We ordered stainless steel NEMA 17 brackets. The samples came in and we were really pleased with their look, the polish and the MakerBeam artwork around the bracket. There was a surprise as well. Our manufacturer had added some aluminum anodised brackets in various colours. We thought the red bracket looked great. They go very well with our clear and black anodised beams. Below you will find a picture of the two.
A delivery time will be announced on our homepage soon.
Team MakerBeam.eu
Good news and bad news. The good news is that we ordered lots of MakerBeam NEMA 17 brackets made of stainless steel. The bad news is that we have to wait a while because of Chinese new year. We expect this new batch early March. We will post a message on our website as soon as they come in.
When we published the last update concerning the NEMA 17 brackets (end November 2012) we thought our NEMA problems were over. Good quality NEMA brackets for a good price! Unfortunately this did not prove to be durable solution. We were unable to order a second batch with this European manufacturer.
At this point we knew that the second manufacturer we had approached earlier (also European) was unable to deliver the NEMA brackets he had invoiced. Exit this manufacturer as well. Now we knew we had to go find a manufacturer all over again.
It was then we the manufacturers we already have a good relationship with – those who we order the parts for our starter kit from – came back with good offers. We decided to go with our Asian partner.
Our wish for the new year – Chinese or other – is to have a hassle free supply, stock and sale of NEMA 17 brackets!!
Team MakerBeam.eu
We improved the content of the MakerBeam starter kit!
First, we decided to add a hex nut driver to every starter kit as a standard part of the kit. We feel with this the starter kit is a more complete product. The hex nut drivers we had were very expensive (wiha pico finish) or less effective (the small hex nut drivers). Now we have the best of both worlds with the our new hex nut drivers. One MakerBeam hex nut driver will be added to every starter kit from now. Important to mention is that the price of the starter kit remains the same!
The other improvement we made concerns the bolts. There was a blog post about new bolts recently. In that post we blogged about having received samples of square headed screws. We thought it would take a while before we would receive bags of this type of chamfered square headed bolts. To our surprise we have them here already! From now on you can find a bag (+/-250pcs) of these bolts in every starter kit instead of the ‘old’ 6mm bolts.
The screws with the serrated head bottom will be on sale for a while to come. In our opinion the square headed screws are the better option for our starter kit. We had good reviews about the serrated type screws, but the square-headed screws will end any occurrence or suspicion of occurrence of problems with tightening once and for all.
Soon to come is a leaflet we are working on. We are also working on new products (brackets for bearings for example) and there is more to come ….
Team MakerBeam
Sam Putnam was the one who came up with the idea of MakerBeam. You can find his story on Kickstarter. He thought of all the measurements, bracket types, quantities etc. and had the first batch made.
Johan here thought it was a very good product. He backed Sam his Kickstarter campaign. Unfortunately Sam did not take his idea further. The next step, a website: makerbeam.com, remained ‘under construction’ for about three years. In 2011 we created the webshop makerbeam.eu and made makerbeam available here in Europe. We are happy to announce that MakerBeam.com is officially in our hands. It is no longer under construction and redirects to makerbeam.eu.
We innovated the beams and we are planning to innovate the website as well. MakerBeam.eu will pretty much stay as it is. We will renew our webshop on the Makerbeam.com address. So… we will try to avoid it but maybe you will stumble on an ‘under construction’ notice on the .com website again this year. Sorry!!!
Team MakerBeam.eu
This blog post could as well be called ‘Buttons to suit MakerBeam 5’. We had problems with our screws and that is what the other blog posts were about. The other posts date from October 2011, December 2011, January 2012 and June 2012. Now we are testing a new bolt and there is another type of bolt in the making.
The pictures above give an overview of history of MakerBeam with bolts. From left to right there is the original bolt, our own improvement, the 12mm version, the new screw with serrated head bottom and a sample of a square-headed screw.
The picture to the left shows the original bolt 6mm length. We had hoped regular M3 screws would fit the Makerbeam profile. In the old version a regular bolt would rarely fit. This was in the back of our minds when we made our version 2.0 of the beams. Despite creating more room to accomodate the screws regular M3 screws still do not fit like we had hoped. The curvature is what hinders regular screws to fit. Otherwise the screws we sell are completely in line with the DIN standard 7380 (see ‘Buttons to suit MakerBeam 1).
We thought that some purposes, like using bearings, needed longer screws. Since we continously look to improve our product we consequently had them made in 12mm length. The picture above on the right shows the 6mm and the 12mm length.
