Build Session #8 - Nov 3rd 2011, The MakerBot is completed

H, Ryan and Julia too came over to print our first parts. We went to Thingiverse and picked a little kitten toy thing. And it worked. H brought it home and gave it to his kids.  And the MakerBot has been pretty busy since then. 

Mars Rover parts

Mars Rover parts

Mars Rover parts

Mars Rover parts

Mars Rover parts

Some of the things our MakerBot has made

Notice the honeycomb interior structure of solid objects

Mars Rover

Build Session #7 - October 27th

H and I finally got the Firmware uploaded. The problem was due to the version of the Arduino driver I had loaded. Once that was sorted out everything went smoothly. We did the motor and heater testing described in the online instructions and things were working, except the extruder motor and the X-axis motor were both moving in the reverse direction than they should. This was a bit mysterious because we were pretty careful when we wired up everything. But it was simple to just use the control panel in ReplicatorG to reverse the motor directions, so we didn't even need to open up the electronics area again. We got the extruder to make a very nice filiment of melted plastic, so we were pretty happy.

The first strand of plastic. The MakerBot is alive!

Yea!

ReplicatorG control panel

Build Session #6 - October 20th

H, Ryan and I went through the calibration process for the servo motors. It required a volt-meter so we made a trip to Home Depot to buy one.

Publish Post

But we were unable to get the MakerBot and computer to communicate to each other and therefore the firmware would not load onto the motherboard. All we could figure out was that it seemed to have something to do with using the com port. We called it quits 11pm. Ryan went home and H and I went downtown and met up with Steve Lehman for some wildness.

Build Session #5 - October 13th

Ryan, H and I put another 3-plus hours into assembly of the MakerBot Thursday evening . Installing the Electronics. Ryan brought excellent beer.

Drilling mounting holes for a small circuit board.

Circuit board installed on the Z-axis stage.

Trying to upload the firmware before mounting the motherboard in the robot. But there were problems.

The motherboard was connected and had lights flashing, but Replicator G said that there was no connection.  

We decided to install the motherboard anyway. We will sort out the firmware issue later. 

Motor controllers

The kit seemed to have a few too few 1/4" spacers, so we made some from small round scraps of laser-cut acrylic.

A bit of head scratching. The wiring shown in the online instructions was unclear.

Hand gesture indicating frustration.

Wrapping it up for the evening.

Build Session #4 - October 9th

Ryan and H came over from 10 to 2 for four hours of robotchery. H brought the beer this time (thanks H).
Prime objective was to finish the extruder, build the case, and install the x,y assembly. Everything went according to plan. The online instructions are not perfect, but good enough.

putting the nozzle into the thermal core. Isn't nozzle a cool word?

Wrapping the heated nozzle with ceramic tape and  Kapton tape. Kapton tape is heat proof. 

Installing the heated nozzle into the extruder assembly.

Beer was consumed.
Ryan needs a hat and a lab coat.

Did I mention that we had some beer. And some of H's home made blackberry wine.
Can you find the Portland Aerial Tram tower model hidden in the picture?

THIS is a MakerBot. Almost.
I never figured out why H wore the lab coat like a shawl. Maybe it's because he's a bit odd.

Rear View

Ryan did the soldering of this little relay circuit board.  It is the only circuit board that is not pre-assembled.

Rear view. 

Front view.

Next step: Install the electronics. That will be fun. Probably will happen this Thursday.

Build Session #3 - October 1st.

Ryan, H and I got together for 4 hours Saturday night for some beer and 'bots.

H uses a Renascence Faire dagger for stripping the motor wires

X-Y assembly

Ryan working on the Extruder

X-Y Assembly

X-Y Assembly with hand gesture

Tightening the belts

Tightening the belts

X-Y Assembly

Shrinking the heat-shrink tubing

X-Y assembly

Trimming a zip-tie

Ryan and the completed X-Y Assembly

Extruder assembly

Extruder motor assembly

More heat-shrink tubing shrinking