Edit: Page!
Quote: "Oh and, I think I'm forever hooked on 3D printing."
I have been ever since I printed my first cube.
My first 3D printer was mostly made of MDF and 6 hardened steel rods, and was a delta. It printed ok, but the MDF was poorly cut and it could only print a small area, and not accurately. My second printer was also a delta and was built largely from T-slot aluminium extrusion and 3D-printed parts, all included in a kit from eBay, and a few parts from my first printer. That one worked for ages and was quite good (and big!), but I could never quite get it reliable (it turns out it's super hard to find RC car tie rod ends with a good range of movement... also deltas are freakin hard to calibrate). My current 3D printer I'm building from the stripped-down parts of my second printer, and it's my first cartesian printer. The frame is the aluminium extrusion from the second printer, held together with a ridiculous number of angle brackets from the local hardware store (which actually makes the frame rock-solid). The Z axis (height) will be controlled by two motors. The X carriage moves up and down (and left-right obviously), and the bed stays at the same height. The bed also moves forwards-backwards. After many trips to the hardware store, I realised I wasn't going to be able to manufacture some of the parts on my own so I used Shapeways to get the last few parts I need. Hopefully they will arrive tomorrow and I can finally put it all together and print things. Or strip and solder tonnes of wires because I haven't done the wiring yet. Then print things. Wait, no, next it'll be calibration. And THEN print things.
Quote: "An actual conversation that happened with someone on the other team in CTF overwatch:"
lolol
Wow Seppuku I remember what you mean about essay-length posts!
But seriously, that's awesome advice for anyone leaving home for uni.
Quote: "Mate ya should have come to Aus"
Thank goodness you said "have". It's horrifying how many people actually type "should of".
Quote: "But something like a weekend job, might remedy that issue. Being a student, it would end up being a part-time job. I don't know how Australia is for that sort of thing"
I'd say most employers would be pretty happy to support uni students, but it depends on the [insert word here BEFORE posting]. Where I work my boss is constantly encouraging me to do uni, even suggesting I might want to say I can only work 4 days a week because of study. It doesn't help him at all, but he knows how important it is to get education early on.
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I'm buying a new car! It's a 2009 Audi A3 Cabriolet. The one I'm almost certainly buying is
this one. It's a 2.0L turbo petrol engine. Traditionally I've always preferred manuals, but after driving my 2004 Holden Astra to and from work for nearly a year, I think I'm ready to accept an automatic. Plus I then get fun things, like flappy paddles behind the steering wheel, cruise control (well, you can get that on manuals as well, but it works better on autos), and a fancy dual-clutch gearbox (which gives manual-equivalent fuel efficiency). As a general rule I don't like silver cars, but I've always thought silver
Audis looked great. And did I mention it's a convertible??
So yeah, because Australia is huge and everything is far away from everything else, and the car is in Melbourne and I'm in northern NSW, I'll have to fly down on a plane and then take two days to drive the 15.5hrs back again. I got the guy to send me some videos of everything in action and he showed all the various small stone chips in the paint, so I'm happy. Just need to organise a time and date to fly down. Exciting!
