My printer and filament live in my basement. We have a dehumidifier down there set to 55%. Some filament spools take a year plus for me to go through and I've never dried any of them. I have not noticed a meaningful change in print quality, but I also rarely go from an old to a new spool of the same material back to back.
I printed mostly PETG and ASA with some PLA thrown in.
Agree, but also half the story.
The zenphone 10 is 146.5 x 68.1 x 9.4 mm.
I had a 3a until very recently. With its 5.7" screen it was 151.3 x 70.1 x 8.2 mm, so it does support the story.
The OG iPhone was 115 × 61 × 11.6 mm.
I'm still using an iPhone 8 for my work phone and it's 138.4 x 67.3 mm x 7.3 mm.
It's clear that the market is demanding larger phones, which means that today's "small" phones are often larger than the phones of yesteryear.
In December I finally bought a phone to replace my 3a. I did it mostly for the battery life, although I did actually buy a replacement battery for the 3a and have all the necessary tools to install it. It wouldn't be my first time replacing a cellphone battery.
I was window shopping and the Oneplus 12 became fairly discounted at the end of last year.
Honestly, the overall experience really isn't that different than my old 3a. It's not like newer versions of Android are adding revolutionary features these days and if you're running a custom ROM, odds are you're on a newer version of Android anyway.
Nice things:
Unless you are taxing your processor, an upgrade will be incremental. At least that was my experience.
I somewhat regret the larger phone in that it's a bit harder to handle one handed, but most on screen keyboards have a one handed mode to deal with this. I had a pop/ring type holder on my 3a, so gripping one handed isn't that big of a deal.
I think you've probably got the correct replies already (see an audiologist a few times), but I wanted to share two quick anecdote that might explain your Grandfather's reaction.
I recently bought a pair of swim goggles with blue tint to wear when I go swimming with my kids. I leave them on for about 45 minutes before taking them off. When I take them off it's almost overwhelming how vibrant some colors become. It's almost like someone took the saturation slider and dialed it to 300. The white walls around the pool, the orange rash guard my youngest was wearing, etc. They all become almost extreme.
I have a pair of TWS earbuds that you can 'calibrate' to your ears based on what seems to be a crude test (detect a beep at a frequency over a background noise). The profile it generates is very bright. It's very possible I've lost that much hearing, especially since we lose high frequency first, but it's a bit jarring. I find myself not wanting to accept that reality. I'm approaching 40 and haven't been around that many sustained loud things without hearing protection. I do kind of like the sparkle, but it seems a bit over the top so I tend to turn it off. Perhaps your Grandpa is experiencing something similar?
You're not going to find any of those in stores in the US either. Of all the brands i rattled off, the only one you can reliably find here is Birkenstock. However, you're not going to find their shoes or boots. I had to order those from the web.
Xero shoes are a US brand, but I've never seen them in a store here. Groundies are German. Barebaics and Belanka are both from Slovakia.
The internet is a beautiful thing. Yeah, shipping from all over can be a bit slow but with standard measurements it's not hard to order shoes that will fit correctly out of the gate.
And there is now so little choice!
There has been a consolidation of the major brands, but there's a pretty solid niche market around foot shaped shoes.
Vibrams are the extreme. Birkenstock sneakers are pretty well shaped, but their soles are a bit rigid. I don't mean that in a comfort way, I mean that in a bendable way.
More recent, to me at least, entrants are groundies, xero shoes, Barebarics, belenka, and a ton more.
Cut to the shape of an actual foot and flexible/minimalistic sole. I live in the Midwest, so I'll compromise some ok sole thickness in the winter. Standing in snow with my kid at the bus stop in minimalistic soles and even thicker socks makes for quick feet.
Shape of your foot? I don't understand why you would want your toes/foot contorted. I do not understand shoes that have a point in the middle of them. Either you're smashing your toes together or your making something stick out in front of your foot that will mess up your gate.
Minimalistic sole? This will get you landing more softly on your heel and help you use the balls of your feet more. It's amazing to me how thick/soft the soles of some shoes are. I suspect they're necessary to compensate for the way a lot of us walk.
My feet feel fantastic and my motion feels very natural.
But it looks like achieving proper dependable watertightness might be a whole side project of its own.
This is the case, especially if you want watertight prints right off the printer. Post processing (eg coating, smoothing, etc) are another approach. Post processing also seems like it would be more consistent print to print.
Genuine question: do they make money from AOSP being used on third party devices? Obviously they get revenue via the Play store, but you can avoid that by either installing something like graphine or an alternative store (Fdroid, Amazon, etc).
Companies also exist to try to find items not sold on Amazon and list them on Amazon for a steep markup.
