Puzzles that probably don't need to be solved

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

LED Light Staff (3d Printed Bo Staff w/LEDs)

I've been looking for a new form of entertainment at music festivals (aside from the music) and decided Bojutsu might be fun. I came up with an idea for a 3d-printable, collapsible, reconfigurable led staff a couple weeks ago and have since printed some pieces for it.

Here is a prototype segment printed with PLA using the Makerbot Replicator.

UPDATE:
See this post for how to make your own collapsible LED bo staff!

Monday, May 14, 2012

Toothbrush Holder Cup

My new apartment has a metal cupholder (with holes for old-school tiny toothbrushes) attached to the wall. I turned that into a usable toothbrush holder with this :)

Grab the stl here:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:23012

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Cat Litter Trap

Admittedly, I have been looking for excuses to put the Makerbot to work since I got it... nonetheless, I think the outcome justifies the effort for the most part~~

Useful objects for physical tinkering often are pretty easy to design - so far my experience really has been:
1. imagine a useful plastic component
2. model it in 10-30 mins in sketchup
3. print it
It's pretty awesome.

Anyway I've been in the process of moving into a new apt, and thought it would be nice to have a barrier from the cat litter box to the main floor. Here it is:

Looking forward to getting in a replacement (non-warped) build plate next week...

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Port Dock for Samsung np900x3b (2012 series 9)

I love this Samsung ultrabook- so much that I even dock it at home to my monitor/tv + external keyboard/mouse. However, I find it annoying to constantly plug in and unplug three separate cables.

Thus I decided that for my next 3D printing project I would try to make a port dock.

Step 1. Get the measurements.
After being unable to find a good profile photo online, I just took one myself:

Step 2. Trace the ports
I imported the photo into Google sketchup and traced the ports:

Step 3. Take measurements + finish the model.
Here is what the finished model looked like:

Step 4. Print!
Here is what it looks like:

If you have a Samsung np900x3b and would like one, leave a comment or shoot me a message.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Cat + Heat Shield for Makerbot Replicator

BC printing takes several hours with an extruding 3d printer, I set about protecting the machine from the cats (and vice versa).

I soon realized that this could help tremendously with heat dissipation and was pleased to find that indeed it made a huge difference.

I bought five 24"x18" plexiglass panels from Home Depot (would have gone to Lowes but there are none nearby) for a total of $45. They refused to cut it for me.... and I was lazy, so the dimensions are off. 20x20x20 would probably be perfect for this machine (Makerbot Replicator).

Here is what it looks like:

Here are the super basic .stl files I printed for the support pieces:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:22119

Also, check out the solidoodle:
http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/25/former-makerbot-exec-launches-solidoodle-sub-500-3d-printer/
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3895263

Sunday, April 15, 2012

print a solid border for catan

one of the items on my list of 'things to print' from thingiverse.com was a border to keep unruly settlers of catan land tiles (aka terrain hexes) in place.

I tried printing this directly, but the interlocking mechanism wasn't fitting together properly.

While tinkering with the border, I decided to see how many pieces I could fit on the replicator's platform at once, to reduce the number of total prints required to make a border.

Here's the result: