In the spring of 2010, Shapeways got a Cupcake CNC MakerBot with a MK4 extruder. The cupcake is an amazing machine that got 3000 people started in 3D printing, but the MakerBot MK4 Plastruder’s strong point was not printing small things like bunny ears. Shapeways printed out the Bowie Bunny by Rob Parthoens , which is one of their favorite prints and something that they use to compare machine types. It is a small model and stands about an inch tall from tip of the toes to top of the ears. As you can see in the image above, the MakerBot MK4 print of July 2010 left something to be desired.

At MakerBot, we live by the open source saying, “Release early and often!” and so we’ve been hard at work improving the technology since then. Fast forward a little more than a year and we’ve gone through the MK5, the MK6 and have just launched the MakerBot MK7 Plastruder. Look how much the MakerBot print has improved!

A few things that I noticed:

- When Shapeways printed the Bowie Bunny on their Cupcake CNC in 2010 the MK4 DC motor extruder had difficulty with the ears.  Back then printing tall thin parts on a Cupcake CNC required extremely careful calibration of a lot of arcane settings.  The Shapeways grey robust print from July of 2010 on their industrial commercial printer is clearly the superior print.

- In September 2011 the MakerBot print from a Thing-O-Matic with Generation 4 electronics and a MK7 stepper extruder with a 0.4mm nozzle was able to print Bowie Bunny at a layer height of 0.2mm – with stock settings right out of the box!  When shown side-by-side, the print from the Thing-O-Matic is comparable to the Shapeways commercial printer result.

- While there’s still a little ways to go to improving small features like the areas around the bunny’s ears, we’re looking forward to continuing to improve and develop our software so you can get professional quality results from your DIY printer right in your own home.

The difference from before is remarkable and I’m very proud of how far we’ve come in about a year! Thank you to everyone who has used a MakerBot and helped push it forward. We couldn’t have done this without the contributions of many people both internally who work at MakerBot and every MakerBot Operator in the community that’s given us support, feedback, or jumped in and been innovative. The future is bright. Full speed ahead!

If you’ve been following the GE Air Show on Facebook, you might be interested in the Grand Finale, posted above. Tons of new models, and as always, funny animation.

All the models shown will make their way to the GE page on Thingiverse shortly, so keep an eye out.

It was really fun to work on this. The teams from Impact Media and Evolution Bureau were smart, creative, talented and great to work with. I’d like to highlight the participation of Gabriel Bentley from Impact Media, who basically taught himself Sketchup and Makerbot operations in the space of weeks, and was running a one-man model airplane factory by the end of the project.

Also, one more thing: the observant amongst you may have noticed that there was never a Week 2 video. Well, fret no more – that footage was discovered, and is posted below:

Another video from the GE Air Show project, this time featuring helicopters. The client (GE) has discovered what most of us already know: that watching a Makerbot print is hypnotic! The creative direction has been to emphasize the design and print process, so you’ll be seeing more timelapse takes of the print.

This is likely to be the penultimate video of the project: they are taking submissions for the grand finale right now on the Facebook page.

I’ve been working on an exciting project lately: the GE Air Show. The idea is to get people to submit models, sketches, concepts or ideas for weird and wonderful flying machines, print them on a Makerbot, and then have them star in a video set in a miniature air show of the imagination. At the end of the month we’re hoping to have the airport crowded with all kinds of aircraft – so please submit your ideas.

We’re looking for submissions regardless of 3D design skills: you can submit sketches, mockups or just your brilliant idea to [email protected], and you can check out other comments and submissions at facebook.com/ge. The models that are being built will be listed on the GE page at Thingiverse, thingiverse.com/GE, so keep checking back for updates.

I’ve been working together with Andrew Rutter on building the Makerbots, and getting 3D models ready for printing. It’s been very interesting so far: both Thing-O-Matics were up and running within a day – in fact, one of them was put together in only three and half hours! The new cartridge-based extruder is much simpler to assemble, and the Thing-O-Matic can certainly produce great results with a lot less tuning than was required for previous models.

This project is interesting because it highlights how quickly you can go from a concept to a physical object through 3D printing. By offering to model sketches or ideas that people have sent in, it makes it possible for people unfamiliar with 3D design to see their ideas made real. A lot of requests are for models of existing aircraft, but we’d really like for people to submit ideas for original and fanciful designs.

I’ve known Gian Pablo for a long time as comembers of NYCResistor and now he’s joining us as a part time blogger here on the MakerBot blog. He keeps his bot at Noisebridge, the SF hackerspace and he’s obsessed with optimizing and using the MakerBot to get things done. He’s also a dad, so I expect we’ll see him blog about MakerBotting as a dad as well! Welcome!

After months of intensive research and development, MakerBot Industries is proud to announce a newly realized capacity of the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic 3D Printer- the ability to print listenable vinyl records from the desktop.

“The process of transcribing an audio file into a vinyl record is so simple, anyone can do it.” Said Chief Audio Engineer Isaac Dietz. “Right now, I’m using the Automated Build Platform to rip my entire MP3 collection to individual records!”

