I am rather new around here, so let me introduce myself. My name is Jessie and I am an electrical engineer by day. In the evenings I like to practice magic as well as design new and exciting things. This evening, while waiting for my new cups and balls set from RnT2 to arrive in the post, I decided to draft up some cups while I ate lunch. In the meantime the copper cups showed up. BTW, they are great! I ordered the Mendoza combo set, in a mirror finish.

Anyway.... the homebrew cups... I finished the design and hit print. A couple hours later these popped out of the printer

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ccc3yzpUMAAWBI4.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ccc3y1GUkAE-8Uc.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ccc3y2dUcAAqQu0.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ccc3yq5VAAAYfGF.jpg

A future mod I am considering is printing a small cover for the inside to convert one into a small chop cup. The cup is 60mm inside and you can easily put a 1 1/8" ball on top and stack them. Sorry for mixing units of measurement I switch back and forth all day, hazard of being an american engineer who deals with people in the USA and in Europe.

Just thought I would share, all things considered, they actually feel alright in my hand. The cups are stacked with the 1 1/8" ball sitting on top of each and fit snuggly together. I am considering releasing the stl file so others can print their own set if there is enough interest and I wont get in trouble for doing so. No support material is needed for the print, just set them on the bed with the mouth of the cup down onto the bed. I used PLA for the plastic with a 100% infill to give them a nice weight. The rings were added to add a bit of style and material so they have some substance while you are working minor miracles

Cheers!

ThunderSqueak

P.S. I know I ramble a lot, my brain goes in 100 different directions at once

Hi Jessie,

Welcome to the Café! Your 3D cups are very cool!

Thanks for sharing!



Magically,
John

Very cool wish I had the know how to do that. Just recently spent 8 hours hand making a very difficult router pattern. Would have been great to just hit print and have the part made. Welcome to the workshop.

Welcome to the Café, I think you should make nest an Okito Box set. You should make all your magic props with the 3 D printer, then create a unique act using them.

Do you think it would be alright for me to post the files for others to make a set? I was considering having them hosted on http://www.thingiverse.com/ .
I made the small insert for them to be made into a chop cup, if list them for others, would that be giving away too much? I guess I could just include the part and not say what it is for.
My boyfriend didn't know the chop cup secret until he grabbed the cup from me to see how it was done. Up until that point, he assumed there was a trapdoor or something XD

Cheers

Thundersqueak

Hi Jessie,

Welcome to the Café. I love your cups. I have possession of a 3-d printer myself and I love the idea of what you did. One question, you said you could easily put a ball in your cup and stack them up. I am wondering what is the largest item you might fit in there? A ping pong ball? a Lemon? etc.

Thanks

Hi Jessie,

The cups are great! Welcome to The Magic Café and welcome to the coolest forum on it... The Workshop!

If you wish to post your files, as long as they are yours to post, it is your choice. The general policies on the Café frown on exposure of magic secrets, but showing the design for a cup hardly goes to exposure.

Here in this forum, sometimes we really have no choice but to discuss mechanics openly, as the threads here are usually about how to deal with mechanical issues. Sometimes the only real way to get any real conversation going is to get into the guts. With magic props, that usually means those little "traps doors" will be seen. We are less about the performance aspects here, so the casual seekers of secrets don't find us nearly as interesting as some YouTube link to "how a trick is done". Basically, we kind of fly under the radar, but still keep things somewhat cryptic when really necessary. One good way to dodge the search engine fanatics is to avoid using trade names for tricks. Example: Chop Cup would be a bull's eye.

I hope that all made sense!

I too wish I had the knowledge and capabilities to work with 3D printing. There are so many things I want done, and everything seems to point to this as a really good solution. Like Gimpy, we can make things the old-fashioned way, but that's usually very time consuming. It doesn't help when trying to bring new things to market when labor drives the cost up beyond a reasonable amount.

I'm looking forward to seeing more of your work.

