our custom made heated build stage for our MakerBot CupCake CNC is working extremely well. here you can see 4 pulleys being printed at the same time. there’s no raft (saves time, plastic, and headache), and ZERO warping. excellent! the etched acrylic may stick a bit too well. we’ll have to try regular, unetched acrylic next (which will be less expensive anyway).
say hello to mass manufacturing.
We are proud to announce that we have acquired a new space to be awesome in. It’s just down the hall from where we are were, and 2.5 times the size. We’ve been around for less than a year, and this is a big step forward. Keep an eye out for more details on an Open House event.
Interested in becoming a member? Check out our wiki entry for more details.
NopHead is a lead designer of the RepRap 3D printer, and designed the Skyhook that we’re using all the time while printing at Hive. He’s worked out some good temperatures for extruding different materials in this RepRap guide for Newbies, which i’m reprinting here for posterity:
HDPE.raft_temp = 200
HDPE.first_layer_temp = 240
HDPE.layer_temp = 220
PCL.raft_temp = 0 // no raft
PCL.first_layer_temp = 130
PCL.layer_temp = 120
ABS.raft_temp = 200
ABS.first_layer_temp = 215
ABS.layer_temp = 230
PLA.raft_temp = 0
PLA.first_layer_temp = 180
PLA.layer_temp = 160
check out our work on making a heated build platform for MakerBot. The primary goal was to make it as light as possible since the stage is actively moving, so that means just some nichrome, a thermistor, and some silicone as a carrier. The silicone is also an insulator (very important!!) so no kapton tape is needed and we can see clearly what’s going on inside because the silicone is also clear. we currently use a reprap motherboard and extruder to drive the heat, looking at simpler electronic design soon (but this setup has the excellent PID in the extruder firmware 1.6!).
Our first batch of stickers have arrived. That being said, the first person (non-Hive76 member) to tweet this post, and comment the link to said tweet here will get some stickers for free!
Thanks to Highlander Graphics for the great work!
There are no words to describe the sadness in my soul as I woefully admit to the public that there will be a pumpcon 2009. Or, as Pumpcon themselves put it Fuck! Not AGAIN!! It’s Pumpcon 2009 b1tch3z… Pumpcon is Philadelphia’s only con, and of course it’s on Goth Christmas so a lot of geeks are already partied out that weekend. If you have a strong stomach, a strong desire to learn, and are not afraid of getting technical, PumpCon is the place to be.
Early Friday October 30th till dawn Sunday, November 1st 2009
Contact them at at info@pumpcon.org
Best Western Inn
501 N. 22nd St.
Philadelphia, PA 19130
Download SkeinFox v1.0 (OS X Leopard or Snow Leopard, git 1.6.5+) and checkout this instructional to see what this is all about. Basically this new software project (launched right here at Hive76!) will make MakerBotting a bit easier for everyone. Watch the video in HD mode for best quality. Join the SkeinFox Google Group to learn more or provide feedback.
EDIT: We will be meeting Sunday October 22nd at 7:00PM at the space. for this meeting. See the agenda on the wiki for topics for the night.
Hive76 has a good chance to grow, and we need to move on it reasonably quick. To decide how to deal with the opportunity, and better organize our group, we are going to have a 2+ hour planning/ organization meeting. This meeting is key for Core/Basic members, and people that have a strong interest in Hive76. Input is welcome from all parties, but voting on issues is reserved for Hive76 members.
We are picking a date now, and will announce the meeting date on the mailing list. If you are interested in Hive76, and want to see become even more amazing, this is a good time to get interested. The Planning Meeting date will be added to this post as soon as we nail it down, so watch this space
On Monday the 19th, we’ll be having our second monthly Guitar Effects and Synthesizer Study Group. Please stop by 915 Spring Garden at 7:30PM and bring your own musical project to work on or show off. If you don’t have a project, we’ll dig one up for you and get you started.
This event is free and open to people of all stripes and abilities.
We has a pretty awesome Gameboy Hacking class Saturday that got some good interest, especially following 8static the night before. We ended up with 9 folks walking away with an old school GameBoy fully decked out to be a sweet chiptunes platform. The folks from nonfinite electronics walked us through the mods, and made sure everyone walked away happy.
It’s good to put you money where your mouth is, so you want to grab some GBA parts, or USB Programmable cards for Gameboy, may I suggest buying from folks that run cheap classes for fans?
