MakerHub

40 Great Maker Supply Companies

2012-05-04T09:59:00.000-07:00

Every now and then, you just want a list of suppliers that a maker has put together. Something you can browse through and that helps you discover some new sources of cool kits or parts. That's what this list is about -- big names and little names of companies that serve the maker space. Let us know which suppliers you use and love in the comments below. We'll include them in a future edition.

Don't forget to tell your friends about this comprehensive list.

Arnold Grummer’s is everything you need to make paper.
Science Toy Maker is a true DIY website that doesn’t sell parts or kits, but tells you how to make stuff. Tons of Tutorials are available on how to make simple, fun projects via the site and YouTube.
West Florida Components (New Port Richey, FL) is an online superstore of semiconductors, capacitors, diodes, and those hard to find parts you thought were obsolete. Great learning center and how-to guides.
Amazon You have to search your term under electronics (usually) to get faster, more precise results. For example, if you search “Arduino” under Electronics you’ll pull 977 results from all sorts of merchants along with the trust Amazon rating system.
Adafruit (New York, NY) is one of the most community-focused DIY electronics and kit providers in the world of makers. You can’t go far without finding one of Ladyada’s tutorials and comments in some maker forum. Think MintyBoost, Arduino kits, and cool Skill Badges.
Electronic Goldmine (Scottsdale, AZ) is the official name on the site, despite the URL being reversed. It is a veritable goldmine feeling, too, as you scroll down for pages of various special offers, rare products, and otherwise fun stuff. You can search by category, too.
Electronix Express (Rahway, NJ) says it is electronics for schools and industry. You’ll find oscilloscopes, programmable power supplies and a fat catalog you can download in PDF format. They have a very cool science-related site called Science Purchase with rockets, centrifuges, and chemistry sets.
Newark/Element14 is another electronics superstore with hundreds of brand name parts and suppliers. It offers a logical category breakdown (lighting, sensing, alternative energy, wireless) and has a powerful search tool (lets you pick RoHS compliant right from the start, for example).
All Electronics (Oxnard, CA) is home to thousands of electronic and mechanical parts, including DIY kits, LEDs, test equipment.
Polulu is a great source for robot kits, robot parts, and they’ll even custom laser cut stuff for you.
Modern Device offers Freeduino, Arduino, JeeLabs, sensors and loads of cool, unique kits.
Mouser - If you’re not familiar with electronics, then a name like mouser connotes small or cat-like. But the opposite is true; Mouser is one of the largest electronics suppliers in the world.
Frys is well known as an electronics superstore, but they are few and far between with actual retail stores. But thankfully, they have a good online store, too. This link gets you straight to the electronic components section.
Alibaba is an online marketplace that connects you to manufacturers from around the world, mostly Asia, that can help you source for larger volume parts purchases.
Find Chips is a powerful search engine at the component level. If you know the part number, item number, you can search for it and find the major manufacturers for it. The thing I like best is you find other suppliers, too.
Surplus Shed is a retail store with 9,000 square feet of surplus in Maidencreek, PA, much of it in the optical and electronic category. You can expect to find scopes of all types, beam splitters, and mirror blanks.
BG Micro – if you cannot find a part here to build your project, it may not exist. BG Micro has a pretty extensive catalog for the DIY crowd. Don’t miss the “Virtual Sidewalk Sale” page of specials where, at press time, there were a pile 500 capacitors for $7.73.
Verical is a superstore of electronic components from companies that are looking to move unsold inventory (usually). You can see how many are in stock, search and compare, for common and uncommon items.
Reynolds Electronics (Daytona Beach, FL) offers remote control parts, PIC microcontrollers, robotics and more. The store is dated, but appears to work well. It has lots of projects and descriptions of how someone built a project.
Solarbotics (Canada) is one of the top sources for small solar power packs and project kits including the Pum Lantern kit, a Solar Xylophone, and the Mini-Sumo robot.
Advancer Technologies offers DIY muscle sensor kits - EMG circuits for a microcontroller.
American Science & Surplus has an eclectic mix of hobbyist gear from insect kits (think butterflies and ant farms) to earth science to batteries.
Alltronics (Santa Clara, CA) inspires trust with its 100% Ebay feedback rating. With 9,000+ products, they make it easy for electronics and DIY types.
Science Purchase looks like a teacher’s dream. They have loads of kits in bulk packs for easy classroom use.
Evil Mad Science (Sunnyvale, CA) is rather famous for its fun and unique kits. Plus, they have terrific educational posts on their blog.
Marlin P. Jones & Assoc. (Lake Park, FL) is well known for inexpensive soldering stations, but they provide power supplies, high lumen LED boards, and loads of tech gear.
NKC Electronics (Weston, FL) is an Arduino authorized distributor and microcontrollers dominates the home page. They do have other electronic and robotics components as well.
Sparkfun Electronics (Boulder, CO) is another major player in the DIY electronics world. Their kits and tutorials are famous and comprehensive. If you’re a kit maker, Sparkfun will consider selling your product or kit, too.
Unicorn Electronics (Aliquippa, PA) promises board level components at the lowest price. They have loads of specials – web and back of the warehouse type savings.
Hobby Engineering is a retail store/warehouse space in South San Francisco. It covers a wide range of hobbies including model trains, electronics, woodcraft, and even doll houses. Lots of hard to find components and fun kits are here, plus the Gift Guide is helpful.
Hobby and Engineering Supplies (Australia) offers thousands of products including remote controlled cars, planes, boats, and helicopters. They also distribute the full range of miniature engineering products from the Miniature Bearings store (link from main site). This range includes small bearings, timing pulleys, and timing belts.
Jameco Electronics has been around for 35 years and has over 50,000 parts in its inventory. Based in Silicon Valley (CA), they are also well known for The Robot Store (acquired in 2005). Click the Workshop link to get tech tips on electronics projects.
DigiKey is one of the major suppliers to the maker community. Many people check this site before looking anywhere else. They have a BOM (bill of materials) tool that is quite useful if you’re selling kits and buying lots of parts.
Futurlec is based in Asia and keeps new products flowing through its website. They also offer PCB design and manufacturing services.
Maplin is the UK’s superstore for electronics, appliances, and gadgets.
PJRC (Portland, OR) is the place to go if you’re looking for the Teensy USB development board. The company and site are run by Paul and Robin and it includes lots of info on the 8051 Assembler Tools.
NightFire Electronic Kits has PCB (printed circuit board) kits and home to a tutorial on making your own Surface Mount Technology (SMT) PCB.
Sphere Research Corporation (Kelowna, BC) is the place for used electronic test equipment. They have a large supply of prime quality electronic / component surplus, too.
LaserBits (Phoenix, AZ) is one of the best laser cutter supply shops. They have CerMark marking solution (hard to find in small quantities) as well as acrylic shapes and cut pieces, metal, leather, and other laser cutter accessories.
Super Bright LEDs has lighting components, but also fully built RV, Marine, and Landscape lighting. All LED, of course.

