OpenBeam is available on makerbeam.eu!

OpenBeam stock arrived at the MakerBeam warehouse, all items have been added to the makerbeam website, pricing is in place …… we are ready to sell OpenBeam!

Precut kit OpenBeam, black anodised

OpenBeamUSA and MakerBeam.eu joined forces. We are happy to tell MakerBeam.eu is now lead importer of OpenBeam in Europe!
It is great to have this addition to our product range. More information about OpenBeam and MakerBeam you’ll find in the blog we published: MakerBeam.eu and OpenBeamUSA.com

From today on OpenBeam can be ordered in our webshop www. makerbeam.eu.

Our current OpenBeam product range is as follows:
> Precut kits:
black and clear anodised. Lengths in kit in mm: 300, 270, 210, 150, 120, 90, 60, 45, 30. In the kit we also sell L-brackets, T-brackets, OB feet, hexagon head screws, button head socket screws, hex nut driver, hex key driver and nuts.
> Beams:
– Precut extrusions, black and clear anodised in different lengths in mm: 1000, 300, 270, 210, 150, 120, 90, 60, 45, 30. Only the 1000mm length beams we sell as a single item. All other lenghts are sold in packs of 4.
– Precut extrusions for Mendel, black anodised (in mm: 390, 300, 450, 240).
– Precut extrusions for MiniKossel, black anodised (in mm: 600, 240).
> Brackets:
L-brackets, T-brackets, Hitec Servo mount, NEMA 17 Stepper Motor, Shaft clamp kit, 608 Bearing to NEMA 17 adapter
> Nuts & bolts:
Screw button head socket cap M3 6mm, Hexagon Head bolts M3 6mm, M3 nuts
> Accessories:
OB feet, M3 hex nut driver, M3 hex key driver, M3 allen key

Soon we will have Kossel en Mendel kits available as well.

Both MakerBeam and OpenBeam are anodised aluminum extrusions with a diameter of under 20mm available in black or clear. Great for desktop projects.

Picture made by MakerBeamService.com

OpenBeam does not need special screws which is an advantage. The screws are a bit small in comparision to the size of the profile though. The surface area of the cross-section of OpenBeam is more than double this surface area of MakerBeam.
Size makes OpenBeam more suited for bigger projects and MakerBeam for smaller projects. The stainless brackets of MakerBeam seem to be more robust than the plastic ones of OpenBeam at first glance. The OpenBeam brackets are injection molded out of EMS Grivory GVX, a high-performance, high glass fiber reinforced polyamide copolymer that is engineered for metal replacement applications.

Why choose the one over the other? Your choice will depend on personal preferences and on what you plan to build. What do you think your project needs?

OpenBeam MakerBeam
Diameter 15x15mm 10x10mm
Surface With edges Smooth
Bracket material Polyamide copolymer Stainless steel
Bolts and nuts size M3, standard M3, custom made
Bolts and nuts material Stainless steel Stainless steel

The two profiles are different, but comparable and in the near future there will be more and more compatible products. For now enjoy our new product range. We as a team are looking forward to see what projects you make with OpenBeam, MakerBeam or a combination of both!

Team MakerBeam.eu

Square headed bolt with hex hole

Here it is!! Our square headed bolt with hex hole.

We had already introduced the square headed bolts before. They provide a secure tight grip. Adding a hex hole is just a great finish we thought. For some purposes like the servo brackets a hex hole already is very convenient. The head of this new bolt is also a bit wider. Providing an even better grip.

The square headed bolts with hex hole is available in 6mm and 12 mm. From now on our starter kit includes a bag of 6mm bolts with hex hole.

Team MakerBeam.eu

MakerBeam, Meccano, Fisher Technik and Merkur

End of May 2013 Rob sent us this great picture and we had it on our homepage for a while. We love it too much to just let it dissappear into our archive. There must be a number of customers who grew up with Meccano, or something very similar, but want to throw in some modern day electronics as well. They will love MakerBeam.

There was another customer who hinted us about a Meccano-clone manufacturer that might be still of interest for MakerBeam customers.

