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Meet Mitch Altman!!!!


Next Friday (July 6), Mitch Altman’s nationwide AMTRAK tour of hackerspaces rolls into Philadelphia, and Hive76 will be welcoming him in style. Stop by our space on Friday night for an free lecture and electronics hacking workshop officiated by Mitch himself.  There will be food, drink, merriment, and of course the opportunity to swap ideas and stories with a living legend in the DIY community.

If you haven’t followed Mitch Altman’s career, you probably still know of some of his very cool projects, like his TV-B-Gone remote, or his Brain Machine glasses, and his many cool articles for Make: Magazine. Despite the great commercial success of his inventions, Mitch helped pioneer the Open-Source Hardware movement by publicly refusing to patent his ideas, and continues to inspire the maker community by advocating the free exchange of DIY electronics knowledge.

Come by on Friday, July 6, as Mitch demos his latest inventions and kits, and leads a fun hacking workshop suitable for everyone from total novices to advanced solder-smiths! Its guaranteed to be a great time!

Date: July 6, 2012
Time: 6:00
Location: Hive76 (915 Spring Garden St.)
Price:  ADMISSION IS FREE! (kits for the workshop start around $10)

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Hackers on a Train

Our neighbors at Make Lehigh Valley are hosting Mitch Altman, Jimmie Rodgers, “and crew” (?) for a day of classes, workshops, and talks over at Hive 4A. Hackers on a Train sounds very exciting, and at only $35, it’s probably one of the cheapest ways you’ll get to meet such popular pirate-makers.

These three hours pack in just about everything you need to explore hobby electronics. As a workshop participant, you will learn the basics of Arduino, electronic components and how they interact. Then you will be instructed in soldering up Adafruit’s BoArduino kit. Your boarduino will be used to build a TV-B-Gone which will include learning to use a USB-to-serial ttl cable, the Arduino IDE, solderless breadboards and reading schematics to get their.

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RepRap with Aluminum Extrusions == WIN

Last Night We started the build of another one of these box-modded MendelMax printers. With extra hands we got the whole frame, the feet, all the motors, and a large number of brackets mounted and aligned in just a few hours. Even Morfin was surprised how quickly it all came together.

This design has already led to the design of the first printable upgrade: Compact Y-Rod holders. As you can see, this part was derived from MendelMax 1.0, 1.5, and some awesome rod clamps by Jonas Kuehling.

Now the build volume actually surpasses a MendelMax, sitting at 265x247x220 mm. And see how flat those 0.4mm printed layers are? That’s because this aluminum bot is super rigid, giving fast and accurate prints. Sweet!

If you can come up with a good name for this bot, I’d definitely appreciate it. Post in the comments if you feel inspired.

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Modified MendelMax RepRap Build starting Wednesday

Did you take Peejay’s Intro to Programming with Arduino class? You may have learned that Arduino’s are great for controlling 3D printers such as a RepRap.

Well, hot on the heels of our last RepRap MendelMax Build, I’ve been able to redesign the MendelMax to be a rigid rectangle… the upshot is the build volume is increased (especially in Z) without the footprint increasing. The build volume of this baby is 265x233x190 mm (or ~10″x9″x7.5″). The build assembly goes much faster, too.

Come on by Hive76 starting this Wednesday night to see or help put together another one. If you’ve been wondering about our upcoming 3D Printer Build and Operation Workshop with NextFab Studio, this is a great way to see what the fuss is all about.

Here’s a video of this box design Modified MendelMax printer on it’s first print. It’s been chugging along for a solid few days now, no problems so far. It’s printing so well, it’s time to build another one. Come join us!