We were able to purchase Cupcake number 2494 – batch 16 from it’s original owner, who felt he was in over his head and could not get this bot together and printing properly.  It is a Gen 3 electronics/mark 5 extruder, HBP cupcake.   Unfortunately, the original builder felt is was a good idea to glue all the case parts together, including the Z axis blocks.  Of course, this makes adjustments and servicing practically impossible. We replaced the X & Y Axis with our original pieces from bot 1136 (with outrigger bearings on the X Axis and mendel inspired Y Axis), which is now sporting the mendel inspired X-Y Axis Stages.

We were able to do minimal disassembly, realignment, wiring, assembly and configuration and get it working.  We actually built the HBP with traditional soldering pen techniques rather than our traditional surface mount soldering.  Of course, we will be tweaking the settings over the next couple of days but our first print was the Cube Gear and it came out well.  next was the tall faceted vase which also came out well.

We look forward to printing many items with this bot while upgrading and improving settings.  The next mod will undoubtedly be the Mark 6 Stepper Extruder.

Botbuilder was proud to be a big part in the 3D Printer Village at the 2010 Maker Faire and is looking forward to the 2011 Maker Faire in September.  There were over 15,000 visitors to our 40′ tent over the weekend and we drew quite a lot of media attention with reporters from NPR, The Post, The New York Times and many more media outlets interviewing the makers who were printing and displaying their “Bots”.  We even got a short spot on a film piece on the Martha Stewart Show feature on Maker Faire.  Many of our builders won blue ribbons for their work, including two for botbuilder.net.  Please make plans to visit our display at the 2011 Faire.