MakerBot Cupcake CNC - Commentary

Hi. I'm the other geek working on this build.

I'll just add/extend my own commentary on the overview...

For those not so much in the know; the Cupcake CNC is a descendent of the Rep Rap open source 3D printer. The Makerbot is by... the Makerbot folks. They curate a mailing list, wiki, and online store for aquiring parts for building your own 3D printer. The printer accepts a simplified form of Gcode, which is a special programming language for driving these types of machines.

Lots of things are CNC's. From printers, to factory robots. The tech is really old, and finally available at reasonable cost to build your own things! Totally sweet.

I bought the "Cupcake CNC Basic Kit" from makerbot store. This comes with all the parts you need, sans a handful of tools. They also sell a deluxe kit, and a deluxe upgrade kit. The "deluxe" has more tools and comes with the USB2TTL cable and an ATX power supply. I figured ATX power supplies were easy enough to come by and Dan had all the tools, so went for the basic kit. As Dan noted though the USB2TTL cable is actually harder to get on your own...
It'd be nice if the basic kit actually came with that cable, since ATX power supplies are actually easy to get. Or at least they should be a lot louder about you probably needing to buy that. The documentation on the site is also inconsistent in some ways; such as listing the set of hex wrenches as part of the deluxe kit, while the basic kit actually contains them now.
The rainbow cables in the kit... Kicked my ass. I'm no stranger to building my own cables, but something's just off with the ones with the kit. I could be doing it wrong, but the caps for the cables were weak plastic and broke easily. The ribbon cables themselves were very tough and did not want to get crimped before the plastic broke. I tried several methods but was unable to build a single cable. So we ran off to weird stuff! :)
Again the wiki was inconsistent, or the kits are inconsistent. They listed adjusted parts that were not included in my kit, and some known problems (in particular, one important bolt being too long) appears to go unfixed for some reason. This is why Dan lists needing a dremel/drill/etc.
That MK5 gear upgrade kit... again, should really be chucked into the main kits already! We had a lot of trouble with the old gear. Primarily when it pinches the plastic it would flatten it out, so the motor ended up forcing the plastic down through the PTFE barrier, which (along with some bad habits we had) ended up stripping the PTFE barrier and causing a plastic leak.
Most of the wiki documentation on the assembly are really good. Very impressive actually. Well written, well illustrated, and with good notes and tips. The main body of the machine was very easy (and a lot of fun!) to put together. Splitting up the work was trivial and we sped through most of it.
.... Except when you get to the plastruder. The kit presently comes with the MK4 design, but it looks as though nobody had bothered to thoroughly update the wiki to accomodate changes in the design. The part labels don't match up occasionally (some are left/right when the docs ask for front/back, etc). The pictures appear to be from different people, and a lot of very important tips are buried within large blocks of text.

But the best part, is that it's a wiki and this is all open design! We're learning as we go along and fully intend to contribute back :) If we have to rebuild the plastruder again (or hell, perhaps we'll help with the new one), we'll improve the documentation as much as we're able.

I don't have awesome pictures to insert into the text like Dan does. Maybe he can help out after I write more posts with some new pictures I can insert ;)