In his words:
Perhaps it is a good idea to put  a link on the makerbeam-site to the following internet-store : http://www.merkurtoys.cz/en/
It is the website of a well-known Meccano-clone manufacturer that makes meccano that uses a 10 x 10 mm grid and M 3,5 nuts and bolts. In the 80’s it was sold in the Netherlands under the name of “Tecc” but its real name is “Merkur“.  It seems to me it is a great source for brackets , strips and angle girders that can be combined with Makerbeam and Openbeam.
Regards,
Henk

Fischer Technik is another building system that is compatible with MakerBeam. Hopefully we will soon have some pictures to show you.

Team MakerBeam.eu

OpenBeam.eu and stock

This summer we will start the sale of OpenBeam. We expect stock coming in a few weeks from now. Because of this we started the preparation for the arrival of stock. In our office we are working on freeing storage space, see picture below.

Secondly we started to enter the OpenBeam products that will be available in our shop system. That is why when you search for OpenBeam you can find the products.  Please do not order OpenBeam. We will not take backorders. The best we can do is register your email and send you a message once we have stock available. WE DO NOT SELL OPENBEAM YET!!!

Last but not least a big step was made recently. The website OpenBeam.eu now refers to makerbeam.eu. In time we will welcome you to MakerBeam.eu and OpenBeam.eu

Team MakerBeam.eu

MakerBeam.eu and OpenBeamUSA.com

Drumroll please! We have some very exciting news to tell.

MakerBeam and OpenBeam are working together to get OpenBeam available in Europe. Open Source Hardware is good. United Open Source Hardware is better.

What happened? As some of you might know OpenBeam had some serious production problems. Here is a blog post from OpenBeam published in March 2013. It was around that time we were ordering from OpenBeam feeling this Open Source Hardware should be available here in Europe. One thing led to another and now we are working with OpenBeamUSA.com on the new extrusion supplier, and we have reached a joint agreement to produce these extrusions.
Under this arrangement, both MakerBeam.EU and OpenBeamUSA.com will be using the same extruder to manufacture the extrusions, and both companies committed to placing regularly timed orders together.  OpenBeam is setting up MakerBeam.EU to become the de-facto lead importer of OpenBeam to the European Union region while keeping prices reasonable.  So, for European OpenBeam friends, you will soon be able to buy OpenBeam at very reasonable prices.

Picture made by MakerBeamService.com

MakerBeam is smaller than OpenBeam. The diameter of the OpenBeam profile is 15mmx15mm. As you can see there are more differences between the profiles. It is the similarities though that made us want to start selling OpenBeam as well. Both profiles are under 20mm in size and Open Source Hardware. Companies that sell aluminum profiles usually draw the line at 20mm. In taking OpenBeam on board we also made the decision to specialize in smaller sized aluminum extrusion profiles. Great for desktop size projects!

We are also happy that MakerBeam reseller Technobots has also started carrying the entire range of OpenBeam products.

Picture made by Technobotsonline.com

The picture shows MakerBeam brackets on OpenBeam beams. This is an exciting image. We are curious to see where the addition of OpenBeam to our product range will lead MakerBeam. Projects customers make never cease to amaze us but this will undoubtedly trigger combinations in designs we never thought of.  Also we feel there is room to think about additions to our product range that are designed for compatibility. We are growing and maturing as a comany and that is awesome!

If you are interested in becoming a European reseller of OpenBeam, you can contact us directly.  Shipping is something that benefits from economies of scale and by concentrating the orders this way we can amortize the freight across a much bigger shipment and get better pricing from our vendors due to the higher volumes.

From the new extrusion supplier we received samples of OpenBeam. We were pleased with the quality and so was OpenBeam. This meant we could proceed with our plans. We both placed orders. It will take some time for the beams to arrive. This will probably be end of July 2013. We will keep you updated by message on our homepage. Stay tuned!

Team MakerBeam.eu

Starter Kit contents page and sample bag

Improvement of the MakerBeam starter kit is always on our wish list. We have several ideas, big and small. And three of those ideas now have been realised!

1. Content sheet
We thought when you open a kit you should be able to see what is inside in a flash. This content sheet is a simple yet nice addition to our kit.2 Manual
A manual has been on our wish list for a long time. It is one item that will not be removed from our wish list as well. The content sheet gave us the opportunity to make a start. On the backside there was room for one small project and a direction for use. The small project offers customers a chance to get to know MakerBeam a bit. It is an easy and simple project to test how the beams, brackets and bolts look and feel. 3 A surprise gift
We wanted to add a little extra to our kits. We thought of several ideas. Should we add a product to each order, should we order gifts with MakerBeam printed on it? We ended up combining this idea with another desire we had.
We introduced quite a few new products in the past year. Somehow we should give customers a chance to try these, but how? With the screws with the serrated head bottom we added bags with the specific question to please review the bolts. This led to the idea of a sample bag.  The sample bag gives customers the change to try new products themselves and it fits the original idea of a surprise gift. Right now the sample bag looks as pictured below, but we are planning on changing the content from time to time. Surprise!!

