Simplest reusable would be the hot melt silicone mould making compound sold by craft stores. Or rubber latex dip and a clever external support.
The one time cure silicone mould making elastomers already exceed your budget in the smallest 1kg pack.
Epoxy or acrylic resin with glass fibre reinforcement.
Whatever you do by the time you include all the bits to make it is going to end up at $30-50 for a one off.
You might be better off just buying a mouse!
-- Regards, Martin Brown
Couldn't recall the name and then it came to me vinamould.
(cheaper and reusable) Beware when hot!
-- Regards, Martin Brown
If you're only going to use it once, yes.
Not true, but I bet the learning curve for the software would be a bit much if you place any value* on your time.
Best regards, Spehro Pefhany
-- "it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward" speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com
Having said that I would still like to have a play with a 3D printer and might eventually get one as a toy. Learning curve does look a bit steep if you are not already into CAD mechanical drawing design.
-- Regards, Martin Brown
It's not a $100 item ( yet ), but they're a lot less expensive than the original SLS machines. Prices these days start at $500:
Solidoodle 3D Printer (2nd Generation)
Other options: DIY 3D Printers
Hope this helps...
Frank McKenney
-- There are those who moan about 'meaningless ornament'; but the phrase is surely an oxymoron, for no ornament can be 'meaningless' -- even if it means something pretty frightful. If the critic wants to imply 'ornament which is unsuitable or unrelated to its substrate', that is fair enough; but _all_ ornament must have some effect. It seems to me that what we want is more, not less ornament. The truth seems to be that we are frightened to express ourselves in ornament. We don't know how to handle it, and fear that we may expose the nakedness of our mean little souls. Medieval masons did not have that kind of inhibition, and they were probably psychologically healthier in consequence. -- J. E. Gordon / "Structures, or Why things don't fall down"
-- Frank McKenney, McKenney Associates Richmond, Virginia / (804) 320-4887 Munged E-mail: frank uscore mckenney aatt mindspring ddoott com
For cheap, simple stuff, try artists supply places for
"Polymer Clay"
Bake it in the oven when shaped.
And then if you want to get sophisticated:
We use one of the two part 20 minute ones at work. Absolute joy to work with.
Steve
Mostly, folk who want a good result CAN afford at least the hourly rent on such a thing. You could also make a plaster-of-paris mold of your blob, and put it in the oven with a sheet of acrylic or styrene atop it. Turn the oven off when the sheet droops into contact with the mold.
Vacuforming is the same thing, but takes more equipment.
You only get a half-shell on each mold, of course. It'll take at least two molds to build a Mr.PotatoHead clone...
If it's not too complicated or too massive or too large, I'd probably give it a try at no charge. It's just ABS after all. If I recall, you and I aren't far apart, either.
Jon
They are a LOT OF FUN. And, as you'd expect, there is a great deal to learn in the process. I highly recommend the process of finding a kit or building it yourself. You will never be afraid of opening it, fixing something, or figuring out how to do something a little better, that way. Getting a commercialized system with cartridge-enclosed ABS rolls and so on would be "scary" to consider opening up and screwing with if something went wrong. Not so, if you put hands on everything putting it together.
Some things I'm now dealing with: (1) the ABS plastic 'drips' slightly on its own, when moving from place to place across a gap where you don't want plastic. When it arrives, the tiny dot of ABS that leaked sticks there. It's easy to knock off later, but there it is all the same. (2) dust can attach itself (static) to the ABS wire, before it descends into the melt area, bringing dust into the mix. This gets deposited as part of the product. It's not much, but it suggests working in a relatively dust-free room. (3) air can get entrained into the melt region as the wire descends into it and this yields very tiny bubbles in the thin trace of ABS as it is laid down.
It's all extremely interesting and each problem you solve lets you uncover and see new ones to get just that much more out of your results. It's a refinement process that is also a joy of learning as you go, too.
Google sketchup can be used for your 3D CAD, there is an add-on that will translate a drawing into an STL file that can then be compiled into GCode. You can also use OpenSCAD, Blender, 3dtin, tinkercad, winds3d, and scupltris.. and still more. It's a good day to be into this stuff. So much available.
NIST provides full (hundreds of pages) of documentation on the GCode standard, plus a 12000 line C program that parses and processes GCode according to the standard, all for free. If you've a mind to screw with that, as well. But there are many open source versions out there for 3d printer drivers, compilers of STL, and so on, as well. The harder part is wading through all that, finding out what each does well.
Jon
Eh, I thought I saw their storefront in the middle of the Amazon Jungle, (ie. South Lake Union district in Downtown Seattle, Where Amazon's world headquarters is located).
dig, dig...
710 9th Ave N. 206 389-5900 (or something like that, they're in the DEX phonebook). Strange location for an industrial supplier, but I think there are a large number of graphics design geeks and artists around that neighborhood.Do not try to go there during rush hour if you're adverse to traffic.
On another note, Circuit Cellar Ink magazine had an article on just what you're trying to do about a dozen years ago.
Mark Zenier snipped-for-privacy@eskimo.com Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)
well.
well.
If it is a one-off use machinable wax. Much easier to handle and form, and perfect for one off lost wax casting. Casting containment material versus casting material is your next issue.
?-)
Found something like fiber-reinforced acrylic sheet: WonderFlex. There is a major problem with computer mice: nobody gives dimensions, so it is impossible to find a (a) wider, OR (b) bigger overall, OR (c) left-handed VS right-handed [or any combo].
By jinggies...tawt i taw a puddy tat. Always thought that OR was the north-most Tap Plastics went; maybe WA locations are fairly new: Bellevue, Lynnwood and Seattle. At best, they all are on-day round trip excursions, as (1) i do not drive, and (2) i am in Lacey ("near" Olympia).
What is this BS concerning waxes, anyway? Everyone that is kind enough to give specs, gives very little. "Specs" do not include any electrical properties like dielectric constant, dielectric strength, volume resistivity.
The right sort of wax is easy to make a prototype mould from.
And then you melt the wax out to do lost wax casting - getting a precision copy of your original piece if it is done right.
We are talking here about stuff used to occupy space not for making up geriatric condensers for antique radio sets. The properties that matter are that it has a fairly high melting point and it doesn't shatter when machined. It is ideal for teaching use of a lathe since it is virtually impossible to damage the lathe no matter what you do wrong and the wax can be reclaimed to block form by melting and casting many times.
-- Regards, Martin Brown
This is easy. I cannot imagine any city anywhere that doesn't have an engineering service which has a 3D prototype printing device.
Hell, they are cheap enough that nearly any successful company can easily afford one as well.
Call some printing services and ask them where you can get prototype 3D printing done.
The whole object with wax it to have a convenient modeling material. The model is then used to create a "mold". Then you cast the final material in the mold, be it sand, silicone, or polyurethane.
?-)
They talk about wax because it can be used to make a mold of any shape, and the wax can be removed by heating. I learned this in a college class of welding and foundry. We used "lost wax" method to cast small jewelry pieces. I think one student used an insect rather than wax and it worked quite nicely.
The molds were heated enough to completely burn away the wax or insect. There has to be a small hole in the casting to let the gasses out which is also the hole you use to pour the metal/plastic/whatever into the mold to form the object you want. The only limitation is that the mold itself is destroyed to remove the casting, so it is a one time deal for each piece of wax. I suppose if your casting is simple enough you could saw the mold in two and reuse it.
Rick
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