Daniel Debruin – the world’s first mechanical 3d printer:
3d printing allows me to create products more swiftly and more efficiently than ever. but these products are not mine. they are merely a product of this new technology. I love technology but how can I reclaim ownership of my work? perhaps by building the machine that produces the work. perhaps by physically powering the machine, which I built, that produces the work. in hopes of rediscovering the sense of having created something, I create.
by lifting a weight of 15 kilograms the machine is turned on. the weight allows me to be still connected with the process. because there is no external force involved like electricity it’s still me that’s making the print. by physically building and powering the machine the products that come out of it are the result of all the energy that has gone into it.
the shape of the print is controlled by an aluminium wire. the wire can be modified for each print. that results in countless variations of modeling….
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! We also offer the LulzBot TAZ – Open source 3D Printer and the Printrbot Simple Metal 3D Printer in our store. If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!