2015 Recommended Upgrades for the Printrbot Simple (Model 1403)

It's almost been 13 months since I first powered on my Printrbot Simple (Model 1403), and I figured I should share my little secrets on how I ran my 3d printer smoothly for more than a year.

Frankly, all I needed to do was to add some cheap stuff and printed parts to my Printrbot Simple.

Here's what I added to my Printrbot Simple, in order of importance.

I laid a rubber mat below my Printrbot. This stopped my 3d printer from sliding across the table and dampened much of the printer's vibration, preventing any damage to my table surface.

I added Printrbot's Alu Handle for Simple to my Printrbot Simple, which muffles noise during print jobs and holds my filament holder firmly in place.

I printed a filament spool holder for 1.25'' spool holes to mount on my Alu Handle for Simple. It fits Hatchbox filament spool (which have tiny spool holes), spaces the filament away from the printer's y-arm and has a filament guide. Pretty much the perfect filament spool holder.

I printed a cable holder to add to the body of my Printrbot Simple, so the cable connected to the extruder doesn't sag on the print bed (I can't find the design file anymore, but this should do the trick: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:910309)

I printed a slide-on extruder arm for my printer's extruder arm, so it's much easier (and less painful) to hold down the extruder arm.

I printed An Improved Fan Duct/Shroud to mount on my printer's fan for improved ventilation of the hot-end.

I printed feet for my Printrbot Simple to reduce noise/further dampen vibration from the printer.

Updates on Last Year's Endeavours

After reading through last year's blog post, a revelation struck me - a revelation that everything I mentioned in those blog post have evolved is truly enchanting. Here are all the crazy things that happened to the stuff I did last year.

1. My YouTube Channel

I've finally restored my YouTube channel to it's former glory, and to even greater heights. Although I've only uploaded 20 videos since August 2014, my videos are way more professionally made than before, thanks to both the resources available from my MCN partnership with Freedom!, and the experience I've gained from 4 years of YouTubing.




2. My Minecraft Endeavours

The Golden Age of Minecraft Makers has long passed

After Minecraft was sold to Microsoft, the 16-bit game inevitably turned to a more consumer-oriented direction, with many server-creators and game-modders leaving the scene, and many more (very) young children entering, creating the belief that Minecraft is a moderated little kid's game about building blocks that are not meant for teens and adults (which, unfortunately, is starting to become true).

I miss the times of building in my flat world, of countless hours spent messing with the .minecraft files, of learning about 3d animating my Minecraft world, of figuring out how to set up a CraftBukkit server, and I would love to go back to those blissful days of creation, but the environment for making and developing via Minecraft has changed for the worse, and so has people's mindset of Minecraft.

As for my Minecraft server, SpinTwerk, well I've got good and bad news.

The good news is, it's still living in my old computer's files, and throughout last year, my friends and I built over 42 majestic structures, rollercoasters, mini-maps, lobbies, carnivals and houses in a titanic area span. With the help of plug-ins, I managed to set-up 3 fully-automated hunger games maps, and a bunch of mob-arenas, together with over 20 mini-games.

The bad news is, ever since Wesley Wolfe filed a lawsuit against CraftBukkit, my Minecraft server has been stuck in version 1.7.9 of Minecraft, and almost no one has gone onto the server for over a year.

3. Mine-imator

David fulfilled his promise, and Mine-imator 1.0.0 has long been officially released, together with a smacksy new website (although the Disqus Mine-imator community is gone). New Mine-imator users wouldn't be able to see the old days of the application, where countless amounts of people would create collaborative projects on the Disqus community and made some really impressive stuff.

Completed Project: Xinhai Revolution

This is not related to any of my YouTube (DumbTroll) works or anything, but it's still something I wanna share. 

www.xinhaigeming.weebly.com

This website is the Independent Studies school project my group and I have been working on for most of the year, and it contains most of the information you would ever need to know about the 1911 Xinhai Revolution. 

It's completely in Chinese, but hey, no harm checking it out.

My Opinion on Pewdiepie's "Let's Talk About Money" Video

During the past few days there has been a lot of talk about how much the famous YouTuber PewDiePie earns.

In response to this, Pewds made a video titled "Let's Talk About Money", stressing that he does not believe money is all we should care about and that he merely does what he loves to do. He also mentioned he raised over US$1 million for charity funds but that had barely been publicised.



Personally, I'm rather tired of people criticising YouTube gaming, with the stereotype that it's stupid and useless to the world.

While it's true that Pewds "screams at his computer" all day and earns big bucks, it's a way of enjoying himself, and as he makes a fool out of himself, he brings joy to his bros, and that's precisely how he gets so many views and earns the big bucks.

Pewds also says it's a way of enjoying himself. Different people have different ways of enjoying themselves. Some people like lounging on a huge yacht in the middle of nowhere sipping on some champagne, while some like to skateboard down the street, and of course, some people like sitting on the couch at home with a huge bag of chips while having a movie marathon. Is enjoying yourself really that stupid and useless? Some people have millions of dollars at their disposal, but yet they're so obsessed with being rich that they never truly find happiness in life.

My point is, although his videos might be rather ridiculous and dumb, he still brings laughter and joy and even has fun and enjoys himself when making his videos. People still laugh and feel better after watching his videos.

There are millionaires out there who extort the people who work for them, put others into bankruptcy, and never give a penny to the needy, but people barely care.

So why is it that a YouTube gamer, who makes a fool out of himself for other people's joy and raised over US$1 million for charity, gets so much criticism when he actually benefits society and doesn't do any harm to others?

