RE's New Capitalist Venture

[RE]

I am progressing along well with my new project which has been keeping me pretty bizzy since around mid-summer when I first came up with the idea.  If you were watching the vids I made at the AK State Fair, I mentioned it in one of them.

Big Newz for this week is I made my first "big" CapEx, which is a 3D Printer.  Up until now I have been doing all my prototype modeling the old fashioned way, utilizing balsa wood, cardboard, straws, pipe cleaners, chicken wire, popsicle stcks, bamboo skewers, paper clips, toothpicks, thread  etc etc etc and drawing up and measuring everything by hand with those wonderful drafting tools of ruler, protractor, compass, divider and t-square and triangles.  All the tools from 10th grade Geometry.

I was a pretty proficient modeler as a kid, building numerous wire & RC controlled model airplanes and I'm still OK at it despite the messed up hands and nervous system, but it's tedious and there are still problems with stuff you just can't model this way.  So I bit the bullet and bought a 3D printer, but that's just half the problem.   To create the 3D files the machines run on, you need to be proficient with a CAD program.  I was pretty good with Sketchup when Google owned it and was offering the basic version free, but they sold off the company and the free version they offer up is pretty useless.

So I spent the last couple of weeks trying out a few different ones and finally on my 5th try found one that does most of what I need with the free version and the subscription when I need some other tools is not ridiculously priced.  The last 3 days have been spent creating files for some parts, and last night I decided I was ready to actually start making the stuff for real.     Off to Amazon for a 3D printer, and as luck would have it they had a top rated $600 one on a Black Friday 1/2 price special, so I coughed up the $300 and should be 3D printing by next weekend hopefully.

Once I have my prototypes done, it's off to find the right intellectual property lawyer to get some protection and then looking for a plastics company to produce my stuff.  Good old fashioned Capitalist stuff.

RE

[RE]

My new 3D Printer arrived yesterday! 

I started setup last night with one of the CNAs who unboxed it for me and we got as far as getting the control cable hooked to the touch screen, but he then got called away to wipe somebody's ass and no further progress.  Then this morning I had an appointment at the prosthetic clinic where he inished up the mods to the pegleg which aren't going to make it much more useful, but may work for some cosmetic purposes when I start my meetings with The Suits around Jan 1st if my planned schedule holds up.

After returning just before dinner I snagged the Acting Activities Director, a former CNA who was enlisted to be the Asst Activities Director after the last one quit, and now got bumped up to Directorr since that person also quit.  Just about the entire admin staff has quit in the last 3 months since the gulag here was bought by another corporation.  More on that soap opera in a future post.  Together with her we got the platform freed up from the screws which pin it in place for transportation and got it hooked to the wifi network of my Hotspot on my phone.  Not using the facility network for this because I don't have Admin privileges to add hardware, nor am I likely to get them from the new chief administrator, who is a total witch.  I can see why people have quit just based on her personality and body language.

We got hung up trying to load the Flashforge App onto my phone, it seems to only be available with AppleOS, I can't find it for Android.  I'm going to see what I an turn up for Windows next.  So, I haven't yet actually printed my first 3D part for one of my inventions, but I'm hopeful I will have something by the end of TG Weekend.  If I can start making parts, I'll have no trouble with keeping on my timetable since I have most of the parts already drawn up. I'll mainly be tweaking dimensions to make sure everything fits right.  A lot of the stuff has very small tolerances on the order of 1mm or less, which is why I had to get a 3D printer and quit trying to do the cutting and gluing by hand.  For models done with balsa and cardboard, they're pretty fucking good, but not good enough to really demonstrate how the stuff works.  Think of it like the Bridge set of the original Star Trek.  It looks OK from a distance, but up close you can see it's just a cheap mockup.

Anyhow, I'm really excited about getting the 3D printer and getting going with this.  Even if the Big Idea Bizness doesn't fly, I can do a small biz with the printer making some of my designs and selling them individually, as well as doing custom 3D work for people who need parts made fot things.  Even if I just use it for that and make a little side cash income, it will easily pay for itself in no time.

