MakerBot Industries

Today we are happy to announce the three most-requested parts for your Thing-O-Matic are now available in the MakerBot Store!

We are launching the Thing-O-Matic Heater Board v1.1 for all you makers out there who really, really need a heated build surface for that fantastic idea you have, and you need a 130 degree Celsius PCB heater with built in thermistor and temperature feedback. (I’m wishing here, but please build a single-serving mini-griddle.) With that, you’ll certainly need our adhesive Aluminum Heat Spreader, so you can transmit more heat to the pancakes 3D prints.

Then, because your platform has to glide like an angel, you’ll need these self-aligning linear bearings so you can insert smooth rails and watch the robotic breakfast CNC Platform action!  Or you can assemble the extra platform that came with your Thing-O-Matic 3D Printer!

In the Store:
MakerBot Thing-O-matic Heater Board v1.1 and Documentation

Thing-O-Matic Aluminum Tape Heat Spreader

Thing-O-Matic 3/8″ Self-aligning Linear Bearings Pack

Hey folks — it’s been awhile, what with the holidays and a lot of us going to CES, but we’re back!  We’ll be available for questions and we’ll have a few neat things to share.

So head out to our Ustream page at 4pm and we’ll hang out (and hopefully help out) via the aetherwebs.

This is a pretty momentous day that we’ve been working towards- the unleashing of all the BotCave Store products into the MakerBot Store! It’s a kitbuilders paradise, with lots of great kits from our friends and collaborators in the Open Hardware world! Plus the MakerBot x Baggu BotBags are up too! Carry your bot in style!

EggBots, Brain Machines, Adafruit and Sparkfun products, and Jimmie P Rodgers LOL Sheilds- we’ve added them to our Accessories section and they are ready for order. So many great projects to try out!

Here’s a list of some items we have in stock!

Adafruit
The Infamous TV-B-GONE kit
Adafruit Motor/Stepper/Servo Shield for Arduino Kit v1.0
Adafruit Drawdio Kit
Adafruit Wave Shield

Evil Mad Science
Evil Mad Scientist Meggy Jr RGB Standard Kit
Evil Mad Scientist Diavolino
Evil Mad Scientist Bulb Dial Kit
Evil Mad Scientist Deluxe LED Menorah Kit

Jimmie P Rodgers Kits
Open Heart Kit
LOL Shield Red
LOL Shield Green
LOL Shield White
LOL Shield Blue

Sparkfun
Sparkfun Inventor’s Kit for Arduino
Sparkfun Multimeter Kit
Sparkfun Metro-Gnome
Sparkfun ClockIt
Sparkfun Simon Game Kit
Sparkfun Triple Output High Power RGB LED
Sparkfun VoiceBox Shield for Arduino
Sparkfun Audio Amplifier Kit – STA540

SpikenzieLabs
SpikenzieLabs Drum Kit – AI

Wayne and Layne
Arduino Video Game Shield Kit

WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT CLICK THIS LINK.

The only reason for this post is to kick the crawling nightmare that is the ModHex brainchild of moleofproduction off the front page.  The only way I could put it into the website was to include a quick hack which made it autoplay the sound that will accompany the apocalypse.

Use science to increase the quality of your prints! By finding the actual feedrate of your machine, and dropping that into skeinforge, you can get much better prints!

The DC motors used in the MakerBot are the cheapest possible solution to getting the torque you need to drive a MakerBot but they are DC motors so they don’t all run at the same speed. Speeds can vary from 17mm/sec to 32mm/sec. That’s a huge range and so it makes sense that each bot needs to be tuned. With the current default settings in ReplicatorG 23, we’ve been able to get great results by calculating the actual feedrate of the motors, changing that setting in Skeinforge from 32mm/sec to the actual feedrate and rocking great prints.

One of the easiest ways to get frustrating prints is by having a feedrate that is too fast. If you’re machine extrudes at 17mm/sec and you’ve got it set at 32mm/sec, the filament will get stretched as it comes out of the nozzle and stretched ABS wants to shrink and so you’ll get cracks. If you stretch the filament, you’re objects will get much more shrinkage in prints. My personal MK5 plastruder extrudes at 22mm/sec.

How do you calculate your feedrate? Here’s a way I’ve come up with that works.

1. Raise your extruder nozzle 100mm off the build platform. You can use the control panel to make this happen… or a ruler!
2. Get the plastruder to extrusion temperature. We keep it locked at 220.
3. Start the plastruder by setting the speed to 255 and pressing the forward button. This will make plastic come out.
4. Get a stopwatch ready. Most phones come with stopwatches these days.
5. Use tweezers to pull away the plastic from the nozzle as it’s running. Start the stopwatch at the exact same time.
6. Stop the stopwatch when it hits the platform.
7. Repeat 10 times. Ignore any results that vary widely and average them by adding them up and dividing by 10. You should have a number between 3 and 6 seconds.
7. Divide 100 by your number to get the mm/sec.
8. Drop that into skeinforge under the speed tab and try a print!
9. Win!

Here is another skeinforge tip that we’ve been playing with that seem to be very helpful in dialing in good prints. Up your travel feed rate to something like 40mm/sec. It’ll make the whiskers between objects much thinner. If you’re feeling adventurous, increase it to 100mm (untested!).

After much anticipation, the EggBots arrived for in-store sales! That means you have a chance to walk in and snatch up one of the most eagerly wished-for robotics gifts. I sort of feel lucky getting to announce they are here. HURRY UP! (and totally score the coolest gift for your DIY Man or Special Lady(friend)!

Available at The BotCave Store: 87 3rd Ave. Brooklyn, NY. 11217

We’re nearing the end of our supply of MK4 plastruder components and we’re not going to reorder them and in fact, we never want to wind another piece of nichrome wire again. We brought the price of the MK4 down as low as possible and that’s helped us bring down the price on starter kits, but we’re almost out of them. We reckon we’ve got enough in stock to take us through the end of the year and then they will be gone. We will no longer support MK4 Plastruders from January 1st onwards.

Without the MK4, we’re going to let go of the starter kit in its current configuration. We should have enough parts to sell those thorugh the end of the year. After that, you’ll still be able to get an ultimate kit, which is still the ultimate deal on a 3D printer!

Just a quick note for developers and testers: we’re migrated our bug tracking to Lighthouse from the Github issue tracker. If you’ve written up a bug or feature request in Github, it should be in the Lighthouse tracker now instead. Give it a whirl!

We’ve just become aware that there’s a bug in some of the default settings in the last release of ReplicatorG.  The nozzle temperatures are set way too high on certain profiles.  Please avoid using any Thing-O-Matic profile with Skeinforge 0006 (default) in ReplicatorG 22.  Skeinforge 35 is safe, so if you’re skeining for Thing-O-Matics, please select Skeinforge 35 in the GCode menu.  (This is the recommendation in the docs.)  All profiles for Cupcakes are okay.

There will be a new release of ReplicatorG tomorrow afternoon that corrects this issue.  Until then, use the Skeinforge 35 if you’re generating gcode for Thing-O-Matics, or you may end up with a sad extruder, like a certain Mr. Pax:

Our live streaming support show Robot Hospital! is up to it’s unprecedented 4th episode today on UStream! Come check it out and chat us your questions- We’ll be discussing Robots, Botacon 0, and showing you some Thing-O-Matic build tutorials from MakerBots’ own Charles Pax!

Check out our previous episodes here:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/live-from-the-makerbot-botcave