Sneak Peek - The Sketchbook Project 2013 (4)

Did you spot the TARDIS?

Joining the 3D printing revolution

Since the first hobby 3D printers came out, I took an interest in these fantastic machines. A 3D printer is a machine that can take a digital 3D design and print it out to a real world object. In the case of the economic printers this is done by pushing a plastic string through a heated nozzle (typically about 0.5 mm in diameter). By laying out the hot plastic layer by layer, a 3D object is made, Go to Thingiverse to see some objects designed and made by hobbyists all over the world with these neat machines.

This year I decided to have a 3D printer at home as a hobby project. Because such a project can be quite overwhelming for a beginner, I went to a workshop organized by Reprap BCN in Barcelona to build a machine with other 3D printing enthusiasts,  Here are some pictures from the event.

Starting with the base structure of the BCN3D:

A lot of screws later the motors are already mounted:

After 25 hours of assembling,the finished machine made its first test run:

The calibration cube turned out pretty well…