If you’ve been following Midsouth Makers you know that we’ve been building. using and tweaking our 3D printers for a while now. Well thanks to a kind donation by LulzBot we now have a dedicated 3D printer at the space for member use! The printer is an AO-101, a MendelMax 1.5 variant.

The AO-101 currently uses 3mm filament and can print in ABS, PLA, Nylon and even Laywoo-D3 wooden filament.  We  have it setup to allow for remote printing on the LAN, using either OctoPrint or Repetier-Server. We recommend Repetier-Server due to it’s stability.

The AO-101 will be using a donated a 1U server as the host computer. Repetier-Server will allow you to load a gcode file and control the printer. We will be exploring webcam functionality for use in monitoring and in generating time-lapse print videos.

We will need the following items to get our new 3D printer setup and functional:

• Filament- Currently setup for 3mm:
  • ABS
  • PLA
• Webcam- Logitech C110 or C270 preferred (we’ve already tested and confirmed stability)
• 120mm silent PC case fan

AO-101 Specifications

• Build Area – 190mm 200mm 100mm
• Hot-end – Budaschnozzle 1.2
  • Extrusion temperature range – 180C – 240C
• Filament- Currently setup for 3mm and can reliably print the following material types:
  • ABS
  • PLA
  • Taulman 618 Nylon
  • Laywoo-D3 Wooden Filament
• Heated Print Bed (65C-110C)
• Borosilicate Glass Bed  with PET film on one side for printing with ABS and bare glass on the other side for printing with PLA
• Integrated Filament Mount for either loose coiled filament or spindles for spooled filament

Current AO-101 Modifications

• Nozzle Fan for printing in PLA installed but not hooked up
• RGB LED lighting (white for now)

More information on the new 3D printer can be found in our wiki.

If you’d like to use it, please contact Claudio, Ben, Dan or Cliff- more information will follow. In order to have access to the 3D printer without one of us present you will need to have had verified prior experience with a RepRap 3D printer, or attended an upcoming class on running & troubleshooting 3D printers(TBD) or be able to demonstrate the appropriate knowledge.

Please show our thanks and appreciation to LulzBot and the RepRap community!

We are slowly and painfully making progress with learning to fly our 3D Printed Mini Quadcopters. Cliff has helped us out with some tweaks & balances. Hopefully some more members will be interested in building their own, and will help add to the swarm.

Recently Ben, Cliff and Claudio have built Diametric’s Mini Quadcopter. We met a fellow RepRap user- Diametric- at this years Midwest RepRap Festival in Elkhart Indiana. He brought along a 3D printed quadcopter that he designed and built.

The quadcopters are remarkably inexpensive, the design, models and bill of materials can be found on Thingiverse. They are easy to build and easy to get off the ground. We’re still learning how to fly them however. While all three have taken flight, we have had some accidents and damaged the frames on 2 of them, twice. We’re not too worried when that happens, for we can always reprint the frame within about an hour and a half on one of our 3D printers.

Building the quadcopters

Claudio’s Quadcopter

Cliff’s Quadcopter

Claudio’s Second Quadcopter

Ben’s Second Quadcopter

Ben’s Quadcopter- We are still learning…

Great Scott! What’s the date? Oh thank goodness, we’ve still got time.  Listen, I know this may sound “heavy” to you, but we’ve got to get you to the Midsouth Makers soldering class on October 8^th at noon or the consequences could be dire! I can’t tell you why it’s important without creating a temporal paradox, but I can promise you that learning how to build a RBBB (“Really Bare Bones Board”) Clone will be pivotal in your future in some way.  An RBBB is one of the smallest, most affordable arduino-compatible boards available right now.  You don’t even need any plutonium to power this baby, just plug it straight into the breadboard that the Makers will be providing to all the class participants. How many gigawatts is it?  Where we’re going, we don’t need gigawatts, just bring a soldering iron and the rest will be provided. Once you’ve completed this class, you’ll have you’re very own arduino compatible microcontroller, power cable, data cable, and breadboard to build it all on, the combination of which should help you save you from – oh no, I’ve already said too much! Hurry and sign-up on the events page at the following link: http://www.midsouthmakers.org/events/.  Then you too can say, “I finally made something that works!”

Details

Class: Soldering Part II: RBBB Clone

Cost: $35

Date, Time, & Location: October 8th  at the Space at Noon.

What to bring: Soldering Iron

What you get: An arduino compatible microcontroller, power cable, data cable, and a breadboard to build it on, plus a greater knowledge of soldering and circuitry.

You must sign-up before the day of the class so that we know how many parts to order!

You can do so at the following link: http://www.midsouthmakers.org/events/

Sonny recently shared his current progress of his UAV Quad Copter project and included a test flight video.

So today I had my first real flights with my quadcopter UAV.   The setup is pretty advanced and it takes a lot to get up to speed.  I’ve learned a lot from my build.  I made custom printed PLA motor mounts, which have worked out really well to hold them on the end of aluminum pipes.  Unfortunately the cross in the middle which is also PLA could not handle the rough landings and cracked.  I’ve secured it for the time being, but I think I’ll be milling something better Wednesday.  If I can work out the stability issues, I’ll bring it Friday.  Anyway, check out the first flight/set of flights.