So, first off… I am still completely housing insecure. I’ve been served eviction papers and everything is basically extra fucked. I’m trying to get some shit done while everything collapses around me, because there’s not much else I can do.
Anyhoo… For some reason one of the recent WordPress updates broke comments. They’re not displaying on any posts. I don’t know why, but I’m fairly certain that it has to do with me using a modified version of a theme from like a million versions ago, so I need to completely redo the theme if I want the site working fully again, since updating the theme to the latest version completely breaks the design of the site. I also need to redo the categories because they are an absolute mess and represent like three different periods in the site’s development, each with very different ideas about the site’s structure.
So, with nowhere else to go and time ticking away until I become homeless, I did the only rational thing I could; Started thinking about all the dumb shit I could be making! 🤪
To that end, I rounded up some of the more interesting components I’ve acquired recently but not done anything with, and picked up a few new ones. I hope to do a Show and Tell video of sorts, demonstrating the items and discussing some interesting uses I’ve thought of. For something like eight years, I’ve been trying to become a YouTube content creator and so far haven’t produced anything…so this video may end up being a “Grand Opening / Going Out of Business” type scenario. 😑
As for the blog, I still have unpublished posts about various things which I need to finish up and post; two unpublished posts following up on my replica PAX badge, a post about MSLA 3D printers, and a post about Looking Glass Factory’s Looking Glass Portrait lightfield display, being chief amongst them.
The following are my current projects that will be written up soon:
Flight Stick — A 3D-printed flight stick. (Design from Cults3D)
Rudder Pedals — A set of 3D-printed rudder pedals off Thingiverse.
Mechanical 7-segment display — A clockwork display module. (Design from Cults3D)
HUD Monocle Mk2 — Second prototype version of my monocular heads up display. Using a prism to achieve a vastly simplified optical path and smaller footprint. (And an ESP32 for electronics!)
Other upcoming content:
ESP32 Part 2 — Follow-up to my previous post about the ESP32 SoC.
New Filament! — Review of recent 3D printer filament acquisitions
RGB Ring Diffuser — A mini-blog about the 3D printed RGB LED ring diffusers I made
Magic Making Machines — A post about practical 3D printing, demonstrating the iterative design process of a practical print.
So, here we are, not eight weeks since that previous post, and I’m coming off of two weeks without internet, and almost as long without electricity. As is the case 90% of the time that our finances implode, there was no budgetary snafu on my part, just people doing whatever the hell they wanted regardless of what I or the budget said. 😑
Yes, I am acutely aware of the irony inherent in going from having had twenty-freakin’-grand in the bank just a few months ago, to this complete clown fiesta, but as I’d already explained if I hadn’t spent it my situation would probably be worse right now. (Hard as that may be to imagine.)
Hopefully things can start moving forward again, though I’m not gonna hold my breath. This situation exposed many flaws in the other members of the family unit and the—oftentimes unidirectional —nature of our relationship.😒
It is well-known that I take my life as a professional imaginary spaceship pilot a little too seriously. Like “4-point harness on my computer chair” seriously. And while I certainly liked the old version of the harness, it was missing something; It was just a little too simple.
I’m not sure I’ve talked about it before, so I’ll take a minute here before moving on… I was originally planning on making a 4 or 5-point harness from scratch, and actually designed my own cam-lock release mechanism, but my 3D printer at the time simply wasn’t up to the task, and the prototype’s flimsiness really dissuaded me from the idea.
It was a little while after this that I found a 4-point racing harness on eBay for under $30…cheap enough that I wouldn’t trust it with my life, but in my case, it’s just a prop. I replaced all the plain nylon webbing with proper seatbelt-weave webbing which looked much better, and added little pull straps in red. All the new stitching was also done in a contrasting mil-spec bonded nylon thread.
Finally I 3D printed a knob to go over the release lever…which required filing off the protruding lever, and drilling holes in the face of the cam lock plate. For the last added touch, I cut some paint-mask vinyl on my Silhouette Cameo 3, and used that to paint markings on the knob.
It did the job and I rather liked it, but now that I have the new printers, I wanted to give it another go. I recreated the original knob I had designed for a far earlier incarnation of the project and printed it in some bright red eSUN PLA+
I think the results speak for themselves. 😏 At some point I’ll probably do it again, just to add the arrows back in as actual 3D printed inlays. Though I should probably also prime, sand, and paint it next time for an even more polished look…not that there’s anything wrong with the raw print…especially when viewed anything but up-close.
While my father was still rehabilitating until he could get around well enough on his own to come home, I was making use of my new 3D printers.
I had just gotten some of this fantastic new ‘silk shine’ metallic filament from CC3D, and decided to print him a little Buddha in bronze. The CC3D filament looks absolutely stunning. Pictures don’t really do justice to just how well it shimmers. It’s not sparkly or otherwise fake-looking, it has a fairly authentic metallic sheen. I’m curious to know how they achieve it!
(The bronze is actually more green than it appears in these images. I didn’t catch the Auto Balance shenanigans until it was already uploaded, and it wasn’t a big enough deal to fix it. I wish CC3D offered a ‘brass’ filament that looked like this, but so far they don’t.)
