Feetz will 3D Print you shoes!

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A huge shout out to Feetz! That was an incredible event! We had some really great attendees come in for some coffee, some feet scanning, and a virtual tour of Feetz San Diego 3D Printing Powerhouse!
 
Lets backup a bit, Feetz is a company that will acuratly scan your foot, and then turn that scan into a perfectly fitted shoe! It is a fantastic concept that really showcases all that 3D Printing can accomplish. It can take an innovative idea, and customize it for the masses.
 
Customized mass production is a mind boggling concept in and of itself. Feetz has hit a home run with their process, which they engineered from the ground up. Proprietary machines, filament, even slicing algorythms.
 
They launched late october, early november 2016, and already have a tonne of orders coming in. Talk about hitting the ground running.
 
Back to the event. Feetz reached out to me via the 3D Hubs network and coordinated us having our gathering of the minds at a pop-up shop in the DSW store in San Francisco. We were met with smiling faces and a boat load of enthusiasm. We took turns getting our feet scanned a scanner of Feetz own design, and got a read out of our exact measurements. We got to check out their unique printers and filament as well. But the best part was being able to talk to their CTO Nigel. I can say enough about this guy. Truly and innovator and a gentlemen at that! He gave us a virtual tour of their facility in San Diego and it was mighty impressive. Boasting a good 100+ custom built printers! He then opened it up for questions. Proud to say we grilled him good! Asking everything about their process from their printers, to their special filament, to their proprietary slicing software. Man did I want to get my hands on that. I hope they open up their developments to the community, what they are doing could change the face of printing!
 
I was really excited to host this event, and to have imaginations run wild. I am really proud of Feetz and I know they will do great things!
Gathered around the Makerbot

Hackster.io, 3D Hubs, and Jinxbot 3D Printing

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As I print more and more and share my experience with other printers and those just interested in 3D Printing, I find myself getting requests for assistance and advice on the subject. I am a part of a community of “Mayors” on 3D Hubs whose purpose is to help other 3D Printers in the community, and host events for those curious about the technology to learn more.

I was recently invited by 3D Hubs to help cohost an event put on by a well known maker group called Hackster.io. On their site’s About page they state that:

“Hackster helps people everywhere learn how to design, create and program Internet-connected hardware. By bringing together our network of close to 200,000 engineers, makers and hackers, 90 technology partners, and 100 Hackster Live ambassadors, we hope to support the creation of technologies that impact meaningful issues, such as a healthy environment, wildlife preservation, and our own welfare.”

I am proud to be a part of this community myself, and always fascinated by the wonderful projects that their members post.

After the event, the cohost of the event, Alex Glow, wrote just a super article. It was very flattering and helped me to realize that I was no longer just some guy trying to make a living with his printer, but someone who was actually doing it, and had some helpful advice for those who would follow suit.

Here is the article:

https://blog.hackster.io/how-to-make-money-with-3d-printing-61de3d079b1c#.zidhmt9wx

Jinxbot 3D Printing KQED Interview

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I recently had the great pleasure to be interviewed by someone that I met via a “Network After Work” event. Aline Guetta runs a Youtube.com channel and KQED show entitled French American TV. She invited me on her show to speak about my experience with 3D Printing in a segment she calls “All about your profession.” She has had several guest speaking about all manner of interesting tech jobs in the Bay Area.

3D Printing has always been a passion of mine ever since I was introduced to the technology back in 2004 when taking a manufacturing class at CalPoly, SLO. I was entranced by the idea that you could take a CAD drawing and feed it to a machine that would start making it for you. As a futurist, my mind began to race with all the different possibilities that could come from this.

I invested in a small 3D printer to tinker with after I got home from work and the hobby quickly became an obsession. I then invested in a bigger machine, A Makerbot 5th Gen, and started taking orders when I signed up through a website called 3D Hubs. Since then I have been taking more and more orders, while trying to build up my new endeavor as my full time occupation.

For your viewing pleasure, watch me as I geek out on the topic of 3D Printing.

Makerbot Smart Extruder+: – Unboxing, Review, and Test

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Had the great fortune to test the new Smart Extruder+ by Makerbot. They sent me a shiny new Smart Extruder+ and a spool of their True Orange Filament. I have been printing many things and no jams or any other trouble at all! Very happy to have had a chance to test is as there were some fantastic improvements to the design that make it nearly foolproof.  You can buy it here. I was also able to get my son Chance in on the action as a guest YouTuber. Below the video are some  Pictures of the Rubik’s Companion Cube I printed with the Extruder+ and a link to its Thingiverse.com model.

Illustrator into Sketchup, and the terrible pain in the butt it was….

