dual_sport_dork

dual_sport_dork , 1 month ago to micromobility - Ebikes, scooters, longboards: Whatever floats your goat, this is micromobility in Cyclists blame "utterly ridiculous bike prices" for brands' ongoing struggles

I bought my Giant Warp DS2 in 2004. I still have it. There it shall remain.

There isn't a damn thing wrong with it (and it's motorized now). 26" wheels were good enough for our forefathers, so they're good enough for me.

dual_sport_dork , 1 month ago to micromobility - Ebikes, scooters, longboards: Whatever floats your goat, this is micromobility in Will Biden's new 100% tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles affect e-bikes?

TL;DR: No one knows yet.

Saved you a click.

dual_sport_dork , 1 month ago to 3DPrinting in I've got a mix of good, bad, good, bad, and good again news/progress

I think the chamber heater will go as high as 90, although for ABS the slicer warns me not to go higher than 60. It is PID controlled so you can set a specific temperature setpoint. And if my thermal camera is to believed it's pretty consistent. The good news is also that it can heat the chamber to 55 or 60 in just about ten minutes.

dual_sport_dork , 1 month ago to 3DPrinting in I've got a mix of good, bad, good, bad, and good again news/progress

If you have that much warp you either have a temperature gradient problem, i.e. your enclosure is not enclosed, not retaining heat, or is too cold, or in extreme cases you have a part that's just not going to work with FDM printing in ABS or ASA (or probably nylon or polycarb either, at that rate). I think you were on the right track with your initial assessment.

Do you have a build chamber heater? My Qidi has one, and I feel like it's basically cheating. Especially compared to my last printer. It allows me to Just Print with ABS without any of the prior nail-biting or headaches. It feels kind of weird.

dual_sport_dork , 1 month ago to No Stupid Questions in Am I supposed to ask stupid questions here, or *not* ask stupid questions?

Fuck it, we're going to six skins.

dual_sport_dork , 1 month ago to 3DPrinting in I've got a mix of good, bad, good, bad, and good again news/progress

I put the build plate in place as normal, but with a layer of kapton tape applied to it. (My printer won't work without the steel build plate installed; my Z home sensor is magnetic.) In my case, I have a smooth backed one that doesn't have the texture on it. You can apply it over the textured side of your build plate, too, but it gives you a resulting bottom surface that's kind of weird and lumpy.

Kapton tape will work in a pinch, but covering your entire build plate with it is a pain in the ass with all the seams between each strip. I get big sheets of the stuff like these ones, and do it all in one shot. You can pretty easily trim them to fit whatever size your printer's built plate is.

Remember to readjust your Z offset after you apply the tape because you'll have to account for its thickness.

dual_sport_dork , 1 month ago to No Stupid Questions in Did the premise of an entity approaching you only when it's not being viewed originate with Doctor Who's Weeping Angels?

Released October 23, 1988... In Japan.

Us gaijin did not get it until 1990.

dual_sport_dork , 1 month ago to 3DPrinting in Gridfinity 2x2 organizer for my bathroom

glue to the base

Por que no just fuse them together in your slicer and print as a monolithic part? You could probably even skip the base and just arrange the four bins together.

dual_sport_dork , 1 month ago to 3DPrinting in I've got a mix of good, bad, good, bad, and good again news/progress

When I print ABS/ASA, I print it on a kapton sheet with hairspray as an adhesion aid. My printer (X-Max 3) does have an enclosed and heated chamber as well. I have not had an issue with getting parts off after the build plate has cooled. However, the addition of the kapton sheet means that the nuclear option is always available: Peel the sheet off along with the part, and put down a new one.

They cost like 50 cents each in bulk. The skinflint in me prickles at this, but that's a lot cheaper than having to replace a borked build plate. I have not had to do this with my current printer, but I did with my old one once.

dual_sport_dork , 1 month ago to 3DPrinting in Heart Shaped Container FreeCAD Tutorial

I generally do them by locating the center point, constraining the radius, and then the angle. The angle tool is a little janky specifically on arcs, but it does work. Or if the ends of the arc are fixed to something also immovable, you can just do the radius and angle and use the coincident constraint to stick its endpoints to the ends of other lines and leave the center point alone.

Yours was an interesting approach. I probably would have used a bezier for the pointy end of the heart.

dual_sport_dork , 1 month ago to Technology in US to impose tariffs on Chinese EVs next week

Parts, sure. So, after a 3 month shipping wait from China you get a replacement battery or drive unit dropped at the end of your driveway on a pallet. Now what?

I don't think any buyers other than maybe the guy who runs the Aging Wheels channel are going to be willing to take apart their own Chinese EV and do major repairs to it. If no one works on it, or if they open a perfunctory couple of service centers that are all conveniently thousands of miles away from where you live, that's not going to do you much good.

dual_sport_dork , 1 month ago to Technology in US to impose tariffs on Chinese EVs next week

Presumably the manufacturers of these things would have to set up a dealer network in the US of some sort in order to be competitive at all. Otherwise, these will be completely dead in the water with US buyers. Plastic crap from Temu and AliExpress is one thing, but I can tell you nobody will buy something as expensive as a car knowing it's completely unsupported.

Historically, importing Chinese vehicles has been a totally buyer-beware operation. You might get a short replacement parts only warranty from whoever the importer is if you're very lucky. Otherwise, you're on your own. Both finding the parts and doing the labor. I say this as an owner of three (3) Chinese motorcycles which have been fine enough machines for what they are, but never mind a warranty -- no mechanic's shop will touch them even if you're willing to pay. So I do my own work on them.

But cheap motorcycles are way less complex than a full sized electric car.

dual_sport_dork , 1 month ago to Not The Onion in ‘Roof Ninja’ Woman Secretly Lived in Grocery Store Sign for Nearly a Year

Wasn't there a Lifetime original movie about that?

dual_sport_dork , 1 month ago to Not The Onion in Student protesters face same suspensions as those who bring assault rifles to campus

Yeah, that seems like the obvious response to me. Want to pretend like we're armed? Okay, now we're armed.

dual_sport_dork , 1 month ago to Technology in After announcing increased prices, Spotify to Pay Songwriters About $150 Million Less Next Year

I can believe it. I still have multiple libraries of physical media, and I pretty much never buy anything new that I can't likewise physically own. I might rip and make MP3's or transcode or emulate, or whatever, for convenience, but sometimes it's just nice to be able to stick the disk or cartridge in the machine and have it just work without any of the associated modern ancillary bullshit.

Everything wants to be a service now. I just find that so irritating.