Xmas Update

Ok, a bunch of things to cover, with a bunch of pics. I’m looking forward to some serious progress after the holiday season is over.

First, there’s definitely a problem with at least batch VII [correction: batch VIII] of MakerBot which prevents you from using 6.9mm of the 100mmx100mm bed. If you look at the failure on the right in this pic:

…you can see at the bottom several loops of the raft where the raft went past the edge of the bed (over by 6.9mm). The top of the raft was 6.9mm in from the edge of the bed.

Ok. So next, here was my impatient attempt to create a heated bed. Rather than ordering a 100mmx100mm 5mm-thick sheet on the Internet like I should have, I went to Home Depot and bought a 12″x12″ sheet that was about 10 times too thin, then cut it into 9 4″x4″ sheets and bolted them all together:

Unfortunately I drilled the center 3 holes a bit off, and I had no magnet to hold it to the MakerBot y axis. Before I wired some nichrome wire up and kapton-taped it down, I put the whole thing on hold because I got access to a supply of PLA that Chris bought. (Still haven’t tried the PLA yet though).

Ok, so next, right before Xmas (when I was hoping to show my brother Jon and my Dad the MakerBot RepStrap), this acrylic retainer ring on the MakerBot broke, threatening to ruin my plans to show it off:

So luckily, when I was at Home Depot recently I bought a 5/8″ Forstner bit which I’d planned to use to make a centering jig for PTFE insulators so I could easily mark the center of the 5/8″ PTFE rods. I cut out a chunk of the MDF that I’m going to use for my Mendel bed, cut out the center hole, drilled the small screw holes and tapped them to M3 size with my newly acquired metric tap & die kit.

Success! Xmas was saved! Of course, it’d have been far better if that part was printed and I already had a printed spare lying around. This was a great illustrating example of why I’m building a Mendel and not just being satisfied with a MakerBot (no offense intended to MakerBot owners!). Printable parts = awesome.

Ok, so next, here were 5 presents I wrapped for Laurie, Emily, Alicia, Cara, and David:

They were the Letter Blocks posted on thingiverse. Here was the one I gave David:

I haven’t allowed myself to print many non-Mendel-piece things, because of my rush to get to a Mendel, but with xmas approaching and the realization that I wouldn’t come anywhere close to having a Mendel ready for another month or so, I decided to print a few things. Here’s my favorite so far:

(the bend in the tree is part of the actual model). I also allowed myself another attempt at printing the whistle, which looked awesome when printed but had enough air holes that it barely functioned at all:

Christmas morning, Laurie surprised me with the final gift of this insanely cool tool chest (that 10 months ago I wouldn’t have cared about, but now I absolutely love/need):

Here’s what a sample of my workbench looks like now, pre-toolchest:

Ok, yet another topic change (got whiplash yet?). While at my parents’ house showing off the MakerBot, we decided to ambitiously try printing Walt Disney’s head (despite the lack of a heated bed). There was insane curling, and a hell of a lot of noise (tip: don’t set up your MakerBot on a dinner table near the TV), but before I aborted the build, it printed this much:

There ya go! More progress next week, I hope. Once again, happy holidays everyone!