Reprap Boston meetup in 2012?

Yesterday I tried to register on Meetup.com to make a reprap boston group. It costs $12 a month just to see if anyone else is interested! I figured I'll post here and see if there is anyone else in the area who is interested in 3d printing. I know that there are a few other threads with similar thoughts, but they are all really old.

If you are interested, and would like to get together, then Post here. If we have enough interest, then we will meet up in the real world.

In your reply, please state

do you have a 3d printer? if so, what kind?
are you building a printer? if so what kind?
are you interested in getting together to talk printing?
Do you know of a place we could hold such a meeting?

Feel free to add any other info that seems pertinent.

I look forward to meeting all of you
_Ross

Here goes my entry

I have a broken prusa and a makergear prusa kit on the way. I have built and operated a makerbot cupcake.
I would love to meet up with others, and hopefully help everyone have better-functioning machines!

I don't have a great space to meet, but I have one that is a half step up from a starbucks.

_Ross

Oh yeah, if you want to check out my latest progress. Go to my blog
[blog.tinyenormous.com]

Ok here is our post my son (Nicholas) and myself have combined a Darwin repstrap (one of the first that printed). A Prusa 2 and we are working
on 3 Ultimakers 2 regular sized and 1 4 ft by 3 ft.

We are in northwest RI but would love to come up to Boston..

Bruce Wattendorf

Hi from southern New Hampshire!

I'm currently calibrating a Prusa and constantly redesigning things... I have access to a Dimension printer and from that made all of the plastic parts for my Prusa. I'm a designer by trade using Inventor 2010 and look forward to printing things at home. Hope to get my son involved soon down in S Carolina.


Would love to get together with other enthusiasts!
Ross

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You don't need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

I do not have a printer yet but I am planning to build either a prusa2 or mendelmax. I am currently trying to decide between the two but the mendelmax plastic doesnt seem like it's available at the moment. I would be interested in meeting up.

I just got in touch with the nice people over at artisans asylum. They said that chances were pretty high that we could meet up over there, provided we did it on a friday. What does everyone think?

Before we get too specific on dates I woul like to know how many people could make it to Cambridge by say, 8 or 9 pm. If we get more than a handful, then let's go ahead and plan a date!

If you haven't checked out their site- they are really cool. It is the biggest hackerspace in Boston (Over 25,000 square ft.) they have a lot of metal and woodworking tools, welding gear, electronics benches, and a ton of like-minded people.

For the first meeting I would bring my mg prusa, anyone else have anything they want to share? The space has a dimension printer that I hope they have up and running by the time we get there.

_ross

ps here is artisans asylums website
[artisansasylum.com]

I would be interested in meeting up. I pre-ordered a printrbot+ and plan on using it to build another 3d printer

Hi Tiny,

Speaking only for myself, I would prefer a Saturday and earlier in the day (or morning). It sounds like half a dozen of us maybe (could be more) but we would fit nicely in a heated two-car garage. :-) Meeting up at 8pm plus the drive home would be a pretty late night for me. Just sayin.

I have a Prusa, still in calibration phase. I can bring it with me.

It might also be nice to put together a rough agenda. It sounds like a great time to share ideas, mods and tweaks to get things running well. Just meeting others with similar backgrounds and interests will be fun.

Thanks for putting this together.

Regards,

Ross

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You don't need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

I have my working Sells Mendel, I've printed parts for two Prusa Mendels (one for me to assemble as my 2nd/backup printer and another as a gift, but I'm waiting on the B.O.M. for the vitamins for those), and I still have an old broken MakerBot on loan from work (which I'll probably have returned by whenever we meet up). I'd be fine w/meeting up too. A friend of mine in the area also has a working Prusa Mendel.

When we've gone down to MakerFaire for the past two years, I've talked to Bruce and Nicholas, but didn't get a chance to meet others from the Boston group.

I agree that Saturday sounds like a better idea. Depending on how much space we need and when, I might be able to donate the use of my heated two-car garage in Methuen, MA.

..Jeff Keegan
[www.keegan.org]

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--Jeff Keegan (Just Another RepRap blog)

Ross,

Thanks for organizing a local meeting. I could make it on a Friday, and would like to see Artisans' Asylums new quarters anyhow. I'm unlikely to make it to a Saturday meeting, due to divorce/visitation issues. However, if my son is interested, we might be able to attend part of a Saturday meeting. If others were OK with it, I could also make it Sunday.

Unfortunately, my RepStrap materials and tools are currently hostage to my divorce, and I'm unlikely to see any of them anytime soon. ;-(
So, to get back into reprapping, I'd have to go in with somebody on a new repRap/Strap or start afresh (which is harder without most of my tools.)

Larry

Sundays usually work for me too.

..Jeff

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--Jeff Keegan (Just Another RepRap blog)

I can make Sundays work.

Ross

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You don't need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

Hi everyone,

I bought a Printrbot parts kit, through Kickstarter, that is supposed to be delivered in February. I'd love to meet other people involved in 3D printing. I live in Quincy, and there is a boathouse across the street that has meeting space, but it's not free. I will look into how much it is - maybe if it's cheap enough we could split the cost?

Hope to see you all soon, Ben

Greetings from the Manchester, NH area! I have a Makerbot Cupcake with a DC brutstruder. I've been gradually printing myself a Prusa, and I'm only a few parts away from having everything needed to breathe life into it.

Meeting some of the local reprapers and/or 3D printing scene could be fun. I can't offer any meeting location in my area, unfortunately.

Methuen is on the state line between MA and NH. It's about a 35 minute drive north of Boston.

