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(If you have questions and don’t want to go through the comments for some reason, you can reach me at theoldgrouch@grouchhfarmer.com)

Solar and Politics

I don’t delve into politics in this blog and I’m not going to start now. But I do need to clear some things up regarding solar energy now that the midterms are over and the democrats seem to have won control of both the House and the Senate. There is a lot of utter drivel being spouted in the solar community forums and, unfortunately, even by the newly elected members of Congress. And when I say drivel, I mean exactly that.

People are claiming that the tariffs on solar equipment are going to be going away. There are claims that the federal tax credit or something like it is going to come back. Some claim that federal and state regulations that seem to be designed specifically to make adopting alternative forms of energy as difficult as possible are going to go away.

I hate throw cold water on everyone, but someone needs to load up a big bucket of water and ice and dump it on a few people out there because all of that is total bullshit.

Do you want to know what is really going to happen? I’ll tell you.

Absolutely nothing.

People keep forgetting how this government actually works. Congress has the authority to make and change laws, yes, but it cannot act by itself. Any legislation it passes has to be signed by the president before it actually becomes law. Congress can pass all of the legislation it likes to try to change the situation. But they cannot change the fact that the president can and will veto any legislation that he doesn’t like, and the Congress doesn’t have the necessary votes to overturn his veto.

So Congress can spout off all it likes. It can have all of the committee hearings it likes. It can investigate whatever or whoever it likes. But it’s all a dog and pony show. They put on a good performance for their voters back home, make it look like they’re doing something really, really important, but ultimately it’s all just meaningless PR stunts that accomplish absolutely nothing unless they pass actual real legislation and put together enough votes to override a veto.

So there aren’t going to be any new tax breaks for renewable energy projects. There isn’t going to be any new grant money made available. The personal income tax credit for installing energy efficient equipment and renewable energy equipment is not going to be coming back. Tax breaks for buying EVs aren’t going to be coming back. None of it.

Nor are the tariffs going to be magically going away somehow. Under Article 1, section 8 of the Constitution only the Congress has the authority to levy tariffs. But because the US Congress has proven itself over and over again to be the largest collection of self serving spineless cowards in the entire country unable to react quickly enough to changing world conditions, it has passed legislation yielding some of its authority to the executive branch of the government, i.e. the president. And unless Congress is willing to claw back that authority, and can muster enough votes to override the inevitable presidential veto, nothing is going to change.

And in any case, many, perhaps even most of the bottlenecks with the development of renewable energy projects are from state and local governments and are not under the control of the feds in the first place. Zoning laws, building codes, site restrictions, etc. where many of the problems we have to deal with originate, are under state and local control. And if your state legislature is anything at all like ours here, most of your legislators and quite possibly the governor’s office itself, are wholly owned subsidiaries of the utility monopolies no matter which party they belong to.

So all that chatter about how things are going to abruptly change overnight once the new members of Congress are sworn in? Yeah, forget it. Ain’t gonna happen.

MrsGF and I have been talking about this literally for more than a decade and we finally did it. We’ve wanted to get rid of the 30 year old fiberglass tub and shower enclosure that we’ve been struggling with since we bought this place and put in a new walk in shower.

It was not without its struggles. It took a half day longer than they’d planned because once they whacked out old shower enclosure they found that they had to rip out a false overhead header wall and reframe a lot of the floor so it took a bit longer than anticipated. But otherwise everything went pretty smooth.

The contractor did a fantastic job. The place was absolutely immaculate when they finished up. I don’t usually plug contractors but these guys did a great job. If you’re interested the contractor was Mad City (https://madcitywindows.com/) out of Madison but they work all across the state and several others as well. They specialize in bathroom remodeling and do a great job so if you’re in Wisconsin and thinking of getting your bathroom done over give them a call.

We’ve more or less have all of the vegetable gardens cleaned out but it’s been so mild here that some of the decorative plants are still going strong, so here are some pictures of the last flowers of summer. All too soon the frost will hit followed by the snow, so enjoy while we can!

Some of you may have discovered various websites, including some government ones, that seem to be non-functional as of today, Oct. 21.

