After strenuous testing which logged hundreds of hours of continuous extrusion, we are supremely excited to offer the all-new Plastruder MK5.
Designed for reliablity, low maintenance, and ease of use, the next-generation MK5 revolutionizes the MakerBot extrusion mechanism.
Hot End Reinvention:
This story begins with the complete redesign of the extruders’ heating element, barrel, and nozzle. Our goal was to take user feedback and our experiences the MK4, and return with the most robust, most reliable, and longest lasting extruder possible.
In close consultation with our manufacturers, we opted for precision machined stainless steel throughout the hot end. Every part was totally redesigned and pushed to the limit before we included it in the final product.
Each component screws tightly together, creating rigid connections and no room for leaks or loosening over time. The result is an all-stainless hot end that feels heavy and strong, and extrudes smoothly for hours and days without issue.
The heating element has been reinvented too: Nichrome wire has been replaced by two matching power resistors that screw-mount directly to the stainless steel MK5 Thermal Core. The resistors receive current straight from the Relay Board, and they heat evenly to produce a consistent temperature perfect for reliable extrusion.
Sayonara Idler Wheel:
You may notice the reduced footprint and profile of the MK5 Plastruder. It’s thinner, sleeker, and the motor housing is smaller. The reason for this is the complete “Paxtruder” inspired redesign of the filament guide mechanism. Now simply twist the thumbscrew to push the Delrin plunger into place, and your filament guide is set. No moving components, and the low coefficient of friction and high strength of Delrin means that the filament will slide over it smoothly and meet with the MK5 Drive Gear with no variation. It’s a simple design, and it’s simply effective.
The Gear that Drives It:
The MK5 Drive gear, released earlier this year, has become the defacto standard drive gear for MakerBots around the world. It’s custom machined stainless steel, lasts ages, and is easy to clean without removing from the plastruder body. The MK5 Drive Gear grabs filament with 100% greater push strength than the MK4 Extruder Pulley. The proof is in the pudding for this item- it’s already in successful use around the world.
Power Play:
With the larger surface of the MK5 Thermal Core to heat, the extruder needed more juice to get hot. For this reason the MK5 is powered by our Relay Board Kit, already in steady use with our Heated Build Platforms.
The Relay Board comes standard with enough outputs to run the Plastruder MK5 and the HBP simultaneously. By using the relay, the MK5 doesn’t draw the power load through the Extruder Controller. Translated- Steady power, without wearing on sensitive circuits or microcontrollers.
The combined effect of our innovative new components, redesigned filament guide, and stainless steel construction is tremendous. It’s a totally reinvented extruder that mounts easily to existing CupCake CNC Z-stage, and makes your machine better instantly.
Paul Wasson over at lasermego.com has MakerBotted up an Apple II+. Wow, does this make me happy. I played wizardry endlessly on a machine like this!
The model was printed out on my Cupcake 3D printer and painted using Krylon Fusion beige paint. I then made several stickers from various images of the Apple II. It measures about 1.5 inches wide and 2 inches deep. Coming soon, a monitor and disk drives. Plus I’ll make a Lost Dharma Initiative version.
We are looking for a blogger at MakerBot who has the chops to write fantastic blog posts about the latest and greatest in the personal manufacturing space, be able to write up project documentation, and create and document great projects with the latest MakerBot gear. It wouldn’t hurt to be obsessed with MakerBot already, but what we really care about is that you have writing skills and can write with wit, keep things concise, have a personal voice and have some tinkering skills. Professional experience isn’t necessary (though it doesn’t hurt), what we really care about is that you can write! If you’ve got experience taking great photos and editing up video, that’s a bonus! We’re looking for a blogger in the New York City area because we actually want you here writing about things that are happening at the Botcave in Brooklyn!
Here’s what the gig is:
Writing for the MakerBot blog. A mix of original writing, posts that spotlight the awesomeness of the MakerBot community, and posts that track the latest developments on Thingiverse and in the world of personal manufacturing.
Writing copy for MakerBot product launches on the MakerBot Wiki and in the MakerBot store.
Building new MakerBot products, creating projects with those products, and documenting the process.
Sound good? Here’s what you need to send in to apply:
2 writing samples of blog posts written by you.
These sample posts can be about whatever you want that somehow relates to personal manufacturing or MakerBot in your own words. We love robots, but don’t want you to sound like you are one. We won’t be using these on the site, we just want to get a sense of how well you can write.
There is still a week to submit your email for the MakerBot Teacher Giveaway! The deadline for sending in your email is August 23rd!
As part of the submission process, we’re asking teachers to submit lesson plans so that we can start thinking in clear, structured ways about how a MakerBot could be effective in a classroom. Some submitted lesson plans don’t have enough information and detail so here is some information about lesson plans so that you can be sure that there will be enough information in your lesson plan for us to evaluate it.
