|
MakerBeam |
MakerBeam is Sam Putman, Glenn Powers and James Coddington. We are tinkers, geeks, musicians, builders and scientists, and we love cool toys and open source projects.
Projects by MakerBeam (1)
MakerBeam is Backing (9)
Recent Posts by MakerBeam
-
MakerBeam
Posted project update #16LaserBeam!
Hello from Betaland!
So February has come and gone, and Betas are yet to launch. We've had some delays in manufacturing our brackets, but the die is back from the engravers and we're pretty much set to go on stamping, so everything is coming together in the next couple of weeks. Look for an email soon to collect your address and other information.
The serial number trial run just came back, and Brett Halle at Comet has done a great job here. Enjoy and look for your very own LaserBeam in the mail Real Soon Now!
-
-
MakerBeam
Posted project update #15MakerBeam in the Wild
Hello MakerBeam Friends!
It's been awhile since we've done an update, either here or at our website. MakerBeam is in a pupal stage, if you will, no longer a leaf-munching crowdfunded caterpillar and not yet sporting the iridescent wings of full production.
We've been staying busy. It's now February, and with a stiff wind at our backs we'll be able to ship our remaining pledge rewards by the end of the month, starting with the third week. We have a second round of components in production, which will improve the quality of our plastic pieces and add metal brackets to the lineup.
We're in active negotiation with a couple parties to bring MakerBeam forward, and are still aiming to go public with our product by Maker Faire, in the third week of May. We are currently focused on getting our Betas and other pledges built. Recently we've been offered some CAD and layout help for the standard, which will help move that overdue project forward.
We're still having a ton of fun here and can't wait to show you what we've got at Maker Faire! Look for a website update soon. In the meantime, enjoy these photos of MakerBeam in the wild! Thanks to jtokash, lenore of EMSL, and Andrew Plumb (clothbot) for these images. We encourage all members of Team Alpha to build, photo, and Flickr their creations for all to see!
-
-
MakerBeam
Posted project update #14Alpha Kits have shipped!
This post is exclusive to backers.
-
MakerBeam
commented on a projectI love dubstep! Do you have any tracks up elsewhere that we could listen to?
-
MakerBeam
commented on a projectTry again David! I'm still waiting to taste the best maté in the world.
-
MakerBeam
commented on a projectGreat project! It's an inspiring idea. I have a question about licensing. Will your research be available under an open source license? The hardware designs and control software for such a device could make a difference to millions of paraplegic individuals, not to mention utility in designing robots with a humanoid gait. I am always interested in backing and promoting open source research. Please let us know if that is your intention. Thanks!
-
MakerBeam
commented on a project update10mm indeed. It's just pretending to be a skyscraper. little beams with big aspirations!
Big Beautiful Boxes of Beam
Oh yeah. We got ourselves some serious beam up in MakerBeam HQ. Boxes and boxes. It looks beautiful. But you don't have to take our word for it. There will be more photos to come. For now, ...
-
MakerBeam
commented on a projectWell Vidor, I can only quote our project page: "Mini-T is a miniature version of larger T-slot building systems." To date, MakerBeam and MicroRAX are the only 10x10mm profiles out there. Fischerteknik is 15x15mm, made of nylon, and otherwise substantially different; everyone else is larger still, starting at 20mm. XBeams, from what I can gather from the Internet Archive, was simply re-branded inch-pitch T-slot with an innovative connector system. Minitech, which you link to, appears to sell 45x45mm T-slot; this is not what we mean by "mini" in Mini-T! TSlots bottoms out at 20x20mm; this is four times the size of MakerBeam. We are rapidly reaching the point where our product will speak for itself. A note about open-source, however: the very root of open source development in the free software movement was in fact reimplementation of copywritten code. GNU is GNU's Not Unix because Unix was copywritten by AT&T and RMS wanted something like it that was freely available. MakerBeam is not like this, however; our work represents significant original design, bringing together several good and obvious ideas into something that wil work better than the sum of the parts. Like a platform should! As for what those good ideas are, well, we've been playing our cards close to the vest; Christmas carols are in the air and our Alphas will have full stockings soon enough...
