mcdanlj

mcdanlj, 3 months ago to random

I've had browser tabs open to a few Hemingway #machining kits for I think over a year, thinking about buying them but wondering about cost to ship metal stock overseas. A few weeks ago it hit me that I had some UK colleagues about to visit my office, and I asked if they maybe had a few pounds worth of freeboard in their suitcases.

I have some wonderfully kind colleagues, and shipping to our UK office was quite inexpensive.

I now have kits for a rotary broach, sensitive repeatable knurling tool, and clutched die holder, and I'm busy reading the detailed instructions. I'm looking forward to these projects, including the occasional mistake I'll make.

mcdanlj, 11 months ago to random

I've never signed up on Facebook, and I don't want a Facebook account.

But I'd love to follow here in the fediverse what my parents, and other relatives, post on Facebook.

I don't block email from meta to the systems I manage.

I don't block HTTPS from meta to the systems I manage.

I don't have to trust companies and think they are dedicated to moral good to be willing to exchange data over public protocols. But then, I don't expect or believe that anyone is perfectly good. I'm flawed. So are you. Yes, and you, and you, and you. Flawed and valuable and worthwhile. And I'm not quick to cut off communications with people just because I disagree with them. I've learned way too much that I value today from listening to people I disagreed with. Sometimes I've changed my mind, other times I learned something valuable even though I didn't come to agree with them.

If you signed the fedipact, what happens if you reconsider based on new information or perspectives? Do you feel free to change your mind, or is this a sacred vow?

I will say that those who won't talk to people who talk to people they disagree with (that is, in this context, those who won't federate with anyone who federates with meta) — transitive shunning — reminds me of how cults behave.

mcdanlj, 4 months ago to 3DPrinting

I'm currently deciding whether to do a design in #OpenSCAD or #FreeCAD or maybe some of both?

I may convert an old 12-chord autoharp from my wife's family into a 21-chord unit by making narrow chord bars. If I do that, I'd like to try #3DPrinting the chord bars with integral TPU dampers, programmatically generated.

Because there are multiple common chord layouts, I'd expect to generate chord bars from four pieces of data:

1. Button rank: Which of three rows should the button go on?
2. Notes: Which notes are in the chord?
3. Strings: Note names of every string, along with their relative station.
4. Name: Chord name printed into the bar.

Then I could remove from the model sections of the TPU damper part of the bar for every string corresponding with a note named in the list of notes for a particular damper, so that it doesn't damp the notes in that cord.

This feels programmatic, and OpenSCAD would be a rational choice. I know that one can program macros for FreeCAD, but it's harder to make FreeCAD macros part of a project instead of part of an installation as far as I know. On the other hand, I'd love to generate STEP files that express more semantics, rather than STL files, which argues again for FreeCAD. Maybe I could find a way to drive this from a spreadsheet in FreeCAD instead of with code. 🤔

Or maybe we should stick to the 12-chord version for now until we decide this is too limiting. 😀

mcdanlj, 26 days ago to fedora

I'm on #Fedora #Silverblue 40, and I'm now seeing a lot of "No video with supported format and MIME type found" errors.

I don't have mozilla-openh264 installed, so I guess that might make sense? Let's fix that...

# rpm-ostree install mozilla-openh264<br></br>...<br></br>error: Could not depsolve transaction; 1 problem detected:<br></br> Problem: package noopenh264-0.1.0~openh264_2.4.0-1.fc40.x86_64 from @System conflicts with openh264 provided by openh264-2.4.0-2.fc40.x86_64 from fedora-cisco-openh264<br></br>  - package openh264-2.4.0-2.fc40.x86_64 from fedora-cisco-openh264 obsoletes noopenh264 < 1:0 provided by noopenh264-0.1.0~openh264_2.4.0-1.fc40.x86_64 from @System<br></br>  - package mozilla-openh264-2.4.0-2.fc40.x86_64 from fedora-cisco-openh264 requires openh264(x86-64) = 2.4.0-2.fc40, but none of the providers can be installed<br></br>  - conflicting requests<br></br># rpm -qa | grep noopenh264<br></br>noopenh264-0.1.0~openh264_2.4.0-1.fc40.x86_64<br></br># rpm-ostree install --uninstall noopenh264 mozilla-openh264<br></br>error: Package/capability 'noopenh264' is not currently requested<br></br>

There's clearly something I don't understand here. I don't know how noopenh264 is installed but not requested and still causes a conflict. I must be alone in having this problem based on lack of bugs that I can find in RH's bugzilla.