Muckers & Makers: Are You Just Mucking About?

2011-10-27T12:43:00.000-07:00

Makers, have you ever been accused of just “mucking about” when working on a project?

Consider yourselves in good company. Thomas Edison employed a team of “Muckers” who could be considered the predecessors to today’s “Makers”.

When inventors are in the midst of a project, it may look like they are just “mucking about” (what other people think of as wasting time or effort). But Makers know, like Edison’s Muckers did, that getting into the “muck” of the inventive process has a purpose and can lead to dramatic breakthroughs.

“The chance for their ambition to work” - Thomas Edison

At Edison’s iron ore mining facility in NJ, his staff worked long and hard on a project to produce bricks that would not absorb moisture; to produce these bricks, they came up with a binding agent they referred to as “muck”. In time, this team of employees at Edison’s labs and factories became known as Edison’s Muckers.

The men who worked for Edison were not primarily motivated by money or fame, but rather by the desire to see their ideas come to fruition. Some of them were inventors in their own right, while others were talented scientists, artists, and craftsmen who pioneered expertise in areas such as film and sound editing at a time when these industries were nascent.

Like today’s Makers, Muckers were inspired by the desire to create, build and improve on theirs and others’ ideas. Consider this list of characteristics of an inventor like Edison (from http://www.edisonmuckers.org/) and see whether any or all of them apply to you as a Maker:

Not easily shaken by detractors—persistent in their work
Passionate about what they do
Willing to go against accepted thinking
Visionary and intuitive
Quantitative and analytical—facile with math
Not afraid of risk
Tolerant of ambiguity
Well developed sense of humor
Know how to unleash own creative spirit
Not afraid of failure—willing to learn from it
Can see the creative links to the arts
Focused on the future
See the whole problem and key parts simultaneously
Can sell their ideas to others
Builds teams with multi-disciplinary skills to accomplish goals
Document and protect inventive work
Solve problems from a multi-dimensional viewpoint

So, next time someone accuses you of “mucking about”, tell them about Edison’s Muckers -- and remind them that it takes passion, patience and vision to be a Maker.

What We Learned at the Bay Area and Vancouver Maker Faires

2011-07-09T17:59:00.000-07:00

The MakerHub table at the Vancouver Mini Maker Fare
with Tiff (volunteer), Victoria, Bill and Shannon (volunteer).

