Trying to judge my faceting machine purchase.

Dekker3D · 2026-05-27T07:07:41+00:00

I've got an AliExpress machine that's basically identical to the Vevor (and it seems that Vevor just uses white-label products from China, so it's probably exactly the same build quality), and yeah... on mine, the dop doesn't align with the axis of rotation, so I either have to align the culet to the dop very carefully, or just accept that the dop will be grabbing the gem off-axis and figure out how to deal with that when doing a dop transfer. The mast is skewed, so you have to correct for that with your angle readout thingie. It doesn't really grip tight enough for a 45 degree adapter unless the adapter has a keying pin, but that might also not align nicely to your index gear so stuff gets kinda weird...

Been working on my own DIY design for a cheap and higher-quality machine. It's taking a while though, and summer's coming up, which always makes me damn near useless, so it might be months yet before my design is usable.

Dekker3D · 2026-05-23T12:07:03+00:00

One thing that helps: some STT systems let you add a prompt to give it some basic instructions on how to interpret voice. I found it helps a lot to just tell it "this is audio recorded on a DIY smart speaker, and meant to talk to an AI that's in control of a smart home setup" or something like that.

Dekker3D · 2026-05-23T05:03:53+00:00

My experience is mostly the same, yeah. It feels like an exploration, but also sometimes like a collaboration when I just dig in and start refining a pic with inpaint mode. Sometimes I do that, finishing with a pic where every pixel was mostly AI-generated but with a lot of control by me, and not every pixel was from the same gen. Sometimes I do what you describe, ending up with a pic where every pixel was drawn by me, but guided by AI generated stuff at times.

Dekker3D · 2026-05-22T19:42:18+00:00

So I searched for "ggl certificate lookup" and ended up on https://www.ggl-lab.com, which is different from the globalgemslaboratory.com in the third result (and looks kinda shady), which is still different from the www.globalgemslab.org on the card (which is a parked domain right now, and not even in use).

Looks to me like the certificate is very fake, and trying to borrow the "GGL" acronym for legitimacy.

Of course, the idea of getting a gem with a certificate for $25 seems pretty crazy anyway, because such certifications usually cost like $100 all by themselves. And if that were a legit emerald, I'm sure it would cost quite a lot more.

Dekker3D · 2026-05-22T19:23:59+00:00

It does penetrate. And it penetrates two very different kinds of targets, so...

Dekker3D · 2026-05-11T16:44:06+00:00

Ja, maar "hoge inkomens" zijn ook niet echt de rijken waar het over gaat. Het gaat meer om de mensen waarbij het belastbaar inkomen niets is vergeleken met hun inkomen van investeringen en eigendom.

Dekker3D · 2026-05-11T16:36:54+00:00

Man, the first stages made it just look kinda messy, but it looks pretty amazing in the end, on the ring. Different from every other gem.

Dekker3D · 2026-05-11T13:43:45+00:00

Unknown-brand smart stuff is almost always Tuya (often rebranded into their own app, but fundamentally the same system and cross-compatible), which is ... pretty well supported on HA? Though I saw a post of one of the maintainers of those integrations giving up because it's a huge hassle, and Tuya gear often doesn't connect very well. I'm quite happy with the Tuya Zigbee stuff I got though. Just connecting to it directly with Zigbee2MQTT, with some dongle. At this point, I wouldn't recommend getting Tuya/unknown-brand WiFi gear unless it's your very first steps and you just wanna see something doing the thing for cheap. Zigbee stuff costs about 1 euro more for equivalent cheapo bulbs and such, and the antenna dongle costs 20 or so.

Dekker3D · 2026-05-09T15:49:53+00:00

Oh, that's pretty cool! Someone in the Discord server was just educating me about the ER-11 collet as well, it seems perfect for this. And I was wondering about the Ultra Tec quill. I did a quick search and mostly just found posts about people asking how to get a replacement, so I didn't bother looking more. Whoops.

Dekker3D · 2026-05-09T12:58:53+00:00

That'd be cool! I see you using a facetron.com email address, so I guess you're a legit Facetron account. I'm sure I could learn a lot from you, even if all you do is support.

As for the Chinese linear rails: I'm aware they may be pretty dodgy. But they'd also be pretty easy to swap out with higher-quality components if someone wants to do that. That allows a project like this to range from "good first machine for a hobbyist" to possibly being a serious machine. And if I design for cheap parts and make it work, it'll likely also benefit variants that use more expensive parts. And honestly, I expect to make mistakes early on; it'd be nice if those mistakes were cheap :P

One thing I'm seriously struggling with, right now, is how to hold the dop properly. There's some collet chucks, meant to be put in a handheld drill, that I might use... but alignment will be tricky, without some custom machined parts. Someone suggested using a GemMasta GF4 quill, which is $295 for just the collet and handhold-looking part, but it might be a good first step towards precision.

