BMW 130i, 3L straight 6, 260bhp rear wheel drive, revs to just shy of 7,000 rpm. Car isn’t much bigger than a Fiesta, but you can get 2 full fat 29ers with the wheels off, they sound pretty good too.

When I first got into this hobby I bought a cheap’ish printer and it required a lot of tuning on every print. This was a steep learning curve and eventually I stopped printing as I spent longer calibrating than actually printing. a couple of years later I bought a Prusa i3 and it has been plug and play, click and print with the profiles already provided with the software

Who has one, have you used it as much as you thought you would

I print quite a bit but not as much as I thought. I thought I would print a lot of stuff for other people, but the prices some people charge are way too cheap. If I do get a job, it usually requires a custom design and print which might include magnets and threads. This is all through word of mouth and now find the answer is “My friends son has a printer I’ll ask him”. As Northwind has said, the average person doesn’t know the difference between a high quality print and a quick/bad/rough print.

What have I printed for others
Custom jigs/holders for lathes/industrial machines
Missing/obsolete parts for 30’s-90’s era cars
Other missing/broken plastic parts, usually re-design making it stronger

Printed for me:
Speaker/GoPro/Light mounts
Arduino/Pi Cases
Axle Spacers
Brake Pad Spacers
Coffee Bean Hopper Extender
3D Puzzle Boxes
Stuff for my sim rig (mounts/cases/covers)
& a bunch of other things
^^ This was all printed after getting bored of printing useless models/knickknacks

Most of the things I print are designed by myself. Fusion 360 is quite easy to learn, but I do have a CAD background.

But, I still have questions. For things like GoPro mounts and stuff that requires a bit of strength, is PLA strong enough or should I be using ABS?

I don’t think PLA is strong enought, PETG is a great alternative to ABS, PC Blend is even better but its expensive and requires really really high temps.

If they are a ‘good thing’ what level should I be looking at etc?

If you want 3D printing to be an extra hobby, buy a cheap one as suggested above. If you just want it to print and not fiddle with it much, buy a Prusa i3. Disclaimer you will still have to learn about settings and adjust a few things, but not very often at all.

OK, the best one I’ve heard… Hilary Clinton Manufactures a Drug from torturing kids, Celine Dion is this drugs dealer. Tom Hanks caught COVID as there was a batch of this drug that had COVID in it from the kids being tortured. Oh it gets better, read below.

I was quickly introduced to the prevailing conspiracy theory around Covid-19. It’s quite simple. Adrenochrome is a drug for the liberal elite of Hollywood made from actual human brain stem containing hormones from the adrenal gland. Hillary Clinton manufactures this drug by torturing children in a pizza shop (if you order a cheese pizza that’s code). Tom Hanks is addicted to Adrenochrome and he caught Covid-19 from the latest batch of tainted Adrenochrome that came through Celine Dion who is a high priestess from the Church of Satan. She is well-versed in poison as she’s been lacing her children’s clothing line with a chemical that makes our children “gender neutral”. Tom Hanks signalled to the Hollywood Liberal Elite Cabal DeepState in his Golden Globes acceptance speech that there would be a shortage of Adrenochrome. Ellen has closed her studio audience because she’s addicted as well. Heidi Klum is too. And so is Michael Rappaport.

Copy and Pasted from:
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:fU7AekMllGwJ:https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/03/opinion-down-the-rabbit-hole-with-the-covid-19-conspiracy-theorists.html+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

So does it have a uk following and was it in uk clubs recently

I remember it in the clubs about 15 years ago on Hard House, Hard Trance nights. I was dissapointed with HardStyle… But that Ben Nicky mix seems pretty good!

I steal mine from nice cafes in France or Italy.

I am so annoyed I didn’t think of this!

If I could find me an Acorn Archimedes with Autosketch on it, I could design some stuff.

I might have the PC version of AutoSketch somewhere, I no longer use it. PM me.

Looks good, what drone/camera for footage like that? I’m guessing its not a Hexo or Mavic ;-)

The other is an HPI Firestorm 10T

You might need to replace the fuel lines and free up the piston with some run in oil. Nitro fuel goes sticky after a while and can gum up the fuel lines. You might also want some new Nitro fuel if its been sitting for a long time.

Any nuggets of wisdom?

I know it sounds stupid, but only use the recall when you know for certain the dog will come back. Having family members shouting the recall word (usually dogs name) does not help, whether they are recalling the dog or not, whether you are home or not.

