I have the Makerbot Cupcake and the Thing-O-Matic with an automated build platform.....new in box! Hope to see more Makerbot prints....Love these Printers!! There are two versions of the ABP....the V.1 is harder to find!
I am a long time Thing-o-Matic operator (2011-2018) and I would like to share some additional history with you about your printer. The Thing-O-Matic you have is a somewhat uncommon configurations. Frist thing I would like to note its a pre-built model that came from MakerBot ready to run out of the box. I can tell this because of the sticker are on the frame, which as far as I am aware were never included with the kits. At the time of the Thing-O-Matic probably 1 in 20 MakerBots being shipped out were pre-built at about $2000 a pop. Secondly, the extruder you have on your model is an MK7, which is predecessor to the MK8 that was widely used on the Replicator 1 & 2 line of MakeBots. The MK7 is notable because it was the first Makerbot extruder to only offer 1.75 mm filament compatibility and was a massive improvement over the MK6 in both speed and reliability. Only a few hundred kits were ever shipped with the MK7 or as addons for older models. Somewhere I read that only about 300 MK7s were ever made by Makerbot. Third, the Automated build platform had a very bad reputation back in the day, and Makerbot stopped including them as the default about the time the MK7 came out. Your ABP is most likely an addon purchase (which is somewhat supported by it being unassembled) if it was acquired at the same time from MakerBot. The belt is very easy to damage and care (raft is recommended) should be given if you are planning on printing with it. And finally, congratulations on the find, the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic is a true piece of 3d printing history and I would argue the peak of the opensource Makerbots.
Thanks so much for taking the time to write this. Many of these details I had no idea! I’ll add them to the information I’m collecting with this printer.
I have the Makerbot Cupcake and the Thing-O-Matic with an automated build platform.....new in box! Hope to see more Makerbot prints....Love these Printers!! There are two versions of the ABP....the V.1 is harder to find!
I am a long time Thing-o-Matic operator (2011-2018) and I would like to share some additional history with you about your printer.
The Thing-O-Matic you have is a somewhat uncommon configurations. Frist thing I would like to note its a pre-built model that came from MakerBot ready to run out of the box. I can tell this because of the sticker are on the frame, which as far as I am aware were never included with the kits. At the time of the Thing-O-Matic probably 1 in 20 MakerBots being shipped out were pre-built at about $2000 a pop.
Secondly, the extruder you have on your model is an MK7, which is predecessor to the MK8 that was widely used on the Replicator 1 & 2 line of MakeBots. The MK7 is notable because it was the first Makerbot extruder to only offer 1.75 mm filament compatibility and was a massive improvement over the MK6 in both speed and reliability. Only a few hundred kits were ever shipped with the MK7 or as addons for older models. Somewhere I read that only about 300 MK7s were ever made by Makerbot.
Third, the Automated build platform had a very bad reputation back in the day, and Makerbot stopped including them as the default about the time the MK7 came out. Your ABP is most likely an addon purchase (which is somewhat supported by it being unassembled) if it was acquired at the same time from MakerBot. The belt is very easy to damage and care (raft is recommended) should be given if you are planning on printing with it.
And finally, congratulations on the find, the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic is a true piece of 3d printing history and I would argue the peak of the opensource Makerbots.
Thanks so much for taking the time to write this. Many of these details I had no idea! I’ll add them to the information I’m collecting with this printer.