Definitely a fabulous toy.  Once I get it working, anyhow.

RE

[TDoS]

I am progressing along well with my new project which has been keeping me pretty bizzy since around mid-summer when I first came up with the idea.  If you were watching the vids I made at the AK State Fair, I mentioned it in one of them.
RE

Interesting idea certainly. I recommend proof reading your new website for spelling errors. When professionals look at what you are going to show, including the website, demonstrations that one can't proof read their own text can be a little off-putting. Oh...and Russell Bentley was killed by Russians, not Ukrainians. Not that any of them will give a shit about any pontificating you do about an ongoing collapse no one notices and whatnot, but you don't want them thinking you are what you appear online.

Just some advice from someone who has experience with, as K-Dog says, sharp objects and using them effectively IRL.

PS: Ditch the weird half laugh you seem to throw in for effect regularly. Don't know if it is just habit because your professional experience in this century has apparently been dealing with public school half witted parents and their children, but suits and money will use it to dismiss you outright about the 3rd time they hear it. The assumption being it is a consequence of ongoing mental and physical decline. Unless they see the video where you kick out "bah bah black sheep" at a bunch of white ones...or they know who Bentley was and who killed him. So yeah, don't tell them about your homemade video collection either.

Have fun with your new toys. Get a haircut that doesn't look like you did it yourself. Shave. Hopefully you've got a decent suit already, or at least the top half of one. Use it on video conference stuff. Make a background image for any video calls that somehow ties in with your business venture. If you have someone who can play junior (pretend or otherwise)  partner who actually is involved with young children now, and maybe has had the chance to let them play with your toys and can talk about them glowingly, involve them as part of the presentation.

Good luck.

[RE]

We know Russell was killed by Ruskies.  They are being prosecuted for it.  They mistakenly believed he was an Amerikan spy.

The website is still a work in progress, obviously.  A lot of the pages are still just templates, it's not even my own text or pics.  Not ready for prime time.  Nobody should be finding it at this point, if they do they were looking for it.  That's fine too.  Not worried about anyone beating me to the patents, I keep what I write and the graphics I put up deliberately vague.  No specifics.

The patents are the key to this being viable as a biz.  Without some protection, Milton-Bradley or Hasbro or a dozen other smaller companies in the educational toys biz will copy me.

I also know the protocol for meeting with Suits.  Been there, done that, own the T-shirt.  It's a big part of why I left the banking biz.  Stuffed shirts and pompous assholes grate on my nerves.  But I can deal with them for short periods of time.

Thx for the good wishes.

RE

[TDoS]

We know Russell was killed by Ruskies.  They are being prosecuted for it.  They mistakenly believed he was an Amerikan spy.

I am aware of his story. I simply noted that ISN'T what you said on the video in terms of who killed him. You said the Ukrainians did.

The website is still a work in progress, obviously.  A lot of the pages are still just templates, it's not even my own text or pics.  Not ready for prime time.

Well that's good then that you haven't put it in front of anyone who matters. But proofreading is proofreading, and it is out there should you mention it in a place that has more than the 2 or 3 viewers of your State Fair videos.

The patents are the key to this being viable as a biz.  Without some protection, Milton-Bradley or Hasbro or a dozen other smaller companies in the educational toys biz will copy me.

Of course.

I also know the protocol for meeting with Suits.  Been there, done that, own the T-shirt.

In the same CENTURY that your motorcycling experience comes from, or today? I've been there and done that to, back then, and now, and in between, and being there and doing it isn't the same today as it was back then.

It's a big part of why I left the banking biz.  Stuffed shirts and pompous assholes grate on my nerves.  But I can deal with them for short periods of time.
Thx for the good wishes.
RE

Of course. But they aren't all pompous assholes and stuffed shirts, and the ones that aren't are better ones to know than the kind you are apparently familiar with. I rarely have to deal with the types you mention nowadays because these things sort themselves out with time and ability. Folks know folks. And the ones that aren't stuffed shirts find their own sources and experts that aren't stuffed shirts and pretty soon you've got two distinct populations. Stuffed shirts and folks who get it done...with the former really wishing they could figure out how to become the latter.

