Got into 3D printing ... learned how to clean up a hotend

Well, while I'll never will be a real blogger ... as you can see how long my blog posts are spread apart ... I occasionally have something I want to blog anyway.
And here it is: Tips to clean up a hotend from filament stuck to it:

Anyway here is what I learned in the cleanup process.

1. If you have a 3D printer buy at least a sample of Nylon filament, in any case of cleanup it comes in handy.
   
2. Don't use metal tools to scrape it off, they leave scratches making further cleanups (maybe possibly potentially) harder.
   
3. Everywhere where is no smooth surface it is a pain to clean (up to some nooks and crannies that are impossibru).
   
4. The residue becomes soft at as low as 120°C where I suggest you start clean, then step up the heat in ~10°C increments while you clean, if the stuff refuses to come off. Keep the temperature as low as possible, tho to minimize the stress of the hotend that isn't cooled while you clean (cause you have to remove the fan to do so). Keep the temperature below 200°C in any case.
   
5. Cut sharp corners in your filament it helps to scrap off stuff. And gets you in nooks you otherwise won't.
   
6. Use a tool with round edges like needle nose pliers to press the nylon against the residue (pliers closed, just as a tool with non sharp edges so you don't leave marks in case you slip) cause otherwise you might leave scratches (e.g. when using a screwdriver), burn yourself (when using your fingers), or don't have enough pressure (when using nothing to press the nylon down).
   You probably also can use tweezers, but since you don't need it to hold the filament, but only to press it against the hotend they have less use.
   
7. Sometimes you want to use the sharpened tip, sometimes you want to use it length wise.
   
8. Cut the nylon filament when its surface is dirty.

Well that are all tips I can relay for now. I hope that might help someone else in future.

Satisfactory

Satisfactory:

This post will be updated as I come across new things, strategies and ideas.
(stand: pre-Alpha test weekend, might change while updated, even with Early Access Launch)
Early Access Launch: March 19th
Buy here! (not affiliated)

Tips & Tricks:

Building:

• General:
  If you can build on foundations, do so rebuild your factory you have so far, the foundations will give you a grid that makes a lot of things a lot easier
• Overview:
  to get a better overview use the stack-able conveyor pole rather then the Lookout Tower, cause:
• The ladder of the pole is much easier to grip on (danger of falling in opposite to tower practically non existent)
• You can grab on the ladder of the pole even when already falling (never managed that with the tower
• You can make the pole as small or high as you like
• It has a small footprint and can be squeezed in practically (almost) anywhere
• It has a small footprint in view-size as well ... means you can build while hanging on the ladder further reducing the danger of falling ... also adding the ability to increase the height on the fly.
• Also can be used as a fast and easy staircase. (had to turn up fov to get it in shot)
   
  
• Construction is still relative cheap
Downsides:
• When trying to climb on top (because of current movement mechanic you might jump over it and fall down the other side.
• Has to be researched separately.
• Prettiness:
  You can either build pretty or cheap (/cheaty ... kinda)(Also cheap also means size footprint).
• You don't need walls (as support), foundations will happily float on their own. 
• You don't need conveyor poles to hold up the belts once the belt is placed.
• Belts can cross each other, and will even happily work if you have them occupy the same space (even in opposite directions)
• Belts:(images will follow)
• To place the non-stack-able conveyor pole higher than ground level. place the ghost first, then look up.
• To make pretty turns you need to have a pole 2 grit (m?) away off one axis, then the belt will make a nice 90° turn (images will follow)
• To raise a belt in the shortest possible distance it needs to be 4 grid for each height step (height of one stack-able conveyor pole)(images will follow)
• Belts needs to be one height step high to be able to walk under
• And two height steps high to be able to drive under (with the sugar cube mileage may vary with other vehicles).
• Splitter / Merger:
• Can directly placed on existing belts, but they will ignore the grid.
• Can be stacked, but only from top down, including all connections. (when having one below it doesn't accept belts anymore[obstructed by the clearance reservation space of the one below], but the one that are on are fine)
  To stack them:
1. build 8x2 foundations for each level of them (they have the same height)
2. Build the top most one
3. connect it (remember you can't add more or move the existing belts afterwards, removing belts is fine, tho)
4. remove the foundation below it
5. place the next layer of them below the last one
6. go to step 3 till you are done.
• Can be used to build Balancers.
• Balancers:
• Custom tailored outputs (fake balancers)
  This example shows my Screw production setup for Modular Frame *, Reinforced Iron Plate and Rotor production. The first 4 Screw outputs are for plate, the 5th for Rotor production
  