Every starter kit contains a content sheet and a sample bag from today on!

Team MakerBeam.eu

Graffitizer and MakerBeam by Daniel Berio

On Friday May 17th we were in The Hague. We visited a preview festival called Spheres. Here is a link. We were there to see Daniel Berio his graffitizer at work. Daniel is a MakerBeam customer and he made a plotter frame with makerbeams to ink his artwork. The plotter is set upright in order to make the paintings. The plotter is computer controlled and his program Graffitizer is making the art. It also controls the lights that works together with the painting that appears. The result is like looking at a modern stained glass in the making.

You can find more work of Daniel Berio here and also here.

Here is a video.
httpv://youtu.be/U31VFngZvUc

Team MakerBeam.eu

New MakerBeam products: Wing type bolts and Hinge bearings

Wing type bolts and hinge bearings: available in our webshop as of today.

Wing type bolts
On our wish list it still read ‘wing type bolt’.  The possibility to slide in a bracket midway between brackets already fastened was our aim.

When fastening a bracket to a beam the square headed bolts need to be slided into the beginning of the beam. This is not a problem when your project is all clear and you know exactly what you want to fasten. But when you decide to add brackets between other brackets you need to loosen and remove a bracket before you can add another one. This is time consuming and our wish was to come up with a bolt that would make it easier to add screws to an almost finished structure.

We’re happy to introduce the wing type bolt: the rectangular screw head of the wing type bolt gives the possibility to add screws midway. You can insert the screw midway of a beam and turn it  to ensure tightening. This  makes it easier to add brackets.

The wing type bolts come in a bag of 100 pcs and cost € 8,13.

Hinge bearings
We came up with hinge bearings to extend building possibilities. Hinge bearings make it possible to rotate 2 beams relative to each other. You can use the standard bearing to have beams rotate around a fixed point or axis. Making a miniature trebuchet now is possible!
Hinge bearings are an assembled product consisting of
– Bearings (10 pieces)
– Copper saddle band clips (5 pieces)
– Axes (6 long bolts in 3 lengths: 3 cm, 5 cm and 6 cm)
– Teflon tape (18 cm)
– Square headed bolts (10 pieces)
– Nuts (10 pieces)

Hinge bearings cost €17,50.

We plan to include a manual to the hinge bearings soon.

Team MakerBeam.eu

MakerBeam’s test of the bolts: square headed vs serrated

The question
Earlier we introduced two types of bolts: the serrated head bottom and the square headed bolt (M3, 6mm length). What screw – serrated, square headed, with or without hexagon socket – should be the default MakerBeam screw?

The regular bolts worked for the old, non-anodised, beams that had surprisingly high friction. The new, anodised, beams have a harder and more smoother surface. A surface that provides less friction and occassionally left a round head spinning. We wanted to eradicate this problem. Especially since there always was the suspicion about makerbeam that tightening would be a issue.

 

Clearly we needed to find bolts that provided better grip. The square headed bolts were the best option we thought. Unfortunately enough the production time was unclear.  The serrated head bottom then was introduced as a temporary alternative.  When the square headed screws came in – surprisingly fast –  we decided to make these the default MakerBeam screws. Not everyone was pleased by that decision and we started to have our doubts. We needed more input and a test was put in place.

The jurors
Joel Bodenmann, MakerBeam fame: –3D printer (and reseller B-Electronics);
Sean Reynolds , MakerBeam fame: cSpring – the biped-robotic educational development kit that has a makerbeam frame (and founder of Cognitive Spring);
Anders Roxenhag, MakerBeam fame:  a live plotter and a polar plotter we love;
Tinhead, MakerBeam fame: – The Stinger – a PCB milling machine (and Let’s Make Robots contributor).

The test results
Grip
: Compared to the regular bolt the square headed and the serrated provide more grip. Especially the square headed bolt.  Sean explains why: “The square heads provide more surface area that actually grips. The pinching area is essentially two triangular shapes rather than two small pinching partial circles.”

