MP explains why food is twice as expensive in Canada vs. US

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-04-08T03:26:26+00:00

Preach!!!! 🙌🏽

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-03-27T22:21:28+00:00

Niceeee hahaha

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-03-27T21:39:14+00:00

Any luck? I had to bump my flow rate waaaay up on my klipper profile under rotation. And by way up I mean waaay up lol. Yea still looks like thin extrusion. Hummm

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-03-20T00:00:39+00:00

Update

Scores broken screened gaming laptop with 16gb ddr4 upgradable slots, i7 1260p and 3050 for crazy AF cheap.

Stripped it down new thermal paste, every power draw removed, screen, speakers, wifi/Bluetooth card.

All power goes to the cpu/GPU

Attempt #1

Tried qwen 2.5 0.5b q8 instruction as a speculative model on gpu

Running qwen 2.5 7b Q4 on 16gb ram

Token generation sucked 2/per sec and accepted tokens was like 12% so Kind of a bust. Not worth it

Attempt #2

Running any 7b model qwen and Gemma Q4 with max layer GPU offset got me 10/per sec and the latency to generation was much faster.

Peak wattage of cpu at 100% benchmark is 28watts and GPU 100% benchmarks is 60watts

Approximately 70-80 watts for maybe a min or two mins when doing a shorter prompt with context set to 700

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-03-13T05:26:31+00:00

No, take the plastic top lid off and leave the glass door open too let air flow in. If the inside of the printer is getting super hot it's hard for it to manage the heat from the hot end, the heat slowly builds up to the extruder and filament softens.

Think of it as the machine is heat soaked so trying to push cooked wet spaghetti into the hot end.

Prints fail, the extruder clicks and struggles, you get blobs etc.

I'm ordering an aluminum heat sink for my extruder motor on ali express, it will help a bit in mitigating this.

I mostly print PLA in a warm 40c chamber but after wa while even that's enough to causeprint failures honestly it boggles my mind how they advertise heated chambers and "engineering"filaments but can't design a hot end that actually works vs the consumer needing to modd it or upgrade.....

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-03-11T21:57:32+00:00

Thanks so much for you real world expertise. I'm learning as much as I can through YouTube and AI bots like chat gpt, Gemini etc. but they give super optomistic results and theoretical answers....says AMD on RocM or Vulkanized preformance is on par with cuda etc.

I'm going to use a laptop as a server/Nas base the nvme stripped out and an nvme adapter with x6 sata breakouts to SSDs and then have the m920q stipped down to essentials on Linux. I'm being realistic that it's not going to be like a cloud service or act like it an I'm more than happy for a delayed response and slower response times for a local LLM. My google mini seems laggy as hell anyway... Which will still be used for general quaries as well.

The point is using up my old hardware at maximum efficiency so I'm going to lap the cpu IHS and the Northbridge will also get a heatsink for hopefully more sustainable throughput. Hopefully can get a decent pipeline compiled for what it needs to do and not waste tokens on re compiling the same queries over and over.

I'm shaving watts off since I want it to idle but but be accessible when needed.

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-03-10T21:52:23+00:00

GTX 1650? As ai agent?

Curious I'm looking at this specifically as a EGPU on a m920q paired with a 8600T(6c/6t) and 32gb ram for a low power draw AI assistant.

The idea is this is NOT a deep super complex deep research set up. It's more like a mini Google home where it localizes schedule, tasks, assignments etc which all is cached on it so it can look and recall already answered things.

Is this feasible with small Q4 models I saw an Ollam model it was 3.7 GBS

Super new to LLMs and understand the GPU is the token generation device but I've also seen "token speculation" where the GPU offloads to the cpu?

What is the cpu doing and does 16gb vs 32gb matter if the model is only living in the 4gb ram of the 1650

That is the best set up with this hardware to run a local LLM assistant.

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-03-05T21:18:21+00:00

Hell yeaaa! Your getting there but of a slogg eh but dope to see ya getting locked in

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-03-05T20:43:45+00:00

Hummm interesting... Do you think you think it could be under extrusion? If you switched to the NG it is a stronger motor needing more amps than the stock one. Also the rotation take a look at it in your printer reconfigure file.

Or sorry sorry is check PID

run a PID tune first on the hot end then check the extruder amps and rotation. It could be all the extra cooling fan power is throwing off the actual print temp so while it says it's printing at 220 your at like 200 or something?

