soggypenny

I added The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. (unsure if on Project Gutenberg, but it's at least free on Amazon). btw, when I submitted the form the thank you message was off-white text on a white background.

Sure! Email in profile.

That's probably because Apple bought up Mirasol. http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/12/15/apple-has-taken-ov...

"Quirky brought more than 400 products to market in just six years." - from the New York Magazine article.

That number is absolutely staggering. I would love to see what their internal product development was like.

Currently Upwork freelancers who are hired for hourly work get monitored for time tracking called the Work Diary[0]. My understanding is that this is a well-received value-add for their platform.

[0]https://support.upwork.com/entries/23141928

Great story, thaumaturgy! Does anyone know how much more rigorous Statistical Process Control [0] needs to be for aerospace than for consumer electronics (for example)? I wouldn't be surprised if 1/1000 failure is AOK for consumer hardware and catastrophic failure for aerospace (as we see with SpaceX).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_process_control

I absolutely love it when companies publish their product development stories. Being forced to switch injection molding suppliers mid-production is often a nightmare scenario for product developers, and it's great that they were able to salvage their tooling. I'd love to learn more about what exactly was wrong and how they were able to fix it.

Yes, it's beautiful. However, looks like there's no form validation on the email submit. I just submitted "r" as an email address.

We (https://supplybetter.com) get asked the China vs. US question all the time and my answer is usually "your mileage may vary". It's a great post by the Flow team, but where to source your manufacturing supply chain is highly dependent on the type of product being built. For instance, the product and vendor certifications required for aerospace, defense, and medical industries are a much larger influencer of where to setup a supply chain than in the consumer hardware space. If you're developing a high-end consumer office product like the Flow team, then it probably makes sense to do the majority of the development domestically. The Bay Area is a great place to prototype hardware, and there's a large fraction of potential beta testers and software talent for them to tap. But like I said, YMMV.

"Shortcomings of the STL format in terms of processing time and object dimensional precision are a barrier for the production of complex, high-precision parts ... this format only allows geometric representation, so it does not allow voxel-by-voxel information to be carried from the CAD software to the printer. To realize the full potential of 3D printing, the roadmaps of 3D printers and 3D CAD software must be aligned, and the roadmaps must be accompanied by a change to a more information-rich file format."

To me, this right here is the heart of the white paper. If they want their machine to stand apart from polyjet (Objet) technology by printing with per-voxel control of multiple materials (very similar to Objet's digital materials [0]), then they're going to have to create a new workflow for engineers to design with (which was not detailed in the whitepaper other than this mentioning of a new kind of file format needed to handle the design information). Particularly, is the design workflow going to allow for finite element analysis (FEA) of both geometry and material? People are already creating CAD software that will allow for user-friendly FEA of geometry [1], but I'm not sure if anyone is working on FEA of both geometry and material. If HP can develop that solution, that right there would be a legitimate breakthrough.

[0]: http://www.stratasys.com/materials/polyjet/digital-materials [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU3W-RrJDT4#t=327

Shameless plug for our 3D printing matching service: http://www.supplybetter.com. You come to us with a project, and we match you to the best service bureaus for the job (i.e. the people with the printers, both hobbyist and commercial). I'm the co-founder and mechanical engineer on the team, and you work directly with me as we source your project. Check us out!

Great timing as I was recently looking for a resource like this. I've been leaning towards Flask (vs. Django) so I'll definitely check this out.

Looks like DLP (Direct Light Projection) 3D printing and has an eerily similar form factor to the EnvisionTec Perfactory Micro: http://envisiontec.com/case_studies/bosmans-3d-printing-jewe...

Interested to see how they plan to differentiate this printer from the similar DLP offerings out there already (DLP printers are big in the jewelry industry)

Feedback on the website: There is currently no Terms of Service. There is a Privacy Policy posted, but the TOS is not there. Your PP says, "This Privacy Policy is governed by our Terms of Service", so I would post one immediately.

As someone with rudimentary programming experience this is cool. I've had an enthusiasm for D3.js projects but haven't been able to come across an applicable "this is how you get started" example. Well done.

Side note: I downloaded the gist and encountered some odd behavior when I opened the .html file in my browser (Chrome on Mac OSX). The treasure chest is stuck near the top of the circle (regardless of cursor position) and one of the flags is missing its connecting lines. Just thought you should know.

As a fellow mechanical engineer, that's exactly why my co-founder and I launched SupplyBetter.com. Our goal is to match you with the right supplier to make what you need. Especially when it comes to engineering-grade requirements, service bureaus specializing in additive manufacturing provide immense value. When desktop 3D printers can reach the consistency, accuracy, and detail of commercial printers we'll be more than happy to embrace them as well.

Yes, indeed! supplybetter.com is our landing page. We're always looking for feedback on our service and site, so feel free to hit us up!

Hi grannyg00se! I don't see an email in your profile, so:

1. Rob 2. SupplyBetter.com

1 @ 2 is my email. Let's talk.

A solution to this problem is EXACTLY what my co-founder and I are working on right now. We're working to be Match.com for custom-made parts, and highly specialized shops like your dad's are the ideal use case for our product. Would you be willing to talk directly or put me in touch with your dad? We'd love to help out any way we can.