3D Printing : Burning Man 2014 Edition!

Design by Larry Harvey and Don Clarke, illustration by Andrew Johnstone and Jim Pire

So last year a friend of mine / co-worker, who is a die hard Burning Man attendee, decided he wanted to give out something at burning man to individuals whom he either wanted to "barter with" or just thought that they were some cool people.  

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My friend knew of my purchase of a 3d printer and he inquired about the ability to possibly develop some pendants to wear with minimal cost  to mass produce.  So I indicated we could use the 3d printer to produce a small run of objects then he could go about casting them in silicone and then in resin.  So we did exactly just that.  With the help of Taps Plastics (a local store where you can pic up the silcone casting materials and casting resin)  Well I printed out about 20 or so "master copies" of a necklace or pendant.   We then used some platinum silicone, mainly for its speed in curing, and then he spent the weeks leading up to burning man casting copies of the masters in a white resin.  After my friend then went about painting them in various colors and placing them on lanyards of various colors and materials.  From what was told to me was that He had cast about 100 or so, and ended up  handing out about 60 or so. 

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So this year with burning man approaching, he then again asked me if we could develop a new pendant.  However this time around he didn't want to spend the time casting and painting and asked if we could do everything on the 3d printer, which I replied sure we can do that if you'd like, but the cost would likely be more for less product.  He was ok with this, since he didn't have to do any real work except for final assembly. (prototypes to the left)

So over the last week I've spent my free time printing out the new pendant, its fairly simple and I only used one print head and use the z-axis stop on the makerbot to change out colors.  the initial design was just a flat .jpg/.png and I used my 3d application, cinema4d( version 7 that I had purchased years ago) to add some depth for each "layer" then extruded those layers to match 1mm increments to make color changing easier because that is what the makerbot uses, mm instead of actual layers to pause at the z-axis.  

final result and color scheme
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So The base layer was 2mm, the flames were 1mm, the burning man was 2 mm, and the final black was 1 mm for a total of 6mm in height or depth however you want to look at it.  

So if you're at burning man and see a guy giving out these pendants/necklaces say "HI" or if you see someone wearing them tell them you know of the pendants origin story, of a lazy friend with a 3d printer! ;)  

Hope you enjoyed this post and thanks for stopping by!

3D Printing : The NINTASTIC - A Fantastic Case For Your Raspberry Pi!

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This was a commissioned piece from a friend/coworker for his roommate's birthday present. They're using their Raspberry Pi as a nintendo NES emulator, so naturally the Nintastic was required as a case for the Pi.

I used the "longer model" than the "original model" since it was mentioned that if a sd card was installed into the pi the door wouldn't close on the original.

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I decided to print these out at 100microns (which looking back should have gone with 200µm, maybe even 300µm to cut the time down, as the bottom took about 15 hrs, and the top took around 9 hrs, at 30mm extruder head speeds. 

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I again used 3d2print "Grey" Filament for all the pieces involved.  Now you might ask wait a second I see a few different colors on that finished model.  Well, the black portions are model paint, as well as the red in the lettering and button highlights.   The bottom, however was entirely colored using four basic black sharpies and a 3d printed addon here to hold four of the sharpies. The over all process is explained more in detail here.  Essentially I "tinted" the filament before it went into the hot end and the outcome was a considerably darker color of grey.  It certainly very interesting to see how much of a color shift you can get. 

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Hope you enjoyed this post and thanks for stopping by!

3D Printing : These Are Maybe The Droids You're Looking For! (Stormtrooper Helmets)

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So as a birthday gift for someone who is into sci-fi, and loves Star Wars, I printed out a couple of the Stormtrooper helmets from thingiverse.  These are resculpts to better print on 3d printers.  http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:362947 

The helmets turned out pretty well at 200 microns layer height.  I printed them out using 3d2print's White filament.  I then decided to try and see what sharpies would do on the raw prints, and sadly through capillary action the ink was sucked out of the areas that I initially colored it, so I decided to "finish them off".  I then used a some automotive auto primer and filler and that worked pretty well to fill in the lines and needed a little sanding.

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Once sanded I put a few too many coats of gloss white on them, and either the weather or temp, or just too many coats ended up with not the best finish, and time being what it was as the birthday was fast approaching, I attempted to fix it the best I could and at the very last minute slapped on some model paint for details.  Certainly not my best paint job, and kind of embarrassing considering what level I used to paint to. (I used to paint minis all the time for my various RPG's and Battletech.)  But its the thought that counts right! :)  If I had more time and used my airbrush for some details I think i could have done a way better job!  Well next time!  If you have any questions feel free to contact me!

Hope you enjoyed this post and thanks for stopping by!