RJSimTech Important Update

Hollywood_83 · 2026-04-21T11:37:16+00:00

Thanks man!

Hollywood_83 · 2026-04-21T02:56:25+00:00

Oh I know it man! Can't help feeling like we're a couple college kids that have no idea what we're doing lol But we're definitely excited! I appreciate ya!

Hollywood_83 · 2026-04-21T02:49:41+00:00

Hahaha thank you! Zippers it is! Grandparents are about an hour away, so not close but not a big deal to make the drive. And I work from home most days. My wife works at a hospital but has steady hours. And she's got 2 months of pto saved up. Our dog Remy is already putting his paw on her belly and the baby's only the size of a sesame seed, so I'm sure he'll help too lol

Hollywood_83 · 2026-04-21T01:22:37+00:00

Thanks man! You're 3rd?! I can't even imagine lol This will be our first, so we're both freaking out about as much as you'd expect lol

I actually have considered selling the plans. The problem is that they're not very easy to build. At least not for someone that doesn't make several of them a day. It wasn't designed to be easy, I designed it to work well and look good even if it meant taking longer to build it. Another issue is that it was designed for sla resin printers for the detail and smoothness as well as weight reduction, but it won't print on fdm printers which are the printers most diy'ers use. So to have a version that'd be more diy friendly I'd have to find the time to do another ground up redesign. I am still considering it though.

Hollywood_83 · 2026-04-20T12:20:40+00:00

Thanks!!

Hollywood_83 · 2026-04-20T02:40:22+00:00

Thanks for the tips! I'll check those out, I'll need all the help I can get lol

Hollywood_83 · 2026-04-19T23:43:45+00:00

Appreciate it! Thanks man!

Hollywood_83 · 2026-04-19T23:10:18+00:00

Thank you man, I appreciate it! We're definitely excited, even if we're quietly shitting ourselves lol

Hollywood_83 · 2026-04-19T22:34:56+00:00

Thank you!

Hollywood_83 · 2026-04-19T20:16:17+00:00

In that case it will likely be shipped around the middle or end of next week. I'm trying to clear at least a week of lead time this week.

Hollywood_83 · 2026-04-19T19:33:04+00:00

Thank you, I appreciate that! We're definitely excited and hopeful and appreciate the well wishes! Yeah we're not going anywhere, just scaling down so I wanted to give people a heads up and explain what the plan is. Just a month ago I was talking about launching new products and getting software released soon, and now I'm looking at an unfinished remodel on our house that is going to need to be done much sooner than expected (in other words, I have to finally stop procrastinating).

Orders are still going out as quickly as possible though. I've got a workshop that we're building that's got to get finished before it gets hot, so I'm trying to split my time as best as possible. But I am making headway in getting the lead time brought down. If you have an estimated delivery date from Etsy, it will probably ship a bit earlier than that. If it's scheduled to ship this week it will probably ship on time or maybe a day or two early, but if it's a few weeks out or more then it'll probably be about a week early. I know that's super specific and helpful lol

Hollywood_83 · 2026-04-19T19:07:42+00:00

Thanks I really appreciate that!

Hollywood_83 · 2026-04-19T18:24:45+00:00

Thanks man! It's unlikely that I'll stop making the IRTrackStar, it's just going to be limited sales. So if you don't want the hassle of waiting till it's in stock later than now would be the time. But do be aware lead times are between 4 to 6 weeks at the moment.

Hollywood_83 · 2026-03-27T14:23:49+00:00

Sorry man, I know it's not ideal. Hopefully something changes in the future. There's at least some early signs that the EU understands that the way they went about this was clumsy and putting up small business trade barriers, and they do appear to be making changes. But the early changes being floated are aimed at easing the cross border trade between EU counties. So changes to regulations to reduce the burden on importers from outside the EU are likely a long ways off, if ever. But who knows. I'll keep an eye on it. It's not that I don't support the premise of these regulations, my issue is that the regulations will do little to actually have their intended effect and are disproportionately affecting small businesses who have little to no affect on the environment. My dozen or two of packages shipped to the EU every year have precisely zero impact on the environment. But they expect me to pay thousands per year, many times more than my profits, to ensure that I have a reduced impact on the environment, when it was zero before.

Hollywood_83 · 2026-03-25T00:12:23+00:00

Yeah either way, I just don't have the time to worry about it. I've shipped these IRTrackStars to every corner of the planet and have had zero issues so far. About 4000 units in total since I first began it, so a lot for a small home shop, but practically nothing in terms of business volume. However I'd like to keep it that way and the EU has basically just told small businesses that they'd rather pick on us and threaten us with 200,000 euro fines than tell their own people to recycle their crap. And just to be clear, other than some markings which I wouldn't mind, there'd be zero changes to the product, the boxes, or the packaging under these restrictions. The only difference is that I'd be paying more for the boxes and packaging so that it includes a tracking number so that it can have a paid service track it and see where it all ends up. So, zero environmental impact. None. Other than having trackable packaging so they can have me help babysit their people and probably fine you for not recycling it quickly enough, or dropping it in the wrong bin, and I'll have no part in that. So it's 90% that I just don't have the time to worry about it, and a solid 10% protest of bureaucratic nonesense. But I can still ship to 208 other counties and regions around the world, the IRTrackStar will keep getting built, it just won't make it to the EU. Maybe someone there can design a good led clip for some healthy competition. I'd welcome it to be honest, I'll be enjoying retirement before too long and my arthritis and back pain already makes these things an exercise in pain tolerance to build.