Already then we were looking for other options to optimize grip. We thought of using washers. This idea was dismissed, too much of a hassle. Just when we thought we could not improve on the screw there was the suggestion of using bolts with a serrated head bottom, see picture above on the left. The serration gives the bolts a little more gripping quality. These serrated screws are available now. A bag with about a 100 pieces will be added to every starter kit to test them.
Another screw we are looking at is square-headed. Since using regular screws still is not much of an option we can set our goal differently: total grip all of the time. We received unpolished samples of square-headed screws that are chamfered a bit. Grip is absolutely secured using these screws. A sample is pictured above on the right. They have a downside though. They damage the surface a bit. Despite this downside we are thinking of these screws as the replacement of the screws we currently sell.
Occasionally we receive a message from a customer telling us that sometimes tightening a screw is not possible. Tightening is not a common problem, but still these square-headed screws will end any occurrence once and for all.
Do not think we are done once the square-head bolts are for sale. Still on our wish list is a screw with a rectangular screw head. Think of a screw head with wings. A rectangular screw head will will give the possibility to add screws midway. You can insert the screw midway of a beam and turn it 90 degrees to ensure tightening. This will make it easier to add screws to an almost finished structure.
Team MakerBeam.eu
It is a great time to be a maker! Equipment to make all sorts of machinery is more and more available for a good price. Sparkfun, Arduino and Adafruit have made a name in accessible electronics. More and more modular systems to construct a suitable framework for your own invention are coming on the market as well. Open source hardware is booming.
There are the systems based on a repetitive hole pattern (Bitbeam, Contraptor) and the t-slot style systems (OpenBeam and our own MakerBeam). Makeblock combines both styles. Leaving repetitive hole pattern systems aside, what is the difference between these open source t-slot style systems?
MakerBeam sells beams that are 10mmx10mm and available in different precut lengths. Longest beam available is 900mm. There is a precut kit available (lengths from 40mm to 300mm). The beams are an extruded aluminum construction profile. The profile is a simple mini T-slot. The beams are black or clear anodized. The plates and brackets are stamped metal. The beams and brackets can be connected with makerbeam bolts. Size used is M3. We do not sell electronics. On our website you can find specifications and a link to Thingiverse. On Thingiverse you can find design files for makerbeams and additional 3D objects.
OpenBeam created beams that are 15mmx15mm and normally available in a length of 1000mm. There is a precut kit available (lengths 30-300mm). The beams are an extruded aluminum construction profile. The profile is an intricate mini T-slot. The plates are injection molded out of a high performance fiberglass reinforced plastic to make it affordable. The beams and plates can be connected with standard M3 nuts and bolts. They do not sell electronics. You can download design files.
Makeblock is an aluminum extrusion based construct platform. The beams and brackets have repetitve hole patterns and a threaded slide combining the two systems widely used. The beams are available in 8mmx8mm and 8mmx24mm in two different colours, blue and gold. They sell several matching brackets, plates and pulleys. There are different kits available, including one that is lego compatible and a kit designed to be used for education. They do sell electronics. According to their website they will be open about their product and release information on their website.
MakerBeam is only just spreading to webshops all over the globe. In 2009 there was a Kickstarter campaign for MakerBeam. This is how we got to know the product. Makerbeam started early but never fully profited from its momentum generated by Kickstarter. Only after MakerBeam.eu was introduced here in Europe it slowly got some attention. We love the size of the makerbeams. 10mmx10mm looks great, almost elegant.
We are working on our product range. There is a servo bracket in the making and a different solution for connecting bearings will be introduced in our shop soon. Brackets, other type of bearings, gears and gear racks are under consideration. The focus here is on ready available products. Manuals are something we would love to add to our product, but are still struggling to make. Kits are something we are looking into as well. Electronics are not on the menu for us though. We want to provide a professional easy prototyping framework that can be used by makers at home or in the workplace. We think MakerBeam is highly suitable for industrial use. The place where the T-slot originates.
OpenBeam started with a kickstarter campaign this year. We already welcomed OpenBeam in April 2012 (see blog post then). OpenBeam is great because it addresses the problem we came across. Since the MakerBeam profile uses the M3 standard we had hoped M3 bolts available in any hardware store would do. We got lucky on a few occasions, but finally we had to resort to making our own 12mm MakerBeam bolts. Nice as this sounds it is not what we aspire. Remember that we are not the creators of MakerBeam. We are selling makerbeam and try to make it available on the market. It is great that OpenBeam tries to resolve this and it will definitely attract customers with its compatibility to standard M3 bolts. Also we expect Terence Tam, the man behind OpenBeam, to come up with other products and manuals.
