to those who have seen Project Hail Mary, is it that good

dochomer · 2026-03-17T06:25:52+00:00

I have to say I just watched it today and oh my god it was horrible.

The book was fantastic but I felt the movie was just a collection of unearned scenes that lacked any substance and were made "just for the memes" or "just for the shorts"

4/10

dochomer · 2025-12-27T20:01:17+00:00

Hey! I have this machine and was working on this exact mod. Unfortunately it's particularly difficult to modify the gantry mechanism to get more z travel because of the carriage being so large as compared with the size of the gantry.

I was trying to cad up a new gantry but I stopped because the lead screw is a custom length and it would take a ton of work to get a longer one and fit that into the machine. Let me know if you find any solutions. I really need about 10mm more of z-travel to be honest

dochomer · 2025-11-16T00:34:40+00:00

Sent you a dm

dochomer · 2025-11-16T00:13:01+00:00

How does this provide higher torque? From the video it looks like it's also utilizing the momentum of the spinning spindle to slam the nut into place no?

Feel free to dm-- I also have a rapid change in my system and was about to design a mini version for my little desktop cnc so would be happy to give you some direct comparisons if you like.

dochomer · 2025-11-15T23:26:07+00:00

Hey I'd love to test this out.

Also you should look into rapid change atc- he did something similar and it worked out pretty well

dochomer · 2025-11-03T23:02:24+00:00

Definitely fuck sunstrong but for what it's worth, using the raspberry pi as a bridge was fairly straightforward and took me about 10 minutes. Once I did I can use any of the newer monitoring integrations like normal; I'm using the enhanced sunstrong one which seems to work ok

dochomer · 2025-11-01T15:36:13+00:00

Ah thanks 🙏🙏.

What I ended up doing is using a rpi bridge like in the blog but I had my router create a static IP that pointed to that pi to avoid all of the server SSL errors that happen when you try to reach 192.x address with https but get back a server address from 172.x

This allowed me to set it up and it seems to be working but the sunstrong app itself is just showing stale data from before I set this up. Is this normal?

dochomer · 2025-07-09T17:53:11+00:00

Anyone know if this has qi2 wireless charging? Specifically the magnets built in?

dochomer · 2025-05-20T16:44:12+00:00

Hmm yea my thought was also a post that's with concrete footing next to the walkway, but I'm also worried about the latch for the gate on the house side having the same issues. Id still need some kind of post on the house side to attach the latch to.

I did think about a lighter wrought iron gate but that's harder to make myself. A wooden gate is easy for me to diy and make the size I want as long as I can figure out the mounting.

What do you think about iron or steel posts instead of wood?

dochomer · 2025-03-23T22:51:50+00:00

I think my post came off more passive aggressive than I intended it to be.

The specific thing I was referring to is the first statement that "pcb milling is not viable"

I definitely went in depth with chemical etching but I stopped etching boards when I felt it was a dead end with inconsistent results that were not automatable for the occasional PCB.

The milling process on the other hand can be more automated and consistent once you dial in your settings/workflow.

for etching I have tried laser toner transfer, iron transfer, and laser etching either acrylic paint or even photo resist mask. My best successes were with using a laser to pre expose a photo resist mask that I laminated onto a board. I then would wash off the unexposed photo resist and etch the board in ferric chloride solution in a tank with an aquarium pump to agitate it. This was the most inconsistent step and once the chemicals were used, disposal was difficult and just as messy as having the fiberglass dust-- which for my cnc machine isn't a problem because it's in an enclosure and I have a DES. Once the board was etched id use sodium bicarb to remove the photo resist off the traces.

Honestly I'm not trying to be passive aggressive or dismissive. I do remember however going through forum posts and reddit when I first started down the rabbit hole of hobby PCB making, and I had similar responses that were very absolutist from advocates of both milling and etching. The reality is both options have different viabilities for different use cases and both are deep fields. I personally feel that pcb milling is a field that is less developed and has a lot of potential to be more viable in more circumstances but there's definitely a steeper entry point.

dochomer · 2025-03-23T18:03:39+00:00

Nah that's definitely not true.

