Makerbot has officially announced the MK6 Stepstruder. Here the announcement http://blog.makerbot.com/2011/02/15/the ... -filament/
"Today we are very proud to introduce a fantastic upgrade to your Thing-O-Matic.
It’s the MakerBot Stepstruder™ MK6 and it comes as a full kit for those upgrading from a MK3 or MK4 and it also comes as an upgrade kit so that if you have a MakerBot Plastruder MK5, you can just get the upgrade kit and you’ll be ready to rock. With this new extruder you’ll have the option to configure it to use MakerBot 1.75mm ABS filament. Today we’re also launching 1.75mm filament for sale in the store."
Among the novelties here are the highlights:
- The extruder is now driven by a Steper Motor (instead of the DC motor on the MK5), built to Makerbot Specifications.
The stepper motor itself is controller by a stepper driver, with the whole set offering 1600 steps per revolution (0.255 degrees resolution)
"you get a lot more control over your plastic extrusion because instead of using a DC motor that just goes on and off, the MakerBot Stepstruder™ MK6 has a high torque stepper motor that allows you to control the rotation. This stepper motor has 200 steps per rotation and you’ll be driving it using the MakerBot Generation 4 Stepper Driver v3.3 (included in both the upgrade and complete Kits) to get a 1600 step per revolution. That means that you can control the extruder motor and when it goes one step it turns .225 of a degree."
- Possibility of using 1.75mm fillament in addition to 3mm fillament.
All necessary parts for using 3mm and 1.75mm filament are included.
** The use of 1.75mm is still declared "experimental" at this point. **
As final note, the price of the machine has gone up slightly:
"We ran out of MK5 motors two weeks ago and have had Thing-O-Matics on hold as we have been getting parts in for this kit. Orders have been stacking up and so Thing-O-Matics that have been ordered, but not shipped yet will get this upgrade for free as a thank you for their patience. Starting with any Thing-O-Matic ordered today, the price of the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic has gone up to $1299 due to the increase in costs associated with this upgrade."
All users who have pending orders with us (RobOSavvy) will already get their machines with this new MK6 Stepstruder.
Users who already own a Thing o Matic with an MK5 Extruder can also purchase an Upgrade Pack to MK6 if they wish to, which we will be making available on our store soon.
We're really excited about this great new improvement and really look forward to seeing how the use of 1.75mm will affect and further improve build quality on smaller and finer parts and details in conjunction with the stepper (motor) group capable of .255 deg resolution.
RoboSavvy
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Statistics: Posted by robosavvy — Mon Feb 21, 2011 4:57 pm
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