The original design used to have a printed ABS top roller and I just pushed the roller against the flanges and finger-tightened the nut.  The problem was people kept taking it apart, so I added rubber bands to pull the roller down, and a nylock nut to prevent tool-free disassembly.  Then the rubber bands kept disappearing, and Tom came up with the idea of making a heavy top roller so the rubber bands wouldn’t be needed.  He cut a new, steel top roller on the lathe and it works great!  The bolt is just loose enough to let the roller slide up and down in the slot in the frame.  The roller is heavy enough that it just falls into position on the spool flanges.

Tangle-free filament spool holder

Sparks!  The VDG produces about 400 kV.

Then I found a plastic bucket and the fun really started.  We had kids and many adults who were definitely much too heavy, standing on the bucket and making their hair stand up with moms, dads, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, partners all taking pictures.   I had to move one gentleman who was breathing oxygen from a tank away from the machine.  Fortunately, no one fell off the bucket or caught on fire, and next year we’ll do it right and take a block of styrofoam for people to fall off of  to stand on.

Kylee was ready to join the Makerspace just for this… and with that shirt, she’d fit right in!

Blondes really do have more fun!

Even Gordon couldn’t resist!

Last year Son of MegaMax (a 3D printer built at the Milwaukee Makerspace) went to the Faire.  This year he had two companions to keep him company- an extra-beefy printer being built by Erich Zeimantz: MiniMax XY.  MMXY isn’t complete yet, but promises to be a super high quality, high speed printer.  He’ll be operational at next year’s Maker Faire.  SoM also brought his big brother, Ultra MegaMax Dominator, named that because he is ultra, mega, maximum, and he dominates.

MiniMax XY at Milwaukee Maker Faire

Ultra MegaMax Dominator and Son of MegaMax at the Milwaukee Maker Faire

UMMD and SoM rotated between the booth and the dark room where the both printers’ UV lighting and fluorescent filament was a big hit.

UMMD in the Dark Room at Milwaukee Maker Faire 2017

We had a few things besides 3D printers at the booth.  Tony brought in some Bismuth crystals to give away, and surprisingly, they didn’t all disappear in the first hour.  Tony thinks people left them because the Makerspace logo on the info board on which the crystals were sitting looked a lot like the skull and crossbones that usually indicates poison.  The crystals do have an other-worldly toxic look about them.  Oh well…

Bismuth Crystal

Marcin’s LED signs on the table at the booth and hanging above the entrance to the Dark Room were also very popular and hard to miss, though I managed not to take any pictures of either.  The one above the Dark Room was so bright that if you saw it, you’ve probably still got its image burned into your retinas.

Everyone involved had a great time and we’ll be there again next year with even more cool stuff!

A couple weeks ago I got a blower from American Science and Surplus and this week I got it running by using a model airplane ESC and servo tester to drive its brushless DC motor.  It appears to be capable of blowing much more air than I’ll need.  There are many unknowns yet to test.  How much chilled air/CO2 will it take to solidify the chocolate after it leaves the extruder?  How long will a block of dry ice last when used this way?  Will ice build-up inside the chiller box adversely affect its performance?

I designed and printed three parts for this system- a mount to attach the blower to a foam box up to 1.5″ thick, a hose coupler to allow delivery of the chilled air/CO2 to the print, and a hole saw to cut holes to fit the other two parts.   The printed parts fit as if they were designed for the job!

3D printed hole saw

Hose connected to hose coupler

Hose coupler parts

Blower mount for air chiller box

The telescope adapter firmly grips the phone and the eyepiece.

Initial tests were a little disappointing.  The combination of the phone’s camera and the telescope’s optics has significant pincushion distortion.  The image has only been mirrored L-R and scaled down (original is 21 Mp).  Note the lack of contrast (looking through 1/2 mile of humid air) and the curves in the power line and pole, and even the grass line:

A quick search found that the Gimp has built in transform tools to correct (or create) lens distortion.

It only took a couple minutes of messing around to get acceptable results.  Here’s the same image with the pincushion distortion corrected (whole image), contrast stretched and white balance corrected (rectangular area).  The pole, power line, and even the grass line now look straight.

And here’s the final image with all corrections and cropping applied:

Next step: photograph known square grids through the microscope and telescope and then create and save some preset corrections to apply with Gimp.

I wonder if something like this exists for video.  Hmmmmm…

Son of MegaMax

Please see my Instructable here:  http://www.instructables.com/id/An-Almost-Reliable-High-Precision-3D-Printer-Son-o/and vote for me by clicking the little red “vote” ribbon in the upper right corner of the start page.

Thanks!

http://www.instructables.com/id/An-Almost-Reliable-High-Precision-3D-Printer-Son-o/

This thing has an odd shape to accommodate the odd shape of the camera.  I designed the adapter in two pieces so it could be printed without any support material.  After printing the two pieces were glued together with a little super glue.

Unassembled 3D printed WebCam adapter and eyepiece.

Assembled adapter on the eyepiece.

The adapter fits over the barrel of the 32mm fl eyepiece and stays put.

I shot a short video to test it and it works perfectly!  The cars driving by are about 1/2 mile away.

If we ever get a clear night I’ll try shooting Jupiter or Saturn and then run Registax to enhance the images.

Files are here:  https://www.youmagine.com/designs/web-cam-adapter-for-meade-telescope-eyepiece

75% scale vase looks fine from this angle…

It came out pretty good except for the area near the bottom where it was overhanging.  3D printers don’t handle overhangs without support material very well.  I tried reslicing with support material added, but didn’t like the way it looked in either Cura or Slic3r so I didn’t try to print it again.

Overhang caused poor print quality for the first 6-8mm of the vase.

Then I tried printing it upside down- the overhang is much smaller.

100% scale vase printing upside down.

About 12 hours later, here’s the result:  perfect!

The two vases, bottoms up- the 100% scale vase is perfect!

I reused what I could including a lot of the 8020 extrusions in the frame, the Z axis screw assemblies and drive belt, and the X and Z axis motors.

Changes include:

• ball screw drive Y axis with high torque motor- precise but noisy
• linear guides in X and Y axes instead of 1/2″ round guide rails and linear bearings
• SmoothieBoard controller instead of Arduino/RAMPS
• BullDog XL extruder and E3D v6 hot end
• RepRapDiscount graphic LCD control panel
• narrower frame design without giving up print volume- easier fit through doorways!
• polycarbonate panels to enclose the print area yet provide a clear view of the print
• electronics in a drawer for easy service and transport and neater appearance
• DSP motor drivers and 32V power supplies for X and Y axes
• Liberal use of screw terminals to make servicing easier
• Modular X and Y axes that can be removed for service and replaced in minutes.

SoM will be making his public debut at the Milwaukee Makerspace very soon…

Son of MegaMax electronics drawer

Side view of Son of MegaMax