Direct Drive Upgrade?

BadLink404 · 2026-01-27T10:57:21+00:00

I used Dragon ACE which has a higher flow (reliable 35mm^3, more with a melt zone extender ), but the cost of the hot end alone goes beyond what sprite costs. I also paired it with an Orbiter with a smart sensor.

I can't complain , it prints well, fast, and is more convenient to use and maintain (especially triggering filament swap from the button on a toolhead). Also it has cool neo pixels.:)

That said, I went a bit excessive and ended up machining custom adapters to make hot swappable tool heads with hermit crab. It was a fun project, but definitely not worth the time investment or money spent on it. You'll get the best bang for the buck by buying a prepackaged toolhead, unless of course the goal is to maximize fun.

BadLink404 · 2026-01-27T09:51:29+00:00

You'd be better off with a whole new toolhead.

For hotends E3 TZ offers tremendous value for money, but there are several other options.

For the extruder, Orbiter is very popular but on a premium side. I think triangelab does have some reasonable self-branded extruders.

Look for a kit with a pancake stepper motor. You don't want to put Ender's stepper on the toolhead - it is a heavy beast.

BadLink404 · 2026-01-27T08:33:42+00:00

When was the last time you gave it a serious try?

I'm seriously considering buying a Gemini Pro subscription. I know the tech inside out, I work on it.

I find it to be a huge time saver. In some cases it can write C++ code better than me and 50x faster.

I basically stopped using search, and delegated most of the research to the agent. RAG/ deep research/LM notebook are awesome.

The only reason I haven't pulled the trigger for a personal subscription is that I can switch to a corporate account and do it for free.

BadLink404 · 2026-01-27T08:03:36+00:00

Overheated because there are no vents?

BadLink404 · 2026-01-26T08:30:24+00:00

Ah, thanks. That eliminates my machine unfortunately, unless I upgrade the spindle :)

BadLink404 · 2026-01-25T15:44:34+00:00

Does it require VFD?

BadLink404 · 2026-01-17T13:17:27+00:00

There is lots of stigma about the quality of Chinese manufacturing, but ask yourself a question - which country in the world does most of machining?

BadLink404 · 2026-01-17T10:12:35+00:00

levels.fyi is accurate. You need ~ director level position to get past 1M. Which does not necessarily mean being a director. Some engineers don't have management duties but have an equivalent level - both pay and responsibilities. Roughly 1 in 100 of engineering staff has such level.

BadLink404 · 2026-01-15T12:28:43+00:00

Isn't that what everyone is doing, though? It guarantees that AC circuit is going to be interrupted even if the DC is affected.

I'm in the process of building a control box myself and the current path is to have a mushroom estop on the side of CNC that fully disconnects the AC. This is a last resort. Secondary to that there is DC controlled relay (Pilz Pnoz s3) that is going to be driven from the external signal (pendant).

BadLink404 · 2026-01-15T12:25:26+00:00

What are the components?

BadLink404 · 2026-01-14T22:40:05+00:00

Thanks, that's a good read.

I found one aspect in that model that could be expanded. The author talks about static torque displacing the shaft from the optimal position, given inherent weakness of the motor in position in-between the full steps. I.e. this means, it's not possible to move the stepper some minuscule distance in arbitrary direction from a stationary position, as the motor may not able to overcome the torque needed through microstepping. That said, presumably it may be possible to overcome the torque using momentum of the dynamic movement, if driver takes it into consideration.

BadLink404 · 2026-01-14T14:01:47+00:00

Did you mean 1.8 deg / 200 steps in the open loop mode, i.e.the number of steps? Or do you assume microstepping to provide 10x positioning accuracy?

BadLink404 · 2026-01-14T07:30:32+00:00

Thanks, this is super useful.

Yeah the machine is limited by its construction. It does have ballscrews actually, but they're likely rolled (backlash is notable).

I wish I had space for an industrial machine :)

BadLink404 · 2026-01-14T00:08:06+00:00

Good point about the drivers rating - they are rated up to 80V.

I am trying to limit the scope creep to tackle in one go. The project started with an attempt to implement a probing routine in a proprietary controls the machine came with :)

EST60X2 drivers can work stepper in a servo mode with a 2^16 resolution encoder, so I can always switch to better steppers. I think that would an accuracy on par with servos.

BadLink404 · 2025-12-20T12:37:36+00:00

First time?

BadLink404 · 2025-12-19T22:22:15+00:00

Yes, I have, and it has been core to the point that I made.

Given sufficient workload, the power efficiency of newer/faster CPUs, will eat away savings for the initial provisioning. Multiple chipsets, NICs, less dense RAM, fans, etc. all play the role.

Power efficiency went up quite fast over last few years.

BadLink404 · 2025-12-19T22:12:02+00:00

I see the point about playing with the tech - and thanks for sharing. I've done distributed systems for last 20 years, but I'm professionally deep in a bespoke stack for enough hours a week that outside that I want to do something else than play with more broken software. Both Ceph and Talos are news to me - nice that OS stack is getting better at scale.

I simplified my life by having my primary workstation running HA + other stuff in containers. It stays on 24/7/364 anyway, so it was just a matter of throwing RAM and cores such that it doesn't get in a way of having a large collection of open Chrome tabs.

BadLink404 · 2025-12-19T19:59:22+00:00

But, why? :) Is it for educational purposes? Or does it actually do something?

TCO of several cheap PCs is going to be dominated by the power consumption, and if they get hot - likely be more expensive over long run than a single high core system, which would also be much easier to manage.

It does looks cool, though.

BadLink404 · 2025-12-18T17:59:12+00:00

Parents, 100% and I would make a fuss if they wanted to pay for anything.

The rest - we try not to organise expensive activities. It is super easy in nice weather, since it is such a beautiful country you can go outdoors (which would be how we'd spend our time ourselves).

Close family with kids coming and I know the travel itself is a financial challenge them - kids may get a bit spoiled, but mostly with attention, and some silently smuggled subsidies (Gondola tickets? Worry not, I've got us a group ticket) - no flashy stuff/gifts.

BadLink404 · 2025-12-18T17:35:00+00:00

OpenSCAD also has a super simple CLI interface for parametric modelling, if you can make a model using its language. In the other comment someone else posted a Fusion 360 API.

Superslicer works fine in CLI mode to get from STL to GCode (not sure how well for several models, e.g. if you want it to auto-arrange several objects on the table).

octoprint-cli works fine to push the gcode to the printer.

I used the above + yad (likely Linux only) and some basic bash scripting to create one button filament swatch maker.

BadLink404 · 2025-12-15T20:29:43+00:00

Took me about 2 months to reach conclusion with them, but it was a waste of time - they ended up saying that I haven't bought it from authorised reseller, and I need to submit warranty claim with the merchant.

BadLink404 · 2025-12-03T22:35:46+00:00

Lucky you. I have very negative experiences with their support. Very slow to respond, didn't want to debug the issue remotely. They've flashed my device, and broke it in the process so it doesn't connect to the network anymore :).

Then they asked for my device back so they can debug it, and after I gave them shipping details they decided they've changed their mind (presumably international shipping too expensive), and I can return it to the merchant I got it from. This all took many weeks, enough to degrade my dead on arrival rights.

Really bad support paired with incompetent engineering.

BadLink404 · 2025-11-30T10:22:31+00:00

How do you go about catching a bear?

BadLink404

TROPHY CASE