MakerBot Industries

ReplicatorG 0026, Firmware 3.0 and Tigers, Oh My! Ok, ok. I admit, tigers may be a bit of exaggeration. ReplicatorG 0026 and Firmware 3.0 are now available for all users, in a handy download package, or directly from our source code repositories. This includes a lot of updates, better GCode profiles for the new Mk7 Steptsruders®, and a plethora of bug fixes.

What new about ReplicatorG 0026 ?

Most importantly, ReplicatorG has been updated to include an Stepstruder® Mk7 profile. This makes it easy to get excellent prints out of a Mk7. The Mk7 specific profile means filament control has been optimized for cleaner, better prints overall. And along the way a lot of bugfixes have made it into ReplicatorG, including better panels, updated commands, and easier logging.

What’s new about Firmware 3.0?

The Firmware 3.0 codebase has been cleaned up and extended to support multiple extruders. The firmware is more stable, and power users can more easily build and test variations of it. As always you can upgrade your firmware from Machine | Upload new firmware… in ReplicatorG.

Unfortunately, we had to change some of the core firmware to do that. That means you need to update Extruder Controller (to 3.0) Motherboard (to 3.0) and ReplicatorG (to 0026) together when you upgrade.

What else do I need to know?

Firmware 3.0 requires ReplicatorG 0026 to run.  Also, we’ve renamed a number of machine drivers for clarity, so you’ll probably need to re-select your driver in the Machine menu when you first start up.

Firmware 3.0 Support:

As always, we love to watch and help Makerbot users to upgrade, tweak, and innovate. Unfortunately, we can’t support every single variation of bot out in the wild.
Makerbot pledges full support for ReplicatorG 0026 and Firmware 3.0 on our most popular bot configurations:

• Gen3 Electronics (Cupcake) with Mk5 Plastruder
• Gen4 Electronics (Thing-o-Matic) with Mk5 Plastruder
• Gen4 Electronics (Thing-o-Matic) with Mk6 or Mk7 Stepstruder®

If you are using some other configuration, we’ll do our best to help, but we cannot promise that we can solve your problems.  Tread carefully before updating your firmware to 3.0 if you’re running a custom configuration!

Thanks to all-star developers Adam Meyer, Matt Metts, Koen Kooi, Noah Levy, Marius (and new MakerBot developer Far McKon! -ed.)  for their hard work and great code.

Those of you who got a chance to stop by Maker Faire this weekend (or read our earlier blog post) are probably wondering when you too can experiment with dual extrusion heads. The answer is: now! We’ve integrated tools into ReplicatorG that simplify the process of creating a two-material print. They’re not in the released version of ReplicatorG yet, but they are available in a git branch for experimenters who want to get a jump start on the future. And who doesn’t want to get a jump start on the future? Details for the bold below!

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We’re excited to announce that the latest version of ReplicatorG is now available for download! This version includes a number of under-the-hood improvments, GUI improvements, and one major new feature: stored home positions for Thing-O-Matics. The Z height offset (as well as X and Y) are now stored in the machine’s EEPROM, which means you no longer need to edit your start.gcode whenever your machine height changes.

Here’s a full list of the changes in this release:
New features:
* Print-O-Matic integrated into the GCode generation engine
* Store/recall home position support: No more need to modify start.gcode when your Z height changes.
* Drag & Drop support: drop .stl or .gcode files into ReplicatorG to open them.
* Frostruder support for Thing-O-Matic
* Support for local firmware.xml files (file:// urls)
* Support for internet proxies, using the default Java proxy configuration.
* Added Skeinforge 40, for experimental purposes
* Updates to most core libraries
* Skeinforge 35 is now default
* Wipe commands removed from cupcake profiles
* HPB default temperature lowered to 110 degrees

Bug fixes:
* Rewritten gcode execution engine: fixes many bugs, such as ‘gcode parser is null’
* Homing feedrate specified in machine profile
* Numerous Ultimaker, RaMPS, and RepRap improvements
* Numerous UI tweaks to improve look&feel on OS X

There are a few known issues. In particular, the simulation feature is currently disabled (it’s being replaced with something more awesome), and there are reports that gen3 electronics with stepper extruders aren’t working. We’ll make a point release to address these issues shortly, and if you notice any other ones, please let us know.

