MakerBot Industries

Printing plates for Mr. Maker by ErikJDurwoodII

Yesterday I spent some time organizing the parts in the MakerBot mascot entry “Mr. Maker” by ErikJDurwoodII into printing plates.  Afterward, Erik asked how I did this.  While I had posted some tips on creating printing plates earlier, I didn’t really give a decent step-by-step guide.  I like using OpenSCAD to orient the parts, but I’m sure there are other ways.  Here’s my process:

1. Orient.  Make sure all STL parts are centered and flat on the build surface.
1. The easiest way to ensure this is to open the STL in ReplicatorG, click “Move” in the bottom right corner, then “Center” in the right panel.  Matt demonstrates how to do this in MakerBot TV episode one @ 2:56.
2. Sort.  Sort all STL’s by the number of times each part needs to be printed.  I like to put them into folders labeled “1″, “2″, “3″, etc.
3. Make a Plate.  I use a simple OpenSCAD command to create a transparent representation of the build area.  I like to use an 80×80 mm square so that I can be sure everything is going to fit.  Here’s the command I used:
1. % cube([80,80,0.01],true);
4. Practice Moving/Spinning.  Using just the OpenSCAD translate and rotate commands, you’ll be able to move, spin, and place any part.
5. Plan for Multiples.  Looking at all of the parts that need to printed multiple times, see if you can place them together so that printing a single plate more than once will give you the proper number of parts.
6. Biggest Parts.  The largest parts that can’t be included with other large parts will essentially determine the number of printing plates you need.  Place each large part onto it’s own plate.
7. Medium Parts.  Once you have a general idea of the number of plates you need, as determined by the biggest pieces that can’t be combined with other parts, try to fit the medium pieces in and around other parts.  If you can’t fit them around the large pieces, you’ll need to create a plate of medium parts.
8. Small Parts.  The smallest parts can be sprinkled in and around all the large and medium parts.
9. Pro Tips:
1. If you have a part that needs to be printed an odd number of times, consider putting a single occurrence of this same part into a plate that needs to be printed only once.
2. Sometimes it helps to have extra parts, so printing an even number of a piece that you need an odd number of isn’t actually very wasteful.
3. Consider mirror-flipping a part if it won’t fit.  Some parts won’t fit onto a plate unless they’re flipped, but are just as functional either way.
4. Consider printing small parts multiple times if you can fit an extra instance onto a plate.  Small parts can rip off the build platform, get deformed, break, or get lost.  Printing an extra small part along with larger parts doesn’t add that much time or plastic and will probably save you a lot more time down the road.
5. Save yourself some heartache and make sure you use a Stepper based extruder that will allow you print without a mess of strings between all the parts.
6. Always include the individual STL’s for parts even if you’re uploading printing plates.  Sometimes people just need to print or reprint one little piece and it can be a real pain to carve one out of a printing plate.
10. Rock Star Tips:
1. Some parts such as complex gears or external pieces can better benefit from high resolution, slower printing, or different infill ratios than other simple or internal pieces.  Consider organizing the parts so that certain pieces that need similar resolution/speed/infill ratios are printed together.  Thanks to Bobbens for including this tip in his Mini servo gripper plate.
2. How about creating the entire GCode setup for printing everything using an Automated Build Platform?
3. If you’ve got a MK7 Dual Extruder setup with soluble support material, you could stack parts on top of one another.  This means you could turn a multipart print into one single long print task, print everything as one big chunk of plastic, drop the result in water, let the PVA dissolve, and pull out all of your parts.

Do you use production or printing plates?  What program do you use to make them?  What additional tips do you have?

That’s right folks, it’s finally here: the monumental, extraordinary Stepstruder MK7.  It’s extraordinary in that this is our first extruder designed from the ground up for 1.75 mm filament, and monumental in the sense that it’s…well…smaller than any of our previous extruder designs.  So small, in fact, that it might just be possible to use two of them for experimental Dual Extrusion!  (Ssshhhh….)

They said it couldn’t be done, and we said they’re wrong.  We have the technology.  We knew we could make a better extruder, one that’s smaller, more reliable, and easier to put together.  And has a higher number.

