D/A conversion

Yesterday we started building the Fab@Home 3D printers...
With these printers, that you can build yourself, you can print 3D objects using material that hardens after being squished from a syringe... rubbers, clay but also icing for your cakes and desserts.

We worked in teams, about 5 per team at the beginning, slowly diminishing in numbers as we went along. some people (me) worked at the wiring, soldering, cutting wires and connecting stepper-motors to controller-boards. others began assembling the acrylic, while still others started on assembly of the mechanical parts (ball-bearings and the likes).

Today, at around 4, our first models where being printed. One of the teams made a square block with a hole, but I wanted something more difficult... so i found a model of the Penrose Triangle (see this site for the model) to print.
Since this model contains overhangs it was not possible to print (people who know about 3D printing or CNC machines will understand this problem). So I first tried to make a support structure in Blender, but since that would also contain overhangs or be incomplete, we decided to print into a layer of water, and see if the material would get enough support from that.

The model still has to harden, but it's looking good.
Click on one of the pictures for more.

Think Global, Act locally.

I just posted on Fablab.nl, in reply to some people who are thinking about starting projects concerning clean and free energy. I'm really happy people in our country are starting to use fablab's for these kinds of questions. We should work together on these issues and not try to re-invent the wheel separately. We will be having a discussion about how to get the different lab's to work together more closely, so questions and additions are more than welcome. Post them as a comment to this blog, or simply send me an e-mail. (also: skyping, calling, sending pigeons... it's al good.)
Hope to see more of these projects spring in our little country.
For now, set your screen to go to sleep after 2 minutes, computer after 15, and yourself after a good healthy day's work.

And since this is my personal blog, here's some personal stuff.

Since Bas an I cooked dinner one night, everybody's been helping out and yesterday Johan and I where up... The day before yesterday Hans Erik made a really marvelous meal and was also almost unbeatable in table setting.
So we decided to do something completely different. Around 5 i build four fires, one for cooking, one for looking at and roasting marshmallows, one in the sauna and one in the hot-tub.
We then roasted a real big piece of lamb and sausages, made a salad and had some excellent bean-balls made by Kamau (real nice guy from Kenia). After dinner was over we all jumped in the sauna, the snow and the hot-tub (in that exact sequence). Drinking beer and whisky in a hot sauna and trowing people in the snow... It's not like we are bored here.
The day before that we wanted to go ice climbing again, but it was a busy day, so we went out around 23:00... when we where half up the mountain, waist deep in snow and we still had not found any decent ice, we decided to give up and just enjoy the view. Climbing a mountain in the dark, with half a meter of snow is definitely something else.