Tag: Thingiverse

Spare parts

The last week has been a fruitful one for me, at least as far as printing things on my MakerBot is concerned.  I’ve designed, created derivatives, printed upgrades, updated the firmware, installed the latest (super sweet!) RepG, and even performed some maintenance.

One amusing and useful experiment was the serial production of the Z Axis Wobble Reducers by MakiYoshida.  Using my current settings I printed one.  Then I installed it and printed a second.  The second was a visibly better product.  I installed the second and printed a third.  The third was no better than the second.  I installed the third and printed a fourth.  I then installed the fourth… and didn’t bother to print with it.

Right now I have two of these wobble reducers installed on the front right and back left Z axes.  Installing one on the most warped rod (front right, for those of you playing at home) helped significantly.  Installing the second on the back left helped a little more.  Installing the third on the back right didn’t seem to make much of a difference, and may have been worse than the second print.  I didn’t realize why until I tried to install the fourth Z axis wobble reducer.

Once all of the wobble reducers were in place I found that the entire Z stage was too mobile – and would easily shift from left to right and back and forth.  When you have no wobble reducers one or more warped Z axis rods will force the entire stage out of whack.  When you have four wobble reducers, there is nothing keeping the Z stage steady.  Thus, the optimum number is between one and three.  However, I noticed that having two diagonally across from one another gave me enough wobble reduction to improve the print, but not so much flexibility that it could get pushed around in the middle of a print.

Part of the problem is that this particular wobble reducer will allow nearly unimpeded side-to-side motion.  However, these wobble reducers are also fantastic at compensating for a badly warped rod.  I suspect that mixing different kinds of wobble reducers might be my best bet.  I’m not really that interested in installing one of versions that requires precision rods, since it’s just one more thing I have to source for my MakerBot.  Ideally I can mix and match these two types of wobble reducers to improve the overall print.  The Z-axis floating arrester appears to keep the captive nut more … captive than the Z axis wobble reducers I have installed.  This may provide the exact combination of rigidity and flexibility I need to optimize my print quality and minimize layer shift as I print.

The upshot of all of this, and the reason for the post title, is that I now have two Z Axis Wobble Reducers by MakiYoshida that I’m not using.  Do you need one or two of these and feel like saving yourself the print time?  If so, drop me a line.

Making a MakerBot make a MakerBot

Not a MakerBot Replicator
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…

Dollar Stores

Have you ever browsed a dollar store, store going out of business, or garage sale?  The senses are overwhelmed with the sheer number and variety of things you’d never ever want to take home with you.  It boggles the mind to even conceive of how or why such things were created in the first place.  The frustrating part of it is – there’s probably a really good deal on something very useful somewhere inside that place.

Unfortunately, this is kind of how I’m beginning to feel about Thingiverse.  I love the idea of a place for sharing digital designs.   Over the last month it has gotten flooded with “things.”  People just uploading Sketchup, SolidWorks, or other 3d modeling files directly to Thingiverse, outright plagiarism, and stuff that could never be printable/cuttable/makeable (such as several objects with zero thickness).

I’m totally good with uploading an unfinished design, partial designs, or the outline of an idea.  But, for heaven’s sake, please include a title, description, and a copy of your file for sharing.  And, by sharing I mean an STL or DXF file – not a proprietary format.  By all means, include your source Sketchup or SolidWorks file, but please also include a file type that’s actually meant for assisting in the production of the thing.

Next in the cranky-pants series:  Hey you kids!  Get off my damn lawn!