http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=72932&cat=1,43513
If you draw it up in cad im sure one of us can oblige.
Its the cad quite often thats the expensive bit in time and effort.
Well it is for me as ive been teaching myself the basics with only opensource software available.
Have you seen the licencing cost of professional software like solidworks?
Have we got any cad experts in the group?
Gordon
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I do 3D cad for a living. Gimme some dimensions to work to and I can model this no probs.
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Awesome! I shall measure my favourite tape measure (which may involve borrowing a tape measure…) and get back to you!
There’s a huge gap in my knowledge about 3D printing, and it doesn’t have anything to do with slicing or relaying the design from the computer to the printer; it has to do with how to get from the concept to the file that can be processed for printing. Assuming I start from a place which isn’t thingiverse and which uses shapes that aren’t in the libraries of Sketchup or whatever, i.e. not cubes, spheres or prisms, what do I do? I think it’s called 3D CAD, But without spending literally thousands on software and even more on training courses, is there a way to say, model a fried egg, and somehow get it to the point where it can be 3D printed. I assume not!!!
What I’d like is not for you to model this no probs, but to tell me exactly what I would have to do to model it myself. How can 3D printing take off if we all have to rely on people who do 3D CAD for a living? The whole point of the maker movement surely is not to have to rely on people who do 3D CAD for a living, and not to have you as the bottleneck in the processes we need in order to be creative. Of course it may be that the whole thing is a con, so you can get rich! When I figure out how to do this (I hope, with the help of fellow SLMS members) then that’s what I’ll document in a way I intend will move this thing forward. That’s really the reason I joined SLMS, and no slight intended to you, Tom.
Matthew check out:
It uses a haptic game controller to sculpt freeform creations from basic 3d geometric shapes.
We had a good chat with Ann Marie, the CEO, and I asked if we might get a deal on the software, as I already have one of the Novint Falcon controllers.
Have a look. I can follow up with Anarkik.
No offence taken 
There’s always going to be a learning curve of some sort - accurate 3D modeling is a technical business and there’s a limit to how friendly you can make typing numbers.
However, precisely because ive learnt how to do it the expensive traditional way, I’m probably the worst placed person to advise on the alternatives.
You just need to get your hands on one of the open source cad programs and play.
It seems for engineering stuff freecad and openscad are prefered.
For more organic modeling, yor fried egg, programs like blender work well.
Lots of online tutorials.
I can do basic stuff in openscad and freecad but then im more interested in mechanical designs than sculpted or organic stuff.
Gordon
My favourite tape measure is 71mm long and 35mm wide.
The blade bit in the middle that it hooks to needs to be 35mm high.
Thanks Tom!
Got to be branded with a nice big M.
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Hi
I thought I’d share my idea for a tape holder, I designed this to be in 2 parts as 3D printing has minimal strength for thin upright parts, as they can easily separate between layers. The parts are just bolted together with the nuts captive in the print.
I printed these on my own design for a 3D printer, a delta type.
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All parts in blue for this printer were printed on my first design of a 3D printer made in the traditional XYZ style. Its a bit basic but works quite well. Made from MDF, steel conduit and skateboard roller bearings.
Rgds
Andy
@richm - I made a start on this, but couldn’t find a satisfactory way of making the exact shape. I could model something much simpler, but as @Matthew_Stannard points out, it’s fun to learn! A simple tape holder would be an excellent first job for learning 3D cad…
