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…