“It’s an exciting innovation for MakerBot, as we all grew up listening to vinyl. We all wish that more records were available with the latest hits,” said Audio R&D Associate Marisol Murphy. “I can never get enough Justin Bieber or Rebecca Black until I listened to them on my turntable.”

The process utilizes the MakerBot 96khz AudioNozzle™ technology to print audio waveforms in real time. Using the MakerBot Generation 4 Electronics microstepping capacity, the AudioNozzle™ modulates the amount of plastic deposited to create a high-fidelity waveform. The results often surpass the dynamic range of 24-bit recordings and can contain frequencies up to 57khz — even higher than the Nyquist frequency for 96khz digital recording. You can even record directly to your 3D Printer by attaching a microphone to your computer, and singing into it.

Says Ethan Hartman, Vice President of Audio Operations: “MakerBot’s pioneering spirit has always hearkened back to early inventors like Thomas Edison. We are honored to be able to re-invent the audio record for the personal manufacturing space in the burgeoning 20-teens.”

Pre-orders for the 96khz AudioNozzle™ will be available shortly.

MakerBot 3D Printed Vinyl Records can be downloaded from Thingiverse here.

Check out Michael Fonda’s Blog post about his experience at the BotCave: “Democratization of Manufacturing”

As it sometimes happens, I am working at my desk, and one of my coworkers taps me on the shoulder, and I hear a now familiar phrase- “Isaac, we have guests!” This is my cue for me to give a walk through tour, and run down as many salient points about MakerBot as I can pull from memory. Last Friday I walked up to the front of the BotCave and was greeted by Michael and Tyler Fonda, who were on a quest to learn about the 3D Printing sphere, and visiting Brooklyn.

They had both recently read The Economist’s cover story on 3D Printing, and wanted to gauge for themselves the possible impact 3D Printing will have on manufacturing. Michael works for Avison Young, a real estate company that often caters to manufacturing industries. His son Tyler, is a Director of Strategy for Gotham and was doing his strategic due diligence on 3D printing.

Michael wrote a post about his experience at the BotCave, and it’s an interesting perspective on their experience, and his view of the potential impacts of 3D Printing.

“Suddenly, the future came into focus as I visualized how my sister-in-law and her husband would utilize 3D printing in their sunglass business Centerline Optics. They would no longer have to source product from China. No more ordering months in advance of their selling season. No supply chain risk of political upheaval in China, of a lost TEU on the Pacific Ocean, of a longshoremen’s strike at the Port of Long Beach, a diesel fuel spike that drives up the cost of transporting the product across the North American continent. All design, manufacturing, marketing, distribution, and sales would happen out of the Centerline “headquarters” in Old Lyme, Connecticut. Centerline’s customers are all within four hours of the “headquarters”. Talk about efficient allocation of resources.”

Check out Michael’s original post here.

This weeks Robot Hospital! Episode Two is truly reaching for new heights of pre-production here at the BotCave! Those crazy live-stream days are fading into memory~ We have a great instructional segment from Ethan, who teaches you proper Stepper Driver Calibration, and later he covers the 3D Printing blogosphere in his weekly “Blog Rap.” Griffin and Marty demonstrate connecting the Unicorn to the Thing-O-Matic in fine style, and Matt details some great, and not so great, ideas for finishing techniques to use on your printed objects. We have a second interview with Marek from BeatBots, and the Keepon stops by and teaches robots everywhere how to hold space on the dance floor. Isaac drops in to discuss MakerBot Water Soluble PVA, and debuts version one of the Robot Hospital! intro! We’re going for it with this episode, it’s a new benchmark for what’s to come! Musical intro chops from “The Insider”

After last week’s challenges, we have re-assessed our priorities and made some fundamental changes to the way we do things at Robot Hospital.  I’d like to think that we’ve made some improvements, but a change this drastic is bound to be contentious.  Decide for yourself!

Of course, we talked about the brand-new Stepstruder™ MK6.  With ReplicatorG 24‘s new support for the Unicorn, we were bound to again discuss our own Schmarty’s Inkscape Extension.  We also had a brief  interview with one of Keepon’s creators, and a tour of the ever-changing Botcave.  There’s even an original music video to introduce viewers to the concept of “reversal” with the MK6.

In all seriousness, the change in format has allowed us to create more and better content, and this is one of our best shows ever.  We’re proud of this one, folks.

A hacker-friendly sea change of little CupCake CNCs

MaximumPC Magazine has unleashed its expose on MakerBot Industries online! If you’ve been wondering about the origins of MakerBot, or are exploring how to take a design from idea to printed object, this is a fast orientation with the links you’ll need. The MaximumPC guys talk about their build- from design, to the output of a branded 3D product. Somehow they lucked out and were in the BotCave the exact time Webca released his printed MakerBot on Thingiverse, so there’s a quick telling of that event, and some other stories about MakerBot. Thanks to MaximumPC for coming to the BotCave and a cool article!