Sometimes you need to manually edit or delete a Skeinforge profile. The built-in profiles are stored with ReplicatorG in its installation directory, but the user-created profiles are in a hidden file within the user’s home directory. On Mac OS X, if you want to edit these profiles directly, say to edit the start.gcode file, it can be awkward to find and open the right directory. Fortunately, there is a simple way to access it, with no hacking or trickery required! Here’s how it’s done:

First, make a new Finder window. It should open in your user directory. Then, go to the Go menu in the Finder, and choose the Go To Folder… option.

Then, enter the name of the folder where ReplicatorG stores all the user stuff, which is usually “.replicatorg”:

And voilà, the folder opens up!

Your Skeinforge profiles will be in the folder labelled sf_xx_profiles, where xx is the version number. The start.gcode and end.gcode files are in the folder “alterations” within each of the profiles, and can be edited with TextEdit, or any other text editor. The “profiles” folder within each profile contains the settings for each individual module within Skeinforge. You can edit them directly if you are brave, or more practically, just copy the profiles to back them up or move them to another machine.¹

1. This trick works great when using ReplicatorG 24 and earlier. Stay tuned — or take a peek at the beta early — to take advantage of the new “Locate” button in the Skeinforge window when you “Generate G-Code”: automates this for you. [↩]

Hollow Calibration Cube by Starno

Yesterday, I had a conversation with MakerBot Operator Rift and MakerBot Mechanical Engineer Nick Starno in the BotCave about the Skeinforge tool “Jitter.” Rift had come to visit for a consultation about Skeinforge calibrations and Starno’s excellent Print-O-Matic SF Assistant¹.

Rift had printed a couple of Tornadoes in his Thing-O-Matic using ABS and wanted to see if Jitter was the right tool to avoid seam that can appear on the sides of thin-walled geometries. (Jitter was designed to adjust where the z-height increments when completing a layer.) Starno and Rift considered the pane within Skeinforge for Jitter and found the option “Jitter over Perimeter Width (ratio).” How exactly does this tool function? Lacking sufficient details within Skeinforge, they jumped into experimentation, trying a range of values so that they could test results.

There have been a number of attempts to create wikis for various versions of Skeinforge, but most of these web resources are in such disarray that those who consult them leave more frustrated than informed. But there is a secret, hidden in plain sight — the best reference for most of the tools within Skeinforge are included as prose comments within the python scripts for the tools themselves. Even as ReplicatorG integrates assistants to help save users from Skeinforge gauntlet, taking a look at these comments can be helpful reading to get a sense of how these tools function and what are their interdependencies.

To read these comments, look inside your ReplicatorG folder for the “skein-engines” folder. Nested deep within the folder for the version of Skeinforge you want to learn about are the “craft_plugins” folders that contains the python scripts themselves.

Grab yourself a plaintext application² and investigate those python scripts one at a time, with a special emphasis on Carve, Fill, and Speed. While in places the scripts (in active development) diverge a bit from the comments, these comments remain your best shot for reading full explanations for what each tool was created for and how to use it.

Take a look at this excerpt from the Jitter page, that was able to help Starno and Rift investigate this tool:

“Jitter Over Perimeter Width===Default is two. Defines the amount the loop ends will be jittered over the perimeter width.  A high value means the loops will start all over the place and a low value means loops will start at roughly the same place on each layer.”

Now that is a huge improvement over the amount of information available in the Skeinforge Jitter tool pane!

1. which is now being integrated into the beta for ReplicatorG 25 [↩]
2. I recommend notepad++ for Windows and TextWrangler for Mac OS X [↩]

I wanted to make sure our 8 month old son felt welcome in our new home, and what better way than by putting his name on the door of his room in Makerbotted letters!

I looked on Thingiverse, where there are more than a few sets of letters for blocks and for including in OpenSCAD, but it turns out that it is super-easy to make 3D extruded letters in Sketchup.

