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. [↩]

Cupcake Tailfins by pandelume

Sure, MakerBots have loads of personality right from assembly — but does your bot exhibit all of its personality right out of the box?

Bot Bling

Lately, there have been a number of great “bot bling” items appearing on Thingiverse, some exclusively ornamental and others primarily practical (tool and spool holders, etc). Now “bot bling” items need not be 3D printed objects that have been cast using precious metals and hung around the neck or affixed to teeth — it is enough for them to be the regular type of plastic 3D-printable models you can affix to your MakerBot, usually found on Thingiverse, tagged with “bot bling.”

Some favorite recent entries include the MakerBot Thing o Magic Serial number by Joakim to brag out your MakerBot serial to the world, the 1950s rocket Cupcake Tailfins by pandelume (feat. above), and the MakerBot Coin Holder Updated! by M_G.

Sure, go too far with “bot bling” and you might end up with 37 pieces of flare, but on this side of clutter you have a user-assembled, Open Hardware 3D printer with plenty of resources for measurements and modification — so bring on the bling!

How about some mountable dragon wings to go with cibomahto’s Evil Dragon Head Trophy (or Tbuser’s Dragon Head Trophy)? Or mashup button covers for M3 bolt socket caps? Modified Heater Board electric cup holder?

Thingiverse Triangulation Obligation

Now is as good a time as any to reveal details of the Thingiverse Triangulation Obligation as it pertains to you.

Here is how it works.

See two (unrelated) objects on Thingiverse that together suggest to you the creation of a third object? It is now your duty to create and post that third object as quickly as possible. Because if you don’t, that item you saw so clearly in your imagination vanishes forever in a puff of distraction.

Now, let us consider the Obligation in terms of your MakerBot. Your MakerBot is sitting on your desk, right? You see it all the time. Look at your MakerBot. Now thumb through the ever-expanding catalog of wonder that is Thingiverse. See something, look at bot, inspiration … make something.

MakerBot Coin Holder by M_G

Cupcake Tailfins by pandelume

Here's the deal: I've been reading a book called "Cadillac Desert" - a good book, but not relevant to this Thing except that it brought to mind the word "cadillac". I've also been working on this:thingiverse.com/thing:7641 which is based on the cupcake platform, and cadillac + cupcake leads inevitably to cupcake tailfins. In this instance, at least, the mysterious process of inspiration has been documented. Anyhow, I'm also working on a version of this with integrated 5mm LEDs in the place of taillights - probably with a battery. More on that later; probably after I put more work into the x-gantry.

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MakerBot Thing o Magic Serial number by Joakim

In the cardbord box with the Lasercut parts - tere was a Serial Number In the hope thats it is unique i have made a sign for my maker bot.

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MakerBot Coin Holder Updated! by M_G

A holder for the metal coin that comes with your MakerBot. This allows it to be attached to the spare motor mounting holes on top of your machine using standard M3 bolts. Now with less drilling, sharp corners and rebuilding of your ABP! Changes from previous versions: 1.2 Raised above z=0 plane to prevent damage to ABP/HBP etc. (Sincere apologies to all affected!) Fixed naming issue "hole_diameter" vs "hole_diameters" so that bolt holes are correct diameter Gave it rounded corners using "rounded_cuboid" module 1.1 (DELETED) Increased hole_diameter from 3.1 to 3.2 Increased coin diamter from 37 to 39 Replaced hard coded numbers with named variables

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Evil Dragon Head Trophy by cibomahto

After printing the awesome dragon head trophy and mounting it on my bot, I realized that there was just one thing missing: LEDs. A small amount of drilling and some soldering later, and the dragon head was alive and well. Then it turned it's head to stare at me with its cold, unblinking eyes, and started making a low growling noise. Uh oh, that can't be a good sign...

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Hydrant Totem by tbuser

Yesterday morning, moments after learning about the Tinkercad beta, MakerBot Operator TBuser dived in head first to test what he might do with the tool. Before necessarily arriving at any specific sense of what his model might be, he sent me the model (simply by passing me a Tinkercad link).

Five minutes later, my bot was printed his object first at 1:1 and then at 2:1 scale without any cleanup or manipulation of the model other than centering it on the build platform. The MakerBot Thing-O-Matic on my desk (with a Stepstruder MK6 and 0.4mm nozzle) had no difficulty printing the model despite a number of challenges (like the cylinder cut through the middle) at either scale — and I was able to hand over the models to Tony before he had had much time to notice that I was printing it out.

Take a look at Tony’s Thingiverse release of the item (now a “Hydrant Totem”) and consider the implications of this workflow model. Not only is he able to generate a printable STL with a one-button click (which can be easily revised and adjusted in a host of STL scripts and tools) but he can also share a link to the model in Tinkercad so that another user might duplicate the project, make revisions, and then print a new model.

This is game changing, folks. Imagine how much easier this route is than jumping through hoops to share SketchUp files.¹ Share a Tinkercad link and others can work on your model in its original design environment right in your browser.

TinkerCAD is still in beta, so I suggest you jump in to push this tool hard as well — and send constructive feedback to the developer. This tool is shaping into something I have been waiting for since exploring the charming 3dtin.com.

Hydrant Totem by tbuser

Playing with tinkercad.com It sort of looks like a fire hydrant and sort of looks like a totem. View it on tinkercad: tinkercad.com/p/acc0c5996fe6d9d4

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1. The past benefit of Sketchup being the wide adoption and lower learning curve for modeling. [↩]

Hello noble readers and watchers of videos!  We’ve had some feedback that our recent Robot Hospital Episodes, though still full of entertaining information and helpful tips (obv.) didn’t answer enough questions from users.

