Julie and Carl of Scoops Ice Cream & Candies of Kenosha, approached new Makerspace member, Brandon Minga, with their project. They were given recommendations from other projects he’s done in the are including Mike’s Chicken & Donuts and the Modern Apothecary. Scoops was looking to enhance and draw more attention to their new location with a large exterior sign. Going through the concept and design process Minga quickly decided that the sign design was also going to become their new logo. Once the final design was rendered he quickly learned how to CNC a template to hand plasma trace the design out of sheet metal. The middle of the sign was also hand cut, roll bent and broke to match the bubbly ice cream cone shape. With a little help from friends a the Makerspace, he ground down welds and drilled 44 holes for the light bulbs. After all the holes were drilled Minga fit the sign with sockets, wired up the sockets and tested the electrical. Working with Prodigy Sign in Kenosha he also coordinated the hanging of the sign.

Any project starts with a sketch.

Nothing wrong with learning a little g-code.

 

A post shared by Mingadigm (@brandonminga) on May 2, 2017 at 12:47pm PDT

Took that g-code and used the handmade CNC router to cut out a template (note to self, don’t use OSB for plasma templates).

Traced template with hand plasma cutter.

Hand cut, roll bent, metal break and tack welded the bottom shell.

Hand cut and used the break to bend my own c-channel for the stabilizing guts of the sign.

A little help from my friends!

 

A post shared by Mingadigm (@brandonminga) on Mar 31, 2017 at 3:33pm PDT

A little custom install and wiring….and we have lights!

Can’t forget the paint! Primed inside and out, the sign got coated with some retro color.

Installation day was very windy, they called two crews in to stabilize the sign as they anchored it to the building.

This is a Mingadigm.com by Brandon Minga

This project was done at the Milwaukee Makerspace,  thank you, gang!

I noticed a serious lack of light-up signs with our logo in the 3D Printing Lab, so I rectified that situation.

I took an old IKEA “Skugga” lamp and replaced your favorite coffee with a fresh new Milwaukee Makerspace logo.

If you want all the gory details (actually, I left out the bloody part) check out my blog post It’s a sign! for more info.

(Note: MakerBot Replicator 1 not included.)

Happy holidays from our makerspace to yours!

“So, have a merry Christmas, happy Chanukah, kwazy Kwanza, a tip-top Tet, and a solemn, dignified Ramadan.”

-Krusty the Klown

Here’s our logo as a digital file. It’s an SVG file in Inkscape. The width of the lines are 1 single pixel.

Here’s our logo etched into a piece of wood using the Laser Cutter. It’s totally awesome.

Yes, at some point I’d like to see our logo created using every process / machine / material we have available at the space…

…and once that’s done, we’ll show ’em off. :)

I think it would be a great way to showcase the capabilities the Makerspace has to offer.

We had quite a night at the space! Thursday is “Builder’s Night Out” when we are open to the public, and if you want a tour, want to meet the members, or have a project you need help on, bring it down. Last night we helped Gary work on a project for his BarCamp session on Rubik’s Cubes. (And let me tell you, using PVC on the belt grinder creates a white dust the likes of which you’ve never seen before!)

Team Kegbot (also known as Kevin, Jason, and Adam) did a bunch of Arduino hacking, and made some progress. They may have also imbibed some of the malted beverages in the name of science.

I even got to contribute to the Kegbot project when Jason asked for a 64×64 1-bit file of the Milwaukee Makerspace logo. Of course he then demanded a 48×48 logo. (I’m just glad he didn’t ask for a 32×32 or the dreaded 16×16!)

Brant spent a little time with the Mini-CNC Mill trying to cut a key out of a piece of plastic. I offered to try printing a key on the MakerBot, but he got it done with the mill. (Plastic seemed to lack the strength needed for the key though, and we may look at a stronger material next time.)

As for me? Besides helping out other folks, I managed to get a little quality time with the MakerBot, and printed a few more cookie cutter designs, which we should be testing this weekend. I did a little bit of web site updating as well, which is always an on-going effort.

And you know what happens next week Thursday? Builder’s Night Out! Yup, every Thursday… so come on down and hang out with us!