1. Download and install Google Sketchup, if you haven’t already.
2. Make sure you have an STL export plugin installed. I use this one but there are others.
3. Start Sketchup
4. Go to the Tools menu and select 3D text
5. Type your text (it can be a single letter)
6. For your dimensions, 0.075m for height will fit nicely in a Makerbot. 0.01 extrusion is good to start with.
7. Press the Place button
8. Select your letter, and find the STL export option. If you used the plugin I linked to, it’s in the Tools menu.
9. Select millimeters as your export unit
10. Select STL as your export format
11. Open the STL in ReplicatorG
12. Use the Move button, and then Center + Put On Platform to get it all lined up
13. Print!

In this episode Ethan gives you a worms-eye view of perfecting your build surface, Matt gives you an nifty intro to solid modeling withTinkerCad, and Isaac runs down the latest notables from Thingiverse! Check it out!

Heart Gears by emmett (Opened in Wings3D)

While MakerBot Operators are more than happy to print the thousands of incredible objects posted to Thingiverse, eventually many catch the design bug and reach out for guidance for how to get started designing models.

Your mission: to create a solid, manifold (“watertight”) STL-formatted file for importing into ReplicatorG. STL, created as the format for stereolithographic CAD files, is a ubiquitous format, so the design application options are vast. ReplicatorG also offers experimental OBJ and Collada file import capability — though the files are then converted into STL files. (You can open dozens of file formats in MeshLab, netfabb Studio Basic or similar 3D swiss army knife tools — and then export as binary or ASCII STL files, opening up even more models to ReplicatorG.)

Choosing Your Hammer

8-bit Heart by schmarty (3DTin.com image)

For design software, there are many powerful free and open source design tools for us to introduce to Operators. Favorites include 3dtin.com, Sketchup, OpenSCAD, Wings3D, and Blender. We have heard about but not experimented much with POV-ray (excellent tutorials here), FreeCAD, HeeksCAD, and Art of Illusion — apps that have serious fans in the 3D printing world.

Plastruder MK5 Solidworks 2011 Model by kai

For commercial solid CAD apps: Rhino (Mac users — jump on the free beta), Autodesk Autocad, Inventor, Creo, and SolidWorks are probably the biggest players in the field. But perhaps you don’t have upwards of $1k to spend on design software? Try the highly-capable $99 Alibre Personal Edition, Cheetah3D (mac only), or bonzai3d.

Below the fold is a handy five step exercise for brand new designers to get their feet wet with 3D modeling.

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The latest version of ReplicatorG is now available for download! The big news with this release is support for your shiny new MakerBot Stepstruder™ MK6 (or other stepper extruder), which drastically improve the reliability and repeatability of the printing processes. This release also brings a new firmware version for Generation 4 electronics, which features an improved temperature control system, support for servo motors, and a number of heater safety features.

We’ve moved our issue tracker to Lighthouse, so if you notice any bugs please report them there. Here’s the changelog:

0024 ReplicatorG
* Support for stepper-based extruders on G4 hardware
* Early reversal for stepper-driven extruders
* 5-axis motion commands for G4 hardware
* More example objects and scripts
* Build temperature monitoring reenabled
* Number of UI cleanups
* Improved extruder status reporting
* Several memory leaks solved
* 64-bit platform fixes for Mac OS X, x86_64
* Added s3g decompilation script
* Startup info dump to aid debugging
* Continuous jog and motion stop commands
* Improved Ultimaker support
* Support for legacy RepRap firmware
* Improvements to serial layer
* Scale field reflects mouse scaling factor
* Skeinforge 31 reintroduced
* Skeinforge 39 introduced as experimental

The latest version of ReplicatorG is now available for download!  This is primarily a bugfix release, with improved default Skeinforge profiles and better machine descriptors.  There’s now an emergency stop button on the control panel, so if you’ve ever leapt for the reset button after accidentally clicking “Z-” one too many times, leap no longer!  (Props to Marius to getting that in to this release.)

This release fixes the too-hot Thing-O-Matic profiles mentioned in yesterday’s post.  It also includes example STLs and convenience gcode scripts accessible from the “File” menu.  (See the ‘Attribution.txt’ file in the ReplicatorG/examples directory for more information about the sources of the examples.  Hint: they’re all from Thingiverse!)

As always, let us know what goes right and what goes wrong.  Changelog below!

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