The first original things I've designed are MakerBot Feet. My MakerBot was a little uneven and tended to rattle. At first I just put a few sheets of paper under one corner to make it level, but that wasn't very nice. One day I was inspired by these MakerBot Body Clips. They just clip onto the edge of the box and are tight enough that they don't need any modifications to the machine itself. I used Google Sketchup and this free STL export plugin. I had played with Sketchup before so I was already kind of familiar with the interface. I tried playing with Blender and Art Of Illusion, but I find them rather confusing. I've since found OpenSCAD which really appeals to me as a programmer since you use a simple scripting language to define the shape of objects. One of these days when I find the time, I'd like to re-design the feet in OpenSCAD.
The design is rather simple. There's a base that clips onto the bottom of the machine with a hole and a place for a trapped nut. Then there's a separate part that screws into the base. This allows you to adjust the height of the four corners to make the bot nice and level. Since they're modular like that, you could always design some other type of feet to screw into the base. (like these
RepRap anti-vibration spring feet) I had originally planned to press fit an o-ring in the bottom of the feet to help cushion the whole thing to reduce vibration. I've become kind of obsessive about trying to find ways to make it run more quietly. When I first put my MakerBot together, it was so loud you could hear it two rooms away. I've since replaced the o-rings with these
Master Caster Scratch Guard Self-Adhesive Felt Pads which fit perfectly and absorb a lot of vibration. (you can see them in use
here) I'm not sure if it's really made it much quieter, however it has made it a lot easier to move around as it slides nicely on those pads.
I love that there's so many little MakerBot modifications like this that you can make on a MakerBot itself!
