One year ago today: May 25, 2013.
Five years ago today: May 25, 2009, cheating at the checkout.
It didn’t take long to make up for that boring Saturday that just past. The club meeting was at the café this morning from 7:15AM to 10:30AM and then on to 4:30PM in the afternoon. The subject of this extended meeting? 3D printers. In my report to the club of the Nova meet-up, I had included mention that one of the attendees had a 3D printer, but in the context that he had discovered the same problems we had predicted. No, we didn’t spend eight hours hashing that out, but the overall concept of the 3D printer. And while this was going on, there was an expensive upgrade to the eBike in progress.
Anyway, here’s the in-depth results of “The Great 3D Printer Meeting of 2014”. I felt like I’d been interrogated for hours but that is what I get for being the one that attended the meetings and went to the display at Ft. Lauderdale. That demo room set up at the library over there was the first and only time anybody in the club has seen a 3D printer. But we were not interested in it for the same reasons as others. We need information that library staff cannot provide. I’ll describe a bit of it so you’ll see why this decision is not easy.
There were five printers in the library display, six if you include one being constructed. But four of the printers were out of commission. I was very interested in why, this is what I meant when I just said my reasons were not the same. How long had they been broken? Why were they not fixed? Who fixed them? Where did he learn to fix them? I had come away from the library with the impression the printers were finicky and required skilled maintenance. The articles being printed were toys and trinkets. The 3D printer works on the same principle as a very tiny hot glue gun. It is resolved the club travel to the Ft. Lauderdale library on Tuesday to view the display themselves. I hope it is still there.
The young man at Nova who bought a printer ran smack dab into the expensive problems we predicted, but remember, he didn’t have a club so he never learned until after he spent his money. When it [the printer] broke, there was no place that fixes these things. Same as us, he had absolutely no information on how to create the computer files needed to “invent” new things to print. And it is not like there is anyone to ask. From my point of view, this confirms all the conclusions I’d made about this printers: the people who ran out and bought them are stuck with something expensive that they cannot use.
Ah, I hear the sharper readers thinking, this is not enough to tie up Agt. M and I for a full working day. This is why I was barraged with questions. My analysis a year ago said we had to master three disciplines to make money with the printer. They were the design of objects to be printed, the operation of the printer, and the repair and maintenance of the printer. When I examined the non-working printers the entire damage seems to be the result of jammed printer nozzles. The object being printed drops or the nozzle rises after each print layer and something had interfered with that. Without that offset each time, the nozzle continues to eject melted plastic and the result is a mess. It dries hard like the brittle plastic of lego pieces. Slow as these printers are, it is therefore not best to leave them unattended.
Back to the printer, after being grilled, it turns out I did have more information than on the original report. For example, yes, the printer in that display were in a spotless environment. There was no dust in the room. There were four computers set up with design software, but nobody knew how to use it. Sadly, the photos I took of this event are misfiled. And misfiles don’t happen around here unless there is something more serious awry. The picture was posted in the evening section of April 9, 2014. The library also provided the information that there was a “three month” backlog of items to be printed. Since the device is so new there isn’t much competition, I conclude others are, like myself, approaching the technology very slowly, very suspiciously.
It is further resolved we wait until we see if the Nova guy is willing to share his printer if we fix it. We can fix anything as long as it requires more brains than brawn. A three month backlog interests me quite a lot, as well. Agt. M has proposed we examine the use of a 3D printer as a copier. This would entail the exact measurement of the object to be duplicated, which is a separate technology. Still, you heard it here first, or nearly first, because we don’t know.
ADDENDUM
So, you have nothing to hide, do you? Well, if you are a veteran, it seems you do. The IRS has been singling out veterans and organizations with “unpopular political views”. Just how did the IRS get ahold of such files and records? Because the idiots of America handed it to them, that’s how. You know what I feel about “voter registration lists”. Admit it, I was right. Come on, admit it. (For those too busy to look it up, the law forbids the withholding of any amount from disability checks for any reason. If you owe a million in fines or support, but they cannot take it from a disability check.
So the IRS was saying they did not take it from your your disability, they waited until you cashed the check and then took it from your bank account. Duh. This place is getting more like Canada every passing year. I believe anyone, before they move to Canada, should be required to read "Fifty Years in the Furnace". For that matter, anyone who thinks Canada is a free country should read it, too. It is only free if you are very, very rich or very, very poor.