-
MakerBeam
commented on a project updateOkay everyone, you're all paid up and ready to go! The one remaining error message is one of our international backers who warned us in advance this might happen. Today we start CNCing connectors in preparation for the Alpha kits! Look for a general 'status of MakerBeam' update between now and Monday.
Funding blip (not to worry)
This post is exclusive to backers.
-
MakerBeam
commented on a project updateOkay, everyone who got a "fail" earlier, your cards are being run again. In the vast majority of cases, this should work fine. If there appear to be any further problems, please give it until Friday to resolve before dropping an email. Anyone who has pledged, we will guarantee your pledge package and find a way to make payment work. Thanks, and sorry about the fumble! Should be fine now.
Funding blip (not to worry)
This post is exclusive to backers.
-
MakerBeam
commented on a project updateNo action required! Basically there's some lag time in verifying bank accounts that we didn't factor in. Amazon won't let us accumulate more than $10,000 in payments without account verification; this is another thing we didn't know. Once the paperwork is all filed, Kickstarter will run the pledges again. This won't be affecting our delivery timetable in any way; sorry about the minor snafu.
Funding blip (not to worry)
This post is exclusive to backers.
-
MakerBeam
commented on a projectWow Vitaly, Contraptor looks great! A great supplement to GridBeam and 1" T-slot. Probably also works well with 25mm T-slot systems, 4 mm is not a lot of difference. Linear motion is near or at the top of our design list. We're devoting all our attention right now to getting the details of the connector and bracket system down, for delivery with the Alpha kits. When our first batch of beam arrives in mid-November, we'll be in a much better position to design the next generation of parts, which will certainly include linear slides.
-
MakerBeam
commented on a project updateChris, You are the great success story here. Your work through Kickstarter only adds to that. Congratulations.
Summit
Hello all, Thanks so much for all of your support. It was a disappointment not to reach our fundraising goals on Kickstarter, but looking back they might have been a bit too lofty. Despite not r...
-
MakerBeam
commented on a projectChris gives a good answer here: the screw sizes will differ but the joining plates will have identical proportions or nearly so. Different screw sizes come directly from different slot sizes in this case. The different profiles (Mini-T, MicroRAX) are going to be stronger choices for different applications, I expect, and being able to use them together will make the whole idea more flexible. There's a blog post coming on all this; stay tuned.
-
MakerBeam
commented on a projectYeah the MicroRAX people are good guys, they've pledged to our project actually. Real gents! I don't know that I'd call it VERY similar, but it is also 10x10mm in basic cross section. They were nice enough to send me a sample when we found out about each other. There are some intriguing differences. We call it a mutual win: taking measurements on MicroRAX has convinced me that Mini-T will do the job it's intended for, and watching MakerBeam draw backing has I'm sure given TwinTec some confidence that there's a market out there.
-
MakerBeam
commented on a projectCongratulations. :-)
-
MakerBeam
commented on a projectTry again David! I'm still waiting to taste the best maté in the world.
-
MakerBeam
commented on a projectGreat project! It's an inspiring idea. I have a question about licensing. Will your research be available under an open source license? The hardware designs and control software for such a device could make a difference to millions of paraplegic individuals, not to mention utility in designing robots with a humanoid gait. I am always interested in backing and promoting open source research. Please let us know if that is your intention. Thanks!
-
MakerBeam
commented on a project update10mm indeed. It's just pretending to be a skyscraper. little beams with big aspirations!
Big Beautiful Boxes of Beam
Oh yeah. We got ourselves some serious beam up in MakerBeam HQ. Boxes and boxes. It looks beautiful. But you don't have to take our word for it. There will be more photos to come. For now, ...
-
MakerBeam
Posted project update #13Big Beautiful Boxes of Beam
Oh yeah. We got ourselves some serious beam up in MakerBeam HQ. Boxes and boxes.
It looks beautiful. But you don't have to take our word for it.
There will be more photos to come. For now, enjoy. And thank you, all of you, for your support in making this possible. We think you'll be pleased.
-
-
MakerBeam
Posted project update #12Bay Area MakerBeam Meetup: Palo Alto, Dec 5th
Greetings friends and backers! We've had a vigorous few weeks of moving money from place to place and ordering parts for the Alpha kits. Our beam ships today from the factory, and we should have some pictures up by the end of the week. We are geeked beyond measure.