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It seems like it would be easy, I mean after all, vectorized images seem like they would convert so easily to a .skp or .dxf even. Isn’t that cute… But it’s WRONG!
So wrong in fact that it took me some weeks, toiling late nights, trying desperately to figure out how the heck to get this artwork from a friend into sketchup so I could put it on a blasted Mario style coin… Like many freelancers and those with friends with seemingly simple requests, I took on this challenge not wanting to spend any money, especially if I’m not getting paid. So I set off trying to figure out how to put this square peg into a round hole. As it turns out, Sketchup used to be able to do this natively in their free versions, and you will find plenty of videos on how to do that, with menu buttons that are no longer there… But since Sketchup 2016 they have since nixed this in the free version. And you won’t find anything in their Extension Wearhouse that will do it for less than $50. Through mountains of research, and many hours of trial and error, I finally figured a way to do this for free.
1. Go into Illustrator and open your image as a clear background PNG
2. Object > Image Trace > Make and Expand (Expand is important)
3. Right click object and ungroup
4. Object > Path > Add more Anchor Points (Do this a few times if you have a curvy image
5. Object > Path > Simplify (This turns the boarders into simple point to point paths)
Now you can export a DXF that CAD programs will be able to decipher correctly
6. Hit Ctrl-A to select all, or Select the parts of your object that you want to export
7. File > Export and choose DXF as the file type
8. Select Millimeters as the scale, Select Preserve Appearance option, and Export Selected Art Only
I used Free CAD, But it won’t let you export just the outlines you imported as a .dxf,
9. In Free CAD, select File > Import and select your .dxf file
10. Clean up any extra lines you might see
In my case similar copies of my outlines seemed to overlap, so I deleted the extras
11. Extrude your shape a tiny bit, just to give it volume
12. Now you can export as an .stl, File > Export Choose .stl as the format
13. No Into Sketchup we go to import our new .stl (Which is a free extension you all should have)
14. File > Import and select your new .stl file!
15. You will have to clean it up a bit, I suggest the free CleanUp extension (Does a lot of the work for you)
16. Then I erased all but the top layer of my extrusion so I could work with it as a straight imported logo, which gave me the flexibility to manipulate it in Sketchup in the manner I was most accustomed.
And there you have it, A Free, albeit arduous, method to get your AI file into Sketchup.
IF you have found another way for this process not to suck that is free, please let me know 😀
Edit:
Dang. Found something WAY easier. Save your AI file as an .SVG, then upload to http://svg2stl.com/
All the wasted time…

Flexible Filament Fiasco

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3D Printing has come a long way since the first days of additive manufacturing. So much so that alternative materials are the norm however they are so difficult to print with. One such material is Flexible filament. The brand that I have been experimenting with is called GP3D and is readily available at Fry’s Electronics, which in and of itself is a great convenience and one I plan on taking full advantage of.

However there are a lot of articles out there warning of the difficulties of printing with this troublesome filament. Some of those difficulties include:

  • Inconsistent prints
  • Stringy prints
  • Pimple prints and other surface defects
  • and most pressing, Poor Print Bed Adhesion.

 

Some of these issues can be taken care of with slower print speeds, increased extruder retraction to minimize ooze, better slicers to reduce point to point string connections. I have printed a whole spool of this material so far and the only solution that helped me to increase print bed adhesion, I haven’t seen on the net so far.

That solution is to dual print your raft. What I mean by this is printing with a material that has great bed adhesion, PLA, then switching to your flex filament. To be more exact, my process was this:

Printing on a Makerbot Replicator 5th Gen, Smart Extruder, Out of the box print settings: (Temp: 215, 200 microns, Standard print settings).

  • Begin the print with the PLA of your choice, (Natural “Color” is more inexpensive usually)
  • Before the last layer of the raft begins to print, switch to the flexible filament
    • The standard settings for the raft use one base layer, two intermediate layers, and two finishing layers
    • Using the last layer for the switch allows for proper raft to model adhesion while providing the superior bed adhesion with the PLA
  • Let your print finish as normal

 

This method allowed for great bed adhesion throughout the entire print. Before trying this, I used the flexible filament for the entire process and saw the print lift from the bed mid-way through. This warping on the base layers, similar to other materials with the same lifting problems (Like ABS), would affect the rest of the print by pushing the print in the later paths of the extruder head. This causes a few issues, the extruder head to digs into the print, little to no material is laid down, and frequent filament jams. If you experience this, it is always better to cut your losses and save your material rather than try to rescue or force the rest of the print. You will not be happy with the results. But I digress, the process outlined above allowed me to successfully print a pair of Sandals for my Fiancee (A thingiverse.com model remix I made).

An Example of a flex Filament Jam

An Example of a successful print with a PLA raft

Thank you for reading!