If you’ve followed the site for awhile you probably know that I make everything in the noob store on 3d printers. It seems like every year a bigger and better printer is release. The Makerbot Replicator 2 follows the same progression, bigger, better, and stronger.

You might have a Noob Shock mount in your gear collection, if you do you’ll notice that there are small ribs on the inside and outside of the adapter. Those ribs are created each time the printer builds a layer of your shock mount. If you had a device that could measure those ribs you would see something around .3 mm or 300 microns. The new Makerbot Replicator 2 prints objects at .1 mm or 100 microns, which means those little printing ribs will be very hard to see.

Using 1.75mm PLA plastic also means the printer will be able to run much faster then older models, cutting printing times in half. PLA isn’t quit as tough as the ABS plastic used in my shock mount design, but it’s still a very good choice for 3d printing.

The Makerbot Replicator 2 is a very nice looking machine. If you’ve considered buying a 3d printer in the past but were on the fence, this is definitely one to look at. I already have enough printers running to keep up with demand so I wont be on the pre-order list, but if you do decided to pull the trig, send me some pictures, I’d love to see them. If only I could think of a good reason to buy this thing.

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