Fit: The square head bolt fits the makerbeam profile better than a round headed bolt.

Tightening: As you tighten the square headed bolts the bolt spins slightly inside the beam till the corner of the bolt hits the interior of the beam thus making two triangular contact areas. The square headed bolts tighten down stronger since they do not turn in the beam. As Tinhead expressed: “they work better as they do not turn once on the beam as with the normal round ones”. Round heads, serrated or not, definitely have a disadvantage here.  Therefore Anders sees no real purpose for the serrated head bottom screw in comparison to the square headed bolts.  Joel is a big fan of the serrated screw. “You can get the same amount of tightness witht the serrated bolts as witht the square headed ones.”  His issue with the square headed bolts comes when overtightening them.

Overtightening: Joel had overtightened the square headed screws and had problems removing them. Removing the square headed bolts could not be done without a tool. This damaged the thread of the screw rendering the screw useless.
Tinhead does not encounter this problem. He suspected that tightened hard the square headed bolts would lock against the beams. “This is not as bad as it sounds though, because two light taps on the beam with the screw driver get’s them loose again.”
Sean even thinks tightening the square headed bolts hard deforms the beams less than it did with the round heads. Since the contact area is larger.

Sliding: Most jurors mentioned the fact that sliding the square headed bolts into the beam is a bit harder. When making a construction the jurors prepare brackets. Anders: “I prepare the bracket with four bolts and attach the nuts with a few turns. Then I slide them into the beam.” The square headed bolts need to be aligned a bit before you can slide them in. This takes more work than before. Anders describes this best. “It [the necessary alignment of each bolt] does not happen every time and it is not a huge problem and if I had known nothing else, I would accepeted it as part of the workflow.”
For Joel it is another factor in favouring the round headed serrated screws. They slide in easier.
Sean completely accepted the new ‘workflow’. He was sceptic because of the ‘sliding’-issue. But now only uses the square headed bolts. The other screws need fiddling to get in. “They were so large that they barely fit in past the ends of the beam.” According to him these two amounts of effort – fiddling vs. aligning – are roughtly equal amounts of work.  Sean has become a fan of the square headed bolt.

Backwards compatibility: We like looking forward and this is why we had these bolts tested. But there is the issue of backwards compatibility. The square headed bolts work well with old makerbeams (v1.0) and the new beams. (v2.0). Here is a link to link to our blog post ‘Version 2.0’. The serrated did not fit very well with the old beams.

The result
Sean favours the square headed bolts. Working with his old beams Anders still likes the regular screws. With the new beams he prefers the square headed bolts. He sees no purpose for the serrated screws. Only the hexagon socket is head is “awesome”. Joel favours the serrated head bottom screws very much and absolutely dislikes the square headed bolts. Tinhead sums it up like this: “I would say between the three choices the square headed ones get the best of the other two, easy to slip in, easy to tighten, easy to get them out.”

The decision
The suspicion about MakerBeam that tightening would be a problem looms large. We realised this again upon discussing the results. Eradication of this suspicion is our main concern we realised. We feel the square headed bolts tackle this issue best. They provide a better grip and fit than other bolts. The square headed bolt will become the default MakerBeam bolt. Plus, we are looking into adding a hexagon socket on the head. The serrated head bottom screws will gradually disappear from our stock.

Team MakerBeam.eu

Brackets for servo motors and micro stepper motors

It is a fact the NEMA 17 brackets are in demand. What about servo motor brackets and brackets for micro stepper motors? We wanted to give it a try. Pieter Bos (@pieterbos) gave us a way out. He is the guy that makes our 3D printed end caps. 3D printing is a fun and easy way to try new ideas and 3D printers are very popular with makers. Why not have more 3D printed parts for sale in our shop? We asked Pieter and he started prototyping. You can see the steps he made in the picture below.

The first idea was to completely encapsulate the micro stepper motor. From there it went to the lean figure on the right. This design, printed in black,  will go on sale soon. They are printed in PLA – polylactic acid.

With the servo brackets we dismissed 3d printing but thought of laser cutting. This posed no problem for Pieter. He made some brackets and tried different materials.  From left to right: MDF, transparant perspex and finally opaque perspex (or polymethylmetacrylaat). We liked the last one the best. This one will go on sale soon.

Team MakerBeam.eu