IMALlama

If you look at the very bottom of the screen shot you can see that the home, search, etc buttons are cut off.

Happy to provide more info to help. I'm on a stock pixel 3a.

I am (slowly) working on mounting ACM panels to my Voron 2.4 to try to get my chamber temps up to reduce/eliminate warping on big ASA prints. I only needed 12 of these parts, so I chose to print them sequentially.

Want to know how slow my progress has been? Well, this photo proceeded this post and I made that post weeks ago... I'll crack open the cable chain and get this ball rolling again soon. Or maybe I'll ditch the chains and go to a USB toolhead. But that will require me to print some parts, so I guess I have to fix this. And if I'm doing that it's going to probably be 'good enough' for quite some time... 🙃

There's nothing major in the print queue, but I do want to make sure the printer is ready to go when something does turn up.

I can see the wire break in the cable chain :'(

Pros:

• Sharp
• Nice construction
• Effective VR/OIS
• Fast and accurate AF with good tracking. I've used it for a mix of birds, bugs, and youth sports. It's never failed to disappoint
• It's not white and collapses somewhat small for a longish FF lens. I like to believe the lens didn't stand out that badly when I use it to shoot youth sports. At least I had multiple parents tell me they appreciated the photos. The hood adds a decent amount of visual mass and it's probably not needed 95% of the time
• Decent pseudo macro, but only at the wide end (1:3.1 aka 0.32x)
• 500mm is 25% more reach than 400mm and is enough for my needs. I'm on e-mount and this lens combo is faster than Sony's 100-400 with a teleconverter
• Good price to performance ratio
• The lens has a focal length lock that uses a clutch like mechanism to lock the lens at any focal length. It seems a bit gimmicky, but I find it useful
• My copy appears fairly well centered, so yay

Cons:

• Stiff zoom action and somewhat front heavy when fully zoomed. There's no manual focusing this lens when it's fully zoomed unless you're using a monopod or tripod
• It's a bit heavy, but is on par for this focal length on a FF lens. If you only need 400mm, get a 400mm lens to save some heft. I use this lens exclusively hand held, but I'm also reasonably fit. I have sat on the ground and used a knee as a makeshift monopod at times though
• Somewhat slow aperture, but this also on par for the focal length. I only use this lens outdoors, so it's never been an issue. As far as consumer lenses go, there's not much faster out there at this focal length
• If you need a long lens you're going to need something longer than 500mm. There's obviously more reach here than a 400mm lens, but it's not that much more. This isn't a real con about this lens, just know what focal length you need and go from there
• No teleconverters on e-mount

Bottom line:

• If this focal length is your jam, this could be your lens
• If you don't need the reach, get something lighter and more compact
• If you don't mind walking around with a massive lens and you're on e-mount, Sony's 200-600 zoom action is really hard to beat

I've been interested in photographing bees recently. Rather than buy a macro lens, I spent $32 on a 10mm and 16mm Meike extension tube. Photos are with an A9II + Sigma 35mm f/2, which normally offers a 0.18x magnification. All four are taken as close as the lens will focus. I'm very happy with image quality, especially given that this lens doesn't have a super flat focal plane at its minimum focal distance.

For anyone who tries an extension tube for their first time: you won't be able to focus very far in the distance (beyond about 1 foot in my case). Be ready to get up close and personal.

No banana for scale, but let's say that it's not too big and not too small. The dimensions are 295mm tall, 270mm wide, and 240mm deep. If I had to do it again, I would be tempted to go a bit wider and touch less deep. It's probably better to be large in one of these dimensions as opposed to both of them.

Here's the top. It has a jack for charging, a connector to program the DSP, a switch to turn it on and off, and a battery gauge.

The speaker also has a built in handle that's way chunkier than it appears, but is still particle.

The big BOM pieces are a Dayton Audio LBB-5Sv2 for the BMS (battery management system), a Dayton Audio KABD-250 2 x 50W for DPS, amplification, and Bluetooth, a Peerless by Tymphany BC25SC08 tweeter, and an Italian-but-made-in-India woofer (a Coral PRF 165).

The print itself is three pieces: the bottom bit (black), the middle bit (white, blue, and white again thanks to not having enough white left to do it all in white), and the black top. Here's a CAD view that more clearly shows the three pieces:

the three pieces are held together with heat-sets and m3 bolts. There's also a tong and groove like joint to help the enclosure leak less air. I haven't noticed any evidence of air leaks while listening.

