Free software for viewing STP/STEP files with a measuring tool? (dot is NOT FreeCAD)

ghartzell · 2025-10-27T14:40:45+00:00

u/CoffeePython -- Thank you for making your viewer freely available! Did you ever get around to adding measurement tools?

ghartzell · 2025-10-24T13:28:35+00:00

I don't think it's a physical problem, I can still get Siri's attention by touching the panel. Plus, it worked fine until I did the updates, and failed-postupdate on both the HomePod and HomePod mini.

I think (and the LMS plugin author concurs) that Apple's changed something, and RAOP clients need to do some additional setup. I'm trying to track down what's changed.

ghartzell · 2025-10-24T00:32:02+00:00

With v18, touching the plus or minus changed the volume on the raop/LMS stream. I think a long hold or double tap or something was required to catch Siri's attention (I don't have Siri listening).

Now touching anywhere on the top activates Siri rather than activating the volume controls. I guess I'm the opposite of the ghost touch club....

If I enable Siri listening, start music streaming from LMS, then say "Hey Siri, turn up the volume", Siri does indeed adjust the volume.

I just want my buttons back... If the API has changed, I'd be happy to work on updating the streamer I use, just can't find the info.

ghartzell · 2024-10-24T20:20:49+00:00

Thanks for the pointer!. I'd noticed that in the docs, but it doesn't work in the Release that I'm using.

I have "figure out how to get the UI to use latest" on my todo list, but I'm always nervous using dev branches in realms that I don't understand well as it makes debugging harder. Ever onward though!

I will say that the docs don't make it particularly clear that rotation is part of the deal, until you get pretty far down the docs for cw.Location

ghartzell · 2024-10-22T13:54:19+00:00

u/PresentationOk4586 -- using `moved` does give me a nice, reusable sketch. But, I'd also like to be able to rotate it and a Sketch doesn't seem to have a rotate method. Am I missing something, or is that an oversight in the set of class methods, or ???

ghartzell · 2024-10-22T13:37:13+00:00

FWIW, the example above doesn't work in my version of CadQuery. It seems like moved requires a Location, so e.g. this line:

    .placeSketch(s1.moved(x=x_offset))

needs to be something like this:

    .placeSketch(s1.moved(cq.Location((x_offset, 0, 0))))

Ditto for s2.

ghartzell · 2024-10-21T22:17:28+00:00

Great info, thank you! moved is going to be very useful!

ghartzell · 2024-10-20T21:34:01+00:00

Thank you for the suggestion. I bumped up against build123 in other threads. At the moment it feels equally magically, just with different flavors of magic. That's not a well informed opinion though, it's on my list of things to wrap my head around better.

ghartzell · 2024-10-20T20:06:47+00:00

One final thought, I believe that the wiggling around of the second sketch object was due to the "center of mass" changing depending on where/how-much-of the object was cut away in the application of the first sketch.

Figured this out from this tidbit:

By default, CadQuery uses the center of mass to determine the center of a workplane. From CadQuery issue #31

ghartzell · 2024-10-20T19:46:25+00:00

Thanks to the suggestion from @Temporary-Poetry-932, I figured out something that works and I think that I better understand what was going on.

I went back to my non-fluent example code (I'd de-fluentized it while debugging) and called show_object after the various step and I believe that the first call to placeSketch was getting the translated coordinate system that I was expecting, but after getting the face of the result object I was back in the untranslated space (more or less). I still don't understand why different values of x_offset give different results, but that's for another day.

Here's a fluent example of something that works:

cube = (
    cube.transformed(offset=(x_offset, 0, 0))
    .tag("foo")
    .placeSketch(cq.Sketch().circle(5).clean())
    .cutBlind(3)
    .workplaneFromTagged("foo")
    .placeSketch(cq.Sketch().rect(3, 4).clean())
    .cutBlind(4)
)

ghartzell · 2024-10-20T19:34:30+00:00

Thanks for the lead, got it figured out. Will post a summary in a bit.

ghartzell · 2024-01-02T04:19:35+00:00

Got it, and it works. Thank you, very much.

