posts tagged with the keyword ‘make’

2012.05.07

MakerGear Prusa Mendel RepRap (In Progress)

My project list has had RepRap 3D Printer on it for a long time… way too long. There are a few reasons for this. One reason is that I just don’t get large chunks of time to work on it. Working two jobs, having a family, and doing “other things” keep me pretty busy. Another reason is that I get involved in other projects. Most of the other projects are short-term, quick ones. Like the Arc-O-Matic, or another Drawbot, or some weird art, or small things that take maybe a day or two (or three) but not months.

But one of the other things that may have slowed me down in this project is… fear. With so many of my projects, they tend to be within my comfort zone, or just slightly outside of my comfort zone, but not way outside of my comfort zone. The RepRap has been (at times) outside of my comfort zone. I tend to like visual instructions. You know who excels at great visual instructions? Adafruit does, as does Evil Mad Scientist Labs. That’s why I love getting kits from them, and supporting them their work.

So this fear I mentioned… at some point I think I got too wrapped up in making sure I did everything right, but here’s the thing about a RepRap, even if it is a kit, you won’t do everything right. Nope, try as you might, you’re going to screw something up. Even if you’ve built other kits, and follow all the instructions, and use the mailing list, and blog posts, and IRC, and Google+… unless you’ve done it before, you will screw something up. (Hell, you might even screw things up if you’ve done it before.) But here’s the thing to remember: part of building a RepRap is learning, and that includes learning from mistakes. Building it up from a box full of parts does one thing, it ensures you can (probably) tear the whole damn thing apart and fix it. With all these new 3D Printers coming on the market that are fully assembled, that may not be the case. That’s one of the big questions I have. Let’s say you buy a 3D-A-Ma-Jig (yeah, I made that up) from 3D-A-Ma-Jig Incorporated, and it breaks… what do you do? What about repairs? What about warranties? Do you ship it back? Take it in… somewhere? This is part of the reason I went the RepRap route, so I would know every part of the machine.

So this past weekend I got a lot done. I probably put in close to 10 hours, and I learned a lot in that 10 hours. Sure, I read blog posts, Google+ comments, and lots of poorly explained “instructions” with no images, but hey, if things blow up, I can replace them. I’m saying goodbye to fear and forging on. I may earn my Magic Blue Smoke Badge, but dammit, that’s a badge of honor, not just among RepRap builders, but hackers and makers everywhere!

So what I’m really saying is, the RepRap is really close to being done.

2012.04.28

Maker / Hacker Podcasts

So what is the Gentleman Hacker or Lady Maker listening to nowadays in the way of podcasts? I don’t know… but I can tell you what I’ve been hearing. Here’s a round-up of some of my most recent podcast delights.

Hackerspace Digest
Recorded by the crew at Makers Local 256 in Huntsville, Alabama, the Hackerspace Digest is one of my favorites (and not just because they’ve mentioned Milwaukee Makerspace and myself a few times.) They typically talk about things happening at other hackerspaces as well as things they’ve been working on. Most of their focus seems to be US-based spaces, which is fine… we’ll get all international later. They provide ogg files for people who love freedom, and mp3 files for people who love convenience. Check it out.. Hackerspace Digest is probably one of my favorite podcasts right now.

Hack All The Spaces
I was excited to hear about a podcast from the UK! Out of Nottinghack came the “Hack All The Spaces” podcast. The members of the London Hackspace tend to talk about UK hackspaces (yeah, they are called “hackspaces” over there instead of “hackerspaces”) and ramble on about various hacking/making related topics. The audio quality still needs to improve, especially since they are no longer in the same physical location when they record. All podcasters: If you’re not using The Levelator, you should be! I often have problems listening in the car due to the difference in audio levels. (Granted, my car is pretty noisy.)

The Hackables
As long as we’re across the pond… a fairly new podcast called “The Hackables” put out two episodes (000 and 001) so far and the second (001) was better than the first (000) so that’s good! They are a motley bunch, sort of like the Hackerspace Digest crew, but with British accents and a lot more laughing. (I love British accents, and if you’re doing a UK podcast and you don’t have a British accent, you should get one!)

The Amp Hour
Alright, let’s head over to Australia and… Cleveland? The Amp Hour is two engineers talking about electronics (and other things) in a no-bull manner. I’ll admit that Dave took a little bit to get used to, but he’s pretty hilarious, and both he and Chris are smart guys. The Amp Hour gets a little too “electrical engineery” for me on occasion, but it’s definitely informative and entertaining.