  
• Real balancers: (pictures follow/will be replaced by better ones after EA launch) 
• 2 in -> 2 out
  
• 3 in -> 3 out
  
• 5 in -> 4 out
  (picture follows)
• Fighting:
• Rebar Gun:
  Get it as fast as possible! Will unlock in Tier 3 after researching 11 (1+10) of Alien Carapace
  All my fighting tips will be based on that weapon.
• General:
  To keep as much distance as possible aim above, the drop is quite significant.
• Flying Crab:
  If you see it, shoot the Flying Crab Hatcher from as far as possible, that will give more time to fight the Crabs.
  if you managed to shoot the hatcher from far enough, the crabs might not be aggroed, and you can pick them out one by one without any danger.
• Fire_Spitter: (categorized after the glow of their head)
• Yellow (easy):
  Keep your distance,
  if you have enough space, run backwards fire at it head, when it has fired step a few steps sideways that'll dodge the shot.
  if not keep cover. Their shoots will dissipate if they touch something else
• Green (medium):
  Basically same as yellow, but since it has rapid fire, you need to be more careful and dodging is almost impossible.
  haven't had enough green for a good strategy
• Red (aka. Large_Fire_Spitter / = hard):
  RUN! Leave this bugger alone, if you really have to (like punishment) use cover to dissipate the shoots. High ground also helps, because not only your shoots will go further, but also their shoots will not nearly go as far.
• Water:
  had an really easy time fighting the wildlife while being ins shallow water. for some reason they seem not to be able to attack properly. Might be a bug, tho.
•  Foundations:
  avoid fights by placing foundations nearby. Leave and comeback later to realize that the animals have despawned. Might be a bug, tho.
• Lookout Tower:
  Shoot the wildlife from above, while being safe.

---

Footnotes:

* = needs the production of 2.5 Reinforced Iron Plate, so I produce 3 for the frames and one more for storage, so that I have then 1.5 for storage in total ...

Reactivating the Blog for a new game. Satisfactory

And here I am after dropping posting or content creating for a long time.
One part me being lazy, one part that my computer wasn't up to snuff.
Not only that I manage my system to mangle so that I have lag spikes (even on my new system) that causes significant stutter, I also (still) have not a system that can sustain 60fps while recording. When the old dropped to ~ 20fps (w/o recording) I stopped my ambitions since that was also the time where most YT gamers stepped up from 30 to 60 fps recording.

Anyways on with Satisfactory:

in next post

Working (Try) Hard

Was working hard ... three full days on my intro and autro of my LP ... I don't think all that work I put into is visible.

In my cutting program it is ... added 10 new tracks to it and even more effects ...

Well, my trademark "TV" is now a 16:9 one.... and it has stereo now, too
(pictures at the end)
Making it less awkward to blend in my content....

It is now also 1080p.. which meant I had to redo almost every subpicture.
I recycled the Lamp and the knob as well as speakers, but I needed to at least adapt my Logo, redo all texts, backgrounds, all other icons / logos. Had to redo the placements of logos and other image parts.

In total it took a bit more than a day.

The screen border (that's the thing between the woody part and the glassy part) alone took me several hours, until it had the look I wanted.

I also had to partly redo my other image, which also serves (in it original state) as my Youtube channel background.

Then I had to export all parts as needed for the cut.

Finally I composed everything in Movie Studio, timed the animations, transitions, effects ...

And the result is that now in a few frames (less than a second) now my 16:9 content is in a 16:9 border ... well it is indeed longer now but you can't really see it, because of the effects distorting the image ... and those effects make it look more like an old TV...

Most of the time of every step took the fine tuning.

A quote of a former employer of mine:

"90% of the work take only 10% of the time, but the remaining 10% of the work take 90% the time."

And now I just need new content for it ... with that in mind ... I am off, producing more content now.

