#we would have known it was more than just the printer and the filament if we'd researched this earlier

[cappurrccino]

book binding 🤝 3d printing

being the hardest thing in the goddamn world to find information on when it comes to the supplies you need and how to care for/store them

[planterfulpieces]

What on earth is 3D printing?

That's... a big one. Sorry in advance. It also gets a little technical. Folx, if you want to chime in in the notes what we forgot or missed, have at it, just be polite. Discussion is great. Being a jerk is not.

So you know that we sell 3D print planters (and some other stuff coming out soon), but we saw a lot of comments in our first post introducing ourselves that were curious about what 3D printing was, if it was resin printing, and how it worked.

We also didn't realize our ask box wasn't turned on until we saw a note after the post was up for several hours. Sorry! It's open now if you have questions or comments or whatever. Just be polite.

Well. We are not experts. We're going to share our own experience and understanding of what 3D printing is, most common methods, and why we do the kind of 3D printing we do.

So.

What is 3D printing?

In its all-encompassing definition, 3D printing (also called additive manufacturing if you want to get STEM-y about it) is basically creating a 3D object using a digital 3D model. The programs engineers use, like Fusion360, AutoCAD, FreeCAD, and others? Yeah. Those. Exactly.

If you're an artist, don't despair, you can create models in Blender (or whatever 3D modeler you use) and work with those for 3D printing.

If you're us, who only started modeling a few months ago, you use the program geared for children and young adults, and that's TinkerCAD. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just limited in what it can do compared to other programs. The massive benefit is it's free and the learning curve is also much more gentle than the sheer cliff we ran face-first into trying to learn the CAD programs or Blender.

If anyone has good sources to learn them (esp with Blender's new updates) we would be happy to try them. Because as much as we love 3D printing, modeling still gives us a headache.

So that's the most basic definition of 3D printing.

So, what's the most COMMON form of 3D printing?

Well, we'd say there are two:

Resin printing. There's several different methods, but the most common today still is SLA, or stereolithography. Basically, a UV laser marks a cross-section of part of an object on a layer of liquid resin. When it's exposed to the UV light it's cured and solidifies. Another layer of resin is put down, the laser process is repeated, and it continues until an object is made. What's nice about it is it lets you get high detail in very small objects, like minis for Warhammer or other games. There's also Digital Light Processing (DLP), which is like SLA but uses digital projection to expose more parts of resin to light. It can cure an entire layer at once, instead of only part. If you see a Warhammer figurine being sold, or any miniature, especially stuff for DnD or other tabletop games, it's probably resin printed.

FDM (fused deposition modeling). It's also known as FFF, or fused filament fabrication). This is what you probably think of for 3D printers if you ever saw one, where things are printed in one tiny layer at a time where a heated print head is pushing out filament in layers on a build plate. FDM is more common for practical prints, like car parts or manufacturing pieces. To us it reminds us of icing a cake. You can print with stuff like carbon fiber and nylons or flexible material like TPU. FDM is good for prototyping and larger objects, like our planters (last product plug, we swear) to. You know.

Houses.

We use FDM printing.

Why?

Most everything we're going to make doesn't need the detail that a resin printer provides. The smallest, jewelry, still isn't to the level where we'd need a resin printer -- FDM printers work in fractions of milimeters, and resin printers can go even smaller. That's not necessary for us.

Everything we make is going to be larger prints, which means more material. Filament (which we'll explain in another post) costs less than resin.

Resin is more toxic than PLA filament, which is what we use. We can handle PLA filament spools without gloves or protective goggles. Resin? Absolutely not. They ARE making plant-based resin which is less irritating, but we have no experience with it. If you do, chime in in the comments.

Resin involves cure time. You also have to wash your print after. That can add to the process time too.

So that's the extreme basics of what 3D printing is, the two most common types, and why we do FDM printing. We hope you found it helpful! We're going to try to make this a series to explain more about 3D printing in general so it's less mysterious for non-printers. What do you want us to talk about next? Let us know! Like...what different materials you can print with? What are they made of? Maybe some example pictures with different finishes? Would that be interesting? We'd love to hear from you. And we look forward to seeing the comments in the notes/tags! We couldn't go as in-depth as we wanted without turning it into a novel, so have at it in the notes. We can't wait to follow the discussion!

We're Planterful Pieces, a small business focused on offering made-to-print products that cater to the planty people of the world, whether that means you OWN plants or simply just LOVE nature. We also want to share with you all cool designs that aren't easily accessible to people who DON'T 3D print, and there's a LOT!

If you're not interested in our planters but ARE interested in future products, like our upcoming art collection, jewelry, and more, subscribe to our email newsletter on our website here (you'll have to scroll down a little). We promise we'll only email you once a month with sneak peeks, product updates, deals, or if there's an upcoming launch. Frankly, we don't have time to spam you with emails, since we'd rather be designing and printing.

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TikTok (We're bad at this but will be working on it)

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Thanks for reading!

(PS: We haven't forgotten about those interested in international shipping! If you sign up on the newsletter we can let you know as soon as it's available! We'll make posts here of course and our other socials but that's always hit or miss. This way it goes right in your inbox.)

[mymisguidedfairytale]

[fanfiction] Hunter x Hunter - ORCHiDELiRiUM

Title: ORCHiDELiRiUM Word Count: 14,390 words Pairing: Cluck x Kanzai Summary: ORCHiDELiRiUM: the name given to a period of time where the acquisition and discovery of rare orchid plants reached a fever pitch among the collectors and enthusiasts of the wealthy and titled. None were prized more highly than the rare Black Orchid, native to a small republic whose only access point was severed by a tremendous rockslide during the plant’s last cyclic bloom nearly seven years ago. Professional Botanical Hunter Cluck is contracted to not only recover a specimen of the rare flower, but protect it from any and all intruders. She is more than up for the first task, but for the second, she enlists the help of her colleague Kanzai, and the two find themselves battling mafia legions, the strangely misanthropic people of the once-isolated nation, and a living forest in pursuit of their prize. A/N: Written for the Hunter x Hunter Big Bang 2018 Challenge. Takes place an indeterminate amount of time pre-canon. Huge thanks to awitchyghost who will be doing some lovely art for this story! I hope you enjoy! [FF.net] [Ao3]

ORCHiDELiRiUM

Cluck stares across the flat, nearly empty surface of her desk. Not at her own, impeccably-ordered files and the thin stack of leaflets one of the secretaries had dropped off earlier with the latest updates from the various committees for her to review before she left Swaldani City for any personal business. Her desk forms a co-working space with those of three of the other members of the Zodiac Twelve, and her gaze is affixed firmly towards Saiyuu's desk.

And the plastic, purple plant that rests in an almost equally insulting ceramic vase. It has two ugly, perfectly uniform leaves, and a dusting of uneven white paint along the tip of the clustered petals.

Behind her, along the wall, the printer beeps as it continues to slowly churn out papers for her. She taps manicured fingernails along to its rhythm, before groaning and swiveling in circles in her desk chair.

Across the room, Kanzai walks in. He gives a half-hearted wave, before jerking one thumb back towards the hallway.

“The office up front just got a power stapler,” he says, moving to the cubbies on the far wall and grabbing the safety-cone-colored knapsack from inside. “Piyon and I have been seeing how far we can make it fly.”

“Stop terrorizing the secretaries,” she answers automatically before turning back to her papers.

“We're not! It's a competition.”

He sounds defensive, and she looks up, watching him as the printer makes an ungodly series of electronic screeches. “You're Pro Hunters, and you're losing?”

“What? No!”

“Just you then. Better redeem yourself by lunchtime.” Cluck reaches out to poke one plastic petal with a pen. If it was real, a petal would have fallen, or a leaf. It would grow or shrivel and die. And it's insulting her personally.

“Round Two will see a weather change,” he says, and makes a few punches in the air for emphasis.

“Don't lose more of your money,” she cautions. “You know you'll get taken for every cent you wager.”

“See you at the meeting.” He's gone, and he leaves the door cracked open, too. The worst.

The printer screeches again, and on the next three sheets the ink is increasingly transparent. She shouts after him, “Don't be late!”

He's late, by a good five minutes, but Pariston is late by ten and gets the full force of the room's blame. There's a variety of things on the docket today, mostly involving minor adjustments, financial proposals, and seasonal updates from some of the more significant committees. The Exam Committee's scouting for representatives, and after volunteering to coordinate one of the phases once , years ago, now when they want involvement among the Zodiacs they look at her. She makes sure to be looking at her phone during the entire report, first scrolling idly and then looking for something more serious among her apps and news sites to make the distraction useful.

So she happens to be checking her email in the middle of one of Beans's presentations. Cheadle is giving her a glare strong enough to melt a glacier, but if there's someone who more accurately embodies all bark, no bite it's the Dog of the Zodiac Twelve. In her professional account are a slew of unread contract proposals—one asking her to give a concert of L'equivoco , like she'd come out of retirement for some new money heir's birthday party—and a second wanting her aide in tracking a series of near-endangered swanbill sighted outside their Yorubian nature preserve. She purses her lips. Probably collectors, from the extremely high numbers quoted in the proposal. The third is from the Razing Society of Arboreal Enrichment , and reads like an amateur academic's exercise in garrulousness.

Surely our esteemed organization needs no introduction, as you may recall both our winning contribution to the Southern Continental's horticulture competition some years ago, upsetting the Federation of Ochima's five-year winning streak, and our meeting at the same event—

Cluck doesn't remember this.

— As you well know, the many prides of the Republic of Razing include its Endeløs Forest, which has provided its citizens with medicinal herbs, flowers, and gourmet fungi of the highest quality and provenance. With the completion of the tunnel restoration project, access to the city center has been reestablished as of this year. The limited resources of the Razing Department of Public Safety have left a void of preparedness in our anticipation of the Black Orchid's returning bloom cycle. We expect a wave of visitors who will want to experience this legendary event, and while we do of course encourage education of the masses we wish to restrict access to both the Forest and the plants to professionals. As one of the foremost Botanical Hunters, you will be able to recover a specimen for our study and ensure its protection in the wild. The city has already seen an increase in numbers and lodging is thin. We can ensure you a place to stay while you work and access to transportation and the best of our equipment and research staff if you require it, although we are sure someone of your caliber and experience would hardly deign to accept our organization's principium. Anyone would leap at the chance to view this once-in-a-lifetime event, and even without our offer you have most likely already made plans to visit our republic and view the Black Orchid for yourself. We await your response. Our office is open Mondays only from 3-5pm.

Cluck's eyes begin to water. She reads the message a second time, and still can't quite figure out what it is these people actually want her to do.

Then she's called on for her opinions on their current debate, and Cluck forgets about any of her contracts—and Pariston gets to repeat his speech on the profits from the Association's current real estate holdings, to his delight.

After the votes are in and they are all dismissed, she dawdles in the office once more, staring at a folder of everything one of the secretaries had been able to acquire on the status of the Republic of Razing. There are very few countries that have had no Hunters to represent them, and this is one of those.

She also wracks her memories for a trade show held across the various states of the Southern Continent, and recalls that the Republic of Ochima has won it every year except one where they were unable to attend—due to catastrophic weather, and a tiny unacknowledged nation had taken the top prize. This was years ago, at least seven, and would have been when she was in deep pursuit of a Star for her license and throwing herself into every bit of study and experimentation. Such shows were a great way to network and hear lectures from top researchers and university professors. And they were useful for reconnecting with old colleagues, and for providing free meals and free drinks to celebrity guests. Huh. Maybe there was a reason she didn't remember much.

The Republic was, in a word, isolated. Located in the exact middle of a ringlike group of mountains, the city-state had a small population and wasn't known for anything in particular beyond the peculiar circumstances of their existence. There was one tunnel, bored through the mountains, for access, and it had been destroyed in an accident—she checks her notes—about the same time ago. They'd used helicopters and had air-drops for supplies they couldn't grow or manufacture themselves, but overwhelmingly the entire country had been separated from the outside world for all that time.

She's still in the office hours later, her interest growing, reading through more research and investigating the mysterious Black Orchid the Society representative had mentioned. There are sketches of it, drawn by the late, famed naturalist Laudubon, and as a Botanical Hunter Cluck is well-versed in the history of orchid collecting and exhibition. It had hit a craze, when the world was beginning to be connected by airship and media and many new species had been discovered all at once, each more intricate and uncommon than the last. There had been the honey orchid, peacock orchid, and the strangely-gimmicky disco orchid, named for its apparent propensity to glitter under any movement or light. But the rarest, and the one that had fetched the highest prices, came from a forest in the very same mountain range of this country, the Black Orchid. In the sketch, the orchid's petals are a deep and glossy black, and of such perfect symmetry and balance, without flaw or blemish. The perfect curl to the edges, the perfect drape of the filaments. She can feel her very soul being drawn into the flowers.

And that was only a portrait. What must the real thing be like?

She understands the desire those individuals must have felt, bidding at auctions in the hundreds of thousands of jenni, for the chance to own those flowers. Airship travel to the region is largely inexpensive, and she hovers over the website with tickets in her cart. She has no major obligations for the next few weeks. It's been relatively uneventful around Swaldani City and the Hunter Association, almost to the point of suspicion.

She glances up to see Kanzai peering over her shoulder, nose scrunched up.

“What are you looking to travel all the way out there for?”

She jumps, spinning around in her chair and reaching out to smack him on instinct. “Kanzai! You shouldn't sneak up on people!”

“I wasn't sneaking. I didn't even use Zetsu .” He drops his shoulders in apology, and rubs his arm as if her punch had done anything at all. He moves to Saiyuu's desk and sinks into a chair. “You're just distracted. Don't tell me another Hunter went missing?”

“No. I'm looking into something for work.” Not that she's officially accepted the contract yet, and not that this Society even seems to want to admit they need her help at all. “How about you? Got anything coming up?”

“Assignment fell through,” he says, kicking his feet up on the edge of his desk. Cluck eyes his sneakers with distaste. “Still, they paid my fee. Can't argue with that.”

She gets an idea, a bright spot in a sea of monotony and solitude. The thought that she could share the brilliance of that sketch in reality with her closest friend. “So you're free. To come work with me, travel a bit. If you wanted.”

“If I wanted to travel to the boondocks with you? But I don't want that.” The edge of his mouth lifts into a scowl, and it twists the tattoos across his upper cheeks. “How much are they paying?”

Her face twists as she remembers the line of the contract that detailed her fee. It was in line with what she believed the country could afford, but hardly in keeping with her level of experience. “The work is its own reward, or something.”

“That's even worse .” He watches as she adjusts her purchase to include a second ticket. “I'm a bodyguard , not a—” And he waves his hand in her direction, as if to encompass everything in Cluck's varied portfolio. Musician, Scientist, Birdkeeper. “I won't be much help to you, unless what you're doing is really that dangerous.”

“I think it could be. Have you ever guarded an object?” she asks.

“Once I was hired to transport a painting. The convoy was attacked. Too bad for the thieves.”

“Which painting?”

“Don't know. I didn't look.”

“You didn't look? ” The strangled croak in her throat grows louder when she remembers with vivid clarity what that assignment had been. It was rare that the Southernpeace Auction even got such masterpieces, and those who could afford them could also afford the best protection detail. “That was a Nonet , Kanzai! A Nonet! His last completed work!”

He gnashes his pointed teeth. “I have no idea who that is!”

“Well, do you want a job or not?” She shouts back, matching his pitch. “I could use the help. I have a lot of ground to cover.” She laughs to herself at the unintentional joke, her mood shifting in an instant.

He sighs, glancing away. “I want to keep you safe. Well, what are you Hunting? Don't keep me in suspense. You know how much I love a good surprise.”

“I'm Hunting a plant,” she says.

A pause. “You've got to be kidding me.”

“I'm not,” she says. “And we're not going to the boondocks. We're going to the mountains .”

–

Despite the elevation, the climate is mild, but the skies are thick with clouds and a light rain begins to fall the moment they leave the airfield. Anticipating fieldwork, she's retired her typical outfit for a strapless romper in the same blue shades and a matching jacket with a thick line of white fur trimming the hood and sleeves. The airship could only take them so far, to a city on the other side of the mountains, where the single road would take them into Razing and towards her mission. So it was that Cluck and Kanzai were seated shoulder to shoulder in the front of a retrofitted utility vehicle being driven by one of the country's native sons.

“So,” Cluck says, staring out the window at rows upon rows of identical-looking trees, leading to an eerily uniform bank of mountainside. “Do you want to put on any music?”

“No.” The driver doesn't even acknowledge her, and she spends a few moments studying his face—brown hair, a thin mustache but otherwise clean shaven, and dark, plain clothes. Young, too—younger than she is, and he would be boring if he wasn't so interesting.

She tries again. “So, what do you like to do around here for fun?”

“I go driving,” he says. Beside her, Kanzai muffles a snort into one arm.

“Yeah? Well let's open this thing up, see what it can do,” Cluck suggests. The vehicle continues on at a safe, respectable fifty-five.

“No.”

She breathes in, counts to five. She is a professional, and while she has no problem being blunt around her colleagues, belligerence around strangers would probably not be very well received.