Ditch that half laugh you insert randomly in the way you narrate in front of them. Seriously. Regardless of the type of money people you meet, all of them pick up on oratory extras like that and take it as a form of unseriousness.

[RE]

We know Russell was killed by Ruskies.  They are being prosecuted for it.  They mistakenly believed he was an Amerikan spy.

I am aware of his story. I simply noted that ISN'T what you said on the video in terms of who killed him. You said the Ukrainians did.

At the time I made the video, I wasn't aware of the details of the incident.

Of course. But they aren't all pompous assholes and stuffed shirts, and the ones that aren't are better ones to know than the kind you are apparently familiar with. I rarely have to deal with the types you mention nowadays because these things sort themselves out with time and ability. Folks know folks. And the ones that aren't stuffed shirts find their own sources and experts that aren't stuffed shirts and pretty soon you've got two distinct populations. Stuffed shirts and folks who get it done...with the former really wishing they could figure out how to become the latter.

The reason they earn the epithet "Suits" is because so many of the folks who wear that uniform are pompous stuffed shirts.  Just as so many who wear the motorcycle uniforms of studded denims or leathers are macho assholes.  Are ALL of them this way?  I'm sure there are statistical outliers, just as there are girls who ride motorcycles.  However, since I am going to be dealing with a subset of Suits called LAWYERS, the chances are better than even they'll be exactly the type of person who most grates on my nerves.  Perhaps I'll luck out and find one who is halfway human and not an alien lizard, but I'm not counting on it.

Ditch that half laugh you insert randomly in the way you narrate in front of them. Seriously. Regardless of the type of money people you meet, all of them pick up on oratory extras like that and take it as a form of unseriousness.

Not sure exactly what this "half laugh" is, but I doubt I'll find anything funny dealing with these folks so I won't be laughing halfway or full on.

RE

[RE]

I have successfully printed my first 3D object, which appears at right.  lol.

The success is that I actually got the thing to turn on, heat up and detect the filament and then go through a 10 minute calibration cycle.  What you see at right is the stuff that squited out of the nozzle after it finished dancing around in 3D space.  Obviously however, this isn't anything useful.  I'm just happy I  got it to do anything at all.

Now the failures.

So far, despite the fact I have it networked up on the wifi wth my computer, the computer doesn't see it.  It's not in the list of available devices.  I will attempt to contact support, howwever it's the holiday weekend so I'm not too hopeful there.

I ordered a USB male-male cord to try and hardwire it, which I prefer anyhow.  Probably will not make further progress until that arrives.  I've never had a new device for my computer that didn't have glitches and give me headaches in the setup phase.  I'll work it out eventually.  I know it works to do the core function of squirting the plastic onto the build bed.  Just a matter off getting it to go in the right direction.

RE

[RE]

Rapidly dropping from the .200s now in the .100s headed for double digits on the way to .000 .

After my initial successes getting it unboxed, assembled, booted up, run through a calibration sequence and connected to my WiFi network, I ran into a Brick Wall getting the device to communicate with my Windows computer, where I am drafting the designs for the parts in my proprietary PolyPandora model building set.

I attempted to circumvent this problem by ordering a 6' male-male full size USB cord to hardwire it and avoid the networking method, which I have always had problems with in the wireless era whether it is WiFi or Bluetooth.  It arrived today and when I hopefully turned on both machines and booted them, I plugged one end of the cord into each machine expecting to hear the BEEEP from the computer and the little dialogue prompt "new device detected" pop up as it always does no matter what the device is.  The computer always knows that at least something is there, even if it doesn't know what to do with it and you have to hunt down a Driver for it.  This time though...a big fat NOTHING.

