The sun was at just the right height to catch this deer trail on the edge of our yard.

Title. My bin overwintered pretty well in my Zone 6a garage, so I'm a happy worm farmer.

The printer is a Voron 2.4, the extruder is a StealthBurner, and the hot end itself is a Rapido MK1. I'm printing Polymaker ASA on a spool that hasn't given me any grief thus far (I last printed with it a few days ago) and am slicing with Orca Slicer.

The printer has about 700 hours on it. In that time, I've run 4.1 km of filament through it. These two prints are two of the three jams I've experienced in that time span. The first print failed on a very similar feature (internal bridge), but on a much much much smaller print. I've printed some pretty long (> 12 hour) parts on this printer with the same brand of filament, and similar settings, without issues although this is the first large "fairly normal polygon with big parallel faces" that I've tried to print.

For all three jams, I was able to release the extruder latch and pull the filament out of the heat brake. There was a blob at the bottom of the filament, which would be too big to get through the orifice in the heat brake (it's a very snug fit on a Rapido). I suspect this is from sitting touching the heat brake for the remaining hour and 50 minutes in the print after the jam occurred. Note to self: install a filament run-out sensor....

There's also always been a little bit of filament left in the hot end. The photo below is what came out after manually pushing it out with a metal rod I got with my i3 clone.

After the first clog on the small print, I reset and the print went off without a hitch. I didn't think about it again until the top print above failed. I decided to swap nozzles just to be safe and bumped my extruder temp up from 230 to 240.

It looks like I might have been under extruding a tad on the third print and/or I need to tune pressure advance. The OG nozzle was plated brass, and I had recently tuned, so if it was starting to wear out then some minor under extrusion with a new/fresh nozzle makes sense.

Here's what the slicer shows as happening on this layer. I am not showing the full layer so you can see it ends with the internal bridge on the lower left. There are a handful of retractions, but they're not very frequent. There is no retraction at the end of the internal bridge before the travel to the start of the next layer.

The next layer starts perimeters first in the lower right hand corner. I don't see evidence of the perimeters starting, so odds are the jam is happening between the two layers.

I have the slicer set to print nearly all features at the same speed, other than overhangs. This is potential correlation #1

I have the fan set to 40% with no cooling for the first 10 layers. However, for overhangs it's going to 80%. This is potential correlation #2

Looking at a graph of what was going on with the extruder, it looks like all is (fairly) well here, at least from a temp perspective. The min PWM value might increase a hair for this layer, but without calculating the average and/or smoothing the line it's hard to eyeball meaningfully. It does appear that the PWM falls off some once the jam occurs.

All ideas and tips welcome!

I've had a few pepper volunteers come up in my seed starts. They're happy little accidents, at least for the time being. Hopefully they wind up producing. Past results have been mixed, but I have the space so I separated them into their own containers.

I have no idea why, but my pepper leaves always turn black under my grow lights. They flip to green once they're outdoors.

Pardon the brim remnants. Not pictured: the many prior iterations. This started as a head on photo that I imported into fusion 360 and scaled after some measuring with calipers. It's not perfect, but it's rapidly approaching good enough. The square indent is to help with orientation - although the part obviously is not symmetrical, it's much harder to judge the home.

I think this is really two questions in one.

First, would you expect Austrian Winter Pea to be winter killed in Zone 6? Maybe I chose a bad cover crop.

Second, now that these things weren't winter killed, what should I do to kill them? I did cut some off at ground level, but it looks like they have leaves all the way down so I'm wary that they will grow back.

Thanks!

Very Specific Objects are a lot of fun, so here's another one.

If you find yourself purchasing a ~~cheapish Amaon RC car~~ Very Fancy DOUBLE E 1:12 Scale Large Remote Control Car Monster Trucks for Boys with Head Lights 4WD Off All Terrain RC Car Rechargeable Vehicles Xmas Gifts for Kids only for its spring perches to get broken one by one, well - I've got a solution for you.

Printables link if anyone thinks this object might apply to them.

