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RepRap (almost there!)

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.

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Spring City Launchpad

Spring City Launchpad

As regular readers may know, I’ve been involved with the Milwaukee Makerspace for some time now, and being a member has given me access to tools and equipment I’d never have on my own, but more importantly it’s given me access to a community of makers who have assisted me with projects, some personal, and some business-related. I wouldn’t be selling products right now if it weren’t for the advice of Milwaukee Makerspace members.

So while Milwaukee is fairly close to Waukesha, it’s certainly not in Waukesha, and I’m excited to learn that there are some makers & hackers in Waukesha working towards a new group/space called Spring City Launchpad.

Spring City Launchpad hopes to assemble a group of interested people: makers, artists, creatives, builders, etc. and create a collaborative workspace where people can share skills, tools, and knowledge. Will it be exactly like Milwaukee Makerspace? No. It also won’t be exactly like Sector67 in Madison, or PumpingStation: One in Chicago. Each space evolves into what it is based on the members and the interests and activities of the members.

If you’ve got an interest in seeing a new creative space in Waukesha, you can sign up on the Atrium site, and if that’s not enough, join us on Saturday, May 12th, 1:00pm-2:30pm at the Waukesha Public Library, 321 Wisconsin Avenue in Waukesha.

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It’s not the Gear, it’s the Gear!

TWIP - Gear

In the latest This Week in Photo there was another round of the talk of gear, and how gear doesn’t make the photographer, and while I agree with this, I also disagree with this.

The photographers who tend to say “Gear doesn’t matter!” are the ones who have really good gear. I’m not saying that it’s not true, but that it’s partly true. Over the last four years I’ve shot with a Nikon D40 with the 18-55mm kit lens, and I’ve shot with a Nikon D3x with a 28-70mm pro lens. the D40 was the entry level DSLR from Nikon in 2006. The D3x was the top of the line model a few years ago. The 18-55mm lens is a cheap consumer-grade lens that costs about $100, and the 28-70mm is a professional lens that costs close to $2,000.

Enough with the specs… I’ve taken the same photo with both cameras, and the results from the D3x look better. And I’m talking about studio shots, I’m not even getting into low-light, event photography, sports shooting, and other comparisons.

They also talked about the Nikon D3200, which oddly enough, is what I’ll be upgrading to very soon. I’m not expecting D3x quality from it, especially since I’ll be shooting with cheaper glass, and I’m not letting that 24 megapixels number fool me. I’d be fine if it were 16 megapixels, or even 12. (The D40 is 6 megapixels, and yeah, I have come to find that a bit limiting.)

I’m not buying into the idea that to become a better photographer you need better gear, because I do believe that shooting and trying new things is the road to getting better, but I do believe that gear does play a part it helping you make progress, or holding you back.

So my upgrade from a D40 to a D3200 comes with a set of expectations. I expect to be able to get better results in low-light (6400 ISO versus 1600 ISO.) I expect to have more choices in focus points (11 versus 3.) I expect more megapixels (24 versus 6.) And I also expect to be able to shoot video with the D3200, which is something I can’t do with the D40.

That’s about it… I’ll let you know how it goes.

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Ping-Pong Ball Bot

Ping-Pong Balls in the Egg-Bot

Adam, one of the members at Milwaukee Makerspace, organizes The Amazing Milwaukee Race, and he asked for some help making customized ping-pong balls for this year’s event. He specifically asked about using the Egg-Bot to do it, so I volunteered to help… you know, being that I’m an certified Egg-Bot Operator and everything. ;)

Ping-Pong Balls for The Amazing Milwaukee Race

Here’s the end result, a whole bunch of The Amazing Milwaukee Race ping-pong balls. We originally tried to use the official logo, but at such a small size it just wasn’t as legible as we wanted, so I decided to go simple and just use text, but mix it up with all the different Ultra Fine Point Sharpies that I had available.

Egg-Bot Manual Control

I’ve almost always plotted on eggs, so doing ping-pong balls was new to me. I found the trick to doing them well (besides raising the height of the motor that holds the pen arm) was to put the ball in with the printed logo aligned directly upwards, and then using the manual control to spin the ball 180 degrees (1600 steps) so the logo is facing downwards so you can center your plot onto the backside where you’ll have the most room and (in theory) the artwork should be centered. Once you’ve done this, just plot as normal!

The other nice thing about using ping-pong balls rather than eggs is that ping-pong balls are all the same size (in theory) while eggs are all slightly different. Oh, ping-pong balls are also lighter, which means there should be less slippage, which sometimes occurs with eggs due to their weight.

So the next time you need some customized ping-pong balls for an event you’re putting on… give me a call! :)

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Making Podcasts? Hacking Podcasts!

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!