One of the reasons I settled on the Creality Ender 3 Pro—and in fact, literally doubled down on that decision —was the recommendation of several YouTube channels dedicated to printing tabletop gaming miniatures and terrain, as well as Fat Dragon Games, makers of some truly superb miniatures and modular terrain, whose Kickstarter I backed.
So of course I printed some minis from the campaign…which turned out spectacularly, considering the printer was basically fresh out of the box and all I did was level the bed. They even print with no supports!
I never imagined that an FDM printer could produce results like these—nevermind a $250 FDM printer —especially straight out of the box! These are results which approach that of SLA and MSLA printers…which is a subject we’ll definitely be revisiting. Count on it.
New Year, new chance to fail at making weekly updates! It’s never too early to start missing deadlines!
I’ve got a couple blog posts that have been in draft form for way too long, and a few things I haven’t written about yet, and some big news. All of which I’ll be sure to never get around to posting, in the fullness of time.
Meanwhile, I did a thing. A very rash, impulsive, irresponsible, positively mad, thing; I got a Windows Mixed Reality headset and motion controller bundle. Namely a Lenovo Explorer. I seem to have gotten one of the last ones off the Microsoft Store, because they almost immediately went to Sold Out, and most places are listing them as ‘Discontinued’. I’ll do a thorough write-up later, once I’ve had it a few more days, for now here’s a preview of the unboxing pics.
This was originally supposed to go up back in May…but…you know.
The few people who actually visit my site intentionally, and those non-bots who stumble upon it by accident, have probably been wondering where the hell I’ve been and what manner of hell I’ve been up to for the past five months year. Well, I wish I could say I had a lot to show for my time…but it would be a damned dirty lie. Then again, I’m occasionally told that I’m overly-critical of myself…so I guess you’ll just have to read the highlights and decide for yourself if I’ve wasted half a year of my life!
Probably the biggest thing is that I bought an embroidery machine, a small and inexpensive home model that can do up to 4×4 inch patterns. And then I acquired digitizing software… Wilcom Hatch Embroidery… Which costs $1200—yes, twelve-hundred god damn dollars —if you want the version that you can actually make art in. Luckily they offer flex-pay and I’ve been paying $99.99 a month since.
So, I’ve been making embroidered patches. Why? Because like damn-near everything I pursue, I wanted a thing; then, having decided I was too poor to have somebody else make it for me, I proceeded to somehow spend obscene amounts of money—seemingly beyond my means —to give myself the capability to make the thing that I wanted. This is where I’d normally say something about doing a more in-depth post on this later, but by now we all know that is also a damned dirty lie.
This was not without tangible benefits beyond, you know, the literally tangible ones —as it forced me to finally open an Etsy store which has so far generated 10 sales, averaging a sale a week— and a dollar of profit a day —for 73 days. Not bad considering I’m only selling two items and at the moment not doing anything to really put my shop out there to get noticed.
Other notable things that I may or may not elaborate on later:
I was one of the lucky(?) backers who actually received their Tiko3D… (Spoilers: It’s kinda rubbish.)
I made some upgrades to my 3D printer. (For better or worse? I think the whole thing needs to be taken to bits and reassembled.)
I’ve been doing a lot of experiments with using 3D printing to improve the workflow of other processes. (Like printing templates for things.)
My giant-ass monitor bit it, I know what’s wrong but not why nor how to fix it, and that’s had me flummoxed for quite a while.
I’ve made inroads toward having my mill and lathe usable.
I designed several very complex 3D printing projects.
I’ve begun work on a rebranding of MAKE COOL THINGS for 2018, with a new logo and a bunch of matching icons and things.
H***y H***days! (Don’t ask. You’ll follow my example if you don’t want to be hounded by C*****mas-themed spambots until the heat-death of the universe.)
Okay, so here we are. The end of the year. I guess first and foremost, the responsible thing would be to list the things I still haven’t managed to do this year, as a reminder to myself…
I have a few nearly-finished posts in draft form that haven’t made it up yet:
A review of the game Shenzhen I/O
A post about 3D printer upgrades
A post about live-streaming
That’s actually a lot less than I expected! …of course then there’s the ones I never got around to even starting… Foremost among these is probably the one about 3D printing-related crowdfunding campaigns I’ve backed… And it’s probably just as well that I haven’t done it yet, because the biggest one of all hasn’t arrived yet! (But it’s sitting on a boat in customs at the port of Long Beach!)
There’s also the progress I’ve been meaning to write about regarding my HOTAS modifications, which will eventually turn into a complete custom stick and throttle project… For now, I’ll give you a sample… Since I just finished it the other day!
Anyway, next weekend I’ll talk about what I hope to do in the coming year! (Ironically, New Years Day is still technically the last day of the 52nd week of 2016… #JustISOThings )
Hey! A post EARLY?! Surely a sign of the apocalypse.
And Probably Faster, too…
So I’m currently working on this wonderful Fallout 4 Pipe Pistol by lilykil. I’m still in the process of printing it, after which will follow the sanding and priming, and finally the painting and weathering!
I’ll update this post with additional 3D printery as it happens, and then make a new post once I get to the painting stage.