MakerBot Industries

I’ve always daydreamed of putting things in a tub and filling it with chocolate milk one centimeter at a time and taking a picture. Then I’d do edge detection on the objects and stack them up to make a 3D model.

I don’t have to dream anymore. It appears that Trace Modeler will do just that and more! It will also automatically output STLs! Very cool!

Super mega bonus points to this project for being open source. You can download the source here!

The MakerBot Thing-O-Matic is featured in Makezine’s holiday tool gift guide! Check it out.

Today was a big day for the MakerBot Support Team, with the debut of our live streaming Q&A show – ROBOT HOSPITAL! We will be doing this weekly starting today, so tune in next week and hopefully we’ll have a smoother start and all new topics- Check out the BotCave Store opening on the next show!

Hey everybody!

Here at the Botcave, we recently decided to “up our game” as regards customer service.  As you can see, there is now more than one person answering emails here.  So now, when you send email to support@makerbot.com a veritable team of highly-qualified technicians will respond to your requests.

From left: Isaac, our team leader, is an electronic music enthusiast who is known to have a collection of highly valuable (?) comic books.  Ethan once worked in the wine industry and tutors Latin.  Matt’s background is in film and creative writing.

Even more exciting, this afternoon, you’re going to have the chance to talk to all of us, LIVE and IN PERSON on the MakerBot UStream feed at http://bit.ly/dv23P3

We are starting a new event, tentatively titled called “Robot Hospital.”  In addition to taking questions over live chat, we are going to do a roundup of support-related issues over the past week, or whatever cool, robot-related stuff you need to see.

So, dial us up and send us your questions!  We’re here to help.

9 Volt Racer by mraiser

Who was tired of the other animals making fun of it for being slow.  It happened one day that this snail won the lottery and decided to buy a fast car.  He insisted the dealer paint a large letter “S” on every side of the car.  When the dealer asked him why, the snail replied, “Simple.  When people see my zooming past, I want them to say, ‘Wow!  Look at that S-car go!’”

Okay, this 9-volt battery car by mraiser is pure printed awesome.  I like the idea that it can just be snapped together and you’re off to the races. ¹  The directions indicate that the parts need to be glued in place.  While it looks like gloppy hot glue from the pictures, the parts list suggests it is crazy glue.  Most crazy glue includes acetone which would actually melt the ABS – so if you use it, be careful.

There are so many directions to go with this little car.  How about swapable covers for a Lamborghini, Mini Cooper, or VW bus?  How about custom printed bearing wheels? If you check out Jerome Demers’ “Beetle Robot”, you can see how he made a little toy that will change directions when it hits an obstacle.  With an extra motor, you could probably build a similar system into this little toy car.  Or, you could change up the gear teeth or gear sizes² to make it go even faster. ³  The wheels on this little racer a nice, but they could probably have a whole lot more grip.  You could use tires made from helical gears for extra traction.  If you look closely at the pictures on j_seigel‘s rubber band pull-back car, you’ll notice an interesting use of rubber bands used as rubber rims for the plastic tires.  I suspect if you stretched a thick rubber band over helical gears, they would make for great tires.  If your car got a lot larger, you might even be able to use the robot frog legs as a suspension system.⁴

Rubber band pull-back car by j_seigel

1. So to speak. [↩]
2. Or both! [↩]
3. Or slower? [↩]
4. Frog legs and escargot jokes?  What the heck?!? [↩]

Chair plus Paris equals?

Full scale furniture printed using 3D printing technology?  How else would you get a map of Paris molded into a chair?¹

There are already several examples of downloadable furniture on Thingiverse.  If you think about it, a MakerBot Cupcake is basically the perfect size for printing doll furniture.  I’ve designed and printed a doll sized table and chair set, but there’s a LOT more room for doll sized designs.  What kind of awesome doll furniture will you design and share?

1. Thanks i.materialize! [↩]

The MakerBot Botcave™ Retail Store opens on November 26th! As far as we know, this is the first time anyone has opened a store focused on open source hardware. It is getting set up right now as an actual physical retail store at 87 3rd Ave here in Brooklyn. We’re going to plan to be open Tuesday to Saturday 12-8 until Christmas eve!

You have a special hardware enthusiast in your life who talks about arduinos, MakerBots, and 555 timers in their sleep. You want to get them something for the holidays. What would be the best present? Besides MakerBots and Arduinos, the MakerBot Botcave™ will have a selection of kits from Adafruit, Evil Mad Science, Jimmie Rodgers, Sparkfun and Liquidware.

Put it on your calendar to come out and see us and get all the gifts you need for the hardware enthusiasts in your life in one stop!

When: November 26 through December 24th. Tuesday to Saturday 12-8pm.
Where: 87 3rd Ave”>The MakerBot Botcave™ – 87 3rd Ave, Brooklyn NY 11217
What: The greatest open source hardware of all time… in a physical store!

Replacement Key Fob

My mom came to visit on Monday night and left yesterday morning.  Monday evening she mentioned her car key was broken, I measured the broken parts, printed up two prototypes, and printed out a fully functional replacement the following morning.  Well, last night I received an e-mail from my dad:

What a fantastic job you did on your mom’s car keys. Wow! I hope you still have the measurements for that key saved because that car came with two keys and over the years both keys had plastic parts which were shattered. The one you repaired was the better one of the two. However if you can make another one of those cases for it, may be then you can repair the second key as well.

Measurements?  Where we’re going we won’t need measurements.

If you need one¹ just download the designs from Thingiverse, fire up your 3D printer, and crank out a few parts.

Posts in this series:

• MakerBot Hero:  Car Keys I
• MakerBot Hero:  Car Keys II
• MakerBot Hero:  Car Keys III
• MakerBot Hero:  Car Keys IV
• MakerBot Hero:  Car Keys Epilogue

1. Or, in the case of my parents, two or more. [↩]

As many of you are aware, for various reasons, the Cupcake CNC Ultimate kit has evolved over time to become the dynamic, amazing robot that it is today.  We’ve recently gone through the documentation and made some changes to make building it easier and eliminate some guesswork.

The Ultimate builder has a few challenges that he or she needs to address in their build.  First and foremost, the MK5 Plastruder doesn’t have a place to mount the extruder board, unlike the MK4.  This means that our builders need to find a new place to mount the board.   We recently added this page to the instructions on the wiki to help out, in response to a few folks who were having trouble because of the missing instructions.

Most people are now aware that they might have to drill a few extra holes somewhere to accommodate the MK5. Are there some other issues you’d like to see documented a bit better?  Let us know in the comments or send us an email at support@makerbot.com

MakerBot fixed key, front

And, here it is.  The fully 3D printed, fully functional replacement key fob housing.  It’s got all of the improvements discovered from the prior two revisions.  All of the parts fit snugly in the case, the case fits snugly together, and there is zero wobble between the key and the case.

MakerBot fixed key, back

One half has a 2mm lip and the other has a 2mm groove – the result is a case that required channel lock pliers to shut…  but isn’t coming apart any time soon.  All of the sides are at least 1.5mm – which is way thicker and sturdier than the original case.

No WAY is this case cracking after a simple drop.  From the EMPIRE STATE BUILDING.

This may just be my favorite 3D printer fix ever.

Posts in this series:

• MakerBot Hero:  Car Keys I
• MakerBot Hero:  Car Keys II
• MakerBot Hero:  Car Keys III
• MakerBot Hero:  Car Keys IV
• MakerBot Hero:  Car Keys Epilogue