You might need to desensitize the dog from the lure of the woods. Maybe walk it around the woods before doing to training near the woods.

Find a good trainer, usually through recommendation. You can do gundog training and normal training aka citizenship award. We ended up having a great Working, Scurrying and Pet Springer and the younger Cocker ain’t too bad either! But thats a totally different way of training the Cocker.

If you have an Apple TV, download the THX tune up app on to your iPhone. It uses your iPhone camera and ATV to calibrate your TV, it makes it really easy to calibrate.

Various Pi’s with PiCorePlayer running around the house, one with LMS (Logitech Media Server) and external drive holding all the music, you can configure all this through PiCorePlayer I also use HiFiBerry DACs for amps that don’t have HDMI.

I find having multiple HD’s for raw footage/scratch/final cut helps with encoding time and doing things quickly, especially if you have multiple videos like Picture in Picture. I haven’t kept up with times, still on 1080/GoPro Hero 3 so not sure if SSD’s have made this irrelevant for 4k.

Retropie user here. Spent many hours installing/getting games to work, ArcadePunks helped reduce that down ;-). Playing anything from ZX Spectrum to PS1/PC Quake/Doom/DOS games. It comes out a couple of times a year for an evening or two, TNMNT MAME version is still the go to game, along with THPS1/2 on the PS1.

Managed to get quite a bit of printing done over the last few weeks. Unfortunately most of them were scrapped due to poor quality or being out of tolerance. :-( Bearings, bushes and rods need replacing, it makes a horrid noise on small fast movements and its a 50/50 chance of it failing a print. Also wanting to print in other materials and my current printer (Wanhao D5S) is only good for PLA.

Bought the eSun filament dryer box as I was sure my filament was a little wet. Certainly helped, dried it out quicker and improved my prints a little, it also has a weighing feature so you can work out how much filament is left.

It is time for a new printer, tempted by the Prusa Mini, but think I will be going for the MK3S, then add OctoPi with the touchscreen like Zilog. :-) I don’t think I can wait for the Prusa XL.

I would drop an email to places like Saddleback who are Intense distributors.

BTW It looks bloody awesome! ;-)

I found kitchen/bathroom wipes and polish caused the rubber to breakdown and become sticky. It would be a week or so later that it started getting sticky.

I disagree, they are still £3k+ for a decent 55/65″ OLED TV, yes you can buy them under £2k but I’ve found the picture to be quite poor in comparison. Personally I wouldn’t spend this sort of money on a TV with the direction TV’s are currently taking, hence buy cheap then buy a decent one in a few years.

I never said a £300 TV is good for 4K/HDR, but they are better than a 5-10 year old 1080p TV which is probably what the OP currently has, its a stop gap as the new wave of TV tech starts in 2020. You have to spend well over 2k for a decent 4K/HDR TV picture, even then they don’t seem that great when streaming compressed video from Netflix/online video.

Forget 8k TV/Gaming unless you have £15k to spend.

The PS5 will likely have G-Sync support or some form of it. The new high end OLED LG TV’s have this built in, 2020 is the year for TV’s becoming monitors, offering low input lag and G-Sync support. Unfortunately it’s only LG that support G-Sync/VRR at the moment. I believe the PS5 may also support higher than 60fps, most TV’s are currently 60fps.

Samsung & Sony seem to have low input lag for gaming, if FPS is your thing, then low input lag will help win those close quarter battles. ;-) You can pretty much google the model you are looking for with “input lag” on the end and find out if it’s good for gaming. For TV’s less than 30ms is good (some can be more than 100ms without a gaming mode built into the TV), for a monitor less than 8ms is good.

Personally I think I would buy a cheap 4K/HDR TV at the moment and then buy one with all the tech in a year or two when the prices are sub a lot less. This is what I did last year, spent £300 on a 43″ samsung 4k TV that I use for PS4/PC gaming, PC monitor/video editing. I am in no need to spend £2k for a super duper monitor, until the prices come down.

I’ve been through Lavazza Crema e Aroma, Super Crema, Pienaroma, Pelican Rouge and some local roasted stuff so far in my Melitta Barista and boringly prefer the Lavazza Crema e Aroma. Currently on Pelican Rouge but it’s a bit harsh for me. Not really too keen on spending £20-30 per kilo which probably narrows it down somewhat. For an all round bean that will do a good Espresso, Ristretto, bog standard Cafe Crema and a decent Latte the Lavazza seems to be the best so far.

