MakerBot Industries

See that motor there?  That’s the heart of the MK6, the custom-made high-torque stepper that puts the “Step” in “Stepstruder.”

Well guess what — we are pleased to announce that we’ve finally got enough of them to offer MK6 Upgrade and MK6 Plus Complete kits once again!

So hop on over to the store and place your orders so you can experience the joys of high-reliability, finely controllable extrusion, as well as upgrades like 1.75mm filament and reversal.  Yay!

In this episode Keith takes us on an awesome tour of RobotFest 2011 at the National Electronics Museum, Ethan pushes the extreme limits of acrylic T-Slot construction, and Matt traps and traces a massive squirrel- Check it out!

Here’s a great field test report from MakerBot Operator Renosis!

This new heater core, the Mk6+ is awesome. The smaller size of the core and the thermal properties of aluminum, plus the heater cartridge and its placement make it heat up faster and allow for more control. I timed my old core (mk5/6) and it took 8 minutes and 9 seconds to reach 225 C from room temperature (25 C). The new core nearly halved the time, I go from 25C to 225 C in 4 minutes 15 seconds. I am also happy to report that my temperature is much more steady now with the mk6-plus. I only have a variance of 2 degrees when at extruding temperature. And this is running with default PID settings. I bet of a tweak the P I D…. I could get it to be even more stable! Great upgrade!

Thanks for the kind words!

The Stuff of Invention

Today we are launching the third round of our ABS and PLA plastics as they switch to being supplied on spools in Kilogram weights. The last of our classic colors and styles are now available in both 3mm and 1.75mm filament formats, and some previously unavailable formats are now up in the store! I am happy to report that our crowd-favorite UV reactive “Nuclear” green is now in our classic 3mm format, so Plastruder MK4, MK5, and MK6 3mm users rejoice! Also notable is PLA 4043D filament is now available in 3mm and 1.75mm formats- so hop to it if you want some of this great print stock.

Here’s the full selection of new plastic offerings!

Nuclear Green ABS 1kg Spool 3mm Filament

Blue ABS 1kg Spool 1.75mm Filament

Blue ABS 1kg Spool 3mm Filament

MakerBot PLA 4043D – 1kg spool -1.75mm

MakerBot PLA 4043D – 1kg spool -3mm

Yellow ABS 1kg Spool 3mm Filament

Fluorescent Red ABS 1kg Spool 3mm Filament

Red ABS 1kg Spool 3mm Filament

Check out our full variety of plastics in the MakerBot Store here!

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.

The MakerBot Gen 4 Interface Board Kit!

Today we are happy to announce a new product in the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic line, our new MakerBot Gen 4 Interface Board Kit v1.1! This is a fun DIY Interface that allows your to operate your Thing-O-Matic independently, without the use of a computer! So you can pop in your SD card into the Generation 4 Electronics, and regulate, operate, and print from your machine by this interface alone.

With the great set of programmable buttons and LCD interface, you can turn this hackable board into an control surface for almost anything as well! We are using it in-house here and are really pleased with the live feedback it provides during a build- monitor temperature, percent completion, and view files on the SD card are all available. Plus manual jog control of the stages, and extra assignable switches are available for new inventive uses.

It’s a fun soldering kit as well, and the complete through-hole construction makes the level of difficulty appropriate for even beginner kit-builders. This kit is open source, so you can use it to control anything you build, even your robots, or homebrew CNC device. Advanced users can match it with our Gen 4 electronics kit and use it to control any machine they can design with our electronics. It’s flexible, open, and provides programmable feedback depending on your application.

A Thing-O-Matic warming up in Monitor Mode

We are installing a group of these on the BotFarm™, so we can quickly fire up builds and monitor progress on multiple machines without needing computers attached. It truly turns the Thing-O-Matic into a standalone 3D Printer that just needs a power cord, and your files on SD card to operate. Awesome! The lasercut wood body includes tabs so the MakerBot Gen 4 Interface Board can hang nicely from the top or side of your Bot.

Check out the store page and buy the MakerBot Gen 4 Interface Board Kit v1.1 now!

Hot on the heels from contributing the mind-blowing Thingiview functionality to Thingiverse, Veteran MakerBot Operator Tony Buser (“tbuser“) is up to more hijinx, currently designing and printing a Laser Target Scanner on his newly built Thing-O-Matic #3745.

His project is quite gorgeous, and so is his love for his new MakerBot Stepstruder. Here is a tbuser tweet that has been making the rounds in the BotCave, and touching the hearts of all of us involved with launching this new product:

tbuser: More Stepstruder love http://j.mp/fnaQEp Seriously, I want to have it’s babies. #makerbot

Tony Buser, we hope that you and your Stepstruder are very happy together and live long and happy lives!

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”

We love days like today, where a new product comes along that opens up so many doors for MakerBot Operators around the world. We’ve been incubating this material for about six months and it’s ready to be unleashed. A quote from Zach, co-founder of Makerbot- “Soluble objects are a holy grail of 3D Printing since our early days!” With MakerBot PVA filament you can now print 3D objects that dissolve in water. We at the BotCave have come up with some pretty great uses for this material, but I expect that our users will truly be the masters of invention for water soluble plastics. Just to get your gears turning, imagine these possibilities for objects printed with MakerBot Water Soluble PVA Filament!

• soluble molds for poured materials
• removable support structures
• science demonstrations for the classroom
• biotechnology applications
• art and design objects
• time-lapse video and visual effect displays
• smooth finishes on products without the use of solvents
• biodegradable 3D printed objects
• robots that melt

As you can tell, this stuff has an incredible future when it reaches our users. Pick up some MakerBot Water Soluble PVA filament at the MakerBot Store now!

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.