Maker Block

Getting my Plastruder MK5 running [09/06/2010]

[Only 300 draft posts remaining unpublished! What’s a little sad about these posts is that the things they used to refer to, no longer point to valid websites. The MakerBot store and all associated documentation links probably haven’t worked for more than a decade. But, I guess it’s just as well. I haven’t used my Cupcake CNC in a very, very long time and there’s not likely anyone building or upgrading a Cupcake CNC that could find the below of any use. That said… and when stupid legislatures decide to regulate 3D printers into oblivions, the only 3D printers people will have are those that they make themselves…]

When the Plastruder MK5 I ordered hadn’t arrived on Friday I was a little disappointed because I was hoping to build it over the long weekend. Luckily it arrived late Saturday! Huzzah! My weekend was saved! I had put off soldering the Relay Board I got with my heated build platform since I haven’t gotten around to picking up a hotplate yet. However, since the Relay Board was needed to run the Plastruder MK5, I busted out my soldering kit and got to work putting together the Relay Board, LED strip, and Plastruder.

Assembling the Relay Board v1.0 was pretty straightforward. I didn’t have a problem following the assembly instructions on the wiki. Follow the directions and you’ll be fine.
Unfortunately, the assembly pictures for the LED Strip v1.1 were… non-existent. (Do not be alarmed – this story has a happy ending.) For those first-time readers – I’m a complete soldering/electronics newbie. If I don’t have detailed pictures and directions, I’m completely lost. The good news for you is – if I can assemble a MakerBot and get it working, you definitely can. ¹ In any case, with the kind help from JohnA and Theron Trowbridge I discovered the secret to soldering this kit up. I haven’t tested it out yet, so I’ll hold off on posting the pictures. Once I’ve confirmed that I didn’t totally roast this kit, I’ll put up the pictures and some directions on the wiki.
The Plastruder MK5 assembly instructions and usage/troubleshooting guide were great as well. Once I get my plastruder online, I’ll add some notes.
- When attaching the thumb wheels to the bolts, definitely use a vise. I tapped the bolts into the thumb wheels – and smashed the threads just enough to make the bolts useless. :/ If I did this again, I would definitely put the nut partway onto the bolt and tap the NUT rather than the bolt itself. This would keep the force away from the threads and probably keep them from being damaged.
- When threading the nuts onto the retainer mounting plate, I found it easier to put the nuts about halfway onto the bolts – rather than almost all the way to the plate. If you put them halfway on, it’s easier to tighten each bolt individually.
- The MK5 thermistor preparation instructions direct you to the MK4 directions for wrapping the thermistor. The MK4 directions suggest you essentially sandwich the thermistor leads in between two long pieces of Kapton tape. This is exactly how I built my MK4 plastruder – and it’s not exactly easy to trap these two thin leads in between pieces of thin sticky tape. An easier way, and what appears to have been done in the MK5 pictures, is to separate the thermistor leads and wrap the Kapton around the leads – making sure they never touch.
- I would test the thermistor’s resistance and temperature measurement before attaching it to the plastruder. If there’s something wrong with the thermistor, I would want to know long before I taped it to the plastruder, insulated it, and mounted everything inside the ‘bot. Both tests are quick and easy to do before you assemble everything – just check the resistance with your multimeter then plug the unattached thermistor leads into the extruder board. This quick sanity check could save you a lot of time and supplies by not having to undo a lot of work. This would be a good time to test resistance on the power resistors too.
- With all the wires running from the plastruder and relay board, it can get confusing. I picked up some heat shrink tubing the last time I was at an electronics store and am using them to color code each of the sets of wires – one small band at each end. This helps me keep everything straight. By just looking at the end of the wires and doing a sanity check against the bands on the motor, thermistor, or heating element I can quickly verify I’m wiring everything up correctly.
- After adding a colored band of heat shrink to each end of the sets of wires, I braid the wires together to keep them all in check.
- Stupid mistakes I made that you probably won’t make:
  - I can’t believe this – but I actually mounted the drive gear upside down. The result was I couldn’t hand feed the ABS filament – since the base of the gear was blocking the filament’s path. Another symptom was that no matter how much I crunched down on the filament with the thumbscrew,² the filament would extrude about 1cm or so, then nothing for 30 seconds, and this cycle would repeat. The last symptom was that when I pulled the filament out it had some nasty chew marks in it. These are not the sort of marks I would expect to see from this drive gear with its super small teeth. Flip the extruder motor and the problem magically went away.
  - I replaced one of my threaded rods – the one that was the most severely bent. However, after installing a new threaded rod and