Andy, I have the same machine! Giving Pelicon Rouge a try from today, I might grab a bag of Lavazza Cafe Crema to try for Bean 2 long drinks. How are you getting on with your machine?

I’m happy to pay for quality though as I can buy a mixed lot from my favourite roasters (gardelli, Collona, roundhill)

Maybe I should pop round to Collona and grab a bag to see what I’m missing… Or will I not get the benefit with a bean to cup machine?

Well I thought this would be a good film:

Ryan Reynolds – Check
Action – Check
Car Chases – Check

I am quite surprised that I thought this was a complete pile of shit. I don’t know how long it was, but it was too long, liked the Storyline, but now I know I don’t like Michael Bay as a director. As for the soundtrack, that was well off too.

Thanks guys! Ordering Pelican Rouge 1863 and Italian Job for now.

I had a look at Pact subscription, but I have no idea how many cups of coffee we drink and I have no idea how expensive it would be. We go through 1.5Kg of beans a month for two of us.

Wow, some of those beans are pretty expensive! £30 for a kilo is a little rich for me.

Found out the burnt toast I keep smelling every week at work is a local coffee roasters, but there is no way I am paying £12-£15 for a 250g bag of beans!

I have to pop into Brizzle at the weekend, so I might detour via Clifton Coffee Roasters, they seem to have a bit more variation to the last time I went. I’ll be trying out your suggestions in the new year, I’d like to find a place that can recommend a bean for my machine or what settings I should change to make the bean taste great.

Angel Wax H2Go here too.. Better than RainX and lasts longer. With both products, not cleaning your screen properly means you get fogging/misting, even when the RainX is working fine.

You have to clean your windscreen first.
Wash Screen
Possibly Tar/TRF remover
Clay Screen
IPA Screen – I use painters wipes

Now it’s ready to apply.

You have to be super catious at junctions, see the link below for the reasons. If you don’t have time, its to do with our brains filling in the blanks when we scan the road. I’m sure somone else has posted it previously.

https://www.portsmouthctc.org.uk/a-fighter-pilots-guide-to-surviving-on-the-roads/

These usually come on runflats, this can make the ride harsh… But as its 12 year old suspension, it should feel a little nicer than 10 years ago! If you find the ride harsh, you can ditch the runflats which makes it feel a lot nicer.

On the stero front: Business Audio is complete rubbish (1x Sub, 2x Door Mids, 2x Shelf Mids, rubbish amp). The Professional Headunit is much better. Speaker options, I wouldn’t go for anything less than HiFi, comes with tweeters and an extra sub under the drivers seat. The I-Drive is not worth it (I know, I have it!), its very dated and you can buy an add on screen for any BMW these days for not a lot of money.

I don’t think the economy on the small petrol engines are very good, I swear I read somewhere the 118i has the same economy as the 130i… or it might have been the 116i vs 130i..

Cup Holders, it might not come with any or it might come with one, but you can’t use it unless you flip up the arm rest.. Not exactly deal breaking, but something to look out for.

There are loads of options for these cars: Xenon’s are really good, they make the car look a little better and are like having a sun light the way compared to the candle powered halogen lights.

Make sure the Parking Sensors work and bongs n bings work. Common problem is they stop working as the PDC control unit can get soaked in water due to a rubbish design. Unsure what year they updated this.

Update

I went for the PNW Bachelor, 150mm as I have little legs and wanted to get it lower in the frame. Pleased with my choice. The remote lever feels a lot nicer and easier to use than the Reverb. The up n down action feels smoother too, but I am comparing this with a Reverb that was a couple of years old and never serviced. I really don’t have much to say about the dropper, it works, feels nice..

I am able to get my saddle about 40mm lower now!! I didn’t think I would notice this riding around FOD or AC… I’ve never felt that my saddle was in the way, until doing really steep stuff and then its not really in the way, but I certainly knew it was there.

I cannot believe the difference it has made having the saddle a little lower even at AC or FOD. My bike no longer feels like a big bike under me, it feels like I’ve dropped a frame size! I am able to move around on the bike more, compress more and turn better.

I would definately recommend the PNW Bachelor if you are looking for a 34.9mm Reverb alternative.

If you passed after 97, which test do you need to do to be able to drive one of those big 7+m motorhomes that weigh 4-5T?

C1 license. I am one of those who can drive bugger all except a car, yet my mother who’s driving is really poor can pretty much drive anything! Crazy!

C1 isn’t too expensive, but if you want to learn/take the trailer test it gets expensive.