So tell me: do you feel lucky, punk?  Well do you?  Because you don’t need to: the MK7 will make it easier than ever to get great results from your MakerBot Thing-O-Matic.  The Stepstruder MK7 takes care of the luck for you!  Just choose the normal complete kit or one with a stepper driver if you’re upgrading from a MK5.

In all seriousness, a lot of work has gone into the design of this new extruder, and we’re really excited to release it.  Head on over to the store and check it out! ¡Awesolenté!

Hurricane Irene is on its way to New York City and as such we here at MakerBot are taking the necessary precautions to make sure MakerBot HQ survives the storm. Sales, support and other contact requests may be delayed until Monday at the earliest as we prepare for the worst. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank Noah for his superb engineering and design skills. MakerBot appreciates your patience. Stay safe everyone.

Today, I’m excited to announce that MakerBot is taking $10 million in investment, with Foundry Group leading the round. Our investors are really invested–while Brad Feld and Foundry Group were getting to know us, they built their own MakerBot; you can visit Brad’s Thingiverse page to see what they’ve been printing! Foundry Group has worked with other startup companies that create hardware. We’re thrilled that they understand and support open source. This round will also include investment from Bezos Expeditions, True Ventures, RRE and many MakerBot angels (listed below). We are proud to be working with such great people and we are going to use this money do wonderful things.

To understand how we got to this point, let’s step into a MakerBotted time machine. In January of 2009, we started up the business and needed money to buy materials, make kits and then sell them. At that time, we were 3 guys, a lasercutter, and a dream. We went to our friend Jake Lodwick for $50k of seed investment. He let us take over a small corner of his office for inventory and shipping. Well, that little corner grew until we had taken over most of his office, at which point we had to move into our own space, the MakerBot Botcave.  In those early days we also got Adrian Bowyer, creator of the RepRap project, involved. He and his wife, Christine Bowyer, contributed $25k to bring us to $75k of seed money that helped start MakerBot.

With that initial $75k, we developed the first round of prototypes and put the first 20 MakerBot Cupcake CNCs into production. We sold them and bought more parts and made them into kits and sold those too. As of today, we’ve transformed that $75k into 5200 MakerBots in the wild.

In 2010, we invited some of our favorite people and teams to be MakerBot Angel investors. Shana Fisher led the angel round and the MakerBot Angels are Shana Fisher/High Line Venture Partners, Bezos Expeditions, Kal Vepuri, Steve Garfield, Jake Lodwick, Chuck and Claudia Pettis (my folks), Founder Collective, Antonio Rodriguez, True Ventures, Matt Mullenweg, Sam Lessin,  Joshua Schachter, Lerer Ventures, 500 Startups, and Thrive Capital.  This angel round investment gave us the confidence to grow!

Our seed investors, angel investors and now our venture investors are an all-star cast of awesome people and teams and we’re proud to have them involved as we explore the future of personal fabrication.

What’s going to change? Brad Feld of Foundry Group will be joining our board and we’re hiring to grow the MakerBot team to democratize manufacturing and make 3D printing more accessible to everyone!

See that compact grid of 36 white LEDs in the picture? It’s called the openVolver. Just about the size of a wrestler’s fist, the openVolver can store thousands of animation patterns on a memory card that you can design individually on just about any computer.

Friends, this is no ordinary blinky project.  Those 36 LEDs are diffused, have 255 levels of thumb-wheel controlled brightness, run on a single 9V battery and can be worn on a lanyard (oh, you’ll be noticed).  We’ve already included 59 separate animations with intriguing names like ‘edgewerks‘,  ’snuggles_butts‘ and ‘4 drunks‘. I’ll give you a hint on that last one, 4 friends (as LEDs of course) trying desperately to find each other in the night, but never quite pulling it off.

If you’re too modest to wear it on your chest, we’ve included a plexiglass faceplate that can turn it into a great desktop companion (it’s very easy to use with a DC power supply). And if you have access to a makerbot, we can’t wait to to see what kind of holders and cases you’ll upload to Thingiverse.

The openVolver comes as a kit that anyone with some modest soldering skills can build. To get a sense of it, take a look at the clearly laid out instructions and the animation software right here.

the openVolver is a lovely design by our very talented friends at the New York art collective Image Node . They’ve been making the openVolver in various incarnations and taking them to Burning Man for many years – so we know this Blinkytronic  can in the very least withstand playa dust.

