NewTek LightWave 1.6 now on RenderFarm.NL

From today RenderFarm.NL also supports NewTek's LightWave version 1.6. So If you use this 3D application and you need affordable render capacity for your 3D animations you can contact me on michel@renderfarm.nl. I also did some minor updates on the RenderFarm.nl website that you can find on http://www.renderfarm.nl

First Useful 3D print

Today I finished my first usefull 3D print. The machine you see on the left is our coffee machine. Once in a while it needs cleaning and then there is water coming from the two nozzles left and right. Since there is not much space and it is quite a lot of water coming out of it, my wife usually has to pay attention since she has to empty the stuff she used to put under there half way. But it always is a bit messy. So we came up with the idea to make custom made compartments to hold the water.

As you can see in the picture on the right this is quite a large object already for the printer. It also took about 20 hours to print each of them. I designed the whole thing in Cinema 4D by the way and then exported to STL format. It is really nice to be able to make something like this just from software I already know :) Yesterday we did the first cleaning cycle with them and it worked out really fine. So another project finished.

It might look easy by the way, but I can assure you that this project took a lot of time. I also had a misprint where the PLA on the role got tangled :( So after 15 hours of printing or so, I could start all over again. So far every time I walk away from a print, something goes wrong. So I now plan my prints when I'm at home the whole day. So yes... 3D printing is nice. But it is time consuming and you need to know what you are doing. I'm really looking in to a more professional printer now, to hopefully get better quality and less hassle. I'll keep you posted :)

New Synths in the Studio

After a very long time of buying completely nothing, suddenly I saw a synthesizer that has been on my wish list for the collection from day one. Never before I found one for sale in a condition like this one. It is an EMS 'Putney' VCS3. It is quite a rare synthesizer that was made in 1969. That is also the year that I was born, so that makes it extra special for me. It is a modular synthesizer that became famous famous because of its unique joystick, envelope fire button and the patch matrix. The matrix works with little pins and is actually quite convenient compared to plugging in patch cables to modules.

The machine is really in a great state, everything works and I'm so proud :) There is actually one in the London science museum you know :) That was the last time I saw one. The EMS's are actually perfect for creating sound effects and that is what Jean-Michel Jarre has used it for a lot. He made EMS famous together with Pink Floyd I guess who made there famous 'on the run' sequence on it. Well on the right is a nice pictures of the other machine I love for sound effects the ARP 2600.

And here is another syntesizer that I added to the collection. It is a Sequential Circuits Pro One. It is of the same make as the famous Prophet 5. This one is monophonic though. It is supposed to be great for bass sounds. To be honest I never played on one before, so this is new territory for me as well. A very nice feature is that it also has a sequencer on board. I can't wait to play around with it, but first I have to have a go at the VCS3 :)

Another 3D Print - Star Wars Tie Fighter

Last week suddenly I heard a noise and I saw the extruder of the 3D printer I build hanging on only one screw. I tried to fasten everything again, but I had no luck what so ever. So before I could do any more printing I had to take the whole extruder apart, fasten the screws a but more and put it back together. That was a little setback, but unfortunately it didn't end there. After that I had to recalibrate the head distance and I had no luck in that.

The material just didn't want to stick to the heated print bed anymore. I tried cleaning with alcohol, rubbing it a bit with sand paper like I did before, but no luck. Then I started looking on some forums for a solution and I found one. Painters tape! Very cheap stuff that you can just stick on the print bed and after that I printed like a charm. I guess by now you would have guessed from seeing the pictures of a print in progress.

The model I printed came from ThingiVerse and it is a tie fighter from Star Wars. I really like the look of that model. It consisted of three separate printable parts that you eventually have to glue together. But before I got to this point there was some more trouble. After the first print was finished, the material was stuck to the painters tape so well, that I couldn't get it off. I printed in PLA and that is quite fragile, so I could not use too much force since then the material would break.

So again I went to look for a solution and I found one. The tip was to use a spraycan with compressed air, put it up side down on purpose so that the stuff coming out is frozen. This cools the object to quickly that it shrinks a bit and pops loose. And guess what? It worked :) I will go and look now though for blue painters tape since they say this is less sticky. So that is worth the experiment. All in all the model is done and I really like it. But again I found out that printing on a DIY 3D printer is not so easy as it looks. Ah well most important thing. It still works. Up to the next project.

VrayForC4D update on RenderFarm.NL

Last week I upgraded all the VrayForC4D installations on the render farm to version 1.8.1. This version is quite a major upgrade and is now based on the Vray 2.45 kernel. I am running this on C4D R13, R14 and R15 now on the farm.

If you are interested in running a job on my render farm then do contact me on michel@renderfarm.nl

New Website for Biz2Be

I showed you the Biz2Be 3D logo and 3D under construction page before, but now the website is finished. The customer selected the 3 pictures and I made the header graphic in Cinema 4D. I think the graphs complement the logo and general theme of the company. I made the rest of the website in Joomla 2.5 for the customer so that he can update the content himself. The website is hosted on a shared Joomla webserver at Virtiso. You can visit the website if you like at http://www.biz2be.nl. The customer did call me last week that he had a spontaneous potential customer already. Always nice to hear :)

First 3D Printer Output

Last time I promised to show you the first thing I outputted on the Velleman K8200 3D Printer. Well here it is. It is actually kind of a puzzle that you have to put together. It was originally designed for laser cutters to be made of wood or metal, but someone transformed this into an STL and put it on ThingiVerse. This site is filled up with nice projects, but I decided this would be a nice first test. So here is a picture with all the finished parts.

And this is what it looks like when you put it all together. It is actually a Tyrannosaurus Rex model. I think it looks quite neat. I printed it in transparent PLA and in thick layers that turns out to be a bit white. It is made with 50% infill and the nice thing is when there is light on it you can see the honeycomb structure inside. I think it is quite cool. Well this was the first print as I promised. A very decorative and non functional make :)

And here is another picture of it. I probably should have taken it from the other side, but I didn't think of that ;)

I did print a lot of other stuff in the mean time, but nothing is quite finished yet. I'm still very busy with other stuff and don't get to printing too much unfortunately.

I will try to update you all soon on that, but first things first. Work is taking up a lot of time at the moment.