Jordan Miller of Philadelphia hackerspace Hive 76, with collaborators, has created a heated build platform for the MakerBot Cupcake CNC. A heated build platform slows down the rate at which a fabject cools, helping it cool more evenly.
We love MakerBot, but we needed a better way to print larger objects (like parts for a Mendel). So I started experimenting in the lab at UPenn for how to get a heated platform up and working on 3D-PO.
The first design involved multiple layers of silicone fused together around a nichrome core. We told MakerBot about it, and they wanted more! Then Eberhard Rensch in Germany heard about it (go Internets!), and he went to town on a simplified software design. Awesome!
Read about it on the MakerBot wiki or buy one from their store.
Also see Andrew Plumb‘s Flickr set of his own experiments with a heated build platform.
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