Off-Topic / Dumping Thread

[wierd_w]

The fancy PVC based filament arrived today.

 

My printer has some worn parts. ABS is too bitchy to get to print properly, PLA wears too fast, Nylon is not rigid enough, PETG does not want to stick, so I have abstained from making the parts I need for it.

 

Got the printer making said parts for itself with the new filament to try it out.  It has a somewhat narrow print temp window, but the insert in the roll says it DOES stick to PLA based bed treatment. (thumbs up!)

 

Sadly, it says it "Can release chlorine gas during printing, use in well ventilated area."  Guess I will have to open the upstairs windows and turn on some fans.  So far though, it prints quite nicely. Not sure why they call it a filament for advanced additive manufacturing.  Maybe it gets touchier as the build height increases?  So far, it prints a lot like nylon, but is not as bendy, and does not have the hygroscopic tendencies.

 

Time to go dig in the garden now though.  It can sit up here making parts for itself, and I can go get the yard read for my seedlings.

[HOME AUTOMATION]

Play Gaza(strip?)...

 

 

[+TheBF]

Completely off topic.  I just wanted to share this.  

 

[+mizapf]

This somewhat triggered a latent desire inside me for a bus ride with Sandra Bullock.

[wierd_w]

After exhausting my remnant supply of smurf-blue weed-eater filament a few days ago, I ordered 2 new 5lb spools.

 

Since the stuff is REALLY intended for, you know, CUTTING DOWN WEEDS, it is not packaged in anything even resembling a hermetically sealed bag-- (which basically all quality printer filaments are shipped in), so I need to dry the stuff.  Sadly, nylon is so hygroscopic, that it sucks up water out of the air up to 3% of its weight, and does so VERY fast. This means that long-duration print times (like those PEB enclosure shells), suffer terribly, even though nylon would be a nearly ideal material for them.

 

SO--

 

I have thrown together a super ghetto hot-box out of a cardboard icecream treat box (Great value variety pack of icecream treats is ideally sized to hold a hand-wrapped spool of the trimmer line!), that has a hole cut for filament to come out, and is getting actively roasted with a hair dryer on high.  The side of the box is open, with the filament roll on the roll holder (which has been pushed through a slot I cut in the side of the box), and the hair dryer is aimed into the box (several inches distant, because I do not want the dryer to overheat).  This seems to be giving "Sufficient" hot-box active drying while I print the actual subject of this post-- (Not really dry enough, but sufficient to not be completely just opaque blue fuzz. It has some fuzziness still though. It will probably get better over the duration of the print, since the box holds heat from the hair dryer, and gets actively circulated. A few hours into the print and it should clear up. I only have 2 days off, and used yesterday getting DHE's shells shipped. I want this thing printing ASAP.)

 

I have a rather large Oster brand food dehydrator that would be IDEAL for holding the mammoth sized spools this stuff comes on, and for functioning as a much safer hotbox active dryer for long prints. It is some 13.6" in diameter.  I have designed a set of custom shelves for the thing that will be capable of suspending and feeding the huge rolls this stuff comes on. I am making *FULL* use of the large print volume of this new chiron.

 

According to Cura, the printing process will take an ENTIRE week. 

 

If this works, I might print another set of the shelves, and send them to Arcade Shopper. (Actual drying units cost between 60$ and 300$, and do not have anywhere close to the capacity that this relatively inexpensive (30$) dehydrator has. Since I am printing the shelves out of nylon, they will have very good heat tolerance, so cranking that dehydrator up all the way wont hurt the new shelf. Having an active dryer could be helpful for his printing exploits.)

 

 

[+mizapf]

Just to be very clear about this. The left thing is a current M.2 SSD (1 TiB) which I just bought, the right one is a HD floppy disk (1.4 MiB).

 

Hence, the floppy disk fits almost 750'000 times into the M.2. The floppy disk is 3 mm high, 93 mm long, and 89 mm wide, which means 28.831 cm³. 750000 of them take up 20.7 m³, which means they could easily fill your bath room from floor to ceiling. (OK, I'll convert it: 731 cubic feet).

Edited April 22, 2021 by mizapf

[+OLD CS1]

I was today old when I learned the metric standard measure of "bathroom."

[Stuart]

3 hours ago, mizapf said:

Just to be very clear about this. The left thing is a current M.2 SSD (1 TiB) which I just bought, the right one is a HD floppy disk (1.4 MiB).

 

Hence, the floppy disk fits almost 750'000 times into the M.2. The floppy disk is 3 mm high, 93 mm long, and 89 mm wide, which means 28.831 cm³. 750000 of them take up 20.7 m³, which means they could easily fill your bath room from floor to ceiling. (OK, I'll convert it: 731 cubic feet).

You still need to relate the measurements to Olympic-sized swimming pools and double-decker buses.

 

[+mizapf]

The German most popular measurement relations are

 

- one football field (soccer field)

- one Saarland

 

(in fact, these comparisons appear so frequently that people start to make jokes about them)

Edited April 22, 2021 by mizapf

[+OLD CS1]

Kind-of like in the 'States with directions like "over yonder" and measurements like "yay big."