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And probably do a better job of it too! [↩]
The only thumbscrew to survive my testosterone driven smashing. [↩]

Open Source Makes You Smarter [08/27/2010]

[I mean, the chutzpah of a man who starts a blog post… for the purpose of linking back to his own blog post from two months prior? Oh, young MakerBlock… You rascal!]

One of the nifty things about examining the designs of others is that looking at those designs can give one ideas for ways to improve those designs or come up with my own. In short, open source tech makes you smarter.

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The ultimate in customer service [08/26/2010]

[How wild was it that I could write a blog post namechecking pretty much all the people in and around an open source project in a short blog post? All of the people mentioned below were super happy to help troubleshoot and get printers working. Gotta love open source – and the people committed to keeping these projects going. Plus, this was still the “wild west” of 3D printers. People were building printers, innovating, shipping, fixing, and trying new things constantly.]

There’s been some interesting discussion following We Alone On Earth’s post (Plus the updates)) in the comments. I think WAOE and the various commentors would probably agree that although anyone could build a working MakerBot Cupcake CNC from a kit with enough persistence and help, DIY kits¹ just aren’t for everyone.

It’s the “help” part that is the most amazing and enabling aspect. There are not a lot of products out there where the best customer service actually comes from the customers themselves. We’ve collectively built up wiki, posted problems and solutions, taken pictures and videos. It probably took me about three months before I progressed from total newbie posting basic annoying questions to being able to help others with their problems. ² With each shipment of MakerBots, the product gets better with customer innovations and input, customers improve the instructions and wiki, and there are even more people out there to help you.

Bre, Zach, Adam, and Marisol
Andrew Plumb aka Clothbot
Rick Pollack aka MakerGear for holding my hand in diagnosing a blown thermistor
Rick Pollack aka MakerGear and Neil Underwood aka Spacexula for talking me down from the ledge when I clogged my extruder
Scott Small aka Tox for PLA printing advice
Eberhard Rensch aka Zaggo and J. E. ‘jet’ Townsend for helping me create a mini-mug
Conrad Farnsworth for helping me figure out how to install my XY opto-endstops

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And all that they entail [↩]
It only took me about another month or so before I started posting regularly here. I find it’s a wider platform for annoying more people than just those that read the MakerBot Operators‘ group. [↩]

Dear Anonymous [08/25/2010]

[A blog post about trouble shooting in the early days of MakerBot printers. It was entirely possible for a regular person to build and operate a MakerBot 3D printer – but if they weren’t already technically inclined, they’d have to really want it. I really really wanted to have a 3D printer, and with the help of kind souls and absolutely stubborn pig-headedness, I was able to get mine working reasonably well. Sure, I had to rebuild the extruder every now and then – but that was just part of the maintenance cycle back then.]

You have nothing to feel guilty about for your WAOE post. You were frustrated with the time you were spending on a DIY kit and some of the limitations. I really liked two of the points you made in reply to my post on your MakerBot woes. First was that it may just be a matter of time before getting good Skeinforge settings isn’t as challenging. ¹ Second was an analogy:

I’ve been thinking of MakerBot as ‘using linux before Ubuntu’. At first you had to build the kernel yourself and compile and manage your own packages, but eventually it got to the point where Grandma can use it.

As you note, this is an open source project. If there’s something you don’t like, dive in and fix it! I had a lot of trouble getting my X and Y axes tight, so I designed X and Y axes tensioners.

