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My first printer was a Makerbot Cupcake in 2010. It sucked. I had to replace a lot on it to get it to work, and the best thing it ever did was print the parts f

My first printer was a Makerbot Cupcake in 2010. It sucked. I had to replace a lot on it to get it to work, and the best thing it ever did was print the parts for my current printer. I have since given it away.

ravenstine 5y ago
If it's any consolation, we had the Makerbot Replicator which I'm pretty sure was the slightly "higher end" version and it probably didn't work any better than the Cupcake. I normally don't like talking crap about things people put effort into, and I'm sure that those early-gen Makerbots were capable of doing good prints given enough tweaking, but boy were they really bad in terms of casual printing. It's not even obvious why that was the case considering that all these Chinese 3D printers aren't that different technologically. My only guess is that those laser-cut frames they had were too flimsy for even the most reasonable print speeds, resulting in jostling that would cause catastrophic failure with anything with more than a few inches of vertical height. The weirdest thing I remember about the Makerbot was that, at the time, it came with nothing to hold the spool. What the actual F? My dad and I built one out of PVC and a roller bearing, if I remember correctly. The decision-making put into those printers was rather odd.
- sircastor 5y ago
  The late-model Chinese printers you see today (which are overwhelmingly duplicates of the Ender 3) are the beneficiaries of lots of community development over the last ten years - this has the added benefit of making cheap and easy printers for new users to get into. From the Cupcake to now: 1) A constant-speed DC Motor as an extruder is not sufficient for 3D printing, you really need to be able to change how much filament you're moving. 2) A small melt-zone in your hot-end is critical to reducing jamming - This is why the E3D design has been so reliable. Looking through some old pictures, I remember how insane the cupcake hotend was (wrap some Nichrome wire around coupler, and some thermal cement around that, and your thermistor attached to that, and wrap the whole thing with some fiberglass insulation and Kapton tape) 3) Proper mechanical components shouldn't really be substituted - M8 threaded rods are not ACME leadscrews. I remain amazed at what the community (mostly Prusa, honestly) has been able to get out of 8-bit electronics.

ravenstine 5y ago

If it's any consolation, we had the Makerbot Replicator which I'm pretty sure was the slightly "higher end" version and it probably didn't work any better than the Cupcake. I normally don't like talking crap about things people put effort into, and I'm sure that those early-gen Makerbots were capable of doing good prints given enough tweaking, but boy were they really bad in terms of casual printing. It's not even obvious why that was the case considering that all these Chinese 3D printers aren't that different technologically. My only guess is that those laser-cut frames they had were too flimsy for even the most reasonable print speeds, resulting in jostling that would cause catastrophic failure with anything with more than a few inches of vertical height. The weirdest thing I remember about the Makerbot was that, at the time, it came with nothing to hold the spool. What the actual F? My dad and I built one out of PVC and a roller bearing, if I remember correctly. The decision-making put into those printers was rather odd.

sircastor 5y ago
The late-model Chinese printers you see today (which are overwhelmingly duplicates of the Ender 3) are the beneficiaries of lots of community development over the last ten years - this has the added benefit of making cheap and easy printers for new users to get into. From the Cupcake to now: 1) A constant-speed DC Motor as an extruder is not sufficient for 3D printing, you really need to be able to change how much filament you're moving. 2) A small melt-zone in your hot-end is critical to reducing jamming - This is why the E3D design has been so reliable. Looking through some old pictures, I remember how insane the cupcake hotend was (wrap some Nichrome wire around coupler, and some thermal cement around that, and your thermistor attached to that, and wrap the whole thing with some fiberglass insulation and Kapton tape) 3) Proper mechanical components shouldn't really be substituted - M8 threaded rods are not ACME leadscrews. I remain amazed at what the community (mostly Prusa, honestly) has been able to get out of 8-bit electronics.