[Keith] built this aluminum-plate heated build stage for his MakerBot 3D printer. We just saw a different MakerBot heated build stage yesterday that relied on glass as the printing surface. Keith’s design is similar to the aluminum RepRap bed but scaled down for the MakerBot. He had a piece of aluminum machined the to correct dimensions, and perfectly flat to use as the printing surface. The yellow surface is caused by Kapton tape applied to the top of the plate. This heat-resistant covering is perfect to print on, resulting in glossy smooth surfaces that are easy to remove once the printed part has cooled. He’s working on improving his mounting technique to achieve prefect level so that he can print without a raft.

[Keith's] writeup is phenomenal. He’s sharing knowledge in a way that is useful even if you’re not building the exact same kind of project. Follow his lead with your own write-ups, then let us know once you’ve posted them.

[Thanks Marty]

[Jared] sent in his experiment in building his own heated vest for motorcycle riding. He used some of the ever so common enamel coated wire and some surplus teflon tape in place of Teflon coated wire. So far he’s been testing things out with a bench power supply, but it seems to be working. Despite my love of building my own stuff, I’d probably just pony up for a commercial product. His site is hosted on his DSL, so I’ve put up a mirror here. (with some tweaks to the thumbnails to make them load faster.)