Have you ever been in the situation where you’re printing the most amazing object that you downloaded from Thingiverse and the plastruder fails you? You know you’re going to have to rebuild it and it might take you a week to find the half hour it’s going to take to fix it and it’s very frustrating.
Instead of shaking your fist in the air, you can get a spare parts kit and assemble a heater barrel assembly on hand and swap it in if there are any problems.
Besides the heater barrel assembly, the MakerBot Spare Parts Kit includes an extra plastruder pulley and enough nichrome for 3 heater barrels so when you rebuild your first one and build your spare, you’ve still got enough for one more rebuild. Over time these wear down and installing a fresh one can really breathe some life back into your MakerBot. Oh and there is an insulator retainer and idler wheel so you can just slap those in if they break!
We literally ordered tons of colored plastic in 5 pound rolls. As soon as we put it in the store, folks asked for smaller rolls. We tried a few ways to break them down and none of them were fun at all and all of them resulted in a big mess. Then, in a lightning bolt of inspiration we realized it would all work better with a bucket!
And so we offer you 1 pound rainbow packs. We’re going to offer these at an introductory price of $12 a pack. We’re going to sweat through the weekend turning the bucket and plastic so that you can get some colors, try them out and make some beautiful colored objects.
This is the first heated build stage design that started them all, designed and built by Jordan Miller of Hive76 in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania. We bought them and are selling them to you!
Keep in mind this is for those that like to be on the bleeding edge. You can read more about it on the MakerBot wiki and it’s for sale for $75 in the MakerBot store.
Polylactic Acid (PLA) is an extremely awesome polymer for many reasons. First, it is bio-friendly. It is made from corn, which is a renewable resource. Secondly, it is bio-degradable which means it will break down in a landfill. Third, it is clear which makes for gorgeous crystalline prints that absolutely scream for LEDs. Last but not least, it has an extremely low shrinkage factor which means it resists warping, even at very large print sizes. All-in-all its a very exciting new filament.
The PLA should print very well at standard ABS settings, but we will be releasing updated settings very shortly that will allow you to get the very best out of your MakerBot with PLA.
The particular variant of PLA that we use is Ingeo 4032D. For full technical specs, check out the PLA datasheet.
We are getting this started off right by offering a special introductory price of $60 for 5 pounds of PLA ($12 a pound). When the sale ends on Monday January 11th, it will go up $80 for 5 pounds ($16 a pound). We want folks to get it and make with it ASAP and we want to give the early adopters a nice discount. Get yours now!
We’re very excited to announce that we have custom-designed hand-made 1AEON t-shirts in the MakerBot Store. They are printed on American Apparel tshirts and are awesome.
I’ve been friends with 1AEON since I saw his work over at Etsy and worked with Tara Young to make this video about him. Besides making shirts for sale on Etsy, he is a designer for hire who has made the NYCResistor t-shirts and Things t-shirts.
Here’s a picture that shows you a bit of the process. Everything is handmade. 1AEON builds and burns the screens and then prints them.
It’s a open source affordable and fashionable watch that is can run the arduino platform. Win!
I’ve wanted to have an arduino style watch in my pocket and I got my friend Raphael to teach me how to use Eagle CAD and I did it! I also got lots of help from Adam and Zach and Charles and Liz and Ryan and the NYCResistor community to pull this together!
I ordered a bunch of prototype boards and I’ve made them into 18 kits to just get them out there in the world and get friends playing with them. This is for alpha users because it is realllllly hard! I have soldered up 4 of them and 3 of them had major solder bridges that made me swear a lot. Be prepared for a serious smd challenge! They are super cheap at $30 which is basically cost of parts because I know they are hard to make and I just want to get them out to the smd ninjas out there. The assembled watch is going to cost significantly more!
I made a lasercut housing for fun and the design is up on Thingiverse. The kit does not include that! Also cr2032 battery not included! There isn’t much code written for it yet!
Nick Starno is working on a MakerBottable pocketwatch housing which he’ll publish soon.
We’re going to go into production on these, so if you don’t want to do smd soldering, don’t worry, just be patient and you can order one assembled in the new year.
We are just added a new kit to the store. It’s a Laserless Kit. There is some finesse to lasercutting and we are really proud of our lasercut parts for the MakerBot, but we know people with lasers and they want to buy all the parts minus the lasercut parts and create their own MakerBot-style 3D printer for their own personal use.
You want your machine made out of antique plywood you found in an old barn? Or maybe you want to have Ponoko custom cut you a body out of bamboo? We understand the power of DIY and we know that the easy way is not always the best way for everyone and so we offer this laserless kit.
We’ve spent a lot of time and energy doing research to uncover the best parts that work really well for this machine. You can go out and buy these from 20 different suppliers, but the great part about this laserless kit is that you get all the components and subkits that come with a MakerBot, but no lasers were hurt in the process of putting together this kit!
If you’ve done lasercutting, you know that you may not be saving anything by lasercutting it yourself, you’re going to take some time to get the kerf right with your machine and you’re going to end up doing it a few times to get it all just right, but you are doing it yourself and you have a lasercutter, so damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.
This kit comes with these sub-kits, all lovingly wrapped and packed with sweetness at the MakerBot BotCave.
- Drive system kit
- Hardware burrito
- Gen 3 electronics
- Motors
- Plastruder MK4 (hardware only)
- A pound of natural ABS
Keep in mind this is the basic kit and does not include a power supply, cables, cords, and tools. We sell these separately so you can stock up on what you need before you checkout.
Again, just so there are no surprises. There are no lasercut parts in this laserless kit. You are going to be cutting your own lasercut body kit, plastruder parts, and build platform. Check out the wiki for the links to all the files.
We won’t be providing support from problems that arise from you lasercutting your own parts. If you wanted it to Just Work, you’d be buying the full kit!
We just got White ABS and Black ABS back into the store. We have this manufactured and there is a bit of a lead time on it so get it while the getting is good! (This would be the perfect thing to stock up on when you order your plastruder upgrade kit!
Introducing the Upgrade Kit for Plastruder MK3. This is a kit to make your plastruder MK3 run more consistently and be easier to adjust.
Getting the plastruder up and running reliably is one of the more tricky parts of getting your MakerBot running.
The MK4 plastruders are easier to work with and we wanted folks with MK3 kits to be able to get some of the benefits and so we put together this kit.
It’s got 3 parts and the cost is $15.
1. A replacement extruder top plate. It goes right under the electronics that has a place for a bearing. This takes a lot of stress off the internals of the DC motor. It also keeps the pulley straight and thus the consistency of the pressure on the pully is better maintained. In the picture it says “USA” but that is just the protective sticker. The plate is actually clear acrylic, just like the other plates of the extruder!
2. A 606 bearing fits right into the plate and right over the driveshaft of the DC motor. It is a tight fit and may require some sanding down of the end of the DC motor.
3. Measurement stick. Use this by putting it down into the extruder and tightening the idler wheel right up against it. It’s 2mm in diameter. No more guessing where to set the wheel!
Here’s a picture of me beveling the ends of the measurement stick on a grinder. Sparks!
