MakerBot Industries

Chooch's Pfierce Z-axis extenders

Chooch is the current record holder for the MakerBot Hall of Fame Tallest Print with his print of the Sears Tower.¹ He’s been kind enough to share his designs for a Z axis extender with everyone. ^2 34

One of the most common questions and concerns about a MakerBot relate to the build volume.   I would tend to doubt most people ever find the build volume is much of a constraint. The larger an object is, the longer it takes to print. At a certain point it just makes more sense to use custom plastic parts mixed in with stock parts – pieces of wood, metal, or other cut pieces of plastic.

Chooch’s solution for more Z axis room is simple and elegant.  Having seen this, I would think there are ways to extend the X and Y axes slightly.  Then again, if more build area is what you require, there’s no reason you couldn’t just build a whole new printer out of MakerBot parts.  There’s no special magic to the MakerBot design.  If you had access to a laser cutter or wanted to cut the parts out of large sheets of plywood, you could build a Cupcake CNC ten times the size of a standard model – and still use a stock MK5 and electronics.

So, how are you going to hack your ‘bot?  Are you going to try for a height record?

1. You should see the list of scrapped blog post titles lying on the cutting room floor.  Most would not have been appropriate for a family blog. [↩]
2. And all it took was a minimum of cajoling. [↩]
3. I find it hilarious that anyone would think *I* have the ability to make anything “famous.” [↩]
4. I also find it amusing that this post is about a Thing that was uploaded after I mentioned it in a blog post about a new thing created by a guy who made a prior thing I had written a prior blog post about. [↩]