If you look at the date of the last post one thing will be obvious of what we learned: there is a lot more pre- and post- faire work required than we expected for a team our size with all the other day-to-day. Part of it was setting up for the design contest we decided to announce at the Vancouver Mini Maker Faire. Another bit was getting our newsletter going.

It was also interesting seeing the difference between the two communities. The Bay Area is definitely a more “mature” maker community. Based on those that didn’t stop by our table, a large number of the community didn’t see much value in what we are offering. That said, of those we talked with at the Bay Area Maker Faire, Victoria estimated 1/2 and I estimated 1/3 of the people’s eyes lit up and wished they had available right now what we plan to offer. For the Vancouver Mini Maker Faire we both thought it was closer to 3/4 of the people we talked with had their eyes light up, even other makers with tables there.

I think part of the reason is that community maturity level. In Vancouver we found a lot of people didn’t know about local maker/hacker/create spaces, even though they helped put on the faire. A lot of people were very new to making and wanted to find peers and resources that matched their skill levels. Whereas in the Bay Area most people at the faire already knew about resources or who to talk with to learn about resources.

Vancouver mirrored my experience in Seattle. I’m not an electrical engineer and knew no one in the maker/robotics community. Because of that it took me at least a year to finally get the right connection for 3D printing & related hobbies. (The brainstorm was realizing robotics skills were needed to make a 3D printer from scratch. The next weekend was a Seattle Robotics Society meeting about 3D printers!) After that I found out there are at least 6 maker/hacker/create spaces/clubs in the Greater Seattle Area.

One of the reason we went to these events was to see if we were on track and make some personal connections with the maker community. Given the reactions of those we talked with we all had the sense that MakerHub will provide something folks want. We even had people pause on the way away from our table, turn around and give us their personal business cards because they want to help. (What with the interviewing and such we’re behind on contacting folks.)

Other Announcements

Monthly mailing list: We now have a mailing list that we’ll be sending out a newsletter to each calendar month, sometimes early, sometimes late. Sign up here if you’re interested.

Faire contests: At both faires we had drawings for an iPod Nano and sign up for the newsletter. Surprisingly we had as many folks sign up in Vancouver as in the Bay Area, even though the venue was smaller.

Faire features: At both faires we had sheets of newsprint out asking folks various questions. We compiled those and put them as features on our UserVoice account. Take a peek and let us know what you think or add your own. Our UserVoice feedback & support is always available from any MakerHub page.

Design contest: As I mentioned above we’re running a design contest to help get the MakerHub site from alpha quality into beta quality. The more input we have the better our site will be. This contest has three $100 prizes for a toy car design. One each for easy to follow instructions, easiest to assemble and most interesting.

We’re hiring!: Check out our employment page. Right now we’re focusing on developer types but we are trying to grow in every way.

Last but not least: Thanks again to James, Shannon and Tiff for helping man the MakerHub table at the faires. If it weren't for you volunteers Victoria and I would have gone mad.

www.MakerHub.com is finally up! Just in time for Maker Faire

2011-05-18T14:30:00.000-07:00

After many trials and tribulations, partly around switching domain names and ownership, partly around last minute bugs, www.MakerHub.com is finally live.

This is an alpha version of the site. There are still known bugs and the feature set we were hoping to have for Maker Faire isn't quite there. That said, it is usable as a place to enter your projects and allow others to collaborate on them with you.

Because it is an alpha site we have feedback links on every page at the bottom (a floating UserVoice widget). If you see something that feels odd, let us know! We might have missed it or thought other features or fixes took higher priority.

Also, due to the alpha nature of the site, the number of projects available to view is really small. At the time of this post only one from our first alpha user is worth looking at: https://www.makerhub.com/projects/49. So, let's change that! Start adding your projects.

As the usability increases we plan on doing design competitions to flush out the project offerings. Things of all levels, like: design a beginner level project that teaches basic led circuitry & motor mechanics to design a hexapod robot that can walk through grass.

Maker Faire Prep Work

2011-04-20T20:23:00.000-07:00

It is amazing how fast time flies. I have a hard time believing it's been just over 5 weeks since the last post. That said, given the craziness getting ready for the Bay Area Maker Faire I can see how the time flew.

We're incorporating the feedback from the early users into the site, so we're still keeping it private. At the faire we'll be showing off what is essentially the alpha version of the service: a design repository with collaboration features. There are several features in the backlog that are high priority that we won't have in place for the faire. One of which is the first version of the parts sourcing.

When we're at the faire we'll be asking folks for their opinions on what features a web app that encourages innovation needs. This builds on what I gathered from folks at last year's faire. So, if you have any thoughts feel free to drop by our table at the faire or drop us a note at InventHub.org.