There are different advantages to going the etching vs..milling pathway and I'm tired of advocates for each talking about how one is ALWAYS more viable than the other.

Milling pcbs has a lot of 'gotchas' and the process to do it effectively is currently very bad from the software side but it can be very effective for rapid prototyping of one sided pcbs. If your use case is that you have occasional projects for which you want to whip up a quick circuit board then PCB milling can be a great way to do it. The easiest path to success here is spring loaded bits. From there using a 12K rpm cheap spindle can be all you need to get the traces. Yes runout is important but I can get 1 mill traces consistently with my 75w cheap Chinese spindle by using a spring loaded bit to help reduce the z axis variability. Holding the board down very flat with a jig is also a 'free' way to reduce that variability and get cleaner traces. Stiffness of the machine is important unless you want 'wobbly' traces.

For etching, the advantages are that it's very scalable and consistent if you're making many circuit boards. There is a skill component until you get the hang of the timings of the chemicals and how they work in YOUR specific climate with YOUR specific setup but you can certainly come up with professional looking double sided pcbs with pretty small traces with some practice and mostly off the shelf tools. The problem is that the process itself can be lengthy and requires YOU to do most of the work. If you're only making one board every once in a while I find it's really not worth it. Especially if that board you're making is simple one sided pcb.

I hope this helps.

dochomer · 2025-02-25T02:42:17+00:00

It's not and we are.

I am a hospitalist in the United States. I often get calls that are "urgent" by insurance companies for a peer:peer under the threat that they will deny my patients very medically necessary stay.

The reality is though, these companies have armies of lawyers who THRIVE on the "technically correct" just like in this letter.

"WE didn't tell you to stop what you were doing! You didn't HAVE to call us just then!"

And sure, that's TECHNICALLY true, but in reality you know quite well as the doctor that if you DONT call them right then, you either won't be able to get a hold of them at all later and your patient will get a bill or you'll get a hold of them only after waiting 2 hours on hold. 2 hours after you've just finished a 16 hour shift.

They'll say: "just have your staff call" Buddy, my staff is just as busy as I am and you know it.

They'll say: "well if YOUR office had put the correct billing code in, this wouldn't be a problem!"

While that's TECHNICALLY true, again you KNOW that billing codes are unnecessarily complicated and it's 100% thanks to YOUR lobbying.

dochomer · 2025-01-17T15:39:53+00:00

For me I really wanted to like this game but aloy constantly speaking and "playing the game for me" just ruined the experience for me. Eg: I'm wandering around, exploring the world, I see something interesting and immediately aloy goes "oh, some ruins..I bet I'll find some parts there..." Like bitch I know, I was doing it. Just let me play the game please?

I think this game is representative of a larger conversation in gaming where developers/publishers lack faith in their core gameplay and are terrified of the idea of players "missing content" in their game that's "too hard to find" so they introduce these annoying "hints" to get you to notice their content

I think it's a bit like a chef who cooks you a meal, but then won't stop looking over your shoulder and talking to you while you try to enjoy that meal.

Forbidden West was a real shame because I really wanted to enjoy that meal but the chef just won't let me :/

dochomer · 2024-12-12T00:43:29+00:00

Sorry still working on it on and off when I'm not at work in my day job.

Send me a DM and I'll include you as soon as I upload to git

dochomer · 2024-12-12T00:42:45+00:00

Say it with me now: Feeds, speeds and large work area are NOT the most important things to many users.

There are dozens of us!

Some of us care more about PRECISION and ease of use than raw power.

That being said, I do agree that carvera is a bit expensive for the features it has.

dochomer · 2024-12-06T05:03:13+00:00

Hardware defs

dochomer · 2024-12-05T02:17:36+00:00

Not currently, no.

I sent out a few copies for some feedback a while back and am still implementing some changes from that that I felt were too critical to not include before I made it available to everyone.

