Need a fancy bow-tie for an event like new year's eve, but don't want to use support to print treppi's papillon design?

Well, throw it into OpenSCAD and shave a teensy bit off the back and give it some overhang-friendly notches!

Brainwave is a low cost controller for Reprap 3D printers derived from the well known Sanguinololu. The primary design goal was lower cost, achieved by providing only the minimum required components for a single extruder printer. It can be used to drive a cartesian or delta style printer.

Features
- Small footprint: only 60mm x 79mm!
- 12V power input
- Micro USB connector
- All connectors at edge of board, vertical or right-angle connectors will fit.
- Atmel AT90USB646 microcontroller w/ USB bootloader
- 1, 2, 16 or 32x microstepping @ up to 800mA
- Dual Z-axis connectors
- Optional per channel current attenuation
- Heated bed support with separate power input (up to 24V @ 15A)
- Integrated heater/thermistor/stepper connector for E channel
- Fan control

My design goal for this extruder was an extremely reliable, no compromise, extruder for the Makerbot, that builds on all the most successful ideas currently available in thermoplastic extrusion. At the same time I wanted an extruder that could easily be printed on a Makerbot build plate with a as large a raft as possible to allow those who do not have a heated build plate to print it easily.

Brutstruder is a hybrid of many successful current extruders. It get's its idler wheel from the Wades Extruder thingiverse.com/thing:1794, and the drive gear from the Mk5 Plastruder thingiverse.com/thing:3290">. It also get's a viewport from the Printruder II - Rear Breech Loading thingiverse.com/thing:3178, it's Electronics board holder from the Prinstruder II thingiverse.com/thing:1980, and it's legs are 2 of the DINO2 from Zaggo's Printable extruder holder thingiverse.com/thing:1912.

This design has been endurance tested in multiple ways.

I made the extruder lift 27 lb of water (this was before adding a 4th spring, and going to harder spring, no telling what it would lift now).
I fed it 3d Ink Plastic only throughout testing.
I have printed 36 hours straight with this extruder at this time with 0 failures.
I also fed it 1/8 inch ABS welding rods from the local welding shop.

Now you see why I call it Brut.

Inspired by the cantilevered Z stages of the Thing-O-Matic and Ultimaker I designed this upgrade for the Makerbot Cupcake CNC. It should be possible to get 140mm of z travel with a standard x/y stage.

I've designed it to fit a standard reprap extruder. There's room for any extruder, the mounting holes for the makerbot extruder are just a bit too wide.

In addition to a bunch of m3 nuts and bolts you will need a few bits of new hardware: 2 x 268mm lengths of 8mm smooth rod, 3 x LM8UU linear bearings, and an M8 Coupler. You will also need to print one of thingiverse.com/thing:9622 to couple your z motor to the z rod. For the z rod I just hacked down one of my z rods to 185mm.

You also need a popsicle stick, an m3 x 30 bolt (fully threaded) and a printed z-endstop-adjuster part.

If there is sufficient interest I've been pondering making an upgrade kit available.