Cluck eyes the driver again. Probably.

“Is there anything you'd recommend we do, you know, as tourists? Anywhere we should go? Anything we shouldn't do? We want to blend in.”

The driver inclines his head for a moment, to look at her. “That is impossible.”

Cluck's vision goes red for a moment. “ Okay, first off— ”

“We have not had any tourists in almost a decade. Therefore there would not be anything to publicize, as those of us who live here have already seen it all,” he says, and Cluck deflates.

“And how do you feel about that?” It's Kanzai, speaking for the first time since their drive started. He'd been quiet for the majority of their trip, but Cluck is able to read his moods after spending so much time together. When he complains, it is more performative than purposeful, and he has remained by her side, handling whatever details come up regarding security and their equipment with deep consideration. He hasn't cared about how to use the scientific instruments and collection vials and components in her bags, but he handles them with a delicacy she finds heartwarming.

The driver takes a moment to consider the question. “It is better this way.”

And like that, her mood sours again. They pass through the tunnel—it spans a distance of ten miles, and is in itself a marvel of architecture. It would probably have seen more media coverage, Cluck thinks, if the people connected to it were the least bit sociable.

The driver leaves them at their hotel, a government-owned building that used to host international diplomats before being repurposed in-part into a storage facility. The rooms are small and bleak and the décor looks like it came from a period film set more than thirty years ago.

“I'm starving,” Cluck tells Kanzai. “Let's go for a walk, see if we can find something.”

They take a street at random. Only a few blocks outside the city center the buildings change dramatically, from older brick structures set close together to dated-looking strip malls with a wild assortment of tenants, from fashion marts to hardware stores and individual stores for bakeries and butchers instead of one combined grocer. Each intersection is so unremarkable that Cluck has to remind herself, yet again, that this place has been essentially frozen in time.

Cluck squints to read the signs of the stores in one such center. “I think that one's a restaurant? No, never mind. Cheese store.”

“What about that one?”

Cluck follows Kanzai's outstretched hand to a storefront with more than a dozen cars parked out front. “Liquor store. Maybe later.”

The next block sees another strip center, set even further back from the street. Weeds sprout through the cracks in the pavement of the parking lot and as they make their way closer Cluck can see a tiny restaurant tucked in the very far corner.

“There!” She points, before grabbing Kanzai's shoulders and turning him towards the flickering neon sign. “Food!”

The parking lot is mostly empty—there are no cars in front of the restaurant or the laundromat next door, but the lights are on inside and Cluck can see movement past the vertical blinds behind the front window. The door had a placard matching the neon sign that read Jordel's Restaurant .

Cluck opens the deceptively heavy door and slips inside, not even waiting for assistance before grabbing a menu off the hostess stand. She flips through it—it's in the local language, but she can recognize a few words after spending the airship flight with a language primer, and decides that at this point she's too hungry to care whether everything is boiled or covered in unidentifiable gravy, and tries to wave over a server. There's only one visible, a man currently pouring water for one of the other tables.

“Hey, this place must be pretty good,” Cluck says, her eyes sweeping the restaurant. “Look how many tables are full.”

While the tables in the front, sized for couples, are empty, the tables in the back have been shoved together and are full of men in suits, eating quietly. The restaurant itself is plain, with a few framed photographs on the white walls and dated brass fixtures. Finally, the server makes their way over to the front, and Cluck waves her hands at one of the empty tables.

“Hey, can we have that one?” she asks, gesturing with the menu. “And can you show me where the drinks are in this thing?”

The nervous-looking server leads them over to a table and Cluck makes a show of throwing her jacket over the back of her chair before sitting down. With the server's help she picks out a red wine and a bunch of dishes for them to share, and tries a number of different ways to cross her legs to get comfortable in the narrow wooden chairs.

“Hey, relax a little,” she tells Kanzai. “There's no reason we can't enjoy ourselves a little bit while we're here. If that's possible.”

He's quiet, and Cluck drops her chin into her palm. “I know you don't like the rain—”

“It's not that,” he says quickly. “Maybe just keep your voice down.”

“Why?” The drinks arrive, along with a loaf of soft bread, and Cluck busies herself with tearing it into small pieces before eating. “We've got to go over our plans. I was gonna call the people at the Arboreal Society, tell them we've arrived, and arrange transportation to the forests.”

Kanzai makes a pained face, the markings on his face curving more the deeper his grimace. “Cluck—”

“I'm hoping they can give us some maps. I feel lost here already.” She takes a deep drag from her drink. “Not having a car of our own sucks.”

“ Cluck .”

“If we can find a few bulbs it'll be even better. I'd hate to have to transport a fully-bloomed orchid. They're so delicate, and I imagine this one'll be even more so.” She speaks around a mouthful of bread, the words muffled.

“I've been studying the weather and what I can find from the last time the Black Orchid bloomed,” she continues, gesturing with a piece of bread. “There aren't many resources. No one documented this, it was essentially a free-for-all. My research shows that the bloom is actually going to come early. So it's lucky we're here now, before anyone else gets involved.”

Kanzai tries to shush her again, but before he can say anything more the waiter returns, carrying platters of vegetables, lamb, and crispy whole fishes. Cluck pokes one of them with her fork before digging in.

“Hey, this is actually really good.” She chews thoughtfully. “Hey, Kanzai, you're still bristling. Eat up.”

“I am not bristling .” His shoulders are raised and his hair is spiky from the rain, and Cluck narrows her eyes and points her fork at him.

“Eat your fish,” she says.

“ You eat your fish,” he grumbles, before snagging one and beginning to saw into it with his knife. Cluck looks up to see a few of the men in suits watching them, and gives a little wave in return.

“ Cluck , don't,” Kanzai repeats. A bit of fish falls off his fork. One of the men at the farthest table stands up and begins to walk over. He can see the server start to clear everyone's plates.

“My friends!” The man has a deep accent, same as their driver. “I can't help but notice you must be new here. Are you enjoying yourselves?”

“The food's great.” Cluck is all smiles, still chewing. Kanzai casts a serious look down at their plates.

“I couldn't help but overhear something. You are interested in the forests surrounding this city, yes? You are...scientists, perhaps? Not tourists?”

“We're Hunters,” Cluck answers proudly, and Kanzai's palm makes contact with his forehead.

“ Hunters , really.” He turns and says something to one of the others in their native language, and the other shouts back a few words. The man's expression never changes, as implacable as the black suit stretched across his shoulders.

“There is someone here I think you should meet—”

“—Thanks,” Kanzai interrupts. “Now if you don't mind, we really need to get back to our meal—”

“Nonsense. We have a great deal in common, you and I,” he says. “We also have interest in this orkidé you mentioned. We would be delighted to hear more of what you have to say.”

Cluck opens and then closes her mouth. Kanzai can almost see the wheels turning as she begins to put together the pieces. Then, she speaks.

“Sorry,” she says. “I don't work with others.”

Kanzai feels a twitch in-between his eyebrows. Cluck has never sounded less convincing.

“Then who is this?” The man asks. “Your housecat?”

Kanzai stands, abruptly, and at once every suited man pulls a weapon from inside their jackets. The implacable one merely claps a hand onto Kanzai's shoulder—an intimidation tactic, meant to bully him into compliance, as the man is nearly a foot taller than Kanzai—and begins to push him further into the restaurant.

“Cluck, just say the word,” he says.

“No, I want to hear what they have to say.” She stands as well, and collects her jacket, draping it over one arm and shaking it to get crumbs off the sleeves. “Maybe they know something we don't.”

“Come, come.” The man gestures again. “There is a room in the back where our boss is eating. He would very much like to meet you. Nikolaus will take you.”

“And you are?” Kanzai still glowers, even after the man steps back, putting his body squarely in front of the door. As he moves Kanzai can see the holster hidden under his jacket.

“I am Mikkel,” he answers.

A young, timid looking man approaches in a too-large suit, and leads them towards a doorway in the back covered by a curtain of patterned orange polyester. He keeps his distance, and when Kanzai cracks a muscle in his neck for fun the man jumps back even further.

Beyond the curtain is a large space much more ornately designed than the main dining room—which still isn't much of a compliment, considering the overly stylized molding on the tops of the walls and baseboards, and the sprawling wooden chairs and tables, inlaid to excess with lighter wood. The wallpaper is gold and striped, and Kanzai looks down at his own shirt and feels a little put-off by the comparison.

“Malk, these are the Hunters here to see you,” Nikolaus says.

The large, older man at the head of the table rises and adjusts the glasses perched on the edge of his nose. He extends a hand covered in rings towards Cluck and Kanzai. Neither make any immediate motion to shake it; Cluck glances down at the oversized jacket in her hands and makes a show of trying to adjust it to free a hand. After a moment, the man straightens his back and drops his hand, all pretense of politeness disappearing.

“Hunters. How curious. You may call me Mr. Content. I am the leader of the mafia here in Razing. You will tell me what I need to know.” He says the word Hunters slowly, and with a reverence and distance that makes Cluck for a moment wonder if he even knows what that means.

Then she holds up a hand. “Wait a second. Is your name really Malk Content?”

“Yes. Is there a problem?”

She drops her shoulders in an articulated shrug. “Well, that just seems lazy.”

He slams one giant fist into the tabletop. “Tell me what you learned about the Black Orchid !” His pronunciation is slightly different, using the words in his native language, and when he snarls to the men at his left and right it becomes impossible for Kanzai to understand further.

“We're not tellin' you squat,” he says, and watches the man's face grow red.

Kanzai turns towards her. “Hey, Cluck, I don't think they know anything.”

“And here I was hoping they had access to some kind of mapping software, satellites, something that would better pinpoint their location. They only grow in soil with a specific acidity, you know.” Cluck shrugs again.

“And how do you know that?” Mr. Content says, pulling a knife from inside his jacket.

Cluck could have gone into detail about how the sketches of the flower had all shown the same deeply red soil, and how first-person accounts had shown that specimens stored with soil from the area lasted twice as long as those that had been replanted, and although all remnants of flowers from the last bloom cycle are long dead and disappeared, examples of the soil are still around and Cluck was able to contact a lab outside of Yorkshin for the detailed summary of the soil composition. She doesn't say this, however.

“Cause I'm a Hunter! And we know everything!” She jabs a finger forward, before sweeping it around the room, turning to each gunman in turn. “And we're bulletproof! So you better put those things away!”

About half of the gunmen draw back, visibly unsure. She decides to roll with it, and points instead at Kanzai. “And this one's crazy! ”

He turns towards her, his face drawn up, his eyebrows twitching. “What the hell's your problem?”

Mr. Content steps back, behind the others, adjusting his knife in a stance meant more for protection than offense. “Gentlemen, by your leave. Best not to have them getting in our way in the forests. Take them into secure custody.”

The first man clicks off his safety, and Cluck is running backwards, aura rushing to hands as she grabs the gigantic wooden table and flips it forward, onto its edge. Gunshots ring out, piercing the wood but not passing through. Kanzai ducks in beside her; he does not even need to crouch to get full cover.

Cluck's astonishment grows as more gunshots ring out. There's the curtained entrance back to the main dining room, and a separate closed door she recalled behind where their leader was standing. No windows, and she doesn't much relish the thought of having to work their way through an entire roomfull of guards, no matter which way they go.

There's a moment of silence before they can hear the clicking sounds of the guards reloading. Kanzai elbows her in the side. “Hey, what's with that face? You got a plan?”

“What? No! I didn't think they had any ammo. With the tunnel closed, how would they have gotten any resupplies? I thought they were just carrying around those guns, you know, for tradition. For the look.”

His scowl deepens. “So no plan, then.”

“We could roll the table. Use it for cover.” Cluck gives it an experimental roll, hanging on to the cross-bars at the table's base. It's more oval than round, and nearly topples from the effort. “Or maybe not. Batter up?”

Cluck watches Kanzai rolls one shoulder back, the aura coalescing in her eyes with Gyo as he conjures a baseball bat into his hands. This one is different than she remembers—it looks longer and lighter, and has a giant letter F in the middle of the grained wood. She makes a face.

“It's a practice bat,” he explains, noticing her staring. “Like I'd treat any of these suckers to Ash or Maple.”

“I'll be right behind you.” As they run out, the gunmen resume shooting, and Kanzai angles the bat in a wide arc, ricocheting the bullets like he's returning a four-seam fastball. Cluck keeps her body shrouded in aura in case any stray bullets get past Kanzai's batting stance—unlikely—but as they run back into the main dining room they are greeted with another dozen suits with a variety of weapons from antique-looking revolvers and modern pistols to curved knives and wooden truncheons pointed straight at them.

“Hey, I think that guy has a tazer,” Cluck says. Kanzai looks to her, then at her empty hands.

“You didn't bring a weapon ?” he shouts, and they are under fire again, switching sides and letting him take point as he sweeps away the bullets, sending them harmlessly into the far wall. “Well, find something!”

Cluck begins searching the tables for something to throw, but they've been cleared of all plates, all cutlery, and all glassware. There isn't even a spare wine bottle to use as a club. “See? I told you this was a good restaurant.”

“What?” Distracted, a bullet whizzes past, slicing the sleeve of his uniform. “Cluck, we've gotta go!”

Without any better options, Cluck grabs the white tablecloth off of the largest table, whipping it into a circle and throwing it over the heads of the advancing mafia gunmen. Then they run, out the door—and there's a bell over it, chiming their escape, and isn't that great—before they find themselves once more in the nearly-empty parking lot, running across the pavement and down the street as fast as their Nen -powered legs can take them.

“Got a plan now?” Kanzai shouts, holding the bat to his chest as he runs.

“Working on it!” Cluck casts a glance back—they aren't being followed, for now, and she's about to ask whether they're even running the right way or not when a car pulls up beside them with a screech.

“Quick! Get in!”

Kanzai swivels in place, bat raised to swing, when the driver instinctively lets out a scream.

“Hey,” Cluck says, “You're that kid that was with them. You brought us to the boss.” She snaps her fingers, trying to remember his name.

“It's Nikolaus. And quick, get in before they see us.” He unlocks the doors, and begins winding up the front window—Cluck can already feel her lip curling at that, as the car is one of those models she'd thought gone out of style with bell sleeves and the bubonic plague—but she pulls open the back door and turns to Kanzai.

“I think we can trust him. As nervous as he looked earlier, he looks downright terrified of us.”

“And we don't have any other options,” Kanzai finishes. Cluck shrugs in agreement, before sliding inside.

The moment the door closes, Nikolaus speeds away. The inside of the car is nicer than Cluck expects, and she props her feet up on the middle console.

“Hey, I bet you're a driver for the Mafia, aren't you?” she asks. “Is this even your car?”

“No, and don't do that!” He tries to brush her away, but Cluck only shifts to catch his eye in the rearview mirror. Beside her, squashed against the door, Kanzai sighs; the moment he removes his hands from the bat, it disappears.

The car nearly swerves of the road. “How did you do that?”

“Hey! Focus!” Cluck points forward, grabbing onto Kanzai with her other hand for support. The car rights itself, all passengers grumbling, and Kanzai reaches for the seatbelt.

“Kanzai, how did you know they were Mafia? You could've told me.” Cluck pouts, leaning back. The feathers in her hair are getting in his face.

“It was obvious. You're just dense,” he says. “At least the food wasn't poisoned. I can tell these things.”

“I know. You have an extremely sensitive palate.”

“Don't insult me!”

“Hey, hey!” Cluck shouts at Nikolaus, who's continued to hold the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grasp. “Where are you taking us, anyway?”

“Your hotel isn't safe. I thought we could lay low at one of the safehouses I know. No one would be looking for you there,” Nikolaus says.

With every twist and turn of the car, taking them further away from the city center, Kanzai does his best to keep a close guide on their path, just in case. “And why are you helping us?”

They come to a stop at a red light, and Nikolaus turns around to look at them. “Well, you're Hunters, right? They're the greatest of the great! They're like superheroes! Surely you're more powerful than the mafia here. They've kept the country under their thumb ever since the collapse of the tunnel—and it wasn't just the roads that broke. It was the media cables, the water lines, power lines—they said they could get them working again, and they did. But it came with a cost. They own everything around here. They're in control. There's no options for me. And I'd really like to get out of this place.”

“The light is green,” Kanzai says.

“So you help us, and we help you.” Cluck taps her fingers against her chin. “We can do that.”

“What?” Kanzai swivels between the two, the caution in his expression even further exaggerated. “We don't need help!”

Cluck rolls her eyes. “I asked you for help, didn't I?”

“That's different! You needed a bodyguard! What is it that this guy can do for us that your contacts can't?”

“At the Arboreal Society?” Cluck pulls out her phone, scrolling to find their number. “I tried calling when we landed, but got an answering machine.”

“Oh,” Nikolaus says, “they're probably Mafia, too. Maybe they wanted to get a professional here to help them recover a specimen of the orchid—they've been searching all this time, for any sign of it, to no effect. We've been combing the forests for weeks.”

“ Weeks !”

“Hey,” Cluck interjects, “do you have access to a map of the forests? Of the surrounding areas? Because of the mountains, I couldn't get any kind of satellite imaging of this place. Something about the geography or the minerals in the ground throws off most electronics.”