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I’m sure others would say difficult. :) [↩]

Upgrades and obsolescence [08/25/2010]

[This is an excellent example of the kinds of abandoned, nearly finished blog posts sitting around in my drafts folder. This was essentially a fully formed, fully edited, and formatted blog post that was relevant at the time. It’s hilariously still relevant in a world where electronics are less user-upgradeable and user-repairable than ever.]

I mentioned my experiences owning a first generation Rio PMP300 MP3 player. I liked that model because it was “upgradeable” – I could pop in a new SD chip for an additional 64 Megs of space. ¹ This brings to mind different kinds of “upgradable” products:

Limited upgrades. My Rio could only be upgraded with a maximum of an additional 64 Megs. This made it comparatively insignificant to other market options fairly quickly. There’s just no reason why the Rio needed to limited to maximum SD card upgrade. It had great battery life and was a little bit hackable – I’d still be using it today² if I could upgrade it in the 4-16Gig range. Limit a consumer’s upgrades and you basically guarantee they’ll be a consumer again in the future. Just not necessarily for that same company. ;)
Planned obsolescence. Perhaps it was Rio’s plan all along to create a product that would be useless as soon as a 128 Meg chip became widely available.
Scheduled updates. Antivirus software, antispyware software, and firewall software.
Service and subscription plans. Why would I update the maps in my GPS now that my trust ‘Droid has Google Maps?
Abandonment/lack of support. Any closed source/proprietary consumer product that gets abandoned is put in a tough spot. Perhaps if Rio had published the source for their firmware I could go back and use my old Rio. We’ll never know. Once most companies have moved on to a new product, there’s no reason for opening their old source code. In fact, they probably think of it as proprietary³ when really it’s just a festering chunk of old code that’s useless to everyone.
Expensive upgrades/refills. This is some of the worst kind of upgrade nonsense. Inkjet printer cartridges and razor refills are prime examples of offering a loss-leader/cheap entrance price in the hopes of sticking customers with expensive refills. This business model is specifically designed to trap the unwary. One of the most annoying side effects of this business model is the original product, the printer for instance, is only just barely more expensive then the refills.
Unique upgrades/proprietary connectors. This list just goes on and on. You must use their special batteries, special film, special applicator, unique power adapter, special charger, super special speedy charger or you’ll void the warranty. My personal favorite of the above is the “super special speedy charger.” Why would you make a slow charger, if not for the sole purpose of selling a better charger? Why not just charge a little more for your product and include a good charger??
Lock-in. Inkjet printer cartridges and razor refills are prime examples of offering a cheap entrance price in order to lock the consumer in with expensive refills.
Lack of future compatibility. It’s easy enough to make a product backwards compatible. You have all the information you need, namely existing products, in order to build backwards compatibility into your newest products. However, there’s precious little reason for most manufacturers to do so.
No upgrades. Can you imagine a product that could include an “upgrade path,” but doesn’t? Yeah, you can. They’re called the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Why can’t you install a new battery, more memory, larger hard drive? Why doesn’t it have a USB port or expandable memory? I’ll tell you why. So that you have to invest in a more expensive model initially. This forces the consumer to choose between overspending initially on something they may never need and buying a product that will become useless too soon.

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It’s amazing how insignificant that seems now. I routinely carry more than 100 times that in my pocket on a regular basis and more than 250 times that amount in my phone. [↩]
Probably. [↩]
Even if it is now behind the times. [↩]

Design choices in RepRap, Goals of RepRap [08/14/2010]

