Category Archives: Building

Notes, documentation, thoughts, and tips from my own experience building a MakerBot

ETA

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I’ve been blathering about my MakerBot kit to anyone and everyone who will listen for weeks and months now.  All that is left to do is build it. 1  A friend asked me how long it would take me to build it.

Thinking aloud, I reasoned that if two skilled people could build one MakerBot in a weekend, I might have a shot at building one in about two to three weeks.2

I hope that’s not too optimistic.  :)

I guess that’s what Christmas miracles are for, eh? 3

  1. Oh, that’s all? [↩]
  2. Though a YouTube video suggest two people can build one in a single night. [↩]
  3. Actually, I would love to finish it in time for Christmas so I can print out some snowflakes for the tree, but I just don’t see it in the cards. [↩]

Soldering?

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I have NO idea what I’m doing!

If you’ve got a Batch IX MakerBot all the surface mount boards should have arrived pre-soldered.  This means the first actual material step to building the robot is to solder the opto-endstops.  These are little circuit boards that contain optical switches that will prevent the machine from moving the build platform (and print head?) too far in a particular direction.  You can find the kits for the opto-endstops in the MakerBot store.  According to the page for these kits:

An optical switch usually used to detect when your robot has reached the minimum or maximum position of travel.

An optical endstop AKA opto endstop is a switch made out of light. When something interrupts the light-beam, then it signals the motherboard. Useful for detecting if your robot is attempting to self-destruct. ;)

Also, there are no moving parts to wear out, so they will last pretty much forever.

So, when all is said and done, hopefully I will have taken this:

OptoEndstops Parts

OptoEndstops Parts

To this:

OptoEndstops v2.1

OptoEndstops v2.1