. As you can see something for the bleeding hearts and the hearts taking over the world, something for everyone!

duh duh DUH dun!

Beethoven looks pretty grumpy for a really awesome bust you can print on your MakerBot, eh?

This is some further refinement from thingiverse.com/thing:4126 both with and without the mandible from thingiverse.com/thing:3580, both whole and sliced in half.

In my previous attempt, I deleted all of the inside to create a solid object with all the porous and hollow parts filled in, and all external holes closed.

This time, I did the reverse, deleting all of the outside and the smaller internal features, to create simple internal volume (mostly the brain cavity). Then I subtracted the cavity from the solid object, did a small amount of further refinement, and then split it. I reduced the resolution of the mandible from thingiverse.com/thing:3580 to match the resolution of the skull then smoothed, scaled and rotated it to fit as closely as possible. I then cut off and cleaned the remains of the skull's original mandible and subtracted this mandible from the results.

This should give a partially hollow model that still has all the small internal details that can't be seen removed. I have uploaded (and included in the blender file) both the original cleaned skull and the one with the replacement mandible fit in. I also sliced both skulls, but only included the bottom for the second one, since the top didn't change.

I hope that the results will take less time to print than the previous two models.

Work on this model was done with Meshlab and blender.

A version of the Beco Block man with a few revised pieces for better posability and aesthetics. The 'ff' female-female connector piece has been revised to be slimmer, have a tighter fit, and be easier to attach and remove. The 'mfmf' torso piece has been redesigned to have the arms a bit higher up, too.

This is a human femur (right side)that was created from a real bone. Not quite sure about who it was (male vs female, height, etc.). I used a NextEngine 3D scanner and patched together the images in order to make this.

Working on a new gearbox (one where the gears will mesh without scaling them up until the frame no longer fits inside the build area) has me thinking I should wait 'till I can rapid-prototype a few dozen gears and see what does and doesn't work in this department, so I decided to do one last (very very easy) model for the night.

Figure a quick search on Thingiverse might save a few other printer users a few minutes scaling and extruding a circle-- this one certainly isn't up here because it's hard to do!

This passes the 45-degree overhang rule, too!

This is jewelry holder hand

In the spirit of Open Source Hardware, Dremelfuge is now Open Source Hardware, according to the 0.3 standard found here: freedomdefined.org/OSHW

DremelFuge is a printable rotor for centrifuging standard microcentrifuge tubes and miniprep columns. Compared to the cost of a new centrifuge (priced by a fellow Thingiversian at $500 minimum on Froogle), a Dremelfuge is incredibly cheap. It can be used for DIYbio ( diybio.org ) or for some culinary uses. It requires industry standard 1.5ml/2ml Eppendorf/Microcentrifuge tubes.

* Used with a drill at 3000 RPM, the Dremelfuge will deliver over 400g, enough to comfortably spin down Miniprep samples (proven personally). It will likely achieve acceptable results at lower speeds, too.
* Used at 10krpm, on a Rotary tool for instance, a Dremelfuge should deliver over 4400g, more than enough to spin down bacterial cells.
* At 16krpm, Dremelfuge matches commercial centrifuges.
* On a Dremel 300, a maximum speed of 33krpm equates to a force of over 50,000 times earth's gravity, which puts it into so-called "Ultracentrifuge" territory. The latest version (as printed by Shapeways) has successfully spun tubes at this speed.

To see some picures of Dremelfuge used to spin down cells, see here:
letters.cunningprojects.com/?p=85

Quick Video Intro to Dremelfuge: youtube.com/watch?v=86WnXeTZO_Y
(Update: This video hit over 1900 views! Thanks Makezine/Bre!)

A video of me using Dremelfuge practically in a tent, to extract DNA from a banana: youtube.com/watch?v=ZnyFwupk5KA

Dremelfuge is available for sale as a high-quality, robust print on Shapeways.com in two editions, each suited for up to six samples at a time: Dremelfuge Recessed Edition, to fit the cutting-tool-holder commonly found with rotary tools (5mm diameter bore), and Dremelfuge Chuck Edition, which can be quickly adapted for use in any machine with a chuck grip. They are both available here on my Shapeways shop:
shapeways.com/shops/labsfromfabs

Dremelfuge, as with any high-speed rotary tool, may cause personal harm or damage to property or persons in case of failure, and no guarantee, warranty, promise or suggestion of safety is made or offered by me (Cathal Garvey) with regard to DremelFuge.

