I find that being able to sketch up things I need in CAD and then print them is both cool and really useful. It’s the main reason I bought a printer in the first place. Thus far I’ve tried out FreeCAD, Solid Edge, and Blender. With any modeling package, you will have to dedicate time on a regular basis to really get used to them. FreeCAD is certainly nice for the fact it’s free, just as it implies. I used it to design a few parts that were functional. It works, has some useful workbenches and add-ons. My problems were the software having bugs that caused models to break when trying to make changes, and available training info was often outdated. Siemens offers a free version of Solid Edge to makers, which is really nice, even with some of the advanced features turned off. It’s a much more polished program with great training resources. You can only export designs as stl files, but that’s fine for 3d printing. Solid Edge will slice and print, but I always import files into Orca and go from there. Blender looks really amazing for modeling, but I admit I haven’t spent enough time learning it yet. You can use it to manipulate meshes, which is useful for customizing and fixing models. I’ve used it to Frankenstein together different models for custom prints I wanted. But yeah, while you don’t have to learn to use modeling software to do prints, it opens up so many options for you to be creative. I think it’s worth while.

Also called Bitrex, that stuff does leave an awful taste. Gets used as a denaturant in ethanol to keep people from drinking it. Company I worked at long ago had a stock of it, and our lab had to requalify it for use every 2 years. As careful as we were keeping it contained, it had a way of spreading everywhere. For the next two days everyone who worked in the area would randomly get that awful taste I their mouth.

I’m running Newpipe through Proton VPN, working as of today.

I was really enjoying this game for a couple weeks, and plan to go back to it after it gets a few updates. Just started to get Ground Hog’s Day fatigue after a while. The same critters keep spawning in the same places, over and over again. Gets tedious after a while. Had the same problem playing Small Land. Love the exploring and all, but monotonous critter spawns. Hoping they’ll implement some randomness once they develop the game more.

I’m going to make the assumption that is PETG you are working with. I had cobwebs like that when I tried moving over from doing PLA. There were a few things I had to work out to get better prints.

1. Slow down the print speed and work up once you get acceptable prints. Try 40 to 50mm/s to start.
2. Increase filament retraction. Default I think is like 0.2mm, try 1.0mm instead.
3. Increase the travel speed. I’ve used 350mm/s, which helps break strings, as someone else already suggested.
4. Drop the extruder temperature. PETG gets more stringy as it gets hotter. Lower temp may help, and if you aren’t trying to print at warp speed, bonding should still be good. Do small test prints to see where your cutoff is. Also, if the cooling fan on that Sovol is a bit anemic then printing cooler lets each layer solidify before the next one gets added. Hopefully you get things worked out, good luck.

Saw the question and thought of exactly this video. Great skit.

Commodore basic on the PET computer, back around 1981-1983. My grade school had three of them in the library, and since my mom was a teacher, she would sign one out for summer break and bring it home if any were available.

Fluffy death from above!

I still have a spindle of Lightscribe cd’s around the house somewhere…

The Dirtbag Diaries, The Moth, This American Life

None of these are programming related. I think quite a few people know about the last two, but Dirtbag Diaries probably less so. If you enjoy the outdoors, hiking, climbing, biking, whatever, it’s worth checking out.

Bro Hymn by Pennywise is playing right now. Listening to the punk channel on XM.

The NRA has a bloody hand in promoting this culture. Decades of escalating fearmongering brought them members, money, and political influence. It also took them far off course from their original goals promoting safety and responsibility. They now exist solely to promote more firearms sales at any cost, and actively push legislation against any attempts to regulate ownership. I enjoy going to the range once in a while to do some target shooting, and used to hunt years ago, but will never be a NRA member. I have no respect for this organization and what they’ve become.

I’d call her Siouxsie Sioux

Thanks, I’ll look for a copy.

Logo. 🐢

Yeah, not really a programmer. Logo and Basic were pretty much the extent of my learning as a kid back in the early 80’s. Wouldn’t mind getting into python if I had some spare time. Keep coming across stuff where being able to do python scripting would be useful.

I’ve really like the Overture PLA Plus that I’ve used so far. Makes nice prints with fine details. Threads on a support stand screw came out much better I expected. Using an Ender 3 S1 Pro with the 0.4mm tip. Just got a roll of Polymaker PLA Pro in the mail today actually, hoping I have time to try it this weekend. Expecting good things from it.

I set on Lemmy.zip during the blackout protest on Reddit, and haven’t gone back to it. Don’t miss it. Lemmy has grown a lot in the past few months. It’s only a fraction of the Reddit userbase size, but steadily filling out and getting better.