Even when you’ve got Skeinforge totally dialed in there can be other potential problems with getting a perfect print. 1 A drafty room, cold ambient temperature, or too much moisture can all cause problems. Just as cold and wet conditions can lead to suboptimal prints, so can too much heat. If a layer is still molten and gooey when the next layer is laid down on top of it, the lower layer can get squished or pulled out of place. Through the use of judicious cooling, you can ensure you don’t have a problem with a molten lower layer.
Besides the Thing-O-Matic’s built-in fan, there have been a number of extruder cooling mechanisms:
ScribbleJ’s version, while perhaps the most labor intensive, is easily the most well documented and entertaining to read. If you haven’t already checked it out, some of those pictures are priceless.
J_Hodgie recently uploaded a design for a clamp box to Thingiverse. Even after seeing his Flickr stream showing all of the parts and the stages of it opening I didn’t quite get how it worked at first. Each of those six “T” shaped prongs sticking out from the lid have a little protuberance that fits into a groove at the top of the box. When the gear/lid is rotated counter-clockwise it will pull the six “T” shaped prongs into the lid and lock it shut.
This design is just so cool. It’s got a gear for steampunk style, a satisfying rotating mechanism, and creates a box that will confound and surprise someone the first time they pick it up. After all, who would expect the cap of a jar to expand as you open it?
Tony Buser’s Thingiview.js is an in-browser 3D file viewer powered by WebGL. If you have a WebGL-enabled browser, you can view 3D files in your browser almost as fast as viewing them with a desktop application.
Now, Thingiview.js is available on Thingiverse! Just look for the little cube icon next to the thumbnails for any STL file. For example:
As a bonus, and as shown above, you can embed Thingiviews into your own pages! Each Thingiview page has an “Embed This Thing” button, which gives you the HTML to copy-and-paste into your site. You can even customize the colors!
If your current web browser doesn’t support WebGL, you might want to try the latest Google Chrome, which has WebGL support built in, or check out the latest Firefox and Safari betas.
The ability to preview 3D files in-browser has been on our wishlist for a while so it is great to be able to get this feature into the hands of the citizens of Thingiverse!
Please keep in mind that Thingiview is an experimental feature. If you run into any files that don’t work, please let us know!
We had a fun guest this morning at the BotCave, our favorite dancing cutie-pie robot, Keepon! We’ll have more post featuring Keepon and one of it’s creators Marek Michalowski shortly, it’s great stuff. We can’t wait to have these on our desks:) Here’s the video that’s made Keepon a worldwide sensation.
Recently I had to the chance to help out a couple of aspiring ‘botters from California. Matthew and Spencer had let their kit go unfinished for a number of months by the time they reached out for help…but with a few parts and a bit of attention, I helped them complete their first print.
One of my favorite parts of the MakerBot experience is putting it together. While I love all kits, I think you learn a lot more by putting together a Cupcake or Thing-O-Matic than you do with most…which makes it an ideal inter-generational project. Some of the happiest MakerBot operators are the ones who’ve just built a kit with a child.
There have been two very different revolvers uploaded to Thingiverse in the last few days. There’s Renosis’ scarily realistic revolver and mrkim’s GCode rendition of the Beatles’ Revolver.
Mrkim’s collection of GCode produces more than 30 minutes of 3D printer music. With some careful editing of your “end.txt” file and a set of GCode scripts, you could get your MakerBot to play a song when it finishes a print task.
What would be the best song to have your printer announce the end of a print job?
This is a replica of a revolver. Not really sure what kind of revolver but, I got some of the dimensions from a page showing the specs for a Ruger SP101 (This was the first thing that popped up on a google search for "snub-nose revolver"). The cylinder spins but there are no other moving parts. This is my second design and if I tried to get carried away with over engineering it, I would have never finished it.
There are two schools of thought when it comes to dialing in the best settings for a 3D printer. The first is to start fiddling with Skeinforge, clicking buttons, changing numbers with wild abandon and print off a truckload of 20mm cubes. The more rational way is to apply SCIENCE! Recently there have been several Things uploaded to Thingiverse specifically designed to help you set the best feed and flow rates for your printer.
Skimbal is easily one of the most popular designers on Thingiverse. His designs tend to be big, complex, multi-part prints that form seriously epic objects. His Gothic Cathedral Play Set, challenge winning Rubber Band Gear Mechanism, or Christmas Lego Men of Kansas City are must-see designs. To get an idea of the scale of Skimbal’s devotion – this nine-piece submarine print would probably take about 30 hours of printing.
