3D printed halo guns!

Posted on by Malta 3D Printing

Lucky Winners at the UGC Received Incredibly Detailed 3D Printed Halo Guns as Prizes, Including a Sniper Rifle Measuring in at 5.3 Feet in Length!

http://goo.gl/osM4vo

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3D Printed Halo Guns Take Over Ultimate Gaming Championship’s Recent Tournament

One area in which 3D printing has really excelled as of late is in the reproduction of weapons and props from popular video games. For decades, gamers have been trying to reproduce these often intricate virtual pieces in the actual physical world. The ability to turn an item within a game into a 3D model and then fabricate a near-exact replica of that item on a 3D printer has certainly taken things up a notch or two.

If you are a video game enthusiast, then it’s likely you have either played in, watched, or at least know someone who has participated in some sort of gaming tournament. Some people actually make careers out of their incredible gaming skills. One company called Ultimate Gaming Championship (UGC) caters to these types of people. Whether you want to show off your skills, or make perhaps thousands of dollars, UGC hosts tournaments and leagues in which gamers can meetup, socialize, and have a blast.

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Earlier this month, UGC hosted a tournament in St. Louis, MO where gamers came together to compete for $20,000 in prizes. Yes, I said $20,000! The occasion for such a large giveaway? November marked the 10th anniversary of the Halo 2 launch, the first-person shooter video game which was developed by Bungie Studios and released in 2004. I think it’s fair to say that those reading this article have at least heard of the game before.

The event, which drew in over 500 gamers worldwide, and took place over a three day period, from January 2-4, had an extra special component to it this time. Owner and Founder of UGC, Matt Jackson, turned to 3D printing as a way to add to the excitement and energy at the venue.

“I developed and 3D printed several weapons from the game Halo to co-align with the theme of our last event which was a Halo 2 Anniversary 4v4 $20K payout tourney,” explained Jackson to 3DPrint.com. “I thought this was an interesting way to bridge the exposure of 3D printing game props to competitive video gaming.”

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Jackson printed out a total of three weapons from the game, which included the standard M6 Hand Gun, a gold MVP Award M6 Hand Gun, and the grandaddy of them all, a Halo 4 Sniper Rifle, which measured a staggering 5.3 feet in length. The weapons were all a big hit, showing the capabilities that 3D printing has, and how those capabilities can be integrated into the gaming space, allowing for the virtual world to merge with that of the physical.

In the end, there was only one Grand Prize winning team, DenialEsports, but in actuality everyone was a winner, as they all seemed to have a blast, as 3D printing inched its way a bit closer to the mainstream. Check out some additional photographs that Matt Jackson was kind enough to share with us below, as well as a video showing the final moments of the tournament. Lets hear your thoughts on yet another amazing use for 3D printing. Discuss in the Ultimate Gaming Championship forum thread on 3DPB.com.

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3DPRINT.COM
by  | JANUARY 11, 2015

Gun fanatic

Posted on by Malta 3D Printing

A Perfect Ornament for Your Average Gun Fanatic 🙂

http://goo.gl/cYf5Kq

Mikhail Kalashnikov

Hang a 3D Printed Kalashnikov AK-47 on Your Wall Courtesy of Reddit Maker EasilyUsed

Mikhail Kalashnikov was a “self-taught tinkerer” who used his mechanical skills and a study of weaponry to design and build the gun that changed the way wars are fought.  His AK-47, also known around the world as the “Kalashnikov” in honor of its creator, is a 7.62×39mm assault rifle renowned for its deadly reliability and ubiquity as a military tool.

And now, six decades after Kalashnikov built the first of his prototypes, it is the most popular and widely used assault rifle in the world. Its reliability under harsh conditions, low production cost, and ease of use has led various AK-derived rifles to be the most-produced assault rifle type in history.

As a result, the AK-47 has become a sort of talisman, an icon which represents everything from gun-rights freedom to the power of revolutionary forces around the globe. And it’s also becoming more and more common to see 3D printed guns.

Now a reddit user, EasilyUsed, has created a full-sized toy replica of this most infamous piece of military hardware.

Modeled in Blender and 3D printed on a MakerBot Replicator 1 and Flashforge Creator II in ABS at .3mm layer height with a 10% infill, EasilyUsed says a total of six print jobs were need to print the nine pieces that make up the replica. He adds that the replica took a total print time of some 35 hours.

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The resulting pieceweighs 1 pound, and the parts were permanently ‘welded’ together with acetone. The ‘welding’ was done using an ABS slurry first which was made up of color-matched bits of ABS dissolved in acetone.

“I prefer just using a paintbrush to apply plain acetone to my parts, let them melt a bit, then press them together,” he says. “I feel it’s easier to work with raw acetone than the thick abs slurry, as well as not needing to have slurry color matched to every filament I use.”

While he says he did have “some trouble with warping and splitting on the largest parts despite enclosed printers,” he solved that by making corrections after printing with acetone and clamps.