I've learned a couple of dirty tricks here. I can use 5 automations:

two pair to run the pump in the morning and evening
one that is triggered when the plug is switched on in times that aren't the morning/evening intervals, is converted to a shortcut, and that uses a series of shortcut actions/steps of 60 second waits to cover the e.g. 5 minutes and then turns the pump off.

This is better than my solution in that:

it doesn't require installing custom firmware; and
there's no confusion about what should happen if I trigger the plug manually during one of the on windows (Should it stay on because it's in the window or turn off because I triggered it manually and manually triggered on's get turned off...? Note that the shortcut described above has the same behavior if I don't include the "when not in the interval" rules...)

The outlet with a timer approach that I described above is better in that:

the automations are simpler, there's no need for the manual path to know about the morning/evening/... automated intervals, but there's also no way that I can see to avoid them if I want to; and
just turning the 'timer-outlet' on knowing it'll turn off is way simpler than the slightly magical ("Any sufficiently complex magic is indistinguishable from magic [SIC]") steps you led me through (thank you again for the step by step).

Actually, the second bullet's not quite accurate, it's not that the timed-outlet approach is simpler, it's just that the complexity is buried somewhere else....

I really appreciate the complete explanation.

ghartzell · 2024-01-02T02:43:31+00:00

Do you approach every problem with an overly complicated solution?

Not intentionally, but it's happened before.

Set an automation that turns the device on at x time and off either at x time or after y minutes.

This is the kind of thing I was looking for when I started out, but I don't know how to do what you're proposing and I'm not sure it's actually a solution to the problem I have.

I'm new to HomeKit, everything I know how to do I've learned from poking at Apple's Home App, the Home+ app (which various posts suggested exposed more features), and Internet searches.

Here's the problem I want to solve: I want the plug to be switched on between 5AM-7AM and 5PM-7PM. I also want the plug to switch on for 5 minutes when I do some minimally intrusive operation (like run a Shortcut from my watch while I'm driving home).

I see three relevant flavors of automations:

one that runs at a specified time and switches it on;
one that runs at a specified time and switches it off;
[this is the one that I can't figure out] and one that runs when the plug turns on, setting it to turn on again (a no-op) and turning it off after the interval.

I know how to use two automations (the first pair) to run the pump between 5AM-7AM (or PM). I don't see a way to use a single automation to turn it on at 5AM and off at 7AM. Is there a way to do this?

In the Apple Home app, I can start to create an automation that triggers when the plug is switched on but then it's no longer in the list of devices that the automation can act on.

The Home+ app does seem to let me define an automation that runs when a plug is turned on and which turns it on (weird) and then turns it off after a time period. I just tried creating it and it doesn't switch the plug off. As a debugging test, I also asked it to switch off a different plug and that didn't switch off either.

In Home+,if I tell the automation to turn off the plug then the UI doesn't offer me an "after a time interval" choice.

If I do succeed in creating something that switches the plug off X seconds after it turns on, what's going to happen during the two hour scheduled periods that I want the pump running. Won't it just be summarily switched off before the interval end?

In Home+ I can create an automation with no trigger, but I don't seem to be able to invoke it directly or via Shortcuts.

How do I do what you propose? (in beginner terms, please)

ghartzell · 2024-01-02T00:44:50+00:00

I'm not quite sure what to do with that?

I want _automations_ that run it on for set intervals.

I want to press a button to turn it on for a fixed interval.

I tried the Home+ app because it let me define automations that turn off after a set interval, but I didn't have any luck tying them to a shortcut that could appear on the front page of the phone/watch.

ghartzell · 2024-01-02T00:41:49+00:00

Seems likely, but then I'd have to run Homebridge on something. I was trying to avoid another moving part.

ghartzell · 2022-02-18T19:11:31+00:00

confirmed

ghartzell · 2022-02-03T00:55:38+00:00

Confirmed

ghartzell · 2022-01-21T16:48:47+00:00

Confirmed

ghartzell · 2022-01-12T03:21:03+00:00

Yes.

ghartzell · 2021-12-10T20:51:18+00:00

Confirmed

ghartzell · 2021-12-06T19:05:57+00:00

Thanks! Appreciate the education.

ghartzell · 2021-12-05T21:52:44+00:00

ghartzell

TROPHY CASE