3D Printing

3D Printed Rocket’s Features Are Out of This World

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We’re delighted to see the progress on [Foaly]’s 3D-printed Cortex 2 rocket, and the latest build log is full of beautiful pictures and design details. Not only is this rocket jam-packed with an efficiency of electronics and smart design, but it almost seems out to single-handedly prove that 3D-printing is far from the novelty some think it is.

There is so much going on in the Cortex 2 that it simply wouldn’t be possible to do everything it does without the ability to make one’s own parts exactly to specification. In fact, there is so much going on that cable management is its own challenge.

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Thingiverse Data Leak Affects 228,000 Subscribers

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Thingiverse, a website dedicated to sharing user-created digital design files, has reportedly leaked a 36GB backup file that contains 228,000 unique email addresses and other personally identifiable information, confirms Troy Hunt, creator of the Have I Been Pwned data breach notification service, citing the circulation of this data set on a popular hacking forum.

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Print Infinitely-Long Parts on the New Infinity3D Belt 3D Printer

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Belt 3D printers are just now starting to hit the market and Infinity3D is a new option with an extra trick up its sleeve.

Most 3D printers’ build volume is a function of their size. To get a bigger bed, you need longer X and Y axes rails. To print taller parts, you need longer Z axis rails. There are exceptions, such as SCARA robots equipped with extruders, but even those have limits. Belt printers are unique in that they can print parts of infinite lengths — at least in one axis. Such printers are just now starting to hit the market and Infinity3D is a new option with an extra trick up its sleeve.

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Robot Dog V3 – 3D Printed & Open Source #1

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I’ve previously built several robot dogs which used a variety of servos and brushless motors. The most agile robot dogs are the ones with back-drivable low-ratio reducers which allows the motor to be back-driven so we get some natural spring in the legs – which can be controlled on the fly with software. So it’s time for openDog V3 – this version uses my Cycloidal Drives which I’ve developed over the last few months. I will eventually publish the CAD and code as open source when it works.

3D Printed “What If Machine” Plays Every FUTURAMA Episode

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Reddit user Remoheadder has 3D printed the infamous “What If Machine” from Futurama and hooked it up with a Raspberry Pi 3 to play every episode of Futurama. You can check out a video of it working on Reddit as well as a how to guide for how it was put together. Inspired by Bubba447 and their working Simpsons TV, Remoheadder took a lot of the code from that build and tweaked it to fit their own project. One of those tweaks? Adding a long hold option to the button to bring up the Hypnotoad channel. All hail Hypnotoad!

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3D Printed Custom Name Lights

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Custom Name Lights, we have seen them around, and they make great gifts! They are surprisingly simple to make with a 3D Printer. There are several great videos on how to create them and for this tutorial, I am referencing Les impressions d’Ega‘s instructions. The link to the video is at the end of the article. This process will use the LuBan Box Function and as a bonus, we’ll show you how to incorporate a Lithophane into this as well.

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UC Riverside Roboticists Create Airhead, a Piano-Playing Robot Driven by “Air-Powered” Memory Chips

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Inspired by player pianos and thermostats from the early 1900s, Airhead ditches electronics in favor of pneumatic RAM modules.

University of California at Riverside (UC Riverside) engineers have created what they describe as “air-powered computer memory,” which drives a robot — dubbed, amusingly, “Airhead” — to play the piano.

“Pneumatically-actuated soft robots have advantages over traditional rigid robots in many applications,” the researchers write in the abstract to their paper. “In particular, their flexible bodies and gentle air-powered movements make them more suitable for use around humans and other objects that could be injured or damaged by traditional robots.”

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