John Pennington Invited to Explore 3D Coat

As everyone that reads this blog knows, I love using Moment of Inspiration (MOI3D) for creating the 3D objects I print.   And, for simple organic sculpting, I use Sculpt.   But, the world of 3D design is much broader than these packages cover.  So, when John Pennington, a friend, contacted me about his exploration of a voxel based 3D package called 3D Coat I became intrigued about it.Here is their promo video...  But, be warned!  You might want to turn down your sound before running it!  LOL!I believe that...

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A G.R.E.A.T 3D Systems Birthday Present!

I have probably written this before.  But, I've been an 'early adopter' in the infancy's of many of the technologies that we take for granted in our daily lives now going back to the late 1960's when I obtained my first video recorder.  In almost all of the cases, the potential for education was a primary motivation for my interest.But, of all these technologies, I am convinced that 3D design and printing has had the most direct impact on the lives of those who are exposed to it.It goes well beyond 3D printing itself.  In fact, I...

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Fix for Filament Getting Onto Air Vents Beside Wiper Tray

I received an e-mail from Ibrahime Abraham recently and it sent me off on another quest. "One re-occurring issue I have been having with the printer though is bad wiping of filament into the waste bin. ...  Once print jobs are completed I notice that filament that has been wiped is sent behind the waste bin and actually enters the inside of the printer housing..." Early Cube owners observed that bits and pieces were dropping onto their print...

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More Cube 3s to test

At YouthQuest, we just took delivery of four Cube 3 printers.  Due to other commitments, I have only been able to set one up and get it running.Two things I found with this printer are important to all Cube owners expecting a new Cube to arrive soon.DO NOT TRY PRINTING UNTIL YOU CONFIGURE YOUR PRINTERI can't emphasize enough how important it is for ANY new 3D printer owner to go through the various checks of table leveling and proper z-gap setting.In the case of the new machine, the printer, after running auto-level, reported that I needed...

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Embedding Text & Objects in Vertical Surfaces

Being able to emboss objects into a vertical wall is definitely cool.  But, clean 3D printing often requires the emboss pattern be created with an object that has had its back surface CHAMFERed.And, that presents a problem when we want to apply text or a complex object that cannot easily be CHAMFERed into a vertical oriented wall.For these objects, perhaps the best option is to embed the objects into the wall so that the object itself is the support needed for clean 3D printing.Here is a short video (No sound) that walks through the process...

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Considerations for Embossing 3D Printed Vertical Surfaces

As mentioned in a previous blog article, no topic has generated more email messages than questions about how to wrap text and logos around things like personalized mugs and holders for the small LED votive candles.Now that we have the ability to print in two colors the demand for wanting to print these kinds of objects should dramatically increase.  But, in doing so, there are some realities we need to consider.Gravity is more foe than friend Embossing, by its very nature means that we are cutting away material.  And if we aren't careful...

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2 More Reasons for Loving Moment of Inspiration

As most of you know, I am a real fan of Moment of Inspiration for creating the 3D objects that I print. It is precise, powerful and extremely fast and easy to use.In fact, it is so easy that we use it to teach our Youth ChalleNGe cadets 3D design in our YouthQuest 3DThinkLink Lab classes.  Now, remember, our students are high school dropouts hoping to obtain their GED in a special boot camp style educational environment!We have been using MOI Version 2 in our classes.  But, with the release of Version 3.0, we will be upgrading and the...

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CubePro Added to Our Blog Coverage

Last week, at the YouthQuest Foundation, we took delivery on 3 new CubePro printers. Our 2 Trios and 1 Duo arrived just in the nick of time on the opening day of our Youth ChalleNGe cadet 3DThinkLink Immersion class for 2014-2.The six cadet graduates selected for the Immersion Class immediately slammed the new printers  with work the entire week.  So, the timing could not have been better.While it means great things for YouthQuest Foundation's work with the at-risk young people, it also means that we won't be flying blind when it...

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The Easy Way to Level the Cube 3 Print table

Leveling the Cube 3 print table is much easier than with previous 3D printers I've owned.It's especially easy if we have a tool to help us track the number of turns we need to make to perform the adjustments provide to us by the printer itself.While I have created and printed a Level Gauge Tool to be used with the Cube 3, it is just as effective to print the gauge with a standard printer on paper and cut it out.  Here is a template for you to...

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