yay! dont you just love payday!

well, pay day is upon us, well its been a few days and aftre sorting out all my other bits ni need to buy, i decieded to put money towards a mk5 and a few other bit and pieces for the makerbot... so putting in my order, i am dreading the cost of uk import tax... estimate it to be about £50 so when it comes i will let you know, but... it has been ordered!

for some reason i cant add a pic... but the total cost was $259.70, thats about £158.
i got:
mk5 plastruder full kit: $185 (£114.42)
2 x lengths of nichrome to replace mk4 bits: $10 (£6.18)
frostruder mk2 experimenters kit - to use on my pcb smt setup: $20 (£12.37)
10 x 3mm gold magnets: $2.50 (£1.54)
and postage: $42.20 (£26.10)

we shall see! its been shipped along with some timing belts to replace the ones i have originally, they were open ended belts glued together with wet suit glue so will eventully break!

but yay,

need to also buy a new stepper motor chip...

Webcam...

Am trying to get my web cam to broadcast from my makerbot - what im going to do is have the pc running in the makerbot, which will be connected wirelessly to my router. It will be running WEBCAMXP5 (or other software thats better) which will send videos from 2 cameras inside my makerbot.

One camera will be on the nozzel so you can watch it squirting, the second will have an overall view of the makeing board. This way, i will try and make a program that can take uploads of stl files, and then produce it, so in theory i can send a file from work, and watch it being made - maybe something i can open up to the world?

Should be fun V- i got the idea from watching this: (website to be found...)

also...

those who need white paint or black, or grey... and in uk, Poundland sell spraypaint and its only £1 and it gives great results, esp the black!

also... was th9inkning about this last night... What do you do with a spare eeepc 701? sell it you may say, but me... im thinking of installing it into my makerbot to have a complete system setup... :D

rediculas?

hmmm...

also the peltier cooling idea? i am thinking of installing this into my makerbot with the aim of making vertical lines :D

Order has been dispatched :D

My order of bits from sdp-si has been shipped according to an email i recieved, except they are out of the 2 x 17 tooth pulleys, so these will be shipped at a later date, but for now the belrts and gears are on their way :D I did purchase open belt strips, as the other belts were out of stock, so i will have to find a way of attaching the ends tog to make the larger belt for the z axis... we shall see when i get it :D

I sold my ibooks and ipod touch to fund my maker bot and so far its looking great.

I painted the bearing brackets - and got accused of escaping from a mental hospital by the police whilst i was doing so... haha, i also painted the insides white, with the view of using some RGB leds to make it colourful... or just red... but the outside... i dont know what colour - any suggestions?

Pics are on my flickr pool :D

Makerbot, my plans for making one, and the first step!

Hi all, and welcome to my blog.

The reason why i wanted to create this blog was to document my build of my own cnc MakerBot, which im hopefuklly going to build on my own, without buying much from the makerbot stores. I have access to a laser cutter and machinery at university, so i thoought i would have a go.

The first bits i have got are the plywood sheets from a local timber shop, so i bought 6mm (to be made down to 5mm at the joins) and 3.18mm plywood, for the x and y stages.

I have also bought the m8 screw threads for the z axis.

It has been a slow start but i have been looking forward to building a 3d printer for a while. The Reprap started me off, and the ability to make and construct things such as animatronic head and the facial features.
Also having the ability to make the circuits required for this MakerBot, i feel i can make it cheapwer than the costs given, as i have the facilities.