Spiritfarer

I played the Spiritfarer demo today.  Such a feel good game, despite its sad undertones.  Wonderful music and art as well.  I think what makes it so special is that it seems to celebrate life and the memories created within it, while addressing the fear we all have of passing on.  It also shows the value of friendship and closeness or 'skinship' as the Japanese would say.

It is also a reminder that too often we eject others from our personal space due to the predominance of fear of sexual undertones and assumptions.

I found it on the Steam summer game festival page.  There were so many good indie games on there, I was very surprised.  Almost all of them had demos, which was kind of refreshing for steam.

Cura settings for CR-10

PLA Filament settings:

Layer height	0.04mm, 0.08mm, 0.12mm, 0.16mm, 0.2mm, 0.24mm, 0.26mm, 0.3mm
Wall thickness	1mm to 1.2mm
Outer wall wipe distance	3mm
Top/Bottom Distance	0.8mm
Z seam alignment	Sharpest corner
Seam corner preference	Smart hiding
Infill density	15% to 80%
Printing temperature	200
Build plate temperature	50
Enable retraction	True
Retraction distance	6.5mm
Retraction speed	25mm/s
Print speed	40mm/s
Infill speed	40mm/s
Wall speed	40mm/s
Outer wall speed	25mm/s
Inner wall speed	40mm/s
Top/Bottom speed	20mm/s
Travel speed	40mm/s
Initial layer speed	20mm/s
Combing mode	Not in Skin
Avoid printed parts while traveling	True
Travel avoid distance	0.625mm
Z hop while retracted	False
Enable print cooling	True
Fan speed	100%
Generate support	True/False
Support placement	Touching buildplate/Everywhere
Support overhang angle	30 to 80
Support pattern	Zig zag
Support density	20%
Enable support brim	True/False
Support brim width	8mm to 20mm
Support Z distance	0.16mm
Support top distance	0.16mm
Gradual support infill steps	0 to 3
Use towers	False
Build plate adhesion type	Brim
Brim width	10mm to 25mm
Union overlapping volumes	False
Tree support	False

TPU Filament Settings:

Layer height	0.04mm, 0.08mm, 0.12mm, 0.16mm, 0.2mm, 0.24mm, 0.26mm, 0.3mm
Wall thickness	1mm to 1.2mm
Outer wall wipe distance	3mm
Top/Bottom Distance	0.8mm
Z seam alignment	Sharpest corner
Seam corner preference	Smart hiding
Infill density	15% to 80%
Printing temperature	210
Build plate temperature	50
Enable retraction	True
Retraction distance	6.5mm
Retraction speed	25mm/s
Print speed	20mm/s
Infill speed	20mm/s
Wall speed	20mm/s
Outer wall speed	20mm/s
Inner wall speed	20mm/s
Top/Bottom speed	20mm/s
Travel speed	20mm/s
Initial layer speed	20mm/s
Combing mode	Not in Skin
Avoid printed parts while traveling	True
Travel avoid distance	0.625mm
Z hop while retracted	False
Enable print cooling	True
Fan speed	100%
Generate support	True/False
Support placement	Touching buildplate/Everywhere
Support overhang angle	30 to 80
Support pattern	Zig zag
Support density	20%
Enable support brim	True/False
Support brim width	8mm to 20mm
Support Z distance	0.16mm
Support top distance	0.16mm
Gradual support infill steps	0 to 3
Use towers	False
Build plate adhesion type	Brim
Brim width	10mm to 25mm
Union overlapping volumes	False
Tree support	False

Printer Setup:

The default extruder assembly is pretty bad, allowing for shifting of the extruder head, so I recommend replacing it.  I use an e3D V6 hotend with a silicone sock and Petsfang hotend assembly (modified to suit my needs) and a blower fan and Noctua fan for cooling.

I have an endoscope camera attached to my hotend assembly that allows me to monitor the hotend up close and has helped me immeasurably by helping me stop print errors as fast as possible.  It also helps me level my printer bed to achieve a good first layer and good build plate adhesion.  I have my endoscope hooked up to my tablet via USB for constant monitoring.  

I also use Octoprint/Octopi for Raspberry PI, allowing me to upload stl files via WIFI to my printer without running over with a SD card every time.  It also allows me to remotely monitor the current print’s progress via a webpage.  Cura has a plugin called Octoprint Connection on their marketplace (top right in Cura) for Octoprint, so you can directly upload to your printer after slicing.

Recently I built a humidity controlled box for my filament to improve printing results and it has made a world of difference for my TPU prints.

For build plate adhesion I use an Elmer's Glue stick.  If you end up using this, make sure you wash your build plate every now and then to keep it from building up and screwing up your first layer quality.

Since the CR-10 is pretty noisy, I use motor vibration dampers and a lower printing speed (20mm/s to 40mm/s) to reduce the noise to residential levels.  This has the added benefit of improving print quality.

Microsoft surface pro won't start - stuck in safe mode - solution

Just now my Microsoft Surface Pro after installing some windows updates, only to restart into safe mode.  It attempted to fix the problem but said that it had failed to do so.  Thus begun my 2 hour quest to salvage my tablet from its current paperweight state.

