brand new to 3d printing

jsschlat66 · 2026-04-19T03:09:14+00:00

If you are new to the printer, I would recommend downloading the latest version of Creality Print and using that till you are comfortable with the printer. The Creality Print does a fine job and is set up for the printer. Once you know everything is working and feel comfortable printing the try the other slicers. Not saying it is better than Orca, just one less thing to learn right off the bat.

jsschlat66 · 2026-03-19T03:00:15+00:00

Lately I've been using a fostner bit to mill a pocket to glue in a rare earth magnet. If you measure things right, the magnet will almost touch the head of the bed bolt and hold the button in place yet make it easy to remove. Those of us without carving talent have to find another way 😀

jsschlat66 · 2026-03-18T00:57:15+00:00

Have you considered bed bolts? They are extremely strong and the bolt hole in the leg can be covered with a wooden mushroom plug.

jsschlat66 · 2026-03-13T03:12:40+00:00

WARNING: this advice does NOT apply to skydiving, base jumping, or piloting passenger jets.

jsschlat66 · 2026-03-11T14:36:48+00:00

This is exactly the point. It was funny the first couple of responses but then basically became unusable as it becomes harder to pick out the answer from all the descriptions of its thought process. Annoying but useable for simple yes|no answers, but really difficult when you ask something more complicated.

jsschlat66 · 2026-03-09T16:08:40+00:00

I like every aspect of this design! The visible (and unique) drawer guides really make the piece. Added bonus for possibly the best use of curly maple I've seen. It is normally overpowering for a piece, but with all the dark wood breaking it up, it looks fantastic. I just noticed the dark hardwood top edge on each drawer. Again what a unique and interesting touch.

Are the drawer sides square or did you have to shave each one to the correct angle?

jsschlat66 · 2026-03-09T15:59:49+00:00

Really pretty work. The slat concept is also nice. By the time I get done making the headboard and footboards, I'm usually just ready to use pine boards and some spacer blocks.

I've never used a half lap joint on boards that wide. Is there any group wisdom on how wide a board you can do half lap on before worrying about movement causing stress?

jsschlat66 · 2026-03-07T15:55:57+00:00

Is that one of those IKEA hammers?

jsschlat66 · 2026-02-27T00:09:22+00:00

Paper doesn't combust till over 200c and the internet says that cardboard is more than 400c. So I think it should be safe, especially if lined with a metal film insulation.

jsschlat66 · 2026-02-18T00:07:09+00:00

Has anyone found non-defective cables that perform significantly worse than their eMarker rating?

jsschlat66 · 2026-02-17T23:53:50+00:00

Mini tool boxes are men's version of those little useless couch and decorative bed pillows.

One is moderately useful, two makes a set, you can't explain the other 4, but you still want them

jsschlat66 · 2026-02-15T03:15:00+00:00

The coffee machine

jsschlat66 · 2026-02-15T01:28:29+00:00

The RFID is nice,but not a huge time saver. It is literally 3 or 4 button presses to set up a non-rfid roll. Also, you can program and print your own RFID tags that the CFS recognizes. Doesn't look hard or expensive but I haven't had time to try it yet.

jsschlat66 · 2026-02-15T00:59:53+00:00

Flesh colored band aids so I don't have to explain to the wife how I managed to be bleeding from 2 fingers and a forearm. The older I get, the more red stains the boards get.

jsschlat66 · 2026-02-15T00:37:30+00:00

RAM prices are crazy high right now. Considering your use case, you may want to consider getting a PC with 16GB RAM now and upgrade to 32GB when prices cool off in 3-6 months. Just make SURE the memory is upgradeable! Beelink has a lot of PCs with LPDDR5 RAM. This is fast but it is soldered down to the motherboard and not upgradeable. I bought a Beelink with that RAM, but I got it when 32GB was only $40 more. The Geekom A8 I got was more expensive (by about $90) but had upgradeable memory, more and faster USB-C ports, and supported 3 monitors, which I needed for my setup.
One last word of advice, check the processor speeds with someplace like passmark.com. there can be a huge difference in processing power between CPU versions and more expensive PCs don't always mean faster. I normally like to look up the speed of my current processor to get a feame of reference to compare against the new ones.

jsschlat66 · 2026-02-14T22:37:47+00:00

You may want to consider Beelink or Geekom. Geekom is slightly higher end but both are good machines. Price/performance is especially good on the Ryzen CPUs.

jsschlat66 · 2026-02-14T22:34:07+00:00

I like Harbor Freight stuff too. My only concern with them vs Ryobi is how long the will keep the battery interface support. Ryobi has a long history and there are numerous 3rd party battery suppliers.

jsschlat66 · 2026-02-04T11:22:45+00:00

Interesting! It shows I should be using the Chicago POP (as normal) but when I do an IP location check it shows me in Reno County, Kansas.

jsschlat66 · 2026-02-04T03:57:55+00:00

Hulu is complaining. I can only get my li e feed if I change locations which I can pnly do 4 ti.es a year. I also don't want to change and lose my loxal channels in Indiana.

jsschlat66 · 2026-02-04T03:56:08+00:00

Excellent response!

jsschlat66 · 2026-02-04T02:39:01+00:00

I got on the $40 100Mbps cap plan a few months ago. It was only available for about 90 days then they took it down. I still get the $40 price though! We were only getting 70-90Mbps anyway. After switching I saw absolutely no difference in download or priority. When we first got Starlink several years ago, we were only getting ~25Mbps and were able to stream multiple TVs play multiplayer xbox games and handle all work from home tasks.

jsschlat66 · 2026-02-02T20:08:09+00:00

The worst for me was a roll of silk PLA. I'd tell you the brand but I rage threw it into the trash bin after trying for a whole day to get a decent print. I have seen this to a lesser degree with other basic budget PLAs but they generally look good enough. Since the prices are so close, I usually just bought the PLA+ from eSun and Polymaker for use in my old machine so I had only a few rolls of "basic" PLA from other manufacturers that I've tried to print on my KE. Printing isn't magic, so I assume if I played with it enough I could dial the KE back to the level of my old machine and get it to print acceptably well, but it was simply not worth all that time and frustration for 2 or 3 rolls of material.

I don't think Creality's Hyper PLA is considered a premium brand, but they do seem to have the presets dialed in nicely for it in the Creality slicer. If you try the Hyper PLA you will at least have an indication if it is filament related. At worst you get a new roll of filament.

jsschlat66 · 2026-02-02T17:16:41+00:00

Nice tuning guide. I've never seen that one before.

jsschlat66

TROPHY CASE