Now there is a kickstarter campaign for Makeblock. Makeblock offers just about everything. They are good and their goal is to add even more new components. A small production run took place for most of the parts. For these parts Makeblock is looking to start mass production. They are kickstarting from a different point.
Their goal is to provide a full range of solutions. It looks like they are fully equipped to do so. Makeblock looks more finished. Lego is often used in reference to open source hardware. It provides a recognizable standard. Makeblock gives the feeling of being the aluminum lego version. Absolutely wonderful and very appealing but not sure whether it will suit everyone.
Kickstarter campaigns open source hardware
| Backers | Goal | Pledged | Time | |
| MakerBeam | 132 | 10,000 | 17,922 | September 2009 |
| OpenBeam | 534 | 30,000 | 100,825 | March 2012 |
| Makeblock | 192 | 30,000 | 104,453 (closes end of January 2013) | December 2012 |
In the 2009 MakerBeam kickstarter campaign it is mentioned that MakerBeam is thought to be the first open source construction set made available through crowdfunding. It is not enough to run a good Kickstarter campaign. The product needs to be available to customers as well. Things went quiet around MakerBeam for a long time. By making it available people start working with makerbeams and new components or 3D printed designs are being developed.
Makeblock and OpenBeam make better use of their kickstarter campaigns. The open source hardware community is benefiting from this.
It is a great time to be a maker!
Team MakerBeam.eu
With a very special thanks to Low-Tech Magazine and its article titled: How to Make Everything Ourselves: Open Modular Hardware
We added a new hex nut driver to our range of accessories. It is the very first makerbeam branded accessory! We love it. Not just because of the name. That is just a nice touch. We love it because this hex nut driver is suited for both 6mm and 12mm length bolts. It also fits our M3 nuts well.
This hex nut driver, or nut spinner, comes to replace the other hex nut drivers we have for sale. The small hex nut driver and the regular hex nut driver are no longer available in our shop. The small one could not handle the 12mm length bolts we sold. The regular hex nut driver we thought was too expensive.
The new makerbeam hex nut driver, as mentioned, is suited for both lengths. Plus it is available for a good price. The third aspect of this nut spinner we love!
Team MakerBeam.eu
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4.50 €
Price includes VAT, without delivery Customers from non EU-countries are not subject to VAT |
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Our hex nut driver is suited for standard M3 nuts and differnt bolt lengths. Our hex nut driver is suited for both the 6mm and the 12mm length bolts we sell.
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MakerBeam sketchup components are now available on Thingiverse thanks to Berserker.
Here is a link to the site and a first picture of what it looks like.
Team MakerBeam.eu
From one of our customers we got back some great pictures and videomaterial he made of a polar plotter and a live plotter. He made great blog posts with several detailed photographs.
In this post we highlight the two videos. Here is the video of the polar plotter:
httpv://youtu.be/SC3hTZtnDt4
And you can watch the video of the live plotter here:
httpv://youtu.be/Sn-WIluo1Us
Team MakerBeam.eu
Update (20121127) NEMA 17 brackets came in! And even more surprisingly: we like them!! I just put them back online again. It is possible to order the brackets again. Finally!
Now we are waiting for the brackets of our second manufacturer.
Here is a picture of what the bracket looks like (the right amount of holes and a polished look).
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Currently there are two manufacturers working on NEMA 17 brackets for two beams. Here is a link to an earlier blog post (20121026) about this.
The information we get on the first company is not that good. They made the choice to make them with sheet metal instead of aluminum (AlMg1). This to make them stronger they say. Now the brackets are ready, but there is the question whether or not we want to have them polished, see picture. The answer is yes we want them polished! This will take a few more days. Probably they still will be in by the end of November. This is when we expect a new batch of black anodised beams in, so good enough for us. We have been waiting this long, we can wait a little longer.
We are very optimistic about the second company. Pictures of the finished product we have not received yet. However we did receive good drawings and good feedback. The company even pointed out to us a flaw in the info we gave. That is why we are optimistic and are hoping we can get our servo brackets made there as well. We are working on this. Here are some drawings of the NEMA 17 brackets and the servo brackets.
Team MakerBeam.eu