Hello everyone,
Even in the middle of summer, exciting things are happening at the Wayne College Makerspace. At one point we had all three printers running, until I broke one of them (twice!).
Maureen’s husband learned that PhotoShop can be used to create 3D objects from photos. Normally, PhotoShop is a 2D program that allows one to edit digital photos and the like. He took a photo of a fireman, converted it to 3D, then printed the object on his company’s StrataSys printer (a high-end 3D printer). We printed the fireman with our own printers with decent results. Note that the roughness of the print is from the PhotoShop conversion, not as much the printers themselves. Still, very impressive!
We also experimented with two-color printing by pausing the print mid-way, switching to a different color filament (by unloading one color and loading another), then resuming the print. The technique worked perfectly!
Do you remember the adage “haste makes waste”? Well, I rushed a print job on our portable printer and accidentally loaded the wrong type of plastic (I used PLA instead of the recommended ABS). The result is that the plastic was poorly melted and jammed in the printer. Dusty performed surgery on our printer to clean-up the mess:
Dusty is busy printing more objects for the automatic part rinser for the Chemistry Lab. This will save the Lab at least $400, not to mention the time it saves manually rinsing parts. His design is quite large; it will take almost 100 hours of printing time to build it. Here is one part that took 12 hours this week to print. We will keep you posted of the project’s progress!
With other printer woes, our original printer has the occasional habit of shifting the print head 1/2″ in the middle of a print job, skewing the object as it builds the remaining top layers. We have a service contract with the printer company; they assist us with these types of strange software/hardware glitches:
The filament extruder kit arrived earlier this week, so we are busy assembling it. This will allow us to create our own filament at 8-10 times less the cost of buying pre-made filament. I will finish the electrical wiring over the weekend, but the extruder is looking good so far:
Next week is a trip Northwestern Middle School where Dusty and I will offer advice for building the school’s own Makerspace. We’ll the results of this trip next week!
In the news, President Obama acknowledged the growth the “maker” culture by recently hosting a Maker Faire at the White House! June 18 is now a nationwide “Day of Making”. Read more below:
http://www.gizmag.com/best-maker-faire-projects-white-house/32450/
Stay tuned for more Wayne Makerspace news next week!
Tom