Is there an alternative way to control a MakerBot mini? The Library I volunteer at is having trouble with theirs and I suspect it’s a problem with either the software or the makerware. It keeps giving us a filament error.
Do they have MakerCare? Or a spare Smart Extruder? There’s practically nothing you can do with a Mini that doesn’t violate the warranty.
There are also very few people here on G+ with any Makerbot 5th gen line experience, but lots of people happy to give bad/illogical/irrelevant advice. I’d recommend taking your question somewhere like the Makerbot Users Google Group (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/makerbot-users). Although wherever you go, you can expect quite a bit of “the Mini sucks, you’re screwed” type response. Might be somebody with an idea to share though…
you can install an early version of maker-ware than enables you to load in code sliced with simplify3D. but it doesn’t work very well. have you made sure the printer firmware and maker-ware a both up to date?
I’m happy to provide some of that bad/ illogical advice @Ryan_Carlyle alluded to.
You could swap out the control board for open source electronics that would then let you send gcode generated by Slic3r/ Simplify3D.
If it really is a software related issue that cannot be fixed (strictly based on what you said) then this is the only way to open your machine up to other variants. Unless you can flash another firmware like Sailfish, but I don’t know that they accomplished this for the latest machines.
@raykholo not strictly a bad idea, it has been done successfully – you do need CoreXY-capable firmware since the Mini is an H-bot. But it has no endstops, no bed-leveling hardware, not particularly good linear rails, and the entire smart extruder and XY carriage has to be replaced if you swap boards because they have a lot of proprietary electronics baked in. So the effort to put in an open-source controller is barely less than building an entire new printer from scratch. Yeah, I take it back, that IS a bad idea 
There’s no alternative firmware, because there’s not enough public info to really figure out things like communication protocols with components like the xmega-based custom stepper driver circuits.
Like @Nathan_Walkner says, it’s PROBABLY an issue with the extruder, such as a jam, or bit of debris across one of the filament sensors, or dirty electrical contact, or bad pogo pin, or loose wire, or something else physically wrong with the machine. The older Smart Extruders had massive problems with this stuff – but the newer Smart Extruder+ has MOSTLY fixed all those problems. So that’s worth trying if you think the Library can tolerate shelling out a sizeable chunk of money for a replacement/upgrade. But there’s a certain point at which you don’t want to throw good money after bad.
@Ryan_Carlyle
Wow no endstops. Interesting how they handle homing then.
As for everything else, at some level you do have a heater, a thermistor, and motors. Just a question of how much rework someone is willing to do.
@raykholo Yep. Stepper stall detection for XY homing. They just run the gantry against a hard stop and find where the motors skip. Pretty elegant, when it works right. (Makerbot’s Rep1/2/2x printers had huge persistent problems with endstop and stepper wiring failing due to wiring flexing, so they did everything they could to eliminate unnecessary flex wiring in the 5th Gen. The Smart Extruder uses a big flex-rated ribbon cable.)
Z homing uses a nozzle contact sensor inside the Smart Extruder. Pushes the nozzle up and a magnet triggers a hall effect sensor to tell how high it moves out of position.
Figured as much.
M3D did a slightly better version of that, accelerometer in the head assembly to sense the hit.
I remember reading about the Z probe in the original smart extruder teardown someone did and publicized.
@raykholo Oh, and it’s a thermocouple, not a thermistor, and pretty much everything attached to the extruder is run via custom PCBs inside both the Smart Extruder and the XY carriage. The nozzle / hot block setup is custom and would be very difficult to use outside the Smart Extruder because of the nozzle touch probe mechanic. There’s literally almost nothing you can reuse but steppers (NEMA 14s), fans (one or two blowers), and the XYZ motion hardware… but the Mini uses a cheap HBot gantry and non-adjustable cantilevered build plate, so it’s basically not even worth reusing.
There’s a reason Minis sell for barely more than the cost of the Smart Extruder. There’s one on ebay now without extruder for $95. They barely have any reusable parts as scrap.
Woah, I forgot to check this post, going to read everything and respond when I get the time, thanks for the help!