IMALlama

@ IMALlama @lemmy.world

Posts

58
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985
Joined

3 yr. ago

5d ago

Are Vorons still the best DIY printers in 2026?
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IMALlama @lemmy.world 5d ago
Apologies for the delayed reply, it's been a week.
Vorons are capable because the base design is pretty good out of the box and because the design is open source. As other companies come up with cool ideas you'll usually see a mod to adopt them to a Voron. It wouldn't surprise me if this idea is adopted. Until very recently, things like hot ends were commodity parts made by third parties and not the printer OEMs. This made part availability fairly guaranteed and also feels more open. The good news is that it looks like Bambu will sell these parts at some point.
As for existing options in Voron land, there three popular mods out there for multi-toolhead: StealthChanger, TapChanger, and Mad Max.

5d ago

HAIL HYDRA!

Sounds like a good place to plant some mint!

5d ago

We have a thin strip of mint that's exactly what you described. Fresh mint all spring and summer is great for a variety of reasons, plus it smells good. That said, we're constantly fighting runners trying to grow in every conceivable crevice. It tries to grow in the cement expansion joints and in the joint between our house and sidewalk by the door.

1w ago

Many consumer electronics manufacturers 'will go bankrupt' by the end of 2026 thanks to the RAMpocalypse, Phison CEO reportedly says

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IMALlama @lemmy.world 1w ago

This is arguably about an un(der?)regulated futures market gone wild. If you can buy all the production for the year, before it's even been produced, you're going to create a shortage. One could argue that supply and demand is out of whack and that more fabs = more supply to meet demand, but if Western Digital completely sold out of hard drives when we're only 1/6 of the way through the year then more supply isn't really the way to fix it.

1w ago

Thanks a lot, AI: Hard drives are already sold out for the entire year, says Western Digital

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IMALlama @lemmy.world 1w ago

I recently had a drive fail in my 4 bay nas. Amusingly, synology branded drives seem like they're pretty close to p ice parity with OE drives these days.

2w ago

In a blind test, audiophiles couldn't tell the difference between audio signals sent through copper wire, a banana, or wet mud

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IMALlama @lemmy.world 2w ago

Solid natural wood is a horrible material for loudspeaker cabinets. Granted, this fact isn't limited to just speakers. Wood expands and contracts with humidity, which means making boxes of any type out of solid wood complicated. Cabinet doors have floating panels in the center for exactly this reason. That's why you should use breadboard ends if you want to frame a wood table, otherwise your table will risk warping and cracking. There's also the whole non-uniform density thing. Most loudspeakers use something like MDF as a substrate and will veneer the outside. MDF is both stable and uniformly dense, which makes achieving a "dead" (or non-resonate) enclosure a lot easier.

2w ago

Twenty four US states are now considering legislation to allow small, plug-in solar power systems that connect directly into a wall socket.

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IMALlama @lemmy.world 2w ago

I live in SE MI. There are two things working against residential solar here.

First, in terms of peek sun hours it's just not a great proposition. Yay cloud cover and short winter days

More importantly, we no longer have net metering. If you generate surplus energy you can still sell it, but you sell it for below what you would have to pay it for.

3w ago

i'm a hardliner

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IMALlama @lemmy.world 3w ago

Amusingly, modern wifi can offer higher speeds than Ethernet for the same level of effort. Most home Ethernet is still 10/100/1000. That's megabit, not megabyte. 2.5 gbps and faster nics are not commonplace for both computer and routers/switches/hubs.

You're never going to see 46 gbps on wifi 7 in the real world, but it's still way faster than 1 gbps.

From someone with a NAS for photo/video editing and has looked into installing 10 gbps Ethernet.

3w ago

Great success. Apple for scale

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IMALlama @lemmy.world 3w ago

It's normal

This is disappointing. Not because it's normal, but because so many photos of prints you see on the web extolling print quality are in ideal lighting. It's misleading at best. I will say surface quality is oodles ahead of my old I3 clone, but this has always miffed me.

I think it's more visible the thicker your layers are

I do tend to print in chunkier layers. Also thicker extrusions and nozzles...

If you're printing with ASA, perhaps you could use some light acetone smoothing

It doesn't really bother me as my prints are functional, but there's always been this nagging thing in the back of my head regarding surface quality relative to what folks on the internet present they achieve. The photo in this post is guilty of this TBH. The print looks way worse on the bed thanks to a taller printer with top mounted lights resulting in a steep lighting angle relative to vertical surfaces. It's like going on a picturesque trip only to find out that all the photos you've seen online take a lot of liberty with timing (ie super early/late in the day) and/or framing.

