Always glad to see. What’s your maintenance look like? Any advice for the rest of us?

As a Floridian, I had no idea such a device even existed. Neat! Thanks for the share.

About 6-7 years ago. I had a friend who still had some files on a 5-1/4 floppy. I kept an old Win95 PC specifically with a bunch of old drive types and a DVD burner, so I could rescue old files & move them to DVD. Sadly, that PC stopped booting about 2 years ago. I did consider trying to resurrect it, but neither of my current PCs even have a built-in DVD drive, so I think it’s safe to say that moving files to DVD isn’t moving the files forward enough anymore.

I think you already have your answer, but let me elaborate a bit.

The places in the middle where the filament is missing - those places are either dirty or too high.

The area in the back where the filament is sticking, but isn’t filling the area correctly, those areas are too low.

Most likely cause for both is the build plate on an Ender just isn’t perfectly flat. You can try to adjust it to get it closer to being level. But I’ve always found I’ll have sections that just aren’t right. And so, I just don’t print on those sections. Find the areas that do print well, and locate your prints there.

Last note - try putting down a layer of painter’s tape. I find that helps tremendously with both of the points you’re fighting.

I started baby steps when Steam stopped supporting Windows7. I built my main gaming PC to dual boot W10 & Ubuntu maybe 3 years ago? And that just worked so-so honestly. Felt like everytime I went to play co-op games w my friends, whatever game we picked that weekend didn’t work correctly in Linux. But because I had Win10 right there, I also never forced myself to learn anything either. Biggest thing I could find was the problems seemed to be related to the Nvidia drivers, but never could quite figure out how to update them.

Recently I doubled down with a new PC, and this time it’s Ubuntu only. Made an effort to find native Linux apps where possible, learned a few terminal commands, forced myself to also learn Bottles (play Windows games), and bought a Radeon video card instead of Nvidia. Learning curve for what I wanted wasn’t nearly as high as I feared. If anything, I think it’s pushing me to consider distro shopping, as I’m starting to understand why folks don’t like snaps. Looks like Mint will be my next stop.

Biggest challenge so far is there’s a few apps I use that just don’t have a great Linux equivalent. AutoHotKey is the biggest one, but I see there’s some new options here I didn’t try yet. https://lemmy.zip/post/47337622 I have not dicked around with my 3D printer software yet, but I’m sure that will be a hurdle.

I wanted to play a Mass Effect game, but I suck at cover-shooters. So I put it on easy and ran around punching my way through the game.

My two favorite arcade games of all time are UN Squadron and Hot Rod

UN Squadron is a side scrolling shooter by Capcom with a solid anime theme. My understanding is it’s based on an Anime called Area 88. Quite the quarter eater, but if you like seeing GIANT machines and blasting them with your airplane, give it a go. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.N._Squadron

Hot Rod is a top down racing game by Sega. (The name is so generic that it can be hard to find.) The cool ‘hook’ on this game was that it was meant to be played with four players standing around a tabletop arcade cabinet, so every player was looking down on the screen. It also had the interesting note that the game never ended, it played much like a campaign where you are championing a racing team. Manage your power-ups, because they break down, and are often the wrong one for the next track (with the artificial difficulty that you can only change 1 part per race). At my home arcade, the difficulty was set low enough that I could loop the game until I got tired of standing, which definitely helped make it one of my go-to games.

I should add - the original version of this game plays kind of slow - there’s a lot more focus on car control & driving clean lines. But Sega released a mod chip set for it later that doubled the game speed, which turns it into a ‘just hang on & don’t hit anything’ type of racing. Both are fun, but it’s like two different games. https://www.arcade-museum.com/Videogame/hot-rod

I’m not, in fact I really haven’t had time to play anything for too long. But I see Transport Fever 3 is coming out early next year. Already hyped in my head for that.

FWIW, I bought a new Ender3 as a kit not too long ago, it was $150 IIRC. And by being forced to assemble it, I learned a good bit too. It might be worthwhile to watch their store & see if they put it up for sale again.

The only upgrade I’ve done that I really felt made a difference was buying an enclosure for it. Nothing fancy, it’s a fireproof bag over an aluminum frame. Even more than controlling the temperature, it also keeps it dust free when not in use - that’s probably the biggest win for me.

As for buying the used one - these things do wear down. Start by checking the feed gear & the PTFE tube. If the filament feeds well, then also check the belts, rollers, & nozzle. Those are really the common wear items imo. Perhaps obvious, but make sure the seller gives you a copy of the slicing software (should be free on their webpage) and also the little USB-A to Sim card doo-hickey that you need to move files back & forth.

I have a second hand little portable vacuum cleaner - we used to call them Dust Busters, not sure if there’s a more generic name for them these days. Anyway, because it was second hand, it didn’t have any of the attachments. Was able to buy a bunch on eBay that were sort of close, then 3D print an adapter to make them fit.

I like to believe I’m not the only one, so I figured I’d share.

What is split tunneling:

Split tunneling is a computer networking concept which allows a user to access dissimilar security domains like a public network (e.g., the Internet) and a local area network or wide area network at the same time, using the same or different network connections.[1] This connection state is usually facilitated through the simultaneous use of a LAN network interface controller (NIC), radio NIC, Wireless LAN (WLAN) NIC, and VPN client software application without the benefit of an access control.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_tunneling

Steam has free voice chat as well. Hardly open source though.

Witcher 3.