Spyke

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woke up to this

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I agree with you mate, but how do you deal with long prints like 12 - 24h? Im printing at home for many years and since day 1 I plan to get some fire protection like ampoule. There are no signs of fire hazard in OPs failure, but your comment made me think again and maybe Ill stop being lazy and cheap. Gonna do some research right away

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Should I use dedicated hardware?

Nothing will beat single board computer like rpi in power consuption, but PC can be efficient as well. For example in my country I pay around 1€ for each Watt a year (average 0.12€/kwh). So rpi is probably 5€ a year and my new server is like 20-30. There are some servers that run at 10W on idle.

Its 5x difference, but I got much better server and still acceptable cost. Having sata potrs will already save you a lot of $ and time since you need additional hardware to use ssd/hdd on rpi, especially if you need more than 1. And then rpi is not that small anymore. Rpi cant transcode at all, but its good enough for direct play. If you get intel cpu with quicksync you should be golden. I didnt test on 4k, but my g3930 can handle 4x 1080p easy.

I used rpi4 with 4gb ram as media/torrent server for few years and it was simple set and foeget setup untill SSD upgrade when it started started acting up. Figured the rpi cant provide enough juice on USB ports and then I got external power HDD case and got more into self hosting. 4GB soon became a bottleneck so I ended up with new PC and I love it. Still using rpi for 2nd pihole and few more services.

linux

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Solidworks and other industry-class CAD software on linux

I was on the same boat 15 years ago. Still waiting solidowrks replacement on linux haha. All open source or free CAD is okayish, but they cant replace proper software like solidworks. Inventor, catia, proe, they are all decent, but solidworks became kinda industry standar, so better stick with it since you already have some experience (its easy to switch between them). Compatibility will stop you from using any other if you need to share files (not step or stl) with someone. Even different versions of SW (every few years) are not backward compatible. Solidworks is almost the only reason why I still have windows

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Newbie questions

Enclosure will protect printer from dust and it will also keep the ambient temperature more stable. Dont make it hermetic sealed, better add few holes on the front and few on the back for example. I have a low rpm fan with dust filter because I mostly print PLA and in long prints (12h+) temperature can go a bit too high if there is no airflow at all. Keep in mind that enclosure should be removed sometimes for mintainance, removable sides is what you should look for.

You can leave filament on the printer, but if you dont use it for a long time it could get wet and then you have to dry it. Keep the rest of the spools in plastic sealed box or bag and put some silica gel inside.

Full calibration should be done once, but fine tuning when you face some issues or when you change to different brand or filament type. It depends how well the printer is assembled and how experienced you are, it can take only 5 min every few months, but begginers can spend days sometimes.

Extra tips: clean your rails and wheels whenever you can (once a month at least) for dusty garage. Get a kitchen sponge, drill a hole in it and guide filament trough the hole to remove any dust before extruder.

Welcome to the most fun hoby and happy printing!

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Is there a clone worth getting?

Prusa is more expensive and better mostly because its built better, not because of software. Any open source (marlin) board can be updated by user and its also easy to flash klipper for example.

Constant readjustments are due to bad design and no QC. If you want more reliable printer dont look for knockoffs. My first printer was prusa knockoff, it looks better than prusa, steel frame with no printed parts, but its not even close. Its collecting dust now