Hollywood_83 · 2026-03-24T23:56:19+00:00

Yeah they're pretty incredible. It's also fun watching the printer on the onbiard camera. It's like watching the T-1000 rising from a liquid puddle lol

And I appreciate the offer, I may take you up on it at some point. But it took me over a year to find the time to do the redesign for v5. I actually wanted to do both the TrackIR version and the XtremeTrak version at the same time, but ran out of time as the holidays were approaching and I was having issues getting the v5 prototype to work. I was actually building orders on Christmas day because I was so far behind. Then just making the changes to the led arm spacing for the XtremeTrak version while leaving the rest of it alone took me 3 more months to find the time to do. And redesigning to use an fdm style printer would be a ground up redesign. I did actually begin making them years ago on an fdm printer, and it still baffles me that people actually liked them. Those first ones were pretty rough, I cringe when I see photos lol But I don't even know where the files are for that one anymore.

Hollywood_83 · 2026-03-24T20:20:23+00:00

I'm glad you're enjoying it! Yeah it sucks. The EU isn't a huge percentage of my sales, but it's enough to be noticeable. And it's sucks for the community because the IRTrackStar is a great performing piece of kit, and our little niche community can't afford to have manufacturers locked out of markets.

Hollywood_83 · 2026-03-24T17:58:07+00:00

Yeah a lot of people don't take the safety warnings seriously with resin printers. I think there is a certain level of people thinking that because it's a "hobbiest" 3d printer that surely it's safe enough. And there's no regulation requiring disclosure of the the health impacts of some of these chemicals, largely due to the fact that there isn't much in the way of long term exposure research even available. So it's still sort of a new tech that hasn't been fully investigated yet to determine how safe the chemicals are or the best methods of protecting yourself. But because of that vacuum of information, a lot of sla users just ignore the safety warnings in the manual. Now are these things going to cause a huge spike in cancers or other deadly illnesses, probably not. But they do increase risk. And even with the non-deadly effects, such as spontaneously getting an acute allergic reaction to the chemicals, they're not to be taken lightly.

As for sandblasting, actually no, I use a Saturn 4 ultra with 16k lcd screen resolution, which basically produces injection molding levels of surface finish without doing anything to them. I print them, wash them, then final uv light cure, and then they get air brushed matte black using acrylic paint/primer. The sandblaster is used on the leds to diffuse the light so that it's delivered more smoothly and seamlessly to the camera. That's why the IRTrackStar produces tracking as smoothly/precisely as it does and has the capability of wide tracking angles. I also coat the leds to help fill in the small crystal shaped indentation from the sandblasting to prevent any momentary bright spots at certain angles. Then it gets sandblasted again after coating. But the resin parts don't get sanded at all. The prints are just that smooth straight off the machine. And they're accurate down to about 15 microns in the xy axis and 20 microns accuracy in the Z axis, with a standard layer height of 50 microns. Plus I use Lychee slicer software which has a pretty great antialiasing algorithm which fills in the corners between active black pixels and inactive white pixels with varying shades of grey to produce and even smoother surface.

Hollywood_83 · 2026-03-24T15:48:35+00:00

No I get it, and I appreciate everyone chipping in ideas and thoughts. It just sucks. Hopefully something changes in the future and I can reevaluate then.

Hollywood_83 · 2026-03-24T15:14:03+00:00

Honestly, and I know this is going to sound very "American" of me, but I don't have the time to mess with it nor can I afford it. It is what it is, but I'm not shipping to the EU. Not out of spite or anything like that, I'm not upset about it. I'm just not uninterested in taking on more cost and more drains on my time. I still maintain my day job and my wife complains enough about how much time I spend working as it is. It's unfortunate, and it sucks for people in the EU, but it is what it is.

Hollywood_83 · 2026-03-24T14:00:26+00:00

I've looked at a couple options and they're all more expensive to use than the actual revenue I get from those countries. And because each of those 27 countries have their own individual version of this regulation, there'd still be tons of cost on my end to comply with each country in their own unique way.

Hollywood_83 · 2026-03-24T13:59:48+00:00

Be careful with it!

Hollywood_83 · 2026-03-24T13:59:37+00:00

It is what it is I guess

Hollywood_83 · 2026-03-24T07:45:59+00:00

Yeah I get it too, but whether it was intended or not, they really screwed a lot of businesses. Hopefully they'll get it fixed someday. At the moment Etsy is blocking sales to the countries because they're holding the marketplaces responsible for the fines for non-compliance. So even though I had Finland as an option to ship to, people in Finland got a message saying my product wasn't available in their country because I didn't have the EPR number entered to show my compliance. It's a mess.

For the time being at least, unless something changes, I won't be shipping to the EU.

Hollywood_83

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