Kanzai continues spluttering. “It's a plant !”

“And I can't wait for you to see it!” Cluck snaps. “I want you to see it! I want to share this part of my life with you! You...ungrateful cretin!”

In the rearview mirror, Nikolaus looks away quickly. At the next light, the thick silence in the car is cut by the loud, foreign hip-hop music blaring from the car stopped beside theirs.

“Yeah, I should be able to get you a map,” Nikolaus says after another minute. Cluck maintains a frosty silence, crossing her arms and pulling up the edges of her fur-trimmed jacket. Still, she doesn't move, doesn't give Kanzai any more space in the backseat. She stares out the window, at the mid-rise apartment complexes and mini-marts they pass by. Every time the car stops, or turns to the right, her shoulder bumps against his.

Nikolaus still won't meet either of their eyes in the rearview mirror. “Malk...Mr. Content already has a buyer lined up. I overheard the conversation, as his driver. The price is higher than any number I've ever heard. And I'd rather help people who appreciate it. And any profits will go a lot farther split three ways.”

“Well, you can take the man out of the Mafia but you can't take the Mafia out of the man,” Kanzai says. “Don't worry, if it's money you want consider yourself officially on our payroll.”

“That's not...exactly what I had in mind...” Nikolaus coughs, his earlier blustery confidence fading away in the face of Kanzai's impudency. “How did you...do that thing earlier? With the bat? Are you like a magician?”

Kanzai glares at him, his lip curled. “Do I look like a magician?”

“It disappeared! I saw it!”

“Listen, kid,” Kanzai says. “You wouldn't understand it even if we told you. So just do your driving, and leave the rest to us, get it?”

Nikolaus is quiet for a moment. Then: “Maybe you can't do it again. Maybe it was a one-time thing. A fluke.”

“ What you sayin'?” Suddenly, the bat appears in Kanzai's hand again, the same fungo bat as before. The driver screams again.

“Yeah? Look at that!” The bat disappears and reappears again, filling the rearview mirror. “Is that a fluke to you?”

“Kanzai, cut it out,” Cluck says. The bat disappears immediately. “He's crying.”

“No I'm not.” There's a very distinctive sniffle in Nikolaus's voice. “We're here.”

The apartment complex they pull into is set back from the road and comprised of several smaller buildings instead of one tall one. The corridors are set outside, facing an exterior staircase of white-painted wooden panels, and there are enough cars in the parking lot that theirs won't stick out as much as Kanzai had worried it might.

“It's on the first floor,” Nikolaus continues. “I picked this one because I've got a key...some of the newer ones have a keypad access, and they might be able to track if someone's accessed it remotely. This one's mainly used for recovery, you know. A place to lie low if you've been hurt or if you need to avoid somebody.”

“Sounds perfect,” Kanzai says. “Been planning this for awhile, have you?”

“Leaving? Yes,” he admits, parking the car in a lot in the back and climbing out. “I've just been looking for the right moment. You still don't trust me, but you can.”

“Is there food?” Cluck asks. “I'm hungry again.”

“Non perishables. But there should be something.”

Her excitement plummets, and she follows Kanzai and Nikolaus—the former's aura spiking, his En reaching out for any sign of hostiles, even though there's nothing to be found—as they enter the apartment.

It's every bit as plain as the restaurant had been—there's a large leather couch and a table and chairs for furniture, one of those dated television sets that's deeper than it is wide, with dials instead of buttons, and a fan with a patterned glass shade that turns on when Nikolaus flips the lights. Cluck takes a perfunctory tour of the place, just to make sure there's no one else crashing there—there are no signs of anyone, no belongings, just an empty bedroom and the most tiny, dingy bathroom and kitchen. Nikolaus comes up beside her and starts opening cabinets.

“See? There's canned sardines! And some soup!” He sounds proud.

“You didn't also cook for the Mafia, did you?” she asks.

“No, that was his aunt, Dis.”

Cluck pauses for a moment, then turns and walks away. “Just give me the map when you find it.”

Five minutes later and they've found not only a series of maps, but a compass, set of radios for communication, and a first aid kit to clean the cut on Kanzai's arm. She's got the map spread out over the dining room table—the sardine cans are anchoring the corners, as she doesn't trust them anywhere near a plate—and she's doing notations in a notepad, trying to map out the curve of the mountainside with regards to what she's read about where the flower is likely to grow.

“This doesn't make any sense!” She drops the pencil on the table to keep from throwing it, grinding her teeth and fuming. “My calculations aren't off, but the math doesn't match up!”

“How so, Miss Cluck?” In the iterim, they'd finally gotten around to introductions, and Nikolaus has not stopped using it, and adding unnecessary formalities.

“It's Doctor Cluck, technically!” She picks up the pencil and goes back to scribbling, re-checking the measurements she's taken with her divider caliper and tugging on her hair in frustration. Unrolling a second map with Nikolaus's assistance, her summations are no clearer.

“And there's supposedly a river that runs through here , but where it's marked in this map doesn't match the other one! And there are these four groves of taller trees, marked here”—she shows Kanzai, even though he isn't looking—“but they're on the total opposite side on this other map! And you say you've been searching for weeks, right? So which is it!”

“Miss Cluck, keep your voice down,” Nikolaus says.

“That's Doctor Professional Hunter Cluck , four-time winner of the Golden Stage award to you!”

“So, why would the maps be inaccurate?” Kanzai asks, curled up on the couch with a thick plaid blanket. “Isn't that their entire purpose?”

“It's been...notoriously difficult to get an accurate reading of the ground in the Endeløs Forest,” Nikolaus admits. “It's thought to be because the ground is weak and always shifting—people go in and get lost, or think they're near one entrance but come out somewhere totally different. The tree cover is so thick, you can't easily see the sky, once you're in the center.”

“But you've been? This was your experience too?” Cluck asks.

“Yes. I spent three days in there, with a team, trying to find our way out after we got lost. What I saw...it was like the forest changed around me every time I turned around. I could not understand it.”

“Huh.” Cluck considers the map again, moving to the other side of the table to look at it from a different angle. “It could be like the Numere Wetlands, in the Kukan'ryu Kingdom.”

“I'm not familiar with that,” Nikolaus says at the same moment Kanzai asks, “What's that?”

“The Exam Committee's been trying to get a permit to use the site for ages. It's a swamp—there's a thick mist, it obscures the view of the ground and the local flora and fauna have evolved to use this to trap prey and take advantage of the disorientation.”

Nikolaus shakes his head. “There was no mist. I could see every step I took, I just didn't know where I was.”

“It's probably a you thing,” Kanzai says, agreeing with Cluck's unspoken sentiments. “We're professionals.”

“And I've lived here my whole life! I'm telling you, people don't go in that forest unless they have to. People say it's haunted. That the ground and the trees will eat you.”

“That's what the bat is for.” Kanzai's words are muffled into the edge of the blanket. Cluck can only see the fringes of black and yellow hair, visible over the top of the couch. “I'm taking a nap.”

“We've been traveling all day. It's probably best to get some rest before we go, and then get to the forest bright and early.” Cluck spends some more time working on the maps, before tossing her calipers aside in a huff. More work is only going to tell her what she already knows—that the forest is impossible to map, and probably for a reason.

Beside her, Nikolaus's nervousness is at a noticeable high. “Can you do that too?” He pantomimes what Kanzai does when he uses his technique.

“Can I make a baseball bat disappear and reappear in my hands? No.” Cluck checks her fingernails, looking for any chips in the polish. Still perfect, and even after all that business at the restaurant. She supposes when she has to dig them into the soil tomorrow that this will change.

“I can do something different. Something better ,” she continues. “But don't tell him that. Not that you'll see it. You'll be in the car. I don't want to have to worry about more than just myself and him.”

“What do you call it?”

“It's called Nen . But don't concern yourself about that. Your job is to drive us and keep us informed. My job is to retrieve a specimen of the Black Orchid.” Not for the Arboreal Society, not anymore, but for herself and for her team and for the world. “And his job is to take down anything that gets in our way.”

She concludes her little speech with a yawn, and makes her way towards the bedroom, shrugging out of her jacket.

“Miss Cluck? Where am I going to sleep?”

She all but shuts the door in his face. “Not my problem.”

The next day sees them awake and unhappy about it, sharing a pot of the strongest coffee Cluck's ever had in her life from among the supplies Nikolaus found in the cabinets. It will take hours, he says, to drive to the Northern-most entrance of the Endeløs Forest, where according to him there will be fewer Mafia grunts around, as the Southern side is more easily accessible, both for cars and for equipment. They've even tried to bring off-road vehicles into the forest, he tells them, with limited success, and gigantic spotlights and sensing machines. Everything gets lost, or breaks, and between them they have no weapons beyond what Kanzai can conjure, a limited amount of flares, and a plant transport container Cluck improvises from the empty, washed can of coffee grounds and a plastic bag from the mini-mart down the street where she buys some donuts.

She gets a few more hours of sleep in the car, leaning against Kanzai's shoulder with her legs tucked into the empty space at her right. As the crow flies, the distance from the safehouse to the edge of the forest isn't far at all, but the elevation changes drastically and the only roads are narrow and zigzag in such a way that it takes them much longer to make their way to their destination. They see no other cars on the road, due to the hour and the remoteness of their location, and as they drive the vegetation changes, from spindly, leafy trees set farther from the road to a wide variety of plants and mosses, curving over the railings and bridges their dark sedan traverses as they climb even higher into the mountainside. Cluck finds herself rambling, now wide awake and her attention fixed firmly on the hunt ahead of her.

“You know how in mountain ranges, the airflow means that one side is rainy and the other is mostly dry? The forests here are a rare result of the geography and weather patterns aligning to produce an area with rampant isochronism and a really diverse ecosystem. Plants rapidly grow and die, and they're replaced by even wilder, more niche species. Then the process repeats itself. And the animal life there must have evolved to live alongside these cycles. I can't wait to see it.”

Kanzai makes a face. “Isohedral?”

“Isochronic. Events occurring at regular time intervals. The Black Orchid blooms only once every seven years. It's probable that it's parasitic on whatever comes before it, a plant or fungi. Myco-heterotropic orchids are uncommon, but not unheard of. Maybe everything there is parasitic in some way—maybe that's even the reason the region is unmappable, if it's literally changing too fast to record. Maybe the maps we have would have been accurate at one point, but now we've moved past it in the cycle.”

“Cluck.” Kanzai speaks slowly, as if to a child. “The river moved between maps. You can't blame that on science .” He puts air quotes around the word with his fingers.

“Kanzai.” Her voice is even slower, with even more affectation. “ Everything is because of science.”

He pokes her in the shoulder. “What about Nen ?”

There's a long, measured silence. “That's...”

Then, she scowls, sitting up in her seat and jabbing her fingers against his sternum. “ That is totally unfair! You know how impossible Nen is to quantify! There aren't instruments that can measure aura beyond the trained eye and the variety in techniques doesn't even seem to be bound to our imaginations, considering how some people have abilities they don't even understand themselves! How can I possibly argue against that!”

Her teeth are gritted, her eyes narrowed, the feathers in her hair drooping. Kanzai matches her expression, growling, “Well, some people can't seem to create abilities that make sense —”

“ Mine makes perfect sense! ”

“It's like a princess in a fairy tale movie for children!” His scowl deepens. “Or like the protagonist in some low-budget animated series from twenty years ago.”

“How dare . My Pied Piper is unflawed. You're just jealous that as an Enhancer-type with a Conjuration ability, you don't have any delicacy with your skills,” she says. “Your strategy is always to just hit whatever you come up against with a bat and hope it dies.”

His head tilts to the side, stretching the marks across his cheeks. “If it ain't broke.”

“If you're done squabbling...” From the driver's seat, Nikolaus raises a hand, and both Cluck and Kanzai swivel their heads around to face him, sporting identical glares. “We've arrived.”

The forest's entry is marked only by the road's end into a cleared area of dirt and gravel, and a few signs and fences that appear to have not been replaced or cleaned in years. Ahead, they can see the slope of the forest curve upward, and the tree canopy growing even thicker the further they look.

Cluck affixes her coffee can to her back with a formless sack they'd found in the safehouse—it had been full of athletic equipment, and now it houses what few supplies they have. One of their two-way radios is left with Nikolaus, who will remain at the car, hidden as best they can behind a grove of bushes, and the other is clipped to Kanzai's belt.

Cluck pulls her phone out of her pocket; it's the newest model, the Beatle-05, and even though they'd had great service in the city center the screen flickers with connection problems. It had even worked in the airship, so she supposes the problem is deeper than the elevation or the isolation.

“We won't be able to contact you if there's a problem,” she tells Nikolaus. “Just be ready for our return. No matter how long that takes. Even if it's days, don't go anywhere. And if others from the Mafia show up here, hide or use your best judgment to confront or take them out. As long as you're ready, I don't care how you pass the time.”

“T-that's fine...” Nikolaus's nervousness is making Cluck nervous, so she steps away and moves towards Kanzai, who is doing calisthenics in the middle of the clearing, doing lunges and stretching out his legs and arms. Nikolaus glances towards the passenger seat, where a few silver cans are nestled next to the spare blankets. “At least I've still got the soup...”

“You good to go?” She does a few quick stretches herself, focusing on her arms and making sure her jacket is zipped to her chin and her pockets are fastened securely. She remembers an early mission, ruefully, where she'd been sent flying by an assailant and every candy wrapper and jenni coin in her pockets had come tumbling out. This had been in a protected wildlife preserve, where every contaminant was carefully detailed and collected and after dispatching the poachers who'd attacked her she'd had to scale a ravine just to get them back. The last thing she wants is to repeat the experience, especially when she worries that the ecosystem is too delicate to support even the most minor interference, not to mention whatever the Mafia had been doing in there for weeks in their search of the orchid.

“Ready when you are,” is his response. A moment later, and a wave back to Nikolaus from Cluck, and the two begin making their way into the forest. There is no path, but Cluck has memorized the maps, and begins traveling South as best she can, making her way between the largest gaps in the trees. In a minute, they completely lose sight of the clearing, and another minute later the trees have grown so much larger, and the tree cover so much thicker, that the light begins to thin and what sky is visible through the treetops looks darkened as if from a storm. Although there is no rain, the air is heavy with moisture and a little warmer than she expects.

“You're looking for something,” Kanzai says. “What is it?”

“Something different.” Cluck scans the forest, taking in the uneven pitch to the soil, and the meager understory above the forest floor. Every so often she stops, to listen for any sign of other intruders or to put her head to the ground to listen for running water. Once they find the river, Cluck is sure the path to the orchid will present itself to them. It will be easier to read the extent of the forest—right now, it looks not much different than any other forest in this part of the world.

She pauses again to listen, Kanzai right beside her. “It's strange,” she says. “I haven't seen a single animal since we've been here. No birds, no squirrels, nothing.”

“Your ability won't work without it, right?”

She makes a hmph in response, straightening and wiping the sweat from her forehead. “There's no berries, no flowers, either...it's springtime, so I'd expect to see some of that. But if there's nothing for the birds to eat, then of course there would be no birds. Unless the Mafia intrusion has chased them away.”

“Of course,” Kanzai echoes. “So, how do you explain that?”

She follows his outstretched hand towards a tree about fifteen feet away, unremarkable except for the faded X drawn on it in white chalk. Cluck bounds towards it in an instant, studying the mark and the ground around the tree. None others in the area are marked that they can see, but a few yards away she finds the remnants of wheel marks in the soft dirt.

“Something was brought through here,” she says. “Good eye.”

He makes a hmph at that, too, shrugging his shoulders and glancing back the way they'd came. “I'm hoping you know the way back. I'm not about to climb one of those to figure it out.”

They travel another few minutes in silence. Occasionally one of them will spot a tree marked with chalk—sometimes the marks are fresh, sometimes they look half worn away, and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to their organization.

“I wonder why they call it the Endeløs Forest,” Cluck muses.

“Probably should've asked Nikolaus that.” Kanzai alights onto a boulder with an unfair amount of grace, scrambling up and over a rift in the ground that Cluck ducks around instead. She can tell, he would be moving faster if he could, but he sticks to her pace, acting both as scout and support. They pass another tree with a faded X, and continue down the slope of the mountainside.

“This is so much fun,” Kanzai continues. “We should really work together more often.”

“Shut up!” The constant running, the loud sounds of her breathing in her ears, and the growing humidity is making it hard for her to think. “We're missing something! It'll be obvious once we get to the river, I know it!”

“And you know that how? Because none of the Mafia are here?” Kanzai kicks a pebble off into the distance, watching it clatter against the base of a tree, covered in dark mosses. “I think we've been running in circles.”

“I think you should shut up!” She stops running to spin, turning towards Kanzai when the ground slips underneath her feet and she goes tumbling, sliding down what she thought at the time was a gradual incline in the ground. Instead, there is a nearly vertical drop, hidden by boulders and covered by leaves, and Cluck finds herself plummeting down into a hollow of crumbling leaves and dark loam.

