József Lukács

A team at Budapest University has successfully created a functional injection mold for prototyping by using a Stratasys 3D printer.

Prototype injection molds are expensive. They are typically machined out of steel or aluminum which is both costly and time consuming, due to the complex geometries of most molds. [Dr. Jozsef Gabor Kovacs] works in the Department of Polymer Engineering at Budapest University, which is where he came up with the innovative approach of using 3D printing to produce a prototype mold.

The mold was printed in Digital ABS PolyJet Photopolymer plastic using a Objet Connex 3D printer. The injection material used was polyacetal; which has a fairly low melting point of 175°C. By using this method they were able to go from a prototype mold to a test part in less than 24 hours. We don’t even want to think about how expensive that would be to expedite from a machine shop.

After the break you can watch the entire production process from printing to molding.

[via adafruit]

University of Cambridge researchers Malcolm Burrows and Gregory Sutton recently discovered functioning gears in the legs of the Issus “Planthopper” insect. The gears, complete with teeth, synchronize the movement of the insect’s rear legs, allowing it to jump quickly and accurately. They are the only known interacting gears in an animal. The discovery was outlined in a research paper recently published in Science.

images via Malcolm Burrows

via Smithsonian Magazine

Late last year, [matseng] set up an interesting challenge for himself: design a new PCB every week, send it off to a fab house, and build a new project. It’s a grueling endeavor, but some of these projects are actually very useful and cool. One of the best so far is the TraId – a board that identifies a transistor type and pinout with a nice LED interface.

This build was partly inspired by Dangerous Prototypes’ Part Ninja, a board that determines the pinouts and values of transistors, resistors, caps, and diodes. The TraId is a much more cut down version usable only for transistors, displaying the orientation of the pins and type of transistor on a set of 8 LEDs.

Although the design is very sparse, we could imagine something like this being very useful in a hackerspace, lab, or anywhere else the gremlins of chaos come to reorganize parts drawers. If you’d like to build your own, all the required files are up on the gits.

@noirp: a kilépés jelenleg a “valószínűtlen, de nem lehetetlen” kategóriába tartozik. Akkor válhat reális veszéllyé, ha:

1 – Orbán nyer 2014-ben (nagyon valószínű)
2 – A második ciklusban a Fidesz fejére omlik az általuk elkúrt gazdaság (komoly esélye van, de ez függ a világgazdasági konjunktúrától is)
3 – Az életszínvonal akkorát zuhan ettől,hogy a tömegek a lámpavasakat kezdik méregetni.
4 – A Fidesz már csak nyíltan diktatorikus módszerekkel tudja fenntartani a hatalmát, de nem robban szét belülről (ez a legnagyobb kérdőjel)
5 – A fentiek folyományaként egyrészt magyar menekültek áradata indul meg nyugat felé, másrészt az Unió komoly retorziókat léptet életbe.

Ha mindez bekövetkezik (amire van esély, de nem biztos), akkor és csak akkor éri meg Orbánnak a kilépés.