MakerBot Industries

When Zach makes electronics he makes them “Future Compatible” because here at MakerBot Industries, we know that the people who get MakerBots are going to do wonderful things with them that we can’t imagine yet. So Zach always goes way over the top and makes it so that the electronics can be used for multiple applications.

One example of this is that the Extruder Controller V 2.2 which controls the heat, reads the temperature, and drives the DC motor. However, because Zach made it very flexible with lots of extra places to add things, it can be used to drive a stepper motor as well. Over in RepRap land, where they are coming out with a new extruder that’s stepper motor driven, this means they can use the same electronics! Nobody we know so far has used the multiple servo controllers on this board, but someday someone will!

Hurray for Future Compatibility! Long live flexible electronics!

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Will Langford is an intern here at MakerBot Industries and when he’s not here with us, he’s at home making stuff for his MakerBot. Check out this awesome pen attachment he made for the MakerBot. Designs are up on Thingiverse so if you’ve got a MakerBot, print one out!

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know that we recently signed a lease on a new warehouse which shall henceforth be referred to as The Factory. Well, we’re moving the entire MakerBot operation to this new factory. This is happening on July 20th. Unfortunately this means that a) we have to move a lot of stuff and b) there will be a few days of downtime as we move everything and get setup in the new factory.

We want to make the move easier on ourselves, so we’ve figured out an easy way to do it: the less stuff we have, the less we have to move! So, we’re doing a two day moving sale. Use the coupon code GTFO in the MakerBot store to get 10% off anything. We only have 1 deluxe kit left, so maybe you’ll be able to pick it up for cheap if you’re quick. All orders must be received by Midnight, Thursday 16th to be shipped out. Any orders received after that day will most likely be shipped out once we get setup in the new warehouse. We’re aiming to be up and running again by Friday, July 24. We apologize for the delay that this will cause, but this is just another one of those growing pains we’re dealing with.

Oh yeah, and check out the last clause in our lease (our landlords rock):

Will Langford is one of the excellent MakerBot interns and also an excellent digital designer. He came up with a design for glasses and printed them! I’m very proud of both Will and the MakerBot for making such an awesome object. Will’s going to chat with an optician and figure out what the glasses need to be able to be fitted with lenses. I can’t wait to print out a pair and sport these!

The MakerBot Flickr Pool is full of awesome photos. Check out this gearbox that the Masked Retriever put up. WOW! Also known as Allan Ecker, he blogs 4 days a week over on the Thingiverse blog!

While at toorcamp, we made a machine. Matt, who runs the Metrix space, which will soon be a coffee shop/design workshop, took the machine off our hands and it’s making things like the D20 seen above!

It worked great in the desert, but for some reason, it needed to be tweaked a bit when it returned to civilization, the extrusion was coming out to fast and was squishing down each layer. We changed the speed from 26.5 to 29 to make it stretch out more and the layer hight from 3.75 to 3.5 and it seemed much happier.

This is pretty standard for occasional MakerBot maintenance and I liken it to the days when you got a car and you had to know how it worked because there wasn’t someone to change the oil, you had to do it! Because you put it together, you know how it works and you can tweak it! I’ve found that once a machine is printing happily, it needs very little maintenance to print happily for months.

You don’t have do tweak your MakerBot in a vacuum. The community is there to help. There’s a google group for those that have bought MakerBots and the Forums are lively and full of good advice. If those don’t work, you can always send us a note and we’ll do our best to point you in the right direction.

In the spirit of hot rods, here’s a video that the gang over at Metalab put together of a car!

Switched challenged Kegan Fisher and Liz Kinmar of Design Glut to design up some salt and pepper shakers to be made on the MakerBot and do it all in ONE DAY!