InventHub domain is up and taking requests

2011-03-11T17:48:00.000-08:00

Since the application for Maker Faire suggests pointing to a site, I've put up the InventHub placeholder. It wraps this blog, provides some rough information, a discussion board, and a form to get more information. I used Squarespace since it looks a bit slicker than what I could figure out what to do with the Blogger pages. (And I was checking it out for a friend to use for their new site. :)

As you probably noticed, the main domain will be InventHub.org, not AtlantisDIY.com. We went that way since the first goal, and what's needed for this endeavor to succeed, is a central design repository that is easy to use. We were definitely inspired by GitHub and other source code repository practices.

The road to Maker Faire

2011-03-03T11:54:00.000-08:00

I recently realized that by looking at the blog it looks like we've been dead in the water. Since that is not the case I figure it is time for a (very) quick update.

The team has been growing and working hard the last few months. We are actively pursuing a preview of our service at the next Bay Area Maker Faire.

We've recruited alpha users to solicit feedback and are in the process of putting together ways to get even more users involved.

Expect more updates in the next few months.

Atlantis is Still Progressing

2010-09-23T22:05:00.000-07:00

Atlantis is still alive. However I'm on an indefinite length hiatus for blog postings.

Not long after the "staycation" I mentioned I was diagnosed with a long-term illness. The treatments are going well but I'm left with very little time & energy to dedicate to Atlantis Inc. Given the limited resources I have, I've been focusing on the development side of things.

I'll start up the blogging again once I beat this thing or a critical point in the development is reached. Maybe a public beta?

Barriers to Entry for Novice Makers

2010-05-26T16:36:00.000-07:00

I attended the Maker Faire in San Mateo last weekend. "Jaw dropping" is a good description. I already knew most of what was there, but really seeing it and the enthusiasm of the makers was stunning.

While I was there I asked many different makers what they thought the barrier to entry was for new makers, both young or old. There were a lot of interesting responses and pointers to additional information I haven't finished going through yet. However, a couple of main themes popped up:

Help by your peers

And by this, folks meant your skill level peers, not "robot makers" or "MakerBot CupCake users." A subtle difference from what we're used to thinking about. We're used to getting help on mailing lists and forums from everyone of every skill level. However, the folks that answer questions are usually the experts and that often makes a new person hesitate to ask a question. A few folks suggested that there should be help for beginners by beginners. Any instructions for novices should also be written by novices. They know what's confusing for them whereas the experts have forgotten that.

Curation is key

Be it in the form of an index to resources out on the net or vetted instructions that are self contained, everyone that brought these up wanted the information to be managed. The usual examples of link rot came up. Also grouping the information into age or skill level appropriate categories. A nice idea was to make any instructions fully hypertext so that novices that learn in different ways and have different backgrounds can fill in their knowledge gaps as needed.

Neither of these themes is too surprising, but they are often overlooked. I'm a novice and even I dismissed these as explicit starting points. However, looking back at the ideas I've had, these are buried in there, just not spelled out. Time to head to the drawing board to make sure I don't miss these again.

Where are all the DIY Developer Tools?

2010-05-19T11:29:00.000-07:00

I come from the software world so one of the first things I did when looking to get into DIY projects and robotics were the tools to help me do the design and development of new projects. Most of what I found when I started were either early attempts at replicating existing commercial software, the commercial software, or tutorials for how to do the design yourself.

What was missing are the equivalent to the tools that software developers use that are free, from change management through validation and release. Luckily it is slowly changing. In the 3D printing world there are several apps now. I remember hearing about circuit diagram apps too. I know there has to be more, but I haven't encountered them in my projects.

There are still gaps, and that's what I'm trying to flush out. That and trying to find what it takes to make it easier for novices like myself to get into this space.

If you know of gaps that have bothered you or might be interested in helping out feel free to drop me a line.

Status Update

I went "off the reservation" for a much needed stay-cation. It felt like it was only a week, but turned out a lot longer. The software development tool chain to make rapid changes is almost up and I've done enough research and prototyping to have nailed down the tech to start with.

Checklists for DIY Instructions

2010-03-08T23:21:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande and was wondering how it could be applied to DIY project instructions.

I want to be clear before I start: the people that are writing these instructions are not to blame.

That they took their time and effort to put together any instructions is amazing. It takes experts days if not weeks to make a good set of instructions. I assume that user testing is involved too. And we all know that it is all too common to get incomplete or incoherent instructions with pre-packaged products. Passing on information to an unknown audience is a hard skill to master.

The thing I’ve noticed when looking at and using instructions provided by the net is the wide range of quality. The assumed skill levels are all across the board. The level of detail can be a set of notes to the detailed reasons why something works. Multimedia can help or distract. This is all expected given the wide range of skills of DIYers.

The book made me realize that, with a simple checklist, the quality of the instructions could improve greatly.

