I’ve seen that a ton with injection molded plastic, but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that happen on a printed part before. My prints usually break before deforming enough to get discolored.

10 hours worth of hangout time with friends sounds nice. Our kids are 5 and 8, which means they’re vaguely more self-sufficient and also means we can go on more adventurous trips, but they still require quite a bit of looking after due to bickering and what not.

I also have kids. IMO, the way you’re accounting for hours doesn’t reflect the boom/bust cycle of the 5 day work and school week.

A day in my work week is:

• wakeup around 6:15, feed kids, get their stuff ready for school and my stuff ready for work
• three days a week two neighbor kids come over at 7:30 so their parents can get to work on time
• I get the kids on the bus two days a week and work from home starting at 8:30 or drive into the office the remaining three days and get there around 8. Although I drive to work, I am able to sneak some exercise having walking conversations with coworkers thanks to being in a large building
• if I went into the office, leave my desk at 4 and get home around 4:45. If I worked from home the kids get off the bus around 3:45 but I’ll still need to finish up my work day
• cook dinner, referee a heard of wild kids when they swarm through our house, get our kids to do their homework
• most days tend to have a kid activity thrown in the mix: baseball practice, swimming lessons, robotics club, etc that needs to somehow fit in with homework and dinner
• bath time around 7:00, story time runs till 8
• the kids are usually asleep by 8:30, which gives me 2.5 hours of time monday-friday that’s work and kid free before I have to go to bed. I can’t be too loud or I’ll wake the kids up. Combine this with having been up for 14.5 hours and I’m not very inclined to do what used to be my main hobby, making things and tinkering, due to noise and/or mental energy levels. My wife is fine with me sneaking out a day or two a week for a bit, but I don’t do that very often due to proximity to friends and many other friends having their own kids and routines

Things will probably calm down some when our kids are a touch older, but right now the week days are very hectic.

Good to hear! The only PETG problem I ever had problems with was an opaque white. Evidently it takes a decent amount of additives to get it to be both opaque and white, which can impact printability.

Still, a ton of drivers will absolutely drive like you are invisible and just plow into you.

I’ve had this experience in a miata and Fiero. Low roofline + small car = invisibility cloke :(

Sorry to hear that. The only thing that comes to mind is potentially print speed. Your first layer is probably pretty slow. Are your subsequent layers much faster?

I’ve wanted a motorcycle for decades. NHTSA’s stats on motorcycle accidents send very mixed signals:

• Thirty-four percent of motorcycle riders in fatal crashes in 2023 had no valid motorcycle licenses. -In 2023 motorcycle riders in fatal crashes had higher percentages of alcohol impairment than drivers of any other motor vehicle type (26% for motorcycles, 24% for passenger cars, 20% for light trucks, and 4% for large trucks).
• Forty-one percent of motorcycle riders who died in single-vehicle crashes in 2023 were alcohol-impaired
• Motorcycle riders killed in traffic crashes at night were two and a half times more frequently alcohol-impaired than those killed during the day (38% and 15%) in 2023.
• In States without universal helmet laws, based on known helmet use, 51 percent of motorcyclists killed in 2023 were not wearing helmets, as compared to 10 percent in States with universal helmet law

So basically, have a license and training and don’t drink. Helmets are good for your health.

…

Twenty-four percent of motorcycles in fatal traffic crashes in 2023 collided with fixed objects, compared to 16 percent for passenger cars, 12 percent for light trucks, and 4 percent for large trucks.

Don’t ride with a loonitick.

In 2023 there were 3,419 fatal two-vehicle crashes each involving a motorcycle and another type of vehicle. In 46 percent (1,588) of these crashes, the other vehicles were turning left while the motorcycles were going straight, passing, or overtaking other vehicles.

Well, that sucks :(

Did it look more solid or did print quality basically remain the same?

How can you tell it’s under extruded?

IMO this is the same as any other hobby. Print enough and you’re likely to run into under extrusion at some point. Similarly, I can tell if doughs and batters needs more liquid or more flower by look and touch thanks to making a ton of pizza crusts and pancakes.

If there’s some clear sign of under extrusion it might be useful for my reference doc I use when trying to troubleshoot failed prints.

The first photo in the album looks like ‘classic’ under extrusion. The layer lines are largely intact, but way less material that is necessary for a solid print is present. The print has better and worse areas, which usually indicates a clog. Combine this with the fact that PETG will clog if you use too much retraction and a user that’s new to PETG and retraction seems like a good place to start troubleshooting.

As for helping your guide, simplify3d hasn’t been a ‘cool’ slicer in quite some time but they have a decent print quality guide that names a bunch of failure modes. Ellis’ print tuning guide is the best one I’ve come across.

PETG isn’t very tolerant of too much retraction. Given your fine first layer I suspect you’re developing a clog as the print goes on, which would result in under extrusion. Turning retraction completely off will make it very easy to rule out as a possibility.

You’re severely under-extruding. This may sound weird, but try a warmer temp tower without any extrusion. You might be developing a clog mid print.

I took three history classes while I was in college. It’s been a while, but I recall most of them having a paper or two and those papers counting for a pretty big chunk of you grade. The author of the article is a history teacher, so essays make some amount of sense.

My engineering classes were basically as you described.

I can tell my kids whatever I want. They generally trust me, but will retain some level of skepticism until they discover that my advice is valid. In this case her Dad may have suggested, “try x” but she didn’t realize how effective the approach would be until she used it once.

I’m not an Apple fanboy, but arm based processors seem to be working out fairly well for them.

I own an Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x, which was one of the OG snapdragon x laptops released a (two?) and a half year(s) ago. It took a while for folks to get Linux to run on them and there’s enough of a barrier to entry that it’s still not very common. Most of the initial hurdles were due to Qualcomm bootloader shenanigans.

A reminder of more sane times, but also some level of presence

2x27" 1440 monitors with zero zoom is bliss. There’s literally so much space for activities, things are nice and readable, you still have actual screens if you screen share, etc.

It sounds like we have basically the same setup.

Very nice! The behind the scenes timelaps was a bit mind blowing to someone who understands everything you did, but could never accomplish what you accomplished.

You’re 100% correct at a sane company. At my employer the hardware team is incentivised to cut costs and impacts to productivity are someon else’s problem. Corporate metrics lead to some pretty hilarious situations.

I’m not going to try to dissuade you from getting a 3D scanner, but for functional prints a pair of calipers, some radius gauges, and a profile gauge will you really far. Once you get some reps in with CAD it also won’t take you long to model your designs. CAD is a great skill to learn and as you do this again and again you’ll start modifying your designs to make them easier to print.

Haha, that’s… juicy. Thanks!