Yes. I epoxy filled some voids in a wood top for a desk I made a few years back. I used frog tape (fancy masking tape) on the bottom and it worked fairly well. Some epoxy still escaped and some of the tape was a bit difficult to get off. Be sure you do this over something like waxed paper for easier cleanup.

Like you, I tinted my epoxy black.

I used disposable cups for measuring, measured by weight on a digital scale (don’t forget to weigh an empty cup), and mixed with a popsicle stick. Pour on the top around the cracks. Don’t go too nuts on the first pour and let it fully cure. It will work its way into the cracks if you’re using a crack filler - that stuff is very thin. Why not go big on the first pour? It will minimize the mount of leakage you get on the backside.

I sanded the top down afterwards and finished as per usual. The fill is very low key, which is what I wanted.

Pic of the desk being used. Look for the black between the boards.

Get a hear rate monitor and do High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). It’s by far the fastest way to increase your stamina if you’re untrained and even if you are trained it’s a very effective means of increasing your stamina.

This is backed by science.

While significant improvements in endurance performance and corresponding physiological markers are evident following submaximal endurance training in sedentary and recreationally active groups, an additional increase in submaximal training (i.e. volume) in highly trained individuals does not appear to further enhance either endurance performance or associated physiological variables [e.g. peak oxygen uptake (V . O 2peak), oxidative enzyme activity]. It seems that, for athletes who are already trained, improvements in endurance performance can be achieved only through high-intensity interval training

It is generally believed that in sedentary (VO 2max <45 ml/kg/min) and recreationally active individ- uals (VO 2max ≈ 45 to 55 ml/kg/min), several years are required to increase VO 2max to that of the highly trained athlete (VO 2max > 60 ml/kg/min). [21,42] However, Hickson et al. [43] showed, in eight sedenyary and recreationally active individuals, that VO2max could be markedly increased (+44%; p < 0.05) after 10 weeks of high-intensity exercise training (alternating 40 minutes cycling intervals at VO 2max 1day, with 40 minutes high-intensity running the next, 6 d/wk

PrusaSlicer is a fork of Slic3r Bambu’s slicer is a fork of PrusaSlicer Orca Slicer is a fork of Bambu’s slicer and also pulls in ideas from super slicer (another PrusaSlicer fork).

In other words, they all share a common lineage. Each adds quality of life improvements over the fork, at least in theory. It’s possible those quality of life improvements will make it back upstream to the thing that was forked.

As for specific examples, Orca Slicer has a somewhat different set of tuning parameters, some unique-to-it quality things like scarf seams, built in tuning prints (temp towers, EM multiplier, pressure advance, a test to find your max flow rate, etc) a revamped UI, etc. I haven’t compared the two in a while, so it’s possible that some of this has made its way upstream by now.

TIL there’s a slicer called Lychee Slicer.

Sounds like a hot mess. Are you looking for a alternative? If yes, provide info but my off the cuff recommendation for a FDM printer is Orca Slicer.

On my direct drive Voron I could make it through retraction tower test prints fine with TPU, but it would always jam with retraction enabled on longer prints with my usual 0.3mm. Pulling apart the extruder would always reveal some TPU had gotten wrapped around the drive gear. Rather than try tuning until the failure went away, I just went with 0 lol.

For better or worse, there are multiple ways of measuring “American Made”. An alternate measure, which probably matters more in this conversation, is “how many people that worked on <product> are American residents”. Here’s a study that tries to rank each model by how much it contributes to the US economy

The vast majority of the development (engineering, planning, purchasing/supply chain, quality, after sales, etc) effort for Honda and VW is overseas, along with most other non-domestic brands. This extends beyond their own employees to their tier 1s. Many OEMs use suppliers that are located geographically close to their development centers.

None of this excuses the domestic OEMs for their abandonment of cars, their endless march to higher and higher average transaction price, or their quality records.

If it’s heat it could also be a cooling thing. If you search the web on your search engine of choice for “<printer name> driver overheat” you’ll see what solutions the community has already come up with.

If the print didn’t come off the bed, I don’t think adjusting z-offset will help. As prints get taller, if you’re running into issues with warping the corners will start to curl up.

Your printer definitely missed some x or y steps. Whether that was due to your drivers getting too hot and just that, or the extruder running into the print. Have you ever seen your printer do this:

It looks like you missed some x and/or y steps, which made the printer lose its orientation and make a lot of spaghetti.

Possible causes usually involve warping, the nozzle catching the wrapped up piece, and then your printer missing some steps.

Have you completed a large print before?

One other thought that occurred to me overnight: you might be asking about FIRE (financial independence, retire early). There are tons of strategies for going about that.