3w ago

xiaomi warns about virus after last update

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IMALlama @lemmy.world 3w ago

Not on a stock OnePlus 12

3w ago

Picked up this brand new TTArtisan 35mm fixed f 1.4 to 16 lens for 15 quid today. Absolutely adore the vintage early 2000s vibe it gives to shots.

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IMALlama @lemmy.world 3w ago

I started photography in the mid 00s with a D40 and moved to a D5300 in the 10s. My most beloved lens from that era was a Nikon 70-300mm VR FX AF-S f/4.5-5.6 G.

There isn't really an equivalent of that lens these days as it seems like everyone is making a 100-400 instead and those are generally bigger dimensionally and weight wise. That lens was not particularly sharp once you got out of the center, although it wasn't much of an issue for me thanks to the APS-C crop.

There are some lens designs that have been basically the same for decades now (hello Sigma DG DN) and are still excellent, but I wouldn't paint 00s glass as all being mature. I'm using a Tamron 150-500 these days on a Sony FF body and the Tamron focuses way faster, is sharper in the center and across the frame, has great bokah, and offers better micro contrast.

00s glass is in somewhat of a weird spot. It doesn't have as much "character" as the glass that came before it and it's also not as technically excellent as the glass that came after it. That said, it's pretty affordable these days and is completely useable to get great photos. I will say that photos, even taken with the D40, have held up really well.

3w ago

Are Vorons still the best DIY printers in 2026?

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IMALlama @lemmy.world 3w ago

Eh. The days of DIY printers both costing less and out performing are a thing of the past. I would argue that Vorons are more capable than say a Baubu, but I digress.

3w ago

Are Vorons still the best DIY printers in 2026?

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IMALlama @lemmy.world 3w ago

2.4 R2 owner chiming in. I built mine about 3 years ago after window shopping for a year.

Why Voron in 2026?

They're fully open source. This has a couple of benefits such as (basically) guaranteed repairability in the future and super easy modability. Basically all the parts are standard, so you should have no problem sourcing replacements. Want to change something? Download the official CAD and remix
Being open source means there's a huge quantity of official and unofficial mods available, as well as tons and tons and tons (and tons and tons, but I'm getting tired of digging up links) of commercial hard parts if you want to tinker. Yes, commercial printers also have mods available, and even some hard part swaps, but Voron is next level if you like to tinker. Even if you don't like to tinker, some mods are fantastic from a quality of life perspective and of course there are many many vendors that will sell you kitted parts
The printer itself is highly capable in ways that go beyond just being CoreXY. Both the 2.4 and Trident can mechanically get their bed and gantry in plane because they use multiple z-steppers to move the bed (trident) or gantry (2.4) up/down. Bambu's printers use a single stepper and a belt to connect things
Even if you buy a BOM in the box you'll learn a ton building the printer

Why not Voron?

No official store or kit means you're going to either rabbit hole who to buy a BOM-in-a-box from or spend a lot of time self sourcing. I personally went with West3D's configurator
You're building a printer from literal nuts, bolts, linear rails, and extrusions. It's not a hard build, but it is a long build. If you can put together IKEA furniture you can build a Voron, but it's going to take 20-40 hours
They're not the budget proposition they once were
You'll spend more time thinking through the build up front (who to buy from, what components to swap, what out of the gate mods, etc). Easy example: want to tune for resonance compensation? Gotta mount/wire up an accelerometer on the toolhead, unless you use one of the many tool-head PCBs that include one
Cable chains look dope, but wire breaks are real. They're easy to repair, but they're annoying. Granted, you can just go umbilical out the gate. LDO's Nitehawk SB is dope
You want to go even bigger. You can stretch a Voron taller, but Rat Rigs go quite a bit bigger

Edit: final thought. IMO I do not find myself wanting for "tech" and there's really not much missing from a Voron out of the gate. Nearly anything a Bambu can do is easily adopted to a Voron if you want to.

3w ago

Files

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IMALlama @lemmy.world 3w ago

Self designed very specific objects are where it's at regarding 3D Printing IMO. Once you get into the habit of realizing that you can print a part for

<x>

you'll find yourself doing it again and again.

Examples I've designed and printed include:

two bluetooth speakers. I'm getting ready to print my first subwoofer
tons of replacement parts (parts for kids toys, replacement knobs for our stove as the oem ones are $50/pop, etc)
wheels with TPU tread and pockets for bearings for a fold up wagon. We've used that to cart our two kids around for 3 years now

You also find yourself being more adventurous with modifying other things knowing you can print interface parts. For example, our outdoor table had a 1.5" hole for umbrellas. We wanted a larger umbrella, which requires a bigger hole, so I cut a portion of the metal center of the table out and made a plastic adapter. I've also done lampshades and a bunch of other odds/ends around the house.