The checklist should be a DO-CONFIRM one. After you’ve written the instructions, confirm you have done the items on the list. A READ-DO checklist seems impractical for a creative endeavor like this.

So, what would be a good list? Everyone will have different ideas, but here’s my straw man:

Is your target audience specified?
Are the instructions written so the target audience can understand them?
Are all the tools, parts, and materials needed listed?
Are the assumed or required skills listed?
For alternate steps, do you list a preferred approach?

These aren’t very complicated, but I’ve seen signs of some of these missing in many of the instructions I’ve seen on the net. One additional plus of this list is that it encourages an additional re-read of the document. For my own writing I’ve found a single re-read will find several issues I missed in the initial draft.

Status Update

As I was writing this I noticed that it’s been a month since the last posting. I have not built up a queue of posts like I wanted. Most of my time has been going into developing and the administrivia of setting up a company (from legal to IT to dealing with office space issues).

Status and the Target Audience of 3D Design Repositories

2010-02-09T16:47:00.000-08:00

Thought I ought to post an update. The almost weekly posts stalled due to the day job and the holidays. I've just switched to working on Atlantis DIY full time and there will be more regular posts once I build up a queue.

I'll close with a thought about Product Bay that I heard about a while back from Fabbaloo. The idea is interesting, and it definitely isn't the first (they mentioned Thingiverse, I even had a similar idea before I heard of Thingiverse). The one thing I think most folks will miss is who is the target audience? Luckily, there are plenty of targets.

Thingiverse is focused at the skilled maker. Shapeways and Ponoko have a focus on mass market consumers. Others are high-end products. Atlantis DIY is shooting for the beginner and novice DIYer. Why? I am one and there was a lot of pain getting started.

Additional Tips for Organizing your Workspace

2010-01-04T20:59:00.000-08:00

Following along with A Workspace for a DIYer with Minimal Time I ran across this in some Instructables "spam" (I signed up for it). I'm sharing this because even with a workspace that is easy to get to, I still find myself with too many boxes and feeling disorganized. I'll likely give these or a variant a go.

To keep track of all your small bits, here is a nice compact way: the "Ultimate Parts Storage", aka a binder with zip lock inserts. You can get to all the parts easily and it's very accessible. The binders can sit on the back shelf next to your other boxes.

The next bit follows along with hanging tools on the wall. If you're like me, I don't have readily accessible wall space. I also don't have a lot of floor space. A variant of the Peg Board Tool Cart that is smaller with a handle on the top would be a convenient tool "box". Your tools are easily reachable yet stored with a small footprint. Another variant is to make it one sided and hang these movable boards on that wall space that isn't easy to get to from your workspace. For a given project you can bring one or two boards over and have all you need at hand.

Build It Yourself vs Design It Yourself

2009-12-21T22:03:00.000-08:00

Saw two recent blog posts at Fabbaloo that point to a trend in DIY. It’s becoming more and more like the open source world where you can contribute to existing designs or just use the designs that are already available. There is less of a need to know the enough to design the project from scratch.

The first post “Let's Download Some Hardware!” talks about to an open source like movement for distributing designs. It is like linux software distribution with packages. In this case, you can download designs others have done to complete the projects you need. This is the first one of this type I've seen, but there are sure to be others.

The second post “Definitive Guide Complete?” references a collection of designs from Make Magazine. This has all sorts of different projects that are fully described with parts and assembly instructions. Most you can buy all the components from the MakerSHED.

In both of these instead of figuring out how to make the project you want do do, you can now get a preexisting design and use it directly or modify it to match your specific needs. Less designing it yourself and more building or evolving it yourself.

A Workspace for a DIYer with Minimal Time

2009-12-14T22:38:00.000-08:00

For a DIYer with minimal time like me, having an easy to access workspace with your current project(s) ready to restart is key. When you only have an hour or two, the 20 minutes dealing with storage is a large percentage of the time. Here are a few of techniques I use, none are particularly clever and I’m sure you’ve seen them elsewhere.

Have a Permanent Workspace

Yup, pretty obvious. For some it is even better if the workspace is near the common living areas. Then you can work on projects while participating with others. It can be hard to carve out a workspace in a busy household, even harder to make one that is...

A Child (and Pet) Safe Workspace

Kids and pets are curious. You don’t want to leave potentially toxic materials or bottles of glue lying around. And what about those tools? A way I deal with that is to have a deep table with a riser or small shelf on the back.

On that riser I use low boxes I can see into or translucent ones I can see through. This is ideal for storing frequently used smaller items like a soldering iron cooling rack and the iron. No digging through cabinets or drawers and the boxes are enough to keep things out of reach of the kids and pets.

