MakerBot No. 214 Birthday

Officially she was finished on the 3rd of November 2009.

Unfortunately we didn't have any beer on hand to christen her right.

So from now on her birthday (launch day) will be celebrated on the 4th of November.

Long Live MakerBot No. 214
Affectionately named WulfBot.


-Larry

Wulf Design

P.S. more pics below later...

No-Knead Bread Baking Dish Cheat

I was house sitting for a friend last month and I didn't have my Dutch Oven available for Bread Baking.

I was able to use a couple of their Pyrex Baking Dishes instead of a Pizza Stone.

Just preheated the dishes in the oven like you would a pizza stone.
preheat a broiler pan with them to add a cup of water for when the dough goes in.

It turned out about the same as the Pizza Stone Method.
all in all the Dutch Oven Method works best but these tweaks work well in a pinch.

Next Avalanche Tech

Seems I'm not the only one who equates the arrival of the MakerBot as being similar to the arrival of the Apple Computer. See Thingiverse Blog article Are 3D Printers the Next Avalanche Tech? for their take on it.

btw, I finally got my order in for a Cupcake CNC on August 31st. Should be getting a Batch 7 machine sometime after the October 5th ship date.

Do you have a Big Kitty?

Well do you?

a friend sent me this email about kitty Blood Donation.
it's a worthy and often overlooked cause.

email below...

We just got a call from Access Blood Bank - part of the 24 hour hour
vet on Aurora that there is no cat blood, and animals will suffer. Our
cat Stanley Fuzzbutt donates 3/year and has saved 2 cats already.
Access is the only local organization running a blood bank for pets...
i know its important we do it for humans to, but this is often
overlooked by people and its only important when your pet gets hurt
and needs it. This is not just needed for emergency, but planned
surgeries as well.

Access gives you free blood work as part of the program, 3 times per
year - once with each donation. You have to be 10 pounds or more to
give blood, so many cats do not qualify (Fuzzbutt is 15-16 pounds...
too bad for him), but if you have one, please contact them to see if
you can help out.

Normally i don't broadcast these sort of things, but i don't plan on
having kids, so Fizzgig and Fuzzbutt are daddy's little monsters and i
don't know what i would do if anything were to happen to them... so
please, if you can, check into this program and spread the word
around.

http://www.criticalcarevets.com/

http://www.criticalcarevets.com/newbloodbank.html

Re-Purposing 24 volt Black & Decker Electric Lawn Mower

I picked up a 24 volt Black & Decker electric lawn mower used at goodwill for 8 bucks last winter. I want to use the parts in an electric tadpole trike project and possibly as an Vietnamese style outboard on the sailboat. I've already converted the wheels and metal framing into a bike trailer. I tested the motor and batteries the other day and they seem to work fine. Still need to test out the electronics and salvaged charge controller. maybe it was fully functional before I tore it apart??? oh, well... sure don't need no lawn mower when you live on a sailboat that's for sure.

I was going to throw out the rest of the main body parts but I’m looking at how pretty all that red plastic looks. It how it would be great to re-propose it into a printable material and use it in a RepRap or Makerbot CNC machine. Worse case other than throwing it away is melt it down and CNC it into corner pieces on a Red Rep(St)Rap Machine. If I can re-use the plastic it’ll have re-purposed be about 95%+ of the original components.

Will post updates and hopefully pictures on the project later.

update 9/8/09 - I threw out the housing cause it was taking up too much room in storage. this project is on hold until I get the Makerbot up and going. The Bike trailer has come in handy a couple of times and I'm sure the motor will get some use eventually.

Wulf Design now on Twitter

Now using Twitter intermittently @wulfdesign
Will try and keep updates interesting and relevant.

No-Knead Bread Cast Iron Skillet Cheat Idea

I thought of a way to cheat on making the 'good' style bread.
Getting by without a dutch oven or pizza stone.

Substituting a large cast iron skillet for the pizza stone.