At the last moment she covers her body with Nen , landing and rolling to absorb the impact without injury. Sitting on the ground, she takes a moment to recover her dignity before glancing around. Vines crawl up the rocky surface surrounding her, and her excitement at finding something different is short-lived as she sees Kanzai's face peek over the top of the ledge. She climbs to her feet to study the vines—they're grafted to the spindly tree climbing up the rocks, parasitic in nature just as she'd thought, and she almost misses Kanzai jump off the ledge and manage a perfect, noiseless landing in the soft dirt beside her.

“There should be more growing here,” she says, digging her hands into the ground to feel the earth. “This is some really good soil.”

“You have something on your face,” Kanzai says in response, gesturing with his thumb at a spot at the base of his right cheek. When Cluck brushes a dirt-covered hand across the same spot on her own face, it does nothing. “No, there. There . No, never mind.”

Even further down, the sky is that much darker, but when Cluck listens closely she can hear the far-off sound of running water.

“Come on. It's this way.”

They continue running, and still there are no sign of creatures—no snakes, no mammals, not even any insects, which worries her most. The only way that could be explained is if everything in this forest was nocturnal, which...

She stops in her tracks, stroking her chin in thought. Could it be possible...?

“I think we made a mistake coming here during the daytime,” she says. “It's not that there's nothing to see, it's that everything won't come out until nightfall! The plants are nocturnal!”

Kanzai glances around, at the plain, unassuming trees, branches, and leaves, as if expecting them to suddenly sprout heads and join the conversation. “What? What's wrong with them?”

“They're nocturnal,” she repeats. At Kanzai's blank expression, she continues, “Nocturnal creatures are active at night and at rest during the day. Like owls, and rodents, and some...cats. For plants, it's more common in arid biomes, where the heat of the sun would wither anything that blooms during the day, so native species adapted so that the flowers would only open at night.”

He tips his head up, looking past the rocky curve at their backs to the tree canopy now so much higher up above. “I dunno, it seems pretty dark in here to me.”

Cluck freezes again, before her mouth stretches into a wide grin. “That's exactly it, isn't it? The closer we get to the middle, the darker it's getting...and we've been traveling for what, an hour? A little more? Do you have the time?”

Kanzai rolls up his sleeve, studying the face of his watch. “No...we've been in here for over four hours.”

“What?” She pauses, the sweat on the back of her neck cooling with the realization. She was hungry, her muscles were tired, and as she looked up at the tiny slices of sky visible through the tree canopy she felt the smallest bit of vertigo.

“It's like he said, isn't it,” Kanzai continues. “The same thing happened to the Mafia members. Time slips away from them—what feels like hours turns into days. I thought, since we were Hunters, it wouldn't apply to us the same way, but guess not. It's a little humbling.”

“You don't like it.” Cluck's smile turns soft at his sullen attitude. “Neither do I. Let's keep going.”

The pace they set now is more measured; considering it's been hours since they've had any nourishment, and with as much as they're sweating they're going to have to replace the moisture they've lost somehow, Cluck doesn't want to risk overexertion or fainting. She's not a medic, and she wouldn't trust Kanzai to put on a bandage correctly, let alone monitor for hypoglycemia.

“I'm gonna steal so much food from the Mafia,” she says, panting, as they stop for another break by a tree with a freshly-marked X. “That restaurant was so good!”

“ Shh .” Kanzai lifts a hand, then begins pointing with a series of hand signals Cluck has no idea how to interpret. At her blank stare, he regards her with open disappointment. “Can't you hear it? Voices, up ahead. Be quiet.”

She can, now that she takes a moment to listen. Voices, and the strange sound of machinery cranking, like a fan belt or belay device. They creep closer, and while the voices become clearer, they're indiscernible—the speech is in the native language, and interspersed with laughter. Peering around the edge of a tall boulder, they are finally able to see the full extent of the Mafia's camp.

The first thing she sees is an oversized generator, whirring loudly and connected with cords to a variety of other equipment. There's some kind of rappelling device, as she'd thought—something large and heavy, with a kind of affixed frame to transport both multiple people and supplies. Luckily for them, the framework is at the top, but four Mafia gunmen sit around it, talking and eating. They're ribbing each other; every so often, one will laugh, or make a joke. None of them Cluck recognizes from the restaurant, but she does recognize the food they're eating, which fills her with understandable envy.

Tents are set up haphazardly in the cleared spaces between trees—and not all the clearings are natural, as she can see hatchets and log clearing machines, discarded and unattended beside jagged tree stumps. Tall, electric powered lights have been drilled into some of the trees about fifteen feet up in a perimeter, washing the area in a bright, artificial light, and beyond that, the ground dips in a brutally familiar way. Just like when she'd fallen into the cavern earlier, a second ledge leads down into an even deeper cave. At a glance, the edges seem to be fringed with a series of strange leafed bushes, but on deeper consideration they appear to be the tops of even taller trees. And below, the sound of rushing water of what could only be the river. Her anticipation grows, her hands shaking. The thought of a hunt—and she hasn't hunted anything in so long—is thrilling beyond all expectation.

“How deep do you think it goes?” Kanzai whispers. “Deep enough they need an elevator.”

“That's not what it is...oh, whatever.” Cluck returns her attention to the gunmen. “How do you want to proceed?”

When she glances back at Kanzai, he's holding a bat; this one is lighter in color, with extremely visible graining and a large letter A emblazoned on the side. He taps the bat into the palm of one hand and raises an eyebrow.

“Oh, fine, but make it quick. I don't want the whole forest knowing we're coming.”

Five minutes later, Kanzai's knocked out all four men before they even have the chance to blink, and tied them up with rope to one of the smaller trees. Cluck sits in their place, leaning against the generator, chewing on a sandwich. Of the thermos bottles around the campsite, only one has water; the others have coffee and vodka, which is worse than useless when combating dehydration, but the river below is promising and after they spend a few minutes burrowing through the tents they come up with even more food—energy bars and protein drinks and similar things she remembers from late nights as a student.

“Cluck.” Kanzai repeats her name twice, standing to the side with arms crossed as Cluck continues to sort all the trash she can find, stuffing the empty food containers into a plastic bag she'd found and retrieving the litter the gunmen had left around their campsite. “ Cluck .”

“Nature preservation is important!” She throws a wrapper into the bag and follows it with an empty soda can. “Who knows what damage they're doing down there!”

“I really think someone so interested in making money isn't going to risk ruining the very thing he's trying to sell with his efforts.” Kanzai tilts his head to the side as he watches Cluck hurl a full pack of cigarettes into the trash.

“ Still .” She stands, straightening her back and dusting off her hands. “I don't feel quite so bad about beating up all these strangers anymore.”

“Did you ever?” They make their way to the rappelling machine, studying it and climbing into the open cage.

“I mean, they don't even know Nen .” She grips one of the metal bars with one hand before leaning over the side, bracing with her toes and tilting her body straight down to get the best view over the crevasse. “It's not exactly fair.”

Below, the first thing that catches her eye are the bright, jewel-pink and orange flowers nestled in the tops of the some of the highest-level trees. The leaves are wide and spiky like a palm tree, the trunk thick and striated, and the flowers look more tropical than anything else. She cannot see any other people on the ground, only a metal surround for the rest of the lift platform to secure it after it descends. Kanzai handles the control levers, and the platform begins to slowly move down the side of the cliff.

As they descend, the air grows even warmer, and Cluck discards her jacket, balling it up and stuffing it inside her knapsack. And as they fall, the view crystallizes into unbelievable, astonishing focus.

Flowers, of every bright color nature could provide, scattered like sequins across the fabric of the forest. Vines crawling with beetles with shells patterned like amber, plants growing out of the rock with spiny protrusions and speckled leaves, everything in the full bloom of life. The darkness grows even deeper, but their descent is slow enough their vision adjusts as they go. Still, she cannot see all the way across this second level of the forest, only a few bright spots of unmoving color before it is swallowed up by blackness and silence.

At the base, they step off the platform—there are no others, or any signs of other Mafia gunmen. She breathes deeply, taking in the spiky grasses growing off to the side of a makeshift path, the rows of vividly-colored mushrooms along the edge of the cliff, the almost glowing mosses lining the roof of the cavern. Where the treetops brush the rocks, the air is heavy with mist and the branches seem to shake as if from some wind current she cannot feel all the way at the ground.

Even standing still, her feet seem to sink slightly into the loam, the dirt as soft as if it was freshly-tilled.

“Ok, you're up,” Kanzai says. He doesn't look fazed at all, but he does sound impressed, and she'll just have to take it. “I'll admit, this is a lot nicer.”

“You haven't seen nothing yet.” Cluck cracks her knuckles, the gesture reminding her suddenly of something Kanzai would do. She smiles, and begins leading a path straight into the forest.

The sound of rushing water grows even stronger—the river must be underground, or at least partially so, and as they approach Cluck can see water trickling down the rocks in places. A waterfall, maybe, or some rapids, depending on the strength of the currents. Bright mosses grow along the rocks, but here there are no insects, nothing else of note.

“Don't touch anything,” she tells Kanzai. “The brighter it is, the more dangerous, probably.”

Movement, up ahead. A few small birds, with bright flocks of color across their backs, resembling the same patterns of the bright leaves of a few smaller trees she remembers seeing around the mouth of the cavern. It's not enough—they're not close enough, and there's not enough of them to risk trying to use her ability. She will only have one shot at this, and she's determined to get it right.

She asks Kanzai for the time again—it's been another couple hours, longer than either of them thinks, and as they continue they see every type of fern, grass, and flower conceivable, except for the orchid she seeks. There are spiders, frogs with spots the color of jewels, and birds with sharp, hooked beaks drifting too far overhead to reach. Where the plants are oversized, almost large enough to be comical, the animal life is diminutive in size, and almost entirely useless to her. What does this say, that the plants are the predators here?

There are more chalk marks on the trees, and boulders jutting out of areas of soft, tilled dirt, and behind one such boulder the ground drops out and Cluck can see the river exposed, rushing over the visible roots of a gnarled tree and disappearing just as suddenly over another small drop in the ground. Narrow silver fish, like the kind they'd eaten at the restaurant, swim with the current, and when Cluck drops down against the ground, holding her palm above the water, she hesitates. The fish are there, perfect in numbers, but still not ideal for her needs. They could not travel with her, could not leave the cover of water.

And beyond, they hear voices. Shouting.

“I told you it was there!” The voice is frantic, half-sob and half-scream. “I saw something move!”

“You saw nothing!” She recognizes the loud, flat voice of Mikkel, and as they creep around a boulder they can see about a dozen Mafia gunmen with their backs to the river; all look dazed, their faces dripping with sweat and their eyes glassy. They clearly spent the night searching, and how many nights before that?

“If you cannot find the orkidé , then you cannot find excuses!” he yells. “When you find it you can rest!”

“I saw...” One of them staggers, trying to find the words. “I saw something! Where did it go?”

The next moment, Kanzai leaps out of the darkness, not even waiting for her cue, baseball bat in hand, swinging. He gets out two before the rest have the sense to draw their guns, and then he adopts a defensive pose, returning each shot as it comes and moving even further forward.

Cluck glances between them all, before looking down at her own feet. She's standing beside the boulder, out in the open, her every instinct telling her to keep moving, to dodge, to go on ahead. The gunmen must be right, they must be close; it is as if she can sense it.

Kanzai volleys another round of bullets, his posture wide, and when the others reload he grasps the bat in both hands and slams it into the ground, sending a shockwave that almost knocks them all off their feet.

What is he doing? He's taking all the fire, drawing it away from her. His mouth moves, although she cannot hear the words. Is he talking to her?

He is, though. He's been shouting to her for some time now. Why are her legs moving so slowly?

She glances up. They all do, at the sudden shadow that falls over them like a blanket. She squints into the darkness, uncertain, before her eyes widen and she staggers back as a branch whips through the air, catching one of the gunmen around the middle and launching them in mid-air back into the dark.

Adrenaline supplies her feet with motion and her mind with clarity, and she leaps out of the way of a second branch, sweeping across the clearing at knee-level. Most of the gunmen clear it, but a few are knocked to the ground, and Kanzai lands beside her, his bat held high and his eyes full of incredulity.

“What the hell is that?!” He holds out the end of the bat, gesturing with it as a gigantic tree, its trunk marked with a faded chalkmark, comes marching out of the shadows on large, disparate roots. It strikes, again, and this time the gunmen turn their weapons on the tree, emptying an entire clip each into its trunk with little effect.

“A tree, obviously.” Cluck has to crane her neck up to even see it all, and when the roots contract, sliding it backwards through the dirt and out of sight, she remembers the maps and their previously-unexplainable inconsistencies.

“You laughed when I told you we were going to be hunting a plant,” she reminds him.

It strikes again, and this time the branch lunges forward, striking the man on Mikkel's right and plunging straight through his chest. It retracts, dragging the body with it, and Mikkel and the others turn to canisters placed haphazardly around the rocks.

“Get the flares!” he shouts. “Burn them down! Use the liquid nitrogen!”

Cluck starts, reaching out for the other to try and knock the equipment out of their hands. “Don't!”

Kanzai instead reaches for her, yanking Cluck out of the way as the tree rushes forward again, two branches whipping out to try and snag any additional prey and missing all targets. It lingers, the branches poised, waiting for any movement.

A second tree, its branches tipped with coiled pink flowers, slinks through the darkness behind the first.

“How many do you think there are?” Kanzai asks. “Do you think they all move like that?”

“I think the entire forest is alive,” she answers, and watches as Mikkel raises a flare gun and blasts it straight up into the canopy of the main tree. It bursts into life, sending flames and red smoke across the treetop—the new light source illuminates the top of the cavern and with it they can see the writhing movement of dozens of other trees, coming closer.

“Retreat!” Mikkel shouts, sweeping out his arm and trying to push his men behind the cover of boulders. “Get back!”

Several of them run, others raising guns to fruitlessly cover their progress, their gait still uneven and their faces still disoriented and eyes glazed. She doesn't know if they're even running in the right direction.

On a whim, she lights up her eyes with Gyo .

It is as though she can see in the darkness as far as her En can go. She sees every rock, every blade of grass, every movement of the gunmen as they blip out of her radar and every minutiae of the tree before her. She glances to Kanzai, and sees that at her approach, he too washes his eyes with Gyo .

“I can't believe we didn't think to use our auras earlier.” Her En stretching out, she's able to track the one tree moving counterclockwise with an ease that completely eluded her earlier. “We're such idiots.”

There's screaming, from the Mafia men ahead of them. The second tree, trapping the others. Kanzai rests the baseball bat against his shoulder.

The next time the tree sends a branch forward, Kanzai is ready, and whips the bat forward, cloaked in aura, and splinters the branch with the force of his swing. The tree staggers back, and Cluck surges forward, spiking her aura and sending a Nen -infused punch straight at the center of the trunk. It splits the tree in two, and she feels the moment it flickers and dies, falling backward with a resounding crash that shakes the already pliant ground. The forest is silent, the other trees creeping backwards, and a moment later everything is still.

She stares into the darkness, her Nen receding. The pitch blackness of the forest reminds her of the black ink of the sketch, and her only thought once again is for the orchid. She finds herself turning, staggering on shaky legs over to the river and dropping to her knees beside it. Silvery fish dart through the water, seemingly unaware or unaffected by the fight that just occurred.

“Cluck.”

She barely hears Kanzai call her name, her hand outstretched towards the fish, her desire so profound to find the orchid that if it was anyone else, she doubts she would have paused at all. But it's Kanzai, and she does.

“Cluck, look at yourself.”

She does, glancing back into the river and meeting her reflection. Glassy, dull eyes stare back at her. A pallid complexion, wisps of hair clinging to the sides of her face from sweat. She looks like the gunmen, like whatever had trapped them here is now affecting her. And she remembers reading about the Black Orchid, about how just the sketch alone moved her to action, and how anyone who caught so much as a glance was bidden to offer every cent they had for the opportunity to own it.

And her mind clarifies, this time, she believes, for good.

She coughs into one shoulder, aware now of how her vision swims, what that means, and what to do when it happens.

“What happened to you?” She's never heard Kanzai sound concerned about her, but this almost seems close. He grips her shoulder tightly with his free hand.

“Spores, maybe. Or some kind of effect from a psychotropic fungus or flower. I wasn't expecting that. I'll be better soon.”

“Why didn't it affect me?”

She considers the options, not wanting to suggest aloud that it could be due to his height, or the fact that his high collar and long sleeves cover more of his skin than her outfit with its exposed arms and legs. It could even be that it merely amplifies whatever natural desires exist in a person, and a Botanical Hunter would already be predisposed towards wanting to enter the forest and unearth its mysteries.

“Maybe it did. Or maybe there's nothing to affect.” She means it lightly, but he takes offense, scowling and curling his lip over pointed teeth.

“Well, excuse me for caring.” He steps back, crossing his arms. As she studies him, he doesn't look like the gunmen—his eyes are focused, his posture is even, and he doesn't seem distracted by anything around him, despite how remarkable it all is. Instead, even as he feigns disinterest, she can feel through his aura the bulk of his attention is still exclusively centered on her.