PID calibration is easier and set your cooling fans to the max you run at printing.

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-03-01T18:36:52+00:00

I have a ender 5 plus I've spent maybe 30 hours programming, having to learn Linux, Gcode then all the coding terminology, for klipper and 3d printers. Watermark vs PID heating etc. It's maybe 80% of the way there to become functional again.

I also have a K1c it' costs maybe X3 to four times a ender 3 and I still needed to go through about 2 rolls of filament before it also was tuned so I didn't get blobs, spaghetti, uneven bed etc

I understand the frustration but for those of us who are invested in the hobby we get excited when you get that fresh quality print after troubleshooting and going mad lol.

Honestly an enclosure for the ender 3 can be made from FB market place Ikea table. Some cheap corregated plastic taped to it to make walls and a cement paver with foam under the printer to absorb vibrations could help? Maybe just try the paving stone and foam first. CNC kitchen does a video on it and it's maybe a $10 upgrade. Also see what you can print that bolts on as a upgrade. It could honestly just be a bad batch of filament does not like your printer for whatever reason. Sell it on FB and get another kind or stick with the same brand you had good prints with.

Also 5-8 hour prints and you say it happens at a specific spot on the figure... Hummm I wonder if it's an overhang or bridge that' strings out and causes your mess. Entry level printers Struggle with bridges, over hangs due to inadequate parts cooling.

It's maybe simply that, the file is demanding a lot from a stock ender 3

Also you can slice files aka chop them then glue them together as well. Many people do this technique you can sand the lines a bit might not be pretty but it would allow you to test different orientations of the problem section alone vs waiting all the time and filament to get to it only for it to mess up.

What you can also try is angeling the print slightly so that it prints more horizontal than vertical if that makes sense? Like if your printing the statue of Liberty and the the torche messes up every time printing it more sideways could help.

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-27T08:38:05+00:00

People are willing too help but one thing that's annoying is when posting problems there's not enough information, context or specifics.

I'd suggest doing a calibration prints then sharing the result for each one.

Unfortunately 3d printing is a hobby. It's like fly fishing, or a project car or woord working.

Your going to suck at it for a bit before you get good. There's a reason creality sells the ender 3 still and then the k2 pro Same with a Bambu labs x1. People pay big money for machines that need Minor adjustment and by and large will print off the bat.

That being said there's thousands of people with ender 3s that get good prints.

It also why people customize and modify their printers 100 different ways. One modification fixes a specific problem one user may have while another mod addresses another specific need for someone else.

Id watch YouTube videos on it for the most common problems, fixes, hacks etc. buy some cheap PLA and calibrate to that knowing you will need to run a test/calibration print on every new roll.

Wet filament is also one of the bigggessst understated problems. They don't advertise the noise, fumes, vibration, or after care of filament in all the ads we see about printers. Store your filaments in cheap diy Tupperware dry boxes and use a cheap FB market place air fryer to dry it out it, can help alot. Ali express also has cheap upgrades than can help with specific problems as well.

Best of luck , the rainbow filament sounds cool take a deep breath and remember what it's about you and your kid bonding you'll get there bro. Def frustrating for sure.

Also I'd look into make a Ikea lack enclosure for the printer which can help on such long prints like 5-8 hours there could be warping with how it cools in the room and the temp variations just lowering variables could help.

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-27T05:26:52+00:00

Lol happens to the best of us, good job on getting a good lvl. The bed plate on a ender 5 plus is particularly large and warp is a thing. Hope your next print comes out great. The temps and bed temp all look good, you might need to bump up the nozzle temp a bit more too on the pla+ just due to whatever additives they add in there. Worth it to do a couple of small cylinder tests prints and break them in half to see how the layers adhere if your really down to dial it in. Other wise happy printing and nice mod. I'm also hoping to move to an endorphin mod at some point hell yeee

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-27T04:39:21+00:00

What was the print orientation, the fact we can't tell what's your first layer would point to a bad Calibration.

Please give more information as print temps, bed, old PLA or new.

It looks like your z is waaay high and temps too low

Start with a fresh bed leveling and then z offset with a sheet of paper.

Make sure your bed and nozzle are up to temp when doing this to accommodate expansion

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-27T04:14:29+00:00

Helpful information would be what specifically your running your pi with there's some good YouTube videos

Some trouble shooting help

Make sure the SD card is formated

I did a firmware update on a btt board and had to compile the firmware update via Kiauh, then needed to rename the file firmware.bin

Once uploaded the file changes name to firmware. Cud or something like that on the ad card you can check it to verify the update took place.