3w ago

Great success. Apple for scale

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IMALlama @lemmy.world 3w ago

lol, I see. Printer tuning is a very real struggle for some and it happens that tree supports are one of the things that you can run into.

3w ago

Camping at -35°C

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IMALlama @lemmy.world 3w ago

If you're moving and it's not windy -20 doesn't sound that bad. -35 sounds pretty brutal. -20 would also be pretty rough if it's windy.

I'm a yank whose been stuck between daily highs of 0 F (-17 C) and 15 F (-10 C) for the past month. It's always amusing shoveling my driveway in the evening after the kids are asleep and I start taking off layers due to body heat + sweat despite it being properly cold. I can't imagine trying to dress appropriately where you can't easily retreat inside and try again if you got it wrong the first time. I imagine that sweat is the enemy when you're out in the elements like that.

3w ago

Great success. Apple for scale

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IMALlama @lemmy.world 3w ago

In my experience, broken tree branches come from:

Crazy angles on the supports. This happens when a support needs to 'grow' over the print in order reach the thing it needs to support. This ultimately comes down to part geometry, so there's not a ton you can do here if you can't change the geometry or orientation of the part
Poor bed adhesion causing the trunk to separate from the bed. Clean your bed with dish soap and dry it with paper towels. Make sure you have a good first layer by getting your your bed and gantry in parallel planes and double check your z-offset. Bonus points if you can do a bed mesh between prints
The extruder catching on a branch and breaking it off. This is usually due warping or over-extrusion. Warping can be its own rabbit hole. Over-extrusion is easy to tune for, especially if your slicer has built in calibration aids (eg OrcaSlicer, SuperSlicer, etc)
An ambitious slicer not making the supports themselves very strong. Slicers these days seem to avoid thin/tall trees, but they're still usually single perimeter. I've configured my slicer to use 0.6mm thick walls on supports
If you have a bed slinger, tall supports can wobble. Slowing down acceleration/jerk is really the only way to combat this

Obviously, these can all be a bit interrelated.

The support in this print is basically vertical (no crazy angles), I generally have great bed adhesion/my printer can mechanically make its gantry in plane with the bed/I run a bed mesh every print/I use klipper_z_calibration to get a consistent first layer, nothing's warping and I've tuned my extrusion multiplier for this spool of filament, the support itself is strong due to its girth at the base and wall thickness, and CoreXY means that the support doesn't really move unless the extruder is dragging some.

3w ago

Great success. Apple for scale

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IMALlama @lemmy.world 3w ago

I agree. In fact, that's what I tend to do - slice up a design by splitting the body/bodies and printing test pieces where tolerances matter. Things like latches, hinges, pieces that have to fit with one another, etc. I'm not sure how practical this approach would have been for this print due to its final orientation, but it's a really good practice.

I think I got a bit too comfortable with things going per plan over my last batch of designs :( I'll also admit to being in a bit of a time crunch. No deadline, but I have younger kids so time to model and print is somewhat limited. This is a good reminder that rushing can actually make things take longer in the end.

Massaging this print to fit wasn't practical. Despite being off by 1% that's still 2mm of material to remove over some pretty big spans. I did take a chisel to the cutout, but man is ASA tough. PETG is much easier to do that with lol.

Thanks re: print looks great. It's super solid, so I'm very happy in that regard. I don't know about you, but lighting greatly impacts how the surface quality of my prints look. Hard/direct light at a steep vertical angle makes the faces look pretty rough, but more diffuse light coming from the side makes the parts look great. I am not sure if this is normal, especially for a larger CoreXY with long 6mm wide a/b belts, or if this is something I can dig into and improve.

3w ago

Great success. Apple for scale

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IMALlama @lemmy.world 3w ago

I put this in another reply, but I know not everyone will pop back into the thread so...

I completely agree with your approach and that's what I would usually do. The print is probably off by 1%, which over these spans is 2mm. Massaging this print to fit isn't really practical :(

3w ago

Great success. Apple for scale

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IMALlama @lemmy.world 3w ago

Sadly, almost is relative. The dimensions were off by say 1%, but over larger spans that's 1-2mm.

I am not at all opposed to taking heat and/or tools to prints to massage them vs tossing the first go and printing fresh, but that wasn't practical here :(