Xyala recently spent the day at a local Hackerspace here in Taipei where managed to get hold of a 3D printing machine which he used to produce compatible plastic brackets for the Open Benchtable. It’s a really good example of how the open source nature of the OBT project will eventually lead to users creating their own accessories, adapters and more. Click the image on the left to catch a video of the brackets being made. Here’s a sample of the OBT website has to say:

“With the help of Kai and Mr Friday, leading members of the Taipei Hackerspace, Tim was able to get hands with a Makerbot 3D printer. Thanks to work from PureBlizz (HWBOT member) who helped create the required files needed for 3D printing, Tim was able to create some pretty good looking compatible spare brackets. The brackets were made using black LPA (bio-degradable) plastic. Of course one of the fun aspects of 3D printing is that he could have chosen any of a number of different colors.”

“After some experimentation Tim and the team found that using modified software to slow down the printer (underclocking?) actually resulted in fewer errors or blemishes on the final piece. Slowing down by around 40% extended the manufacturing process by ten minutes. In terms of eventual efficiency, it's not easy to call as Tim was actually producing the brackets in single runs. A full plate of brackets is estimated to take a few hours.”

Check out the video and the full blog post here on the OBT website.