I don't think I saw this problem on Silverblue 39, but I was using that for only a few days before rebasing on 40, and was previously on my "classic" Fedora 39 installation where it definitely wasn't showing up with the rpmfusion packages installed.

mcdanlj, 8 months ago to 3DPrinting

The past few days of #3DPrinting has been a set of different sizes of filament rollers for my dry box.

Not satisfied to just tweak my design by hand for my own use, I've made it a fairly robust, highly-parameterized #FreeCAD model that you can adjust to your needs and whatever bearings you have sitting around or find to buy for cheap.

https://www.printables.com/model/576157-parametric-filament-roller

https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/tool/parametric-filament-roller

https://gitlab.com/mcdanlj/FilamentRoller

These were inspired by a set I found on a web search, for which only STLs were available, and which didn't meet my needs, but I re-designed it from scratch to be parametric.

Three different size roller sets in a dry box
FreeCAD assembly of the parts
Print bed filled with the parts of three different size roller sets

mcdanlj, 8 months ago to 3DPrinting

None of the chiral einstein printable models I found included a CAD file, but one showed an image of the constraints implemented in what looked like SolidWorks. I started over from scratch in #FreeCAD instead. I didn't re-implement the version I found; I made something that looks a bit different. These are for my favorite mathematician, with whom I consulted on tile size and radius of orienting curves.

This would have been a great candidate for Sketcher having a single "add midpoint to line" feature though! It would have made this project a lot easier.

I am now #3DPrinting 20 of them for a test.

And yes, I'll upload the it all somewhere when I've tested it out. And if you had already printed out some of the ones from RichiH on Printables and would like to use this design to make something that works in his system, it will be possible to edit the BaseLength to 10 and the radius to Constraints.BaseLength / 2 and they should just work together.

Screenshot of FreeCAD model of chiral einstein

mcdanlj, 10 months ago to random

My Thinkpad is freezing up when I pick it up or touch the lid.

I'd pre-order a @frameworkcomputer 16 if they had a Thinkpad-like keyboard and track pad (with real separate physical buttons) available.

But having experienced the keyboard and track pad on the 13, I could not use their layout and track pad on my daily driver. 😭

So I guess it's another Thinkpad for me, and I can just hope that the newer generation have better battery life...

And curses, IPU6 webcam. Oh well, I don't use it much on my personal laptop anyway.

mcdanlj, 1 month ago to random

First papercut with #Silverblue — I have roughly forever kept a symlink /m → /media/johnsonm because I really don't like typing all that.

I built a local package with that symlink to get my symlink back, and then when I tried to install it immediately hit https://github.com/projectatomic/rpm-ostree/issues/233 which it says to "see" but that's not super useful.

As far as I can tell that's "u kant haz" and I'll have to retrain my fingers to something else. 😢

mcdanlj, 8 months ago to 3DPrinting

OK #3DPrinting hive mind... I don't care about resolution but I do care about ability to focus close. The webcam I put into my new printer can't focus anywhere near close enough, so the images are blury.

I don't have a lot of room in this case. I'd love one of the bare circuit board style cameras like the one I bought, except one that can focus close. What do you have that works, and that preferably isn't super expensive? I don't care about resolution, I just want to focus up close, and prefer fixed focus to avoid focus hunting as the print head zips around the enclosure.

mcdanlj, 6 months ago to 3DPrinting

Months ago, I saw youtubers insisting that Creality was going to start honoring open source license terms soon after actually shipping the K1 and K1 Max products to the general market. Did that ever actually happen? #3DPrinting #openSource

mcdanlj, 8 months ago to 3DPrinting

Today I learned that Cura, PrusaSlicer, and all the PrusaSlicer derivatives I have found ignore internal voids in STL and OBJ files when slicing for #3DPrinting. (I would like to know if I've just missed an option for honoring internal voids.)