~michael

I just made the cup a combo set, and printed up some small covers for the magnet, 3 of them so the cups look identical, with that in place, and the cups printed at the original size, you can put a 1" (24.5mm) single ball on top (I have a small 1" superball on top of it right now) and they stack with no wobble. As for the final load, I haven't decided yet. Putting a standard ping pong ball in the cups, the ball has a LOT of wiggle room.

..

measuring the max load size, I can put a 45mm diameter object in and not have the cup wobble with the insert, without the insert you could put in a 48mm diameter object.


The thing about the design, is you could make the cups whatever size you wanted, just scale it before printing. Be sure to keep the proportions the same and things should work out. If you print about double the size they would probably require some support structure during the print, but any good slicer software can do that.

A printer isn't 5000 dollars anymore. You can buy one for as little as a 100 dollars if you want. Look up the peachy.

I love sharing designs that I make and I build things almost every day. I have been featured in magazines such as popular mechanics and most recently spoke in front of NASA and SpaceX about a new CPU architecture. I joined here because I felt that some things should be kept for magicians, yet I still wanted to share them ^^ So much of my world is covered by an NDA @.@

I wouldn’t post cad files of any magic, in a public place. These are trade secrets we should keep to the trade.

Jay,
I honestly don't think a cad file of a cup for a 3 D printer is exposure.
It's a DIY project. I would think that only magicians that own 3D printers would be interested.
Spectators see the actual real cup when you perform.

Maybe if the file isn't called “cups & Balls” or the word “magic” is omitted, that would be better. (Certainly omitting the extra disk inside)

On the other hand I appreciate when someone takes the time to make something unusual and it could lead to learning a life-long hobby.

——
True
I have connections overseas to get things made. I sent an indian C&B for a quite. The owner called (4 am) and insisted on knowing what it did - he refused to make it unless he knew what it did (thief) so I explained it was a cup, that’s all just a cup and he stopped talking to me - because he wanted to copy it. I never saw my cup again.

It’s still the wild west in most parts of the world. Usually the first person to the patent office is awarded the patent and there are a good 20 different countries (or groups of countries) you have to pay and register your idea with.
And as my patent attorney says “Your patent is only as good as your enforcement”

Sorry for the tangent.

This I know. I have had a couple ideas stolen. One by a company that manufactures hdmi cables. They had the &$!* call and thank me for the idea. One of their sales guys was in my shop and overheard the discussion. I can now see that product for sale in almost every store that sells cables. But I figured that a 3D printed cup would be ok. Maybe if I get access to an area that would let me share here in private. The world is changing and information is far easier to get than it was even 10 years ago. I have a lot of books on my shelves, I love physical books, but many people I know don't. Right now magic relies on "security through obscurity". I wonder how long this will last. 30 years tops?

I’m going to Coin a phrase so you heard it here first

“It’s a Youtube World"

Hi Jessie,

Posting a program file on how to make a cup would hardly violate any exposure ethics. Of course the mods have the final say, and if they decide to remove it, they will.

If it gets too weird, join the Facebook group SME Talk Magic. Very cool people there, many who refuse to come here. We openly share ideas, including sacred cows, like (cough, cough) magnets in cups...

(sitting here shaking my head...)

Well, maybe if I keep posting I will get the 50 post limit thingy so I can see "the hidden forums" XD Then I can perhaps share some things without everyone getting upset ^^;;

The funny thing is, I could have just went and made a different username on a sharing site and did so anyway and no one the wiser. On the plus side, I was walking through a second hand shop today and what do ya know.... I found an old chop cup mixed in with the glasses and other dish-ware. Added to my collection ^^ I need more shelves *sigh*

SCORE!!

It's not the cup Michael. It's the cup with a gimmick.
A cup is a cup is a cup. A gimmick is an unseen device that makes something work.

Wow Magnets in magic tricks, what a great idea, who would have thought of that. I finally understand it all. Well out to the shop to start working on the next self levetation