Note: New intro & outro  will be not seen before 13th of November 2014.

before: (including credits)

after: (blank template, ... kinda of blank)

Yeah ... finally! A new start

Yeah ... !

Hatte mich endlich entschlossen, nachdem mein stinkiges Schnittprogramm mich mal wieder im Stich gelassen hat, mir ein neues zu zulegen. ...

Nur welches habe ich mich gefragt. ...

Im Raum stand für mich das Sony (Vegas) und das von Adobe (Premiere) ...

leider sind beide teuer ... und eigentlich zu teuer für mich ...

Adobe würde mich ~25€ im Monat kosten ... und das nur im Jahresabbo, ... sonst wärs teurer. ...

Nun ja idR. ist es auch das was ich brauch (das Jahresabbo) ich produziere ja kontinuierlich, ... aber ich kann es nicht mal eben einsparen wenns Geld mal wieder knapp ist.

Und das Geld würd mir schon wehtun, wenn ich es jeden Monat berappen müsst ... immerhin sind meine Einnahmen bis jetzt 0 .. nothing .. nada .. niente .

Selbst im leeren Raum zwischen den Atomen ist mehr los als auf meinem Adsense Konto ....

Bei Vegas ist das Preisschild auf 299 € aufwärts (bis 498€ IMHO) ...

Auch das ist zuviel für mich. ... Die 300€ würd ich bestimmt irwie noch hinbekommen, ... aber ich glaubte ich bräuchte die nächst größere Version. Ein Irrtum wie ich feststellte.
Hab aber mir trotzdem die Demoversion gezogen ... diese entspricht der 299€ Variante.

Aber ich fand auf der Sonyseite noch ein Editorprogramm "für den Hausgebrauch" ...

Movie Studio!

Die Einfache Version ab ~37€, die bessere ab ~60€. Gibt sogar ne voll funktionstüchtige Demoversion ... Die entspricht der kleinen Variante. Hat aber keine Einschränkungen ... im Gegensatz zur Vegas demo die ein Logo einblendet ... zumindest habe ich noch keine Einschränkungen finden können ... vielleicht ist die Anzahl der Tage limitiert ... vielleicht die Anzahl der Aufrufe ... ich werd sehen ... so lange werde ich es ermal nutzen (Geld ist diesen Monat mal wieder klamm ... und wird wohl demnächst nicht besser werden ... stehen nämlich einige dringende Anschaffungen im Raum).
Den einzigen Unterschied den ich hab feststellen können bisher war: Es nervt einen am Ende das man es doch kaufen / seine Serienummer eingeben soll ...

Das heiße daran ist: Es basiert auf Vegas (nur ein paar professionelle Features fehlen) man kann aber zur Not auf Vegas upgraden ... besonders hart ist ... zur Zeit ist billiger erst Movie Studio zu kaufen und dann den Upgrade auf Vegas durchzuführen, als Vegas direkt zu kaufen ... man spart sich so nen 10er.

Aber es ist soooooooooooooooo viel besser als mein altes! ... Vom Workflow, ... über die Bearbeitungsgeschwindigkeit,  ... bis hin zum Rendern (sowohl qualitativ als auch von der Geschwindigkeit) alles ist einfacher, schneller, zuverlässiger, einfach besser ...

Einen Nachteil gibt es jedoch ... viele der besonderen Vorteile sind standardmäßig deaktiviert und man muss sie erst von Hand an stellen ...
Warum das so ist?  Ich hab keine Ahnung ... eventuell sind die in Vegas automatisch an ... so das man eher versucht ist Vegas zu kaufen... aber das alles ist reine Spekulation...

Wie auch immer ... hab endlich angefangen wieder LP zu produzieren ... mit dem alten Programm war das einfach zu viel Arbeit ... 10h / Episode... nun brauche ich grad mal 5-10 min jeweils für den Schnitt..., Rendern dauert extra ... aber auch das ist schneller ... 32 min für die 15 min Episode im Gegensatz zu 1-2h mit dem alten Programm (das im übrigen auch 55€ kostet) ...

Im Kalender werde ich nun alle fertigen Episoden eintragen... Täglich lange Lifestreams sind aus gesundheitlichen Gründen nicht so gut ...

G+ article Linklist

Soon the G+ Post will hit here edit: (didn't worked)
I made a G+ post here, so I am going to add the related link list in this post.

