Author: adamk

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Hive76 Celebrates the Birth of Our Third 3D Printer!

Adam K. works on getting axis movement on the RepRap Huxley

Back in 2009, we ordered our first 3D printer, the MakerBot Cupcake. Since then, we’ve become pros at fixing, modifying, and mostly breaking it. We’ve even created new, awesome products for it which have been adopted by a good portion of the 3D printing community, and even sold by MakerBot themselves.

Shortly after completing our Makerbot, once-member fynflood decided to start building the RepRap Mendel, which is the 2nd generation of the RepRap Project’s 3D printer. He started by printing all of the pieces on our MakerBot, which took over 20 hours to complete, and gathered all of the required hardware with help from many of our members. A printer was born out of Hive76, and life was good. A few months later, there was a post on the reprap aggregation pipe about a new iteration of the reprap, called the Mendel Mini (now the RepRap Huxley), which has a similar build volume to the MakerBot, but can be assembled for under half the cost. Fynflood set out to print the parts on his Mendel, while I gathered all the required hardware and electronics. After a few months break over the summer, and a few more months being busy with the Holidays, the Huxley is now complete! Our printer’s baby made a baby!

At this very moment, we have 2 MakerBots and the Huxley all going at the same time at the space! If any more printers show up, we’ll probably have to start giving away USB Typewriters just to make room! Really, it’s an exciting time to be printing at Hive76, so if you have any interest in learning how 3D printers work, or even building your own, come by for open house on Wednesdays and check out all the awesome things we’re making!

Hit the jump for a few videos and images from the first few prints!

Continue reading “Hive76 Celebrates the Birth of Our Third 3D Printer!”

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Guitar Effects Workshop – DIY PCB Etching – Monday, May 3rd @ 7:30pm

PCB Toner Transfer

This coming Monday at our monthly Guitar Effects Study Group we will be hosting a workshop on fabricating your own printed circuit boards at home. We will discuss a few of the different ways to transfer a PCB layout to a bare copper-clad board, including the toner transfer method, and show you how to make your own etchant out of chemicals you can find at your local hardware store. We will be providing a few small designs and a blank PCB so you can etch a board to take home with you. If you have a specific board that you would like to make during the workshop, just send us the layout files before the class so we can evaluate the feasibility of etching them with this process. There are a ton of circuit board layouts available for free online, so if you have a specific project in mind, let us know and we can help you find a design that might work for you.

Since we will be working with chemicals, you probably don’t want to wear your best clothes, and try to bring rubber gloves and safety goggles. We normally order pizza about halfway through the night. We would appreciate a $5 donation for materials we are providing for this class, but if you can’t afford that, don’t let that keep you from coming out. There’s plenty of material for everyone. If you have any questions before the class, feel free to email us. See you Monday!

For music-specific circuits, check out the following links:
http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/
http://runoffgroove.com/
http://geofex.com/

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Hive76 Store – Open For Business!

Good news, kids! We have a store! It’s on the internet!!! That means you can now pay for things like donations, classes, membership dues, and the somewhat delayed but still awesome 2010 Men of Hive76 Calender, all online! We’ve got some really awesome plans in the works for Hive76-designed products, so keep an eye out in the next few months. We also have this rad custom ticketing system, so if you pay for your event before it happens, you’ll get a genuine Hive76 event ticket. They have QR code, people! Worth it!

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Right now we’re accepting PayPal and oldschool cash/checks, but we might add Google Checkout if enough people want it. Feel free to poke around, buy some stuff, send us money, go wild! Most importantly, let us know if there’s something you would like to see or a way we could make the whole experience better. You can leave a comment here or send an email to [orders at hive76 dot org]. kbye!
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Philadelphia DIY Skatepark Revolution!

Map of Future Philadelphia Skatespots

As some of you may know, I spent a good deal of time last year helping to build Pop’s Skate Space in Fishtown. This project took an unused portion of a playground in a not-so-great neighborhood and turned it into a safe place for kids and grownups alike to participate in a fun sport for anyone! The most amazing aspect of this project is that all of the work was done by volunteers from the neighborhood, and all over Philadelphia. Since I been recently laid off, and also very new to the area at the time, having this project just falling into my lap was a like a miracle, and it was one of the best summers of my life. Coming from the software/cubicle world, I’m always eager to work on real, physical projects and while working on this project, I learned some amazing new skills, like working with concrete, laying brick/block, and even some metalworking. I also met some really awesome people and hung out in the sun all day. I really don’t know what more I could ask for from a new city.

But, wait! There’s more! It looks like the people who helped push that project to fruition have set the bar even higher this year by identifying six potential sites for future skate-spot development. One of those sites is literally right around the corner from Hive76. This is a great opportunity to give back to the community AND promote the DIY movement in totally new, awesome way! If you would like to be involved in anyway, feel free to contact me personally (adamk at hive76 dot org!), or get in touch with one of the guys over at Franklin’s Paine Skate Park Fund, Exit Philadelphia, or Pop’s Skatepark. Thanks to Haveboard for getting the word out on this! HACK SKATE ON!

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Intro to EAGLE PCB Workshop + Guitar Effects Study Group

This coming Monday (March 1st), at our regularly scheduled Guitar Effects Study Group, we will be running an Introduction to EAGLE PCB workshop. This is the first half of a two-part series of workshops, with the second class focusing on printing and etching your own PCBs at home. The workshop will provide you with the knowledge necessary to create your own PCB designs in EAGLE that you could then use to make your own boards at home! The workshop will run from 8:00pm until around 10:00pm, depending on how in-depth we get. Be sure to bring your own computer (Mac/Linux/Windows) if you can, and as always, we accept payment in the form of snacks. We would appreciate a $5 donation for this workshop, but there will be a free option if you need it.

Also, we will be testing our new ticket system with this event, so please let us know if you have any issues registering. Please register for your class in our store.