Tag Archives: RepRap
UP! 3D Printer from China: Viable Competitor to US 3D Printer Makers
Forest Higgs, a self-proclaimed “technocratic anarchist”, has written a detailed review of the UP! 3D printer, a compact desktop 3D printer from China.
Forest explains how he first was introduced to the UP! 3D printer.
Some months ago, a long term technology friend of mine acquired an UP! While Peggy has been a inspired developer of educational technology for years, she did not, to the best of my knowledge, have any prior knowledge of the ins and outs of 3D printing on personal printers. In spite of that, Peggy whipped her UP! printer out of the box and did a brilliant print first time out. That really caught my attention. I’d been working on the Reprap project for years and still, when I bought a Rapman, a greatly enhanced Darwin-derivative, several years ago it had taken me the better part of a month to get used to the quirks of printing on it to the point that I could get reliably good prints.
Later he walks through specific features and functionality, with detailed photos and comparisons to other printers in the market.
Out of the box, one thing that immediately struck me was the tiny size of the UP! The 140x140x135mm print volume reminded me a lot of the old Makerbot Cupcake. It took me about half an hour to get out of the box and set up, ready for operation. While the manuals indicated that I might have to level the print surface, this was not necessary. Calibrating the printhead height took about ten minutes. When I ordered the UP, I was very worried about print adhesion to the print surface. Delta Micro offered three solutions; perforated printed circuit board, painted glass and Kaplon tape covered glass. I had had so much drama with prints peeling off of the print table with the Rapman over the years that I ordered all three options.
Forest concludes: the UP! is a meaningful competitor from China.
Finally, it appears that Delta Micro is going for the throat of the manufacturers of Repraps in the US and elsewhere. They are now offering a slightly smaller printer, the UP! Mini! with a 120x120x120 enclosed print volume which uses standard 1.75 mm filament for less than $1,000. The UP! Mini appears to be a serious challenge to both the Reprap variations and to the 3D Systems Cube system. It strikes me that unless the quality and ease of use of UP! competitors makes a rather quick quantum leap they could easily find themselves to be a historical footnote in the history of 3D printing rather than a new paradigm of virally diffused technology.
Read the full review by Forest Higgs, who says on his blog, “If I wasn’t supposed to take it apart, it wouldn’t have screws in it.”
UP! 3D printer photo by donjd2 used under Creative Commons license.
3D Printing Companies Exhibiting at Maker Faire 2012
Maker Faire is a two-day, family-friendly festival of invention, creativity and resourcefulness, and a celebration of the Maker movement. Maker Faire Bay Area will be held May 19-20.
With 3D printing hitting an inflection point in awareness, it’s not surprising that there are over 20 companies exhibiting at Maker Faire with a 3D printing leaning. From MakerBot to Fab@School, check out the exhibitors below.
3D Scanning (Structured Light & Laser) Zip-Bit, Inc.
Taking Your Project into the 3rd Dimension with Zip-Bit, Inc. Zip-Bit, Inc. provides 3D Scanning, 3D Modeling, 3D Printing, and 3D Engineering services for all areas of industry/manufacturing, science, education, arts, and more…
3x3x3 LED Cube Arduino Shield Kit Look What Joey’s Making
3x3x3 LED Cube Arduino Shield Kit is a beginner kit. With this kit you will solder pieces together making the shield. You will then hook it to an Arduino (sold separately) and learn to program it making the leds go on and off in whatever pattern you wish.
Creating a Middle School 3d prototyping lab
Riley & Vernon are ardent CAD designers, 3D Printer users and above all Makers. Come see how they managed to set up a lab on a shoestring and make 3D work a part of everyday school life at a public school.
Ecological 3D Printing-Research
A research team from the College of Environmental Design at UC Berkeley, led by Assistant Professor of Architecture Ronald Real, has developed a process for the creation of 3D printed buildings, building components, and interior accessories.
Extreme Marshmallow Cannon uses PVC to hold air pressure, a sprinkler valve to release air & a bike pump. Marshmallows go in the end of the cannon. Pump it using a bike pump to 30psi & fire. The marshmallow will travel about 176 feet.
Math Sculptures & Hyperbolic Jewelry
The models were created through authentic computational design based on algorithms aimed to generate objects according to the mathematical laws. The 3D printing machine composes the piece from steel powder and infiltrates it with molten bronze.
QU-BD 3D Printer & Milling Machine
We are excited to announce world’s first desktop manufacturing machine with the capability to do additive AND subtractive manufacturing will be introduced at Makerfaire! We will see you there!
Applied Science Research and Robotics
Students from AS&E at Menlo School present the robotic arm, a sensing Teddy bear, superconducting MagLev train, Sumo wrestling robots, self-directing car, cloud chamber, hover craft, motorcycle conversion projects, and many more!
Public users group for the promotion, development, and understanding of RepRap and RepStrap 3D printer projects in the Bay Area.
Fab@Home and Fab@School Project
Fab@Home is a platform of printers and programs which can produce functional 3D objects. It is designed to fit on your desktop and within your budget. Fab@Home is innovating tomorrow, today. Join us, and Make Anything.
The Hacker Dojo is a place for makers and hackers to gather and share ideas, collaborate on projects, and build community. We provide facilities and instruction for both software and hardware, open to anyone.
Klein Bottles, topless teapots, siphon-glasses, and a homebrew forklift
How do you make a glass Klein Bottle? How about knitting a woolen Mobius Scarf? Perhaps a self-syphoning wine-glass? Or a robotic mini-forklift? Cliff will give away a glass Klein Bottle; maybe two if there’s enough questions.
Knightqueen is a novelty chess piece that is a hybrid of a queen and a knight. You can write funny words onto the box and give Knightqueen to your friend. Examples: “Garry Kasparov’s worst nightmare” or “Use if you want to beat ME.”
Seikowave’s 3D scanner captures images in under 0.5sec with a resolution of 300 microns. Those images, saved as an .STL file, are ready to be exported to a 3D printer or CAM for fabrication. Seikowave will be offering free scans in its booth.
The MakerBot Replicator is an affordable, open source 3D printer, with 2-color printing and a bigger printing footprint, giving you the superpower to print things BIG!
Mike’s ORDish Bot 3D Printer
The ORD Bot is a RepRap style 3D printer using MakerSlide for linear movement.
Printrbot
Printrbot: Your First 3D Printer
Expandable 3D printer kits
QU-BD 3D Printer & Milling Machine
We are excited to announce world’s first desktop manufacturing machine with the capability to do additive AND subtractive manufacturing will be introduced at Makerfaire! We will see you there!
SparkLab: an educational build-mobile!
SparkLab is a big red truck filled with cutting-edge maker tools that goes from school to school, bringing the joy of making back to kids.
TechZoneCommunications
We stumbled upon the Open Source Rep Rap Project a few years ago.. We became very interested in building our own and could not source all the parts. So we began assembling and selling electronics and eventually moved into selling complete kits.
Tjiko Snap! 3D Printer
The Tjiko 3D printer uses no screws or nuts, just lasercut mortise & tenon joints to go together. This means that the only tools you need to get started building are your hands, and a brain or two.
A San Francisco startup, building 3D printers! All about open source hardware and cool design.
Maker Faire photo by twelves via Creative Commons.