PrusaSlicer and its derivatives do honor those internal voids in STEP files. Cura does not support STEP files.

I was going to publish STEP, STL, and OBJ files for my next project, but I might give up on STL and OBJ and only publish STEP, because it is designed with intentional voids with internal features.

mcdanlj, 1 year ago to random

After two WD Elements external USB drives in a row failed, I'm thinking of a change.

I'm now interested in USB-C (or at least USB-3.1 via some connector) DAS enclosures. I'm seeing lots of conflicting information on various enclosures. I'm looking for bare enclosures; I've been happy so far with Toshiba N300 drives in my system, but I've run out of SATA ports. I don't need super high performance; these are for backup purposes. But I'd like something that exposes bare drives, is quiet, has good cooling for drive live, supports 3.5" rotational SATA drives, and works well with Linux. Preferably 5 bays.

Anyone have any experience either of what to use or what to avoid?

mcdanlj, 9 months ago to random

My Lenovo T490 laptop broke, so I bought a T16 gen2 (Intel; required for highest resolution screen) to replace it. I've found the 14" to be a little limiting when doing #FreeCAD work, and while doing parametric CAD it's really nice to have a numeric keypad. I'm having a bit of trouble getting used to the offset keyboard, but I think it will end up being a good tradeoff in the end.

I could not find any information online about running Linux on the T16 gen2 — it's only a few months old. So I thought I'd report that everything so far seems to work, including WiFi and the webcam, which I guess isn't the one from Intel that requires a blob on Linux. (This was a big gamble; I can breathe again!)

I don't have the fingerprint reader or WWAN to test Linux with.

I did have to configure in BIOS to trust third party certificates signed by Microsoft before secure boot would work, bringing my SSD over from the T490 to the T16. That was the only change I needed to make.

I'm sad that there's no microSD slot any more. I used mine as a local backup target on the T490 and I have a 1TB microSD specifically for that. Now I need to figure out what to do for local backups, or whether I give up and say network backups are enough.

$ lsusb -t<br></br>/:  Bus 04.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/4p, 10000M<br></br>/:  Bus 03.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/12p, 480M<br></br>    |__ Port 4: Dev 2, If 0, Class=Video, Driver=uvcvideo, 480M<br></br>    |__ Port 4: Dev 2, If 1, Class=Video, Driver=uvcvideo, 480M<br></br>    |__ Port 4: Dev 2, If 2, Class=Video, Driver=uvcvideo, 480M<br></br>    |__ Port 4: Dev 2, If 3, Class=Video, Driver=uvcvideo, 480M<br></br>    |__ Port 4: Dev 2, If 4, Class=Application Specific Interface, Driver=, 480M<br></br>    |__ Port 10: Dev 3, If 0, Class=Wireless, Driver=btusb, 12M<br></br>    |__ Port 10: Dev 3, If 1, Class=Wireless, Driver=btusb, 12M<br></br>/:  Bus 02.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/3p, 20000M/x2<br></br>/:  Bus 01.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/1p, 480M<br></br><br></br>

mcdanlj, 5 months ago to random

I keep designing things that need small tapped holes. This time, a 7mm deep M4 hole in steel. In related news, I just placed an order for some 3mm carbide machine drills and end mills. 😬

mcdanlj, 8 months ago to random

That feeling when you start a 2+ hour long #3DPrint and a few minutes later an intense thunderstorm rolls in... 😬

mcdanlj, 4 months ago to random

I'm modeling an index plate (for my Grizzly G0709 lathe) with 120 degree markings in #FreeCAD. The 10° index markings were nearly instantaneous, and 5° index markings didn't take too long with a polar pattern, but the 1° index markings caused FreeCAD to go catatonic for over half an hour. I think this was because of the cuts that overlapped the 5° and 10° marks.

