Thanks to the nice folks over at Elegoo we will have a brand new 3D printer at the Makerspace soon – the Elegoo Neptune 2S! It is an i3-style “bedslinger” with many cool features like Filament Runout detection, a spring steel magnetic sheet w/PEI coating, a dual-gear all-metal extruder, and a Power-Off Resume.

As a special treat, we will be unboxing, assembling it, and getting the first print going LIVE during our next 3D Printer Clinic on Saturday, August 13, 2022, at 1 pm CST! Everyone is welcome to this event, member or non-member. This is a great way to learn about 3D printers and 3D printing. Even if you’re already familiar with 3D printing but are having issues, come on out and let us help you resolve your problems. Or just hang out and watch us build our new printer!

We look forward to seeing you then!

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!

Hello to all you atoms out there!

Are you ready to get this laser going?!

You call that a response? It sounds like you’re in a ground state out there, and I’m going to need you at least two or three levels above that! That’s right, I’m going to need you to get excited tonight! Come, on let’s get this population inverted!

Hey, that’s better! It looks like some atoms in the back have a nice wavelength going – let’s all join in for a cascading effect!

If you’re digging this gain medium, let me see you get amplified!

Yeah, now you’re getting your photons in step!

Now, without further ado, please welcome to the stage, the reason you atoms are so excited to be here, the one, the only – Stimulated Emission!

Details

What: The Midsouth Makers are hosting a laser class and demonstration! The goal is to demystify lasers and how they operate. For the demonstration, we will be etching some aluminum business cards with your designs, which you will then be able to take home with you!

When: November 19^th at Noon

Where: The Space

Cost: $10 for Midsouth Makers Members, $20 for Non-Members. (The price covers both the business cards and the cost to run the laser)

What to Bring: Please bring a laptop on which you can design your business card. The cards themselves are 3.5” by 2”, and we ask that you try to come with your design ready to go, but open to changes if necessary.

Please sign-up on our events page if you wish to participate: http://www.midsouthmakers.org/events/

This Friday February 18th at Republic Coffee we’ll have members showing off their Arduino projects and answering questions about the Arduino platform. We’ve had a lot of interest in getting started with various Arduino boards so come learn more about the great things you can do with an open source platform.

What is an Arduino? Arduino is a physical computing platform and a software development environment for controlling various things like motors, sensors and even entire devices. The hardware and development environment are open source and there is a very large community of developers and hardware hackers out there working on projects. The hardware is also quite inexpensive. There are also “Getting Started” kits that are a package of items to help you hit the ground running with your Arduino.

Freemont Space - Shop (Image by Daniel Hess)

We’ve leased a space at 2203 Freemont Rd! We’ll be handing out keys to all paid members at the 12/17 Friday meeting at Republic Coffee. Google Maps: 2203 Freemont Rd. Memphis, TN 38114. If you are not yet a full member you can become one by paying dues for December. We’ll be discussing our initial move in plans at the meeting on Friday, we look forward to seeing you there.

The LAN party last Saturday was a great success, thanks to everyone that was involved in setup / clean up and a special thanks to our host, Jeff Leath and our very own Kevin Dunn for some really tasty chilli. Thanks to everyone that showed up even if you didn’t play, was great to see everyone.