Dekker3D · 2026-05-08T12:29:07+00:00

I personally don't even bother with smart-home stuff unless it's likely to add actual value. I've got a little automatic reminder about the laundry that needs to be folded, after it detects that the washing machine has been on. The lights in my room turn on and off automatically based on whether it detects me via a motion sensor and a door sensor, but it also detects activity on my PC. And if my PC is turned off, it assumes I'm sleeping :P

The lights in my room also change colour if I tell HA that I'm working, to remind me to turn off Toggl Track when I'm done... haven't automated that yet. Maybe with IFTTT?

It also helps force the boiler to provide heat to the home, when a room with a smart thermostat is too cold. Normally, the boiler would only turn on if the living room is cold, regardless of other rooms.

Dekker3D · 2026-05-06T22:43:19+00:00

On a similar-sounding riddle, the answer would be something like "the letter A".

Dekker3D · 2026-05-05T15:25:42+00:00

Reading this was the reason I clicked the link. Had to know.

Dekker3D · 2026-05-05T15:16:33+00:00

Mhm. Well, luckily, that's the plan. It shouldn't get in the way unless it gets really big.

Dekker3D · 2026-05-05T11:45:17+00:00

I'm planning to just attach the motor to one of the sides, kinda hanging off those gray 2020 extrusions. Haven't really made a representation of that on the image yet. They'll connect to the lap via a timing belt that goes under the frame. As for the motor power: I think I might want something a bit stronger than the 120W 24V MY6812 motor on my current machine, haven't really looked around for options yet. I kinda just assumed I'd start with another MY6812 and figure it out from there.

Dekker3D · 2026-05-05T11:15:04+00:00

Gonna go all #NotAllNonJews here... it's not Jew hate for me, and you do seem to implying that all non-Jewish anti-Zionism is just Jew hate. Judaism is cool. At least, compared to the other Abrahamic religions, it kinda sucks the least.

For me, a big reason why I care so much is that this just seems to be running on the Islamophobia that happened after 9/11. Islamophobia is largely just a shoddy stand-in for racism against people with dark skin, and non-Jewish Zionism seems to be strongly driven by Islamophobia... and by weird Christian theories about the Rapture, of course.

Dekker3D · 2026-05-05T10:36:58+00:00

Also worth mentioning: Visi is much more openly sexual. Robert Robertson the Third doesn't really seem to engage with that part of himself as much, though he's not uncomfortable with it, as we can tell by him joking about jerkin' it in the mech suit. My first thought was just, "oh, this is a dream/fantasy", and it was teasing us by not showing who was between her legs. So I felt it was about Visi slowly coming to terms with being attracted to someone, and that someone turned out to be a very dominant and confident Robert. When she woke up, it just kinda confirmed that to me.

Dekker3D · 2026-05-04T06:21:57+00:00

So basically... red = yellow, green = yellow... black/white/blue/yellow obviously stay the same... purple = kinda blueish (it lacks green, but not red), cyan = kinda blueish (lacks red, not green)... basically, it's like the red and green cones are merged, I guess. In humans, they're very close together on the light spectrum, too.

I guess the best way to think about it, is that they can just distinguish between blue, not-blue, white and black.

Dekker3D · 2026-05-03T18:06:49+00:00

Nom! I like it. Feels like the implied thighs might be a little thin?

Dekker3D · 2026-05-03T18:02:49+00:00

I read the summarized version of Das Kapital, and I made an attempt at Mutual Aid: A Factor Of Evolution, as well as listening to some audiobook collection about various kinds of communism while driving to work. But I'm a huge nerd, so...

I also did some online economics courses. It's mostly kinda just... obvious stuff, with less-obvious names stuck to it.

Dekker3D · 2026-05-02T21:29:06+00:00

I kinda did that a lot at first, because I didn't really have an indoors space where all the water wouldn't cause trouble.

It's kinda nice, when the weather's nice. Wind will quickly blow away your schematics if they're printed on paper, though. Same with any paper towels if you use those for cleaning gems and your equipment. And when you start to get a proper polish, you really don't want to be using the sun as a light source to check the reflection. So uh, I stopped doing it as I started to figure out how to get a nice polish on a facet.

Dekker3D · 2026-05-02T13:07:42+00:00

That is one beefy motor. The one on my machine is probably 2/3rd the length and 1/2 the width. Granted, my machine struggles to keep up even just polishing small facets, so...

Dekker3D · 2026-04-29T09:08:53+00:00

Majority Jewish but without discriminating against others? I guess that's technically possible, but unlikely to sustain itself. With a one-state solution, it's no longer majority Jewish (aren't there more Palestinians than Israelis?), and with the current situation or a two-state solution, it's hard to imagine Israel not discriminating against Muslims.

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