“None of the parts are moving, but I’d like to redesign so the trigger functions, the clip is removable and the bolt cycles,” he says. “I’d also probably break the parts down to smaller sizes and different orientations to decrease warping and splitting and make them fit in my acetone vapor bath.”

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He says the entire piece took just 1/2 of a 1kg roll of filament and cost around $10-15 to complete, depending, of course, on the prices your supplier charges.  If you’d like to check out the laws regarding toys like this, you can find some useful information here.

“Yeah, it’s kind of an art piece on its own since it doesn’t have any function to it; the frozen treats (in the photo) are just an unrelated painting in my studio that had good lighting,” he says.

What do you think about the 3D printing of guns, either as working firearms or as toys? You can weigh in with your opinion in the 3D Printed Kalashnikov forumthread on 3DPB.com.

3DPRINT.COM
by  | DECEMBER 30, 2014

Top 5 weirdest things made by 3D printer!

Posted on by Malta 3D Printing

This is your Sunday read!

Our latest blog post takes a look at the top 5 weirdest things that can be made with a 3D printer! Ranging from sex toys to guns, this blog is not for the faint of heart!

http://malta3dprinting.blogspot.com/…/top-5-weirdest-things…

Top 5 Weirdest Things to 3D Print
We’ve heard the stories about the life-saving organs created by 3D printers. We’ve shed a tear reading about prosthetic limbs produced to help amputees, marveled at the houses built by 3D printers and sat in awe as we read about NASA’s zero-gravity printer.

Let’s not forget 3D printing’s dark side, capable of producing dozens of weird, wonderful and even dangerous products.

Join us for a wild ride filled with a list of strange products printers can produce. Parental discretion is advised.

1) Sex Toys
The popular movie ‘Neighbors’ starring Zac Efron and Seth Rogen featured a Bukobot 3D printer which printed out dildos. That’s right – for all the different beneficiary products 3D printing can produce, sex toys are in the mix too.

SexShop 3D allows owners of 3D printers to create dildos, plugs or vibrators at any size for only $5. As usual free alternatives exist, and Markerlove are more than happy to push the boundaries of the open-source community.

It’s not only male body parts that are being printed.

This Motherboard article claims that a 26-year old teacher from New York felt a sense of empowerment after scanning and printing her own vagina.

In related events, a Japanese artist also scanned her vagina, but she used the data to 3D print a boat.

What an exciting time we live in – we couldn’t make this stuff up if we tried. She was subsequently arrested for allegedly distributing ‘vagina selfies’. Oh the woes of being a misunderstood artist!

2) Drones
3D printing has conquered both land and sea, and is now becoming a master of the sky. Ever heard of a perosnal UAV?

Short for unmanned aerial vehicle, these lightweight machines are slightly different to their cousins that drop bombs from high altitudes. Attach a camera to them, learn how to fly one and you’ve got yourself a unique perspective for filming live events, sports matches or even home-made films and documentaries.

The video above provides a detailed explanation of the hand-launched UAV, created by ateam at the University of Virginia for the Department of Defense. Speeds can reach an impressive 120mph, at the cost of quickly draining the battery.

Eventually, 3D printed drones could be irreplaceable in recon missions. The ability to 3D print a new one and have it up and running within a few hours makes it extremely desirable.

Supposedly, the world’s first 3D printed drone was designed and built across the pond, in Southampton. The SULSA drone can be assembled within 10 minutes and is comprised of only 14 parts.

Hopefully, hobbyists won’t use these to spy on their neighbors.

3) A Fetus
Wait… what? There’s actually a good explanation for this.
For those overzealous mothers out there who would like to hold their babies before they’re even born, a 3D printed plastic fetus is probably the closest they’ll get.

Think of it as a souvenir for 9 months of struggling.

If you’re ready to fork out about 100,000 Yen (€683), you can cuddle up to your plastic fetus as much as you like. Fasotec and the Hiroo Ladies Clinic in Tokyo are the ones responsible for the ‘Shape of an angel‘ service.

The impressive Biotexture technology is used to render the 3D data, after which a high-end resin printer begins to dual print the mother’s transparent womb and the fetus’ body.

Fasotec have been in the industry for over 30 years, so if there’s anyone you should trust to print your fetus, it’s definitely them.

4) Drug Paraphernalia
Malta 3D Printing doesn’t condone the use of drugs, but we’ve always got an eye open for unusual, niche products. A novelty item if there ever was one, a 3D printed bong is sure to have stoners out there saving up their weed money.

Besides water pipes, other paraphernalia like grinders, ash catchers, splash guards, pipes and cleaners can also be printed.

With the infinite customization options available to users, you may be smoking out of a skull-bong modeled from your own head soon enough.

5) Guns
In case you’ve been living under a rock, 3D printed guns have been around for more than a year now. Originally, they would malfunction and explode upon being fired, but their development has since improved.
As of yet, nobody is known to have been killed by a 3D printed gun, but a Japanese man was arrested forthe possession of printed firearms.

Most cannot fire more than a few rounds. It is sobering to imagine thepotential dangers of such a product, created by the same machine which is about creating, not destroying.

