A business acquaintance had a used but significant piece of equipment in their printing business and needed a replacement part. Using a picture with the part next to a scale the picture was imported into Design Spark Mechanical and the 2D profile was traced and then extruded to the correct depths. DS-Mechanical worked quite well for scaling, tracing, extruding, and exporting the stl file.
The part was designed in metric and printed in ABS on a Makerbot Replicator.
Someone was using a post-it note to remind themselves not to lock the keys in their office. We came up with a catchy solution. The round ring provides just enough friction that an adhesive was not needed. No sanding either!
The part was designed in SolidWorks and printed in ABS.
A friend of min was having trouble sourcing quickly a fitting for a faucet project. The unit had a 3/4 – 20 UNEF (extra fine) thread. We looked up the threads specs and printed a couple of trials. The threads engage nice in general. There is a little swelling at the base where the part sits on the heated bed.
The pipe was designed in SolidWorks and printed in ABS.
The fans for the Rostock come with tiny micro Molex connectors. The spacing is smaller than standard 0.1 inch header spacing. Wanting a sturdy end to the power festoon to the hot end a block was developed that engaged into the top mounting ring. Besides dowels that plug into the existing top plate a round cavity allows for a commercial strain relief to bring the power wire from the stationary part. A couple of square holes allow for plugging in of the micro Molex connectors. Wire was used to make pins guided by holds printed in the block. A groove to interlock the connector orientation was printed as well.
The block was designed in SolidWorks and printed in ABS. Now the fans can be plugged in and the connection of the power wire to the hot end securely fastened.
In getting the parameters dialed in for printing PLA a cooling ring is envisaged to cool the extruded material as it leaves the hot end. This mounts to the bottom of the Rostock Max extrusion platform. Internal baffles and differing size exit holes work to equalize the pressure to make a 360 degree cooling zone. A 25mm fan blows air from the side and gets directed to the printing interface. Eventually a set of clips will be integrated to clip on the axles of the delta unit.
The shroud was designed in SolidWorks and printed in ABS. Once the shroud was in place a connection had to be developed for powering the fan. See later post.
A friend had a couple of golf ball retrievers that had aged and deteriorated. They liked the performance but of course were broken beyond functionality. 3D printing to the rescue. As the design proceeded we realized the assembly could be printed as one pre-assembled piece. Other features included a flared pin to hold the inner ring from falling out and a hex recess for accepting a nut for the mounting 
screw. To get a good pin some sacrificial supports were developed that were removed after printing.
The assembly was designed in SolidWorks and printed in ABS. The Maker community has requested it be posted to Thingiverse. That is the plan but if you’re itching to try it you can download the .STL here. It is also the signature application for a Maker event at the Cumberland Business Incubator Labville. Read about it here.
Security is always an issue but occasionally you want to have your place of business more inviting. A simple clamp pinches the crash bar closed thereby temporarily unlocking the door. Having done this numerous times the trick to having it work the first time is to make sure the unit is not too thick and the fingers will fit between the backside of the crash bar and the window of the door. The nice bright yellow alerts someone that the clamp is on. In this case we personalized it for the venue so it doesn’t walk off.
The part was developed in SolidWorks and printed in ABS on the Makerbot in 3 hours, 5 minutes.
On the heels of customized dog biscuit cutters the humans felt left out. We developed a series of cookie presses to turn a dough ball into flat form for baking. I developed them for my Mom so they are labeled as such. For other people you turn them upside down and then they are WOW presses. Various shapes impart designs into the dough. The parts were developed in SolidWorks and printed in ABS. The handles are printed separately.
For running Skype and having a conference with many people in the room it is handy to have a wide angle lens. The Makayama iPad attachment has a lens mounting for the back camera but not the front. The Makayama iPad accessory holds lenses over the built-in cameras of the iPad and provides attachment points for a tripod and lights and microphones. The tripod mount is the standard 1/4″-20 mount and the light and microphone attachment points mimc the “hot-shoe” style mount of most SLR’s. We wanted a “quick” clip to put the lens in place and then be able to quickly remove it. This clip holds the 37 mm wide angle lens against the iPad screen. The back of the clip engages with the bumps on the back of the Makayama unit to keep the lens in place and aligned over the iPad’s front camera. Now the wide angle can pick up everyone in the room.
The clip was designed in SolidWorks and printed in ABS. The clip has extended the capability of the lens and our Studio YouTube-Mobile unit.
After experimenting with vacuum robots (We had one that was a modified Lost in Space replica) at a local hair salon we settled in on a very effective central vacuum system. We installed under-the-cabinet, toe kick space, low profile units but found that it would be handy to have additional wands as well. Makerbot and 3D printing to the rescue. The standard hose for barber attachments is 1″ OD whereas typical central vacuum systems use a 2-1/4″ OD form factor. We developed a manifold to adapt the valve and switch body to the hose and then an ergonomic and colorful wand for the 
other end.
The parts were developed in SolidWorks and parts printed in ABS. Issues with the small footprint not wanting to stay attached to the print table and wanting to avoid excess warpage caused us to incorporate some break away tabs in the original model. The size of the wand forced us to lay it out diagonally across the table and the hose attachment was large enough that it had to be printed at an angle in the Z-X or Z-Y plane as well. Originally the idea was to grind off the rib but we found it was a natural tab once the wand was in your hand. The flange holds it in place via another clip made with 3D printing (not shown).