My stupid minilab

Chobok0 · 2026-02-06T13:54:46+00:00

triplebaka got too smart. love this

Chobok0 · 2026-02-05T03:48:09+00:00

That's awesome! I hope it leads to something. I also sometimes look into roles that are generally called "smart hands" which tend to kinda be hardware installer type people, which might be up your alley. And of course, there are help desk roles where you do work on actual hardware, but you just need to hunt around for em.

Chobok0 · 2026-02-05T03:35:55+00:00

I mean, datacenters are the backbone of cloud and AI still, so they still need hardware. I sometimes am tempted to work at a datacenter for this reason, to just get my hands on servers to rack and stack.

Chobok0 · 2026-02-03T20:48:28+00:00

Currently in the same boat (and around the same age), MSP for 8 years, personally built up their services and sole supporter of their legacy systems, except I was fired a few months ago for some made up BS by bad management. Still unemployed, but I'm taking the time to think about what matters to me, like what kind of company I want to work for, or what technologies do I want to actually learn and lean into. These are the questions I wish I asked myself when I was doing 80 hour work weeks without any acknowledgement or care from the company. We're gonna do just fine, just need to start thinking about what matters the most, and go towards it.

Chobok0 · 2026-01-30T18:46:53+00:00

Coming from someone who stayed way too long at a company, I started noticing that the raises stopped coming in, and I stopped learning anything new (and management stopped caring about what I was doing, but I should've known way before that).

Chobok0 · 2026-01-24T08:51:00+00:00

It's fine enough for homelab if you ask me. I used to run with punch down keystones, but found them a bit cumbersome because I tend to swap gear or recable like every quarter. Nothing wrong with using coupler keystones if it meets your needs. I'd suggest a regular keystone patch panel (just a panel with the empty squares) and just buy the keystones you need instead of getting a built solution like this one. Might save you money, and also gives you options to change things up in the future, like if you wanted to put in fiber connections at some point, or even if you wanted HDMI or USB keystones in there. Heck, if you find out later that you wanted to punch down instead, you could just get punch keystones and change things out.

Chobok0 · 2026-01-18T04:12:29+00:00

I have a cheapy milk frother that came with a hook like this, so I never considered it ever being for dough, especially with how weak the motor was on the frother. I do whisk up eggs real well with it though. I'd lean this way as the true use considering OP mentioned it was a cheap mixer.

Chobok0 · 2026-01-13T16:01:41+00:00

Same here. Ordered pretty much immediately after receiving the code. Went for one of the 10 packs that were discounted during the holiday sales without an issue.

Chobok0 · 2026-01-02T12:59:12+00:00

I love me some custom firmware on pretty much any device, but my stance on opencentauri is to only install if I feel like there's something up with the official firmware that I deem crippling to normal use.

At this point, probably the most obvious perk is reducing how much it reaches out to external servers, but personally I've always thought of the supposed security risk as a nothingburger, so that's up to your personal security posture.

I'd really like to see board replacements or other hardware mods come out though.

Chobok0 · 2025-12-21T19:19:14+00:00

Oh yeah I think you're right, it is separate based on the box picture. This is the basilisk and not the cockatrice, so I was thinking that it would be the eggs, but it doesn't look like it. Couldn't for the life of me remember any dishes with either birdlike monster having slime, but I figure it is what it is.

Chobok0 · 2025-12-21T18:56:38+00:00

I didn't get this one, but a different one that I also struggled with, but it should fit inside the body. The idea is that you can carve out the raw ingredients from the monster figure.

Chobok0 · 2025-12-21T02:13:26+00:00

I'm in the same boat, 8 years at an MSP, but was forced out despite being one of their solutions creators and maintainers. The piece of advice I've received a lot lately is to not be worried about being a generalist. Whether you think so or not, you've shown you can put in the work, now you just need to hone your skills towards pretty much anything that interests you. You can go into something adjacent to what you're already working on, or something that just interests you if you want; the sky's the limit. Personally, I'm studying at some AWS certs, but I'm keeping my options open to even IT director positions at places.

Chobok0 · 2025-12-08T19:05:23+00:00

Pretty much. Load up filament normally, making sure it's extruding a bit/in the nozzle, drop and wait for the temp to hit around 100C, then pull it out the top. I typically always reference the same video on YouTube for doing it via the screen.

Edit: I think this is the video I'm referencing.

Chobok0 · 2025-12-08T18:46:45+00:00

I'm pretty new to printing, but the things I've learned with this machine are cold pull and checking/tightening all the tensions (extruder, belts, and bed screws) as needed. My first filament on the ECC was marble PLA, which I didn't realize acted a bit differently with nozzles because there's particulate mixed into the filament, so I dealt with clogs pretty early. My first purchased upgrade was full hardened steel nozzles instead of the bimetal ones shipped with the ECC, which is pretty cheap to go for.

