MakerBot Industries

Thing-o-matic modified backplane to accomodate rear-mounted electronics by usiegj00

I realize full well that there are very practical reasons for wanting external electronics on a 3D printer.  That’s one of the cool things about the MakerBot Cupcake CNC.  It’s a snap to just jump right in, disconnect some wires, swap out circuit boards, and generally just hack and tinker away.

With an automated build platform, MK5 extruder¹ , MK6 plus heater upgrade kit, safety cutoff switch, Twotimes Z-rider, and Twotimes Mendel inspired XY lowrider carriage you can upgrade your Cupcake to near-Thing-O-Matic abilities.

Seeing usiegjoo’s modification of their Thing-O-Matic gave me a good chuckle.  Ever since seeing Charles Pax’s Muffin CNC, I wanted to perform a similar hack to put the electronics inside my Cupcake.  So, despite knowing all of the practical benefits to external electronics, I couldn’t help but think of this an almost…  downgrade for the Thing-O-Matic. ²  Since the release of the Thing-O-Matic the trend has been very much the reverse – with people working to upgrade their Cupcakes to near-Thing-O-Matic levels of functionality.

Thing-o-matic modified backplane to accomodate rear-mounted electronics by usiegj00

The ATX power cable and supply cables needed a notch in the lower back of the case along. This is added to this backplane as well as side-channels for easier cable routing. This is based off of thingiverse.com/thing:4973

This thing brought to you by

1. Apparently the truly adventurous can try their hand at the completely unofficial and unsupported wiki entries on the StepStruder MK6 with Gen 4 electronics. [↩]
2. That said, it’s not a downgrade.  It’s really more of an alternate configuration. [↩]