To those who have emailed me about the lack of files.. I'm updating the files please be patient no one is paying me to do this so progress is slow. My printer is also under repair and it will take some time to test my mods. The reason for the mods are to corrects some problems and to back out changes made for the museum challenge as the entry was unsuccessful.

My redesign (derivative) upgrade of a classic toy from my childhood, the original one still can be purchased in shops but they do NOT fly horizontally. This one does, in fact it can even fly over houses and get lost! Lucky we can print another! It improves our world because when you pull the cord and it flies off horizontally the gyroscopic effect tracks it straight and level and gives you a big grin. Smiling people are happy and happy people make the world a better place. It takes advantage of the accuracy with which a 3D printer creates parts to produce a very precise aerodynamic and balanced flying toy that only works well due to the precision of a 3D printer. I'm designing different Prop Rockets for it say tuned :-) bigger faster further!

Updated to identify the aspects for the new museum challenge

The idea for this set of things it to make the base designs for custom outlet covers both decora and duplex.

The first goal of this project is for electric safety for families with young children with an unhealthy interest in electric outlets. Some of the covers have the electric holes completely concealed -- if you know you are never going to use them - this is a nice semi-permanent way of eliminating electric hazards without the hassle of dealing with the plugs. In addition, you can print out as many plugs as you need for your existing outlet covers. These plugs are designed to fit snug into the covers. They also have a nice fingernail groove on the top and bottom of the back to make it easier for adults to get them out.

The second design goal was ensuring a tight fit between the covers and the safety plugs to improve energy efficiency. The energy auditors in Ontario are trained to tell homeowners to seal off holes around outlet covers on both external an internal electric outlets - as major heat loss locations. I have not quantified this yet - and I suspect it is a relatively minor loss -- but these covers will provide some additional reduction in air infiltration around outlets. For outlets that you know you will never need to get into you can permanently seal around the cover or paint over the edges.

"Fancy" houses sometimes have customized outlet covers that add to the look of a room and cost a small fortune. Now with this set of things, some easy mashups with cool-looking designs already on thingiverse and a bit of paint you can make your outlet covers as classy or classless as you like.

This is a work in progress. I have been working on this a long time - but by the time I finally got to uploading it I saw that a few of you have beat me to the punch.

This thing is not a strict derivative of, but similar to:
thingiverse.com/thing:3342
and
thingiverse.com/thing:6637

Yo, this is my 1st upload to Thingiverse (love this place!). We still use multitudes of Motorola walkie-talkies called TalkAbout's that use a unique belt clip that is hard to track down, priced far too high and unfortunately break way too easily. I sat down yesterday and designed my own clip using broken remains and my trusty cheap caliper. I was excited when after my 4th proto print I had a functioning 3 piece kit that seems to be working wonderfully! I wanted to try sharing it just incase someone else has an investment in these units and needs additional clips. This kit includes the belt loop clip, plastic spring and sliding jacket that all snap together after printing and will keep your walkie close for dispatching your ever-so important RF communications (or just make it look like you have "people").

This was printed from a TOM Mk6 plastruder running 1.75mm nuclear green filament equipped with an ABP

These are the designs for Mendel style linear ball bearings. The bearings are for use in a DIY CNC mill.

Since there isn't too much room for the bearings (especially at the Z axis), I designed the printed ball bearing retainers as low profile as possible. The "inner" ball bearings are halfway sunk in the base plate.
This not only keeps the assembly as low as possible, but also guarantees the same height reference for the fixed bearings (the axle sits directly on the plate). All upper bearings are adjustable.

See a video with a comparison of bush bearings and these linear ball bearings on the same rods:
youtube.com/watch?v=nL-CA5Fm8bk

For more information on the DIY CNC mill, see pleasantsoftware.com/developer/3d/2011/05/13/poor-mens-laser-cutter/

This is an insulator for a wire dipole antenna.
You can scale it to fit your needs.

Have you ever wanted to turn a CD-ROM motor into a winch? I decided to see how much gear reduction could be fit into a small space, so I came up with this differential planetary arrangement. This is a well-known design, but now you can use the parameterized OpenSCAD version to customize this to your needs and include it in your mechanical designs.

