Collaborate Disseminate
[Neumi] over on Hackaday.IO wanted a simple-to-use way to drive stepper motors, which could be quickly deployed in a wide variety of applications yet to be determined. The solution is …read more Continue reading Ethersweep: An Easy-To-Deploy Ethernet Connected Stepper Controller
When designing even a reasonably simple 3D-printable part, you need to account for all the supports it will require to print well. Strategic offsetting, chamfering, and filleting are firmly in …read more Continue reading Bend Your Prints to Eliminate Supports
What do you get when you cross a day job as a Medical Histopathologist with an interest in 3D printing and programming? You get a fully-baked Open Source microscope, specifically …read more Continue reading Highly Configurable Open Source Microscope Cooked Up In FreeCAD
Here’s how FreeCAD works: the program’s design space is separated into different “workbenches”, each of which is intended for a particular set of operations, and a piece of work can …read more Continue reading FreeCAD Takes Off With a Rocket Design Workbench
I use open source software almost exclusively; at least on the desktop — the phone is another matter, sadly. And I do a lot of stuff with and on computers. Folks outside of the free software scene are still a …read more
Powerful software programs often have macro programming languages that you can use, and if you know how to program, you probably appreciate them. However, sometimes the program’s built-in debugging facilities are lacking or even nonexistent If it were just the language, that wouldn’t be such a problem, but you can’t …read more
Simple drafting programs just let you draw like you’d use a pencil. But modern programs use parametric models to provide several benefits. One is that you can use parameters to change parts of your design and other parts will alter to take account of your changes. The other advantage is …read more
When you are ready to design real things, you’ll find simple CAD programs can be pretty limiting. Serious modern designs tend to use parametric modeling where you don’t necessarily set dimensions and positions of everything but instead constrain the design by describing the relationship between different elements. For example, you …read more
If you’ve used KiCad before, you’re certainly familiar with the handy 3D view that shows you a rendered view of what your assembled board would look like. But as [Vadim Panov] explains, you can take this capability a step further. With a few extra tools and a little bit of …read more
Continue reading Designing 3D Printed Enclosures for KiCad PCBs
FreeCAD started out a little shaky, but it has gotten better and better. If you are trying to draw a schematic, it probably isn’t the best way to do it. However, it is a great graphical alternative to OpenSCAD for 3D printing and even incorporates OpenSCAD if you don’t want …read more