So next step, contact support, but all the online support dialogue box does if you want after-sales support is direct you to email them at support@flashforge.com.  This is bullshit support because any troubleshooting has to be done either over the phone or with a chatbox so you can try things and report if it worked or didn't.  Sometimes if it is going through the net the support person can see the settings himself if you give permission and he can make the changes.  I prefer not to do it that way but rather learn where all the switches are myself, but as a last resort I would do that too.

Anyhow, bottom line is until I can get the 3D printer working, the whole PolyPandora project is on hold, stuck in neutral.  If I ever do get the two devices talking to each other, I STILL have a learning curve on settings, because there's all sorts of things like speed, temperature, infill and so forth that you have to tweak correctly for each roll of the material you used, usually PLA plastic but even that stuff isn't uniform, being made by different manufacturers.  It can vary by the batch and with different color dyes and additives that give the plastic different properties in hardness and flexibility.  So, who knows when I'll actually be able to make my first parts at this point.

Fortunately, I am not in a rush and have no absolute deadlines I need to meet yet.  Any shopping for a SUIT and firm to to handle the intellectual property protection part of this is on hold also until the 3D printing problem is solved.  Eventually unless the machine is a total LEMON, this should be solvable.  May take a while though, and society may collapse before it is done, lol.  Meanwhile, I'll just keep working on designs and periodically working on getting the website ready for prime time.

RE

[RE]

I am beginning to understand what the issue is with the printer, and it's very insidious.

First with support I exchanged emails back and forth all week, 1 exchange each day.  This makes any progress very slow.  Finally at the end of the week I got a CNA to make a video to send to support, which shows nothing more than what I explained but he seems to think a vid will help him diagnose the problem.  I doubt it and here is why.

After making it, I messed around more trying other ways to network it.  I discovered that my desktop computer has a mobile hotspot function that allows you to share it's internet connection with another device.  So, instead of connecting the printer to my phone hotspot with my computer also hooked to the phone, I hooked my computer to the Gulag WiFi for a net connection and then the printer to my computer with its hotspot.

Doing it this way, an "unknown device" appeared in the device list with its own unique IP address.  It still was not visible as a device in my 3D CAD programs though, either the one I use for design or the one produced by the printer company you are supposed to us with the printer called "Orca FlashForge.  What I did get though was a prompt asking me to login, but I couldn't find anywhere to login nor have I registered with them.  I skipped over that because in setting up the printer when it prompted to load their app to my phone, no android version was available, only iphone.  So my printer is not logged in to their website, and now I believe that is why I don't see it.

What they have done I think is kept all the driver software for the printer on the cloud, and in order to use it you must be logged in to their website.  That is why you can't even hardwire the printer to your computer, and to use it you MUST have an internet connection.  They are trying to control your ability to do 3D printing, and also be able to monitor whatever you make.  The next time I exchange emails with support, I am going to get him to admit this.

Now, possible work arounds.

The printer is controlled by a touch screen module with a bus with about a dozen tiny leads.  If I can find a match to that bus, I believe the computer itself could control the printer with some type of generic software for 3D machines.  The module they provide isn't actually a controller, it's a communication device that communicates with their server.

The other possible work around is to load files directly to the machine in "gcode", which is basic code that runs CNC machines and was developed by MIT years ago.  To do this, I would have to export a file as .stl or .3ds or .obj, then us a free online converter to convert it to gcode, drop that file on a USB stick and plug that into the USB port of the 3D printer.  Obviously, this is a very cumbersome and impractical method.

What I really hope to do is once I get the support guy to admit this is what is going on, I will tell him I need to use this printer in a remote location without a net connection, and I want a control module for it that doesn't require a net connection.  I'm sure they make one, they still have older models for sale and I think this bullshit is very new, which is why they don't even have the Android app available and why there are so many glitches.

On the positive side, I'm learning a whole lot about 3D printing due to having to diagnose and troubleshoot this problem.  This bullshit of forcing you to have a net connection and not providing the driver software for a piece of hardware they sell is total crap.  It raises the bar on control beyond information to the physical world.  It's similar to what they are doing with EV carz now also.  I'm not sure if Tesla does it, but EV cars that are leased can be shut off remotely so the leaseholder can't operate the car.  If you're late on your payment, they just turn off the car from the corporate headquarters.  This is also long standing practice with cell phones.  It's also done with farm equipment.