Robots Podcast
Welcome… to The World of Robotics! If you’re into robotics, this is the podcast for you. It covers uh, the world of robotics… from researchers to commercial robotics companies, and the latest news and events. It’s about robots, duh. (It’s also a bit more professionally produced than a few of the others I’ve mentioned.)

Make: Talk
Our friends at Make have been talking to the makers who make the articles that show up in Make. Make: Talk is a fun series where Mark Frauenfelder interviews people about the cool stuff they do. So far they’ve all been pretty interesting to me but I think my favorite is still the one with Steve Hoefer. If you like Make you’ll probably like Make: Talk.

The Engineering Commons
Chris Gammell from The Amp Hour wasn’t satisfied doing just one podcast so he teamed up with Jeff Shelton to launch a new engineering podcast. As of right now they’ve only done two episodes, so it’s early days, but it could be one to keep an eye on.

Engineer Vs. Designer
New to me (but they’ve done nearly 40 episodes) is a podcast with an engineer and a designer which they are surprisingly calling Engineer Vs. Designer. I’ve listened to two episodes, and I’ve got plenty more I want to dig into. EvD is a pretty polished podcast, which fits them well.

So that’s my current list of “podcasts that I am listening to” right now. If I’ve missed any you think I should be listening to, or have any good recommendations, or just want to tell me what you are listening to… please do!

2012.04.27

Laser-cut plywood and veneer case

How much do I love this DIY cell phone? Quite a bit! I’m not trading in my iPhone for this (yet) but I love the idea of being able to order parts from SparkFun and Adafruit and dropping in a SIM card and having a mobile phone for under $200.

I can also imagine that such hardware could be incorporated into various projects where voice or text communication could come in handy. I know that some folks attach phones to balloons or incorporate them into other remote monitoring systems… so what if you could extend this simple DIY phone hardware to be exactly what you want to fit your project?

I also love many of the other projects I’ve seen from the High-Low Tech group at MIT. (If only I could have met some of the people involved with the group while I was at MIT last month!)

2012.04.18

SVG file in Inkscape
SVG file in Inkscape

After my last post on the subject, Laser. Cut. Files. (Part II), I figured that I had something that worked… but then something came along that worked better!

Thanks to a comment from old pal Thomas Edwards on the Part II post:

Have you tried Inkscape Save as EPS, then Preview EPS to save PDF? (Inkscape Save as PDF might work as well, but I find Corel Draw gets messed up by fonts unless I start as EPS and then go to PDF)

I decided to give PDF files from Inkscape a try. They didn’t work. CorelDraw gets some crazy error trying to open PDF files I create in Inkscape on Mac OS X… but what did work was a two-step process!

Again, my goal is to do all of my design work on Mac OS X, typically using Inkscape, and then moving my files to the Laser Cutter PC running CorelDraw on Windows (yuk!)

PDF file in Preview
PDF file in Preview

So for now, my process is the following:

  1. Create vector art in Inkscape
  2. Save (original) file as an SVG
  3. Save (a copy of the file) as a PDF from Inkscape
  4. Open the PDF from Inkscape in Preview and Save as a PDF
  5. Copy the new PDF file to Laser Cutter PC
  6. Open a new document in CorelDraw and import PDF file

Save as a PDF (again!)
Save as a PDF (again!)

Windows and Linux users, your mileage may vary, and obviously you don’t have Preview.app, but on Mac OS X this process works for me. And as for the note in the comment from Thomas about fonts, I’d be sure to convert any fonts into outlines after I save my SVG file, but before I save my PDF file. (It’s an old print design trick.)

2012.03.16

One Tool

If I haven’t bugged you about it yet, I’ll be at The Tool at Hand Milwaukee Challenge with a piece I created using just one tool.

There’s a little background on it here, and a post about it here, and you can RSVP on Facebook.

But besides all that, it’s at Sweet Water Organics, 2151 S. Robinson Avenue in Milwaukee, from 1pm to 5pm on March 17th, 2012. I hope to see you there.

And here’s a sneak peek at my piece:

...

Update: Enough waiting… you can see it here: rasterweb.net/raster/projects/plasticsun/

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