“Come on,” she says. “We've come this far. Let's find that orchid.”

They walk together; she keeps her aura flexed, and every time they come into range of one of the larger trees, she feels it shrink backwards.

Beneath the lacerated leaves of a fern she finally finds what she is looking for. A cluster of small rodents, with large pointed ears and bushy tails sit together chewing on some kind of large, flat tubers. She holds out a hand, concentrating her Nen , and her Pied Piper flares to life.

The rodents stop, their eyes swiveling to focus on her. She can only use Pied Piper once per day, and once she establishes contact with it she cannot switch it to a new set of targets. Her ability grants her total control over any number of the same kind of animal, with the conditions that she must not have caused them harm, can only give them one command at a time, and cannot give them a new command until they finish the old one.

“Help me find the Black Orchid,” she tells them. “Please.”

The rodents turn and scurry across a rock, glancing back as if to tell her to follow them. And she does, leaping around boulders and under fallen logs, leaving the area by the river and making their way back up a steady slope of the cave floor. And she can feel the forest try to shift around them as they move, but the rodents know the forest well, and are able to correct course and take them straight to where she hopes the orchid is.

In an area blocked by a curtain of moss, the rodents sit and wait, chittering together and staring up at Cluck with black eyes. The air is brighter here, and tinged with something sweet and unfamiliar.

Kanzai uses his bat to sweep aside the curtain. “After you,” he says.

Cluck steps through first, her feet once again sinking into the soft dirt. There are cracks in the rocks above, letting in just enough light that slices of it hit the forest floor at frequent enough angles for her to see the first of the flowers.

She had thought she would only find one specimen, and maybe not even one in full bloom.

Instead, an entire grove of them spreads out before her, as far as she can see. Each flower is equidistant from the rest, open in perfect bloom, the black petals as flawless and beautiful as every documented example.

Kanzai steps into place beside her. She hears his breath catch in his throat, and feels him reach for her hand. But they both cannot look at anything other than the field of orchids in front of them.

Then, he turns to look at her. “Is it everything you wanted?”

She can barely make out the word. “Yes.”

“Great.” He stands beside her for another minute. He doesn't even comment on the tears drying on her cheeks, or the dirt smudged onto her hands and face. But he does still open his mouth to say, “How are we getting out of here again?”

“The rodents,” she says. “the rodents.”

“...And we're going to have to deal with a bureaucratic nightmare to package some of these up and transport them. Plus dealing with all of the dead Mafia. You got a plan for that too?”

She pauses, considering. She'll have to arrange a visa for Nikolaus, agriculture entry permits, and fast-track some laboratory assistance with negating any negative effects of the orchid's spores. Then, her mouth stretches into a grin. “I'll have to call in a favor. But that does give me an idea...”

–

Pariston Hill stands before the press briefing, wearing a black suit patterned with begonias. And gold aviator sunglasses.

To his right, Cluck is silent, arms clasped behind her back as Pariston reads off the teleprompter, some fluff explanation he'd scripted himself after Cluck called in the favor he'd offered her for voting in his interests in some real estate proposal some months ago.

“The Black Orchid will be preserved and cultivated, studied in labs across the continents and, of course, available for display at the museums here in Swaldani City and in Yorkshin!” He spreads his arms wide, a beaming smile gracing his face. It's hard to imagine him in a setting like Razing, covered in dirt and grime, but she manages. She's got to keep herself occupied somehow during this boring briefing.

“And now, my colleague Cluck will say a few words,” he continues, and Cluck startles. She certainly wasn't expecting this—it hadn't been in any part of their discussion. In fact, he'd seemed pleased to be in full control of the media dissemination, but now with little choice she steps up to the podium in his place and reads from the teleprompter.

“Charting the Endeløs Forest will provide us with a wealth of information and will lead to new discoveries in medicine and bioscience. And of course, none of it would be possible without the tireless work of my good friend, Pariston Hill...” She pauses, gritting her teeth. “Who is one of the most generous and selfless men I know.”

Pariston beams, and the crew of media reporters applaud briefly as she steps back.

“Thank you for your time!” He waves, beckoning her back behind the doors into the Association headquarters.

“Now,” he tells her, once the noise from the crowd of reporters outside has died down, “I still have some calls to make. And I was hoping you would be there for the opening of the exhibit here. It's tonight, and the guest list has already been decided, but I'm sure I can get you in.”

How generous indeed. “I can't, I'm afraid. I've got plans.”

“Really?” He tilts his head, his every microexpression a study in curiosity. “What might those be? I've thought your social calendar was a little thin as of late.”

“Shut up!” If she didn't want him to ruin her good mood, the first step should have been not to let him know about it in the first place. Or, she could always rub her happiness in his face. “Actually, I've got a hot date.”

His expression falls immediately, disgust marring the otherwise immaculate features. “You don't need to share every detail.”

“I wasn't. It's none of your business. Have fun at the museum! Bye!!” With reporters blocking the entrance and Pariston standing in front of the lobby corridor leading to the main bank of elevators, she doesn't have many viable avenues of escape. Still, she knows about a back door leading to the parking garage, so she takes it and slips out.

She has a few more hours to kill until Kanzai takes her to dinner. Somewhere nice. A surprise, he'd said.

At the end, he gives her flowers. Real ones. Purple orchids, for her desk.

[playgamesonline2018-blog]

Short Story: The reality About 3d Print

Short Story: The reality About 3d Print

Prints in varied materials, together with biodegradable filaments. Boasting a spacious 298 x 275 x 250 mm construct envelope, with the power to print in a laundry record of supplies, this printer must be on the highest of your purchasing listing. We now have the power to do so many different things within the 3D realm. They have also included instructions on the best way to tweak the infills. They have been growing by leaps and bounds, and I actually believe it's because of 1 foremost attribute-high quality. One of many more well-liked of those ‘budget’ 3d printers this one, the Monoprice choose mini. Within the spectrum of cheap 3D printers you possibly can choose between desktop resin or desktop filament 3D printers. Might be difficult to calibrate. Can you think about holding your heart in your hand? Plastics wrestle with the pressures of live ammunition, and infrequently misfire, break, or explode in the user’s hand.

3D printers can be very costly, however some manufacturers are working on cutting the cost of ownership. Cutting edge architecture in relation to 3D printing. More importantly, this instrument offers competitors the sting while designing their merchandise. It has auto bed leveling instrument and a management console that remains lively during printing to superb-tune settings. From there, the software creates a instrument path to deposit materials in each layer. For example, a complex design might require the printing of assist buildings whiles the precise merchandise is being printed or calibration of the 3D printer is needed to accommodate a change in filament materials. Consider making customized items that collectors may envy to extend your profits. 3D printing is simply so fun, irrespective of if you want it for creating prototypes, or just making cool decorating prints for you or gifts for your folks. You will also discover it helpful if you are on the lookout for 3D printing enterprise ideas.

Conversely, testing ideas and designs with standard manufacturing strategies can take up days, if not several weeks. Some might provide respectable efficiency and reliability for a low worth; others might not live up to expectations and can be irritating rather than enjoyable. PwC identified a number of know-how tendencies that may expedite 3D printing's adoption, together with an emerging class of mid-level 3D printers that supply features historically seen solely in higher-end systems. There are two kinds of machines you should use to print miniatures: FDM or FFF 3D printers (filament-based mostly) and SLA 3D printers (resin-based mostly). I mean, why would you when you may simply purchase one thing that already exists for much less money, and with less risk. The heated mattress heats as much as 100-a hundred and twenty levels Fahrenheit (38-49 Celsius), which reduces the danger of warping when printing with ABS filament. Nonetheless, it’s a different factor when it comes to 3D printing because the computer will create an accurate 3D model of your feet combined with the details of your top, weight and actions to personalize the shoes for you. It’s obvious from the comparison of two lithophanes above, printing along Y-axis is best. It’s an older machine-in actual fact, it was unveiled again in 2012-but nonetheless tops the charts in terms of reliability and precision.

Help comes in many shapes and varieties. The exceptional technical support that Airwolf has come to be known for. Technical CAD professionals will be able to mannequin your merchandise extra simply when you supply extra technical information about them. This listing isn't static and can change weekly as we feed extra info into our rating methodology, and as new printers emerge onto the market. The choices on desktop printers are additionally expanding. For instance, at this time there are desktop stereolithography printers from Virginia-based Old World Laboratories (OWL) that offer wonderful resolution printing (all the way down to .1 micron), in addition to consumer-grade machines from 3D Systems and XYZPrinting with self-leveling platforms, multi-materials printing, and multi-shade printing. Ultimaker is ranked up there with MakerBot as one among the top selling desktop 3D printer brands, and for good cause. 3D Modeling Software program - Top 29 Picks for Designers. With a build volume of 215 x 210 x 180 mm, and accessible in three different versions, each with various degrees of resolution in addition to print pace, this printer would be good for teenage rookies all the way in which as much as professional designers. With the flexibility to print with both PLA and ABS thermoplastic, and a build envelope of 230 x 150 x 140 mm, this machine is perfect for almost any 3D printing job.

source https://creative-3d-simplification.blogspot.com/2022/05/short-story-reality-about-3d-print.html

[surendrafracktal-blog]

3D Printer Terminology And Accessories

It was always with awe and wonder that people used to see the world of digital graphics. To see the results of some vivid imagination and creativity come to life in front of you, tangible in the form of pictures on a paper was something astonishing. 3D printing took it one step further - the products of imagination now looks and feels like an actual thing, not just a picture of it. The role of affordable and reliable 3D printing has helped this transformation in no small measure.

 As a technology, 3D printing has come quite far from its beginnings in the 80’s. It is confined more in the industrial and especially manufacturing sector, which is why for a layman 3D printing might sound like some stuff from a sci-fi movie. This scenario is set to change as more and more companies are entering the field of 3D printer manufacturing, and research and development is going on to make it even more affordable and reliable. The fact that there is more technical expertise required to manage a 3D print process than a simple paper print could be a hindrance for now, but as always, people have become smarter as the technologies have grown, and surely 3D printing would become omnipresent in the near future.

 Being aware of the whole 3D print process and the printer itself would be a good start. One could ask questions like: How do I prepare the model to be printed? What would be the print material? How is the printer controlled? How do I refill my print material? What accessories are available for my 3D printer? So on and so forth. Just a look at these sample questions would give you the idea that 3D printing is an entirely different ball game when compared to the conventional printing we all are aware of.

 For instance, how does one even imagine the idea of a model to be printed in 3D? For normal printing, it is well known and straight forward - you have a document or an image to be printed. For 3D printing, you need special programs to give life to your models - we are not even talking images right now. Once the program designs a model, it could be fed into your 3D printer. Likewise, before embarking on your DIY journey, how do you imagine 3D printer parts to look like? This is not simply ink on paper, where you just change a cartridge when the ink runs dry.

 There are many specific parts that one needs to be aware of, when talking about 3D printing. For instance, the equivalent of ink used in conventional printing would be something called a filament in most 3D printing cases. 3D printing process is in most cases additive manufacturing technology, where layer after layer of material is deposited to make up the final model. The molten filament is what gets deposited here. Hence, the material of the filament is an important consideration. You also need a surface on which you would be printing. Known as a build surface, this material and its properties can depend on the print material or filament being used. Then there are the parts that do the actual delivery of the molten filament during print process. These are the nozzles, called hotends, and can again depend on the type of material being used for printing. Dry boxes for storing unused filaments safely, free from moisture, is yet another 3D printer part that you need to consider if you are a DIY enthusiast.

 In short, 3D printing is an exciting new technology but not without its unique challenges. Being cognizant of the terminology in this would help one from being overwhelmed when trying out this technology.

[thegnammahole]

The Light Bulb Conspiracy

Please note that this video is 50+ minutes in length

Original story from BBC Futures 

Here’s the truth about the ‘planned obsolescence’ of tech

It’s widely held that certain gadgets, cars and other tech have deliberately short lifespans, to make you shell out to replace them. What’s the reality?

By Adam Hadhazy

“They don’t make ‘em like they used to,” as the idiom goes. So it would seem for the Centennial Light. An astonishing, record-setting 115 years after someone first flipped it on, this light bulb is still faintly shining in a fire station in Livermore, California. (You can see it for yourself on a webcam that refreshes every 30 seconds) 

For the multiple generations of us who have since swapped out more burned-out light bulbs than we can remember, the Centennial Bulb’s longevity must seem like a slap in the face. Surely, if an incandescent bulb made with 19th Century technology can last so long, why not new-fangled, 20th and even 21st Century bulbs?

The Centennial Light is often pointed to as evidence for the supposedly sinister business strategy known as planned obsolescence. Lightbulbs and various other technologies could easily last for decades, many believe, but it’s more profitable to introduce artificial lifespans so that companies get repeat sales. “That’s sort of the conspiracy theory of planned obsolescence,” says Mohanbir Sawhney, a professor of marketing at Northwestern University.

So is this conspiracy theory true? Does planned obsolescence really exist?

The Centennial Light has shone for 115 years (Credit: Bill Nale/Panoramio/Wikipedia)

The answer: yes, but with caveats. Beyond the crude caricature of greedy companies wantonly fleecing their customers, the practice does have silver linings. To an extent, planned obsolescence is an inevitable consequence of sustainable businesses giving people goods they desire. In this way, planned obsolescence serves as a reflection of a ravenous, consumer culture which industries did create for their benefit, yet were hardly alone in doing so. 

“Fundamentally, firms are reacting to the tastes of the consumers,” says Judith Chevalier, a professor of finance and economics at Yale University. “I think there are some avenues where [businesses] are kind of tricking the consumer, but I think there are also situations where I might put the fault on the consumer.”

An illuminating example

Sticking with light bulbs as a product, they provide amongst the most emblematic case studies of planned obsolescence.

Thomas Edison invented commercially viable light bulbs circa 1880. These early, incandescent bulbs – the Centennial Light included – relied on carbon filaments rather than the tungsten that came into widespread use almost 30 years later. (Part of the reason the Centennial Light has persevered so long, scientists speculate, is because its carbon filament is eight times thicker and thus more durable than the thin, metal wires in later incandescent bulbs.)

Initially, companies installed and maintained whole electrical systems to support bulb-based lighting in the dwellings of the new technology’s rich, early adopters. Seeing as consumers were not on the hook to pay for replacement units, lighting companies therefore sought to produce light bulbs which lasted as long as possible, according to Collector’s Weekly.  

As the light bulb customer base grew more mass-market, the business model that supported long-life bulbs disappeared (Credit: iStock)

Greater sums of money could be reaped, companies figured, by making bulbs disposable  

The business model changed, however, as the light bulb customer base grew more mass-market. Greater sums of money could be reaped, companies figured, by making bulbs disposable and putting replacement costs onto customers. Thus was born the infamous “Phoebus cartel” in the 1920s, wherein representatives from top light bulb manufacturers worldwide, such as Germany’s Osram, the United Kingdom’s Associated Electrical Industries, and General Electric (GE) in the United States (via a British subsidiary), colluded to artificially reduce bulbs’ lifetimes to 1,000 hours. The details of the scam emerged decades later in governmental and journalistic investigations.

“This cartel is the most obvious example” of planned obsolescence’s origins “because those papers have been found,” says Giles Slade, author of the book Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America, a history of the strategy and its consequences.

The practice cropped up in all sorts of other industries, too. For instance, competition between General Motors and Ford in the fledging 1920s auto market led the former to introduce the now-familiar model year changes in its vehicles. GM had pioneered a way to entice customers to splurge on the latest, greatest car, to satisfy themselves and impress those in their social circles. “It was a model for all industry,” says Slade.

Although the term “planned obsolescence” didn’t enter common usage until the 1950s, the strategy had by then permeated consumerist societies.

Alive and well

In various forms, from subtle to unsubtle, planned obsolescence still very much exists nowadays. From so-called contrived durability, where brittle parts give out, to having repairs cost more than replacement products, to aesthetic upgrades that frame older product versions as less stylish – goods makers have no shortage of ruses to keep opening customers’ wallets.

Smartphones need replacing every couple of years, as battery life fades and software updates change (Credit: iStock)

For a fully modern example, consider smartphones. These handsets often get discarded after a mere couple years’ use. Screens or buttons break, batteries die, or their operating systems, apps, and so on can suddenly no longer be upgraded. Yet a solution is always near at hand: brand new handset models, pumped out every year or so, and touted as “the best ever”.

As another example of seemingly blatant planned obsolescence, Slade mentions printer cartridges. Microchips, light sensors or batteries can disable a cartridge well before all its ink is actually used up, forcing owners to go buy entirely new, not-at-all-cheap units. “There’s no real reason for that,” Slade says. “I don’t know why you can’t just go get a bottle of cyan or black [ink] and, you know, squirt it into a reservoir.”

Taken this way, planned obsolescence looks wasteful. According to Cartridge World, a company that recycles printer cartridges and offers cheaper replacements, in North America alone, 350 million (not even empty) cartridges end up in landfills annually. Beyond waste, all that extra manufacturing can degrade the environment too.

