This is a very good joke and deserves more upvotes, but I only have one to give.

I think my experience is roughly parallel to yours. I bit the bullet and got an X1C and with a couple of exceptions (mostly my own mistakes) it has been largely hassle-free. Having a reliable printer is actually allowing me to tackle the project of rebuilding my Anycubic Predator into the machine I always wished it was. That massive build volume will be great, but I have something I don’t have to fiddle with to make the parts.

As for the Bambu/Chinese paranoia, I think it’s overstated considering most people here are probably typing their replies on a device thoroughly infiltrated by Apple or Google or both. Do a few prints to make sure everything works properly and switch to Orca Slicer and local network mode if you’re concerned.

YM (and your fear of China) MV

Orca and local network mode work pretty well for me.🤷🏼‍♂️

Seriously, grinder first. You can use a better grinder with your Aeropress and French Press l, and you won’t waste as much time making bad espresso when you do get a machine.

If you’re mechanical, watch Craigslist and marketplace: I once got a broken Rancillio Silvia for free. It needed serious repairs, but I don’t have $100 in parts in it and it works perfectly now.

They just announced it a week or two ago, but they’re keeping the server up for “a reasonable period” to allow users to migrate. From my understanding, many of their tweaks have been integrated into 1.0 and the team all plans to continue working with FreeCAD and submitting improvements.

I was recently roughly in the same place. I have played around in the past with a few things, but there were reasons I didn’t really get into any of them: Fusion360 and their increasingly limited free options, OnShape and their online only thing… so on…

FreeCad has a new release candidate for what they’re calling version 1.0, meaning they consider it a mature and functional piece of software. I’ve been working with it, and yeah… it’s not perfect, but it’s definitely usable now. I figured if I was going to put all that effort into learning something, I might as well learn something that would always be free.

Yeah, honestly that was at least partially my thought process posting this. I see someone else posted the same video and got a bit more traction as well, which is great: the more eyes on this, the more likely someone chooses to develop it. If someone develops a fork or plugin for various open source slicers, it’s usefulness should quickly become obvious and someone with deeper pockets will wind up going after the BS patent. Even as little as a 10% improvement in layer adhesion, if it’s reliable and consistent, is a significant upgrade. The old saying about a chain only being as strong as the weakest link comes to mind and layer adhesion is the weakest link in 3d printing.

I had tried FC a few times previously, and wasn’t able to make it work for me, but I’m actively using the newest release candidate now. I think it’s finally over the hump where a lot more people are going to start adopting it. That should fuel continued development.

Whew… that’s well presented and I do appreciate it, but I was speaking specifically of filament tuning. One of the things I paid Bambu their premium for is having the machine and baseline slicer profiles dialed in and they kinda do. All that machine calibration stuff is what I got frustrated with when I quit the first time!

I am kicking around the idea of rebuilding my Anycubic Predator with updated… everything, just to have that massive build volume again. It might actually work pretty well with a high flow hotend and klipper firmware.

I’m definitely bookmarking that guide for future reference.

5pm seems to be my limit if I want to get good sleep. Doesn’t matter if it’s espresso or what.

lol My new Carbon printed it’s way through two rolls of 7 year old PLA last week and it’s doing fine with the equally old ABS (all Hatchbox). I also have one old roll of PLA and a couple of PETG that are less useful, but they were no-name stuff that were troublesome new and are at least partially to blame for me giving up on printing back then.

Still, it’s nice to see 3d printing is finally not too finicky to tolerate. With this machine, if I get a failure, it’s a lot easier to narrow down the cause.

lol. The irony in that statement is palpable

Late stage capitalism has murdered satire.

Yep. It helps cut down on channeling. The more evenly the puck is extracted, the better your shots will be.

Skip the grocery store. If it’s on the shelf there, it’s OLD. Most coffee nerds try to stick to beans that have been roasted within the month, give or take. Personally, I live in the boonies, so I buy my beans online, but I stick to roasters in my region - trying to keep it as local as I can.

Some people will recommend sticking with one particular roast and repeating until you get it right. That sounds great from a scientific mindset, but taste isn’t scientific, it’s subjective. While I prefer certain things, I learned a lot about what I like by trying a bunch of different roasts. I drink about two bags a month and I get rotating subscriptions from two different roasters.

As far as gear goes, I will say that you probably want to upgrade to a bottomless portafilter so you can identify channeling, get a cheap scale so you can see what your extraction is, and maybe a WDT tool (diy or cheap is fine).

Wow, fully unacceptable.

I’ve heard mixed reviews on the nanotech coating. I went with VST when I decided I wanted a larger basket. I wound up buying both a 22g and 25g and it turns out I love the 25, because… more. They both work excellent though. I think preinfusion is probably necessary to make the 25g work, but I won’t swear to that.

Seems like a good idea as a recurring thread. Weekly would probably keep it on people’s minds if enough of us post to keep it active.

I’m really enjoying the Colombia Gesha from Blind Coffee Roasters in Portland. I’m almost apprehensive about letting people in on my secret favorite because they aren’t a big company, but I also want to support them because they seem to be awesome people. Really on top of the customer service - the owner called me with questions about my orders a couple of times, rather than waiting on email.