Adventures in space and time

Virtox products on Amazon.

Amazon just launched a 3d printing section together with Mixeelabs!
And they are featuring several Virtox products!

Braille Amazon
Create Your Printed Braille Bracelet and Ring

Check it out here!

Quark Amazon

And the Quark pendants and earrings


Check that out here!

Cheers!

Virtox wishes you Magical Holidays and a Fantastic New Year!

Virtox wishes you Magical Holidays and a Fantastic New Year!

LeWeb 2013

I was asked to talk at LeWeb2013 in Paris!

It was a fantastic experience and I met a lot of great people.

More later, but for now, my presentation:


Stijn van der Linden – Virtox – LeWeb2013 Paris – The Next 10 Years

Winter 2013/2014

Hi everyone,

Winter is coming..
So to keep you warm, this years seasonal highlights:

Winter 2013/2014

Winter2013

 

Cheers,

Stijn

We accept donations!

Julia Vase #011 - Heatwave by Virtox

Julia Vase #011 – Heatwave by Virtox

 

It is our great pleasure to share free design files for personal use to the AWESOME maker community on this globe.
And the continuing thanks we receive, really means the world to us!

However, since “thanks” is not yet a valid currency ๐Ÿ˜‰ we humbly ask:

Do you like/download or print one of our designs?
Then please consider a donation, any amount is welcome!

Paypal: donations@virtox.net
Bitcoin: 13h9PYZKmi9DbAKjEGhjJ7WbMFT4o7oNsr
Litecoin: LLSboRBxoYPpELAogHkGG19Mh8c7YZmxan
Flattr: https://flattr.com/profile/virtox
Bank/IBAN: NL19RABO0143055216

Fine print.
Donations do not give any rights for commercial use of our work.
And it does not change the CC license in any way, the designs are still only shared under CC-BY-NC-ND.
You will however gain my eternal gratitude for your support! ๐Ÿ™‚

Other options.
Donations not your thing? You can always show your support by buying something in my Shapeways Shop ๐Ÿ™‚

So, business that bad, huh?
Well not really, but once you start sharing designs for free personal use, there is no real control over what people do with them.
And we, as well as many other designers, have been suffering from continued commercial abuse of our works by various parties.
Our CC-BY-NC-ND models or prints have been sold, used in product and company advertising and promotions without permission and often even without attribution.
It takes a lot of time, money and effort to get these things sorted out and financial compensation seldom happens.

Commercial use.
For commercial use of any kind please contact us for licensing info and fees.
The commercial fees are very reasonable and allow us to produce more great designs for sharing.
Commercial use includes but is not limited to:

– Selling prints or pictures by either individuals or companies.
– Showing prints or pictures for promotional or advertisement purposes. (For example promotion of your filament, printer or service etc).

Sneak peak of the Winter 2013 collection.

I have been polishing old and new to get the Winter 2013 Collection ready in time.

Check out this pre-selection!

ย w2013

Re: Ultrafine Particle Emissions from Desktop 3D Printers

We will likely be flooded with posts about this:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231013005086
Not a great, but a decent initial study I think.
Butย  before the media hype impairs your judgment:

The main results of the article:
(removed references, those are in the full article)

“For comparison, our estimate of the total UFP emission rate for a single PLA-based 3D printer (1.9-2.0ร—1010 #/min) was similar to that reported during cooking with an electric frying pan (1.1-2.7ร—1010 #/min). The same 3D printer utilizing a higher temperature ABS feedstock had an emission rate estimate (1.8-2.0ร—1011 #/min) similar to that reported during grilling food on gas or electric stoves at low power (1.2-2.9ร—1011 #/min), but approximately an order of magnitude lower than gas or electric stoves operating at high power (1.2-3.4ร—1012 #/min). Regardless, the desktop 3D printers measured herein can all be classified as โ€œhigh emittersโ€ with UFP emission rates greater than 1010 particles per min”

And:

“One important limitation to this study is that we have no information about the chemical constituents of the UFPs emitted from either type of 3D printer, although condensation of synthetic organic vapors from the thermoplastic feedstocks are likely a large contributor. In addition to large differences in emission rates observed between PLA- and ABS-based 3D printers, there may also be differences in toxicity because of differences in chemical composition. As mentioned, thermaldecomposition products from ABS have been shown to have toxic effects; however, PLA is known for its biocompatibility and PLA nanoparticles are widely used in drug delivery .”

So please try to read the full article yourself and draw your own conclusions ๐Ÿ˜‰

Anyway, I never figured ABS fumes to be very safe, especially in cases of ABS gunk burning up on the nozzle.
PLA is of course a lot “safer” but I doubt it’s healthy when PLA gunk burns up at the nozzle.
And small amounts of plastic can create large amounts of fume/particles.