I gave up (force quit) and tried instead rendering the 1° index marks as a sketch with a group of four cuts, then polar patterning resulting cut with 24 copies that didn't overlap with existing cuts, and it rendered in less than half a minute.

I'm doing this with a mostly-transparent scan image in front of it to validate. The dark stripe at the top of the image is the machinists scale I scanned with it to use to make sure it was, well, to scale. The scan wasn't perfectly aligned because the bed on my scanner is a little crooked, though. 😭

Now I just need to get the numbers on it. I might try B612

mcdanlj, 1 year ago to random

Today I hit a brick wall in the #ElectronicLeadScrew work.

I got the servo to quit singing when turned on by setting the secondary notch filter to 250Hz, which seemed close to the frequency I heard. So far so good. Bug...

When I power everything up and turn the spindle, the servo starts to turn, and then trips its alarm and stops. It does this even if it is not physically connected to the lathe gearbox, so it doesn't seem like it could reasonably be complaining about it taking too much torque to turn.

I guess I should go back to factory default settings and try again, but as far as I can tell I didn't change much. Steps/rev and the notch filter is I think all I changed.

As far as I can tell, the servo doesn't say anything more than "an error occurred" by lighting a red LED and asserting a signal, so I have no idea what error it thinks it ran into.

mcdanlj, 11 months ago to random

Are boot option edits in grub2 supposed to persist? Where do they persist?

I did an emergency boot, updated the system, and rebooted, and it dropped me back into emergency mode. I couldn't find a file in /boot or /boot/efi that had emergency in it. I was able to boot normally by editing in grub config, but now I'm wondering whether the problem will come back and what to look for...

😬

mcdanlj, 7 months ago to 3DPrinting

I have friends who I helped replace some door locks over a few years with locks of the same kind, but not bought as a set, and thus not keyed alike. No problem, I know how to do this. I bought a lock re-pinning set, but it came (as advertised, no problem) in a set of plastic bags in a plastic bag...

Rather than look silly carrying around a zip-lock bag, I'd love to #3DPrint a complete hinged case that holds all the pins, pin gauge, follower, deadbolt cap remover, and removal tool, as well as including a nice re-pinning tray when it sits open. And I'd like to print a couple of them so that I can easily have sets for different lock types.

I could design such a thing, but thought someone else might have done this already. I haven't found the right keywords for a yeggi search if so. Anyone have any suggestions?

#3DPrinting #locksport

mcdanlj, 1 year ago to random

I have a kid headed off to college who wants a @frameworkcomputer DIY 13" system to run @fedora on while studying CS. ❤️

What are the tradeoffs between the Intel and AMD variants, specifically for running Linux, specifically the next-generation systems (13th Gen Intel Core or AMD Ryzen 7040 Series) currently available for pre-order?

• Webcam? (I don't know whether Frame.work are using Intel's proprietary, closed-source, non-upstreamed webcam implementation on their Alder/Raptor Lake systems.)
• Battery life?
• Performance?
• Other technical considerations?

JTBC I'm not looking for anti-Intel or anti-AMD comments, just technical information, with a focus on good support from a fully open source install.

#framework #fedora

mcdanlj, 8 months ago to 3DPrinting

A few years ago, I built a #3DPrinting dry box for dispensing filament from a locking sealed plastic container with dessicant. I did two things wrong.

• In a container with room for three spools, I hung them all on a common axle, instead of putting rollers in the bottom, which meant disassembling the whole thing any time I wanted to make any change.
• I ran the filament out through holes in the lid instead of the side, which made it hard to change even a single roll.

I want to fix both problems, starting with using rollers. I found a design for a spool roller that looked nice in some ways, but uses a fairly restrictive license and doesn't include CAD files for modifying it, and which (for my use with 625 bearings that I have a bunch of) requires M2 countersunk screws whereas I have more M3 available.

So last night I designed a similar set from scratch in #FreeCAD designed for faster printing. Instead of posting a bunch of STLs, I'm going to make the design parametric so that you can adjust it for your own needs and printer and bearing characteristics. For example, the original allows you to select flanged or plain bearings, which means less bearing surface if you are using plain bearings. So I'll let you select the bearing type as well as the size.