Alfa 155
Saab 9000
Range Rover
Mercedes W123
Cadillac Escalade
Bentley Mulsanne Turbo
Ford Granada Scorpio
Volvo 242

All within your budget! Come with 4 doors and more than a 1.6 hamster ;-)

Wow! WillH brought back a whole bunch of memories with the Turbo Hopper! I totally forgot I had one of those when I was a kid! Apparently as a kid I would go everywhere with my RC’s and drive them everywhere, this included driving them to the shops on the road! It was a while ago, the roads were nowhere near as busy.

This thread has got me wanting to convert my Nitro buggy and TC to electric. Nitro is such a ball ache, but the smoke and noise is amazing!

Diz, I want that Baja!!!!

I see all these young kids in nice expensive cars and I think, well… It’s better than pissing it up against the wall!! I do wonder how many realise they won’t own the car at the end.

I had a crappy mk2 escort 1600 Ghia X at the age of 18 (circa 1999)! It cost me £100, insurance was nearly 10x times that.

About 3 years later I replaced with a Classic Mini Checkmate, British Racing Green, it came with a knife to start it! Again it cost me £100, insurance was a lot cheaper than the escort. I blew the headgasket a couple of times a year and made it “not so slow”.

A couple of years after I replaced it with a 2.5V6 mondeo for £500, that was a shock coming from a Mini! I got rid of it after about 5 years, as a friend was kind enough to let me borrow his car for 8 years! So up until my mid 30’s I had only spent £700 on buying cars and was only without a car for a couple of years, as I didn’t need one. It’s all good, I spent the money on mountain bikes instead ;-)

Borderlands Handsome Collection is Free this month..

Twonks, Google ArcadePunks. You can download a RetroPie image that “just works” for the 10 minutes you intend to use it. It is better to create your own, but I have found it can take hours uploading the ROMS, configuring shaders/overlays, controllers, etc.. When all you wanna do is start a retro game and after 5 minutes think to yourself “damn this is much worse than I ever remember”. For this reason ArcadePunks image may be the solution.

Oh this does look good! I still don’t think GoldenEye will run well on it though.

Will be checking out Pi-Hole, I didn’t know about it.

What is everyone using their Pi’s for?
3B+ – RetroPie
3B – OctoPi
3×4 – PiCorePlayer

Thanks guys! Revive is on my list, hadn’t heard of PNW Bachelor, it looks really good! 260mm internal rather than 290mm of the Revive! Currently out of stock at the moment. If OneUp did a 34.9 post I would be tempted. I shall wait and suffer with a spongy Reverb that won’t go all the way down, it’s currently 3-4″ higher than I want it to be, which is 2″ more higher than it usually is. At least I can’t get my nuts caught between the saddle and tyre at the moment. Bonus!

Photo was to highlight the issue.. Here’s a photo of a saddle in the loft..

It was fitted because the person said the smaller saddle was chafing!

I was never seriously into it, but have played about with it with a Walkera Runner 250. I found it a lot easier than flying an RC heli, when you crashed it was easier to repair and cheaper! I’m not saying its easy, definitely harder to control than a super sensitive RC nitro buggy.

You will need spare batteries, rotors, arms, etc. FPV goggles will be needed at some point, once you get the hang of flying. You might be able to get a USB adapter for your tranny so you can practice on your PC.

Whatever you are spending on your drone, double it for accessories/spares/batteries.

FLStudio is still pretty cheap. They provide a pretty decent trial too.
Reaper – 60 day trial
LMMS – Free, but its not as good as FLStudio

If you are going with someone else, hide their helmet peak! They will look more of a dork than you then! ;-)

I remember finding doshell.exe and thinking it was awesome.. Then someone showed me Norton Commander and I was blown away. I lost my mind when I was shown Windows 2, 3 and then 3.11 for workgroups! wow!

Windows 95 was pretty awesome for the first month, then you realised that plug and play was actually plug and pray, then go and change the I/O settings to get drivers to work, or make up your own driver consisting of old drivers and your own scripts. Concept was good, execution wasn’t that great. < I think that pretty much sums up all Microsoft OS’s!

Honestly, it has got better over the years!! ;-)

Maybe RP are going to help them with the MG project?..

Standard STW answer: Buy what I have! I have found BMW 6 Cylinders (26/32 MPG from a 3L) do better MPG than Ford 5 pots. The BMW Turbo’d engines are about the same MPG as non turbo’d, but the turbo produces a lot more power. The sound of a straight 6 going to 8k is quite addictive! ;-)