Finally, the thing is printing

Tomorrow I start a new job with Formlabs, a 3D printer company, and I'm psyched about that. Unfortunately, however, one of the conditions of my employment there is that I cease development on my own 3D printer. I spoke with their attorney and it all makes sense, it's the right thing to do, because my printer is entirely open source and they are selling a proprietary product. If I were to continue developing my printer, it would be too easy to unintentionally include pieces of their technology. So tonight I am putting the finishing touches on the Github repository.

Today was the first time I made a successful print with this printer design. I had hoped to print four dodecahedra at once. But I had some crud on the surface of my build plate, and I hadn't stirred the resin before printing, so only one of the four came out really well. Another was misshapen, and two of them never came together at all.

 Here are the two that were at least coherent solids. I think with a little more learning and practice, I'll get to where I can make four that all look as good as the one on the right.

Here is the setup I'm using. If you've followed this blog, you'll recognize the stuff on the bucket. The box-like thing overhead was quickly cobbled together when I realized that my mirror wasn't reflecting enough UV light to make the resin cure properly, because the mirror's glass isn't transparent enough in the UV range. To remove the mirror from the optical path, I needed to put the projector directly over the bucket, pointing down.

MakerFaire NYC 2011

I went to MakerFaire at the NY Hall of Science, Queens, NY on September 17th and 18th, and took plenty of photos. Like last year, the location was the site of the 1964 World's Fair. Even though I grew up pretty close to New York, I didn't get to see the World's Fair as a child, so I'm glad to have these opportunities to see what's left of it.

As was true last year, there were lots of 3D printers and CNC milling machines. My impression this year was that a much larger percentage of them were hobbyist efforts rather than high-end commercial projects. I think that's a good thing. There seems to me to be a maturing of the 3D printer hobbyist effort in general, and the gradual emergence of more small businesses like Bre Pettis's Makerbot. The hard technical challenges (the big one being getting the extruder nozzle to work just right) have pretty much been identified now.

As I looked at some of the products, which have been improving in resolution, it occurred to me that an interesting approach would be, instead of going with increasingly fine nozzles, to use a coarse nozzle to place a slightly oversized drop of plastic, let that drop cool and harden, and then bring in a milling tool to shape it. This would mean moving back and forth frequently between the extruder nozzle and the milling tool, so it would need some tinkering and might not end up being an improvement.

There were lots of other tools, things on display, and cool stuff to see. I was really impressed with an elegant (if low-res) volumetric display called Lumarca. Essentially the guy uses a projector to project colors onto lengths of monofilament fishing line in the viewing volume, and by carefully controlling the projected image, he individually controls what colors appear along each length of monofilament.

There were a few interesting vehicles, like motorized skateboards and a Segway clone. Those were fun.

One thing I found interesting was that in addition to the expected Arduino stuff (which has the full weight of O'Reilly Publishing behind it), there were a good number of boards with more advanced microcontrollers, particularly ARM Cortex-M3 controllers. This interests me because with their larger address spaces and fuller feature sets, ARM processors can run Linux OSes or Python interpreters or other big pieces of code  beyond the itty-bitty programs that will fit on an Arduino. Teho Labs had a nice line of Cortex M3 boards. They shared space with Dangerous Prototypes who were showing off their Web Platform board.

I did get pretty tired and sore walking around so much, and needed some Advil. But it was definitely worthwhile. Maybe I'll have some project next year so that I can have a booth of my own.http://www.arm.com/products/processors/cortex-m/cortex-m3.php

Enjoyed a Steampunk Festival, later got an idea of my own

On Saturday I went to the New England Steampunk Festival in Waltham, Massachusetts. It was delightful. A lot of people in Victorian dress with complicated goggles, and elaborate gadgets hanging off their belts or strapped to their backs. I took some pictures and did some twittering while I was there.

Steampunk has its apologists, but I'm not sure it needs them. I heard a few complaints that some gadgets were simply props and did nothing, and some gadgets were built with obviously modern pieces. To the first I'd say that steampunk is a style, not a technology (the enthusiasts are very clear on this, and unashamedly use the word "prop" for their toys) and to the second, I'd say that you can't expect them all to be equally skilled and ambitious, and if they're having fun and not hurting anyone, is it really so terrible that you can see the plastic Coke bottle cap on their ray-gun?

I'm surprised that there aren't more steampunk graphic novels. That strikes me as a natural fit. I also wish they weren't quite so obsessed with "airships", the way Fifties sci-fi was obsessed with flying saucers and robots.

Attending Steampunk Festival, Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation, Waltham MA

Steam engines http://twitgoo.com/u4fvs



More steampunk stuff http://twitgoo.com/u4g12



The guy calls it a "spirit harvester" http://twitgoo.com/u4g74



Best costume imho http://twitgoo.com/u4gb6

I later found this woman's blog, mostly a compendium of sci-fi and fantasy events happening around New England. Useful and interesting.



Won a piece of optometry equipment in the raffle at the New England Steampunk Festival in Waltham MA http://twitgoo.com/u4yn5



The next day I was thinking about pipe organs, and about all the cool stuff I saw on Saturday, and it occurred to me that it would be feasible (even for me) to build a small USB-controlled pipe organ rank. My one area of uncertainty is the solenoid valves, it seems difficult to find them at a price that's affordable if I want to put in fifty-or-so pipes.