[Coco] Getting back into the Coco Community after a 4+ year break

[gene heskett]

On Friday, February 4, 2022 8:27:15 AM EST Brian Blake wrote:
> Welcome back, Kip!. I understand the stress you've been dealing with
> all too well. Lost my dad in September to post-Covid complications
> (blood clots). The CoCo hasn't changed any, tho some of the faces
> have!

Yes, and I must say the level of creativity has risen with the new faces, 
a welcome occurrence, I wish my coco3 was still working, but after nearly 
40 years, all the caps have dried out so it crashes trying to boot. 
Sniff.

> Gene - 3D printing is addictive, lol.

Tell me about it...

> I've got 5 up and running now,

I have several, most of which were found to be wanting when I switched to 
PETG for my first major project, a variation on the harmonic drive I can 
print for about 1% of the cost of a new real one. Not as precise, and 
probably not as strong as the real thing, but if I break it, just print 
another! The average printer will only print 2 or 3 pieces in PETG, cuz 
where std PLA prints at 200C max, PETG needs at least 235, preferably 
240C, and thats hot enough to slowly burn up the PTFE bowden tube feed.

Better to buy a BIQU HX, or a Prusa MK3S+ (bring real money for either), 
but to get everyday, Just Works if the nozzle is cleaned, will need a 
titanium heat break replacement for the stock part. Both put the extruder 
motor on the print head which slows its ballistics a bit, but the BIQU is 
the lightest weight for the whole assembly of any of them. My  prusa is 
down, waiting on a bag of the special thin M3nS nuts from a fleabay 
vendor. I have an ender3, not worth your time. Some sort of a bigger 
bedslinger that only lasted half a job, blew a transistor in the bed 
heater, an enter 5, which went batty after the broken plastic extruder 
drive was replaced with a metal one, and a Creality cr10, another bigger 
bed slinger, but found creality only supports what they shipped, so its 
down with a filament failure detector failure. The HX is the best of the 
lot, but I had to put another hundred in it because some gorilla 
tightened hot end stuff with a very long handled wrench. After that, its 
pretty much Just Worked. ATM its printing 4 more ball bearing race 
assemblies, where the balls are crosman bb's. $18 for 6000 of them.

> and getting ready to build a headless Ubuntu machine to run multiple
> Octoprint instances. Considering the cost and lack of availability of
> Raspberry Pis right now, putting one of my older PC's to work seems
> like an idea.

Take care and stay well.

Cheers, Gene Heskett.
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
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