3D Printing for Jesus

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Mothra
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3D Printing for Jesus

Postby Mothra » Thu May 01, 2014 1:19 pm

My dad has access to a 3D printer at his work, and he's sort of in charge of getting people in his division comfortable using it, in the hopes that they might find unexpected and interesting uses that would benefit the company. I think the most relevent one I've seen so far is a custom solar-cell enabled case for a smartcard, crafted as a prototype.

But! As a result, he's been using it for various little pet projects, to work out the kinks with producing ever more complex items.

So far, he's successfully created:
  • A Christmas ornament that is impossible to create any other way but through a 3D printer. It's basically four independently rotating rings, layered atop the other, with a spinning snowflake at the heart. It's awesome.
  • Tiny Tardis ornaments, which he packed with a the wiring and such to make (1) the whooshing Tardis sound, and (2) an alarm bell it's sounded probably like twice throughout the show (he's a huge classic Who buff)
  • Little robot toys for my nephews, which use mechanical motion to walk down slopes. He made three, which the kids raced against each other.
  • A nozzle for the filter of my turtle tank, so that gravel won't keep getting sucked up into it. I had to sand it down a bit, but it works just dandy.
  • A cap that goes over mason jar lids, to help open them.
  • A PIP-BOY
Reddit topic (thread by my little brother) (upvote)

Image

Image

His arm's going to be in a case for a while after an arthritis surgery. He made this thing almost entirely one-handed, taking the Pip-Boy 3D printing design from Thingaverse and adding his own tweaks for a mounted fan (to get air under the itchy cast), and to increase the size enough to go around his cast.

Pretty sweet.

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Mongrel
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Re: 3D Printing for Jesus

Postby Mongrel » Thu May 01, 2014 2:19 pm

Holy shit that is awesommmmme.

Uh, the PIP BOY that is, not your dad having to have arthritis surgery.

Any pics of the snowflake ornaments? Those sound really cool too.
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Re: 3D Printing for Jesus

Postby Mothra » Fri Jun 06, 2014 9:57 am

Meant to respond to this! Then I forgot for... an entire month.

The ornament was something he designed himself, and it's packed away for the winter, but it looked like the outer portion of this, but with two smaller ones within it, and then a snowflake within the third one, all moving independently.

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Re: 3D Printing for Jesus

Postby Mothra » Fri Jun 13, 2014 9:54 am

Update: My dad's cast got featured on Kotaku, so there's that.

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Re: 3D Printing for Jesus

Postby Büge » Fri Jun 13, 2014 11:30 am

How many bottlecaps did that cost to build?
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Re: 3D Printing for Jesus

Postby Mothra » Fri Jun 13, 2014 12:16 pm

My dad was utterly delighted by the comments in that reddit thread, among them, "Shut up and take my bottlecaps" (as he is a huge Futurama buff), and of course, "Shouldn't the display show a broken arm"

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Re: 3D Printing for Jesus

Postby Grath » Tue Mar 10, 2015 12:40 pm

I should also post this here:
3D printed Dragons/Khans token for Magic

Designed in OpenSCAD by importing some hi-res .PNG files for the set symbols as height maps; printed on my Flashforge Creator Pro.

Gotta swap out the blue filament with white filament for better looks, but I haven't taken the time to swap that filament yet.

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Re: 3D Printing for Jesus

Postby Mothra » Tue Mar 10, 2015 1:49 pm

Eeeee

I like. You should put that bad boy on Thingaverse.

Been considering asking him to 3D print like an SNES cart or something, to house emulator software.

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Re: 3D Printing for Jesus

Postby Grath » Tue Mar 10, 2015 1:59 pm

Mothra wrote:Eeeee

I like. You should put that bad boy on Thingaverse.

Been considering asking him to 3D print like an SNES cart or something, to house emulator software.

Only thing that makes we wary is potential copyright issues. Given that it's derived off Wizards of the Coat's intellectual property and all that.

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Re: 3D Printing for Jesus

Postby Grath » Tue Apr 14, 2015 10:32 am

Image
For those of you not familiar with guns, this isn't a complete working firearm but it's the part that would have the serial number and background check associated with it. The rest of the parts could be ordered on the internet and delivered to your front door.

Only further steps necessary to assemble this into a functioning gun would be get the spare parts, tap the threading in three screw holes, and possibly sand surfaces down for fit.

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Re: 3D Printing for Jesus

Postby Mothra » Tue Apr 14, 2015 11:30 am

Oh you better believe people are going to be 3D printing their own guns once the process becomes stable enough. I highly doubt the plastic would be strong enough to function in a gun beyond one or two uses, but metal printing is getting better and better. It's coming.

Considering how long it takes lawmakers to grasp new technology, I'm not optimistic about any kind of effective regulation on the part schematics. Not that doing so would help much, but, well, it'd be something.

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Re: 3D Printing for Jesus

Postby Thad » Tue Apr 14, 2015 12:00 pm

Mothra wrote:Considering how long it takes lawmakers to grasp new technology, I'm not optimistic about any kind of effective regulation on the part schematics. Not that doing so would help much, but, well, it'd be something.


Preventing people from accessing illegal things on the Internet is a pretty tricky proposition. The US does a pretty good job of cracking down on networks like Silk Road that are involved in, say, drug trafficking and child pornography, but I think they're going to have a very hard time putting gun part schematics into that same type of category.

Of course, assuming legislation and due process will be involved is twentieth-century optimism. I think we can reasonably assume that the NSA and FBI will be keeping an eye on everybody who downloads plans like these or even looks at them.

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Re: 3D Printing for Jesus

Postby Grath » Tue Apr 14, 2015 12:03 pm

Mothra wrote:Oh you better believe people are going to be 3D printing their own guns once the process becomes stable enough. I highly doubt the plastic would be strong enough to function in a gun beyond one or two uses, but metal printing is getting better and better. It's coming.

Considering how long it takes lawmakers to grasp new technology, I'm not optimistic about any kind of effective regulation on the part schematics. Not that doing so would help much, but, well, it'd be something.

Well... it's not even illegal. People have 3D-printed AR-15 lower receivers which have held up for 600+ shots. The one that a friend of mine printed broke down on its second trip to the range, but he may have done things wrong in printing it.

However, publishing plans online is actually illegal - It's just because of export controls, not because making your own gun is illegal.

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