chrishuck

chrishuck, 2 months ago to random

I saw a comment on a recent YouTube video about #FreeCAD that said there was a lot of "toxic positivity" among FreeCAD users. Apparently, this prevents them from seeing glaring flaws when compared against other CAD

I'll fully admit that FreeCAD isn't perfect, and some tasks aren't as convenient as in commercial software...for now. It's getting better thanks to efforts of a small group of unpaid developers

It's a lot easier to improve software when you pay more people to spend the time doing it

chrishuck, 7 months ago to 3DPrinting

Because I couldn't find something existing, I've written a #freecad macro to quickly insert cylindrical pins at selected sketch points.

This is useful if you have to split models up for #3dprinting and need locating pin holes along the split planes.

If I were to publish the source, where should I do it? Github? Codeberg? Somewhere else?

I don't have an account on any of these, but I'm open to suggestion.

#programming

chrishuck, 7 months ago to random

Hey, @drdrang . Do you think it’s unreasonable to expect a recent college graduate in mechanical engineering to know how to go about determining the size of a shaft key based on a given shaft size and torque?

chrishuck, 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago) to random

Uh oh. It appears #enshittification has come for #mcmastercarr…

I just went to check a dimension on some screws that I plan to use on a current project, and when I went to view the product detail to see the drawing with dimensions, it told me I needed to be logged in to view product details.

Since when? Can anyone else confirm this?

If true, what a shitty move that erases a couple decades of good will with engineers everywhere.

#engineering

chrishuck, 9 months ago to random

What is it about a house centipede that makes it so terrifying to see? One just crawled up the wall in my office and is now going across the ceiling. I’m just waiting for it to fall off right onto my desk when I’m not looking and give me a heart attack

chrishuck, 9 months ago to random

How close are we to headlines that read:

“Person with this occupation makes thing that does thing”

I feel like so many articles now actively try to be as generic as possible. I find it so off-putting that I’ve just stopped clicking on them.

chrishuck, 8 months ago to 3DPrinting

Took on my largest #3dprinting project ever today. It’s going to be about 28 days of printing…. I thought the R/C winch truck was a lot of hours…

And, we’re off. Starting the first 15.5 hour print

chrishuck, 8 months ago to 3DPrinting

Only 22 hours and 48 minutes left on this one… #3dprinting

chrishuck, 5 months ago to random

Well, it took 14 months, but I’ve managed to contract #covid again… I’d say I’m technically 3 days into it based on symptoms. I was so tired both days of the weekend with some sniffles. This morning, I was still exhausted after 9 hours of sleep. Also, more coughing, sneezing, and runny nose. Now, the headache to try and sleep off.

So hard to tell where I could have picked it up, but I was in a lot of different airports traveling for work last week.

chrishuck, 4 months ago to random

For all of the @IceCubesApp users out there, is there a setting that I need to toggle for timeline position sync between mobile and desktop? Or is it supposed to be automatic?

#icecubesapp

chrishuck, 10 months ago to Engineering

This morning, I was watching a video about a very technical subject, and the presenter mentioned several times that they wanted to keep the design “simple” or “as simple as possible” without explaining what that meant.

I find this to be a big problem in #engineering. People always tell us to “just make it simple”. My first question is always “Simple for whom?”

I can make something easy to manufacture but hard to use and vice-versa. There is no universal “simple”, just trade offs.

chrishuck, 9 months ago to 3DPrinting

It’s not pinned and glued together yet, but my once-in-five-years calibration work over the weekend resulted in 51.5 hours of successful #3dprinting of a 12-in (305mm) x 3.75-in (95mm) deep letter C for a friend of a friend to hang on their kid’s wall to put stuffed animals in.

image/jpeg
image/jpeg
image/jpeg

chrishuck, 7 months ago to IT

I would love for someone with IT experience to explain to me why our corporate policy is to close all browser tabs when the USER closes the browser, but offer to restore the previously open tabs if you let the SYSTEM close the browser, as with a restart?

I submitted a ticket because I wasn't able to change the behavior in the browser settings. IT's "solution" was to never close the browser myself if I want to maintain my open tabs. What could possibly be the reason for this policy?

