[Qbot2640]

Originally Posted by Coach Norm

As several others have posted here, the Makeware software is free to download at Makerbot. Our team has a Replicator 2 that we received last February. The software is easy to use but is not a design software. You will need to design in CAD and then import an STL file. The Makerware software can also handle some other types (OBJ and THING) but I would advise to stick to STL at first. MakerBot has some great support information on their webpage.

We have used our extensively (500+ hours print time).

The Replicator2 is very easy to use and setup. You can print directly from a computer or from an SD card.

Use the Blue Painters tape

I'll second all of this...except the 500+ hours, ours is relatively new...and add that we've had tremendous success exporting .stl files from Solidworks, tweaking the position slightly in Makerware, and printing. Over the break I downloaded the Cubify "Invent" program (free license key in Virtual KOP). This program is very "Solidworks-like" but much simpler and smaller, and will be very useful for designing parts to be printed.