Catching Up: 3D Printing, Drought, Biking, and WTF is Wrong With Some People?

The Bambu P2S 3D printer has been working almost non-stop since I got it and it hasn’t missed a beat. I’m still amazed at how much the technology has improved since I had my old Flash Forge. It’s much faster, is as close to being “Plug ‘n Play” as a 3D printer can get. It has automated bed leveling, automated nozzle cleaning, automatic filament changing, automated calibration, etc.

All of the stuff that used to drive me nuts like doing manual bed leveling with the old Flash Forge is now taken care of automatically by the printer.

First thing I did was print a whole bunch of parts for my fume extraction system to make my life a little easier. Things like adaptors to go from the 4″ hose my extractor uses down to the size needed for my lasers. That makes life a lot easier.

A variety of other parts and gadgets were printed including some custom stuff for eldest son who dabbles in retr0-computers and occasionally need special parts that can’t be sourced elsewhere any longer.

And then I found out I can 3D print hose clamps. Seriously. Actual real hose clamps that work beautifully with my fume extraction system.

One of the most useful things I found to print was an extremely sturdy and very handy adjustable easel for my Wacom Cintiq graphics tablet.

I have a half dozen or more batteries for my Dewalt cordless tools and ran across this one day.

A battery carrier/storage thingie for my Dewalt batteries. This thing is so good and so useful I’m surprised it isn’t a commercial product.

My old 3d printer was, to be honest, little more than a toy that wasn’t good for much except printing mildly naughty anime figurines and novelty items. The technology and materials have now gotten so good it’s producing genuinely useful, durable parts. I’m really pleased with this thing.

I thought about doing some kind of review of the P2S but then decided to not bother. It’s been on the market for some time now and there are dozens of reviews alreayd out there on YouTube, etc.

There is some controversy with Bambu Labs, however. It’s been accused of trying to “lock down” its user environment to make it difficult to do things like use 3rd party slicing software and even filament from other makers. And there is some truth to that. Sort of. Apparently now you can use 3rd party slicing software with a bit of fiddling around.

And as for filament, yes Bambu would certainly love to have you buy materials from them and has made it extremely attractive to do so. Bambu filament comes with RFID tags that are read by the AMS which automatically determines what the material is etc. and automatically sets up all of the correct parameters for using that material. And yes, you will pay a bit more for that convenience. But damn, it works nice. No more scrambling to try to find the exact temperatures, flow rates, etc. for a spool of filament. And it doesn’t cost all that much more than generic filament does, to be honest. And if you buy in bulk they give you huge discounts that eliminates the price difference entirely in some cases.

And it will still work with generic filament. You just need to remember to set the temperatures, flow rates, etc. yourself if you go that way. I’ve gone through a half dozen spools of generic PLA I picked up at Hobby Lobby with no problems at all.

What it all boils down to is Bambu 3D printers are the best selling models on the market right now, and for good reason. My experiences with the P2S have been nothing but positive.

But enough of that, let’s get on with this.

It was an absolutely beautiful day yesterday. So nice that when I went out on the bike I ended up putting almost 15 miles on. Rolling down the trails through the woods was absolutely delightful.

But wow, it’s dry here. The branch of the Manitowoc river that runs under the old stone bridge north of town is almost completely dried up.

There are places where you could almost walk across the river without getting your feet wet. I have seen it worse.

And with the low water level crap like this starts to pop up:

WTF is wrong with people? Seriously. I would dearly love to have the people who toss their trash into the river get not just seriously fined but do jail time too. There is simply no excuse for this. We’ve fished old computers, television sets, tires, car parts, car batteries, refrigerators and in one case a complete suite of living room furniture including a sofa, loveseat and recliner, out of that river.

The DNR used to have a sign there warning people that they had cameras set up to catch people doing this. I noticed that the sign has, of course, been stolen. Sigh. The cameras are still up, though, hidden in the trees. So I sincerely hope that they catch the weasel who dumped these tires.

On a more pleasant note, we finally got some rain this morning! We got almost an inch of rain which we needed desperately.

Also MrsGF is finally back from almost a week long trip to Atlanta to some conference so I’m less grouchy than usual.

And to wrap things up, how about a cat holding a carrot?