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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)S

squaresinger

@ squaresinger @lemmy.world

Posts
4
Comments
1452
Joined
1 yr. ago

  • Removed

    Mark Zuckerberg gifted noise-canceling headphones to his Palo Alto neighbors | Fortune

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  • Add to that that some major instances have disabled downvoting, which actively disables people's ability to filter stuff like that by voting.

  • How AI broke the smart home in 2025

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  • When you know which xkcd it is before you click it...

  • Prusa MINI+ has been around for years — upgrade it or buy something new?

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  • Same here. I really should spend a few hours to finalize the tuning, but it prints ok enough that it's not really worth doing it.

  • Prusa MINI+ has been around for years — upgrade it or buy something new?

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  • Yeah, fair, I just wanted to make sure nobody has wrong expectations. Back when the Prusa Mini was new, off-the-shelf printers were much worse than they are today, and DIYing a printer could actually be a good deal if the goal was to have a good printer (and not specifically something to tinker with).

    Nowadays, if you DIY a printer it's going to be more expensive while performing worse than an off-the-shelf printer.

  • Prusa MINI+ has been around for years — upgrade it or buy something new?

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  • There's not a lot left from the original Ender 5.

    I kept the frame and the steppers, belts and lead screw.

    The wheel are replaced by MGN rails. The mainboard is now an Octopus v1.1. The print head is replaced with an E3D toolchanger with E3D v6 hotends, direct driven with TBG-Lite extruders. The toolchanger does bed levelling with a simple endstop mounted to the toolchanger in a way that it can reach the bed if all tools are parked.

    The only remaining hardware issue is that I'd like to have a second Z motor.

    I don't really consider my printer an Ender 5. It's more of a Ender-of-Theseus. It's basically a DIY design built on top of an existing frame.

    But the real issue is software tuning. It's just so complicated and time intensive to tune all the dozens of parameters (speed, acceleration, linear advance, retraction, input shaping, auto bed levelling, tool offsets, ...).

    Modern budget printers like the A1 are so amazingly good that matching their out-of-the-box performance and calibration takes a huge amount of time if it even is possible.

    I easily spent 100+h reconstructing and tuning my printer, troubleshooting problems so obscure that I couldn't find anyone on the internet who talked about them before. Been working on this printer for about 4 years or so.

    And the other day a friend of mine who received his A1 a week ago shows me the perfect quality multicolor prints that his cheapo A1 did after half an hour or so of setup.

  • Prusa MINI+ has been around for years — upgrade it or buy something new?

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  • Tbh, by now I would recommend against DIYing a printer.

    I spent so much time on my fully-modified Ender 5 and it still doesn't print nearly as well or fast as a cheapo A1 Mini.

  • Did that picture just move?

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  • In panel 4 I first thought the woman has her hand up the cat's rear.

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    Permanently Deleted

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  • You got it the wrong way round. 100 years ago, people were having kids precisely because they were broke.

    100 years ago, if you had kids you had to feed them for 5-7 years and then they'd be adding to the family income. They'd be working the fields or the mines or in factories or any other job like that.

    And when you got old, the only thing standing between you and dieing from being worked to death in the poor house was having kids that would take you in and support you.

    Today the math is flipped on its head: You have to support your kids until at least 18, more likely 25 or 30 until they make it through education. Then they don't contribute to your household income at all because they have their own household. And when you are old you get retirement benefits and live off the work of everyone else's children too.

    So 100 years ago, if you didn't care about children and were broke, math told you to have kids.

    Today, if you don't care about children (no matter if you are broke), math tells you to not have kids.

    Simple as that.

    And since these changes happened gradually and society adapts its standards slowly, it's been a gradual shift.

  • Explained: Why you can't move Windows 11 taskbar like Windows 10, according to Microsoft

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  • Doesn't change the fact that they are in charge of dictating the choice of OS.

  • Explained: Why you can't move Windows 11 taskbar like Windows 10, according to Microsoft

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  • Until you accidentally delete the taskbar panel.

  • Got my first printer, what else do I need? Any tips on setup?

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  • On the one hand, yes, prints do age, on the other hand, the mechanical requirements for filament during printing are much more intense than on a finished part. So usually, unless they have to constantly resist mechanical load, UV or flowing water, printed parts usually last much longer.

    The issue with filament is that it's a rather thin strand of plastic that's pulled with a lot of force, that's being bent out of shape (by being unrolled) and then heated to 200+°C.

    The kind of bending and pulling that filament has to survive by unrolling it from the spool is rare for finished prints, and melting in a way that it still sticks to a new layer afterward isn't easy on the material either.