I'll release the whole set with a more liberal license when it's tested, along with instructions for modification.

mcdanlj, 6 months ago to diy

I keep being shocked from my fingers to my keyboard and touchpad while I walk at my treadmill desk. The treadmill is kind of a Van de Graaff generator and I'd like to dissipate the static. Spraying it with anti-static spray works for a little while, but not long.

I figured there must be long conductive brushes that I could affix so that they brush the surface of the treadmill and ground, but "conductive strip brush" leads me to things that cost multiple hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars and are clearly aimed at manufacturers for whom that is a reasonable part of their machine cost.

Does anyone have a creative idea of a source for brushes that would be sufficiently conductive to dissipate electrostatic charges and making treadmill desk use more comfortable, particularly in dry weather, but cost less than an arm and a leg? Feels like such a thing must exist cheaply somehow!☺

#DIY

mcdanlj, 7 months ago to 3DPrinting

Now that the Qidi X-Max 3 is down to $949 (plus an optional $40 webcam) shipped, it's better competition for the $899 Creality K1 Max, I think. The K1 Max build volume is 300x300x300mm; the X-Max 3 build volume is 330x330x315mm. I'd think an extra $50-90 is worth it for that extra volume, even if you don't care about open source licenses. (Have Creality yet honored their open source license obligations for that printer? Last I heard, Creality were suggesting that they might do that at some indefinite point in the future, as if those license obligations were optional.)

I've definitely used the full X and Y extent of the build plate so far, and also (though not with the same print) used nearly all of the build height. Overall, my X-Max 3 has been pretty busy for the past month, including printing upgrade parts for my other (even larger) printer. ☺

#3DPrinter #3DPrinting

mcdanlj, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago) to linux

About a third of a century ago, I read the original source code to the Linux ps program that worked by reading kernel memory from a setuid root program, used that to enhance the brand-new /proc filesystem to support all the features I now knew ps might need, and wrote a brand-new version of ps. I added features I'd wanted forever on the VAX 11/780 I was using at the time, like built-in sorting instead of piping through sort or awk, and at least trying to fully honor both BSD and System V command-line arguments. I called it "procps" to distinguish it from the original "kmem" ps.

As far as I know, none of my original code survives. I think it's been re-written at least once, maybe twice by now. This is clearly the procps of Theseus.

But it's still called "procps" in Linux distributions, which I have to imagine confuses newcomers. "Why do I have to install procps to get the ps command?"

#linux

mcdanlj, 8 months ago to random

When I bought my SK-Tank #3DPrinter a couple years ago, I hadn't learned how to use shape binders in #FreeCAD to design parts around a collection of other parts in particular positions. I didn't like the hotend mount SecKit provided, so I designed my own, but it was hard to make changes to my models.

Of that set, the nozzles I printed in PETG are starting to melt, and before the last time I touched them up had actually caught blobs and caused layer shifting. Didn't happen much, so it took me a while to figure out what was happening.

Today I took my old models, started over from scratch on each body, but used shape binders to the STEP files for the hardware, and between the parts, to design similar but more stable parts, taking advantage of what I've learned in the meantime, like moving the part cooling fan slightly for better airflow, a larger nozzle aperture, . That was substantially faster, and was easier to tweak the models in the middle as I worked through the design.

I left the volcano block in the model even though I changed to a CHC heater block; it is strictly smaller and so will fit, but this leaves my options open if I hate the CHC heater block.

I didn't bother creating an assembly and adding hardware to my design; it's just a bunch of M3 screws and inserts.

I'm now printing the set in ABS on my Qidi X-Max 3 at least to test clearances, and when my glass-filled fiberglass arrives, I might re-print it for additional stiffness after I'm confident in the quality of the design on cheaper normal ABS.

Almost every screw will be fixed with heat-set inserts, which means that I also need to make the pinecil-heatset driver adapter I keep forgetting to get around to making, now that my lathe is back in operational status.☺

Parts I modeled in the context of the hardware to which they attach