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Lemmings don't see the cliff either...

3/28/2020

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It's pretty unbelievable how poorly prepared we are for Coronavirus (or any health emergency for that matter).  Setting aside the testing problems, which is partly due to reliance on various components and chemicals which would have needed to be stockpiled well ahead of the flood, the lack of basic equipment which would apply to any public health emergency - masks, personal protective equipment and the various consumables required to allow our health system to function in an emergency - is unforgivable.  It is also an unfortunate feature of our system.

We live in the "just in time" era, when companies like Amazon have nearly perfected the science of keeping goods in constant motion from the time they drop off the assembly line, to when they arrive at the customer's door.  State governments have shed responsibilities to the private sector, have trimmed budgets to the bone, government departments normally operate below full staffing levels, and the result is we have reduced services which bring home the point that Government does not work.  It's a cycle perpetuated when we elect people that do not value what good the government can do, and then we are surprised (or not) that it fails us when we need it.  We will hopefully learn from this, and be better prepared for the next time, but it is too late now to "prepare".

We need to repair, and that will take more than the ungodly sum of 2 trillion dollars - a package seeded with many handouts to the wealthy as well as a potential disincentive for people to even try to participate in what is left of the economy (though something had to be done for them since unemployment benefits are dismal in many states).  To fix this we need, firstly, leadership which we can trust, which takes the crisis seriously and understands at least, how to find a way out.  Since we do not have that, the way will be found the same way you find a light switch in the dark, by fumbling around until you find a wall or something familiar, then carefully feeling your way to the switch, while trying not to jam a toe or trip.  The path we are forced onto is going to cost many more lives than if we had a realistic, clear and unifying direction which we could all begin to work to, but it's what we got.  It won't help in the near term that many of us still value evidence based facts more cheaply than our personal truths, but as this goes on, even the "dipshits" will hopefully get with the program.

Barring a breakthrough, its seems likely that we won't see "normal" for months.  With luck, the normal we create after this is all over, will be a break from the old normal which got us into this mess.  By then, we will truly need to Make America Great Again, and hopefully we will recognize that cannot be done without the efforts, contribution and shared rewards for All Americans.  Thats a big hope, but this is a big problem, with big stakes that will probably be bigger next time.  We may only get one mulligan.   

With apologies to lemmings (which don't actually run themselves off cliffs - unless chased by a sadistic mouse).
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Price Gouging and Something Nice for a Change

3/24/2020

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One of the most interesting national disgraces this past week is the fact that people have decided to make toilet paper scarce.  As if people did not have enough to worry about, they now have to spend time and money to locate an essential item that most people need daily, and if they can't find it, it is very likely they will use whatever is at hand - and I am not talking about oak leaves.  So to compound the problems of the Coronavirus in general, all the not-toilet paper which gets flushed could wreak havoc with municipal treatment systems, and for what?  It's not like people started pooping five times more often.

I know that general hoarding is probably the biggest reason for the problem, but the of selling toilet paper on Ebay at 5 or 10x markups is the most egregious.  I'm sure the sellers feel like true heroes of Capitalism, but in truth, they are doing it no favors.  So it's good to see that some stores are cracking down, but it's probably not very effective right now.  It does not take more than browsing the first page of listings for toilet paper on Ebay to find examples of gouging.  

Although it 's a pretty limp response from a platform that should be able to automatically figure out when people are gouging on items like masks, hand sanitizer, and toilet paper, rather than leaning on users to do it for them... price gouging on ebay can be reported at the link below.  I don't recall being able to report sellers earlier this week for price gouging (seeing a 4 pack going for $30 plus shipping made me curious), so I think this may be a new thing:

www.ebay.com/help/policies/prohibited-restricted-items/disaster-tragedy-policy?id=5051

In order to report an item, you need to first browse the item, and then when you go to the link, it will show an image from last several items browsed (with the most recent one on the left side).  When you click the pic of the item to report, you will get directed to the next page with the the item listing name, and the item number (but no description or price).  Then just select the item and report it by selecting "price gouging" for the first two pull down boxes, and then select the last box which describes what type of item it is (for TP it would be hygiene items).  

And if you actually got ripped off or just feel like turning things up to 11, many states have price gouging laws which may apply.

consumer.findlaw.com/consumer-transactions/price-gouging-laws-by-state.html

The sheer stupidity of the great toilet paper gold rush of 2020 will hopefully stop soon.  It's a side show, and just adds more grief to people's lives in a time when people are already losing jobs, risking their lives to make a buck or trying to care for vulnerable family members - or trying to care for all of us.  

And now for some good news, I saw this yesterday - Harbor Freight is donating it's entire stock of n95 masks and PPE to hospitals that need them most:

https://www.nj.com/business/2020/03/harbor-freight-stores-donating-all-masks-and-gloves-to-help-fight-coronavirus.html

Although I have had a 3.5 star experience with items from Harbor Freight over the years, this just bumped them up to five stars in my mind.
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A Couple New HeadPhone Holders On The Way (maybe)

3/6/2020

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I have been a bit obsessed with making things to clip on my cubicle at work lately.  All the things fit on Haworth Compose cubes which have a thin flat top plate.  It started when I saw a design a co-worker made to clip over the cube wall, and then a light went off.  I redesigned it to clip more securely, and then it was all down hill from there.  I've made some hooks, a poster and whiteboard holder, a hand sanitizer holder and lately I've been working on a few different headphone holder designs.

