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I think we need to take this idea to NASA before someone beats us to the Patent Office.
98.4% of statistics are made up on the spot.
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Regrettably, it's not currently feasible: you need access to Lunar (or preferably cometary) water supplies before the launch mass becomes economically viable.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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3D printing is not like printing on paper, at least not yet. The results depend very much on settings, the material you use, the working principle of the printer o even the orientation of the object to be printed.
My printer is at the lower end of the price scale. Printing quality, when compared to far more expensive printers, is digital: You can print a part or you get modern art. There is not much inbetween.
I needed something that is complicated enough to test the printer and to see ho far I can go. Off I went and searched the internet for a model with higher demands...
... and found this: Brits in Space - The Empire Strike Back  [^]
I used to have one of these as a kid and this model was supposed to be 22 inches long when finished. Great!
I doubted that I would ever see the finished model. Some parts of the structure have to be printed into thin air, no natter how I turn it. As it turned out, the printer can actually do that in a limited way. Now I have a box full of parts and can slowly begin to build it. The only parts that are still missing are the engines. This chunk needs a little too much printing into thin air and results in modern art.
With the prices of online printing services this part would cost about 45 bucks, the entire model more than 200. No way! My little printer hase made it this far, I will find a way to finish the job.
Edit: Image link repaired
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
modified 22-Oct-17 5:26am.
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Quote: Access to modellboard.net was denied
You don't have authorization to view this page.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Thanks. I have the image here and will upload it to some image hoster.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
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Now it works.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
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If by engines you mean the rockets at the back, can't you rotate them 90 degrees in the Z axis and print them as a tapering cone? That way there shouldn't be any "free air" printing.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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No, it's this part.[^]
The printer will print it layer by layer from the bottom up. There will always be parts that have no support from below and you can't deposit a little drop of plastic in thin air and have it hovering there until it finally is connected to the rest of the object.
Incredibly, for the bars of the structure the printer really did that trick by connecting two vertical bars with a hair thin filament and then printing on top of it and widening the profile with every layer. That works for thin bars, but the cylinders or spheres of the engines will end up as shapeless blobs of plastic.
And itÄs also a question of money. If I print it myself, it costs some electricity and about 60 Cents worth of material. The online service takes 45 bucks. Not really acceptable, even if they have far better printers.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
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Break it into parts you can glue together afterwards?
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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That's the plan.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
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I remember printers that used two different materials for printing void and actual material... At the end the model was washed in some chemicals, thar removed the void...
Probably those where expensive printers...
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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It gets even better: Today they have materials that melt away like wax when warmed up a little or can be dissolved in water. Unfortunately, my printer can only print one material at a time, so this is not an option.
I can print thin supporting structures in the same material, but I can only use them sparingly. They must be removed and the connection points to the object must be sanded smooth afterwards.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
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Sorry, the spirit of Halloween got me!
I mean "Tip" or "Article"?
I just write a class with 2 useful and simple method (relying on another such class, an Async ManualResetEvent) which easily and handily turn event into async enumerator. Additionally it works well with IObservable and IAsyncEnumerator.
I don't feel like adding much comment about it but would like to share it with the world.
Should I do a tip? Or an article with more code than comment?
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Well it's a bit more than a tip: sounds like it stands alone - not an add-on to something else,
articles search better.
too often other people plagiarise tips into articles 'owned' (even 'penned') by themselves.
Installing Signature...
Do not switch off your computer.
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Alright, I will do a bit of extra effort to add some better explanation then...
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If yo are threatening us with an article in order to extort candy from us, it should be 'Article or treat!'
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
modified 22-Oct-17 4:36am.
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Are you suggesting his article is going to be that bad?
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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It better be, otherwise there would not be much candy coming.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
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Hahah, thanks for correcting me! 
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I just spent a week travelling in Yunnan, China. A truly spectacular place where the people are more tibetan than chinese. However Google search is mostly blocked, on rare occasions I could get a valid search but most times the site was unreachable. Really annoying when it is your home page on all your devices and the default browser is Chrome.
I had to revert to Safari (I think) and Bing.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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gotta love China, almost everything electronic is made (or duplicated) there,
yet somehow within China it feels like technology has been rolled back 10+ years.
Installing Signature...
Do not switch off your computer.
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Once you get outside the major cities it does seem like a 3rd world country. I loathe the Chinese city culture, especially where it is directed at tourists. The money grabbing is just so aggressive and really in your face.
Yunnan on the other hand was fabulous, the people are not focused on extracting every penny from the tourist like most places.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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Close to me; sort of. I'm currently on holiday in central Thailand. I know VPNs are illegal in China, but did you consider using Tor? I've been using Tor for accessing sensitive websites or websites that are only accessible in America. Tor is very slow, though.
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Nah there was nothing sensitive about it, just the usual travel info that I wanted to look up. Searching for how to say hello in Tibet caused my wife's tablet to crash, she wasn't game to search for Taiwan information .
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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Mycroft Holmes wrote: Bing
Bing works in China? I thought neither Google nor Bing did!
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