3D Printing

The Sandbox Software/Technology
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Anybody doing it? We got an Ender thing at Christmas and I played with it a little bit and then kind of forgot about it. I recently decided to see if I can figure it out, and last night I got it set up and printed the first part needed to make some fancy new loudspeakers, like these.

The first pic is what I’m trying to build, the second shows how these things work. The tweeter is attached at the terminus of the horn. And then the woofers are on the sides, they force air through the oblong slits on the horn, so you get something close to a point source. The other slots near the ‘mouth’ of the horn are to boost the bass response a bit. Really novel concept, but it’s patented and the commercially available ones are like $6k.

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r/audiophile

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More like r/diyaudio, lol.

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I’ve continually thought that I’d like to get a 3d printer and screw around with it. Seems like cool fun.

The only reason I haven’t is because I don’t need another rabbit hole like the raspberry pi to go down. Just sold my last pi. And of course, thinking, gee I should’ve kept at least one, I might get to that one day.

So no 3d printing for me yet. But…new year is coming and I’m done school and fishing season is over, so maybe?

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I have several ideas for products that would need some 3D printing of prototypes, but nothing that I’m actively engaging in at the moment. I also have 4 teenagers, 3 of whom are in orthodontics at the same time, the other is getting a young adult stipend in lieu of college, so I don’t have a lot of extra cash flow to blow on something like this.

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Did you ever think about 3D printing those???

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I’m also curious about how you are working this… I think my kiddo will go to college (98% right now in advanced chemistry, the nerd is pretty strong), but if there is a desire to not go to college and jump into something that I think is reasonable, I’d consider something like that.

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I’ve thought about it a lot. But I’d want to be able to program the thing. And that means learning a lot of stuff. And first, it means picking a language. And learning a language without being able to use it is unrewarding, so I haven’t gotten around to it. It’s kinda a vicious circle.

On the other hand, the prices have plummeted since I first toyed with the idea.

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Yeah, if I have time I’d love to learn how to program it. For now I’m just trying to figure out how to print things others have designed, even that is a bit of a learning curve.

Maybe down the line I’ll get to that, if I were doing this project from the ground up I’d have gone with an oblate spheroid shape for the horn instead of just a conical thing. It’s fine.

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We made an agreement, in junior year of HS, that I would fund young adult-ness, whether that was at a college or just plain cash. I’m obligated to the equivalent of 4 years of tuition, room and board, and books / fees at a state university.

The older one did 1 year of college, for which I kept my end of the bargain. She had a small loan for the remaining amount. Then she decided not to continue, so now I’m giving a monthly stipend that she’s using to basically build a life: pay off a car, furnish an apartment, save money, etc. She has a job that she bitches about, who knows where she’s going next, but I’m not that sold on the blanket statement that a 4-year degree is essential to a good life, or even remotely causational.

Second one graduated in June, now he’s just living at home paying nothing and getting no stipend. Same deal - I’ll pay the equivalent of 4 years’ worth at state schools. He doesn’t want it now, he’d rather get it when college starts, which he’s now looking at and much more intentional than 12-18 months ago when everyone else was just going to Mizzou and figure out a major and a path while there. He’s actually very interested and intentional about audio engineering now, which wasn’t even on his radar during high school, so if he’d just picked somewhere, I think he would have regretted it.

For the next 2, their deals will likely be different. Next one to graduate, she’s not likely to get into a 4-year college. And I would be very reticent to give her a big fat lump of money with no strings attached, as she’d likely blow it on Genshin Impact or other plushies, so I’ll be more actively involved in that situation. I’d like to support her, so probably paying for community college classes, maybe renting her an apartment close to a job where she pays me a little bit of money to get used to the practice, etc.

Last one is likely to go to culinary school, so my support for him might be 2 years’ worth of that, then 2 more years’ worth of young adult stipend as he gets settled. Which might be necessary, if he wants to maybe save up to start a restaurant or buy a car or move to Alaska or get a job on a cruise ship or whatever.

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orthodontists exist for the same reason that prostitutes do: I could do it myself, but I’ll get much better quality and satisfaction by hiring a professional.

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Well, this may be the right thread for them! Also, Rolla is right down the road and is an excellent school. Yes, I went there.

I’m generally ok with funding some adulthood time to sort things out and build a life. What’s the thing Bill Gates said… I’m ok giving my kids enough money so that they can do anything, I’m not ok giving them enough money that they can do nothing. I’m somewhere in that camp, I’m fine helping you as you figure out what you want to be when you grow up, but if you just give up and find a $15/hr job and play video games at age 22, I’m not super into funding that for very long.

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What counts as acceptable for this?

I could definitely see culinary school, or any trade school in lieu of college.

Blowing it on videogames and weed, not so much.

I know a guy who thought about buying his kid a store to run instead of college, because at 17 the kid was not interested too much in college.

I know another guy who said he’d rather give his son 100k to start a business than go to college, but that kid actually ended up getting a business degree anyway.

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On the topic, though, at some point I was toying with the idea of getting a 3D Printer, but then I sort of thought, alternatively, a CNC router would be cool. And I never got either.

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A CNC router is extremely cool, but much larger and much more expensive than a 3D printer.

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I have a 3D printer to play with, but I keep getting sidetracked whenever I go to finish setting it up.

My wife and I both wanted one, although I think we’re both hard-pressed to say exactly why we wanted one. There’s lots of stuff we think it’d be easier to print rather than order, for assorted projects, but…

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well, depends on the router and the 3D-P.

I got the money for toys. I don’t have a lot of storage space

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A CNC is kinda like the opposite of a 3D printer, in a way.

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I see that.

60 minutes had a story this week about a company called ICON that made a giant 3d printer that uses cement mix and can 3d print houses, squirting out like 0.5 inch beads of cement continuously. It’s like building a house out of toothpaste.

They have a contract with NASA to study the feasibility of 3D printing on the moon using moondust and a laser to harden it into printable stone-like material.

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I watched a short video of that on Reddit. It’s pretty cool tech, no idea how the economics will work but I can see it maybe being cheaper than a brick or stick built house.