MakerBot Industries

TOM Tentative Sound Damper by Bluemetal

One of the most interesting lessons I’ve learned from Thingiverse is the importance of sharing.  Take, for instance, Bluemetal’s “TOM Tentative Sound Damper.”  Although the design didn’t have the hoped-for impact, reducing operational noise, there were two very important side-effects.

First, it looks AWESOME.  Whether or not it works, the springloaded feet and just cool.  Secondly, Bluemetal’s designs prompted MakerBot’s own Nick Starno to share a handy little hardware tweak.  Nick suggests:

I was able to eliminate a lot of noise by cutting some of the rubber tube that comes with the ABP into <1mm “washers” and compress them between the rods and rod covers. 6 total, one for a single end of each rod, and the difference in sound is quite significant.

If it wasn’t for Bluemetal’s post, Nick wouldn’t have posted that comment, and we might never have known about this quick trick!

TOM Sound Damper by Bluemetal

Inspired by thingiverse.com/thing:14802 and trying to find ways to reduce the noise on my TOM, I decided to create this TOM shock absorber in the hope it would help. After all the testing was done, there was actually some reduction on the loudness of the Y stage due to less contact with the desktop where the printer is sitting :) A way to test the potential reduction is to raise the printer away from the desktop and see if it makes less noise. If it does then the dampers will help a bit. The TOM seems now ready to start moving about and with the top up like in my case is starting to resemble a wood and plastic WALL-E. :) If you have the backside spool holder ( thingiverse.com/thing:7105 ) installed you will need to move it elsewhere as one of the back feet colides with it. The SketchUp file is included for others to tweak with it.

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Robotic Hand v3.0 by armjunkie

Thingiverse citizen armjunkie has shared version 3.0 of his seriously amazing robotic hand.  As with the prior version, the entire model is detailed and intricate.  Each joint in each finger is tensioned using dental rubber bands and controlled with fishing line.  In true Thingiverse spirit, armjunkie responded to a comment providing even more detail about how the behavior of the hand’s opening and closing motions can be customized by the number and placement of those same dental rubber bands.

One of the things I particularly about this model is the split photo above showing his designs¹ alongside the reality.  There is just something extremely satisfying about getting to see a design completely come to life exactly as you have planned. ²   Such intricate designs portend great things for the possibilities of creating plastic automata, puppets, and prostheses.

Robotic Hand v3.0 by armjunkie

My first Robotic Hand (version 2.0) was designed with no 3d printer in mind. Version 2.0 had many shortfalls and difficulties. Since then, I've gotten a TOM and have learned how to design with its limitations and benefits in mind. I present to the 'verse Robotic Hand Version 3.0. Ver 3 requires less non-printable hardware, it requires less plastic to print, less printing time, less post-print work (very little sanding), and far less pull force is required to manipulate. Version 3.0 Video of the Robot Hand in action:youtu.be/7AlyGPnU6U0Version 3.0 Flickr Set:flic.kr/s/aHsjxvAHJgVersion 2.0 for reference:thingiverse.com/thing:2408

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1. In Google Sketchup? [↩]
2. In this, I can only envy armjunkie [↩]

Thanks to beauturner for the image!

Hello and welcome, MakerBotters new and old!  We hope that you’re using some days to complete ambitious MakerBotting projects before the end of the year, posting detailed updates to your Thingiverse pages along the way.

In light of this, there are a few things that you should know.  First, there will be an additional lead time of about a week on all orders due to an end-of-year physical inventory — orders placed this week will likely not ship out until January 3rd.  But once we can ship again, our amazing crew will clear out all the accrued orders.  Thank you for your patience.

Btw: everybody in the community owes a big thank-you to Eddie, Lindsay, Liz, and the whole production crew for pushing out all the holiday orders; everything we ship out passes through their hands, and it’s been a very busy season for them.   Three cheers for the shipping crew!

Next, our dedicated tech support crew will be taking a well-deserved day off today, 12/26, but we’ll be back tomorrow to answer all of your emails.  We do anticipate a lot of questions from new MakerBotters during this week, so please allow us a bit of extra time to answer your questions.

If you’re having trouble, make sure that you’ve carefully read through our documentation, especially the updated Thing-O-Matic build sequence and our brand-new Quick Start Guide.  If you’re still having issues you can’t resolve, send us an email at support@makerbot.com and we’ll help you work through any issues you’re experiencing.

Enjoy the last week of 2011!