Day 9 - Mini knots

Even at home, eight days is a lot of time to pass without printing something mathematical.  So today, miniature knots!  We can use them around the house as game tokens or poker chips, or just to look pretty.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day9_miniknots.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/bkRWjdhEUA6-day-9-mini-knots
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:146468

Settings: Makerware custom profile based on the "high PLA" slicer, primarily to make the supports as light as possible under the knots (file is listed below the fold).  On the Replicator 2 it takes about an hour and 15 minutes to print six of these tiny knots.  The white knots in the picture were printed with an Afinia we have on loan in the house for a couple of weeks, and took much longer.

Technical notes: These knots were created by taking data provided by mathematician Jason Cantarella of the University of Georgia and using Mathematica to "tube" the data into a format that could be output as an STL file. Each of the knots in the file is a knot with 8 or fewer crossings from the standard knot table; can you tell which ones?

Day 8 - LEGO marble run (chapter 2)

Following up from Day 4 we have some new-and-improved LEGO marble run pieces:

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day8_legomarble.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/31fZLaKI5PM-day-8-lego-marble-run-chapter-2
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:145842

Settings: MakerWare "low" with no raft and custom supports as described below, with two pieces printing in 37 minutes.

Technical notes:  To make the supports easier to remove, with enough support to hold up the ramps but no support inside the "LEGO" part, I made a new slicing profile based on the "MakerBot Slicer Low PLA Template" where I changed the lines that initially appear as:

"bridgeAnchorMinimumLength": 0.8,
"bridgeAnchorWidth": 0.8,
"raftBaseDensity": 0.7,
"doSupport": false,
"supportDensity": 0.2,
"supportExtraDistance": 0.5,
"supportAngle": 68.0, 

to each of the following, respectively:

"bridgeAnchorMinimumLength": 0.3,
"bridgeAnchorWidth": 0.3,
"raftBaseDensity": 0.4,
"doSupport": true,
"supportDensity": 0.15,
"supportExtraDistance": 0,
"supportAngle": 80.0, 

Still to come:  More types of pieces - curves and corners, holes and spirals... ??

Day 7 - Holey coin-op bottle opener

Today something very simple:  a minor remix of hoeken's lovely minimalist Coin-op Bottle Opener on Thingiverse, with holes added for style and so you can see the penny better.

STL file: http://geekhaus.com/makerhome/day7_holeycoinop.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/lK2qWk01MUY-day-7-holey-coin-op-bottle-opener
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:145254

Settings: On MakerWare "low" with no raft or supports this takes about 30 minutes to print.

Technical notes:  The boundaries of the holes that I added actually *increase* the print time and plastic used, compared to the sparse honeycomb fill that would have been printed inside if the model had been solid.  Also,  I couldn't fit a US penny into hoeken's design when printed on our MakerBot on "low", so I made the coin slot larger in these designs.

Day 6 - Hinged butterfly

Inspired by the hinge in someandy's Embossing Stamp, today we make a hinged butterfly. The image came from a screenshot of butterfly on wugange.com and was converted to .svg format by online-convert.com and then imported into Tinkercad. Most of the fiddling was testing and retesting the hinge and figuring out how to attach it to the butterfly.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day6_hingedbutterfly.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/jWirRGdisJv-day-6-hinged-butterfly
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:144645

Settings:  Makerware "standard" without supports, which took about 35 minutes to print. This turned out to be a Goldilocks situation - on "low" the model was too coarse and striped and the nozzle moved too fast to lay down the start of the model correctly, and on "high" some of the butterfly details came out too small and fragile.

Technical notes:  If the hinge doesn't work correctly for you, try printing with supports - they will support the post that goes through the middle of the hinge. The supports should then break the first time you bend the model (this worked for me on the "low" setting).

Stuff you might want to change:  The antennae are very fragile, so they could maybe be larger. The thin translucent part of the model could be thinner; I made it to be one layer on "low" but on "high" and "standard" it is two layers deep.

UPDATE: This design was "featured" on Thingiverse today!

Day 5 - Fractal LED

Most of today's design time was spent tweaking the LEGO marble run piece from yesterday, but that's not done yet so here we will do an easy mashup of two great things: the "2032 button cell holder "by sphynx on Thingiverse and the "Fractal" community shape script by Petr Broz on Tinkercad.

STL file: http://geekhaus.com/makerhome/day5_fractalled.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/ePGqlvSTDxj-day-5-fractal-led
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:143915

Settings:  The STL file consists of two pieces that must be printed separately. The small square 2032 batter holder was done on MakerWare "low" with no raft and no support in 8 minutes.  The model for the tall fractal part is a solid figure but you can set up slicing that turns it into a hollow shell (print time about 45 minutes).  See below for the details on setting up a custom profile to do this.  After printing, set up an LED with a 2032 battery in the holder and push into the bottom of the shell.  It should fit snugly so that it does not fall out even if the piece is turned upside-down.

