I am progressing along well with my new project which has been keeping me pretty bizzy since around mid-summer when I first came up with the idea.  If you were watching the vids I made at the AK State Fair, I mentioned it in one of them.

Big Newz for this week is I made my first "big" CapEx, which is a 3D Printer.  Up until now I have been doing all my prototype modeling the old fashioned way, utilizing balsa wood, cardboard, straws, pipe cleaners, chicken wire, popsicle stcks, bamboo skewers, paper clips, toothpicks, thread  etc etc etc and drawing up and measuring everything by hand with those wonderful drafting tools of ruler, protractor, compass, divider and t-square and triangles.  All the tools from 10th grade Geometry.

I was a pretty proficient modeler as a kid, building numerous wire & RC controlled model airplanes and I'm still OK at it despite the messed up hands and nervous system, but it's tedious and there are still problems with stuff you just can't model this way.  So I bit the bullet and bought a 3D printer, but that's just half the problem.   To create the 3D files the machines run on, you need to be proficient with a CAD program.  I was pretty good with Sketchup when Google owned it and was offering the basic version free, but they sold off the company and the free version they offer up is pretty useless.

So I spent the last couple of weeks trying out a few different ones and finally on my 5th try found one that does most of what I need with the free version and the subscription when I need some other tools is not ridiculously priced.  The last 3 days have been spent creating files for some parts, and last night I decided I was ready to actually start making the stuff for real.  8)   Off to Amazon for a 3D printer, and as luck would have it they had a top rated $600 one on a Black Friday 1/2 price special, so I coughed up the $300 and should be 3D printing by next weekend hopefully.

Once I have my prototypes done, it's off to find the right intellectual property lawyer to get some protection and then looking for a plastics company to produce my stuff.  Good old fashioned Capitalist stuff.

RE