MakerBot Industries

Z extender by aubenc

Overall, I’d have to go with a tie between X and Y.  The real question is – what would you compromise for more build height?  I like to print small to medium sized objects, so build height is never really an issue for me.  However, I can imagine a series of hacks that might grant you more Z or X build space at the cost of a dramatic reduction in build space in the other directions. ¹

This is exactly what aubenc put together with his Z extender.  His Z extender is quite different from the other Cupcake height hacks out there.  The other designs require creating printable supports for raising he top panel of the Cupcake.  Aubenc’s design contemplates the creation of a mini-Z stage that is mounted on a new set of Z axis rods that extend up through the hole in the top plate of the Cupcake.  From aubenc’s description, it appears that you could swap this system in without a huge change to your stock Cupcake.  The cost, of course, is that you have a dramatically reduced X and Y build area because of the plastic components that reposition the interior Z axis rods.

Having a diminished X and Y build area in favor of a Z height that’s only limited by Z axis rod height is a pretty interesting proposition.  All of the entries in the MakerBot hall of fame for tall prints are tall thin prints.  As long as you obtained some Z rods a little higher than the last winner, you should be able to take the lead.  Also interesting is aubenc’s own suggestion for the practical applications of a diminished XY region with an extended Z – a tall thin bottle.²  There’s a number of interesting things possible with a small XY build area and nigh unlimited Z height.  How about a full complete cane, walking stick, shower curtain rod, closet rod, or samurai sword?

Z extender by aubenc

This is a (fools's? naive?) minimalistic Z extender for your cupcake cnc. Designed to be quick to print/assemble/install without having to dismantle your cupcake. WARNING !!! It dramatically decreases X and Y ! Z: Up to 220mm X: Up to 65mm (it could easily go up to 80mm) Y: Up to 60mm (55mm?) Those are sizes for the whole length. At some Z levels X and Y may be bigger. However it uses the whole length of the Z rods (there's a lot of designs that can fit here) and you can switch from this thing to the standard cupcake setup in a couple of minutes. More pictures: aubenc.imgur.com/cupcake_cnc_zextender#mdmpi (The example in the picture is a 220mm tall print) "z-ext.zip" contains all the other files available to download.

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Bottle by aubenc

This is a (horrible... haHahAhahhaahhhaahHHaaAA) simple bottle I made in a (horrible... hahahaaaarrrrgghhhh) openscad. Just intended to show that thingiverse.com/thing:7703 by aubenc :-) can be worth for some designs. The worse in this bottle is that... IT'S EMPTY !! we'll need to find a way to fix that. The best is that... it's perfectly usable. The walls are 1mm thick. The biggest outer diameter is 65mm (or may be 64mm... I don't remember). I was not paying much attention to center the build platform so it was crashing against the z-extender. You can see that in one of the pictures. More pictures: aubenc.imgur.com/beer_bottle#ztXs3 I almost forget to mention... this thing is 220mm tall

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Pfierce Z-axis extenders ver 5.2 by Chooch

These are the infamous Pfierce Z-axis extenders that helped me set my tallest print record: wiki.makerbot.com/hall-of-fame-tallest-print Made famous by Makerblock:blog.makerbot.com/2010/09/28/speaking-of-makerbot-upgrades/makerblock.com/2010/07/mysteries-of-the-tall-print/ Now you can print over 5 inches tall with a standard cupcake too! Sorry for the delay...but it was nice to hold the record for awhile :) Ask and you shall receive Makerblock!

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Z Axis Extender Kit for Makerbot Cupcake by Zydac

Pop your top and lift your lid with this Z axis extension kit. I can print up to 205mm so far, and it can probably be tweaked to go higher. (Now that I have it installed I realize that I could add another 10mm to the base) This was inspired by thingiverse.com/thing:4261 and the pulley mounted crank from that settup works great with this. I've added .obj files for those who want to stretch things a bit more...

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1. This is another interesting intersection with origami.  You can have a an arbitrary number of appendages or a compact model but not both.  With each fold, the size of the model decreases.  So, you can have all the complexity you want – but at the cost of size. [↩]
2. Which, I rather like.  It’s a pretty bottle.  It also brings to mind a book by Roger Zelazny where the protagonist makes bottles. [↩]