I have had a makerbot 5th gen for 6 months now and well... It has broken over and over for almost every print I have done. I have a few tips i would like to share to help any other makerbot 5th gen owners around this. First i would like to make it clear that I have a makerbot 5th gen, but i think most of my tips will work with the mini and Z-18. I have had many problems with my smart extruder but one is worse than all the others and that is my extruder will randomly unload filament saying that it it "out of filament". I have fixed this by removing the filament detector and putting folded tin foil on the pins (see picture 1). THIS WORKS AWESOME and has 2 complications: One, that if you have a jam it will not stop. And two, that if you run out of filament it will keep printing. My second tip is that if your extruder is giving errors like Smart Extruder Now Attached without you detaching it it may having connection issues. I fixed this by Putting rubber band around the extruder and extruder carriage and this fixed it (see picture 2). I will always answer questions if you have any so please message me.

1.IMG_6191.jpg 2.IMG_6192.jpg