While I acknowledge the expectations Ellis tries to set, all the youtubers out there have me chasing a dragon looking for better and better layer aliment on my z-axis. I suspect (at least) one of you will come out of the woodwork and say your printer has better aligned layers than mine too 😭 I'm certainly not alone, but even in that thread you can find some people claiming that not everyone experiences the issue

So far, I've been through three iterations on my CW2:

• BMG gears with a grub screw
• BMG Integrated Drive Gear Assembly (IDGA). Press fit gear = no more grub screw
• FYSETC CNC Pom w/ Helical gears, since evidently the BMG gears can still be somewhat offset

Results below with me hand holding my cellphone and moving a Pixar style desk lamp to be at a progressively steeper angle to the face of the cubes. Left = FYSTEC Pom (I also used Orcaslicer), middle = BMG IDGA, right = 'normal' BMGs. Note that the cubes are upside down.

Vanity shot with very soft and indirect light

Direct light, 90 degrees to the face of the cubes (basically perpendicular)

Direct light, ~45 degrees to the face of the cubes

Direct light, ~5 degrees to the face of the cubes (basically parallel)

At this point, I am going to shrug, give up, and print with fuzz (or avoid harsh light).

I've been chasing inconsistent top layers for a little while when my first layer also started going... very sideways. My printer uses the nozzle to home on a micro switch, which meant that something was probably loose. Initially I was thinking the end stop or carriage, but who would have thought that the printer had shaken the hot end apart over time.

Note to anyone else who runs into this: there is no mechanical stop for those screws and tightening them too far will mash the hot bits into the cold bits. This will cause the hot bits to crimp closed just enough to no longer let filament through. If you find yourself in this situation, find (or buy) a small punch - you can use the taper on a punch to reverse the situation. Don't ask me how I discovered any of this. Why there is no thread lock from the factory, who knows. If anyone reminds me, I'll be sure to let you know how well purple loctite has held up. There's also another screw that goes into the side of the heat break to hold everything in place. That one was loose too.

2.5 hours later: all better!

Lessons learned: multiple, but if you start seeing inconsistent behavior look for a mechanical issue and don't be afraid to tear your printer down.

I liked a few of the VSOs that were posted earlier and wanted to share two of my more recent creations.

This mount screws into an exposed 2x4 and lets me get my Synology DS418, its power brick, and UPS (APC BE600M1) off a table and into a lower dust area of my basement.

I'll upload the STLs to printables if anyone is interested, but be warned that the parts are fairly large.

In the spirit of showing parts under unflattering lighting, here's (nearly) the same angle with a different light source.

I've been body shopping for the past year and a half after taking a hiatus from photography due to having children enter my life. Currently, my 2-3 time a week shooter is a Sony A7III. I rented an X-H2s for a week from lens rentals to try to give the two cameras a shakedown. I'm treating typing this out is my own form of rubber duck debugging, but I'm obviously happy to hear thoughts and feedback as well 🙂

What subjects do I take photographs of?

Currently? A pair of young hyperactive kids and their related activities. My kids are spastic/high energy, and taking candid photos of them while they do their thing is a lot of fun.

Before kids:

After kids:

(don't worry, this isn't one of my kids but it is someone I went to go see with them. I still get to take panning pictures, but instead of cars it's now kids on bikes)

Size and ergonomics

• All the fingers on my totally normal (if-not-somewhat-small) right hand fit on X-H2s's body. I have a Really Right Stuff plate on my A7III just to give my pinky a home. Without it my pinky falls under the camera
• The X-H2s view finder turns on more reliably for me. I wear glasses and am left eye dominant. I find that if I wan the A7III's viewfinder to turn on reliably, my glasses need to be touching it, but I didn't experience that with the X-H2s. Maybe this is due to the difference in the "face sensor" location (on top of the view finder on the A7III, under it on the X-H2s), maybe it's due to the viewfinder protruding more on the X-H2s than the A7III, maybe it's a not-customizable configuration thing. Who knows
• On the A7III, it's not possible for me to see all the information inside the finder (eg ISO, shutter speed, etc) without moving my head around while wearing glasses. The X-H2s was a little better in this regard (the O-M1 is better again). My vision isn't horrible, so I can make do without glasses and the A7III is fine in these circumstances. That said, I am used to wearing glasses whenever I'm awake and tend to take photographs as a secondary activity to the main activity, so I often forget (or don't want to) leave my glasses behind. If I was going on a dedicated photography expedition (say, just me and the camera for the purpose of taking photographs) this probably wouldn't be an issue.