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--Jeff Keegan (Just Another RepRap blog)

Greetings all,

This may be slightly off topic, but l think it's worth mentioning. IMHO, repRap is overdue to move from an 8-bit CPU to a 32-bit one, and can pick up significantly improved computation and I/O while doing so. Although the Arduino organization has announced a 32-bit, ARM (Cortex M3) based Arduino, the design isn't complete yet, and they're still unavailable. (The Raspberry-Pi is in a similar boat, although they just announced that they've begun production -- with an initial batch size aimed at 10,000 boards!!)

However, there is a *local* company, [www.leaflabs.com] that is already making multiple boards that run the Arduino GUI on the host, and use an ARM (again M3) cpu. There are also command line tools, for those that want C++ or straight C, instead of the somewhat limited Arduino language (though I haven't tried those yet.) I've used two of their products, the Maple board (Rev 5) and the Maple Mini, which fits into a solder-less breadboard.

Assuming I can make whatever our meeting day/time turns out to be, I could bring one of the Maple Minis, along with a protoboard and my laptop, and demonstrate some of it's improved features vs. the AVR-based Arduinos (faster, more I/O pins, better A2D speed and resolution.)

Note: I have no affiliation with leafLabs except as a satisfied customer (and they let me pick up my first Maple in person, saving shipping and about a week's worth of delay.)

For what it's worth, I can make either a Friday evening, or Sunday anytime meeting. IMHO, a Sunday meeting could run longer, and I think that's a benefit. Are we making any progress towards consensus on a day of the week?

Larry

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/2012 11:43PM by Larry_Pfeffer.

I am very new to 3d printing (only been reading and youtubing it) I would love to go to a meetup about these devices. I have been contemplating building one but to see it run before I commit would be amazing. If anyone wanted to meet up sooner shoot me a email kent.flowers@gmail.com

Larry: it seems like no one but me can do friday. So I think that rules out the artisans asylumn.
I can do a sunday. If Jeff and his garage are free, then let's start looking at dates!

Jeff: is the offer still on the table? If so what Sunday works best and second best for you? Also how much space ca we occupy? Ie should
People bring their machines, or just themselves?

I would bring my mg prusa and look forward to giving and getting some help. It might make sense to bring a few printed parts if you want to show what you are capable of doing, or what symptoms you are trying to correct.

I'm looking forward to meeting everyone.

Ross

Okay I talked to my wife, and I've got permission to host.

How does February 25th sound to people? (a Sunday). I could also do February 11th, but the 25th is preferable (but I'll defer if more people can make the 11th and can't do the 25th).

Instead of the garage we're going to clean up two-three of the big rooms in our house upstairs and set up some tables.

So maybe a good idea is to have people come over and bring a printer if they have one, set it up as soon as they get here, and just get them all printing. People who haven't seen them work can see them, and the rest of us get a RepRap day where we're motivated to print. We can all see what's different about each others', learn stuff ("How'd you mount that heated bed?"), see the differences between our tools (who's using which host software, firmware, etc).

People without printers should NOT come expecting someone to print a whole RepRap set for them, but maybe we print a bed of keychains or something.. (maybe even something with a RepRap Boston logo on it! )

I have my Sells Mendel, my friend Chris Connelly has a Prusa, both of which will definitely be there. Depending on whether I can figure out the bill of materials for vitamin parts for the Prusa2, I may assemble my Prusa2 by then as well. It'd be good to get an idea of how many people want to bring their printer, so I can make sure I have enough tables etc.

I'm thinking we start around 11am and then go until whenever? Order pizza, print throughout the afternoon, etc.

Who's in? RepRap Boston 2012!
..Jeff Keegan
[www.keegan.org]

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--Jeff Keegan (Just Another RepRap blog)

Oops, got the dates wrong. I meant Feb 26 or Feb 12! (Sundays)

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--Jeff Keegan (Just Another RepRap blog)

Jeff,

Thanks for your generous offer to host the meeting. I can make either of those two Sundays (though I can't do the one between 02/18.) No strong bias for one over the others; so I'll defer to those with tighter schedules.

Thanks again,

Larry

My vote is for the 26th!

Count me in either day. I'll bring my prussa.

Ross

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You don't need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

This sounds good enough to lure me off Cape Cod to the big city! If I have my printrbot kit by then I will bring it along, but mostly I expect to watch, learn, and contribute to the pizza fund.

Either works well for me. Since I am totally new to this would anyone care to meet up before then to show me their reprap. Im really hoping to hit the ground running in the next week or two (have one built or near built by the meet.) My email is kent.flowers@gmail.com

Where are you located, kent?

I am in waltham.

Okay let's cement the date: going with Sunday, February 26th 2012 for a RepRap Boston meetup at my house in Methuen, MA.

If you plan on attending, let me know so I can get a head count, plan ahead, etc.
When you let me know you're coming, mention whether you think you'll be bringing a printer (and maybe what type), so I can plan outlets, space, etc.
If you bring your printer, don't forget plastic, small tools you usually want when printing (pliers etc), and maybe bring something small to keep them in to keep your stuff from being mixed in with other people's.

It will start at 11am and go until let's say 5pm? We'll do some large pizza delivery order for lunch mid-day. If you're planning on bringing a printer, bring it at 11 - there will be an initial setup time where we're all getting things up and going, then we can have the machines printing during lunch etc.

..Jeff Keegan
[www.keegan.org]

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--Jeff Keegan (Just Another RepRap blog)

Count me in! I'll bring my Prusa Mendle. Can't wait!

Ross Freeman
Somersworth, NH

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You don't need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.