No, what I linked to does not show that they used to be open source. It shows that they used to call themselves open source, despite never having been so.
I don't think the parent was bragging about the salary thing - a lot of the other comments here are mentioning the price (which to be fair, is definitely in the expensive gadgets/toys bucket...) so he/she (s/g) is saying - he's just a home cook, he's got semi-decent knife skills, and he's in a position that he can afford this.
And let's be honest, tech geeks are basically the target demographic for this sort of thing - as are half the gadgets on Kickstarter. Yes - we can talk all we want about carbon credits, and eWaste, and doing things the old fashioned homestead way when men were men, took cholera and dysentry on the chin, and knew how to use a whetstone, or to whistle (I can do one of those things...)...
I am sorely tempted, and I'm an amateur cook at best...if even that. And truthfully, this probably won't make my food better than a $15 IKEA knife (assuming I just replace those regularly). But it may make the process more enjoyable. And the tech is cool...
I’m sincerely congratulating parent for their purchase. Geez one can’t genuinely just be happy for someone else without a third party hallucinating way too much out of a two-word sentence.
Oh wow - would love to know what you got for sharpening, or what you'd suggest for the home cook?
When you say ugly/clunky - I'm guessing you mean it's a bit heavier, or the weight will be off compared to a good high-end chef's knife? (I don't have anything like that, haha).
I did note on their FAQ they say to never activate the blade whilst sharpening:
> Do not activate the ultrasonics during sharpening - this can damage both the blade and your sharpening stones, as the ultrasonic movement is too aggressive and not evenly distributed across the entire cutting edge. Also, reshaping the blade to a different belly curvature or tip shape can cause it to fall out of tune, so avoid removing more material than you would during normal sharpening.
It's a bit clunky but I tend to obsess over the angle of the grind, and something that physically constrains that is going to allow me to enjoy the process. For general purpose sharpening you don't need much more than a coarse stone (320 grit) and a honing steel. The coarse stone will bring the edge back (learn how to feel for the burr) and regular use of the steel will keep it in good cutting shape until it wears down. You might not get hair-popping razor sharpness, but that's a fairly short-lived state with kitchen knives unless you do a lot of maintenance.
I was just curious about two things - seems there might be some knife aficionados or experts here!
1. Sharpening - As a home cook, who doesn't know a lot about knives/sharpening - how hard would this be to maintain? Would it be plausible to get some basic home sharpening gear, and maintain this myself? Or should I take it to a professional knife sharpener - and if so, how do I even know if they're a good one, and won't damage the blade, or perhaps are good, but somehow get the blade out of "tune" etc?
2. Safety wise - is there anything at all to be concerned about with ultrasonic 40Khz blades? Should I be wearing any hearing protection when using this? (Context - I have hearing loss in both ears, and wear hearing aids - keen to preserve my remaining hearing, and am understandably cautious about this kind of thing for my family and me).
I think perhaps you might have not read the entire article? =)
The danger isn't so much in the fan, but in that the fan is INSIDE OF A COMPUTER PSU. There are mains AC voltages (220V, or 110V) here, and even if unplugged (which is should be) there are also capacitors in there, which you should definitely be cautious of.
I've worked in DC (datacenters) before - and I've seen people accidentally drop screws into power supplies...and well, electrical arc, boom, you can guess the rest. And in a domestic situation, a 4" cooling fan (yes, I know, larger) stopped suddenly due to a motor issue, and send flying bits of plastic shrapnel around (always wear eye protection!).
This isn't quite like tinkering with your little Arduino board, or Raspberry Pi.
If you did read the article =(.... I think that's a bit arrogant and disingenuous to make fun of people saying you should be cautious around things that are connected to AC mains, or that involve capacitors.
I appreciate that most folks talking about power on HN are talking about computers, but I decided to not become an electrician in an earlier life.
Taking standard precautions doesn't mean you suddenly shy away from doing basic maintenance. You can use iso alcohol to clean things even if its flammable, just don't use an open flame at the same time.
See - I don't get this. I've heard people mention it about the deaf community, but it just doesn't make sense to me - perhaps I'm missing something.
I have congenital hearing loss in both ears, and wear hearing aids. I don't know ASL (at least not well enough to use), as I am more or less able to function with hearing aids, with the usual caveats - background noise, group settings, still quite reliant on lip-reading and context to fill in gaps etc.
Within my financial means, I would glad pay to wave a magic wand and restore my ears to "normal". This gene therapy sounds interesting, but I'm not sure if that mutation is the cause of my hearing loss. And I'm always wary of side-effects, haha.
I do see my hearing loss as a disability - and no matter how much you try to dress it up, or with "don't diss my dis-ability" PR campaigns - it still does suck every day. I'm not saying you should discriminate against people for their disability - and I've steadfastly advocated for increased accessibility to level the playing field (e.g. in my workplace, at church, in the community). But I'm not exactly Matt Murdoch or Echo here.
And yes, I'm also "neuro-diverse" (starts with A) - and yes, I guess you could argue there's advantages there, under specific circumstances. But there's most definitely a penalty there.
