NOT FINISHED YET!

Here is a concept lower profile x-y carriage. It will add about 26mm of height to your build space and is setup to accept both the makerbot upper y platform and heated platform and the Makergear heated platform. It has a leveling upper platform mount so you can get rid of your little shims and things you use to level your platform.

I am still working on how the belts connect to the different carriage parts and I thought some folks might have some comments/ suggestions.

Currently it will use the components that came with the Makerbot kit except for one 40mm M3 screw that you would have to go out and get.

The files are in Solidworks but for free software fun I transferred it to sketchup. Shout if you want the solidworks version (it is a mess though... really)

Update: I am waiting until Makerbot releases the platform conveyer belt that Charles Pax was working on (saw it in person, it was really cool!) Then I plan on designing the lowrider around that.

I just uploaded a bunch of different file formats including the solidworks file (Watch out, it's a mess - if you scroll up in the history you'll find an entirely different design, and I meant entirely.)

Here is my first take on a bearinged Z stage.


You might notice that the upper bearing mount is VERY similar to clothbot's locking bearing mount. That was my inspiration. thingiverse.com/thing:1064

JohnA was kind enough to gather all of the parts into 1 large plate and 13 makerbot sized plates! Download them below!

Update: There will be a gen6 version coming out very soon, It has to do with stiffening the Z platform just a bit. You can go ahead and print the body pieces, they didn't change.

Ok, JohnA was kind enough to email me and tell me to get off my lazy butt and post the Gen6 files. The only change is the Z platform got more robust.

There are two .zip files, one has almost all of the parts as separate .stl files, one has them setup into build plates.

Here's a link to the stepper coupling that I am using. The flexible one was cool but caused more problems that it solved. thingiverse.com/thing:8565

If people need screw kits, I'll be selling them for $19 plus shipping. Send me a message.

Now with COLOSO-Gears!(tm).

An improved version of my prior design.

The Adapter Plate was just revised (to v1.2) the gearing was completely redesigned (which involved drawing the involute curves the hard way, which gave far better results).

Gears are 51 and 7 tooth respectively. Giving a ratio of 7.2857:1.
The gears are also oversized (COLOSO-Gears!(tm)). I will be uploading a slimmed down version in the near future, I just wanted to be sure I had a large enough meshing area.

Note that the new adapter plate is very wide, 90mm+ and will only just fit on the cupcake platform. I recomend printing a z-rider to get a larger build area!

Also, the 51 tooth gear is kinda massive. You might have issues printing it from ABS. As always, I recomend PLA.

The 7 tooth gear is TINY. Sorry. It will be a pain to get to print right. I broke mine trying to remove it from the build platform. Had to epoxy it back together.

UPDATE:
Added 14 tooth pinions sized for nema17 and 23 (5mm and 1/4" shafts).

Added an 8 tooth pinion (obsolete files gone, but 7 tooth gear left up for the brave).
I recomend that you print the small gears with 0 extra shells (infill of 0.1 or higher will result in solid teeth).

9 Tooth gear is off for now unless someone really really needs it

Here is a video of it running (and reversing thanks to SF35!)
flickr.com/photos/45928876@N02/5405071895/

After the success of my first printable extruder design (the Printruder, see thingiverse.com/thing:958 ), I wondered, if there would be an even simpler and better design for a Printruder.

This is what I came up with.

Please note, that there are two flavors of the main part ("Motor Block"):

Motorblock_v7_TimerBeltPulley.stl
This design is for use with the standard timer belt pulley, which comes with the MakerBot Extruder MK3/MK4.
Motorblock_v7_WormGearPulley.stl
This design is for use with a 10mm worm-gear style pulley

You only need one of both. Be sure to print the correct one!

The PCB holder parts are optional.

There's a post on my blog on this with more detailed information and step-by-step build instructions:
pleasantsoftware.com/developer/3d/2010/03/08/printruder-ii/

In order to mount the Printruder II in a MakerBot, you might want to print also a pair of Printable Extruder Holders: thingiverse.com/thing:1912

This is a simple sliding case style tripod mount for the iPhone in response to the first remake challenge. All you need is one 1/4"x20 nut that press-fits into the bottom of the case. Many thanks to Daniel Johansson for providing this excellent iPhone 3G model: sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=22f5cfad1fd21b26ca3028a0a5ef4401&prevstart=0

This is a spindle to hold you filament while printing. This version is more robust than thingiverse.com/thing:1188

youtube.com/watch?v=k7Zzq97feIM

Even though there are lots of great gears on thingiverse, I couldn't resist the urge to model some too :)

The combinations of parameters are too many to upload an STL for each, so I just picked a few.

I also made a version for helical gears: thingiverse.com/thing:1339

This is the second half of my openscad.org gear sets.

I couldn't get the top and bottom parts of the double helical to union properly, so I ended up offsetting the bottom piece by 0.1mm :( It skeins and prints fine though.

This thing is part of a set:
- spur gears: thingiverse.com/thing:1336

UPDATE: I'm printing some gears and noticed a couple mistakes on the openSCAD script: the variable 'orientation' wasn't doing anything and the value 'extrudeInDiam' was in fact being used as radius. They're both fixed now and I uploaded a new version of the script.

Just some parametric and printable key rings modeled in openSCAD.org

The trinket is my way of wishing makerbot happy holidays and it was printed before our extruder ran into some trouble a few days ago. I've also modeled icons for other projects I got to know and love (miniature reprap mendel, thingiverse's gear logo, openMaterials logo), and I'm just waiting to be able to print them before uploading those files.