Not a MakerBot Replicator
Thingiverse user Webca has uploaded a printable MakerBot.
Back in February I thought it was audacious to hope someone would design a printable Y stage. Later that day I realized that if you had a MakerBot Cupcake Deluxe kit, you’d have all the tools plus much of the materials to build another MakerBot – suggesting the second MakerBot would only be about $500.00 or so of extra components. More the fool was I when I thought I had published a comprehensive list of the MakerBot printable components of a MakerBot.
Webca clearly dreams (and designs) so so so much bigger than I. I am in awe of the awesomeness of that MakerBot made MakerBot.
150 plus printed parts, a month of solid printing, and more than 5 pounds of plastic. So, what’s the final cost of a second MakerBot made MakerBot? Setting aside issues of shipping and tax, it sounds like it would be about $50.00 worth of plastic plus all the bits from the $575.00 laserless MakerBot kit, plus some cables, cords, and power supply.
It’s a testament to MakerBot’s rock bottom pricing that a mostly-printed $625.00 MakerBot is not a tremendous discount off the $750.00 basic MakerBot Cupcake kit. But, cost-savings is almost certainly not why he designed and printed this. A month of printing and $50.00 of plastic is far more than it should take to print all the parts for a Mendel.
Yes, an unbelieveable amount of work, but now I want a PLA MakerBot…
i just.. don’t.. get it
I really like how his individual blocks glued together look so much like a Stargate replicator! :) I bet there’s a pretty good chance that there would be a catastrophic glue failure and the whole thing would fall appart into pieces as if someone shot it with an ARG.
@Tony, I have to wonder if a puzzle piece system for the flat panels would work better once glued together. The pieces would have the physical interlock of the puzzle pieces plus the glue to keep the puzzle interlock in place. Now that you mention it, I once downloaded a Google Warehouse replicator piece and printed it on my ‘bot. :)
@Ben, Someone designed and printed every component to build an entire MakerBot. It’s a pretty incredible feat.