The amplifier and battery board mount to the bottom like so:

The middle was printed with some supports for the driver overhangs, but the ports and everything else were designed to print in place without supports.

This is certainly not meant to be audiophile build, but it's surprisingly decent. This isn't my first blue-tooth speaker, or even my first printed loudspeaker enclosure, but it is the first that was somewhat intentionally designed to have OK bass response while also being reasonably compact.

It measures fairly well. Frequency response, along with harmonic distortion, is pretty good. There's zero windowing or smoothing on this plot. I suspect the distortion spikes at 1 kHz, 2 kHz, etc are induced by the Bluetooth stack the board is running since they've shown up in multiple different enclosures and with multiple different drivers.

There's no nasty ringing, caused by either the drivers or the enclosure, so life is pretty good:

Title basically. I have a decently large solid wood desktop (guessing around 72"x30"x1") that supports two computer monitors, two studio monitors, a tower computer hanging under it, a laptop on it, and a decent amount of clutter because it's a decently sized space I spend a lot of time sitting in front of. I'm currently using Ikea IDÅSEN legs (they were a lot cheaper in early covid) and they're stable, but man are they slow to go up. They have no problem going down though, lol.

It would be nice to have an equally solid pair of legs stability wise that go up faster with some weight on them. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

At least so far. The first go round had the nozzle crash into the tree support, resulting in a layer shift. The good news is that the print stayed very firmly stuck to the bed.

I've reset, lowered my extrusion multiplier a smidge, switched to a more traditional support pattern, and am going for it again. Wish me luck!

Very Specific Objects are a lot of fun, so here's another one.

If you find yourself purchasing a ~~cheapish Amaon RC car~~ Very Fancy DOUBLE E 1:12 Scale Large Remote Control Car Monster Trucks for Boys with Head Lights 4WD Off All Terrain RC Car Rechargeable Vehicles Xmas Gifts for Kids only for its spring perches to get broken one by one, well - I've got a solution for you.

Printables link if anyone thinks this object might apply to them.

While I acknowledge the expectations Ellis tries to set, all the youtubers out there have me chasing a dragon looking for better and better layer aliment on my z-axis. I suspect (at least) one of you will come out of the woodwork and say your printer has better aligned layers than mine too 😭 I'm certainly not alone, but even in that thread you can find some people claiming that not everyone experiences the issue

So far, I've been through three iterations on my CW2:

• BMG gears with a grub screw
• BMG Integrated Drive Gear Assembly (IDGA). Press fit gear = no more grub screw
• FYSETC CNC Pom w/ Helical gears, since evidently the BMG gears can still be somewhat offset

Results below with me hand holding my cellphone and moving a Pixar style desk lamp to be at a progressively steeper angle to the face of the cubes. Left = FYSTEC Pom (I also used Orcaslicer), middle = BMG IDGA, right = 'normal' BMGs. Note that the cubes are upside down.

Vanity shot with very soft and indirect light

Direct light, 90 degrees to the face of the cubes (basically perpendicular)

Direct light, ~45 degrees to the face of the cubes

Direct light, ~5 degrees to the face of the cubes (basically parallel)

At this point, I am going to shrug, give up, and print with fuzz (or avoid harsh light).

I've been chasing inconsistent top layers for a little while when my first layer also started going... very sideways. My printer uses the nozzle to home on a micro switch, which meant that something was probably loose. Initially I was thinking the end stop or carriage, but who would have thought that the printer had shaken the hot end apart over time.

Note to anyone else who runs into this: there is no mechanical stop for those screws and tightening them too far will mash the hot bits into the cold bits. This will cause the hot bits to crimp closed just enough to no longer let filament through. If you find yourself in this situation, find (or buy) a small punch - you can use the taper on a punch to reverse the situation. Don't ask me how I discovered any of this. Why there is no thread lock from the factory, who knows. If anyone reminds me, I'll be sure to let you know how well purple loctite has held up. There's also another screw that goes into the side of the heat break to hold everything in place. That one was loose too.

2.5 hours later: all better!

Lessons learned: multiple, but if you start seeing inconsistent behavior look for a mechanical issue and don't be afraid to tear your printer down.

I liked a few of the VSOs that were posted earlier and wanted to share two of my more recent creations.

This mount screws into an exposed 2x4 and lets me get my Synology DS418, its power brick, and UPS (APC BE600M1) off a table and into a lower dust area of my basement.

I'll upload the STLs to printables if anyone is interested, but be warned that the parts are fairly large.

In the spirit of showing parts under unflattering lighting, here's (nearly) the same angle with a different light source.