#computers

chrishuck, 9 months ago to random

Ultimately, I think my #3dprint failures yesterday were the result of a few factors:

1. My nozzle had somehow gotten a little loose, and filament had made it's way around the threads and was leaking around the top of the nozzle. This led to buildup on the nozzle quickly with blobs coming off, even causing a layer shift

2. The bed is slightly warped in the corners, meaning I had to make bed leveling offsets, something I've never messed with because I rarely print in the corners

All good now.

chrishuck, 1 year ago to random

I would venture that everyone reading this has likely been to a washateria and might not have realized it.

chrishuck, 4 months ago to IT

What does it say about your company’s IT department when they force restart your computer in the middle of the workday because updates?

Too bad you were in meetings or doing other work away from your desk for more than 1.5 hours and you had no idea the update was even happening and you come back to lost work 🤬

I love #computers, but I don’t know how IT people live with themselves based on what they do to computer users.

chrishuck, 1 month ago to random

I’m certainly not afraid to repair things in my house, but a fix that I thought would be “easy” on my dryer has turned into an entire drum replacement. There is a felt seal/bearing on each end of the drum. It’s glued onto the drum… The front seal split and got inside the drum, twisting itself around clothes that were in there. A new drum will be here in a week, but this seems like an unnecessarily-costly-to-repair design. It’s only 4 years old ffs.

I suppose that it’s at least fixable…🤷‍♂️

chrishuck, 7 months ago (edited 7 months ago) to random

I’ve lived in this house for a little over 3 years, and I have a Ginkgo tree in the front yard that is enormous. It has also been an incredibly productive year for its berries. People have told me that Ginkgo berries stink, and I kinda laughed because there really hadn’t been many since I’ve lived here….

Now, every time I go outside it smells like a combo of dog poop and vomit from the berries crushed on the driveway. 🤦‍♂️

chrishuck, 7 months ago to random

@octoprint Do you seen any issues with implementing OctoPrint on the new Pi5 when it comes out next week?

chrishuck, 7 months ago to random

In the time I've been traveling for work, I've gotten to drive a lot of different rental cars. Most of the time, they are brand new, and usually contain a lot of modern technology. It's downright annoying when a car doesn't have CarPlay.

The most surprising thing I came across in my rental car today was an actual ignition switch with a key instead of a push button start. I don't think I've used a key in years. I checked the registration and it's a 2024 model. 🤷‍♂️

chrishuck, 5 months ago to 3DPrinting

I feel like a missing feature in the built-in iOS timers is the ability to simply edit a previously used timer for reuse with a different amount of time. It’s great that I can have multiple timers and they can be given a description, but I find myself constantly creating new timers for filament swaps on my 3D printer because the amount of time on each print is different, but the task is the same. I just want to modify a previous timer and go. (This is solved in 3rd party apps)
#3dprinting #ios

chrishuck, 5 months ago to 3DPrinting

Seems that lots of people have been #3dprinting this little guy. Thought I’d give it a shot now that my holiday gift printing is done.

https://www.printables.com/model/593185-dummy-13-printable-jointed-figure-beta-files

An orange articulated action figure posed on a reflective surface with a white background.

chrishuck, 8 months ago to Engineering

I firmly believe that all mechanical engineers should be able to create a set of manufacturing drawings for their designs. We're talking about basic drafting skills here. I feel that, all too often, there is this mindset that drafting is "beneath" the engineers. In every engineering job I've had over the last 26 years, the engineers did everything from concept to design/analysis to the drawings. Based on my new engineer's (lack of) skills in this area, it's missing from #engineering education.

chrishuck, 3 months ago to Engineering

Has anyone here used Xometry for getting parts machined? I understand how their system works, and I can totally see the benefit of having access to a wide variety of capabilities through their supplier network. However, they are a middleman, and I’m curious whether their markup makes it uneconomical except for high volume production?

#engineering #machining #manufacturing #cnc

chrishuck, 9 months ago to random

I’ve been tweaking my vent-mounted cable guide based on performance in my car. In v3, I made it longer, hoping to reduce stress as it flexes to grip the vent. It seemed to work great for a few days before losing grip. At first, I attributed it to heat in the car, even though it’s PETG. But, after doing actual analysis with #FEA in #FreeCAD, I found that I’m actually blowing past the yield stress of the material. This is why you should do calcs on the FRONT END instead of seat-of-pants eyeballing

Version 3 of my vent-mounted cable guide as-designed in FreeCAD
Version 3 of my vent-mounted cable guide with FEA stress plot in FreeCAD