Dremelfuge featured on Makezine:
blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/12/laboratory_centrifuge_attachment_fo.html

Please let me know if Dremelfuge is of use to you! Please upload pictures of any printed Dremelfuges in the wild! :)

== License Stuff ==
DremelFuge makes use of the Shapes.scad script kindly released by Catarina Mota, which is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation. Many thanks to Catarina for this great workhorse script, as well as for letting me sidestep the "Inheritence Clause" of the license.

DremelFuge itself is released under an Attribution, Sharealike License. It's already available on Shapeways, and you're entitled to print it for yourself or someone else for free if you have a printer handy. As a personal favour, don't go undercutting me on Shapeways please, unless you have a significantly better version. And don't call it "Dremelfuge" if you do.

Prametetric hex-keys exported for metric M4 to M10.

I really wonder why noone has done these trivial tools yet.
See objects.reprap.org/wiki/Development:Workshop_Tools
for other tools.

These are heavier versions of the tweezers at thingiverse.com/thing:1091 .

I found the originals to be too thin to grab something.
I also added some flat tweezers to the mix.

This is a set of helping hands designed to be entirely printable AND able to be extended when needed.

The all site around a tidied up version of the lockable joint I posted previously ( thingiverse.com/thing:2872 )

NOTE: sorry for the poor rendering I'm still getting used to using sketchup. It doesn't show but the arms should be fully pose-able.

I have improved the link itself, created a quick "Clamp" form of the link for holding PCBs, and created a base where 4 "arms" can be attached.

NOTE: Thanks go to Pandelume for the suggestion to replace the traditional 6 sided nut with a fluted thumb screw!


The base may seem rather small but if two arms are being used to hold the PCB then the other two can be extended and locked into position as legs to give the more stability.

The based is very simple at the moment as I didn't want to complicate an already experimental design unnecessarily

This is an experimental design (I have tried to make the thread large but dont know how well it will print), however If the design works (assuming I will have to make some mods) then I would like to design a range of different "Heads" other than the PCB clamp provided as part of this design.

I've included the SKP file for anyone interested - As a point of interest I had trouble with sketchup when calculating interceptions between models, and found that the software is much less likely to leave hidden holes in my designs if I work with the model at 10 to 100 times normal scale and then shrink it down for generating the STLs.

I posted a lockable ball and socket link yesterday as part of my design work leading up to this.

This is a small printable Makerbot Wrench/Spanner that I designed in Blender. I do not yet own a 3D printer so I don't know how well it will print, it seemed to slice fine in Skeinforge despite not being manifold. I saw Oliva's blog post on the MakerBot blog about the Charm Challenge for Maker Faire so I thought this would be a nice and easy thing to print.

3D Printed Miniature Centrifugal Pump Prototype

Prototype only - uploaded on request. Improved version coming soon.

Youtube Video of it in action : youtube.com/watch?v=H102VH8a8bM

madox.net/blog/2010/11/16/miniature-3d-printed-pump-using-up-pp3dp-printer/

Super Miniature version of it here : thingiverse.com/thing:4857

This is a derivative of Madox's Mini Centrifugal Pump, thingiverse.com/thing:4839

I simplified the design and adapted it to be printable on a makerbot without support material.

I also modified it so that the motor from an old CD-Rom drive can run the pump. These motors are all about the same size, and anyone who likes to take things apart more then likely has a few laying around.

In the photos I am powering a 6 volt motor with a 3.5 volt battery. I imagine more power would equal more water moved.

A Moineau pump is a type of positive displacement pump with steady flow (no pulsing). This type of pump is common in the food processing industry because it can efficiently pump slurries (like soup) without crushing the contents. This one pumps 32 cc/revolution (neglecting whatever leaks back through the seals) and is capable of pumping water (milk is shown for contrast).

I thought this might be useful as a paste extruder or something of that nature. It's better than a peristaltic pump because no flexible hose is needed (which tend to reduce efficiency and wear out), plus it doesn't pulse.

Liking StefanHH's ball links, but wanting to extend add my own mounts, I re-modeled it in Inventor... Adding my own ends.

The outer dimensions are different, but it still fits the 15mm ball.

I've also added the ability to tighten the joints by using fine cord, or twisted lockwire, or an elastic.

Makerbot-printable pliers for light-duty uses. Designed to be useful for holding small things during inspection, or simply doing things fingers can not.

There is a male arm, a female arm, and a printable nut. The female swivels around the male, and the nut constrains the assembly. The geometry of the threads are based on the connections seen in the toothbrush holder and originally in the screwable jewelry box. ( thingiverse.com/thing:899 , thingiverse.com/thing:413 )

Alternatively, if the design is too optimistic, you can try printing two female arms and use a small screw and nut to hold it together.

All three pieces combined use a total of 1.24 cubic inches of material.