Unpublished Drafts – MakerBlock

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.

Drafts Zero - The Lost Blog Posts

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

Drafts Zero - The Lost Blog Posts

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.

Drafts Zero - The Lost Blog Posts

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.

Drafts Zero - The Lost Blog Posts

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. [↩]