The reason why is a serious vulnerability with PHP, a programming system that runs a great deal of the web. And one that seems is being actively exploited by certain persons.

There are fixes now available to deal with the problem but it is taking time to obtain the fixed software and install it so some sites have gone off-line completely temporarily, while others have removed acess to certain parts of their sites that might imploy the flawed code.

So just have patience. It will all sort out in a day or so.

Here’s a short video of Marvelous Mercy The Wonder Cat (yes, that’s really her name) being annoyed by a disembodied hand just because there aren’t enough cat videos on the internet.

One of the things I do is make allegedly humorous drinks coasters for the brewpub down in Milwaukee. They’re done on cheap heavy paperboard and I crank them out by the dozen because they go through a lot of them. The Layman’s logo is on one side and there’s a joke or cartoon or quote or something on the other side. Here’s a few from the last batch.

Sidenote: Yes, I pick on Kyle rather a lot in these sometimes. Kyle is one of the owners and the brewmaster. We’ve been friends for something like 20 years and we both have a sense of humor that runs towards the sarcastic and snarky. To give you an idea of what Kyle’s sense of humor is like, he’s the one who wanted the engraving of a constipated Bigfoot sitting on a toilet to put up in the restrooms at the pub. I thought it was a great idea and wished i’d thought of it first.

Sidenote 2: About the illustrations. I have a huge collection of very old magazines dating back to about 1875 and some of the illustrations are just too tempting to not use for a joke. I draw some myself, some are generated by AI because I’m getting lazy in my old age.

Sidenote 3: Yes, I steal jokes. No one has written an original joke since 347 BC when an anonymous stand up comic working in Damascus came up with the one about Moses and the burning bush.

Well the Bambu P2S arrived the other day and I got it set up and running. That’s it over there on the right.

Wow, has the technology improved since the last one I owned! Much, much faster, much more flexible, much easier to use. And you can get an automatic material changer that holds 4 spools of filament and it can select from any of them on the fly, so to speak, to change colors while printing.

If you get one of these, read the instructions about how to unpack it before you try to do anything! Seriously. There are zip ties to be clipped, tape to be removed, hold down screws that need to be removed, packing material that has to be removed in the right way, etc. I went slowly and carefully and it took me almost an hour to get it all unpacked and ready to turn on for the first time. But that includes becoming distracted halfway through and having to go get a cup of coffee and a sit down, so you’ll probably be able to do it a lot quicker.

Once it’s turned on it goes through a bizarre first initialization procedure where it will shake, rattle, roll, click and make all sorts of bizarre noises while the bed and print head go through odd gyrations as it calibrates everything to get ready for the first use. That took almost a half hour so just relax, go get a coffee, read a book, watch cat videos and be patient.

Setting up the AMS is so simple one of my cats could probably have done it. And once that’s installed it’s ready to go.

The automatic material system is fantastic to work with. You can have 2 of them, meaning you can have up to 8 different color filaments or different materials ready to go when you’re ready to start printing. No more fiddling around loading and loading filament every time you want to change colors or change materials.

First thing I did was the obligatory “benchy” boat. (you can click on the image to enlarge it. I think.) Yes, it’s a silly little boat but it actually is a pretty good test of how good a 3D printer is. In this case I did the multi-color version because I also wanted to test how well switching colors in the middle of a print worked. And it worked very well indeed.

So why did I get another 3D printer? I think I mentioned before that I used to have a model railroad layout that I enjoyed very much. But real life got in the way, as it often does. I needed the space for other things, I was busy with work and family obligations. You get the idea. I now have the time and resources to get back into it.

To be honest while I enjoyed the railroad part of it, what I really enjoyed was making models and designing scenery for the railroad. And that’s where both the lasers and this 3d printer come in.

Anyway I’ll keep you posted about developments in that area.

Oh, and just for the heck of it here’s a short video showing a timelapse of the printer making cat toys because, of course, if you have cats and you have a 3D printer making cat toys is something you have to do.

Speaking of cats, here’s where you’ll find Charlie most mornings now when I’m having my coffee and reading my email.

If there is any space at all between my back and the back of the chair the little goof will sneak in there. I have to be careful because if I get up to lean across the table to get reach something she’ll jump up there without me knowing and I’ve almost sat down on her a couple of times.