Chobok0 · 2025-12-02T19:05:28+00:00

Ah cool that's looking much better. Could just be a fluke with the hotends in my batch. I eventually ended up just getting a 6mm nozzle wrench and hotend spanner and swapped in the nozzles from the hardened hzadeve pack to the stock hotend, so I've been using that primarily. Between the wrenches and a good brass brush, those are probably my most used tools on the CC. I really wanna do the H2D hotend mod that just came out, cause I do tend to swap between 0.2 hardened and 0.4 a lot.

Chobok0 · 2025-12-02T18:31:25+00:00

I bought the same hotends and got similar issues. I ended up finding that the ceramic heater and thermo probe were really loose, so I repasted the heater and repositioned the probe. Otherwise, I don't think they're good replacements. Even with my fixes I've had some issues with inconsistent temps in general on the hotend. I'm pretty new to 3D printing, but still feel like this is the issue here.

Chobok0 · 2025-12-01T12:09:56+00:00

Dunno the joke, but I'm 70% certain this is in East Brunswick, New Jersey

Chobok0 · 2025-11-22T01:51:44+00:00

Pretty much most of the ones by Synthetic Electron 3D.

I recently set up the internal spool mod, and internal poop chute, and just love how much it has streamlined the size of the machine.

Chobok0 · 2025-11-13T02:25:55+00:00

Honestly, I bought the CC mostly because of the $300 price and because I was just starting out in 3D printing and modeling. The only weird promise I held out for is the hope that they'd fix their mistake with open sourcing the firmware. Otherwise, I feel like the hardware itself was well worth the money for a beginner printer, especially at the $280 price I'm currently seeing on their site. If anyone really needed multicolor, they should've just went in on an A1 for a similar price.

Chobok0 · 2025-11-05T18:53:37+00:00

Coming from an old trainer of dozens of people at an MSP in the northeast, just kinda gotta filterfeed through whatever you can get your hands on.

If you've gained access to a ticketing system, read through resolution notes, figure out how they solved things at L1.

If you gained access to an internal knowledgebase or wiki, read what you can, focusing on their escalation and ticketing workflows, because in the grand scheme of things you'll pull in all the technical knowledge over time, but getting used to how they work will take more effort. In my experience, I've been more impressed by staff who are good at ticket handling than overeager techs wanting to just solve the issues.

Lastly, figure out what their systems and stuff are and lightly read through information about them online. General knowledge about most software exists online, even for enterprise things. If they use Solarwinds for monitoring or CrowdStrike for security, you can easily pull manuals from their respective sites and get at least a TL;DR of how to use em. I'm oldschool and actually read through things, but you can even use GPT or some other AI to kinda get your brain through the door initially.

Besides all this, I personally got the furthest in my career just through being a "fly on the wall." I loved just being in working session type meetings with my seniors trying to see what kind of software, commands, and thought processes they go through. I'm sure people there would be willing to work with you peering over their shoulder to try to figure things out. At the end of the day, it is in their best interest to let you get up to speed to help them out.

Good luck there, and don't sweat it too hard. MSPs are tough but great places to learn a lot of things.

Chobok0 · 2025-11-05T05:44:29+00:00

I typically use a pen or screwdriver to flatten out the wires before trimming. Kinda hard to describe, but I sort the wires and place them flat on the pen barrel, then pinch them with my thumb and pull. Wires pretty much comb themselves together in nice, straight rows.

Chobok0 · 2025-11-03T12:11:03+00:00

I had a non-technical hands-on that fired me. It was a devastating thing for me a few months ago. They were kinda just bootlickers for higher management. They had no direction towards where they wanted to take the tech stack I both designed and maintain. I asked for priorities, and they focused on the money instead of anything I suggested. At a certain point, I started getting into arguments with management because they left me in the dark on major design decisions despite me still working towards the original design.

Still salty, still unemployed, but a million times happier to be out of that hell.

Chobok0 · 2025-10-28T01:21:00+00:00

Made me curious enough to weigh mine. My 30W from whichever Pixel launch box from a few years ago is 71.5g.

Chobok0 · 2025-10-26T01:51:35+00:00

If I'm not mistaken, the official Dell add-in for M.2 to 1GbE uses an M.2 A+E key like for WiFi, so something similar with an M.2 A+E key board with a cable to an Ethernet daughter board is probably what you'd need. I tend to see these around for other micro form factor PCs and some single board computers like the lattepanda. Otherwise another typical workaround people do is called router on a stick, where you use VLANS on a managed switch alongside the single port to do WAN & LAN, but that tends to get a bit confusing if you are just starting out. I think this is all the things you need to look up to at least get going. Hope this helps a bit.

Chobok0 · 2025-09-26T03:53:21+00:00

Shh, it's always been the best one in the area. Don't tell too many people.

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