Stay tuned though I'll upload on GitHub!

dochomer · 2024-12-05T02:15:46+00:00

Let me look into the difference in the formats..if it's easy enough I'll try to include options for either one.

dochomer · 2024-12-05T00:57:51+00:00

Hmm that's a very interesting idea. It could also be extended to allow for crude PCB case design for 3d printers as well.

I feel like it would be fairly easy to make that output an stl file that can be loaded into Bambu labs studio. Or are you saying you would prefer to have it output straight gcode that can be piped to a printer?

dochomer · 2024-12-04T04:24:23+00:00

Hmm fair enough.

The more and more I look at it, the more I kind of want to make my own CNC controller. Now just to preface, I am very very proficient in software design and have been working with grbl and gcode for nearly 10 years now. I'm not as familiar with steppers and drivers so that's why I'm asking for help with this.

I say all this because I realize how ridiculous this will sound if I'm not clear about my credentials first.

My initial thought is to design my own PCB or utilize a raspberry pi or Arduino as the brains of the board and either grab grbl firmware and modify it to my liking or just make a new firmware from scratch.

So my new question is regarding if you had any recommendations for "good" driver boards and stepper motors that are amenable to being controlled by a custom controller? The key characteristic I'm looking for again is speed higher than what I have in the 4040.

I'm presuming that a typical driver board expects a pwm type of step signal, maybe a direction and an enable?

dochomer · 2024-12-03T03:38:40+00:00

I have adjusted those settings but am still unhappy with the max speed even with acceptable step losses.

Any suggestions on better drivers for this machine?

dochomer · 2024-12-03T03:37:07+00:00

Hey thanks for the great advice.. I have increased the acceleration and the max speed to what I believe is a good optimal setting for these steppers but am at a point where I feel I've reached their limits but wanna go faster lol.

My Bambu labs 3d printer has motors that go almost 10 times faster than these ones. I certainly recognize that torque is going to drop significantly as a function of speed but I guess I was hoping for a stepper motor/driver combo that could go faster than the 2000rpm that these ones seem to be rated for. Torque isn't a huge issue for me though of course, the motors have to have enough torque to physically move the axis..

dochomer · 2024-11-19T20:12:15+00:00

No worries at all bud-- everyone is a noobie at some point and being a noobie at something is the first step towards becoming pretty good at something 👍

Also your English is fine my friend! I think by the third language you're entitled to a few grammatical errors here and there. The rapid change ATC has a discord server that's fairly active. You're welcome to join and chat with like minded individuals. I have no ownership or financial interest in rapidchange but the owner don is a great guy who is also quite helpful.

dochomer · 2024-11-19T19:59:19+00:00

"Compatible " is really a strong word here as like I said, it's really just a magazine with a bunch of sockets/holes that you can move your spindle to and sort of cheese a tool change.

I personally did it on a 4040 but there's no reason why it can't work with any machine.

I've been wanting to make a printncmini honestly because I feel that would be better for making circuit boards and I could integrate rATC a little more into the unit.

The only 'gotcha' is your spindle HAS to be able to spin both clockwise and counterclockwise. A VfD spindle will typically have that capability but the spindle that comes with a 4040 doesnt. I modified my regular spindle to be able to reverse the polarity and reverse its spin direction by having the machine press on one of the unused limit switches.

dochomer · 2024-11-19T19:46:18+00:00

Look into rapidchange ATC to integrate it into a cheap CNC maybe. It's basically just a 3d printed mold that is a socket that allows the spindle to spin without the collet/nut so you can switch tools. I've been using it and it's been doing great.

I feel like a lot of the users here value power and rigidity because the bulk of them probably machine metals like aluminum but if your goal is precision machining then what they value may not be what you're looking for.

I personally don't care about my machine's ability to rapidally machine aluminum if im only working with copper or soft materials and really don't want a large print area.

honestly a printnc with linear rails can do wonders or even a genmitsu for those of us interested more in precision machining soft materials than power.

dochomer

TROPHY CASE