We've been exploring the Makerbot Gallery on Flickr and there is also plenty of activity going on related to the new Thing o Matic
Here are a couple of pics with details of the Electronics
The Thing O Matic is the first of its kind to upgrade from a standard Arduino to an Arduino Mega which now offers plenty of room for haccking and extensibility.
Here you see the Arduino and the Makerbot Motherboard connected. The Makerbot Motherboard is essentially a super sized shield that fits directly onto the MEGA.
The electronics laid out on their support.
Notice the dedicated controller for each axis, the extruder controller and how it all comes together on the Motherboard.
The labels printed on the wood board seem to be mirrored though; for example the extruder controller is the board on the bottom right (and not bottom left as the label says); the same goes for the axis.
Detail of the end stop cables connecting to the motherboard.
One (of the many) improvements on the Thing o Matic is full endstop support.
Also note the labels for the axes (in the pic): by using an Arduino MEGA you now have room for controlling up to 5 axis (see the A,B, X, Y and Z axis connectors)
You can explore more of their Flickr Gallery here http://www.flickr.com/photos/makerbot/
RoboSavvy
Statistics: Posted by robosavvy — Thu Dec 02, 2010 1:15 pm
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