The version shown here is less than 60mm in diameter and 13mm thick, but achieves a 1:246 gear reduction, all with teeth printed on a TOM. The input is the small shaft to the sun gear, the output is the smaller ring gear, and the larger ring gear is to be held fixed. If you stacked two of these units you would have a ratio of 1:60516!

This is a longer version of the Snake, even more fun and bendy than the original. It's too large to fit on a Makerbot or ToM, so you will need something like a RapMan or RepRap to print it. Or you could chop it in half and print in two parts.

There are two versions. The default LongSnake is designed to have a center core section that is two filament widths thick. LongSnakeThin has a thinner, single filament thick center, so it's more flexible as a result. I recommend the thin version for PLA, at least. Both are oriented diagonally on the printbed to fit nicer.

Dimensions:
LongSnake: 137.4mm x 137.4mm x 11.1mm tall (190mm long)
LongSnakeThin: 144.3mm x 144.2mm x 11.7mm tall (199.5mm long)

The thin version is slightly larger because Skeinforge was giving me trouble. I have been printing with 0.3mm layers and 2.0 width/thickness, so increasing the center thickness to just slightly over 0.6mm helped a lot.

For a very nerdy Valentine's Day, I give you heart gears. This was inspired by Greg Frost's Broken Heart thingiverse.com/thing:4683, but it fits in the palm of your hand and can be twisted like some kind of worry ball. It makes use of the heart shape from thingiverse.com/thing:6190, the MCAD involute bevel gear script from thingiverse.com/thing:3575, and nophead's polyhole script for making properly dimensioned tap holes thingiverse.com/thing:6118.

UPDATE: If you lack a 3D printer, you can now buy these from CarryTheWhat at etsy.com/shop/CarryTheWhat.

I was daunted by the complexity of Greg's design, so this one is much simpler, having fewer gears, and a much simpler attachment design (simply thread the bolts into tight plastic holes). It also uses a smooth heart shape and is made for the hand instead of the desk.

As part of home improvement, I need cover plates for GFCI sockets. Those are those sockets typically found in bathrooms, kitchens, and other areas where you want to protect people with wet hands and whatnot.

This thing is a cover plate for a Standard GFCI outlet. The size of the opening is such that it can be the basis for other types of cover plates as well.

I don't have any multi-gang GFCI sockets in my home, so I'm not quite sure of the spacing, so I've only confirmed that it will work with a single GFCI socket, although the code is there for more.

This has been superseded by thingiverse.com/thing:6236

This is a python3 script for blender 2.5 that reads gcode files and creates polylines for tool head moves. It also animates with 1 frame per layer.

Put the script up on github for development

github.com/zignig/blender-gcode-reader

A little parametric turbine. The openscad program is quite adjustable.
I was not at all scientific about designing this. I just designed it look somewhat good. There are probably many ways to make it more efficient.
It spins quite well if you blow into it or hold a balloon to the inlet.

You can see a quick video of it here: flickr.com/photos/53725866@N07/5417888910/

This started out as an exercise in using Greg Frost's awesome involute bevel gear script thingiverse.com/thing:3575, but turned into a rather pleasing worry-ball type thing. It's also clearly influenced by Greg's broken heart thingiverse.com/thing:4683, though this has octahedral gears rather than dodecahedral, so they all mesh with each other and spin. My favorite thing about it is that you can grab two opposite gears and twist them, making the center with the other six gears spin rapidly around.

This will hopefully be a versatile servo bracket system for robotics. I designed the holes to be spaced the same as the mounting holes on the servos and equidistant in both directions (square;)so brackets and/or servos should bolt together in many different configurations. The holes are a little closer to one of the long edges allowing a servo to be bolted on along that side directly. I don't know if that will ever be used, but I thought it might come in handy. It is sized for full size hobby servo motors.

