People have been busy setting up Newport Makerspace over the last couple of weeks. Now that tables and chairs are assembled, it is possible to spend some time with some of the more fun items! The latest additions to our setup are a set of Creality Ender 3 3D printers and a Cricut Maker plotting machine…
Assembling the Creality Ender 3 printers
The Creality Ender 3 is a low-cost and popular 3D printer that comes partially assembled. In actual fact, it requires a fair amount of construction and some of the parts are a little tricky to put together. The assembly team find the timing belt driven gantry to be the worst of it. That said, it does not take too long to get the three printers up and running. A little more fine tuning is still required to get them printing perfectly, but everyone is impressed with the build quality of the machines. They are very quiet when printing which is an unexpected bonus. The pictures below show Gareth, Aidan, and Adrian assembling the printers:
Testing the Cricut Maker
The Cricut Maker is another software controlled machine. The Maker is designed to accurately and automatically cut things out of materials like card, vinyl and fabric. It can also plot images and text with a pen.
It is easy to set up, the machine comes fully assembled and ready to get making. All you need to do is plug the machine in and download the free software called Design Space. The most perplexing part of setting up the Cricut Maker is the hidden power button under the lid! The pictures below show Aidan and Kim setting up and testing the Cricut Maker:
This is just a small sample of the tools and machines available at the space. These machines live in the Craft & Tech Workshop – watch this space for more news coming soon!
