A MakerBot TOM with attitude: RGB leds controlled by the status of the print process

thingiverse

To implement a functional design into my bot, I plan to use color fades for status representation. The idea involves adding custom print codes with assistance, as I'm new to working with MakerBot firmware. The color transitions will be from red (heating up) to green (working), then to light blue/blue (cooling), followed by celebration colors like yellow or purple. A video demonstrating the hardware (leds and controller) is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3imxHHYvRk, and further steps include decoding controller signals, linking the Arduino, and hacking the firmware. Additionally, I've successfully added a page up/down feature to Gen4 interface, which works great in my machine (http://github.com/makerbot/G3Firmware/pull/76/files). Future plans include wire placement for leds, connecting the led controller to power and led strip, wiring the controller to Arduino, uploading modified firmware, and modifying skeinforge parameters to add custom M-codes. Please bear with me as I'm still in the process of researching and working on these features.