I don’t think all of my parts are going to arrive in time for me to take a crack at assembling a DrawBot this weekend. Per the USPS:
I think the best I can hope for is getting my motor shield tomorrow. That’s okay, there’s plenty to do in the meantime. I must learn patience.
Default Series TitleAs MakerBots and RepRaps proliferate, so do the websites and content concerning them. Gian Pablo Villamil had a really great post about his adventures with Skeinforge. As with BotHacker’s excellent post about the Skeinforge Cool setting and analysis about the benefits of cooling fans, Gian’s post takes us through each of his Skeinforge changes as well as documenting it’s effect on the print quality.
I wish I had more patience for that. I tried for a while documenting each change… but quickly became enamored with the idea of spinning dials and flipping switches in Skeinforge in the (sadly badly) mistaken belief I could make it better.
Patience grasshopper, patience
Recent posts to the MakerBot Operators group show some people’s frustrations with this growing company. 1 Yes, they’re out of stock of electronics and other parts, but they’re also doing their best to crank out as many kits as possible.
Overall, I’d rather have them churning out robot kits than keeping spare parts in stock. The plans for all of the electronics are open and free – you could have someone else fabricate them or build them yourself. Still others have started up businesses selling lots of replacement parts and even upgrade kits.
We might be impatient for our kits, but they’re literally devoting their weekends and free time to getting these kits to us. In fact, it’s their feverish dream to get a MakerBot kit into your hands. You’re just not going to get this kind of devotion and service anywhere else.
I have one piece of advice if you’re waiting for your kit to arrive or replacement parts to be back in stock: start designing stuff right now. You already know what you want to build. Just create a library of things you want to churn out. Upload them to Thingiverse, get feedback modify, and improve them. Heck, improve designs posted by others.
Your kit will be here before you know it and you’ll be happily (and woozily) sniffing ABS fumes too. :)