Speaking of geekiness beyond measure, the Museum of American Heritage in Palo Alto is having an exhibit called Meccano Mania!
http://www.moah.org/exhibits/future_exhibit.html
What better place for the first Bay Area MakerBeam Meetup? Let's posse up!
In order to sliver this in between Thanksgiving and serious holiday action, we're thinking Saturday, December 5th. MOAH has limited hours (11am-4pm); I intend to get there by noon. After our tour of all things Metallbaukasten, we'll find somewhere for dinner and drinks. The Museum is right by Caltrain, so this should be an easy place for us to get together.
All planning for this event will be on the newly hatched MakerBeam List so hie ye forth:
Look forward to meeting some of you, and showing off the system a little bit. We won't have all the pieces in place by then but there should be enough for a demo!
-
MakerBeam
commented on a projectWell Vidor, I can only quote our project page: "Mini-T is a miniature version of larger T-slot building systems." To date, MakerBeam and MicroRAX are the only 10x10mm profiles out there. Fischerteknik is 15x15mm, made of nylon, and otherwise substantially different; everyone else is larger still, starting at 20mm. XBeams, from what I can gather from the Internet Archive, was simply re-branded inch-pitch T-slot with an innovative connector system. Minitech, which you link to, appears to sell 45x45mm T-slot; this is not what we mean by "mini" in Mini-T! TSlots bottoms out at 20x20mm; this is four times the size of MakerBeam. We are rapidly reaching the point where our product will speak for itself. A note about open-source, however: the very root of open source development in the free software movement was in fact reimplementation of copywritten code. GNU is GNU's Not Unix because Unix was copywritten by AT&T and RMS wanted something like it that was freely available. MakerBeam is not like this, however; our work represents significant original design, bringing together several good and obvious ideas into something that wil work better than the sum of the parts. Like a platform should! As for what those good ideas are, well, we've been playing our cards close to the vest; Christmas carols are in the air and our Alphas will have full stockings soon enough...
-
MakerBeam
Posted project update #11Makin Beams
This post is exclusive to backers.
-
MakerBeam
commented on a project updateOkay everyone, you're all paid up and ready to go! The one remaining error message is one of our international backers who warned us in advance this might happen. Today we start CNCing connectors in preparation for the Alpha kits! Look for a general 'status of MakerBeam' update between now and Monday.
Funding blip (not to worry)
This post is exclusive to backers.
-
MakerBeam
commented on a project updateOkay, everyone who got a "fail" earlier, your cards are being run again. In the vast majority of cases, this should work fine. If there appear to be any further problems, please give it until Friday to resolve before dropping an email. Anyone who has pledged, we will guarantee your pledge package and find a way to make payment work. Thanks, and sorry about the fumble! Should be fine now.
Funding blip (not to worry)
This post is exclusive to backers.
-
MakerBeam
commented on a project updateNo action required! Basically there's some lag time in verifying bank accounts that we didn't factor in. Amazon won't let us accumulate more than $10,000 in payments without account verification; this is another thing we didn't know. Once the paperwork is all filed, Kickstarter will run the pledges again. This won't be affecting our delivery timetable in any way; sorry about the minor snafu.
Funding blip (not to worry)
This post is exclusive to backers.
-
MakerBeam
Posted project update #10Funding blip (not to worry)
This post is exclusive to backers.
-
MakerBeam
commented on a projectWow Vitaly, Contraptor looks great! A great supplement to GridBeam and 1" T-slot. Probably also works well with 25mm T-slot systems, 4 mm is not a lot of difference. Linear motion is near or at the top of our design list. We're devoting all our attention right now to getting the details of the connector and bracket system down, for delivery with the Alpha kits. When our first batch of beam arrives in mid-November, we'll be in a much better position to design the next generation of parts, which will certainly include linear slides.
-
MakerBeam
Posted project update #9Home Stretch!
This post is exclusive to backers.
-
MakerBeam
commented on a project updateChris, You are the great success story here. Your work through Kickstarter only adds to that. Congratulations.
Summit
Hello all, Thanks so much for all of your support. It was a disappointment not to reach our fundraising goals on Kickstarter, but looking back they might have been a bit too lofty. Despite not r...