One of the things I really like about this particular design is that it (again) pushes the limits of a MakerBot printer. His Gothic Cathedral Play set has high unsupported arches and the submarine above is significantly larger than the build area of a Cupcake. Skimbal has once again proved that with a 3D printer you are not limited by anything except your imagination.
Today we are very proud to introduce a fantastic upgrade to your Thing-O-Matic.
It’s the MakerBot Stepstruder™ MK6 and it comes as a full kit for those upgrading from a MK3 or MK4 and it also comes as an upgrade kit so that if you have a MakerBot Plastruder MK5, you can just get the upgrade kit and you’ll be ready to rock. With this new extruder you’ll have the option to configure it to use MakerBot 1.75mm ABS filament. Today we’re also launching 1.75mm filament for sale in the store.
A New Day is Dawning for MakerBot Extrusion Technology
The MakerBot Stepstruder™ MK6 is the latest and greatest in MakerBot extrusion technology. With it, you get a lot more control over your plastic extrusion because instead of using a DC motor that just goes on and off, the MakerBot Stepstruder™ MK6 has a high torque stepper motor that allows you to control the rotation. This stepper motor has 200 steps per rotation and you’ll be driving it using the MakerBot Generation 4 Stepper Driver v3.3 (included in both the upgrade and complete Kits) to get a 1600 step per revolution. That means that you can control the extruder motor and when it goes one step it turns .225 of a degree.
The kit comes with extra parts that give you the option of using either MakerBot 3mm or 1.75mm plastic. Standard 3mm filament is what we’ve used so far and this extruder will happily print with it, but looking to the future, we are experimenting with a thinner diameter filament and you’re along for the ride! We’ve included parts that you can swap in to use 1.75mm filament too. Using this bonus experimental capability to extrude 1.75mm diameter plastic filament allows you to put less pressure on the filament to get the same amount of extrusion. Using smaller filament is something we’ve been wanting to do for a long time and with the MakerBot Stepstruder™ MK6 you can swap in parts to turn your 3mm filament extruder into a 1.75mm filament extruder.
We’re clearly declaring 1.75mm filament “Experimental” because it’s new. If you’re someone who likes pushing the edge of the technology, you can use the parts in the kit that are specifically for 1.75mm and try it out. We like it and we think you’ll like it too. You can get 1.75mm plastic individually or in a 1.75mm Mini MegaRainbow Pack.
A few notes about the development of the MakerBot Stepstruder™ MK6. We’ve been working on this actively for 9 months. Because there was no stepper motor available that had enough torque for this application at a reasonable price, we went ahead and had one manufactured to our specifications. We were all set and ready to go when we learned under testing that the motor gets pretty hot during printing. So we added a fan and a lasercut bracket to hold the fan over the motor to keep it cool.
This cathedral was printed with a MakerBot Stepstruder™ MK6 using 3mm filament.
Thinner 1.75mm Filament Available
You’ll still be able to use your stash of 3mm plastic with your MakerBot Stepstruder™ MK6 but you’ll also have the capability of changing some of the parts (included) to be able to use new MakerBot 1.75mm filament. We’re launching this sweet thin material in classic MakerBot colors of Red, Blue, Natural, Black and our new UV reactive “Nuclear” Green! It’s the same green you’ll see in all your favorite video games when you splatter aliens or find nuclear waste.
We’re committed to having the best extrusion material for your MakerBot and so all MakerBot ABS Plastic is sealed in bags with desiccant at the manufacturing facility to keep moisture out and to keep your filament dry. This is an added expense to MakerBot plastic and makes it cost more, but we feel that it’s worth it so that you can get fresh plastic with great extrusion characteristics right out of the bag.
We ran out of MK5 motors two weeks ago and have had Thing-O-Matics on hold as we have been getting parts in for this kit. Orders have been stacking up and so Thing-O-Matics that have been ordered, but not shipped yet will get this upgrade for free as a thank you for their patience. Starting with any Thing-O-Matic ordered today, the price of the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic has gone up to $1299 due to the increase in costs associated with this upgrade.
I love the shape of these vintage erasers. When I saw a whole bag of them for only 99 cents at Office Depot, I had this idea for a little office toy. 3D printing fanatics, here is my gift to you.
All the instructions for this project are on instructables : instructables.com/id/Eraser-ball-3DP/…
cube icon next to the thumbnails for any STL file. For example:
