3D Printing - The Drafting Table

3D-Printed Hydraulic AND Gate

This post is a brief follow-up to the one I wrote earlier this year about trying to make a hydraulic computer. One of the key elements of the hydraulic computer I tried to build was a set of AND gates, built "using a siphon and a slow drain"

Book

Facts, Forecasts, & Figures

If you're looking for a break from the doom-and-gloom in the news, this post is for you (I'll also suggest this one from last year). Below, I share reviews of two books—so it won't be a short read and I'd recommend grabbing a cup of coffee. Factfulness by Hans

Museums

Four Maritime Museums

In my posts about travelling to Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam, I mentioned that I'd be discussing some maritime museums I visited in a separate post. This is that post. Introduction Seafaring has been an important part of Danish and Dutch history, and even their present economies. Consequently, both Denmark and

DIY

DIY Telescope, Part 2

There's a project I was working on and have written about before that I put on the back burner for a while but got back into this weekend. Here are the results. When I came up with the idea to try building a telescope, my goal was to use affordable

DIY

DIY Air Filter

This post is about one of the DIY projects hinted at in my previous post: an indoor air quality filter. Activated carbon can adsorb volatile compounds (such as odours)—see the discussion here. I wanted to rig up a means of blowing air past an activated carbon filter; it could

3D Printing

My Latest 3D Printing

A week ago, I was having fun on Prince Edward Island so I didn't have time to blog. For this week, I thought I'd post about 3D printing since it's been awhile since I've done so. In a recent post I mentioned that I had a couple of DIY projects

Links

"Node Generative Architecture"

Sorry there hasn't been a post here for awhile. This week I just have a few random links—but hopefully some interesting ones—but I'm planning what should be a very interesting book review for my next post. One of my previous posts was referenced on a site called "

3D Printing

Fixing my 3d Printer

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my 3D printer needed a new hot end. It took longer than I was expecting, but I finally got it installed. I got a Hexagon hot-end, which is different from the stock hot-end on my Robo3D R1 printer. The "hot-end" is

Science @ Home

DIY Telescope Project

This post is about a project I have planned for the next several months (or longer), to try to build my own telescope. I'll try to write a follow-up post to share how it turns out. My goal is not to build a high-quality telescope, but rather one that can

3D Printing

3D Printing as a Service

I've been waiting to receive a parcel so I could write this post, and I just got it today. In a previous post, I mentioned that I wanted to try an online 3D-Printing service. The part that I wanted to print was relatively large, so there was the factor of

New Brunswick

3 Neat Infographics

I recently came across a website called Visual Capitalist that has a lot of interesting infographics on economics and related topics. This post shares three of them, but there are a lot more to check out on their website. Visual Capitalist is based in Vancouver, so their content has a

3D Printing

3D-Printed Cactus Pot

This post is about one of my recent 3D-printing projects. Cactus I like having plants in my apartment, but anything that requires frequent attention would have a difficult time surviving under my care. I thought cactus would be a nice fit, due to their ability to withstand periods of water

3D Printing

Economics of 3D Printing

This is a discussion on the economics of 3D-printing based on printing the bookend from my last post. As shown below, this part (including auto-generated scaffolding) was approximately 100 grams. The print time was approximately 4.5 hours (plus time to set-up the printer, run the slicer software, and clean

3D Printing

New Bookshelf

I recently made a new bookshelf for my room and wanted to share the design. I came up with the design myself. It is built around a single vertical post (a cedar 4x4, 4 feet long) instead of the more common structure where side walls bear the load. Here is

Water

A home-made probe for dissolved solids in water

Conductivity is a commonly-measured parameter in water. For example, I measured it in my thesis and it is being measured in the Disappearing Rio Grande Expedition. This post is about my first attempt at making a home-made probe to measure this parameter. I've wanted to try making some DIY water-testing

3D Printing

Link: Dassouki Photos

As I've previously mentioned, I'll occasionally share links to my friends' websites and endeavours. Ahmed Dassouki is a photographer in Fredericton. He shoots a lot of events (with action and candid shots of participants), and also takes great shots of landscapes and architecture. You can see some of his work

3D Printing

Making a Mould with a 3D Printer

This post is about using a 3D printer to produce an intermediate component—specifically a mould (or mold, if you prefer)—rather than directly printing the final product. I wanted to try doing this because it combines some of the advantages of 3D printing (customizability, accuracy) with some of the

3D Printing

A 3D-Printing Workflow: From Idea to Finished Product

This post is an example of the complete process of making a 3D-Printed object, starting with the initial idea and design, through to actually having the finished product. It's based on making a replacement knob for the oven in my apartment—a useful application for a 3D printer. Note that

3D Printing

Writing an .stl file from scratch

The .stl file format (see also) is used for 3D printing and similar fabrication technologies. The files are normally created as output from design software, but I wanted to try writing one by hand since they are human readable (actually, both ASCII and binary versions are allowed by the file-type

3D Printing

Best Practices for 3D Printing

When I first got a 3D printer, I was a little disappointed with the print quality, to be honest. But after using it for a while and fine-tuning some of the settings, I've started to get better results and a sense for what works and what doesn't. I'll share some