[jrhodes]

Speaking of odd measurements, i accidentally purchased the wrong tape measure lately.

This is what happens when the shelf stockers don't put things where they belong.

I just grabbed the first one on the rack and never thought anything of it, until i went to use it.

Turns out i purchased a "engineers scale" with 10th's and 100th's of foot.

I'll keep it, but it sure was not a intentional purchase.

 

Edited April 22, 2021 by jrhodes

[GDMike]

I just don't see people wanting to unsolder a 9900 to make a PiTIStorm

 

 

http://tech.webit.nu/pistorm-a-68000-cpu-replacement/

[HOME AUTOMATION]

[+OLD CS1]

3 hours ago, GDMike said:

I just don't see people wanting to unsolder a 9900 to make a PiTIStorm

 

 

http://tech.webit.nu/pistorm-a-68000-cpu-replacement/

I guess this is less expensive than a Vampire, but I would prefer to have the Vampire.

[RickyDean]

4 hours ago, GDMike said:

I just don't see people wanting to unsolder a 9900 to make a PiTIStorm

 

 

http://tech.webit.nu/pistorm-a-68000-cpu-replacement/

I have 20+ years ago unsold red and socketed, 2 or 3 9900's, still have the boards. Tedious with a solder sucker, but doable. A desoldering gun will probably make it easier

[oddemann]

I was reading, "Compute! Issue 036 1983 May" and looking at the listing for "Jumping Jack" and "Crosswords". And I started to think, what can be done today? Like a competition to remake a game. I guess that the two I was looking at is written by "amateur/sent in", so the skills might not be that good. Even do it is still the same computer, what could be done today, by someone? How much better could a game be made. Looking at the skills here, I am pretty sure it would be.

But the more extreme, what could be done by a team of skilled programmers.

Reading the "Compute!", there is like 3-4 years when the TI was presented, and then it disappeared. What would we have seen if there was given more time for people to get better at programming. I guess a lot if skills were lost with the discontinuing of the TI.

Looking at what people do today, TI never really got to stretched it's "wings", before it "crashed and burned". That is based on what I see here, and what is created.

[+OLD CS1]

Internet lock-out, 90s style, and its defeat.

 

 

 

[+TheBF]

On 4/22/2021 at 5:45 PM, OLD CS1 said:

Kind-of like in the 'States with directions like "over yonder" and measurements like "yay big."

Yonder was a nice word in middle English that we dropped for some reason. 

They had here for close by, there for a little farther and yonder when something was a distance away.

 

It is in the old Christmas song Good King Wenceslas. "Yonder peasant who it he?

 

[atrax27407]

Still used in the South

[+OLD CS1]

19 minutes ago, TheBF said:

Yonder was a nice word in middle English that we dropped for some reason.

Hoity-toity Yankees might have dropped it...

[wierd_w]

Well, I have been playing with that red trimmer line...

 

It's practically a whole other kind of filament, the way it prints. O.o

 

It is definitely stiffer/harder than the blue.  Needs to have very hot bed, and very hot extruder (printed very slowly) to work right.  It is actually "Transparent Red", and is "Cinnamon disc" colored.

 

 

I think I like the blue better, even though it warps more.

 

 

Edited May 5, 2021 by wierd_w

[digdugnate]

On 5/3/2021 at 8:22 AM, OLD CS1 said:

Internet lock-out, 90s style, and its defeat.

 

 

 

that reminds me of those combination lock-style locks for the NES and similar.  Nothin will punish your kid like bolting their Nintendo!

[blackbox]

40th Anniversary and a bit....  my first TI99 publication was in March 1981  (Tidings Issue 2) - 40 years and a few weeks back.
And here I am making plans on buying another TI99/4a console and another FG99 module- and the last issue of TI*MES last December had articles by me... 

 

[wierd_w]

Apparently the chiron is not made for heavy duty use:

 

Earlier last night, when I went to start up the next run of shells with modified slicer settings (increased flow by 5%, and a few other things), I noted that it had a hardware failure and E-stopped itself. after making a tiny amount of extrusion on the buildplate. 

 

Investigation showed that the build plate was not heating-- Further investigation showed a hard short between the build plate power wires had resulted in the wires burning in half. This was very near a pinch-point on the wire, which the manufacturer had installed as cable management.

 

I grabbed some heat shrink from my drawer, cut a section of suitable gauge speaker wire (Do not have proper black insulation wire, but copper wire of the right gauge is copper wire of the right gauge.) and whipped out the soldering iron.. Some ugly work later, and it seems to be printing again.

 

Still--- Will watch it more closely from now on.

[HOME AUTOMATION]

I guess it's no secret that I've been looking to relocate for over a year now...

I may have finally found something that suits my eclectic tastes...

 

 

https://sanantonio.craigslist.org/apa/d/boerne-nice-shed/7315048797.html

 

...It would be precious, if I can get a hose!?