If I have wall space I’ll have hangers or shelves for other items. A closed opaque container on a shelf is my last resort. Having your common tools and materials readily available is a nice side effect, so this also helps people without pets or kids to worry about.

Make the Intermediate Products Readily Accessible

You have a workspace that is now child safe and everything is in easy reach, but what about all those intermediate parts you’ve made that take hours to dry? Easy! Dedicate some of those boxes from above for the intermediate parts. You’ll want various sizes.

A trick for the big parts or ones you can’t move is to put one of the larger storage containers or a cardboard box upside-down over the project. If it needs airing, just remove the bottom. Yeah, it’s corny, but it gets the job done and the time to restart is the time it takes to lift off the box. Just remember to keep it away from the edge of your table/counter or a curious someone might knock it off.

A bonus for a workspace like this is it might be able to play double duty.

3D Printing and the Gartner Hype Cycle, When Will it be Mainstream?

2009-12-06T21:07:00.000-08:00

The first hit on Google for “3d printing hype cycle” shows that we are still on the early part of Gartner’s Hype Cycle curve. 3D printing hasn’t moved much from the 2008 graph to the 2009 graph (see here for older graphs). To top it off, Gartner thinks it is 5-10 years before 3D printing is mainstream. Not very far from now.

What does that mean? I’m taking it to mean in 5-10 years 3D printers will be as common as laser printers, but only after the press says it isn't feasible. Everyone will know 3D printers exist and the tools to use them will be readily available (clip-art anyone?). Given that, I’ve got to wonder where companies like Ponoko and Shapeways will be. If it is trivial enough for anyone to make anything, where do these for-profit companies make their money? Five years isn’t much time. Most companies are just hitting their stride in 5 years. (This data backed blog entry and this older blog entry mention the 5 years metric, though I can’t find the original article where I saw that mentioned.)

I believe the answer to be successful will be in materials. These larger facilities are the only ones that will be able to keep on the cutting edge of the available materials and still be profitable. Mom and Pop shops won’t be able to afford the newer machines and materials nor will they be able to meet the scale demands for profitability. They will go the way of the local print stores.

The moral, if you’re looking to get into 3D printing as a producer, think about your exit strategy or how you’ll evolve. This tech adoption wave looks to be even shorter than desktop publishing was (about 10 years).

Create a DIY Starter Kit for a Yourself, or MakerBot CupCake Build, Part Two

2009-11-29T18:51:00.000-08:00

In Learning How to Solder I listed some of what I learned on soldering before putting together the MakerBot CupCake. This holiday weekend I was able to start work on the assembly and I made it up to the plastruder (plastic extruder).

While assembling I learned that buried in the instructions were some tools and materials that were not listed in the initial setup section Every one of these items make sense to be around the shop of an established DIYer. However, that isn't the case for a newbie like me.

The key piece of advice for your first project: read through all the instructions to create your shopping list first and don’t assume all the parts are provided. Don't just skim to understand how the assembly works, understand how the assembly will happen and verify the tools and materials you need are available. I imagine most experienced folks doing these projects will already have the materials available and so the instructions assume so.

So here is some of what I found I needed that wasn’t listed up front. I had some around, but I still needed to make a run to the hardware store.

glue gun
metric ruler/straight edge
M3 washers
3-in-1 oil
shop blade
paper towels
wire cutters
coarse grain sandpaper - This was to trim down some of the wood tongues for the build platform.
very fine sandpaper - I used 1800 grain sandpaper instead of the "super super superfine steel wool" listed in the instructions. The hardware store person said that should work since they didn't have any steel wool of that fine of grade to polish metals.
Super Glue - I’ll need to use it for assembling the plastruder.

A Brief Review of Design Repositories

2009-11-22T20:26:00.000-08:00

So, you come up with an idea, where do you go to put it? There are several places you could go. Here are a few of them and what they support.

Before that, you should know that there is some research going on at the Automated Design Lab at the University of Texas at Austin for how to share information between repositories. Fabbaloo has a good write up about this with pointers to their slides and site. The project seems in its infancy, but if it works, the question of where to go should be less of an issue.

These are the sites I regularly hear about. They are not the special purpose ones. E.g. special parts for Legos, custom figurines or doll parts, even jewelry from terrain data. I’m also skipping the sites that are electronic circuit boards only.

Ponoko has a service where they’ll help you with refining your design. I’ve seen everything from toys to lamps to jewelry posted. It appears that the primary restrictions is that a CNC machine a la ShopBot http://www.shopbottools.com/ is how these parts are made. Once the design is posted others can buy it from the Ponoko site and you’d get a cut.

Shapeways also has a service to help you with refining your design. In this cases, the designs are all 3D models. I’ve seen puzzles to bowls to jewelry posted. (Yes, jewelry seems common.) The primary restriction with Shapeways appears to be that every item in their catalog is printable with one of their printers. Again, once the design is posted, others can buy it from Shapeways and you’d get a cut.