So why wait? Go to the makerbot store and order one today!

Hey folks!  This Monday brings a product announcement that should be exciting for some of you bleeding-edge types: a new, experimental 0.3mm nozzle for the Stepstruder MK6 and MK6+.

This is the smallest nozzle we’ve ever offered, and while we’ve decided that the 0.4mm nozzle is the best choice for general use, we wanted to get these nozzles into the hands of advanced MakerBotStars to see what they can do with them.  These nozzles have the same geometry and the same anti-stick coating as our other nozzles, but the a smaller opening does mean that it won’t work with the default printing profiles.  You’ll need to use Print-O-Matic in ReplicatorG 25 or roll your own custom Skeinforge profile.  Also, if you don’t have a stepper-based extruder, this isn’t going to work for you.

If  experimenting until you’ve got the perfect settings to get some of the best MakerBot prints ever sounds like loads of fun to you, then head over to the store and pick one up.

This is the end...

That’s right folks: this is the end of an era.  We have looked over the numbers, and it’s official: we’ve just sold the very last Cupcake CNC kits that we’ll ever be able to offer.

Though we’ve moved on to bigger and better things, the Cupcake was the kit that got it all started for us, and we’ll never forget that.  It’s also still a darn good little machine, so if you have an order that’s among the last, you’ve just gotten yourself a great deal on your first 3d printer.

This must be what it’s like to send your kids off to college…snif.  I told myself I wouldn’t cry…

Of course we still have lots of parts for servicing and upgrading your Cupcakes at the store, so don’t be a stranger!  Check in once in awhile!

3D Printing for Fathers Day!

This is an unheard-of 3D Printing bargain, the likes of which shock even me, your dear narrator. On Sunday 6/18, The CupCake CNC Ultimate Kit is dropping to a brain-freezingly low price. We love the CupCake CNC and know what a st/deal this is, so take advantage and get one soon! These are the last units of the CupCake, and we have run out of space for them here at the BotCave. Yesterday an avalanche of printed parts temporarily blocked access to the bathroom, and the decision was made. “Sell, sell, sell!” called Commander Bre. The big wheel keep on turning, and Fathers Day is looming! So get cracking and get the all-time best bargain in DIY 3D printing history. It’s everything you need to get started 3D Printing with a fun build, a great device, and a great Fathers Day gift! This is a limited time offer so carpe diem!

The Fully Assembled MakerBot. In Stock Now.

This is a momentous day, one that has been requested by our users since the beginning! We can now proudly provide a fully built and tested custom MakerBot Thing-O-Matic in the store.

MakerBot has grown enough to be able to lovingly hand-assemble each Custom Thing-O-Matic. Our skilled technicians will build and test each machine after you place your order!

With each Custom Fully Assembled Thing-O-Matic, you will receive:

- A Thing-O-Matic built in-house at the MakerBot BotCave hand assembled by our skilled technicians, and fully tested prior to shipment
- A Generation 4 Interface Controller pre-built and wired for use. Control your Bot without a computer!
- MK6 Plus Steptruder pre-built and tested
- Heated Build Platform with Aluminum Surface installed, and a (1) roll of Kapton SuperWide 120mm tape included
- Pre-assembled 4th Generation Electronics, installed and tested
- Customer’s Choice of Color LED’s installed. (red, blue, green, yellow, or white)
- Customers choice of 1kg Spooled Plastics (ABS or PLA)
- One hour live setup and personal technical support from the assembler via Phone or Skype
- SD Card loaded with 4 prints
- A printed spool holder created by your machine. Other test prints included.
- Tools kit with all the hex keys, wrenches, and other bits for tuning your bot!
- USB cable – so your computer can talk to your bot!
- Carefully packed and shipped insured to your location

So if you just don’t have time to build your Thing-O-Matic, or you just want to leave it to the professionals, this is the machine for you!  This is a premium MakerBot, with the best accessories. Get awesome!

Available in store.makerbot.com now!

The Colbert Report June 8, 2011 with Bre Pettis

In case you missed it live last night, here is Bre’s appearance on Colbert. The show is really funny and Stephen is clearly excited about 3D printing and all his new mashup objects! Watch the whole show, or skip to Bre’s part at 15:48.