3D Printing Results

I designed a thing!

I tried my hand at designing something for 3D printing and it came back:

Impressions

The color is  a bit more fuchsia than my daughter was hoping for. She wanted a pale princess pink, and this is more of a ’80s Raspberry Beret kind of pink.

The material is strong and pretty flexible. I haven’t really stressed it to find out if it breaks, but it bends a bit and always returns to its original shape. The finish isn’t totally smooth; it has kind of a velvety feel, but not at all fuzzy.

It took 14 days from the time I clicked “buy” on Shapeways until I was holding it in my hand (10 business days).

It Works!

For wrapping up headphones, it totally does the trick, and it fits neatly into the pocket of my laptop bag.

Trying Out 3-D Printing

I haven’t figured out what 3-D printing is really good for. Their stock is kind of all over the place, so maybe I’m not the only one who can’t figure out whether I should be excited.

I don’t have a printer, but I do have ViaCad, so I sketched up a quick headphone cable wrap thingie [.stl file] (I drew it from scratch, but it’s inspired by this one by joechung on thingiverse).

Then I created accounts at a bunch of 3-D printing shops. Here are their prices for one of the thing in the cheapest plastic. My daughter requested pink, so I’ll use that if  it’s available.

• Shapeways — $16.06
• Sculpteo — $25.31
• Ponoko — $25.44 (pink isn’t available)
• iMaterialize — €15.81 (about $21.34 at the moment)

I ordered one from Shapeways. I’ll post again when I see how it looks.

A Slingshot Ammo Catch Box

A while ago, I got a slingshot and started trying to scare the doves away from my pool so they will poop somewhere else.

It didn’t scare the doves away, but it turns out shooting a slingshot is challenging and fun. It also scares the neighbors less than firearms or air guns.

The Problem: Lost Ammo

I can shoot the same airsoft BBs I shoot at the doves, but bigger ammo is much more satisfying (and results in less hand-slap from the bands). The bigger ammo isn’t as cheap as the plastic BBs. At 80¢ each for .38 cal steel balls, it’s sort of important that I get to shoot each one at least a few times before it gets lost.

The Catch Box

It’s made from the cabinet that used to be my coffee shrine before I built a new one. I just stapled a towel to the ceiling inside it to arrest the shots. It already had a screw that used to hold a power strip in place, so I used that to hang an aluminum can from a wire.

Turns out an aluminum can isn’t really a good target for a steel ball flying at a couple hundred feet per second. It gets sort of shredded after a couple of hits. Steel cans work better. They still look destroyed, but they actually hold up pretty well. This one has been hit at least a few dozen times.

It Works!

The box is performing well. It traps about 1/2 of the shots inside. Another 40% can be found on the ground right in front of the trap. The remaining 10% get away and I have to go track them down, but none of them have made it 33 feet back to where I’m standing to hit me in the eye.