MakerBot Industries

Hey folks! After a brief absence, we’re back with another dynamic episode of our tips, tricks and sliceo’ botcave show.  We’ve got a pitch for our brand new spooled plastics, a helpful tip about belt-lengthening, and a round-up of some awesome thingiverse things, featuring a bathtub cleaner, pine trees, egg labels, a violin, the diagrid bracelet, the buddsta, and the ballista.

Enjoy!

How to Build a Foamcore CNC Machine by Ilan Moyer

Okay, this is seriously cool.  A cheap foamcore CNC machine for $120 worth of parts and common tools?  Who wouldn’t want one of these?  Makes me wonder what else would be possible with foamcore plus access to a 3D printer.

Ilan’s website has more photos and information about this project, along with pictures of it extruding in ketchup.

Michael Tuttle's SUPER tall bot!

MakerBot operator Michael Tuttle sent in some photos of his seriously pimped Cupcake.  He’s more than doubled vertical build height of the Liberty Prototype tall printer!¹

Anyways, Just wanted to show you my makerbot mod. it has a ~26″ Z build area and I modified it to two Z stage motors to help with the mass of the new rods.  I also put a heatsink on the H-bridge to help with the added load.

As you can see I printed the wine class from thingiverse. It was actually my first print on the machine, it hasnt even been calibrated yet! Its amazing! You can even see the hex nuts not even tightened on the z rods.  My next upgrade will be the step extruder and the 2.4 motherboard.

Let’s not forget the sweet TRON themed clear acrylic case! ²  Michael, please, please, please go for the tallest print hall of fame record!  Way to go Michael!

1. Bre’s Liberty Prototype has a build height of 300mm or about 11.8 inches. [↩]
2. While still sporting the cool vintage XY platform… [↩]