A nuanced view

Though some of these examples of planned obsolescence are egregious, it’s overly simplistic to condemn the practice as wrong. On a macroeconomic scale, the rapid turnover of goods powers growth and creates reams of jobs – just think of the money people earn by manufacturing and selling, for instance, millions of smartphone cases. Furthermore, the continuous introduction of new widgets to earn (or re-earn) new and old customers’ dough alike will tend to promote innovation and improve the quality of products.

As a result of this vicious, yet virtuous cycle, industry has made countless goods cheap and thus available to nearly anyone in wealthy Western countries, the Far East, and increasingly so in the developed world. Many of us indulge in creature comforts unimaginable a century ago.

Cars now have a longer lifespan than they did decades ago (Credit: iStock)

“There’s no doubt about it,” says Slade, “more people have had a better quality of life as a result of our consumer model than at any other time in history. Unfortunately, it’s also responsible for global warming and toxic waste.”

Planned obsolescence isn’t nakedly exploitative, as it benefits both the consumer and the manufacturer  

Oftentimes, planned obsolescence isn’t nakedly exploitative, as it benefits both the consumer and the manufacturer. Chevalier points out that companies tailor the durability of their goods per customer’s needs and expectations. For instance: children’s clothing. “Who buys super durable clothes for their kids?” Chevalier asks. Depending on their age, children might grow out of their clothes sometimes in mere months. It’s not so bad, then, that the clothes might relatively easily stain, tear, or go out of style, so long as they’re inexpensive.  

The same argument can apply to consumer electronics. Relentless innovation and competition for market share means that the underlying technologies in smartphones, for instance, keep surging ahead, with faster processors, better cameras, and so on.

“If ever there was true obsolescence, it’s in technology,” says Howard Tullman, a serial entrepreneur and chief executive officer of 1871, a digital startup incubator. “It’s almost as if the technology takes care of itself – this will obsolete itself whether you like it or not.”

Many owners might therefore appreciate paying less for a smartphone upfront whose, say, batteries can no longer hold a useful charge in three years. “Because the technology is evolving so rapidly, many people are not going to value the extra lifespan of a more durable battery,” says Chevalier.

A revealing counter-perspective to this nexus of customer desire and affordability mediated by planned obsolescence is the luxury goods market. Customers will opt to pay a substantial premium for products that often have finer craftsmanship, greater durability, and resale value – heck, many luxury goods consumers expect their investment to increase in value over time, instead of falling apart and being eventually rubbished. “If you buy a Rolex, you know it’s going to last you and you expect to be able to drive a truck over it,” says Slade.

Of course, people don’t just binge on a Rolex so it’ll be the last watch they or their grandchildren ever need to buy. To varying degrees, high-end brands serve to stroke clients’ egos as symbols of elevated social status. “Luxury goods are socially coded,” says Slade.

Planned obsolescence still very much exists nowadays, but in different forms (Credit: Getty Images)

As the years go by, though, hallmarks of a luxury version of an item can work their way into the mass market as their production grows cheaper and customers come to expect the perks. Few would argue that the increased availability of safety devices, like air bags in cars, once only found in pricier models, has not been a net positive. So in its admittedly self-interested, halting way, the competition at the heart of planned obsolescence-influenced capitalism can work in looking out for consumer’s interests as well.

The future of obsolescence

Accordingly, though examples clearly exist to the contrary, some business academics feel that it’s a bit over the top to assume many companies sit around plotting how to precisely engineer a product to self-destruct.

“If you have a market that’s kind of competitive, then the expected lifespan of the product is certainly something the firms compete over,” says Chevalier. “For a lot of products it’s not like consumers aren’t savvy enough to try to choose products that won’t [soon] be obsolete.”

Indeed, there are forces that could encourage manufacturers to lengthen lifespans.

In the auto market, Chevalier says “everybody thinks about and looks up how quickly does this car depreciate relative to others”. Indeed, in this arena, cars now stay on the road longer than they once did.  

There are forces that could encourage manufacturers to lengthen lifespans

“The auto industry for years has been sort of a fashion-driven business, where your car had fins and five years later, fins were out of style,” says Tullman. Yet that’s changing: he cites United States Department of Transportation figures showing that the average age of a passenger vehicle on the road in that country now stands at 11.4 years; in 1969, the figure was 5.1 years.

With internet reviews, it’s easier than ever to find out if your intended purchase has a short lifespan – and that goes for lightbulbs as well as cars.

And as environmental consciousness of the terrible amounts of waste generated by a throwaway culture has risen, consumer goods might become less disposable. Google’s Project Ara, for instance, is developing a smartphone-like device with six slots for swapping out technologically outdated components, versus traditionally binning the entirety of an aging smartphone.  

A business-minded approach to smarter recycling, reuse and repurposing has arguably made a big dent and will so in future, says Sawhney. For instance, Tesla, the electric automobile manufacturer, has plans to take back the spent batteries in its clients’ cars and repurpose them for home energy storage. The company also auto-downloads and upgrades the software in its clients’ cars as the vehicles charge overnight. Sawhney, who is a Tesla owner, says the company planned ahead for these sorts of upgrades by including “basically future-proof” sensors and hardware in the vehicle. 

“Instead of selling model after model of the car to me, [Tesla] just changed the software,” Sawhney says. “So that’s an antidote to planned obsolescence in a way – it makes obsolescence obsolete.”

Notes from 'thegnammahole.com: The following links are embedded within the text of this article and well worth a visit.

http://www.centennialbulb.org/cam.htm

http://www.reportsfromearth.com/155/designed-to-fail-planned-obsolescence-in-printers-tricks-to-fix-them/

https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/dawn-of-electronics/the-great-lightbulb-conspiracy

[designforsocialimpact]

14 - The Magic Is Happening

The MDES cru starts prepping for our big event <<What Art Can Do...>> amidst a slew of final exams and presentations. Lots of personal victories, we brave the bright lights at a pop culture show and I strive to teach the beauty of a cinemagraph. Because well, MDES is classy like that and ‘tis the season.

Most of the team knows me for my bad-dad jokes. They make moments zip and they soften even the hardest of hearts. I'm not surprised if people secretly love to hate them. But I also know that they won't stop you from sharing them! So welcome to Monday, and How many tickles does it take to get an octopus to laugh? Ten tickles.

No tickles for us - our class for Research & Methodology converts this Monday into one-on-one sessions to review our thesis proposals. This week the projects feel more refined and practicing literature reviews has given each of us an appreciation for the science of research writing. [groan] For those of you keeping score - Amy: Refugees and Sports, Vaila: Identity, Clothing and Slow Fashion, Hanna: Universal Basic Income and Speculative Design, Rica: Blockchain System to Resource Favelas, and me, Smarti: Plastic, Un-plastic and Packaging Design.

The race is on for presentation phase next week. The presentation is a chance to showcase our proposals in front a panel who will judge our work and help us decide on our thesis advisors. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that there is an advisor in the lists available for my work AND who is stimulating but calming. I'm a nervous type and I work hard so I just need someone who can bounce ideas and release the pressure off my work pace valve.

In French that night we go over subjunctive tense. I would/I wish/I doubt. How perfectly ironic that in the second to last week of school we are talking about the expressions of necessity, possibility and judgment. A squiggle smile plays on my face as I say phrases Je doute que..., Je veux que..., Il est possible que... The moody french take no prisoners! Je reve d'avoir un chance. Wait, did I win? Is that subjunctive?

Tuesday is another back to back meeting day. We start with our beloved leadership class as Sabine leads us through a standing meeting. (This is a regular meeting but you get to stand. I really like doing these. It reminds me of a chiropractic exercise I did once at a yoga camp. It made me aware of all kinds of small things I do unconsciously with my body. Like I often collapse my chest downward and lift my chin when I sit. But when I stand, have to round my shoulders back and drop my chin. It corrects so much pressure in the lower back.) Today I say that I feel like that IKEA alarm clock that flips and changes colors. Lots of work ahead so lots of flipping to do.

Sabine even leads us through a presentation on how to do a proper pitch, and we get to learn about a project she did with design thinking in a development project with World Food Programme. The project was about break through the hierarchies and limitations in int'l development to  to get innovative ideas from the field. A lot of times we put pressure on international politics to solve things when they are incapacitated because of limitations of bureaucracies and hierarchies and quite frankly, funding. Grassroots work or even high-level int'l political work with a grassroots access and mindset can be part of a solution.

In the afternoon we reconvene the Design Thinking group to cover details on how to take the next steps for the event What Art Can Do [14 December, 6-9 p.m. We have such an amazing group of artists scheduled to speak at the event. It's been a dream (and a headache - gotta confess) putting all the details together right while finals are looming. Is all event management a bucket of planning and then one day of problem-solving on the fly? We shall find out.  Eventbrite tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/what-art-can-do-tickets-40799667905. 

In the evening I work to finalize the prototype Social Entrepreneur that I created to help them overcome a community-building challenge. It's all about getting people to galvanize around their cause, and for Champerché it's about getting them to explain just why bioponic gardening can be so great! Check out their crowdfunding site: <<https://bluebees.fr/fr/project/391>>

We're back at Draft Atelier on Wednesday where a couple of us are finishing our last printed pieces. We share the lab hour with the Transdisciplinary New Media cohort who will be judged for their finished work in a critique in another class. Our Design for Social Impact cohort will have to present our work separately. Ultimately the main goal is to learn how to 3d print, laser cut and how to use the CNC mill in relation to your work. So, since my project is about compostable, biodegradable and edible packaging I only found purpose for the 3d printer and the laser cutter. In the laser-cutter I worked to make a tessellated folding creation that will help me design an edible paper folded packaging. 

In 3d printing here's my small test take-away container box printed with biodegradable filament made of beer! (It gets covered by tree-resin coated paper cover and sits inside a cloth-sling packaging). This little thing took 1 hour to print last week so I'll have to purchase extra hours in the print lab in order to do a full test. I didn't realize that 3d printing can be so very slow.

In the afternoon I go to a meeting at Living Lab at La Villette in the top right hand corner of Paris. I've been in talks with the staff there about hosting my un-plastic creations in their upcoming exhibit on plastic. Fortunately, they like my prototypes (especially the beer filament 3d creation) and they offer me a residence in February, as well as a chance to present at the event and a space to do testing with my prototypes. YES! So I am dreaming up ideas on how to showcase possible finished work and how to prepare a presentation in french. Also, what exactly does a test-group interaction look like? Maybe I'll serve people food from my packaging and then ask them questions afterwards? I'll have to search around for answers...

This evening calls for a show with my French class at Le Quotidien. Our fearless professor Julie got us tickets to a night entertainment show. Think Daily Show. It's got all the lights and fake set furniture. The host seems nice, the topic is about Johnny Hallyday, the Elvis of France who died today. Apparently he was well known in France, but a most obscure person worldwide. We were told in advance to wear anything but black as the lighting crew prefers to have colorful audience. So here we are - colorful and happy and trying to follow along! I’m wearing green in the very back row, can you spot me?

Thursday is prepping at home for all the different deadlines coming up. Marina Hor-Meyll Lemos mocked up a funny ‘zine on finals - it cheered me up while prepping my bits. So here’s the line-up: Final presentations on thesis and French on the 11th. Final presentation in Leadership on the 12th. Final event for Design Thinking on 14th. Final presentation for Social Entrepreneurship and a manual turned in for Design Thinking on the 15th. So I use the day to move forward on each of these presentations. One by one. Afterwards I head to the gym for a long cardio session. I need to clear my head and zone out for a bit with some therapeutic gymming. I slip into a Netflix Outlander episode and enjoy every minute.

​Friday midday we meet back at our PCA classroom. We're practicing delivery on Leadership presentation. We each did different tracks in the leadership training modules provided by MakeSense. So each of us has different perspectives to share in the presentation. I think MakeSense will be pleased with how we brainstorm solutions for the future of this MOOC. 

Tonight I have a soiree with my husband's company so I get a dry-hair cut in preparation for it. Haven’t tried a dry hair cut before? They are absolutely divine.  I hear it’s a growing trend and I can see why. Who wants to stare at themselves looking like a wet dog while getting snipped? Not me. Bring on the dry cuts. I’ll never go back. We head out to the annual holiday gathering - this time booked at a small cafe in La Marais. There is music-a-playing, spouses a-glittering, ​and even a couple of vegan plates-on-offering! In the back I find a wall-to-wall bookshelf filled with antique books. My book-binding eye begins to twitch. I cannot help myself - and I slide some books out. I even find a random vintage copy of Walt Disney sci-fi books featuring none other than Les Castors Juniors Astronautes aka Huey, Dewey, and Louie Duck, nephews to Donald Duck go to the moon.

The night is complete with a walk down Parisian streets back to the metro. It's nice to hold hands and walk through the chill. There’s lots of sparkly lights glowing up the city. We're dolled up and it's likely the last time I'll feel so fresh because the weekend will be spent glued to my computer screen, typing away, designing the last bits and finishing all the work left on my to-do sheet. Finals are looming!

Saturday and Sunday is more of the same prepping for finals. Except I found a gorgeous cinemagraph that made all the work worthwhile. The magic is happening...

[doxampage]

Be THAT Dog Mom with a Custom Puppy Cookie Cutter

As a small child, I desperately wanted a puppy — so much so that I had a little blue purse with a long strap that I named “Purse Dog” (I wasn’t great with wordplay back then). I dragged Purse Dog around the house by the strap and tied her to the end of my bed at night so she wouldn’t run away.

That sounds so damn cute and tragic that I’m actually a little shocked that my parents didn’t run out immediately and buy me fifteen puppies. But as the years wore on, the closest we got to having a dog was a pair of Tekno Dogs given to my sisters for Christmas and an antisocial rabbit named Smacky, and I lost interest in canine companionship. I didn’t necessarily dislike dogs, but my lack of experience made me a little skittish around them, and I wasn’t super in love with the idea of picking up poop for 10-15 years.

Then I met Nick, and he, from the beginning of our relationship, started describing a future that included all SORTS of animal roommates (goats, chickens, peacocks…), and the whole dog thing started to seem like a pretty good compromise. When we were planning our wedding, I would say something like, “Can you believe it’s only 60 days until our wedding?” and Nick would counter with, “Yeah, but can you believe in 90 days we’re getting a dog?” It took all my willpower not to punch him in the throat when he responded that way (note: violence is never the answer), but the writing was on the wall: this puppy thing was happening.

Much to Nick’s chagrin, it took longer than 30 days to procure said puppy — quite a bit longer. But a little over four weeks ago, we met a tiny little mutt named Gray. She was the runt of her litter, and even my somewhat-dog-apathetic-looking-ass almost cried, overwhelmed at her cuteness, when she emerged from her carrier, all five pounds of slate-colored coat and misty gray eyes of her. We signed the papers and rechristened her Blanche Dogereaux.

We had to wait a week before we brought her home, and to occupy the time, I decided I needed to welcome her to our family the only way I knew how: with a custom 3D printed knick-knack. A cookie cutter of her face seemed appropriate, as it both would forever crystallize her puppyhood AND cement my transition from care-free normal person into crazed, overbearing dog mom. I mean, Blanche is the Beyoncé of dogs, no doubt. She slays, ok? If that makes me Tina, so be it.

But back to cookie cutters.

The hardest part of this project is just drawing your design. Once that’s ready, it only takes about 10 minutes to model it into a cookie cutter. And of course, you can use this same technique to make a cookie cutter of ANYTHING. Your face. Your sister’s face. Your home state. Your house. A lung. Anything. Go wild.

It took 3 weeks for me to actually USE said cookie cutter, because it turns out that puppies are basically just little demons in very, very cute bodies that love nothing more than screaming at you when you try to do something other than pay attention to them. But as you can see in the photos, the cookies are pretty effing cute. Of course, in the 3 weeks since we brought Blanche home, she’s changed so much that the cookie cutter now only bears a passing resemblance to her… another lesson in procrastination, courtesy of Kash.

CUSTOM COOKIE CUTTER: BLANCHE DOGEREAUX EDITION

Time: <30 minutes

Level: Beginner

Software used: Drawing program like Illustrator, Fusion 360

Approximate cost to print (Based on 4″ cookie cutter)-

Shapeways: approximately $25-30 in white nylon.

Using your own 3D printer: Filament cost is approximately $2-3

  Step 1: Drawing your design

We’re going to end up with 3 SVG files in total, which will be known, going forward, as follows:

The Details

The Outline

The Handle

Start by drawing your motif. As you might have noticed by now, I like to do this digitally with a drawing tablet and Illustrator, but you can do this by hand and scan in if you prefer- just be ready to do a few more steps.

Generally speaking, you’ll want your outline to be the thickest line weight, with the inner details in variable width. For me, that was a 3.5 pt outer line weight, with the details varying from 1.5 pt to 2.5pt. Whatever looks good.

Once your base drawing is done, you’re going to save 3 copies. Don’t move your drawing around within the artboard- keep it in one place to make your life easier in a few steps.

Copy one will be the whole drawing- this will be the Details file (above, all red). You can either keep or delete your Outline- I elected to keep it. All you need to do here is expand, combine, and save as an SVG (note: if you’re using Illustrator, don’t use the “export” version of SVG- use the “save as.” For some reason, the exported SVG doesn’t play nice with Fusion.