In conclusion, I believe there's nothing wrong with pewds getting so much money from "screaming at his computer" and I think people should look at what he does to benefit society instead of just looking at the surface of things.

Good Mic on the Cheap: CAD U1 Microphone

If all you have is $25, but you still want to buy microphone that sounds great, you should probably get the CAD U1 Microphone.

Overview: The CAD U1 Microphone is a dynamic desktop USB microphone from the brand CAD Audio. The CAD U1 Microphone has been around since 2008 but till today, the sound quality that it produces is still comparable to some of the more recent (and expensive) microphone models like the Blue Snowball and the Samson Go, and compared to other microphones in its price range, the CAD U1 shines as the one of the best $20-25 microphones on the market.

Sound Quality: The CAD U1 produces good quality sound that would be suitable for the average podcaster or gaming commentator. It doesn't pick up much background noise and makes your voice sound crisp and clear if you put it 8-20 inches away from you. In fact, if you do it right, using the CAD U1 can make it sound like you're using a professional and expensive microphone.

However it can run into a few problems. If you speak too loudly, your voice will sound draggy and when you say "s" and "p", it can sound quite awful. To solve this I would recommend getting a pop filter or a microphone windscreen to put on the CAD U1, which would significantly decrease any distortions and loud "s" and "p" sounds.

Also, the microphone can pick up static from 2 electronic devices, which are non-LED lightbulbs and radios, so I would recommend putting lights and radios away from the CAD U1 when using it.

Price: Being only $22 on Amazon, it is really affordable and costs less than almost all the microphones available on Amazon.

Compatibility: The CAD U1 is a USB microphone, and thus can run on all your electronic devices that support USB connection. The CAD U1 also does not require any additional software to run.

Durability: As the CAD U1 is made out of ABS plastic (the same material used to make Legos), it is very durable and after dropping it many times, the sound quality of the CAD U1 has still not been compromised.

Pros
- Good, crisp sound quality
- Affordable
- Really durable

Cons
- Can pick up static from other devices, causing sound distortions
- Picks up loud "s" and "p" sounds when using without pop filter/mic windscreen

Who I would recommend the CAD U1 to: podcasters, gaming commentators, vloggers, people who use Skype and other voice calling software

Here is a review of the CAD U1 from another YouTuber. In this video you'll be able to here the sound quality of the CAD U1. 

Revival of The Blog

I've said, that I'm not posting on this blog anymore.

I've said, I wanted to stop hiding away from the world.

I've bid my farewell...almost 8 months ago.

So what the hell am I doing writing on this blog again?

The answer would be: I have plans to revive this blog. You may ask,"Why does this missing retard wanna revive his dead blog?" Well the reasons for this are as follows:

First of all, it is due to my lack of time to make my YouTube videos. After leaving this blog, I went on to revive my YouTube channel, which was something I wanted to do for almost 3 years. I have made a number of YouTube videos, and I intended for my YouTube channel to replace this blog, but alas, I am having lesser and lesser time to make my YouTube videos, and thus for some things like tutorials, it will be a lot faster to write the tutorial on this blog than to make a tutorial videos. Therefore I hope to resume using this blog to replace some of my videos when I have no time to make YouTube videos.

Secondly, I have some physical constraints when making YouTube videos, and it will be more practical to write on this blog than make videos in some cases. When I make my YouTube videos, all I have is my phone camera, my mom's Mac, a microphone, 2 phone stands and myself. Therefore it is very hard for me to do things like acting, making tutorials and reciting stuff due to manpower constraints, and adding on to this are my time constraints (which I've mentioned earlier), sometimes it's just a lot easier, faster and more productive to write a blog post than to produce a YouTube video.

Thirdly, I've got inspiration to make YouTube videos and blog post concurrently. I've seen a number of YouTube channels make YouTube videos, and then write blog post on their blog to give their audience further information. This is especially useful for tutorials and Q&As, and I hope to implement this.

After reading my reasons for the revival of my blog, I hope you understand my decision. I will not be getting rid of my YouTube channel, but instead I will use both YouTube and Blogger to share information. When I have no time to make YouTube videos, I will just write blog post to replace my YouTube videos. When I have lots of time, I will make not just make a YouTube video, but I will also write a blog post to give additional information on the topic of my YouTube video.


But anyways, on a positive note, I'm really excited to revive my blog and to continue making lots of blog post!

Farewell Guys.

I just can't believe I'm writing this post now.

It just feels like life is moving too quickly.

I've changed. We've all changed.

Nothing really feels the same anymore.

We've grown up, and it's so hard to accept that.

Hey guys, I'm calling myself Dumb Cow for the very last time. I can still remember the days of playing on my Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition, ranting about the unfairness in school, posting post but yet not even daring to let my classmates see them.

I do completely different things these days. I've learnt how to use Photoshop, Cinema 4D and Adobe Muse, so I don't need to be dependent on Blogger anymore. But I still have to come back to this page once in a while. Somehow I just have to. I do things a lot more professionally now, but I guess interest stay the same.

I've always felt the urge to return to my YouTube channel, and I've already started posting on a relatively consistent basis, so here's my channel for you: www.youtube.com/kernkernlee

I'm sorry. I just feel that I've grown old of this little blogging thing, hiding away from the huge world around me. It kind of sucks you know, to want an audience yet not dare to have an audience. But I'll miss those times. I'm sure of it.

I'll miss these blogging times. Thanks for being with me for so long, Caleb, and I really hope you'll follow me through my YouTube Carrier.

Farewell my friends.