G+ Post:

After seeing another new early access game (Beasts of Prey) I have to say.

Oh! Minecraft, what have you done?

I might be one of the first that admits that Minecraft created a new genre of its own. The mining and creating one.

Minecraft created huge impacts of game landscape.

1st was that many retro games came out. And people had to admit that a good game will still be a good game even with 8bit graphics. Sometimes not concentration on graphics made better game play happen. And state of the art graphics does not mean that the game is good.

2nd all those minecrafty games that came out. Like Space Engineers, 7Days2Die, Beasts of Prey, Planet Explorers and many many more. If you like not only crating things but also to work for your resources... than you have to check out those games.
Many of them are not only available on steam!

3rd Early Access games. I mean it was one of first games that said: Look we have something here you can already play around with but its nowhere near finished. But if you are willing to support us with your money we might create something really great. And so it happened and still happens for (Minecraft*)  Kerbal Space Program, Planetary Annihilation, Viscera Cleanup Detail, Kenshi, Starpoint Gemini 2, Dex, and again many many maaaaaany more.
And it is honest. And to be honest many of those games have less bugs in each version than many games,I played, which claimed to be final. Those "final" games where indeed often final, means that those game breaking bugs never got fixed. And I was left on with a game (I often cry when I think about them) I can say about "This would be a great game if it not were for bug XYZ which totally ruins it".

The other great thing about early access games is you buy one game ** and a few month later it has so much new content its like a total new even better game (except for 7Days2Die ... which lately got worse with each version)


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes:

*= Yeah that's right, aside of that Minecraft long reached version 1.0 it is still in development as it was before 1.0... Nothing has changed. It still adds tons of content. And each new version is still buggy as hell. They put a lot of wasted effort in to prevent that.. testing tons of build on the way ... testing the final version a few times ... just to realize that released version has some major bugs and a fix soon follows after...
And its still slow as ever and needs the still needs Optifine mod to run well.

**=And I can't remember one game of them which wasn't above average. While many "final" games I bought was like "Meh! no fun all." (Total different from what the ads promised me) which shows up in my statistics as only a few minutes of total play time.

I probably have to edit this text a few times since G+ still didn't managed to include a decent text formatting. Which already was, like more than 10 years ago, available for any dumb forum software.

List of games mentioned:
Google them ... I made a link list here, but G+ seems to have a stick in the lower south half and blocked it ... "against community guide lines" but didn't told why or what specific. Its like being called to court and the judge slams the law code on your desk and says: "You are sued cause you have violated against something in here" 

Kerbal Space Program: Google da link ... but I still recommend it
(Check that one out. I mean for real. What better recommendation is there for a game that I for myself have already played more that 1100 hours that game alone. And I am not the only one. Many fans have played even more and I wouldn't wonder if someone soon hits the 10k hour mark. Outside of steam it also DRM-Free available.)

Edit: Since deleting the link list hadn't any effect on the post, I had to re-post it without. And it worked .. probably I could now add it in without any negative impact.

List of games mentioned:

• Minecraft: https://minecraft.net
• Beasts of Prey http://store.steampowered.com/app/299860/
• Planetary Annihilation: http://store.steampowered.com/app/233250
• Planet Explorers: http://store.steampowered.com/app/237870
• Starpoint Gemini 2: http://store.steampowered.com/app/236150
• 7 Days to Die: http://store.steampowered.com/app/251570

• Kerbal Space Program: http://store.steampowered.com/app/220200
(Check that one out. I mean for real. What better recommendation is there for a game that I for myself have already played more that 1100 hours that game alone. And I am not the only one. Many fans have played even more and I wouldn't wonder if someone soon hits the 10k hour mark. Outside of steam it also DRM-Free available.)

• Space Engineers: http://store.steampowered.com/app/244850
• Kenshi: http://store.steampowered.com/app/233860
• Dex: http://dex-rpg.com/index_en.php

YouTube: No Video when RC4 disabled

Hi @mattcutts

Why is YouTube not working when RC4 in Fx and Chrome is disabled?

Plz chk http://ift.tt/1ezVyT0 Plz fix it? #RC4-insecure

http://ift.tt/eA8V8J



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