For Copy 2 (The Outline- Green), delete everything EXCEPT the outline. Increase your line weight by half a point from what you were using before (3.5 to 4, for example). Expand the outline so that it’s one smooth, connected line, and save as an SVG.

For Copy 3 (The Handle- Black) , start by increasing the line weight of the outline a bunch — 15 pts or so. This will be your handle. Next, draw horizontal and vertical lines (line weight should be somewhere between 5-10 pts) across the details — you’re going to want every “floating” detail (eyes, nose, etc-anything not connected to the outline ) to be touching a line. Once everything is accounted for, delete everything except the newly thickened outline and the horizontal and vertical bars. Expand, combine, and save as an SVG.

STEP 2: Extruding your drawings

Start a new Fusion 360 document. Save.

Mouse over to “insert SVG,” choose your plane, and select and place the Details file (make sure to scale to the appropriate size — although with cookies, I believe anything is fair game. I did about 4″ across- a nice, big, almost mall-sized cookie). For more in-depth information on placing and scaling SVG files, take a look at this project.

Select all the details and EXTRUDE. This can be whatever height you want, but I opted for 15mm.

Next, insert another SVG — this time, the outline. If you scale it to the same size as the Details file, and you didn’t move your image around in the artboard in your original file, the inserted SVG should be positioned perfectly with your details. Now, extrude the outline; this time, you’ll make it a few millimeters taller. I added 3 mm, for a total of 18mm.

Now, typically when you extrude a new sketch over an existing extruded area, it will default to cutting away the original body using the new body. It this happens, simply change the function from “Cut” to “New Body.”

We now have our details and our cutting edge. The final step is to add our handle.

Insert the final SVG into the workspace- again, on the same plane. Extrude the handle 1 or 1.5mm, and again, make sure the Extrude function is creating a new body rather than cutting away.

Step 3: Combine

Select all the bodies and combine. Now you’re ready to print!

Step 4: Print

I printed this at home on our printer in white PLA. Because PLA is harder and more traditionally plastic-y than sintered nylon, it seemed like a better fit for a cookie cutter. You can get your own cookie cutter printed in PLA from Shapeways if you don’t have your own 3D printer.

Step 5: Get really busy and overwhelmed while trying to take care of your brand new baby puppy, let 3 weeks elapse, and finally make cookies. Take pictures while you’re rolling them out, but then eat them all before taking any pictures of the final product.

Last note: Take a look at my previous post about 3D printing and food safety. If you want to be super careful, lay a sheet of plastic wrap over your dough and use the cutter over it. I like to live dangerously so I did not do that.

Bonus puppy picture:

This article was reprinted with permission from Beulah.

Kasia is an accessories and jewelry designer who runs her store Collected Edition in our Marketplace and writes for the blog Beulah, an intersection of DIY, craft, and tech. 

The post Be THAT Dog Mom with a Custom Puppy Cookie Cutter appeared first on Shapeways Magazine.

Be THAT Dog Mom with a Custom Puppy Cookie Cutter published first on http://ift.tt/2vVn0YZ

[totalimageshop]

How 3D Printing in Multiple Colors Works

Multicolor printing is a fascinating 3D printing technique, as it allows you to make your 3D file truly come alive in full color. Today we will take a more detailed look at this technology and see how the 3D printer manages to “paint” the model during the printing process.

Our Multicolor material is perfect for visual models that need more than just one color. Typically, these are models you put on your desk or on a shelf such as architectural scale models, figurines, sculptors and awards. Many users have asked us if these models were hand-painted after the printing process, and were surprised to hear that the 3D printer itself did all of the coloring. That’s why we want to shed some light on the 3D printing process of this extraordinary material.

Human face by Eric van Straaten. 3D printed in Multicolor

The Technology: ColorJet Printing

The technology behind our Multicolor material is known as ColorJet 3D printing. This technique builds up the model from a granular powder that is glued together – layer by layer, bottom to top. The technology was first developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1993 and was known as ZPrinting. In 1995, Z Corporation obtained an exclusive license for the technology. Materialise has been using this technology since 2007.

The Base Material: Sandstone Powder

Unlike with most home printers, ColorJet printers do not use filament. In fact, the 3D-printed parts are constructed from a very fine, granular sandstone powder. It is important to note that the powder used by 3D printers cannot be just any kind of powder. Since it will be used for ultra-thin printing layers, the powder must be perfectly shaped in order to even out. Consider rocks and marbles: you could easily put rocks on top of each other to build a pyramid. However, building a pyramid with marbles would be way more difficult, as the perfectly shaped spheres would fail to stay in place and your pyramid wouldn’t stand a chance. Similar to the marbles, the sandstone powder needs to have the perfect shape since each and every printing layer needs to have exactly the same height – even if we’re talking about microns here.

The Printing Process

To create your 3D print, the printer glues the powder together. So here’s how it works: a super-thin layer of sandstone powder is spread out by a roller. And then the magic happens: a print head places tiny drops of glue on the areas of the layer that are part of your design. The 3D printer will continue to spread out one layer of powder after another, and the print head will systematically glue the correct spots of each layer together. But… where is the color?

Section view of the printing process

The Coloring Process: 4 Types of Colored Glue

The coloring of your model is done by combining four different pre-colored glues to match the colors that have been requested. These glues will only be placed on the surfaces of the model, while the interior parts will be glued together with clear glue.

The colored glue can of course print in more than four colors. They can be mixed and printed in up to 16.7 million different colors to be precise. Just like a regular 2D printer, the four base colors are Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (Black), or CMYK for short.

CMYK works pretty much like the box of paints you used back in school. If you don’t have the color of paint you’re looking for, you need to mix two existing colors together. Adding colors together usually means that the new color will be slightly darker (when you mix yellow and black, it follows that the resulting color simply cannot be brighter than yellow). That’s why this system is called a ‘subtractive color model’.

Clash of Clans Multicolor 3D print by Supercell

After the Printing: the Finishing Process

One the printing is done, your model still isn’t ready to be shipped right away. First, we need to dig out the glued model from the box of un-glued powder and clean it carefully. Since it is still quite brittle it needs to be put in a bath of superglue to gain some strength. Next, it will be sprayed with a UV coating to prevent de-coloration by sunlight. That’s what we call our ‘matte’ finish.

You can also go for a ‘gloss’ finish which is achieved by applying a thicker UV coating. This option will give your model a shinier surface. In general, a gloss finish creates an object with more vivid colors, while the colors of a matte object won’t be as shiny. Take a look at the following prints to get a better understanding of the difference between these two finishes:

Matte (left) and gloss (right) next to each other

How to Get a High-Quality Multicolor 3D Print

Consumers can simply order their multicolor 3D prints with our online 3D printing service. This brings entirely new possibilities to designers, sculptors, architects, makers and entrepreneurs; and it also opens new doors to individualized manufacturing.

At i.materialise we’re committed to letting you make the future. If you would like to print your design in Multicolor or one of our 100+ other materials and finishes, upload your 3D file here and see the price of your model within seconds. If you want to learn more about this material first, take a look at our blog post “How to Get the Perfect Multicolor 3D Print”.

from 3D Printing Blog | i.materialise https://i.materialise.com/blog/how-3d-printing-in-multiple-colors-works/

[3dscannercompare-blog]

Top Five 3D Printers

We have listed Among the Top Five 3D Printers. Nowadays the use of 3D printers is very common. Many companies and firms are rendering the usage of this contraption for their purposes. To put it in simple terms a 3D printer is a device which formulates a third dimensional component from the source of a file. It generates a third dimensional printed image from the usage of its addictive methods. Hence this is why so many 3D printing services flock the internet as well as the physical market. Honestly, folks, various websites, and well as physical shops are seen holding offers such as 3D printers for sale. They are well aware of the fact that 3D printers are red hot in the market, and holding sales as such would give them an opportunity to earn huge amounts of profits. These online 3D printing services, in comparison which their physical market counterparts, who are holding various 3D printers for sale offers, if carefully examined are excellent. They not only provide great products and devices but also provide them at relatively low prices than the counterparts. Along with that, they are always there to tend to their customers' issues and problems and if needed personally come and look into their matters. Some of the key features of these 3D printers service renderers are as follows: These 3D printers service providers provide their customers with high-quality printing devices such as the state of the art 3d FDM printers which are capable of producing high-quality prints with an accuracy of about 80 microns and that too at low rate costs. They promise to render devices which are designed to assist their clients to make prototypes up and to run and achieve their desired dreams. They charge just for the material used and not for the envelope volume. This thing is the 3d printing costing pattern. Usually purchasing from the physical market one has to pay in equal amounts for the hollow parts, just like they did for the solid part. Hence that increases the cost. But here they just have to pay for the portion which they are going to use and apart from that nothing at all. They have top quality machines and to go along with them their extensive series of collections from which one can choose. These machines as per them are properly examined and calibrated to ensure customers’ best quality prints which stand apart from the rest. They have in their collection the best Cube 3D printers, the best mojo 3D printers, prominent Dimension 3D printers and also adequate 3D printer filaments.

Top Five 3D Printers Available

Cubify Cube 3

Looking for the best Cube 3D printers? Well, look no further than Cubify Cube 3. It is one of the best and also the simplest printers available in the marketplace. The company sets the filaments, either ABS or PLA (both considered as among the top 3d printer filaments) in a packed up cartridge which is available in about 20 or more vivid colors and also you can quickly change them. These systems also render a particular software which enables adequate printing step by step. Their packages contain various pre-designed digital samples meant for customizing and printing. They are also very safe for kids. The presence of heated printed bases is absent. It also connects to Wi-Fi, thereby making sharing of designs through multiple computers possible.

Stratasys Mojo

For business people or hobbyists who use 3D printers on a regular basis, require a device which is countable and trustworthy and which also provides adequate tech assistance if it breaks. In such situations, the contraption which is adequate for them is Mojo 3D printers.  Well, we recommend them to go for the Stratasys Mojo as it is one of the best devices for small business. It is one of the top mojo 3D printers. These mojos can print objects with a water soluble component known as the SR-30, which renders assistance to complex components objects while printing.

The XYZ Printing da Vinci

It ranks third in our list of top rated 3d printers. Prices at about $500 this device is a full featured printer which provides a huge volume and a closed portion which keeps sensitive objects away from the burnt plastic. The machine prints in ABS plastic with the height being about 0.1mm and comes with its specified WXZ software enabling it to write almost any 3d object from both Windows PCs as well as Mac OS.

MakerBot Replicator 5th generation

It is another one among the elite group of 3d printers. It focuses on printing with PLA and also contains a 3inch LED screen which makes it easier to employ the device as a stand-alone contraption.  It is the best 3D printer for light usage and prices at about $2899.

The Hyrel E2 Hobbyist

Is a device which allows customers to experiment and push the conventional boundaries! It contains four extruders which enable multiple printing options and goes beyond the PLA and ABS plastic. Its price is about $2345. Click to Post

[itsworn]

3D Printing Will Change How We Build Fabricate Speed Parts

CTL + P for Performance?

When new technology shows up, it’s up to a hot rodder to see if it’s worth working into our way of building cars. As each newly accepted tech becomes the norm, a new wave of thinking bounces through our heads. The last time we saw this was in the 1980s when the billet craze took hold of everything from Deuces to Tri-Fives; machined aluminum parts became the hot ticket during the smooth and pastel 1980s aesthetic, bringing a new dimension to custom fabrication. Nowadays, billet aluminum components (whether by hand or CNC) are standard practice for speed and style parts. New tech doesn’t replace the old—you still see manual lathes and vertical mills churning in shop corners despite the rise of CNC—but it’s always worth a look to see if we can bring new capabilities to the table..

Such is the case with 3-D printing, and it has spread like wildfire since 2010. Even though the technology has been around since the late-1980s, the proliferation of low-cost Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) printers has produced a spectrum of machines, from DIY kits to massive metal-printing monoliths. FDM is a process that extrudes plastic filament through a heated nozzle to draw a cross section layer by layer until a part is drawn from the bottom up. Unlike traditional machining processes (which remove material to create a shape), Additive Manufacturing (AM) allows complex geometries to be created with ease because there’s no bulky tool snaking around complex curves and crevices. FDM is the de facto process for desktop 3-D printing, although Stereo Lithography—using UV-sensitive resin that’s hardened as a laser or projector draws each layer while the part is pulled out of the vat of resin—predates FDM while offering higher-resolution prints (albeit at a substantially higher cost.)

We wanted to try two fabrication processes that relied heavily on tooling: composites and metal casting.

We’ve seen simpler parts like cupholders, cellphone mounts, and suspension bushings printed, but we wanted to dive deeper, incorporating 3-D printing into the larger universe of fabrication. During SEMA 2016, Edelbrock preached about its adoption of other AM processes to quickly print ready-to-pour sand molds, solitary cylinder-head runners for prototype flow testing, and other innovative uses in tooling and manufacturing. Seeing a water-jacketed cylinder head appear out of thin air piqued our interests, so we began digging into two fabrication processes where 3-D printing brings something new to the table: composites and metal casting.

Designing the Part

Part of desktop 3-D printing’s rise came from lower barriers in 3-D design software, namely cost and user-friendliness. TinkerCAD, Fusion360, and other freeware modeling software boils computer-aided design (CAD) down into a simpler toolset. We recommend you start there. We won’t get into the depths of 3-D modeling here—the internet is filled with information and how-to’s. Our best advice is that no matter what you do, there’s always the “undo” button—learning through trial by error is not frowned upon! Within a few nights, we were comfortable turning cardboard-aided design templates into proper CAD models.

Here are the final cast-aluminum part (left) and release-agent-coated, 3-D-printed pattern (right). Just about anything you can print can be turned into metal—even complex parts like intake manifolds and cylinder heads.

However, there are some considerations when modeling for 3-D printing. A new layer needs surface under it to build upon; any downward-facing surface is subject to distortion (thanks, gravity) or, worst case, the extruded filament collapses before bridging a gap over thin air. In general, 3-D printing software (also known as slicing software, as it slices your solid 3-D model into layers for printing) is usually clever enough to build disposable supports where needed, but the extra material is not always desirable because it’s tricky to remove from hard-to-reach places. 3D printing takes practice and a few failed prints until you are familiar with your specific machine and what it’s capable of producing. Also, FDM leaves behind a plastic grain, which, like woodgrain, has an effect on where the part is strong, so object orientation while printing should always be considered and may require an occasional low-resolution test run.

Lastly, be mindful of material shrinkage during production: for instance, in aluminum casting you may see from 3 to 5 percent of dimensional shrinkage between the CAD model and final aluminum piece. This can be compensated for by rescaling the model before printing. Some shapes will want to curl off the build plate while cooling, so larger rafts or circular tabs can be used to help prevent a failed print.

Automated Fabrication

One of the most common questions when showing off a printed part is, “How long does it take?” Print times vary from machine to machine and part to part. Factors like the machine’s maximum travel speeds (which can be increased to a point before quality degrades), the layer height selected (think of it as resolution), infill density (3-D printed parts are often hollow, with a simple internal structure for support, saving material and time), and the part’s geometry/tool path.

To fit the 12.5-inch-wide part on our Makerbot’s 11.60-inch-wide build plate, we printed the model in two parts. Each printed layer is a cross section, stacked higher and higher until the part is finished.

The shell halves used in our cast-aluminum gauge pod took about 15 hours to print, while the NACA duct in our fiberglass example took less than 9 hours. Both final parts were printed with a high-resolution 0.01mm layer height, though for quicker, rougher prints the machine can use up to a 0.04mm layer height. While these are considerable chunks of time, they’re not chunks of your time. While the machine is humming away, you can be out fabricating, racing, or relaxing. Many machines, like our Makerbot Replicator+, can also be daisy-chained together to create printing farms for small-scale mass production. How long does it take to carve a wood pattern? A lot longer.

Endless Answers to Build

While consumer-friendly desktop printers have gone off like an atom bomb recently, the technology would not have steady footing if it weren’t for a collective of tinkerers, engineers, coders, and students adopting the technology early. Thanks to community-supported websites like Thingiverse.com and GrabCAD, there are thousands of free CAD files available that can be printed. Everything from airfoils to turbo flanges, NACA ducts (and more) can be quickly downloaded and printed on your own machine. Of course, that’s only the tip of the iceberg, as just about anything you can draw in CAD can be turned into reality while you churn out nine-to-five work—this is how we ended up with our one-off, cast-aluminum gauge pod. Between the spectrum of repositories and your own imagination, there’s not much that can’t be brought into the physical world with the help of 3-D printing.

Brain to Bench

Seeing a one-off project through design, production, and completion brings a certain satisfaction that can’t be found on the shelf with a price tag attached.

We took our cardboard template to paper to sketch out the profile, and a quick test print physically proved our design.

We started with a cardboard template that set the side view of our gauge pod relative to the curvature of the windshield and dash as our only real physical constraints. For width, we measured between the trapezoidal cluster and glovebox door of our daily driven 1969 CST/10, which allowed us to carry four 2-1/16-inch gauges. To give it style, we aped the stock cluster’s trapezoidal design, but inverted it so the gauge pod would take on the dash’s natural lines.