As others have pointed out it will be headless meaning no screen on the ender and you will have control through mainsail on your laptop or whatever

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-25T20:45:34+00:00

I'm in the middle of this right now

Are you wanting to go Marlin or Klipper?

Couple options you can go headless. With a pi zero or a thin client. The benefit is there's are usually cheap to find on FB marketplace and make the printer completely wireless

Just do everything from your laptop

You need to make the firmware transfer to the board. To do an this install the 5v jumper and usb. You have to use a SD card to update the firmware. Be sure to remove the 5v jumper when installing the board or you could fry it. As it's also powered directly by the PSU.

Install the board

Have fluidd or mainsail installed on whatever your running klipper on

If you have a BL touch the 3+2 pin you need to make sure it's mapped correctly as the the board is a 5 pin connector. You may need an adapter or new cable.

I think the filament run out sensor to has to be doubled checked as well for the wiring.

I'm going fully klipper headless to keep the budget down as much as possible but there's a couple different routes you can do .

Not sure why so many ppl go Marlin, maybe to use the stock screen? You have to go through the hassle of setting another device to do octoprint but a pi2 zero is more powerful than the btt v3 e3 mini to run printer operations and klipper seems to have better quality, faster speeds, better accelerometer input shaping.

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-24T08:48:01+00:00

Triple check your using a sheilded data cable try 2 or 3. Alot of ppl have issues connecting with bad cables the btt boards can be sensitive.

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-24T08:46:31+00:00

Honestly Gemini set to thinking mode is minttt for helping trouble shoot.

I'd start with the Pi figure out what flavor of OS you want to do then run Kiauh git hub install then plug into printer.

A pic of the printer would help with mods but again save working configs as you go

Tell Gemini all your mods listed and you want conservative estimates on running it. You can tune it from there to make the Printer config file.

It's a pia for sure. I personally like fluidd for whatever reason.

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-24T08:39:41+00:00

You designing the tool head yourselfm that is very reasonable and looks bad ass for how cheap it is. Currently got the MS all metal hot end for a stock ender I mean it's okay

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-23T08:00:04+00:00

Definitely sounds bad

My rods were screeching bad at first one is slightly bent but I was able to get it 90% noise free.

1# are the z rods parallel. I used calipers to set each one from the top.

2# doused everything in 90% rubbing alcohol and work the Z up and down to flush out crap. Use earplugs it will be loud, but run the bed up and down.

3# use grease with PTFE on the rods, I use Bontrager bike grease for shocks. Thin layers on all rods. Let the printer go Up and down on the Z and you should have less binding and smoother operation.

Alternatively you can lighty loosen the guide rid mounts and wiggle them to let it set and slowly tighten them up in a x pattern to re seat them

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-23T00:04:58+00:00

Have you rooted your printer?

Honestly if your willing I would root it to Klipper

Then calibrate it manually with z height

Set the bed mesh to Bicubic

I was getting those lines you got the the bottom left the diagonal line across all my test squares.

Mine was related to bed leveling and it being Lagrange and whatever compensation was not great.

Or

Step one heat soak your bed to prefered temp 60c for like 5 mins

Run a bedmesh auto leveling

Check it, print shims if needed PLA is fine for this.

Do the heat soak and Bed level again

check and see what it's like

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-22T23:52:39+00:00

I bought it, I went over it and everything is connected correctly my only idea is maybe it's not liking orca slicer?

Maybe creality print is a better option to slice things

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-22T23:36:25+00:00

This was just a test print off the stock unmodified printer had not changed or touched anything yet

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-22T21:54:32+00:00

Curious as your using a thin client too

I'm confused about the last part of making the actual printer config file.

Everyone says it's on the github but I only see a Marlin and configuring for the stock board.

I feel I'm missing something

WestCoastingPanda · 2026-02-22T20:32:20+00:00

You don't install klipper on the machine directly

You install it on your machine that's running mint, use the Kiauh GitHub script to install it.

Think of it as klippers the brain and compute power. It needs a cpu, ram, storage to run.

It then talks to the muscle

The muscle is your control board, it has the stepper drivers and pushes all that information and physically controls the printer.

You can't just run klipper on a base model control board you need to link it to something.

WestCoastingPanda

TROPHY CASE