I would caution about moving toward “off grid” type scenarios. Your monthly costs will be less, but you will have significantly higher up front (if buying a new residence) and/or maintenance costs (if buying used and/or when you decide to sell). For example, our water and sewer bill is around $800/year. If anything outside the house fails, the utility company will fix it. My in-laws sold a home in NJ with well water and septic and had to replace their sceptic field before they were able to sell. That set them back somewhere between $30k and $40k. Depending on your goals it could be either an advantage or a disadvantage.

Feedback: your actual questions start about 2/3 down your post. Lead with them next time so we know how to answer better :)

it’s really hard to apply my city-living experience to try to extrapolate what life might be like if I make a goal to buy a small home in Nowheretown, USA to retire in 20 years down the line

We have younger kids, live in a lower cost of area, and bought our house in 2011. Excluding frivolous categories, our top expenses are:

1. Saving for our retirement. Between our 401ks and IRAs, this is our biggest expenditure by quite a bit
2. Food. We don’t eat out a ton, but also don’t do a great job of eating low cost. Feeding four is also fun, we can’t wait until they’re teens. This category is not much ahead of #3 though
3. Our mortgage (it’s a 30 year and taxes, insurance, principal, and actual mortgage are $1,250/mo)
4. Saving for our kid’d potential college tuition

Once the kids are out and we’re retired categories #1 and #4 go away, category #2 will probably get cut in half, and our taxes and insurance are currently well under $4,500/year. Speaking of taxes, mine are capped at a maximum increase of 5% or inflation, whichever is lower. With the housing run-up this has worked out in our favor.

Home expenses are a thing. It’s hard to say how much to budget for that though. Some of it depends on you (eg do you really need to renovate that bathroom in full), your taste, and your budget. I would expect a decent outlay every 5 years or so - roof, brick/siding/exterior work, furnace/ac, driveway etc. The more you’re willing and able to do yourself the better off you’ll be.

You don’t have to be in the boonies to live in a low cost of living area.

If nothing’s changed since you last print, including the filament, I would suspect a jam/clog. Is the extruder clicking?

Thanks for new and fresh vs old favorite! I posted something similar further down, will be sure to check this out.

Let’s skip favorite and instead answer fun find that I’ve come back to a few times: Brothers of Metal - Kaunaz Dagaz (it is in English, lol). It’s viking metal, and as went through highschool with Blind Guardian and Rhapsody, it’s great to find bands still making banging fantasy metal https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=Nzad__XGDbQ&si=atuCBlgpMSQ9UkRL

I’ve also been a fan of Bloodywood lately. Think an angrier Hybrid Theory Lincoln Park, but from India and with some fusion going on. Machi Bhased is a good toe in the water https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=3kLKYWDQVec&si=xsmCHcr6llZdaAWc as is Dana-Dan: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=uo6OC34QjY0&si=6SxQ6T9MwvRUdlJF

Arm band! I have a generic one I got on Amazon and it’s been very handy. It does slowly slide down my arm over 45 minutes or so, but I don’t really know how anything else would do better without being even tighter or having a more grippy material that I don’t really want again my skin.

I am somewhat tempted to sign up and give it a shot. DDG is pretty solid for me, but it would be interesting to try a search engine where I’m not the product, it is.

If the biggest portion of your bill is AC and you live in a hot area the only things I could think of are planting some trees if they’ll grow and using a programmable thermostat to shift your usage away from off peek as best you can.

It was mostly for our younger kids. We live in a smaller ranch, so we close their doors after they’re asleep so we don’t have to worry about waking them up. This made one of their rooms a bit warmer In the summer and a bit cooler in the winter.

I should probably try balancing the ducts to compensate and might do that this winter.

Look up “home energy monitor”. They install inside your panel. The one we have has a bunch of current clamps, but not enough for our huge panel, so I chose what I thought our more heavily used circuits were. It also measures line voltage. Voltage x current = bingo. I’m not completely sure how I feel about the one I bought, so I’m not going to call it out. I wish it flagged trends per circuit over time to catch things like failing appliances. I could root it and mod it, but it would be nice if it did it out of the box. Catching a failing appliance would more than pay for the device, even if you do it by hand by simply tracking the data. It has slightly changed our habits (see: the furnace blower that we left on all the time and was pulling a constant 500 watts aka 12 kwh/day aka 360 kwh/mo), but I wouldn’t expect to find anything crazy unless you have high usage.

At least (some of us) are getting money back, when your solar production exceeds your consumption. But that is going to change soon.

The same thing is happening in the US. Solar panels used to be a lot more expensive to install, but the amount many utilities would pay your for excess generation was also a lot higher.