For better or worse, there are multiple ways of measuring “American Made”. An alternate measure, which probably matters more in this conversation, is “how many people that worked on <product> are American residents”. Here’s a study that tries to rank each model by how much it contributes to the US economy

The vast majority of the development (engineering, planning, purchasing/supply chain, quality, after sales, etc) effort for Honda and VW is overseas, along with most other non-domestic brands. This extends beyond their own employees to their tier 1s. Many OEMs use suppliers that are located geographically close to their development centers.

None of this excuses the domestic OEMs for their abandonment of cars, their endless march to higher and higher average transaction price, or their quality records.

If it’s heat it could also be a cooling thing. If you search the web on your search engine of choice for “<printer name> driver overheat” you’ll see what solutions the community has already come up with.

For everyone following along at home: this website is worth a click if you’ve never seen it before!

Rinsing rice does wonders. Without a rice cooker you’ll need to strain it, but it’s still worth it.

1. Measure rice by volume. Let’s say 2 cups worth
2. Put into fine colendar and rinse until the water comes out clear. Mixing with your hand will speed this up. You can also do this in the pot you’re going to cook in and dump water out
3. Put strained rice in your pot
4. Add cold water. The ratio of water to rice matters a lot and varies by species of rice. The ratio will be printed on whatever container your rice came in. For Jasmin rice it’s 2 water to 1 rice, so for our two cups of rice you’ll need 4 cups of water
5. Cover, turn on medium-high heat, being to boil. Don’t go far because it will boil over when it does boil
6. Turn the heat down to low, crack the lid, and set a timer. The amount of time needed will vary based on rice. For Jasmin, 15 minutes is a good check-in time
7. Pop the lid. See water bubbling up? If yes, replace lid and come back in a few minutes. If not, use a wooden spoon to get a peek at the bottom of the pot. See water? If yes, replace lid and come back fairly soon to check again. If not, your rice is done. Turn the heat off, fluff, enjoy.

We made rice for years using this method and it is a very reliable cooking method. Rice doesn’t really leave you a lot of wiggle room though, which is where a rice cooker comes in handy. As an added bonus, some rice cookers come with water lines in them. I measure my dry rice into the cooker, rinse using the cooker, dump most of the water out, and fill to the appropriate level.

Different species of rice have very different textures and somewhat (subtle) different flavorss.

Some rice, like basmati, can be cooked using the pasta method (intentionally use way too much water and strain the excess off after the rice is cooked). I guess all rice could be cooked that way, but you would be giving up some starch.

If the print didn’t come off the bed, I don’t think adjusting z-offset will help. As prints get taller, if you’re running into issues with warping the corners will start to curl up.

Your printer definitely missed some x or y steps. Whether that was due to your drivers getting too hot and just that, or the extruder running into the print. Have you ever seen your printer do this:

How did you remove the pineapple last year? Cut the whole stalk off at the plant , right below the pineapple, something else?

It looks like you missed some x and/or y steps, which made the printer lose its orientation and make a lot of spaghetti.

Possible causes usually involve warping, the nozzle catching the wrapped up piece, and then your printer missing some steps.

Have you completed a large print before?

If nothing’s changed since you last print, including the filament, I would suspect a jam/clog. Is the extruder clicking?

lol, missed it 😂

I’m guessing I’ma green bean that was left to fully mature. Let the green hulls dry out, shell the dry ones like any other bean, and cook them!

I wonder how they calculated the range. If it’s representative of the real world drive cycle these will experience, the estimate might not be too far off. A postal route is constant low speed stop and go. Regen is much more effective at higher speeds, so they’re probably dumping most of their kenetic energy to hear via friction brakes. Suspect their drive cycle is going to be something like an endless cycle of 25 kw acceleration, rest, 25 kw acceleration, rest, etc.

Bonsai burl? I didn’t realize those were a thing, but now that you said it of course that’s a thing.

So, the biggest difference in quality is the steel and hardness.

My question was rooted in how you would know the quality/hardness of the steel at time of purchase - especially as a (fairly) layperson.

I think my set is dewalt. It included taps, dies, and drill bits for M3-M7. I don’t think I’ve ever used the drills, and the have gotten a lot more use than the dies, but I think I’ve used almost everything in the kit more than once. Before kids, it was cars. Post kids, it’s mostly cheap Chinese furniture my wife buys that I have to chase threads in to get it to assembly well.

Also, for the record, you can absolutely tap plastic for a reasonably strong thread

I’ve had pretty good success sizing 3D printed holes to be interference fit. That’s how I designed/printed the bed leveling thumb wheels for my i3 clone. They backed off far less frequently than the stock metal once.

If it’s stripped, I doubt chasing the threads with a m4 tap will accomplish much. Tapping it for the next size up (m5) seems like a good choice.

What would you consider a high quality tap or die? I have a cheap(er) set that I got at home cheapo. With how little use it gets, its biggest issue is surface rust from sitting in my garage 24/7.

Note that they might turn a different color, but color change is a good indicator.

For example, the butternut squash we’re growing turn fairly bright orange.

I wonder if spaghetti squash will ripen off vine if OP needs them to due to an impending frost. We pick our pumpkins and butternut squash after they’ve started changing, but before they’re fully there.

Compost? We’ve had a few things come up that way in the past.

Haha, we have some! Same thing happened though :(

Thankfully all the vines seem pretty OK and are putting out new leaves at the tippy top?

I’m jealous, all our squashes/goards got mildew a few weeks back and are basically done for 😭

Burls are a deformity in the tree (those round protruding bits on the trunk). They result in interesting grain patterns and are fairly rare, so they’re saught after by some wood workers.

The middle is probably resin, but the sides are burl:

Was the hot end pre-assembled or did you assemble it? I suspect you have a mechanical issue, but it might just be e-steps.

Suggestions:

Pull the nozzle off, measure say 110 mm of filament upstream of your extruder motor, make a line or attach a piece of tape, extruder 100mm, and see how close to 100mm you are. No nozzle means you can do this cold so you’ve eliminated 2 variables: a nozzle clog and temp. More detailed instructions

Once you get that sorted, do a PID tune and run the 100mm extrusion test again with your nozzle attached at say 230. Different number? My money would be on a partial nozzle clog.

Finally, temp tower. Not being able to extrude below 220 seems very weird. How fast are you trying to print?