I don't doubt your experience at all. The question I have for you is: Can you speak for all deaf people? I'm not saying everyone who is deaf is fine. But I do know that for many (even if a minority), it is fine, and it is different enough that they worry their kid will not have the experience they had, and may have a worse experience (in some ways) with hearing.
It's not a clear cut easy decision. I would say one should understand and respect the parents' decision. They know the factors way better than I do, and likely in many ways better than you do (especially as you don't know ASL).
I work with a deaf person (not born that way, but been that way most of her life). I'm sure she'd pay a hefty sum to get normal hearing - partially because her whole family (kids, etc) are not deaf. Even when she openly talks about the advantages of being deaf. If she did have a deaf child and chose treatment for her kid, I'd totally understand. But if she chose against it, I'd also totally understand.
What I don't get is people insisting they are totally wrong/evil for not pursuing the treatment for their kids. Almost always they don't understand the factors at play.
to be honest, you;'d have the same issues with that said magic wand and normalcy, because hearing aids do amplify sound and allow you to hear everythig.
You'd have the same issue, if not more, with background noise, group settings and context acquisition
Processing input is the hard part, if you're already having issues, that isn't going to go away
The article states it is specifically geared towards FDM (i.e. filament) 3D printers.
I wonder if anybody with more experience knows how much of this would overlap with SLA (i.e. resin-style) 3D printers.
For example, there's rough guidelines like, overhangs are less of an issue with SLA - and the Z-height is ultimately what most affects print-time, but would be great to see something more in-depth here, with some engineering behind it.
Or if there's similarly in-depth articles for resin 3D printers?
From when I was briefly working with "personal" resin printers (elegoo, anycubic, etc):
- In terms of strength, print orientation doesn't really matter.
- The z height is pretty much the only thing that affects print time since it exposes a single layer all at once. So it takes the same time to print one item as it does to print with a bed full of them.
- The supports in resin aren't to push the print up like FDM, they are to pull the print up. Each layer needs something above it to pull it out of the vat for the next layer.
- Unlike FDM, the surface attached to the bed isn't normally used as one of the finished surfaces. The printer usually exposes the first few layers long to make a solid base which is well adhered to the bed. If you want good surfaces all around, raise your part up a bit and use supports.
- It's pretty unusual to not use supports in resin printing.
- It can help to orient the print so that the least cross section area is in contact with the FEP film at any given time. This makes it less likely for the print to get stuck to the bottom of the vat.
- Resin parts don't really have a concept of infill. You either print hollow parts or ones that are 100% solid (you never print FDM parts at 100%). If you print hollow, make sure you have a way to drain out the resin when it's done printing.
- Even if your print is open at the top, it can still become filled with resin during the print, like putting your finger over the end of a straw. Make sure this doesn't suck up all the resin in your vat, or put a somewhere so air can get in.
- The whole business of washing and curing parts is more than I can get into here. Of note is that you can't really cure the "inside" of a part because light from the outside only makes it so far in.
- Resin parts tend to be very brittle. I once pressure tested one with 800 Psi CO2 once, through a small printed tube, and it held, but it would break if you hit it with a hammer. We tried the "tough" resins too, but never got any result comparable to even regular FDM with PLA. I used to say that I thought of resin parts not as a solid piece of plastic, but of finely powdered dust particles glued together.
- Large resin parts warp, badly. Dimensions will be accurate on the small scale (millimeters) but not on the large scale (10s or 100s of millimeters). Not sure if it's because there's a good amount of force pulling on each layer during the printing process, or from stresses introduced during the curing process.
I mostly make mechanical parts. Between the messy processing, weak materials, warping that throws off dimensions, and health concerns surrounding the resin (not to mention the intolerable smell), I pretty much gave up on resin printing. Any more, if I need something that must be resin printed, I'll order it from a professional service (which have both better performance resins than the home gamer can get and the correct setup to deal with them).
Car windows are probably harder to break than you think...lol. Also - consider the situation where the car is in, or partially in water, and pressure differentials.
I keep a Resqme in the car glovebox - my other half used to do a lot of interstate driving, and I was always worried she'd be trapped in the car. The Resqme has both a seat-belt cutter, and also a centre-punch for easily breaking the side windows.
This is a genuine question: how useful is the resqme in a glove box? Do you think the driver could reach it in the event of an accident, or do you keep it so the passenger can use it to free the other occupants?
I'd clip it to the seat belt pulley. But round here you'd have difficulty reaching speeds to have a crash, what with all the minis doing 20 under the limit
Wait - are you saying the Ideal-Tek PCSA-4N is good, right? Now you've piqued my interest.
Is this suitable for a single person at home, to hold a PCB in place whilst you solder components to it? Worth getting it for home use?
You mentioned Lindstrom and Piergiacomi for flush cutters - I know Ideal-Tek makes flush cutters as well (in fact I think I have some somewhere...), and so does Knipex. But in your experience, are the Lindstrom and Piergiacomi vastly superior?
4N is hard to beat because it can hold dozens or hundreds of components in place for one-pass of through-hole soldering versus needing to flip the board each time and 3 "hands" to hold 1 or 2 components.
Lindstrom and Piergiacomi are much better cutters... when I can find them in my messy lab.
Trivially debunked by looking at their homepage in 2019:
https://web.archive.org/web/20191009000026/https://n8n.io/