I’m finally getting the new Lumos Flex laser figured out. It took a great deal of experimentation and time and burning through a lot of test materials but I finally accomplished something that turned out as good as the sample projects Wecreat shows in its advertising.

In case you’re wondering, here’s the settings I used. Emboss mode, Fiber laser, Convex mode. Power 100%, speed 500, line density 300, layers 200, frequency 30, Z-step per layer 0.01. And another little trick I figured out is that it works better if I had the laser ever so slightly out of focus before starting.

What was really frustrating was the amount of time and effort I wasted trying to nail down the right settings. Wecreat included absolutely no instructions at all when I got the Flex replacement head for my Lumos except showing how to mount it. About using it? Absolutely nothing. Zilch. The diode laser was no problem. It works just like the one in the original Lumos, only more powerful. But the new fiber laser works entirely differently than the IR laser in the original Lumos does, and the only “instructions” I was able to find were a couple of utterly inadequate 5 minute videos on the company’s website. I wasn’t the only one who had issues. I even resorted to (shudder) joining the abomination that is Facebook just so I could get on the Wecreat Flex forum looking for answers. Anyway I got it figured out now and it does work.

But embossing like this is not something I am likely to do again. Why? Because guess how long it took to emboss that little coin up there. Go ahead. Guess.

Try six and a half hours. Just to do one side of that coin.

And that brings up the topic of money. The Lumos Flex costs about $2,000. Or you can upgrade a standard Lumos to the Flex version for $1,000. No matter how you look at it, that’s a hefty chunk of money.

A lot of craftspersons out there do this as a side gig. They use lasers, 3d printers, etc. to make products that they sell at craft shows, on outlets like Etsy, etc. And when the Flex was first announced everyone got excited because now we could get our hands on a fiber laser at a cost that was almost unheard of. And everyone had visions of making a few extra bucks using it to make things like engraved challenge coins, deep metal or wood engravings, etc.

Only no, you aren’t. Not if your maximum production rate is going to be 2 coins per day.

The Flex is a very nice machine, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t think it’s worth spending $1,000 more for this when the standard Lumos works just fine and dandy for engraving things like lockets. rings, pendants, bracelets, etc. with the IR laser, and does a perfectly fine, even excellent job engraving wood, leather, etc. with the diode laser. Spending an additional $1,000 just for the ability to turn out a single, embossed coin in 12 hours? That doesn’t seem even remotely cost effective to me.

3D Printing

Now I gave away my Flashforge 3D printer some years ago, swearing off 3D printing entirely as being little more than a silly gimmick and only being good for making trinkets, crude decorative items, etc. And swearing that I would never, ever, get another one.

And here I am about to get a Bambu Labs PS2 in a couple of weeks.

So what happened?

Well, a lot, really.

Here’s the thing… When I gave up on 3D printing it was because no matter what I did, no matter what settings I used, no matter what materials I used, the results universally looked like cheap, crappy, 3D printed junk, that degraded rapidly if exposed to moisture or direct sunlight, that was extremely fragile and could stand little or no stress, etc. It was good for little more than making figurines for gaming or models and was useless for any kind of serious application. At least with the equipment and materials I could afford to buy.

Well things have changed. A lot. Amd they’ve changed both with the equipment and perhaps more importantly, with the materials.

On the hardware side everything has gotten better. I mean a lot better. Much better accuracy, much better temperature and ventilation controls, much better stability, and, yes, AI control systems that help with improving the entire printing process.

On the materials side, things have improved even more dramatically. We now have materials that are less moisture sensitive, far stronger, more shock resistant, even flexible materials that let you do things like, oh, print balls that actually bounce. And even engineering materials reinforced with carbon fiber and things like that. You can now make 3D printed objects at the consumer level that are strong enough and shock resistant enough to use for things like gears in RC racing cars, for heaven’s sake.

Anyway, more about that when it happens. I am still dithering about which one to buy. I’m leaning more and more towards the Bambu Labs P2S. It looks like it has the most “bang for the buck” at the moment. I’ll make a decision this weekend and once things start to happen I’m sure it will turn up here.