Bluewing
@Bluewing@lemmy.world
- Comment on Tesla sales plunge 40% in Europe as Chinese EV rival BYD's triple 16 hours ago:
That was for show. And not to fix the underlying problems. If he cared, he would actually find and fix the problems.
- Comment on Upgrading from Bambu Lab A1 Mini 17 hours ago:
First, leave the mini on the current firmware if you enjoy using Orca. Mine is locked to 1.04 and on LAN.
I’m a Prusa fan boy, so I would recommend the Core 1. If I was starting over, that’s what I would buy. But there a some other good choices out there.
Qidi often gets over looked, They have the Plus 4 and now the Q2 both can be used with the Qidi box, their ams knockoff.
The Elegoo Centari Carbon has been more good than bad it seems, but it seems there have been complaints about the klipper version it runs is locked so vanilla klipper won’t run on it. And Elegoo won’t release the open source parts of the code to allow it. YMMV
The new Snapmaker is interesting, but I would be wary until it gets out into the wild and the great unwashed masses start breaking it before I would invest.
Crealty has upped their game, but I’m personally still wary.
- Comment on 18 hours ago:
Ordinary people know what Linux is, they just don’t care about. So the effect is the pretty much the same, but for different reasons.
- Comment on Tesla sales plunge 40% in Europe as Chinese EV rival BYD's triple 18 hours ago:
I don’t think Musk much cares or ever did. The goal was to milk tesla for every last dime.
- Comment on The Browser Wasn’t Enough, Google Wants To Control All Your Software 18 hours ago:
I spent a mere $500 for my Pixel 9a. Most expensive phone I’ve ever owned. But at least I can send a text message from inside my house and make phones from out in my yard now.
- Comment on Bambu Lab announces the Vortek H2C, an automatic nozzle-changing version of the H2D 1 day ago:
2 mouse clicks and I can tell the slicer what filament and color is where on my AMS lite. If you are running a print farm and swapping filaments constantly, that’s maybe one thing. But I have 2 printers, only one of which is a Bambu. And the one spool of Bambu filament I bought demonstrated very clearly to me that the RFID tag is not worth any money to me.
- Comment on Bambu Lab announces the Vortek H2C, an automatic nozzle-changing version of the H2D 1 day ago:
I’m not hung up on any one brand. I’ve been doing this long enough to know I can make any cheap filament print well. I watch for sales and I can easily save $5 or more per kilo without needing to buy 10 or more kilos at time. I have 4 kilos of AnyCubic filament I just payed $10 per kilo for. So, yes Bambu filament costs a lot more for no better quality.
Unlike many here, I’m super big on inventory management. Storing large amounts of materials that I have no real immediate use for costs money. Money I can use elsewhere to better effect. Right now, discounting the spools hanging for my Bambu Mini and Prusa Mk3s, I have 6 kilos of new unopened and a few partials that are getting used up.
- Comment on Framework unveils a second-generation Framework Laptop 16 with a swappable Nvidia RTX 5070 GPU, an industry first, shipping in November 2025 1 day ago:
It’s getting harder and harder to afford high end computers. I have already decided my next new computer will be a mini desktop. They are noticeably cheaper, can be well spec’ed, and powerful with a small foot print.
- Comment on Bambu Lab announces the Vortek H2C, an automatic nozzle-changing version of the H2D 1 day ago:
My opinion is these printers are aimed a lot more at print farms and other businesses that use 3D printing than the average consumer/hobbyist. And the pricing will reflect that. I think that the X series printers get faded and Bambu keeps the A and P Series printers. The A series for beginners and the cheap bastids like me. The P series then becomes the flagship consumer models. While the H series is the prosumer market. The nozzle swapper is aimed at the heart of print farms where every milligram of waste is money lost.
I’m quite sure Bambu has all the patents locked up and it’s going to be a good while before we will other printers with similar technology.
- Comment on Bambu Lab announces the Vortek H2C, an automatic nozzle-changing version of the H2D 2 days ago:
I still have my Mk3s too. But, there was a a harder learning curve to getting a quality print from that Mk3s than there is to the Mini/AMS combo I have next to it. And casuals want that ease of use. Just unbox, plug it in hang a spool of Bambu branded filament with RFID then slice and print.
Like it or not, few people want to spent time running calibration models and temp towers. Raging against the sea is a losing battle.
- Comment on Bambu Lab announces the Vortek H2C, an automatic nozzle-changing version of the H2D 2 days ago:
Build plates are just sheet steel with a coating. And Bambu filament is just Sunlu with an RFID tag that isn’t worth the extra cost.
- Comment on Bambu Lab announces the Vortek H2C, an automatic nozzle-changing version of the H2D 2 days ago:
Yep. Bambu has done a lot for the perception of 3D printing in the main stream. They offer good hardware with ease of use that didn’t exist until they appeared. And at a decent price for casual hobbyists/users whether the pure haters like it or not.
***Full disclosure: I own a Mini with AMS Lite and a Prusa Mk3s. My take on Bambu is, “Good hardware with not always very good software and sketchy business practices.” YMMV
- Comment on Bambu Lab announces the Vortek H2C, an automatic nozzle-changing version of the H2D 2 days ago:
Be aware that old Joe Prusa even says that open source printing is dead at this point.
So I would expect to see even Prusa locking their new ideas away behind patents.
- Comment on Bambu Lab announces the Vortek H2C, an automatic nozzle-changing version of the H2D 2 days ago:
From what I read, it’s supposed to have only the one hotend. But perhaps I misread.