Contrary to the Daily Mail’s fear-mongering article which implies that anyone can 3D print a gun, they are in fact very hard to make. As anyone with experience in the world of 3D printing could tell you, printing a complex, functioning product is far from easy. On top of that, building something which requires multiple pieces that can fire live rounds makes it an even tougher nut to crack.

Luckily, most of 3D printing personnel we’ve met aren’t hell bent on spreading anarchyby promoting the proliferation of plastic guns.

MALTA3DPRINTING.BLOGSPOT.COM
by  | 22 November 2014

Top 5 Weirdest Things to 3D Print

Posted on by Malta 3D Printing

We’ve heard the stories about the life-saving organs created by 3D printers. We’ve shed a tear reading about prosthetic limbs produced to help amputees, marveled at the houses built by 3D printers and sat in awe as we read about NASA’s zero-gravity printer.

Let’s not forget 3D printing’s dark side, capable of producing dozens of weird, wonderful and even dangerous products.

Join us for a wild ride filled with a list of strange products printers can produce. Parental discretion is advised.

1) Sex Toys

Image from Textually

The popular movie ‘Neighbors’ starring Zac Efron and Seth Rogen featured a Bukobot 3D printer which printed out dildos. That’s right – for all the different beneficiary products 3D printing can produce, sex toys are in the mix too.

SexShop 3D allows owners of 3D printers to create dildos, plugs or vibrators at any size for only $5. As usual free alternatives exist, and Markerlove are more than happy to push the boundaries of the open-source community.

It’s not only male body parts that are being printed.

This Motherboard article claims that a 26-year old teacher from New York felt a sense of empowerment after scanning and printing her own vagina.

In related events, a Japanese artist also scanned her vagina, but she used the data to 3D print a boat.

What an exciting time we live in – we couldn’t make this stuff up if we tried. She was subsequently arrested for allegedly distributing ‘vagina selfies’. Oh the woes of being a misunderstood artist!

2) Drones

3D printing has conquered both land and sea, and is now becoming a master of the sky. Ever heard of a perosnal UAV?

Short for unmanned aerial vehicle, these lightweight machines are slightly different to their cousins that drop bombs from high altitudes. Attach a camera to them, learn how to fly one and you’ve got yourself a unique perspective for filming live events, sports matches or even home-made films and documentaries.

The video above provides a detailed explanation of the hand-launched UAV, created by a team at the University of Virginia for the Department of Defense. Speeds can reach an impressive 120mph, at the cost of quickly draining the battery.

Eventually, 3D printed drones could be irreplaceable in recon missions. The ability to 3D print a new one and have it up and running within a few hours makes it extremely desirable.

Supposedly, the world’s first 3D printed drone was designed and built across the pond, in Southampton. The SULSA drone can be assembled within 10 minutes and is comprised of only 14 parts.

Hopefully, hobbyists won’t use these to spy on their neighbors.

3) A Fetus

Wait… what? There’s actually a good explanation for this.

A 3D Printed Fetus

Image from ABC news

For those overzealous mothers out there who would like to hold their babies before they’re even born, a 3D printed plastic fetus is probably the closest they’ll get.

Think of it as a souvenir for 9 months of struggling.

If you’re ready to fork out about 100,000 Yen (€683), you can cuddle up to your plastic fetus as much as you like. Fasotec and the Hiroo Ladies Clinic in Tokyo are the ones responsible for the ‘Shape of an angel‘ service.

The impressive Biotexture technology is used to render the 3D data, after which a high-end resin printer begins to dual print the mother’s transparent womb and the fetus’ body.

Fasotec have been in the industry for over 30 years, so if there’s anyone you should trust to print your fetus, it’s definitely them.

A 3D Printed Bong

Image from Reddit


4) Drug Paraphernalia

Malta 3D Printing doesn’t condone the use of drugs, but we’ve always got an eye open for unusual, niche products. A novelty item if there ever was one, a 3D printed bong is sure to have stoners out there saving up their weed money.

Besides water pipes, other paraphernalia like grinders, ash catchers, splash guards, pipes and cleaners can also be printed.

With the infinite customization options available to users, you may be smoking out of a skull-bong modeled from your own head soon enough.

5) Guns

In case you’ve been living under a rock, 3D printed guns have been around for more than a year now. Originally, they would malfunction and explode upon being fired, but their development has since improved.

The ‘Liberator’

Image from Daily Mail

As of yet, nobody is known to have been killed by a 3D printed gun, but a Japanese man was arrested for the possession of printed firearms.

Most cannot fire more than a few rounds. It is sobering to imagine the potential dangers of such a product, created by the same machine which is about creating, not destroying.

Contrary to the Daily Mail’s fear-mongering article which implies that anyone can 3D print a gun, they are in fact very hard to make. As anyone with experience in the world of 3D printing could tell you, printing a complex, functioning product is far from easy. On top of that, building something which requires multiple pieces that can fire live rounds makes it an even tougher nut to crack.

Luckily, most of 3D printing personnel we’ve met aren’t hell bent on spreading anarchy by promoting the proliferation of plastic guns.

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