Instructables is much more free form. This site has everything from how to mod an existing device to building something from scratch. It has step by step instructions and pictures of the processes along the way. To make something from Instructables you’ll need to purchase the materials and do it yourself.

Thingiverse is a design repository focused around 3D models and the MakerBot CupCake style of printer. It has both solid 3D models and designs for lasercutting. This site includes whistles, toys, figures, and parts for MakerBots. To make something from Thingiverse you’ll need your own CNC machine. Each design usually has a dowloadable model associated with it.

So there are several design repositories out there that might fit your needs if you come up with an idea. More are cropping up as 3D printing and DIY gets more popular. Finding one that fits your particular needs hopefully isn’t too hard.

If you know of any you others, feel free to add them to the comments section.

DIY Tinkering on the Rise, Boosts the Economy

2009-11-15T17:28:00.000-08:00

I mentioned in my last post that I thought it was not the economy that is giving rise to the increased levels of DIY and innovation, rather it is the decrease in the barriers to entry, from cost to knowledge level. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal agrees:

Through much of the past century, however, developing new products required increasingly complex and expensive tools that were out of reach of most individuals … As a result, large firms came to dominate innovation.

That trend was disrupted in the 1990s when low-cost computers allowed Internet and software start-ups to compete with giants. But when it came to developing innovative physical products, high prices kept high-tech machine tools and materials out of most tinkerers' reach.

The article continues to point out examples of students and others getting access to the tools and materials that used to be unattainable outside of corporations.

And here’s something interesting that’ll affect everyone: half of an economy’s growth is attributed to innovation. This is from a paper that won Robert Solow a Nobel Prize.

Apparently, in the US the rate of corporate R&D has slowed, however, the number of hobbyists and resources for them have increased.

So, everyone keep doing what they’re doing. It’ll help everyone get out of the global economic slump, and we’ll have fun while we do it.

A Theory on the Rise and Fall of Garage Inventing

2009-11-08T20:00:00.000-08:00

My observation: garage inventing declined over the last 3-4 decades, but is now resurging in the guise of DIYers and Makers.

To start with, I mean the garage inventing that produces real-world devices. Not software. I'm also assuming the decline based on the number of devices that we hear about being created by a home inventor. You don't hear about that often since the late 60's. Before then you'd hear of devices made by individuals, not R&D shops.

I could well be wrong on these assumptions, so please let me know. This could well be based on the "good ol' times" view of history. Anyway, theories are intended to be poked at.

My theory is that innovators will shift to the technologies that have a lowest barriers to entry. (Yeah, not very novel.)

As more electronics or machining know-how was needed to make interesting devices folks shifted away from the garage. They needed a good understanding of the engineering behind but not everyone had access nor the inclination to do that. Whereas before, anyone with basic mechanical or electrical skills could make something new or innovative.

On top of that, the cost of the base machinery was prohibitive. The machining tools and base electronic components to do anything interesting grew to be quite expensive. Most of the innovations I've heard of over the last 20-30 years involved needing full fledged machine shops and the backing of an R&D division with good funding. I'm not going to get into the intellectual property issues.

So what did these innovators do when faced with these barriers? They moved from the garage and into the den or wherever the home computer was.

As BBSes and then the Internet were taking off, the innovators shifted from creating with the tools that required a high barrier to entry to tools that they could just pick up. Commodity computers and simple programming language tutorials. Look at open source, the numbers of shareware applications that cropped up over the last 3 decades, and now the plethora phone applications.

So where does that leave all the cool new devices that could be made in garages? Have you heard of Makers or DIYers?

My claim is that they are the new generations of garage inventors. Why is there a resurgence? It isn't the economy forcing folks to be creative, this started before the current issues. I believe this is all due to the increase of commodity electronics that are easier to use.

That, coupled with instruction from the internet, has drastically lowered the barrier to entry. However, I think it is still too high. Time and again I hear friends come up with interesting ideas: "Wouldn't it be cool if ..." Then nothing happens. Now, wouldn't it be cool if ... someone could come up with an idea, easily share it, and get help putting it together?

Learning How To Solder

2009-11-01T20:03:00.000-08:00

This posting falls under tips & tricks. You could consider this pointers for the newbie from a newbie. So you're warned, I've learned all this over a period of maybe a week.

When I started putting together my CupCake 3D printer from MakerBot I found that I needed to learn some soldering. (I got it a generation or two too soon, not all the sub-assemblies were pre-assembled.) I took a guess on some training kits and tools, but found from the Seattle Robotics Society (SRS) workshop that I wasn't far off.

