Makerbot Tractor Upgrade Testing: Kapton Belt

Last night the humans tested the first Kapton belt on the new design.  The build stuck remarkably well to the Kapton, with the only problem being that, as it cooled, the kapton did not resist the lateral shrink of the plastic.  This caused a bit of curling of the first object.  The second object, printed with a raft, caused even more deformation of the kapton.  But it's flexible stuff and bounced right back again.

Video of progress:
http://vimeo.com/14422350

Will work on strengthening the Kapton.  Mylar has also been suggested. 

Makerbot Tractor Upgrade Testing

Well, the humans have been really busy trying to complete my Tractor Upgrade so they can share it with the rest of the world.  They've posted pictures and a video of their first proof of concept test here:

http://vimeo.com/1438374

The idea was to eliminate as many exotic parts as possible, use as many printable parts as possible, and keep costs down as far as possible.  I think they achieved their goals.

They are in final build and testing and will be posting full STL files and build instructions by end of the week.

Requires less than $30 in parts, can be printed and assembled in a night, using standard tools (a drill, and a makerbot)   Should also work on a Makerbot HBP.

Back Online, Again...

It's been a commedy of errors lately.  We ran out of white ABS, and started on our 5# spool, only to find out the 5# spool was defective.  Unfortunately, this defective plastic seems to have set us up for some other problems.  The tension wheel broke lose again, looks like we had another defective extrusion motor (siezed), and looks like we may have blown out the extrusion controller.  Dataman is up on the spare parts though, and we had spares for everything in stock. 

Meet Darth Roboto, my first post assembly printout, with a new .5 big head from MakerGear.Com.  Prints much more smoothly than the MakerBot head. 

First public appearance is at LVBots this Thursday.  Wish me luck!