Is anybody mucking with the Makerbot?

[alec4444]

Howdy kids! Getting back up-to-speed on what's been going on in the LF world; am going to fall asleep tonight seriously bummed about my Efke film being gone. Ugh, honestly (for me) that's the worst news ever; I LOVED that film.

I also came by the forum to see what people are doing with the Makerbot. A search yielded a very surprising zero results. This is a relatively cheap 3D printer with pretty good tolerances even by photographic standards. Some people are doing some pretty amazing stuff with it already, from pinhole cameras to tripod mounts to lens caps to adapter spools for 620:
http://www.thingiverse.com/explore/n.../camera/page:1

I thought for sure I'd see a film holder here.

Is anyone playing around with this? We have one at my company (the Makerbot 2), and it's gaining in popularity since the company ran a 3D pinewood derby for it's employees. We're allowed to tinker and use it for whatever, and tomorrow I'm going to kick off some 620 film spools, and tonight I've started designing a 116 to 120 film spool adapter to shoot a Brownie #2A. Uses are endless, and if I can get my apartment in order I might even try to find a place for one. Anyway, just interested to see if anyone else is playing with this.

Cheers!
--A

[paulr]

I'm curious about this too. I just got back from the Makers' Faire in New York ... there must have been a dozen different 3-D printer vendors there giving demonstrations. I'd never seen these things in action before. You could design and build a custom LF camera with one of these things. Some of them use materials like ABS which would probably make a great camera.

[richardman]

a 3-D printer is definitely great thing for odd bits and spools. Someone even did a 3-d printed (not high quality :-) ) lens, I think.

[polyglot]

I'm working on a Jobo 2501-extender to develop 70mm film in the common spirals.

[Jim C.]

I'm curious about this too. I just got back from the Makers' Faire in New York ... there must have been a dozen different 3-D printer vendors there giving demonstrations. I'd never seen these things in action before. You could design and build a custom LF camera with one of these things. Some of them use materials like ABS which would probably make a great camera.

I've been watching the progress of 3D printing intently since 1999, when there was only Stratasys Sytems and 3D Systems ( the reigning champ imnsho )
and I have to wonder how durable the items are in the real world straight out of the machine, especially plastics, it would be terrible if the camera body
or spool warped.

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

I have made some little camera parts with 3D printers, from bubble level bases for my Norma to a reducer which lets me use 4x5 film in a 5x7 filmholder...

[Mark Sawyer]

3D printers were talked about recently for making lens-mounting flanges. I suspect it would take as long to draw up the template as to make a flange on a lathe, and I'm not sure of the strength of the 3d printing material.

I wonder if artists using 3D printers will advertise "Giclee sculptures"?

[jp]

Some people would rather work with the computer screen than actual machine shop tools that can be controlled by hand.

I suspect the 3d printers will have many uses nonetheless, particularly as a replacement for plastic molding. You could make combiplan parts with a 3d printer, or scale the combiplan to different film sizes. I bet as resolutions increase, you could probably use them to make photogravure plates.

[richardman]

The strength of the parts depends on the materials used and the geometry of the design, i.e. basic structural design considerations. It won't replace parts that can be lathed easily, but it also can do lots of things that cannot be done otherwise.

[polyglot]

3D printers were talked about recently for making lens-mounting flanges. I suspect it would take as long to draw up the template as to make a flange on a lathe, and I'm not sure of the strength of the 3d printing material

That's well and good if you a) have a lathe, b) don't want to make 10 of something at the push of a button and c) don't want anything more complex than a circle. Strength is a function mostly of form, not the construction process; it's a little weaker than injection moulding but not so you'd notice. And if you want strength, you can print in sintered metal.

Keep in mind that most people don't own machine tools. However anyone can draw up a couple files and have them contract manufactured pretty cheaply using tools that they could never afford. You can also share/sell the IP inherent in such a design whereas if you're operating a lathe, you're effectively forced to sell your labour if you want to produce a quantity of parts for sale.