Essentially, they are making it impossible to actually own a functioning machine of just about any type. Whatever the machine is, whatever it does is all centrally controlled over the net and the machine can be turned off by the manufacturer.  TVs, Refrigerators, Carz...any so called "smart" device is never really yours, even if you buy it outright.  Thew software running it always requires updates, and after 5 years they require the update and stop supporting older versions.  Microsoft will stop support on Windows 10 in 2025, so if you want support you'll have to update to Win 11, which sucks.

Anyhow, one way or the other I will eventually get this thing to work the old fashion way without the net.  The machne itself, the frame and platrform and servo motors all work fine.  I just need to get a hold of some older control module from the 1st or 2nd generation machines and get it wired up right.  I know an EE who knows something about this stuff, so hopefully he can help. 

RE

[RE]

I put the vid I made for the support tech at Flashforge up on YT.  Enjoy.

RE

[RE]

I had a minor bit of success tonight and actually got the printer to show up on my computer in the Orca-Flashforge slicer software that's supposed to run the machine.  It's still not visible in the Devices list for Windows though.

The next step after that it asks for is for you to register the device.  When I tried to do that, each time I got a popup telling me Registration Failed.  The explanation on that from the support geek is that their Flashforge server is unstable and I should try again later.       There may be a work around to that using a LAN connection, I'll work on trying that tomorrow, I'm shot for today and thoroughly pissed off.

I'm researching completely redoing the machine with a different controller board from another manufacturer.



All of these 3d printers use the same type of bus cable that goes from the board to each of the various motors and the heating element.  Exactly how it's wired though can differ so I need a circuit diagram which I am trying to get from them.  I really don't want to do this because it means a bunch of soldering and if I do it I void the warrantee and I will get no help from support.  However, so far their help hasn't helped and it is still just a big useless paperweight the way it is.

I may yet get it to work the way they want it to work with their software connected to their server so I'm not trying a ground up rebuild yet.  That kind of shit is a little above my pay grade as an electronics and computer tinkerer, so I'd rather not do that.  The only other choice though would be to box it up and return it to Amazon, but I don't have the original packing material, I had to dispose of it as I do not have room to keep big boxes around for returns.  Returning it would be its own pain in the ass.  The last unfortunate possibility is I may end up eating a $300 loss on it.  However, the hardware is really good and I know it can work with thee right controller.

My timeline for PolyPandora now is in major jeopardy.  If I can't get it running soon, I will probably have to set everything back several months at least if not a whole year. 

RE

[K-Dog]

Seems all you have to do now is get it registered.  All the board does is receive a file over the USB cable.  It loads the file onto a memory card you should plug into the top right connector.  Then the board will run the file loaded on the memory card causing the printer to do it's thing.

[RE]

Well, after 2 weeks of striking out, I finally got a hit tonight and got the printer communicating and trying to print.

Sadly however, even though it did all the appropriate dancing, nothing came out.

I do think though now I will eventually conquer this problem.  Persistence pays off.

RE

[RE]

OK, the extruder nozzle was clogged.  Got that cleared, tried again.  This time it squirted out the plastic, but it just made a pile of squiggles not resembling the .stl file at all.  This is progress tho.

RE

[RE]

Well, I got a partial print of a tetrahedron, which is the closest thing to success yet.

However, besides not completing the entire object, on my next print job it clogged again, this time right in the middle of printing.  I can understand it clogging if the print head cools between print jobs, but not clogging right in the middle of one.  This happened yet again on the next try after clearing it.

Sent of another missive to support noting my displeasure with this piece of equipment.  This part is not because my networking skills are substandard.  The hardware is not operating properly.  Maybe it's the temperature, but according to the screen it's right.

This is a fucking pain in the ass.

RE