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New Products, 2014-10-16

Today we have SEVEN new products.

Cables

4mm cable wrap

ELEC-0060 4mm cable wrap keeps all your wires tidy. Loose wires make fun cat toys and make it harder to understand what is going on in the machine. 10m per bag and we sell it by the meter.

stepper extensions

Want to go big on a CNC project but don’t have time to solder all those wires? Get the ELEC-0058 RGBY plug-n-play extension cable. Each is 1m long.

Motors

metal gear servos

MOTO-0008 180 degree servos with all-metal gears: Excellent manufacture and great ability to withstand higher torque situations.
They tested fine but draw too much currant for use in the Makelangelo.

Tools

It high time we start adding some more tools around here. These are the same brands we use in shop day-to-day.

2mm ball end hex key

TOOL-0002 2mm ball end hex key. Funny story here: I thought I was ordering 12 sets of 10 piece hex keys. Turns out I misread the description and ordered 120 pieces of just one hex key. 2mm keys are NOT the ideal size for an M3 hex head screw. We plan to get the rest of the set.

flush cutters

Every starting maker should have a few basic tools, including these TOOL-0003 flush cutters. Great when you want to cut something off without leaving a little dimple on the surface. I used them for everything from cleaning up a PCB through hole to trimming a bit of plastic off my 3D prints.

t-shirt

Showing off a Marginally Clever robot at a show? We’d love it if you wore one of our SWAG-0003 cotton t-shirts.

makelangelo upgrade kit

ROBO-0028 Makelangelo 1 to 2.5 upgrade kit will convert your existing Makelangelo 1 or 2 into a Makelangelo 2.5. Pen lifting! Improved accuracy! Also great if you want to DIY a polargraph.

Final thought

Big shout out to the lovely people at Linode for keeping us running smooth as a buttered eel. When our traffic spikes you come through for us, and I just wanted to say thanks. 180 days uptime and counting! You rock.

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Store update, 2014-10-15

Makelangelo #551 drawing of Audrey Hepburn for Museograph

Back orders

The long delayed Hong Kong order arrived this morning, which means all the back-ordered kits are leaving this afternoon. If you ordered a kit in the last two weeks you should already see a notice that a shipping label was printed.

Growth

Frequent orders and long lead times from suppliers means that my RFQ numbers all have an extra digit now. 100 motors at a time? Not enough. Quote me 1000, please. The warehouse is expanded, plans for resellers are starting to come together… It’s a really exciting time to be making robots!

Vacation

Now that the work of getting over the Maker Faire hump is done, I’m taking a road trip to Las Vegas. I’m looking forward to some beautiful vistas, all-inclusive hotel stays, and checking on the SYN Shop, the Las Vegas Hackspace. Why knows? Maybe I’ll even be able to pop in and say hi to Sarah and Mark at RobotArmy.com. They make a pretty sweet Delta robot.

What does this mean for you? Orders will not be flowing from the 17th to the ~28th. Shop for your heart’s desire now and we’ll get it into the mail Thursday evening.

DevFest Vancouver

DevFest is a week-long workshop-series and hackathon about bleeding-edge technologies for experienced developers taking place weeknights and over the weekend this November 3-9.

This year’s workshops cover

  • cryptocurrencies,
  • cloud-computing,
  • smart-televisions,
  • wearables,
  • 3D-printing,
  • virtual reality, and
  • microcontrollers

Yours truly will be leading the microcontroller workshop Sunday, November 9, from 10am onward.

Seats are very limited! reserve your spot early.

Classes

Last night at VHS was our first “learn to use the band saw” class. In two weeks I’ll be leading a “how to use the chop saw” class. November 1 is scheduled to be Programming 101 with LEDs. You can find out all the details for these classes on the website for the Vancouver Hack Space.

In the news

Museograph visited our booth at the NYC World’s Maker Faire 2014 and acquired a Makelangelo #551 drawing of Audrey Hepburn, the picture at the top of the post.

Have you seen Marginally Clever mentioned in the news somewhere? Let us know in the forums!

News

How to fix 9 common Polargraph drawing problems

normal

Here is a picture I’ve correctly drawn on a polargraph machine. Here are nine examples of common mistakes that can happen on any polargraph drawing robot – including the Makelangelo – and how to fix them. They are all a result of miscalibration. These should only need fixing once, so take the time to do it right: Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

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Expansion is a good problem to have

Sharing

User deanville shared some pictures of his DIY Makelangelo in our forums.

courtesy of imgur

Check out the whole gallery here

Thanks, Reddit

At the request of reddit user nortbotics I’ve changed the licensing of all the big thingiverse projects I’ve released. Instead of Creative Commons – Attribution – Non-Commercial they are now Creative Commons – Attribution – Share-Alike. That means you can do what you like with the designs – even make and sell them! – but you have to tell people where you got the plans, and if you change the designs you have to use the same license for the new design.

Expansion

A large part of the day was spent shopping for infrastructure upgrades. Shelves, shelves, and more shelves. This really excites me. When I started there were five or six items on a shelf. Then there were too many and I had to put product SKUs on everything. Now I have a product SKU and I’m going to have to add a physical address in the warehouse. What’s next, Kiva robots?

Instant gratification

I’ve installed a live chat feature. It should appear in the bottom right of your PC screen. When we’re both at computers you can reach out to me and get an immediate response. Now it’s even easier to tell me what you’ve got on your mind.

Hong Kong Delays

I have received confirmation from our HK suppliers that the big orders I am waiting on were shipped sunday evening (vancouver time). They should be here soon, at which point my postal carrier might just have a small heart attack or hernia trying to cart away all these orders.

On another good note, since my last post (yesterday?) four more Makelangelos have been turned on. I wonder who will be #700?