[The early 2010’s were a wild time for 3D printing. It felt like there were two separate tracks of printers. There were the RepRap enthusiasts, the true innovators, building and inventing things to push hobbyist 3D printing to new heights. Then there were the companies making 3D printer kits and robots like MakerBot and Ultimaker (and a few others). At this time I was basically wondering… what will future RepRaps look like? Will they look more like a pile of aluminum extrusion and 3D printed parts? Lasercut panels? In the 16 years since this post, the answer is… there doesn’t seem to be one single RepRap that’s leading the field and there are a pile of different RepRaps that have all kinds of different shapes. Perhaps this is for the best. There are so many functional 3D printers available that range from very DIY to point and click that there isn’t nearly as much innovation in the open source RepRap movement. I suppose, this is a kind of success for the RepRap dream. Some excellent fully featured printers are available today for as less than $500 that would have left crowds stunned in 2010. And all of these machines can easily produce the parts necessary to build the various RepRap models out there. Gone are the days of resin cast copies of 3D printed parts. If companies stopped producing 3D printers (perhaps because of some new bullshit misguided legislation…), people could turn to building RepRaps again.]

After looking at the Ultimaker, I have to wonder if the ideal of RepRap for a purely printed machine is non-optimal.

Actually, come to think of it – I wonder if it might not start to push RepRap in a slightly new direction.

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MakerBot + Junk = Stuff! [08/06/2010]

[In my earliest days of working with my MakerBot, I used it interchangeably with the term “3D printer”. I think the point I was going to make here was that you could take some everyday stuff, perhaps even waste products, and with a few 3D printed parts turn them into something new or useful. Unfortunately, whatever thing that did this is now lost to time. I suppose by scrolling through this blog, looking at the last Thingiverse item number I referenced and the next one I reference, it might be possible to narrow down the universe of things I could have been inspired by. This is assuming whatever thing is still in the Thingiverse system and wasn’t wiped out by the Thingageddons¹ or some of the mass boycotts / exoduses that have happened over time. Anyhow, all this seems like a lot of work to get into my headspace from 16 years ago. If I don’t think it’s a worthwhile endeavor, I can’t imagine anyone else would either.]

Yay! Math! +=

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More than once something happened to the MakerBot / Thingiverse website / server and a lot of things and/or stats were lost. [↩]

Digital assistant? [08/05/2010]

[I remember this time in my life. My eldest was only about 3 years old. I was still getting established in my field as a [professional man of mystery]. However, I don’t think there’s any way I actually needed a digital assistant. I think what I may have been starting to write was something about how a 3D printer could be a “digital assistant” in that it could make things for you while you were off doing other things. But, I never did anything with this beyond just… this one single line.]

I think I may need a digital assistant.

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House calls [07/11/2010]

[I’ve been a fan of Doctor Who ever since I was a kid. In the 80’s it just hit that sweet spot for humor and sci fi, more interesting than Star Trek, only slightly less funny then Douglas Adams. But, I have no earthly idea what I was thinking when I started this post.]

Do you make house calls?

This country has been sick, this country needs healing, this country needs medicine – in fact I’d go so far as to say that, what this country really needs, right now, is a Doctor. – The Master (The Sound of Drums)¹

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Screen cap courtesy of Themindrobber.co.uk – a super awesome Doctor Who web site. And, you know, the BBC. [↩]

New Print: Soft-Pawed Albino Stoat of South Wales Cookie Cutter [07/07/2010]

[It’s been a fun ride going through my backlog of drafts. I’ve published several and have literally hundreds more to go! Early 2010’s was a wild time for MakerBot, 3D printing, and the associated communities. There were several people who were regulars on the MakerBot forums as well as in the comments section of this blog. Before I was using OpenSCAD, I was making use of Sketchup which was an incredibly user friendly interface, was great as a “surface” modeling program, but kinda meh at making watertight solids. Back in these days you could literally read every single 3D printing related blog post, article, and watch every news piece in just a few minutes per day and even go a few days between any kind of major updates. Someone coming up with a new printer, completing their build, or just developing something new was big news. And, if you published some kind of nonsense blog such as my own, the comments and models that spin out of them would be a bit of fun for a few days. Essentially published as-is, with the exception of one grammatical correction.]

Designed in California, printed in New England a few hours later.

I actually learned a fair bit from my llama cookie cutter. This time I designed in Sketchup, ran through a polygon reduction plugin, exported through a Sketchup STL exporting plugin, and fixed the STL in NetFabb before uploading to Thingiverse.

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