In both these cases they're hoping that customers either won't notice or won't care enough to order elsewhere due to "convince".
100 °C is still above the glass transition temp of most plastics, so be careful.
For STLs, each project has its own folder in a bigger STL folder. After doing this for ~7 years it's a mess. That said, I very rarely print something again a few months later. When I print the first part I generally know how many I'll need. I've been questioning my STL retention policy as of late. If I don't ever use them again, why keep so many?
For my designs, and remixed CAD designs, I rely on fusion 360's cloud storage. The search works well enough for me to find what I'm looking for without the need for further organization.
If I were to implement a folder structure, I would probably functional organize prints. Examples could be kids toys and their parts, gardening stuff, loudspeakers, robotics, etc.
I knew my way around a printer before building my Voron, but the act of building it from the ground up really helps get you back to the basics: these are really just CNC hot glue guns and the components are not very hard to modify and replace. It's easy to build up a layer of mistique, which leads to not wanting to tinker, when confronted with something new.
You don't have to pick up CAD skills to build a printer, but odds are you'll find an opportunity to design some parts or iterate on someone else's design.
I've been proficient at CAD for longer than I've had printers, but as you know printers make turning ideas into physical parts fairly easy. It took a little while for me to start printint jigs and functional prints, but once I transitioned from thinking "this annoys me" to "I bet I could design something to make this easier" I kept finding more and more opportunities to design things. To me, this matters a lot more than being proficient in CAD. I would say the same thing about programming - understanding where you want to go and why you want to get there can often be more important than writing the actual code.
I've been designing and printing things with my kids as long as they've been alive. At this point they take for granted that I'll be able to design and print something to either fix a broken toy or make something better. They're only 4 and 7, but they do like watching and "helping" me when I have CAD open. More importantly to me, they're also identifying opportunities to make something.
Good luck with your kid! I hope you're able to create an environment where their curiosity moves them in the direction of wanting to create things.
On the envelope side: printing is more forgiving of having too small an envelope than machining. Since printing is all about adding material you can usually split the thing you want to print into pieces. I still think it's worth considering it the usual 200mm^3 will be enough since splitting parts can be annoying.
Harbor freight is a good comparison to an ender. They're fit for purpose, have some cheap parts, and are a decent platform to modify from. They will work out of the box most of the time, but you'll find yourself wanting to improve them.
Printer bones are very replaceable, especially if you have a functioning printer. I printed my Voron parts on my old i3 clone. I've now used my Voron to print future parts for itself before tearing some of it down and modifying things. People do the same with enders. There's even an Ender variant that rebuilds the Ender with a lot of Voron design ideas.
The only thing to be aware of is ultimate cost. Yes, you can turn the ender into most anything over time. It could wind up costing more money and time doing this though. Ultimately, the decision on how far to take the modifications will be yours and you can choose whether or not you want to have a frankenprinter. You'll also learn a lot along the way going this route, which takes me back to my original question: what are your goals for this project?
IMO there are two things to consider. First: do you want FDM or SLA. You're trading resolution for build volume. If you're going to be making a lot of smaller things, SLA printers can offer more output since they print the same speed no matter how much of the build plate is occupied. Also consider the size of the things you'll print. In other words, how much build volume should you be looking for.
Second: are you seeking to tinker with the printer as a point of interest/engagement or are you simply looking for the printer to be a tool?
Off-the cuff list:
... There are tons of other options too
I suspect it's a different kind of stress. I waited tables for 5 years when I was younger. It took me nearly a decade before I stopped having the hopelessly in the weeds with a single table and now I'm suddenly naked dream.
I've worked corporate jobs ever since. I do not have reoccurring dreams about them, but the stress/frustration is a lot higher because it's less transactional in nature.
I think this really depends on the store. Our local Lowe's is very poorly run and organized. Good luck finding a flatbed cart that's not piled high with returns, fixtures, etc. There is stock waiting to on shelves piled in aisles gathering dust. Employees are few and far between. Our local home cheapo is the exact opposite.
You have my upvote, but it will be a different kind of hate.
OP sounds like they're coming from corporate America, where office politics and short sighted decisions reign supreme. To make matters worse, they work in IT and maybe even do some software development, where many companies continue to accumulate more and more technical debt.
I think that I wouldn't really enjoy going back to a retail job. My corporate job has much lower lows than what I used to experience in retail, but it does offer the possibility of higher highs with big/strategic/impactful decisions. But man, I've been chasing that carrot for a while now. It's almost like it's on the end of a stick that's attached to my back.
I think many assume there's more of a plan, or at least more structure, than there actually is. When you pick at it, or pull the single link keeping it all together, it tumbles down.