I wasn't really happy with the headphone holder though.  It has been working well, but I wanted something simper (to use).  The current iteration is shown below.  It uses a spring from a ball point pen that pushes a claw which engages on the geared edge of the cable reel.  The idea is to lock it in place when it is coiled up, so it does not get loose, but it should be easy enough to turn that it can be spun to reel it up with a finger or two.  I have still gotta test it, but I printed the parts of the claw and spring holder and that all works.  If it all goes well (and it never does), it should be posted this week or next.

Update: here they are:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4202518
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4215219
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I'm also gonna post a version that can be mounted on a wall:
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3D Touch Setup on an Ender3 Pro

3/6/2020

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I hooked up a 3D Touch to a co-worker's Ender3 Pro (with the 1.1.3 board) and thought it would be a good idea to add some links here to helpful videos and sites.

A quick overview though.  The Ender3 and Ender3 Pro have a board that requires a bootloader.  The simplest way to do that (for me) is to use an arduino.  After the bootloader, the software is installed (Marlin or in this case TH3D - which is a fork of Marlin).  Then the 3Dtouch was wired up and installed.

I've done this a few times already but it has been a while, so I sought out some videos, and found these covered it very well (none of these are mine, but I found them helpful):
And this video from TH3D which goes over the whole setup for a bootloader.
If that is too long, well the basics are:
  • Set up the Arduino as an ISP
  • Make sure the Ender3 is unplugged and powered off - the update process is done without power to the printer.
  • Connect the Arduino ISP to the Ender3 ISP header (connections are one to one, except for reset which goes from the ISP reset on the Ender3 to pin 10 on the Arduino.  It helps to have the Arduino and the Ender3 Boards positioned as they are in the above video from TH3D here.  Watch the videos above if you are not sure about anything though, they cover everything.
  • Double check everything before powering up the Arduino (which will power the Ender3 board).
  • Make sure you have the Sanguino third party hardware add-on installed (https://github.com/Lauszus/sanguino) and to install it see here.
  • Watch this to make sure you have the correct settings in your Arduino IDE youtu.be/U9MGIlQgzkg?t=460
  • Then just upload the code.
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The next part is installing the 3DTouch.  I won't go over the software side, but if using TH3D, you can use their configurator tool here which should help with the setup.

The following video from 3D Printing Canada is a very good overview of setting up a BLTouch probe on the Ender3 (3D touch is the same basic setup).  Note however the 3D Touch has slightly different wire colors.

Brown = GROUND
Red = +5V
Orange = Signal


The Black and White wires remain the same as the Bl-Touch.

A couple tips though.

- Use good quality wire, I used some silicone 22 AWG UL3132 wire to make the harness and added some latching connectors to replace the duponts on the probe end. 
- Additionally, on the board side, I soldered the signal (orange) wire to the cable connector for the display (rather than just adding a connector),
- I soldered what I am pretty sure was a "JST xH" connector to the black and white wires (pay attention to polarity it matters on this).  I salvaged the JST connector from an old 2 pin fan. 
- The other pins were just wired up with duponts on the board side and I dabbed some hot glue on all the board side connectors but did not get it all over the ISP header. 

Again it pays to double and triple check connections before applying power and closing up the control box.

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I also added a cable protector while I had the printer control box opened.  This is I feel necessary since Creality cut a pass through for the cables though the aluminum extrusion which has some very sharp edges.  I designed a protector for the ender3 some time ago and just uploaded one for the Ender3 Pro as well, you can find them on thingiverse.

Ender3 Pro Cable Pass Through Protector

Ender3 Cable Pass Through Protector

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One final note, I gave the printer back after upgrading the software and getting the 3DTouch working, however I did not test it with an autolevel or print due to time constraints.  I was told however that the probe will home, and autolevel without a problem, but that the probe drops once it begins printing.  I suspect that the problem is due to the probe needing to be re-magnetized, or possibly the grub screw needs to be adjusted.  If that is necessary, the following video from Crosslink on YouTube, has tips on how to resolve it:
Update - I forgot to update this before, but I was able to work on the printer shortly after the last post and get it working.  I tried re-magnetizing the grub screw, adjusting the grub and finally tried trimming the heat shrink which holes the magnetic bead to the pin.  Unfortunately I must have trimmed too much and messed it up, but I am pretty sure it was the problem I just too off twice what was needed.  Fortunately however, I had a spare probe at home which I just stole the pin from and swapped it into the one with the problem, and that did the trick.  Most of the time it should be problem free, but seems that some of the QA is not the best on the clones (however I have had 6 of the 3D Touch probes and only had the problem with one).  For what they cost ($10 on Ebay), it's worth getting a spare since once you have one, you will not want to print without it. 

Updated 5/12/2022
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    Stoopid Me

    Welcome to my Stoopid corner of teh Internet.  It's mostly gonna be 3D printing stuff, but I also post some recipes, projects, and the occasional rant here as well.  More Stoopid stuff is updated regularly.

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