I started with a Learn to Solder Kit, turns out the same kit the SRS suggests for folks to learn how to solder. I found it had good enough instructions to get me started. However, instead of using the soldering iron that came with the kit I bought a Weller Analog Soldering Station. Among the folks at the SRS workshop the Weller was considered among the two better versions for circuit board work. I also bought a work stand since every person doing soldering in the Make Magazine videos has one.

One thing I did learn, the thick solder I bought is not a good idea for electronics. I learned from the workshop that it doesn't heat through quickly. One of the folks at the workshop ran with me to Radio Shack and helped me pick out silver-bearing solder. This type melts fast and wicks better due to the silver. I had tried the lead free solder that came with the training kit, but found that it behaved like I was told, it doesn't flow as well as well as the other solder.

In addition to which solder to use I learned that I didn't have my iron hot enough. Setting the Weller at a bit over 600ºF is the best. It'll heat up the area quickly and let you remove the iron from the components before the board heats up too much. That also explains why the desoldering wick didn't work when I did the lesson in the training kit, I was operating at too low of a temperature.

Another technique I learned is to touch the iron to the largest metal part that you're soldering to. That way the heat is conducted to the largest area helping to melt the solder better. You still have to heat the other part, but having one hotter makes for quicker soldering. The goal is to let the melted solder wick into the hole in the board, but not so much that it comes out the other side.

There are a couple of items I was told that I still need to get. The tinning technique in the training kit isn't enough. The tip tinner/cleaner compound from Radio Shack was recommended. One of the the guys attaches his to the top of his soldering iron power station. Besides that, a flux pen (Amazon search) would be a very good investment. Especially for desoldering since it helps suck up the solder into the wick even better. Unfortunately that's the next thing I need to learn well, since I messed up the assembly instructions.

More of what Atlantis DIY is about

2009-10-25T20:00:00.000-07:00

Ready for a shocker: I'm setting up a DIY resource, but I'm not interested in DIY. "Say what?!" Did I get your attention?

I should clarify, I'm not that interested in doing it myself.

"Why not?" I'm a perfectionist, so it takes me several times longer to do a project than others. I'm a big believer in functionality, and my DIY tends to be mediocre in that regard. (And I'm very self critical. :) Basically, when I've done something around the house over the years, from a PVR to network wiring, it doesn't meet my usability standards. So, instead of DIY I'll buy well made products and trade money for time: buy a TiVo or pay friends with pizza to help with the wiring.

"So, why are you doing this?" All that said, I'm a huge fan of DIY. I'm seeing more and more innovation coming out of those circles. You DIYers are amazing! I want to do something to help.

The most rewarding jobs I've had in my professional life have centered around helping others. I've had the opportunity to work on several different kinds of software applications and services. My favorite ones were part of service organizations that helped leverage people's existing abilities, got the repetitive tasks out of the way, and took the users to new heights.

So I'm setting up a DIY resource, not because I'm interested in ~~DIY~~ Doing It Myself, but because I'm interested in facilitating DIY for others. There's a lot of creativity out there. I want to see it unleashed.

If you want to help, let me know what's hindering your or others' creative juices. I know what's been making it hard for me and what I've seen and heard. But I could well be wrong.

I'm working on a few different ideas that I think will help. When the ideas are more concrete and less hand-wavy I'll talk about them and point folks at functional mock-ups that you can play with. I don't want to do vaporware.

In the 3D printing realm, I've found several resources already, but there is more that can be done. I've linked them in the Resources section on the side. Thingiverse has a good listing of projects. Ponoko (featured in the October issue of Inc Magazine) and Shapeways are places that you can upload designs to and have them produced. I also found that going through MFG.com you can have a 3D design printed, but there isn't as much design help.

So what's this Atlantis DIY all about?

2009-10-18T20:00:00.000-07:00

Getting started in DIY can be very hard, especially if you don't have the skills yet or the connections to people who are already into the DIY area you're interested in. At least that was the case for me and 3D printing.

The frustrations I had lead to the project behind AtlantisDIY: tools and resources to help anyone learn and make anything they want. The hope is that others that are new to DIY will find the pointers and stories here useful. Right now the primary focus will be around DIY 3D printing, but I'll spill over into other areas from time to time.

The plan is to reference resources on the web, to pointers to articles or other blogs, to how to find folks in your area that might be interested, to some of my own adventures. Feel free to point me at resources you've found or with your own stories for how you started getting connected to your DIY community.

I'll close with first posting with a recent lesson I learned. The nearest community to DIY 3D printing appears to be the DIY robotics folks. After all, most of the sub assemblies, controls, and construction skills are also used within robotics. So if you're interested, check out your local robotics groups. I found in Seattle that the Seattle Robotics Society even had a talk about it and I met up with a couple of others that have been building their own printers.