Category: editorial note

The Ender 5 PlusPlus and some toasty PETG (#E20F4)

Time flies…

Six months and I think 3 spools of matte PLA later, the Ender 5 Plus is now pretty close to shape I want it to be. There’s a fully custom panelized and gridded bottom section now that carries all electronics above and the 230V input below the 80×40/40×40 extrusion layer. There’s an optimized holder system around (left, right, back) for the 60cm LED panels. There’s stiffening triangles on every corner now, except for the front top extrusion that is moved down a couple centimeters so the bed/nozzle is visible during setup. […]


The Ender 5 Plus and a pack of RGEEK High quality 6.0 W/mK 200*400mm Thermal conductivity CPU Heatsink Cooling Conductive Silicone Pad Thermal Pads (#E20F4)

Someone was lazy and skipped the last four blog posts
So, let’s jump right in, the Ender series is probably good for another dozen posts. Today I’ll give a quick assessment on the use of silicone pads for the build plate.

The Ender 5 Plus (and many others) uses a 24V 400ish Watt heating plate that is screwed onto a sheet of aluminium, that is in turn mounted to the Z axis assembly of the printer. On top of that, a textured glass plate is “fixed” by some binder clips which I somewhat dislike. There is no solid connection between those – the clips press down on the glass on four corners, but that’s about it. […]


The slightly more silent Ender 5 Plus (#E20F3)

Well, since the printer is running just fine, I used it to make some quality-of-life upgrades to it.
The bottom lid that covers PSU, all the mains wiring and the rest of the electronics has been removed and replaced by a 2 part print (due to size). Several reasons for that: a) Four of the six screws are covered by the additional aluminium frame, so it’s difficult to remove if properly fastened, b) if left unscrewed (which isn’t much of a load problem on the remaining two screws since it is sandwiched anyway), the ends of the large metal piece would be free to vibrate and resonate, c) the stock 40mm fan close to the driver board is terribly noisy and pointless in terms of air throughput, so I would have swapped it anyway. […]


Ender 5 Plus and the dimmable Lightbox (#E20F2)

A couple of prints later and the lightbox printer is now contained in the intended footprint, with no external spool holder needed anymore. A simple roll with pockets for two bearings, a piece of an old M10 threaded rod, a couple of nuts and spacers, and a small mechanical adapter to make everything fit onto the original Ender holder was all it needed. The LED panels are now connected via XT30 connectors, and a 1-to-3 adapter for these mates with the DC step-up that still needs to be integrated. Not sure if I should use the integrated 24V power supply (as that is maxed out when printing) or add another desktop power brick, and how to (nicely) integrate the dimmer circuit that is just a significantly extended potentiometer from the DC-DC converter. […]


Ender 5 Plus and the lit Lightbox (#E20F1)

Fiat Lux!

LED panel brackets are installed, and so are three “45W” panels that currently max out at 135W with the supplied AC drivers. I’m likely gonna move them to a dimmable solution (a DC-DC converter with external adjustment pot…), but for testing purposes that’s just fine.

Here’s a small print (30cm x 6cm x 2cm) with single-walled towers on each side, made from matte black PLA (Sunlu), still sticking to the black Ender glass printing bed. Clearly this needs a bit more optimization in that all black parts around it could use a more reflective surface covering to brighten up the scene. […]


Ender 5 Plus Lightbox (#E20)

Super short update: I’m doing stupid things that I totally would not recommend to anyone, I’m having fun, and I’m making progress. The extreme humidity right now is a hindrance, but I’m gonna power through and fix things later, in case those ugly mofo brackets fall apart.

The second-hand Ender 5 Plus 3D printer* that I bought recently now has lockable wheels** and at least one side is covered by a 60×60 LED panel*** while power distribution is still unclear****. It’ll replace my old light box***** if things go to plan******. […]


Seasonic modular power supply accessory cables list (#E19)

Here’s a quick PSA: Seasonic power supply cables. There are many, and apparently an important aspect is undocumented.
[Updated 2023-11-19]

This week I sold a Seasonic PSU that was part of a full system build. I didn’t need it, I already got two reasonably-sized Seasonic PSUs for my two active systems, and since I only swapped boards, I had a surplus one. Unfortunately (thanks, modular power supplies!) it didn’t come with all the cables installed. But since most Seasonic modular cables are interchangeable across all product lines, I could just fill in the gaps with spare parts from my stock, right? […]


MariaDB/SQL query gotcha and optimized solution (#E18)

Haven’t had a general advice post for a while, have we.

My small fleet of ESP32 boards across the apartment is still gathering information for the AVM Fritz DECT 301 radiator control units that just started the heating season. While their queries are really simple, quick and fully automated, I also have an HighCharts overview plot of all data with user-defined query depth, usually 300 minutes / 5 hours, but I think there’s no arbitrary limit to it. One could plot all 2 million rows of data…but I’m not gonna try.

Anyway, I recently noticed query times went up significantly, and the whole thing never was blazing fast in the first place. […]


Disqus and their WordPress integration are a joke (#E17F1)

There, I said it. I did use stronger wording in the first revision, though.

In no particular order:

Disabling the plugin and re-enabling breaks the comment integration. The three comments made via Disqus are still available on their page, they can still be exported to an XML file that cannot be imported anywhere, but they don’t show up here. That’s a fundamental no-go. It’s broken if it cannot do that. I will not enter a vendor lock-in when my benefits are ads over which I have no control or paying 132 bucks a year.

The Disqus plugin settings menu is utterly pointless if something goes wrong. […]


Disqus comment system (#E17)

I just pulled the plug on the onboard WordPress comment system in favour of a Disqus plugin. While I’m not entirely sure if that is a good idea and will stay that way, the regular comment system is utterly broken in today’s internet. There’s not too many visitors to the site in general and registering for a comment is a hassle, but leaving the comment system open to any bot out there simply doesn’t cut it. Even with the former regulations in place, the spam-to-comment ratio was around 150:1, and the spam detection isn’t 100% accurate as well. […]