Mendel90 - First prints

After watching Nophead's Mendel90 design evolve over the last year, I went for an impulse buy of the full kit a few weeks ago... the parts arrived Thursday and I've spent the weekend getting it assembled. The kit is superb, great attention to detail, good instructions and everything you need to get printing in one box - backed by top notch service from Nophead and his wife. I would highly recommend the kit to anyone wanting to get stuck into 3D printing - it's much easier to put together than a Prusa Mendel and the final machine looks amazing with the black dibond finish. Only slight surprise is just how big it is, occupying a fair chunk of space on my desk.

 The manual is very well written, with just a few bits which weren't immediately obvious - but a quick google for Mendel90 images quickly cleared those up. The setup steps all went very smoothly, and after just a couple of calibration prints, the Mendel90 had printed the Android test model. This afternoon (Sunday) has been spent printing random objects for the kids, including:

• A couple of Nerf targets, inspired by http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:14666 - I knocked these up in OpenSCAD, with the open mk2 design being my favourite.
• Two hairclips for my daughter based on: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:29185
• A belt clip for my son's wooden sword
• 5 segments from the modular hose (ala loc line) OpenSCAD library I put together a year or so ago (!) - good news is they worked after a small tweak to the library to solve a non-manifold issue...  http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:9457

Pictures of these first prints below:

I can safely say, I'm addicted - and fortunately so are my family...  the ability to dream up a part, model it, print it and then play/use it in an afternoon is just incredible :)