The files are in inches, so you may need to scale them in your system. They were created in google sketchup, so if you want other file formats I can only save to formats supported by sketchup. Pictures will follow soon. The servos I have are HS-322HD, so that is what I know it fits. Hopefully it will fit other full size servos. If you have a similar size servo that doesn't work with these brackets please let me know what changes are needed to make it more universal. I have a 2 DOF quad nearly finished using these brackets so pictures of that will be forthcoming as well. I'll soon be adding a connector to enable 3 DOF arms/legs.

Update: Connectors added for 3 DOF limbs. Also I updated the brackets to be a little longer at the end. This will help prevent the ends splitting when screwing the bracket to the horn. The "Inside" brackets are a little narrower to be fitted inside the horn and the "outside" brackets are designed to attach outside the horn.

Here is the 2DOF Quad thingiverse.com/thing:6321, and here youtube.com/watch?v=Z9ne67bbpSQ is a youtube video of the 2DOF walker in action. The controller is a Jaluino with a servo shield I designed myself.

Wades Extruder sliced for the production with a lasercutter or cnc-router.

- tried to simplify it so that you dont have to drill any holes manually
- added a base for mounting the mk5 hotend

** BodgeItQuick did something simmilar thingiverse.com/derivative:4878

Here is my revised version of Wade's extruder block.

-Revised the inset area for the 608 bearings
-revised the filament entrance
*Added - Captured the bolts that hold the PTFE
-Smoothed the part edges.

I included a 3D Pdf that you can open and rotate in 3D!

For those interested in the parts shown in the picture, they where printed solid at 0.007" with smart supports on a Dimension Elite 3D printer, build time was 14hrs.

Simple file with self supporting angles. No need for support.

This is my DIY, iTouch 4G holder on my bicycle handle bar. It is to holder the iTouch upright so I can film my ride.

This is a shaft coupler / adaptor. It uses a split-coupling design that allows it to clamp onto the shaft. Even though there are horizontal overhangs, they don't interfere with the operation of the coupling. If they bug you, they are easy to cut out.

The openscad design has the following parameters:

shaft 1 diameter (smaller of the 2 shafts)
shaft 2 diameter (larger of the 2 shafts)
bolt size (M3 = 3)

there are more derived parameters within the module such as wall thickness, gap, diameter, etc which aren't very useful to call from outside the module.

I have a unique RepStrap and the Brutstruder mounts included in the MakerGear Geared Stepper Plastruder are not really compatable with it so I borrowed the Brutstruder design and modified it suit my needs. I was not able to convert the Heeks CAD files to work with Pro/Engineer and ended up using my caliper to measure the one included in the kit so it's not an exact copy.

I updated the design to use the GrooveMount insulator and made it quick change so hot end swaps take less than a minute. I also designed an idler similar to the one Nophead designed for Wade's Geared Extruder.

*UPDATED*

Added ParaSolid and STEP files to download.

Stop Playing the Guessing game with is my bed level. Easily clamps onto the Back of the Carriage Assembly to measure Depth.

1" SAE/Metric Digital Indicator From Harbor Freight

harborfreight.com/1-inch-sae-metric-digital-indicator-93295.html

Sometimes persuading a new roll of filament to go through an extruder can be a bit of a pain. Here is how to quickly straighten and feed it.

This is my first contribution here. It is a 2001-style prime monolith set. It is 2001-style because the monoliths’ dimensions are 1:4:9, the squares of the first three positive integers, just like the monoliths in 2001 A Space Odyssey.

The monoliths are prime because their depths in millimeters are prime numbers, namely 5 mm, 7 mm, and 11 mm. There are three of them, which is a prime number as well.

I do not own a 3D printer and I did not use any design software to create them, just pure mathematics. Unfortunately, that means I cannot test whether I created the right STL file (especially, I am not absolutely sure I am using the x-, y-, and z-axes correctly). If you print it, please mention it in a comment, so I know I did it right. And if you cannot print it, mention that as well, so I know I need to fix it.

Have fun!