    Some filaments (e.g. PETG, TPU/TPE, Nylon) are hygroscopic, so they draw water from the air. In a finished print that's usually not a problem, but during printing it is, because when the water in the filament hits the hotend it's instantly (and rather violently) turned into steam, which leaves small air bubbles in the extruded plastic like miniature swiss cheese. That causes stringing, bad layer adhesion and brittle and ugly prints.

    You can still print old filament. You can dry hygroscopic filaments to get them better. But old filament will lead to weak and often ugly prints. The other day I printed with 4yo Silk PLA. It did complete the print, but there were multiple areas where the layers didn't adhere and you could just pull the layers apart with very little force.

    Some old filaments (especially PLA) become brittle like spaghetti. You try to unroll them and they just snap. Sometimes it's only the outer layer, so you crack away a few rounds of spool until you end up on a deeper layer and find filament that still works.

    So the 1-2 years isn't a hard limit but a good guideline. No need to toss old filament that still works. You can still use old and bad filament for test prints or other garbage prints that don't need quality.

    But you should in general plan to consume your filaments within 1-2 years and not overbuy so that you are left with a ton of aging filament.

    And to answer the original question: I have printed parts that are 8 years old and are still in good condition.

  • Got my first printer, what else do I need? Any tips on setup?

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  • Ah, gotcha :)

  • Got my first printer, what else do I need? Any tips on setup?

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  • Hey, if the wife supports the 3D printing hobby, I think that's worth printing a bit of garbage.

  • Mr. and Mrs. P’s Holiday Stroll

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  • Remember when people made fun of China for the social credit thing that turned out to be fake news?

  • Got my first printer, what else do I need? Any tips on setup?

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  • I stopped printing toys. They kids loved to watch them being printed, but they are usually not fun to play. Single-color, low detail, low durability, really not what you want for kids toys.

    They usually play with a print for a few minutes and then toss it into their box of toys, never to be played with again. It's a waste of plastic. It's literally printing junk.

  • Got my first printer, what else do I need? Any tips on setup?

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  • The main issue with wet filament is that the water in the filament meets a 200+°C hotend when printing. It then quickly turns into steam, which you hear as a popping sound while printing.

    This then causes little holes in the extruded filament where the water steamed up. Looks like miniature swiss cheese. This causes all sorts of trouble. The print becomes brittle and weak, almost foam-like, and can be broken by applying little force. Layer adhesion and first layer adhesion will be much worse. It often causes lots of stringing.

    It's usually not an issue for PLA (unless you have really high relative air humidity), but it's a big issue for PETG, TPU and Nylon.

    If you print any of these filaments, you really should get a heated filament dryer.

  • Got my first printer, what else do I need? Any tips on setup?

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  • In terms of physical things:

    • Printer
    • A roll of PLA (take it easy with buying filament. First figure out how much you will print, only then stock up in filament. Filament has a shelf life of 1-2 years depending on the type. Don't buy too much or you might have to toss it. You can always buy more. Also, first master PLA, then get into other filaments.)
    • A bottle of Isopropyl Alcohol (perfect print bed degreaser, makes your prints stick nicely to the print bed during printing)
    • Pliers/tweezers/cutter knife to remove support and for simple post-processing

    If you go more advanced (don't do that in the beginning:

    • Filament dryer (required for PETG, TPU and some other filaments, usually not required for PLA)
    • First PETG, then TPU, then after filaments if you need them. I print since 2017 and PLA, PETG, TPU have been all I needed.
    • Hot air soldering station (awesome tool for post-processing)

    Software side:

    • A slicer is a must. If there's one that your printer's manual recommends, get that one for the start. Otherwise get PrusaSlicer or Cura.
    • 3D editing software or CAD software are required to DIY your own models, but there's tons of models already available on the internet (checkout www.yeggi.com, it's a 3D model search engine), so that's not required in the beginning.

    Btw, filament doesn't need to be from your printer manufacturer. There's lots of different manufacturers for filament. Just make sure the diameter is correct (usually 1.75mm) and that you shop for a material that's compatible with your printer (PLA, PETG works on all printers; TPU/TPE requires a direct drive extruder which most printers have nowadays; ABS/Nylon requires an all-metal-hotend that can go over 260°C and an enclosure; Carbon-filled filaments require a hardened nozzle).

    I personally like spectrumfilaments.com a lot if you are from Europe.

  • You can pry pattern matching from my cold dead hands

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  • Yeah, that's the second option.

  • Free software has some glib naming conventions

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