The swap-able nozzles are a clever idea. And does have it’s advantages of tool changers. And despite the in house testing Bambu has done, it will be interesting to see what happens when you turn such and unproven system loose on all the knuckle dragging, hoof handed, club footed, thumb fingered masses of the world.
But I suspect the price puts it out of the range of most hobbyists. Much like the Prusa XL, this is perhaps aimed at print farms more than the hobbyist.
- Comment on Framework unveils a second-generation Framework Laptop 16 with a swappable Nvidia RTX 5070 GPU, an industry first, shipping in November 2025 2 days ago:
Now if I could only afford a Framework…
- Comment on Not stealing 3 days ago:
So the poor others should do the breeding while the wealthy limit their offspring to preserve more wealth for themselves?
- Comment on Not stealing 3 days ago:
Being poor has very little to with having children. The poor across the world have more children than the wealthy.
- Comment on Not stealing 3 days ago:
Yep. My Wife and I raised 4 Daughters. Each one was their own type of terror and mayhem and need to be handled differently. No toddler needs to have a choice in anything. Their minds aren’t ready for that. But by the time they hit 4 or 5, they can handle limited choices pretty well. And they only get better after that.
- Comment on What are the most useful things you've printed? 4 days ago:
The single most useful print is just a simple cylinder to repair a broken knob on a nearly brand new kitchen stove. A new knob cost $35 at the time and had a 2 month lead time from the factory, (it was during the covid lock down).
It took longer to turn on my computer and start up my CAD program than it did to design the repair part for the knob. 30 minutes later, I had the sleeve printed and super glued over the broken part and the knob reinstalled on the stove.
That’s been 7 years ago, the repaired knob is still there and in use daily. And one more knob got the same treatment. It probably took less than 10 cents of PLA and electricity for both repairs.
- Comment on YOU HAVE NO POWER HERE 1 week ago:
Ain’t none of them there wanna be ‘high speed, low drag operators’ would be caught dead with a carry handle on them cheap ARs. They want to festoon them with rails to mount all the bling they think they need. A carry handle would only get in the way.
They have taken what was meant to a lightweight 6 1/2lbs handy little carbine and turned it into a 10lbs+ monstrosity.
- Comment on YOU HAVE NO POWER HERE 1 week ago:
The ones I know spend more on those optics than they spent on the rifle.
- Comment on i just think they're neat 1 week ago:
There is always risk in any medical procedure. Or sexy time fun…
- Comment on Remember to dry your filament kids 1 week ago:
I know. As an old toolmaker that managed a few shop floors, inventory management is something I practice with a vengeance.
- Comment on Remember to dry your filament kids 1 week ago:
Only in your mind.
I do dry the TPU I have when I use it, simply because I don’t use it much. I’ve had my spool of TPU for a couple of years now. And I might drag it out a couple of times a year. So, it gets dried.
PETG I dry as needed when it demonstrates the need. But if it shows the need, I do dry it. A few hairs on a finished print don’t really bother me much. But I’m not really into printing knickknacks. As long as the part is fit for purpose. Again, if you need to dry your filament to within an inch of it’s life every time you use it, you either live in a rain forest or need to do better with calibration.
And the longer I do 3D printing the more I find that if I spend a moment of thought about the materials I might choose and the expected longevity of the item, the more I realize that those things I might have chosen ABS/PETG can just as easily be done PLA without the need for extra effort. And I still get the expected function and longevity I need.
- Comment on Remember to dry your filament kids 1 week ago:
I agree with you about PLA, I have never dried a single gram of the stuff and I’ve got open spools being stored on a bathroom closet shelf for several years now. I’m more worried about the spools simply aging out than moisture.
PETG is more location dependent. If you live somewhere with higher humidity levels, you will need to be more careful about storage and use. My personal habit is that I take a spool of PETG out, run a quick test print and then decide if I need to dry it or not. It’s about a 50/50 thing. And for the practical things I make, a bit of stringing isn’t a big deal unless I decide the aesthetics really matter.
Marketing has really sold the idea that everyone needs multiple specialized driers, (that don’t really work nearly as well as a cheap food dehydrator for actual drying). And if you don’t spend all that money on those things from driers to special vacuum storage bags and desiccants, you simply can’t print anything.
- Comment on Remember to dry your filament kids 1 week ago:
You get kind of a pastel looking results. It really wasn’t worth the effort in the long run.
- Comment on Remember to dry your filament kids 1 week ago:
I see a bit of under extrusion and retraction and wipe issues and possibly even coasting issues.
Remember Kiddies: Unless you are printing some of the fancy engineering filaments or you live in a rain forest, it’s not always “the filament is wet.” Let the filament tell you it needs to be dried. If your printer needs to have PLA and to a lessor extent PETG dried to within an inch of it’s life every time to get a good clean print, then your printer calibration probably sucks. Do some filament calibration tests and get your printer right first.
But that takes learning and effort.
- Comment on Remember to dry your filament kids 1 week ago:
You can also go full caveman and setup magic markers to “paint” a single color filament as it passes by heading into the extruder. I did that a time or two back in the day before multi color filaments and it works OK.
- Comment on Calibrating my E-steps ended up giving me nearly pixel-perfect prints (Creality K1) 1 week ago:
Yeah, checking your e-steps is important for many printer brands and models as you found out. But if you want the best in calibration for your printer, use. If you follow the steps correctly and in order, you will get as close to perfect as you can get. And the reading in each step tells you the why.
- Comment on LibreOffice is right about Microsoft, and it matters more than you think. 1 week ago:
I’mma just going to sit over here in the corner with my AbbiWord and Gnumeric…