FabWiki MakerBot Cupcake

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Machine number: 18
Build: 24 Apr 2009 - 15 Feb 2010
Tuning: 15 Feb 2010 - 18 Feb 2010
First Successful Print: 18 Feb 2010

• Construction Tips and Tricks
  

• MakerBot Cupcake Build Wiki
  

• MakerBot Plastruder MK3 Build Wiki
  

• Electronics
  

• Electronics Fabrication Guide
  

• Hotplate Reflow Technique for SMT
  

• Cupcake Electronics Assembly
  

• RepRap Generation 3 Electronics
  

• Build sequence
  

• endstops (all through hole, pretty easy)
  

• N.B. placement of some connectors different from standard RepRap build!
  

• RepRap OptoEndstop v2.1 build instructions
  

• Four (4) endstops using the RJ45 connectors, for the X axis and Z axis
  

• Two (2) endstops using the 3-pin connectors, for the Y axis
  

• stepper drivers (large SMT components, smallest is SOIC)
  

• reprap motherboard (fairly spaced out, but the TQFP can be tricky)
  

• extruder controller (pretty dense, and there is a TQFP)
  

• USBTinyISP
  

• Google group for MakerBot Operators
  

• Flickr photo pool
  

• Makerbot Lineage Page

Box	Damaged in transit	ABS stock	Bag of cables
Plastruder box	Servo box	Getting started letter	Lasercut body
Power supply	Number 18	Top	Middle
Power	Back	Left	Front
Bottom	Right	Acrylic Z stage, Motherboard	Lasercut parts
Lasercut parts	Power supply	Power cable	USB-TTL serial
Cat5 cables	XY table	606 / 608 pulleys	Build platform w/ foam
Gears and belts	Small lasercut parts	Bag o' electronics	Bag o' tools
Contents of big box	Stepper motor drivers	Motherboard and extruder	Opto endstops
Lasercut Y stage	Lasercut X stage	Build platform, X left	X right
Lasercut XY table	Holding brackets	Holding brackets	Brackets, tape holder
Endstop triggers	Small lasercut parts	606 parts	608 parts
Small lasercut parts	Flanged slide bearings	Stepper pulleys	Rod pulleys
Belts	Belts, pulleys, bearings	USBTinyISP kit	Zephpaste solder
Allen keys	Deluxe ed. tools	Stepper motors	Plastruder hardware
Kapton tape	Kysan motor	Plastruder parts	Plastruder acrylic
Plastruder acrylic	Plastruder acrylic	Plastruder dinosaur	Plastruder acrylic
Plastruder kit	Plastruder kit

Components	Soldering Y-axis stop	4-40 screws to align holes	Testing - Off
Testing - On	Test X & Z axis stops	Inspect w/ USB microscope	Pins up close
Test setup	Test setup

Calibrating hotplate	Heating a board	Stepper motor driver	Making cables
Making cables, cont'd	Through-hole components	ISP	Staying organized
Laying out extruder board

Building pulleys	Pulley glued & clamped	Mid-level bearing brackets	Front and back
Z stage parts	Z stage	Top on	Right side on
Both sides on	Z stage brackets	X & Y stages	Z stage belt
XY Carriage	Dinosaurs, idler wheel	Wiring	Extruder bench test
Desktop Factory	Makerbot 18 & MAKE 21	Successful extrusion	Printing raft
Printing mini-mug	Traditional toast	Makerbot 18

• Opto-endstops
  

• Checked all connections with dissecting microscope set at 0.7 x 10x
  

• Re-soldered one loose joint
  

• Used PB-503 proto-board to build a little test rig for both kinds of connection
  

• All endstops seem to be working correctly
  

• Stepper motor drivers
  

• Checked all SMD and through-hole connections with dissecting microscope
  

• Had to ground the sense line of the ATX power supply unit to get it to power on without a computer attached (following Masked Retriever's hack)
  

• Checked that green power LED comes on for all stepper motor drivers
  

• Burning the bootloader
  

• Used Arduino 0017 on Mac OS X with Sanguino 1.4-r1 support
  

• USBTinyISP needs to have jumper across two pins near cables in order to provide +5V to Sanguino
  

• Power LED on Sanguino doesn't light up even though Arduino software claims that bootloader burns successfully
  

• Firmware
  

• Using RepRap Gen 3 Firmware 1.2
  

• Don't forget to copy reprap-r3g-firmware-1.x/libraries/* to arduino-00xx/hardware/libraries/ (otherwise you will get an error that it can't find simplepacket.h)
  

• Debugging
  

• The power LED never lights up on the Sanguino
  

• Unfortunately I am now getting the following error: "avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding"
  

• Tried connecting LED to Pin 13 and resetting. It doesn't flash, which suggests something may be wrong with bootloader. When I power with the ATX power supply and hit the reset button, the Debug light flashes 4 times; the power light doesn't come on at all.
  

• Tried putting a low voltage through the SMD LEDs that indicate Power and Debug (on the LEDs, cathode is marked with green stripe). Both LEDs work.
  

• Replaced motherboard.
  

• Once motherboard replaced, extruder controller and stepper motor drivers work perfectly
  

• Invert Y axis in ReplicatorG

• First mini mug is eye-shaped when looking down at it from above. Loose belt on X axis.
  

• ABS sticks to foamcore but object pops loose halfway through build. Made an acrylic plate to cover the build platform, covered one side with kapton tape and roughed the other with sandpaper.
  

• Natural ABS extrudes smoothly at 220 degrees C
  

• Difficult to get ABS to stick to the platform
  

• Part way through a full day of tuning, realized that the idler wheel had slipped sideways off of the bearing and the filament was jammed beside it. Disassembled extruder and rebuilt idler wheel and bearing with Special T cyanoacrylate. Johnny Russell also suggested using a zip tie as a filament guide, shown in this photo. If the problem recurs, might try double-thick idler wheel or machining new one out of some other material.

• Assume I have older (1mm) thermistor - didn't measure it before building extruder
  

• Beta=4881, r0=93700, t0=24

• Started with Configuring Skeinforge page
  

• N.B. These settings are pretty good, but could use a little more tuning; see the "Fundamental Settings" section of the Configuring Skeinforge page to get them perfect
  

• Carve
  

• Layer Height: 0.4
  

• Raft
  

• Temperature of Raft: 220
  

• Temperature of Shape Next Layers: 220
  

• Temperature of Shape First layer Outline: 220
  

• Temperature of Shape First Layer Within: 220
  

• Temperature change times: 0
  

• Interface Layers: 0
  

• Base Layer Thickness over Layer Thickness: 1.7
  

• Raft Outset Radius Over Extrusion Width: 10
  

• Speed
  

• Flowrate Choice: PWM
  

• Flowrate PWM Setting: 255
  

• Feedrate: 25
  

• Fill
  

• Solid Surface Thickness: 3
  

• Extra Shells On Sparse Layers: 2
  

• Extra Shells on Base Layers: 3
  

• Extra Shells On Alternating Solid Layers: 1
  

• Infill Pattern: Grid Rectangular
  

• Deactivated modules:
  

• Cool
  

• Hop
  

• Oozebane
  

• Stretch
  

• Unpause
  

• Comb
  

• Multiply
  

• Polyfile
  

• Wipe