Technical notes:  To print the tall fractal shell, make a new "MakerBot Slicer Low PLA Template" and change the following settings (in various places in the profile document):

"numberOfShells": 2,
"roofLayerCount_disabled": 4,
"floorLayerCount_disabled": 4,
"infillDensity": 0.1,
"bridgeAnchorMinimumLength": 0.8,
"bridgeAnchorWidth": 0.8,
"doRaft": true, 

to these settings:

"numberOfShells": 1,
"roofLayerCount": 0,
"floorLayerCount": 1,
"infillDensity": 0,
"bridgeAnchorMinimumLength": 0.3,
"bridgeAnchorWidth": 0.3,
"doRaft": false, 

Day 4 - LEGO marble run (chapter 1)

Today our 8-year-old jumped into the print-a-day game with a sample piece for a marble run to be built on top of LEGO pieces. Using Tinkercad he combined a short piece of marble track with a LEGO brick in Tinkercad's public files (credit to Kerry Todyruik).

STL file: http://geekhaus.com/makerhome/day4_legomarble.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/0lpAoWY6CRT-day-4-lego-marble-run-chapter-1
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:143296

Settings: Standard MakerWare "high" with raft but without supports.  Supports mess up the inside of the LEGO part, and without a raft we ended up printing a lot of fuzz.  On "low" setting (about 30 minutes to print) the marble track would not fit on the LEGO bricks, so we had to change to "high" (about an hour to print).

Technical notes: Our marbles looked about 16 mm across so we made a run with a 20 mm cylinder track.  This part seems perfect; the marble rolls very nicely in the track.

Stuff you might want to change: This is a work-in-progress.  The fit on the LEGO bricks is very tight so some fiddling with the design is in order.  Also we'll have to design more interesting bits of track than just small straight bits, and some modifications in design are needed to make the printing go faster.  Stay tuned.

Day 3 - Pickaxe hangers

Today we printed hangers for our Minecraft foam pickaxe and sword. Each of these nails into the wall in two places and has a small post that sticks out. By placing the hangers in strategic locations the foam pickaxe and sword will balance on the posts and we will be able to take them on or off the wall as we please.  At least that is the plan.

STL file: http://geekhaus.com/makerhome/day3_pickaxehanger.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/fszwlQr2Cmx-day-3-pickaxe-hanger
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:142682

Settings: Standard MakerWare "low" with no raft and no supports, on the bare platform.  Printed 12 at once in 23 minutes.

Technical notes: Don't use blue painter's tape - for some reason the model does not adhere well to the tape on the first layer and everything gets gummed up.  Sticks to the bare platform nicely and is easy to remove.

Stuff you might want to change: If you don't want to nail these into the walls you can use velcro stickies instead.

UPDATE: It turns out that nails were not necessary; poster tack worked just fine.  The nail holes in the hangers helped grip the poster tack so I would keep the holes even if you aren't going to use nails.

Day 2 - Voronoi box

One of the new Community Shape Scripts on Tinkercad is a very nice Voronoi diagram maker by Brandon Cole (including the code!). As a sort of random test of what sorts of angles we can get away with when printing without supports, here is a trinkets box with Voronoi sides made from Cole's shape script.

STL file: http://geekhaus.com/makerhome/day2_voronoibox.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/hvi2X7DGbgI-day-2-voronoi-box
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:142100

Settings: Standard MakerWare "low" setting with no raft and no supports, on blue painter's tape. Print time 48 minutes.

Technical notes: The Replicator 2 did a good job printing without supports on all but the most extreme overhangs, and an especially nice job of bridging along the top border. The model is a good sample set of what the printer can and cannot handle well. Obviously if you want to make a nice copy of this model then you should use some supports. The edge thickness is 2mm everywhere and fairly sturdy.

Day 1 - Coin traps

For the first day, a simple coin trap for nickels or quarters which we designed in Tinkercad.

STL file: http://geekhaus.com/makerhome/day1_cointrap.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/bJOfGp1qKt7-day-1-coin-trap
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:142078

Settings: We printed these on the MakerWare "low" setting with no raft and no supports on blue painter's tape. Halfway through the print you can pause and drop in the coin, which then gets trapped by the rest of the print. Each one took 20 minutes to print with these settings.

Technical notes: Use "pause" rather than "cold pause", and drop in the coin as quickly as you can. The PLA will continue to extrude out a bit during the pause. In "cold pause" this results in some filament being missing from the next layer of the print, and an unstable print. In "pause" this makes a small bump on the model but that helps to keep the filament inside the extruder.

Stuff you might want to change: The trap is larger than needed for nickels but a little bit too small for completely free movement of quarters. Suggest scaling down/up accordingly for better fits.