Well, we agree.  And we’re only missing one thing — your questions.  So if you have a question about building or using your MakerBot, please submit it as a comment to this blog post.

Or, even better, submit your question as a short video — make your vid, post it on one of the popular video hosting sites, and submit the link in your comment.  (It’d be cool if you used one of the ones where we can get the source, so we can include your question right in Robot Hospital.)  If we use your video, we promise to send you a super-awesome, top-secret Mystery Prize! (LEDs.)

The first question will be answered during the Friday, April 22nd episode of Robot Hospital.  We’re really excited to get your questions and even more excited to answer them!

Matthew Borgatti put together this awesome time lapse video of MakerBots crunching out art over at Ponoko.

I attended the modeLabInteractive Parametrics seminar a month or so ago (check out our previous post on it here) and had the chance to film some Makerbots hard at work. I’ve got to thank Bre Pettis for providing Makerbot troubleshooting, Marius Watz for teaching, modeLab for hosting, and Kidd Video for the music.\

Lots of colored plastic, lots of colored LEDs, and lots of awesome!

Trimensional, an iPhone app for creating 3D scans, was just released!

The latest version of Trimensional, the 3D scanner for iPhone, has just been released.  For the first time ever, you can scan an object using your iPhone and immediately export a printable STL file via email. Within seconds, you’ll go from 3D scanning to 3D printing with no manual clean-up required.

Trimensional even has built-in methods to smooth the geometry of your scan and to ensure the exported model is made watertight by placing a closed rectangular back on the scan.  Enjoy!

What would you print if your iPhone could scan ANYTHING?

Trimensional

Cloud Options

Whatever your preferences and skill level, there’s now an online CAD program for you!  There have been several really amazing online CAD programs released in the last seven or so months. ¹  There’s Tony Buser’s CloudSCAD, 3DTin.com, and just today TinkerCAD just entered open Beta.  Interestingly, I don’t see these three CAD programs as competitors.  If 3D design were building blocks, 3DTin.com would be the Duplo – quick, intuitive, and easy to use with the trade-off being limited resolution.  CloudSCAD is the web based version of my favorite modeling program, the open-source OpenSCAD.  I’ve only used TinkerCAD a little, but it’s looking very promising so far as a full-fledged solid CAD program that lives in your browser.

FireFox users, be warned!  FireFox is kinda fussy about WebGL.  If you’re having problems getting FireFox to run TinkerCAD, give this page a shot.

1. Photo courtesy of Kevin Dooley [↩]

What do you do when there are ongoing traffic projects in your toy car cityscape?  Well, now you can print out some cones to put out.  For safety.

Thingiverse user jag really hits the nail on the head with this one — this is just the thing to print in Safety Orange Filament.  (Also available in 1.75mm thickness!)  Thank you for adding this indispensable object to Thingiverse.

Traffic Cone by jag

I needed something to print with my lovely new safety orange filament. So, what better thing than a traffic cone?

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Make Your Own Gears by Dustyn Roberts

I don’t know about you, but I am continually envious of the really excellent designs up on Thingiverse that make use of gears.  Greg Frost, Emmett, and Whosawhatsis have been rocking Thingiverse lately with their incredible designs incorporating gears.  But, what’s a simple blogger with zero gear-knowledge supposed to do?

Well, Chris Connors, teacher and Maker-extraordinaire, recently posted about gears, motors, and attachments thereto over at Make: Online!.  His post referenced a gear tutorial by Dustyn Roberts, author of Making Things Move, all about gears.¹

I learned more about gears in Dustyn’s first paragraph than I did after hours of trying to design my own gears from scratch.

One nice thing about gears is that if you know any two things about them – let’s say outer diameter and number of teeth — you can use some simple equations to find everything else you need to know, including the correct center distance between them. In this project, we’ll design and fabricate spur gears using free software (Inkscape) and an online store (Ponoko.com) that does custom laser cutting at affordable prices out of a variety of materials. If you have access to a laser cutter at a local school or hackerspace, even better! You can also print out the template and fix it to cardboard or wood to cut the gears by hand.

Dustyn’s tutorial style to explaining gear mechanism is very nuts-and-bolts² with lots of pictures, diagrams, and charts. ^3 4

1. Also, both were speakers at Botacon!!! [↩]
2. Pardon the pun [↩]
3. I think I hear some skittering spiders in our future… [↩]
4. Please don’t click that link. [↩]

Simple Hinge by PieterNr1

Apparently, when you properly arrange objects in an STL for printing at once, you can do so in such a way as to eliminate the need for support structures!  Not only is this a clever use of limited build space, but it also conserves plastic while allowing printing of ever more intricate designs.

PieterNr1′s Simple Hinge above is the first object I’ve seen to use this technique.  It appears from the photograph that there is some slight drooping underneath the top two ledges – but I’m guessing this isn’t enough to interfere with proper operation.  Looking at his implementation of this technique, I have to wonder whether it could be used to print some of the various tracks and treads under development on Thingiverse.

Simple Hinge by PieterBos

My attempt of making a hinge. I do not know how strong it is but it works for now at least. It a openscad thingi so you can mod it. It only hinges at 90 deg but that is what i needed ;-)

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