Rather than continuing to post here on my building progress, I’ve created a number of video blogs of my adventure. These 10 minute entries are available on YouTube, but sadly are very visual in nature. Do check them out to hear/see my progress. I’m catching up to the girls – who I think at last report were building the dinos (part of the plastic extruder). Been there, done that. By the time next week is done and spring break starts (and I head to SIGCSE).

From MakerBot Cupcake 3D Printer Assembly

So the body of the printer was spray painted over the last few days. I tried this first indoors in the basement with very bad results – angry wife, smelly house, etc. Over the weekend I moved the operation outside and hit he body with at least two coats of gold paint. It’s not perfect, but good enough. I don’t have that much time to make it so utterly perfect that it is a work of art. I hope to start putting the body together soon (tonight…)

The opto endstops are soldered and just need some trimming with a pair of nippers that I don’t have. I’ve moved onto the insertion of the bearings into the pulley wheels (see http://wiki.makerbot.com/cupcake-cnc-0:cupcake-pulley-assembly). While most of this went smoothly, I am concerned that one of the bearings literally falls out of the wheel when the wheel is inverted and lightly shaken. I’m concerned that it needs to be glued. Did you folks encounter anything like this?