It's All Fun & Games
Posted by Rick Pollack on March 25, 2013 0 Comments
at the MakerGear booth at PAX!! Now, back to a snowy Cleveland :/
Winner of the most unlikely use for a 3D Printer is....
Posted by Rick Pollack on March 26, 2013 1 Comment
Envelope please....[sounds of paper being removed]...Buick HUBCAP. [deafening applause]
HA HA! I'd probably go off the road if I saw that drive by...
MakerGear will be at PAX East in Boston this week
Posted by Rick Pollack on March 20, 2013 0 Comments
If you'll be at PAX East (3/22 - 3/24), stop by booth 1030!! We'll have M2s and be printing spaceships, video game critters and various interesting objects. We'll have plenty of printed objects on display. Here is an 18 inch model of the spacecraft Artemis we printed for the show (if you don't know what I'm talking about then you really need to stop by :) And, well have the new Creator software running so you can see firsthand the power of a streamlined, integrated workflow.
If you won't be at PAX East, we'll be out and about more this year, we'll keep you posted on our whereabouts.
M2 in Black
Posted by Rick Pollack on January 07, 2013 1 Comment
Making Your Gear
Posted by Rick Pollack on December 14, 2012 0 Comments
Wow, it's Friday again! We are shipping printers as fast as we can but never seems to be fast enough. Thank you for your patience!! We'll be running production through the weekend...
Adam and Howard setting up...
Ivan with the earliest M2 sketches through the fully rendered SolidWorks model
Me writing this post
Josh on the Lazzor
Inspector John
Adam getting it done!
Sam! ( 'nuff said :)
Hey. It's a blender theme!
Posted by Rick Pollack on December 11, 2012 1 Comment
Blender Repair!
And, here is a (completely unrelated) blender being transformed into an automated cat food dispenser. The food dish :)
The auger (well half of it)
Oops! I thought it was a modified blender when I originally looked at the feeder...close enough :)
Parts printed on M2. The complete pet feeder project.
M2s for the Holidays
Posted by Rick Pollack on November 16, 2012 3 Comments
It's Friday evening here in NE Ohio and I have not posted in a while so I just want to let you know that we are working very hard to get your M2s shipping for the holidays.
That's Karen packing and Ivan assembling.
Sorry for the posting gap...more soon :)
Rick
20 microns, I am
Posted by Rick Pollack on September 17, 2012 0 Comments
We normally print (and recommend printing) in the 0.1 to 0.3mm layer thickness range. However a rather frequent question (or line of questions) is about layer thickness and how thin layers can be printed. MakerGear|Josh sliced up Yoda here at 0.02mm (or 20 microns) layer thickness and gave it a shot on M2. How small is 20 microns? Bigger than a bacteria but smaller than an eukaryote cell!
(10% image compression)
For scale, a nickel (21mm diameter) would cover the the area shown in this photo. The actual printed model looks way better!! I'd link to the source file, it came from Thingiverse but I'm not sure which of the variants was used. Printed in Black MakerGear ABS.
One of these days, just for the sake of it, we'll print something thinner.
Breaking Down M2 - The Z Stage
Posted by Rick Pollack on September 10, 2012 0 Comments
In the previous post we took at quick look at the M2 leveling mechanism. Underneath the leveling system is the Z platform.
The Z platform consists of a rigid, machined aluminum plate, a stainless steel linear rail & carriage (top of photo), and linear bearings (bottom of photo). The aluminum plate is machined to tight tolerances so that all of the parts are properly positioned. Linear rails are really nice because you can run the printer month after month and get consistent results with minimal maintenance. The carriage on the linear rail is filled with ball bearings that allow for smooth linear motion with little play - exactly what you want in a linear motion system. If you open a commercial laser cutter (Epilog, for example) or a Vertical Machining Center, you'll find this type of linear mechanism.
We've been running a variety of 3D printers (some of them around the clock, every day) for a couple of years to print the plastic parts included in our kits. Our experience is that it is not difficult to make a printer that produces a few good prints but then requires considerable tweaking/maintenance to maintain consistent print quality. M2 uses precision parts so that you get consistent results with minimal maintenance.
Breaking Down M2 - leveling the build platform
Posted by Rick Pollack on August 24, 2012 0 Comments
If you've worked with earlier printer designs you probably found the build platform leveling process to be somewhere between tedious and challenging. The mounting mechanism on M2, as we'll show here, allows for quick and easy leveling of the build platform.
M2 ships with a borosilicate glass build surface and a removable platform heater. The platform heater and the glass build surface mount on the spider (blue part) using rubber fittings (not shown). The spider is supported by a stainless steel plate (below) that gets attached to the linear drive components.
Wide, sturdy springs go between the spider and the mounting plate.
When the springs are compressed they do a very good job of keeping the platform stable while also allowing for easy adjustments. The goal is for you not to have to do much adjusting but when you do, it should be quick and easy. I think you'll find it to be the case :)