Tag Archives: Thingiverse

Making a MakerBot make a MakerBot

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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

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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!