Toaster simple autonomous vehicular design (by autonomous I mean "goes forward all by itself" not "navigates its surroundings all by itself"). You will need a DC motor a 9 volt battery and a 9 volt battery connector. Your motor probably won't snap into the motor holder unless it happens to be the PARSIMONIOUS & PETITE MOTOR from American Science & Surplus, but the design should be easy to modify to fit whatever you've got lying around (Yes, I know it's a 6 volt motor hardwired to a 9 volt battery-- trust me it won't blow up).

Re draw of Tinhead's Valkyrie stepper motor board (V2.7)to use surface mount parts in a single sided board to make it easy to fabricate yourself.

This uses I2C to communicate with the main board
(see; letsmakerobots.com/node/9006)

Because it is surface mount I added an isp header to allow programing
and just for fun I added a ftdi header.
I also added a second I2C header to allow easy daisy chaining of stepper boards.

Cardboard surfboard core structure assembly. Cut and assemble these parts to form the shaped core structure for a 6'4" surfboard. Fiberglassing instructions on my project website will help you complete the board build.

I've been making and riding cardboard-core surfboards for about three years now. They work. Leaks are not the huge problem you would expect. And they happen to look - what's that old term the surfers used to use - awe..., awes..., awessss..., Bitchin!

These files are also a source of replacement part cut patterns, if you've ordered this board core kit from me or a cutting service. Just search through these files to find any part that's been damaged or gone missing. It shouldn't be too hard to cut one or two pieces by hand, with an x-acto knife.

This set of cut patterns is published under a Creative Commons attribution, share alike, non-commercial license. Derivatives are permitted, but discouraged, since this is not the best format for making changes. But if you do figure out some useful modification, I would be pleased to know about it, share it, and possibly integrate it into my file production pipeline.

The license is non-commercial. The primary purpose of publishing these files is to enable the lowest levels of the board-building ecosystem (where I reside) to experiment with building these boards at the lowest cost. Lots of people have local access to laser cutters, and cardboard is ubiquitous, so widely distributed low-cost production of these core kits is possible.

If you see glowing dollar signs in those translucent hexagons, you'll want to build at least one and surf it before considering whether there's any money to be made. I would be glad to discuss it with you. But I recommend you do a little "non-commercial" research first.

Bottom line: if you really want to build one of these boards, and can't get a core kit from me for whatever reason, here's a way to make your own.

If you build a board from these files, I will be thrilled to see pictures of the results. I'll feature the first response on my project web site.

[Photos on this page: 1.) Nick Yarnes with his very experimental build from one of my router-cut core kits. 2.) A Different Nick, in New South Wales, with his assembled router-cut core. 3.) Finished board by Nick in NSW 4.) A recent laser-cut version of this core.]

A few years ago I was interested in Penultimate Modular Origami by James S. Plank cs.utk.edu/~plank/plank/origami/penultimate/intro.html folding paper into geometrical spheres.
Now there's a rapman in my stable and paper turned into polylactic acid. This is my first printed object, I hope you"ll enjoy it! Can be pressed, stretched, thrown, twisted, and the bow-connectors could be basic elements for connecting rubbers into anything!
In TwistinTheCube.skp I tried to reveal how you get a Qball by twisting a cube, before it becomes a cuboctahedron.

This one has a really nice star shaped base. And a lot of strings! The droopier one reminds me of a spider web. If not for the hole in the base it could be a decent pen/pencil holder.

This Thing was designed with the filament's tendency to droop in mind. Those thin rings in the model should print as single sagging filaments. I designed and printed with 0.3mm layers, but I imagine a little bit larger or smaller should work.

The first print I did was white PLA at 205 degrees. It drooped a little more than I wanted, so I printed it again at 190 degrees. But that one didn't droop at all! I think both look nice. I will have to try again at around 200 degrees though.

I am not sure how much it will droop in ABS, give it a try. Make sure to turn support off!

Dimensions:
77.5mm x 73.8mm x 81.6mm tall

This is a fully moveable model of a KUKA KR180 industrial robot.
Its about 5x5cm at the base and about 20cm high if the arm is full upright.

You can find more about it at ifeelbeta.de

just a simple scalable button with a curved round edge and four holes. scale, print as many as you need, then sew them on your clothing or bags or furnishings. update: see instructions.