That said, I always advocate using printers in well ventilated rooms and/or use a filtered/ventilated enclosure for the printer itself.

 

Quark Jewelry

A couple of years ago, I realized the first part of this project “Quarks”.
A line of science inspired jewelry, bases on the intricate motion of sub-atomic particles in magnetic fields, such as visualized in bubble chambers:

9_quarkmvts

I simulated the motion of particles in magnetic fields and varied speeds, masses, charges and fields to create complex and elegant patterns.

Old Quarks

But I got myself into some trouble there, the plastic at the time was a bit boring, many variations were not printable in metals.

And I found only few to be really good enough, but then people wanted earrings, bigger, smaller etc.

I was just not set up for that kind of demand, so I moved on for a while.

Then a couple of months ago, I wanted to revive this and make it work better and this is when I stumbled upon MixeeLabs of MixeeMe fame.

It just so happens they were working on a platform that would allow artists and designers to easily create web-apps using JavaScript with the sole purpose of creating customizable 3d prints!
A match made in heaven ๐Ÿ˜€

And we are very proud that “Quark Jewelry” is one of the MixeeLabs launch projects!

Quark Jewelry! Make your own!

Quark New

Go check it out! Now! ๐Ÿ˜€

 

Turbulent week – Good things come in 3D’s!

Wow, what can I say, it has been a turbulent week indeed! Seems like good things still come in 3D’s!

Gyro the cube got featured
Earlier this week “Gyro the Cube” was featured in a round-up of
“10 3D printed objects that defy traditional manufacturing” over at 3dprinter.net.
Among nine other exquisite examples of 3d printing.

Amoraph won!
Then I got an email that one of my entries in the Figulo Ceramics challenge at GrabCAD had won!

Amoraph

I got featured!
And to top it off, I was really honored to be named in “A Showcase of Influential 3D Print Artists” over at Fabbaloo.com!

Showcase Virtox

Thanks!
Major thanks to Chris Waldo from Kraftwurx and 3dprinter.net + fabbaloo.com for featuring this!
Also to Andy Jeff from Figulo, Kaspar Klis from GrabCAD.
And as always, the dream-makers at Shapeways!

Wow what a week!

Gyro the Cube in the Wild

Gyro the Cube

A little over three years and leading a life of its own.

After the first trials in early 2009, with the final model published in March of that year, it spiked some interest among peers, which was pretty cool! Posting it on YouTube and showing it on a few fairs and trade shows, resulted in a wide variety of unexpected (and sometimes hilarious) responses:

   “My new favorite desktoy
   “That’s fake, that’s a time-lapse video!
   “Is that a real perpetual motion machine?

It took a while to break out of the 3d printing niche, but it slowly kept gaining in interest and to this day I see it pop up all over. But, I would never have guessed that it would be as inspiring and popular as it has been the last few years! Which (can’t help it) just makes me really proud of my little Gyro the Cube, they grow up so fast don’t they? ๐Ÿ™‚

It appears on blogs and blurbs by people who are happy to have bought or gotten it as present, which is very rewarding!

   “While smaller than I thought, it works exactly like it does in the video. Its going on my desk at work. The coolest thing about it is that it’s made on a 3d printer.
   Nerdy but Good at It

   “The Gyro Cube from Shapeways, one of our many amazing wedding gifts.
   365.25 on Tumbler

   “It is not only the objects themselves that fascinate,
   but also the fact that many of them really couldnโ€™t have been manufactured any other way.

   The Age of 3D / Letโ€™s Play!

The little guy even made it onto several television shows (argh, where are those links), with the help of the wonderful people at Shapeways. And it got a spot on their T-shirt! (bottom right)

It got a high ranking spot on Reddit’s “Shutup and take my money” twice and was sold in the 2011 Wired popup store on Times Square in New York!

I had been dreading the inevitable though…
Derivatives showing up on sites as Thingiverse but in the end it’s just a great honor ๐Ÿ™‚

First up was Scott Bruins, who posted an inspired by/variation on Grabcad as “Nested Spheres”. Followed by this one by Jason Knox, leading to something I have yet to fully figure out, a G-force simulator by Stefan Varga.
I had a good laugh when someone suggested to add some axles to those models to make it spin smoother.
(For the uninformed, the original has exactly this)
You just got to love digital re-evolution ๐Ÿ˜‰

And about three years after the initial release it also appeared on Thingiverse, first by ARTCad, an interesting variation with the axles moved to the ribs, which led to one of the coolest, a parametric version by whosawhatsis!

Which resulted in lots of home printed versions, in PLA and ABS(?). And the occasional failed print.

All in all, I would never have expected all this! Kudos and a big shout-out to all fans and contributors!

You rock!

Cheers,

Stijn
Virtox