[Imc-makerspace] Makerspace 3d printer

[jamesrh]

As Gergana announced in her last email, we will be celebrating the first
prints from our 3d printer on Wednesday Nov. 7 at 7:00pm and demoing how to
use it.  Everyone come down to the space, and if you want to, BYO Beverage
to toast with!

Attached is a pdf with the main workflow for 3dprinting and some resources
for finding objects to download or for designing your own. I'd suggest that
everyone take a look at thingiverse.com and find something you would want
to print.  If you want to dive in and make your own design, sketchup is a
GUI CAD program with a reasonable learning curve, and OpenSCAD is awesome
if you like to program.  On the pdf there are even two online 3d design
websites where you can design something to print without even installing a
program!  If you want to read more about it, there are basic tutorials at
Solidoodle.com, and the reprap.org forums are full of all sorts of
information, tips, and ongoing development.

When you go to pick out or design an object to print there are some ways
you can tell what is a well designed object that will print without
trouble, and what will be more difficult.  The best objects for our printer
are less than 6 inches in any dimension, are orientable to have a flat
base, have overhangs of less than 45 degrees, and lack spindly unsupported
bits or huge unsupported bridges.  All these things can be worked around,
but to keep it simple and trivial to print, that's a good guide.  There is
a tradeoff between vertical resolution, size, and speed of print, so if you
are impatient, either find something small or decide to have the
distinctive texture of additive fused deposition manufacturing.

Here are some topics I thought of that might be fun to have meetings / hack
sessions about.  What is everyone interested in doing?  What sorts of stuff
sounds like fun?
Solidoodle calibration and first print party
Howto slice objects (SLic3r or SFACT/Skeinforge) and operate printer
(pronterface)
Firmware upgrading and Gcode details
Downloading & sharing designs
Sketchup, Blender, CAD programs howtos
2d Pictures → 3D models howto or 3D scanner build to scan our heads!
Printing and building your own printer / mendal reprap

Looking forward to 3d hacking at the Makerspace,

   James H.
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