In CAD, we were able to confirm our internal clearances by drawing 2-1/16×2-inch cylinders to simulate our gauges and ensure there was enough room to install and wire a full set. From there, we kept tweaking the shape until we were happy with the dimensions and look.

Because our final part was larger than our MakerBot’s generous 11.6-inch-wide build surface, we split the 3-D model down the center and printed the whole part in two halves. Once printed, it was trivial to superglue the halves together, and with light sanding, the seam was all but hidden. For longer prints, the model can be split into any number of subsections to maximize your printer’s available build volume with larger parts.

Once printed, hand-sanding the part begins to remove the subtle stripping left between layers—extruded filament lays down in a squished oval shape, which is just the nature of the beast in FDM 3-D printing. This is important for both composites and casting, as both processes require the printed part (be it a mold for fiberglass/carbon-fiber or a pattern for casting) to be cleanly released, and any surface texture creates substantial friction when removing molds and patterns.

John Fell—owner of the Allison V12-powered Cream Puff race boat featured in the Dec. 2016 issue of HRM—at Buddy Bar Casting showed us the ropes of sandcasting. The part was poured from 3080 aluminum. We’ll also revisit home casting down the road as our own project cars progress.

From here, you can begin either process as you would traditionally, but now the tooling has been simplified so complex shapes can be quickly printed and turned into usable patterns or molds with a few clicks. This gauge pod is a simple example of what you can create for casting, and our molded NACA duct serves as a small look at what can be tackled in composites. But what if you could draw a custom turbo manifold for a motor with less aftermarket support or recreate a missing piece of unobtainium trim on a restoration?

After a quick polish, a touch of paint, and some classic Auto Meters, our gauge pod looks at home atop our dash. We passed our wiring through the original dash speaker grille and used small neodymium magnets to keep it attached with no dash modifications.

Stay tuned to HOT ROD for more 3-D printing adventures as we create new problems in our projects to solve.

Makerbot Replicator+: Our Thoughts

Makerbot is a household name in 3-D printing, though the company has struggled with corporate growing pains over the last few years. The fifth-generation Replicator is MB’s stab at the professional market. The machine is optimized for PLA filament, a low-temp, organic plastic that’s incredibly forgiving to print. PLA’s disadvantages are in its strength (more brittle than ABS plastic) and in its temperature resistance (direct sunlight will soften and warp parts severely), but for prototyping or pattern/mold-making, this is not an issue. The removable, flexible build plate is a nice addition, providing solid traction for first-layer adhesion while making removal a snap with a few gentle twists of the plate. This saves the need to lay down sacrificial materials (tape or glue) or crudely prying to remove the part. Overall, the machine’s performance was satisfactory, with only a few failed prints—something that’s bound to happen while learning the ropes. The included software was easy to use, with plenty of tools to solve common 3-D printing quirks.

What we liked: Ease of use, dimensional accuracy to CAD drawing, one of the largest build volumes available, fast print speeds, remote monitoring via built-in camera.

What we didn’t like: Price (for a PLA-only machine at this price bracket, competitors are more flexible), lack of Z-axis offset adjustment in the printer’s menus, proprietary filament spool size, and G-Code format.

Budget-friendly alternatives?

Prusia i3

MonoPrice Select series

Wanhao Duplicator

XYZprinting Da Vinci series

M3D Micro

(Note: We have not tested these, but they come highly recommended at time of publishing.)

Printing a header mockup kit in bulk took 15 hours.

We asked for 50mm—good ’nuff for government work!

  The post 3D Printing Will Change How We Build Fabricate Speed Parts appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

from Hot Rod Network http://www.hotrod.com/articles/3d-printing-will-change-build-fabricate-speed-parts/ via IFTTT

[mindthump]

Awesome tech you can’t buy yet: automatic guitar tuners and 3D metal printers http://ift.tt/2nw6Rll

At any given moment, there are approximately a zillion crowdfunding campaigns on the web. Take a stroll through Kickstarter or Indiegogo and you’ll find no shortage of weird, useless, and downright stupid projects out there — alongside some real gems. In this column, we cut through all the worthless wearables and Oculus Rift ripoffs to round up the week’s most unusual, ambitious, and exciting projects. But don’t grab your wallet just yet. Keep in mind that any crowdfunded project can fail — even the most well-intentioned. Do your homework before cutting a check for the gadget of your dreams.

Roadie 2 — universal automatic guitar tuner

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There is little in in this world more unbearable than listening to somebody play an improperly tuned guitar. It’s 10 times worse than fingernails on a chalkboard, and makes anyone within hearing distance want to cut out their eardrums with a hot grapefruit spoon.

So if you play guitar and you’re not good at tuning it, please do everyone a favor and snag yourself a digital tuner. Really, any old tuner will do the trick, but if you want the Cadillac of tuners, get yourself a Roadie 2.

This the new-and-improved version of the original roadie, which hit Kickstarter back in 2013. What makes it so special? Well, not only can it listen to and automatically adjust the tension of your strings, but it can also give you feedback on the health of your strings and recommend restringing as soon as the tone quality deteriorates.

On top of that, it’s universal and will work with a wide variety of different stringed instruments, regardless of how they’re tuned. And best of all? It’s designed to be a standalone device, so you don’t have to pair it with your smartphone in order to use it — just turn it on and start plucking.

Read more here

Rinsten Spring — bike seat shock absorber

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Riding a bike without proper shock absorption can be a jarring experience. Most bike frames are designed to transfer vibrations directly up to the rider, so going over anything that’s less than perfectly smooth can easily give you a serious case of numb butt cheeks.

Shock absorbers are available to install on your ride, but available frame and fork suspension systems aren’t always ideal, since they tend to rob you of your downward pedaling force and make riding up hills more difficult. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a suspension system just for your seat?

That’s where the Rinsten Spring comes in. Not only does this simple little device install in just a couple minutes, but it also protects your butt from bumps and vibrations without negatively impacting your pedaling power. And it’s adjustable! Made up of only five parts, the Rinsten Spring’s rigidity can be tuned and tweaked to best suit certain weight and road surfaces.

Once you know your optimum settings, it can easy swap between sport and city riding modes on the fly. And to top it all off, the high quality steel and aluminum structure ensures that the spring will last.

Read more here

Superscreen — wireless HD touchscreen

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Samsung’s Galaxy S8 unveil might have stolen the headlines this week, but while everyone was busy oohing and ahhing at the company’s latest flagship phone, a little known startup from California dropped a whopper of a product on Kickstarter.

The Superscreen is a $99 high-definition touchscreen that doesn’t have all the hi-spec hardware that you’d typically find inside a tablet … and that’s the point. Instead, it’s designed to leverage the processing power of your smartphone, but deliver the imagery on a bigger, brighter display.

Superscreen is nothing more than a 10-inch QHD display that syncs with a companion app on your phone. Once connected, your phone is displayed on the Superscreen. And it’s not just a static image either — you can interact with Superscreen via multitouch just like you would on your phone.

You can do just about everything you’d do with a normal tablet — it just doesn’t cost nearly as much, and it requires a smartphone to operate.

Read more here

NutraMilk — nut milking machine

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Almond milk is the bee’s knees. Not only is it healthier than dairy milk for you and your body, but it’s also far less damaging to the environment than milk produced by cows. The only problem? It’s often packed with sweeteners and preservatives, and isn’t terribly cheap. But not to worry — the NutraMilk machine is here to save the day. With this little appliance, you can easily make almond milk right in the comfort of your own home and, more importantly, control what does (or doesn’t) go into it.

In terms of operation, it’s much like a blender and a juicer rolled into one. Unlike other nut milking machines, you don’t even need to start by soaking your almonds overnight — you just dump them straight into the machine. NutraMilk slices and blends the almonds (or any other nuts) in a matter of seconds with a spinning blade. While it does that, the device also mixes water with the blended creation, nabbing all the nutrient goodness that’s liberated from the almonds.

Once the blend finishes, you’re  left with liters of fresh, ready-to-drink nut milk.

Read more here

Ability1 — desktop 3D metal printer

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Ever since 3D printing broke into the consumer space, proponents of the technology have foretold of a Utopian future in which 3D printers are a household staple akin to dishwashers and microwaves; where we can print products on-demand instead of buying them at a store.  That hasn’t happened yet. Why? It’s hard to say, but one thing that’s certainly holding printers back from widespread adoption is the fact that most of them can only make plastic parts.

Ability3D wants to change this. Company founder and former NASA engineer Ben Willard has created an innovative new 3D printer that’s capable of printing metal parts in the comfort of your own home. But that’s not its most impressive claim.

Metal printers have been around for years at this point, but unfortunately, even the cheapest ones cost as much as a Lamborghini. What’s incredible about this one is that you can get one for under $3,000. Rather than using lasers to fuse metal powder into a solid object, the Ability1 uses a combination of MIG welding and CNC routing to achieve a similar effect. Since welding machines, metal filament, and CNC toolheads are all relatively cheap and accessible, Willard can sell his printer for a fraction of the cost.

Read more here

This gizmo can automatically tune any guitar in a matter of seconds

Make your own almond butter and milk in minutes with the NutraMilk system

Awesome tech you can’t buy yet: Rideables, almond milkers, and robo-arms

[doxampage]

How 3D Printing in Multiple Colors Works

Multicolor printing is a fascinating 3D printing technique, as it allows you to make your 3D file truly come alive in full color. Today we will take a more detailed look at this technology and see how the 3D printer manages to “paint” the model during the printing process.

Our Multicolor material is perfect for visual models that need more than just one color. Typically, these are models you put on your desk or on a shelf such as architectural scale models, figurines, sculptors and awards. Many users have asked us if these models were hand-painted after the printing process, and were surprised to hear that the 3D printer itself did all of the coloring. That’s why we want to shed some light on the 3D printing process of this extraordinary material.

Human face by Eric van Straaten. 3D printed in Multicolor

The Technology: ColorJet Printing

The technology behind our Multicolor material is known as ColorJet 3D printing. This technique builds up the model from a granular powder that is glued together – layer by layer, bottom to top. The technology was first developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1993 and was known as ZPrinting. In 1995, Z Corporation obtained an exclusive license for the technology. Materialise has been using this technology since 2007.

The Base Material: Sandstone Powder

Unlike with most home printers, ColorJet printers do not use filament. In fact, the 3D-printed parts are constructed from a very fine, granular sandstone powder. It is important to note that the powder used by 3D printers cannot be just any kind of powder. Since it will be used for ultra-thin printing layers, the powder must be perfectly shaped in order to even out. Consider rocks and marbles: you could easily put rocks on top of each other to build a pyramid. However, building a pyramid with marbles would be way more difficult, as the perfectly shaped spheres would fail to stay in place and your pyramid wouldn’t stand a chance. Similar to the marbles, the sandstone powder needs to have the perfect shape since each and every printing layer needs to have exactly the same height – even if we’re talking about microns here.

The Printing Process

To create your 3D print, the printer glues the powder together. So here’s how it works: a super-thin layer of sandstone powder is spread out by a roller. And then the magic happens: a print head places tiny drops of glue on the areas of the layer that are part of your design. The 3D printer will continue to spread out one layer of powder after another, and the print head will systematically glue the correct spots of each layer together. But… where is the color?

Section view of the printing process

The Coloring Process: 4 Types of Colored Glue

The coloring of your model is done by combining four different pre-colored glues to match the colors that have been requested. These glues will only be placed on the surfaces of the model, while the interior parts will be glued together with clear glue.

The colored glue can of course print in more than four colors. They can be mixed and printed in up to 16.7 million different colors to be precise. Just like a regular 2D printer, the four base colors are Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (Black), or CMYK for short.

CMYK works pretty much like the box of paints you used back in school. If you don’t have the color of paint you’re looking for, you need to mix two existing colors together. Adding colors together usually means that the new color will be slightly darker (when you mix yellow and black, it follows that the resulting color simply cannot be brighter than yellow). That’s why this system is called a ‘subtractive color model’.

Clash of Clans Multicolor 3D print by Supercell

After the Printing: the Finishing Process

One the printing is done, your model still isn’t ready to be shipped right away. First, we need to dig out the glued model from the box of un-glued powder and clean it carefully. Since it is still quite brittle it needs to be put in a bath of superglue to gain some strength. Next, it will be sprayed with a UV coating to prevent de-coloration by sunlight. That’s what we call our ‘matte’ finish.

You can also go for a ‘gloss’ finish which is achieved by applying a thicker UV coating. This option will give your model a shinier surface. In general, a gloss finish creates an object with more vivid colors, while the colors of a matte object won’t be as shiny. Take a look at the following prints to get a better understanding of the difference between these two finishes:

Matte (left) and gloss (right) next to each other

How to Get a High-Quality Multicolor 3D Print

Consumers can simply order their multicolor 3D prints with our online 3D printing service. This brings entirely new possibilities to designers, sculptors, architects, makers and entrepreneurs; and it also opens new doors to individualized manufacturing.

At i.materialise we’re committed to letting you make the future. If you would like to print your design in Multicolor or one of our 100+ other materials and finishes, upload your 3D file here and see the price of your model within seconds. If you want to learn more about this material first, take a look at our blog post “How to Get the Perfect Multicolor 3D Print”.

How 3D Printing in Multiple Colors Works published first on http://ift.tt/2vVn0YZ

[3dscannercompare-blog]

Top Five 3D Printers

We have listed Among the Top Five 3D Printers. Nowadays the use of 3D printers is very common. Many companies and firms are rendering the usage of this contraption for their purposes. To put it in simple terms a 3D printer is a device which formulates a third dimensional component from the source of a file. It generates a third dimensional printed image from the usage of its addictive methods. Hence this is why so many 3D printing services flock the internet as well as the physical market. Honestly, folks, various websites, and well as physical shops are seen holding offers such as 3D printers for sale. They are well aware of the fact that 3D printers are red hot in the market, and holding sales as such would give them an opportunity to earn huge amounts of profits. These online 3D printing services, in comparison which their physical market counterparts, who are holding various 3D printers for sale offers, if carefully examined are excellent. They not only provide great products and devices but also provide them at relatively low prices than the counterparts. Along with that, they are always there to tend to their customers' issues and problems and if needed personally come and look into their matters. Some of the key features of these 3D printers service renderers are as follows: These 3D printers service providers provide their customers with high-quality printing devices such as the state of the art 3d FDM printers which are capable of producing high-quality prints with an accuracy of about 80 microns and that too at low rate costs. They promise to render devices which are designed to assist their clients to make prototypes up and to run and achieve their desired dreams. They charge just for the material used and not for the envelope volume. This thing is the 3d printing costing pattern. Usually purchasing from the physical market one has to pay in equal amounts for the hollow parts, just like they did for the solid part. Hence that increases the cost. But here they just have to pay for the portion which they are going to use and apart from that nothing at all. They have top quality machines and to go along with them their extensive series of collections from which one can choose. These machines as per them are properly examined and calibrated to ensure customers’ best quality prints which stand apart from the rest. They have in their collection the best Cube 3D printers, the best mojo 3D printers, prominent Dimension 3D printers and also adequate 3D printer filaments.

Top Five 3D Printers Available

Cubify Cube 3

Looking for the best Cube 3D printers? Well, look no further than Cubify Cube 3. It is one of the best and also the simplest printers available in the marketplace. The company sets the filaments, either ABS or PLA (both considered as among the top 3d printer filaments) in a packed up cartridge which is available in about 20 or more vivid colors and also you can quickly change them. These systems also render a particular software which enables adequate printing step by step. Their packages contain various pre-designed digital samples meant for customizing and printing. They are also very safe for kids. The presence of heated printed bases is absent. It also connects to Wi-Fi, thereby making sharing of designs through multiple computers possible.

Stratasys Mojo

For business people or hobbyists who use 3D printers on a regular basis, require a device which is countable and trustworthy and which also provides adequate tech assistance if it breaks. In such situations, the contraption which is adequate for them is Mojo 3D printers.  Well, we recommend them to go for the Stratasys Mojo as it is one of the best devices for small business. It is one of the top mojo 3D printers. These mojos can print objects with a water soluble component known as the SR-30, which renders assistance to complex components objects while printing.

The XYZ Printing da Vinci

It ranks third in our list of top rated 3d printers. Prices at about $500 this device is a full featured printer which provides a huge volume and a closed portion which keeps sensitive objects away from the burnt plastic. The machine prints in ABS plastic with the height being about 0.1mm and comes with its specified WXZ software enabling it to write almost any 3d object from both Windows PCs as well as Mac OS.

MakerBot Replicator 5th generation

It is another one among the elite group of 3d printers. It focuses on printing with PLA and also contains a 3inch LED screen which makes it easier to employ the device as a stand-alone contraption.  It is the best 3D printer for light usage and prices at about $2899.

The Hyrel E2 Hobbyist

Is a device which allows customers to experiment and push the conventional boundaries! It contains four extruders which enable multiple printing options and goes beyond the PLA and ABS plastic. Its price is about $2345. Click to Post