There are lots ways to write a lesson plan, but most have the following components:
Objectives: What do you expect the students to learn?
Structured Lead In: How will you engage the students and connect the new learning to their life?
Instructions: What are you going to teach? How are you going to do it?
Independant Practice: What will you have the students do to demonstrate their new learning?
Evaluation: How will students know if they have learned what you’ve taught them?
These are not rules set in stone. Every teacher has their own way of creating lesson plans to scaffold student learning. We won’t be evaluating you based on the structure of your lesson plans but on clarity, innovation, and curriculum integration shown in your lesson plan! We are excited to see how you are thinking about integrating a MakerBot into your curriculum and want as much detail as possible for the benefit of teachers everywhere who will follow in your footsteps to bringing the power of personal manufacturing into the classroom! If you have already submitted, but want to send another email with more details in your lesson plan, please do! The email to send in your submissions is learning@makerbot.com.
Are you a teacher that could use a MakerBot? It’s almost time to go back to school and so we’re giving 10 teachers each a MakerBot Cupcake CNC Deluxe Kit with standard MK4 Extruder and a bonus Heated Build Platform kit.
Before August 23rd send an email to learning@makerbot.com with the following info. We may publish the ideas/lesson plans on the blog or wiki after the contest ends.
Your name
Your school’s name
The address you’d like the MakerBot sent to if you are chosen
A paragraph describing how you would integrate the MakerBot into your curriculum. Include some description of the learning environment and what you teach
A lesson plan that you will implement if you get a MakerBot
Both me, Bre Pettis, (a former art teacher in Seattle Public Schools) and Charles Pax (a former Newark New Jersey physics teacher) will evaluate the information submitted and our criteria for the giveaway will be clarity, innovation, and curriculum integration.
Teachers who get a MakerBot will be expected to join the MakerBot Educators Google Group and document their experience with the MakerBot so that the other teachers can be inspired!
If you are not a teacher, but know a teacher who would benefit from having a MakerBot, please pass this along to them!
Our goal is to get more MakerBots into teachers hands and give them creative tools that will inspire young people to use their imagination and creativity. If you questions about the contest, leave a comment!
Update: Do not be fooled by the photo above of young children. Any teacher at any level is encouraged to apply.
I hung out with Mary at Maker Faire last weekend and he’s emphasized how awesome it is to have a MakerBot in your life to just make anything that needs fixing. Broken things that you can fix with a MakerBot in the house means that someone gets to be a superhero. Daryll fixed his dishwasher with a MakerBotted part. Awesome!
[Daryll Strauss'] dishwasher had some problems that he traced to a worn out part on the upper spinning arm. The hackerspace he belongs to has a Makerbot and he though this would be the perfect opportunity to print his own replacement part. He picked up some inexpensive digital calipers and set to work mapping out the dimensions of the broken piece. He took his hand-drawn cross section and built a replica part in Blender. Once he had it just right he generated the g-code and printed the part. His replacement works very well, and it’s a bit thicker (by design) than the original so hopefully that means it will hold up longer.
The gang over at POPSCI have made a MakerBot. Awesome!
It sounds like the promise of an ad in the back of a PopSci issue from the 1950s. Build your own replicating machine! Make anything you desire in your own garage! But that’s exactly what veteran hacker Bre Pettis and his pals offer with their CupCake CNC kit: a computer-controlled 3-D printer that can whip up almost any object of less than four inches on a side from two kinds of plastic. The company’s goal is to make home manufacturing cheap and common.
They mention that it’s hard to use the software. I wish they’d had the latest version of ReplicatorG when they did the article. Printing has become a lot easier since then!
I had a chance to go back and forth with John Carnett who put it together and not onlly is he an awesome photographer, he’s a totally legit tinkerer who’s done some cool stuff!
The botswarm is expanding. We’re looking to hire on a new person for our team, and this time we’re looking for someone to help us on the virtual side of things. Besides making Thingiverse an awesome place for the 3D printing community, there is a lot of backend software needed to run a hardware company. We’re looking for a talented and brave soul to help us continue rocking the free by democratizing manufacturing.
Is this you? Is this someone you know? If so, check out our job posting for the job requirements.
As a part of making the debut “Meet the MakerBot Operator” profile video, I worked with the Nick and Winter to co-create the “MakerBot Operators Tips” video released here.
When downloading objects from Thingiverse.com, Nick and Winter take time to repair manifold (“water-tightness”) issues with models in blender before feeding them into Skeinforge to create printable gcode.
After Nick and Winter fix the model to make it well and truly manifold, they take the time to re-post the fix back to Thingiverse as a derivative to help others print the object more easily. This is, in my opinion at least, a pretty awesome community service that helps everyone print objects more easily.