First I checked the error file from the command prompt in safe mode.  This was no easy task, as safe mode seems to start up in its own drive, x:\, so I had to look up how to into c:\.  Turns out you use the "cd /d c:" command.

From there I used the cd command to move to c:\windows\system32\logfiles\srt and opened srttrail.txt.

There I found that windows had found the problem, but no one had bothered to make the code that could fix it.

Root cause found:
---------------------------
A patch is preventing the system from starting.
Repair action: System files integrity check and repair
Result: Failed. Error code =  0xa
Time taken = 1453 ms

At least it tried for 1.453 seconds.  The solution would be, then, to find and remove the offending patches.  After much searching I found you can do this in the command prompt by using the following steps:

Create a text file with a list of the patches installed on your computer, displayed in a table format.

dism /image:c:\ /get-packages /format:table > patches.txt

Open the text file you just created.

patches.txt

Look for the patches with the most recent dates and uninstall them.  Well, this was my first thought, but ultimately it was the patches installed on the 14th (it is the 17th) that were the issue.  Patch names look like this:

Package_for_KB2918614~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.3.1.4

To uninstall them you use the command:

dism /image:c:\ /remove-package /packagename: /norestart

As an example:

 dism /image:c:\ /remove-package /packagename:Package_for_KB2918614~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.3.1.4 /norestart

Remove patches for the most recent update day, restart, and if the issue persists, repeat for the next most recent day until the issue goes away.

You can keep both the patches.txt file and the command window up side by side in safe mode thankfully.  I suggest you mark each patch you remove as you remove them.

Arduino Fio: Detecting Connectivity

This is a small guide to setting up an Arduino Fio so that you can detect when your communication module (Bluetooth Bee or XBee) is connected through use of the RSSI input.
This involves simply soldering one wire from the RSSI pin to an input of your choice and only takes a few minutes.

The RSSI pin is located here:

Carefully solder a wire to the pin then to whatever input pin you prefer (I chose pin 7).  Probably best not to follow my example, and give it a bit less solder and a bit more insulation.  Also be sure not to solder it to the through hole below (above CHG).  While the RSSI is "HIGH", the signal strength is good and you are connected, so basically add an "if" statement to your Arduino sketch's loop to set up when its "LOW", and run your program when it is "HIGH".

If you wish to modify it further, go ahead and check out the Fio's EAGLE files here.  Further information can also be found on Arduino's product page and Sparkfun's listing.
More information on XBees and Bluetooth Bees can be found in seeedstudio's wiki.

Installing Inventor 2012 Pro and Inventor Publisher on Windows 8

Want to see this?

Go to the setup folder and open this file (using Notepad):

In the file find (CTRL + F):

#============= DOTNET Begin ===============

Under it you will see:

Copy it and paste it here:

Save the file (CTRL+S) and your done.
(Doing this may or may not violate various agreements you have made or will make with Autodesk of which I may have just taught you how to do but do not endorse).

You should already have .NET installed with Windows 8 by default, so no harm done.  This should also work for other Autodesk products.

Installing Inventor 2012 Pro on Windows 8 developers edition

The program fails installation, as you may have guessed already. So this is a small guide to get through the installation on a 64-bit machine running Windows 8 developers edition.

Error 1:
Crashes upon selecting install after launching the setup program.
Solution - select "Install Tools & Utilities" then agree to the licence agreement and press next.  Press back then back again to get back to the screen with the install button once again.  Select install.

Error 2:
Fails to install Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable (x86) on a 64 bit machine.
Solution - manually install it by going to the log file that is displayed when the setup fails - this appears as a link.  Look at the bottom of the text file and it will show the directory of the install file along with other info about the installation failure. Install Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable (x86) by going to the directory shown in the log and installing it.

Error 3:
Install fails when attempting to install Design Review 2012.
Solution - Uncheck the checkbox for Design Review 2012, hope you didn't need it.

Flash with Dual Intec Nunchuks

Having lost interest in processing and having a bit of experience with Flash, I decided to research methods of integrating my dual nunchuk configuration with Flash via the USB/Serial communication. After much heart ache, I finally found a site created by Kasper Kamperman that had details on how to connect the two. His site contains a download for the FLA and AS files, which are a main component for this project. It is important to note that this code is designed for Flash 10/Actionscript 3.

The second component is Serproxy, the download of which is located at the bottom of the Arduino software page. Serproxy converts the serial connection to the Arduino into a network connection so that flash can access the data. Further info on Serproxy can be found at the Arduino Playground Serial-to-Proxy page .

Serproxy requires a modification to its CFG file via any text editor in order to direct Serproxy to the correct port. The instructions on how to do so can be seen within the CFG file near the bottom of the code (use something other than notepad). Also, ensure comm_baud matches your baud setting for your serial communications.


Kamperman's code takes data, separated by commas and ended by "\r", and places it in an array called "receivedValues", where the received data is separated and stored in the array in a chronological fashion. This data refreshes every time the Arduino completes transmission. To use this with my previous code, one must change the "\n" to "\r" in my main Arduino code. Or you could download the new one.