Makerbot

= Lemelson Center Cupcake Makerbot  =

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Check out a gallery of things David Warshow has printed on Thingverse!

Log of tips/tricks/tweaks/memorable events!
Note: As of version 24 of ReplicatorG estimated build times do not include the time to print the raft. For small base/tall objects this is only a few percent inacuracy, however for large flatish objects like an octopus this can be a 20% difference in estimate vs. actual build time.

Note: As of version 24 of ReplicatorG towering (building islands seperatly, say 10 layers at a time) is a bad idea unless you are making something like a DNA helix where it gets really messy without it.

David's Notes to Himself: Try adjusting the width over thickness of the thread, that might fix some of the gaps

Nifty guide on tunning ReplicatorG and Skeinforge.

Some possible hardware upgrades do add. (Most of which we can print ourselves!)

April 28th 7PM:
First Makerbot training session led by Aaron Cantrell and Jake Horsey

April 29th:
Print head worked it's self free from use, damaging the threads in the thermal barrier, a replacment was ordered as well as a new heated print surface.

April 30th:
Print head repaired and David Warshow printed several items to test improvments to print settings.

Current best feedrate: 29.8mm/s

Current best raft temperature: 228C

Current best build temperature: 225C

Current best layer thickness: .39mm

Printed: DNA Helix, Octopus, Viper, Y belt tentioner

Experimented with pouring Acetone over printed objects to smooth build layers, succesful. Recomending creating a permanent acetone dunk container, also a drying rack of some form as material adhears to paper/cardboard while drying. Do not recomend using acetone on prints with extremities less then 4-5 filement strands in diameter.

May 1st:
Zach Clemente and David Warshow added a wooden/pvc spool holder to keep the abs neet and tidy.

Began printing a Tardis model found on thingverse but did not realise the model was hollow and set the scale to low so the walls we only one filiment strande wide and once it reached one inch tall it broke in half.

Printed a "Thor's Hammer Keychain" from thingverse to test increased comb size (default 5x extrution width, increaded to 15x). Strength remains and it saved about 5% build time. Would not recommend for anything smaller then 1/2 inch interior cavety. Keychain also included a 3/4 inch long x 1/4 horizontal tube. The filement stretched very well perpindicular to the gap with almost no sag.

May 3rd:
Aaron Cantrell removed the plastic from the aforementioned spool holder due to stability issues, but liked to overall concept of the stand a lot. This stand will need to be beefed up a bit and most importantly affixed to the cart in a stable way. The critical issue with the stand was the potential for the entire wood piece to be tipped over during movement of the cart as the only cantilever and weight is that of the MakerBot and computer monitor. Basically if the stand tipped over, the MakerBot and computer monitor would go with it resulting in damage of equipment. Please note that the plywood isn't fixed to the cart in anyway other than gravity and also that driving nails into the edge of plywood can be sketchy as sometimes plywood started to de-laminate when this is done.

We should maybe consider a attachment mechanism for the plywood, stand and such to the cart. I'm open to helping with this design if people are so inclined to fabricate it. - agc07