With the base plate on the A7III, the grip's vertical size basically matches that of the X-H2S:

This isn't a great photo, but the X-H2s's viewfinder protrudes further than the A7III's by about a quarter inch or ~6mm. This makes for less nose smashing when you're using the finder, not that this is horrible on the A7III.

point: X-H2s, but with the RRS plate the experience isn't that horrible on the A7III.* I would not be a fan of the A7III without a plate on it. Thankfully, there are plenty of options.

Scenes/Lighting/low light and ISO performance

Before kids, most of my photographs were taken outdoors on sunny days. After kids, I've been taking a lot more photos indoors in places like museums that tend to be dimly lit, in addition to around dusk outdoors. Thankfully, I discovered fast primes. It's really amazing what a fast (f/1.4) lens enables you to do in terms of keeping ISO down - especially if your subjects are moving fairly slowly.

A7III, Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG HSM @ ISO 160, 1/40, f/1.4

I did not take a great A/B comparison of the same scene at the same ISO on both bodies, but thankfully we can use DP review's studio scene comparison tool for that. The X-H2s appears to be about a stop behind the A7III in terms of noise.

That said, I have a few 10,000 ISO photos from my time with the X-H2s that look pretty good to my eyes.

X-H2s, 23mm (35mm FF EQ), ISO 10000, 1/500, f/1.4. No fancy post processing done - this is a SOOTC JPEG.

I do not hesitate to use ISO 12,800 on the A7III.

A7III, 35mm, ISO 12800, 1/25, f/5.6. Dark table processing, but again nothing fancy (eg no AI noise reduction)

point: A7III. There's no replacement for ~~displacement~~ surface area. But again, with a fast lens I've not needed to go above say ISO 5000 very often.

Lens options

• Fuji's benefit from cheaper and potentially smaller glass. The 23mm (35mm FF equivalent) f/1.4 LM WR is $900. For that price you can get a third party (Sigma) 35mm f/1.4 for the A7III, or you can spring for the $1,400 Sony FE 35mm f/1.4 GM. This is true for most any other lens pair. Here are a few examples: $2,500 Sony FE 100-400 vs $800 Fuji 70-300, $1,300 Sony FE 50mm f/1.4 GM vs $899 Fuji 33mm f/1.4 LM WR, etc
• Sony's benefit from excellent third party glass integration, in addition to having a wide and deep catalog of third party glass available. I own a Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG DN and it was really nice to be able to update its firmware through the camera body, just like I would on a Sony lens

Here's a size comparison of the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 vs Fuji's 23mm. Note that the Fuji has a lens filter on it.

Here's the pxlmag view of Sony's 35mm f/1.4 lens, which is smaller than the Sigma, vs the Fuji 23.

Note that this all gets a bit interesting if you're willing to compare slower glass on the Sony vs faster glass on the Fuji, given a f/4 lens on a FF body will still have shallower depth of field than a f/2.8 lens on a APS-C body and the DR/noise advantages a FF sensor will offer.

This pattern continues as you move up in focal length.

point: I'm going to call this largely a wash, with a slight edge for Sony thanks to all the third party glass. Selection = Sony. Size for a given f-number and focal length = Fuji. Size for an equivalent f-number and focal length = Sony. Price = Fuji, but there's some excellent third part glass available for e-mount that rivals or beats Fuji's pricing (see: Sigma's excellent 24-70 f/2.8 for $1,100 vs Fuji's 16-55 f/2.8 for $1,200)

Livability/Likeability

• The X-H2s does a lot of things that culminate in the camera seeming to have more of a soul. A lot of these things revolve around haptics and responsiveness
• The X-H2s turns on quickly and is ready to take a photo nearly immediately. If the A7III has sat for a ~1 day it takes... a while to turn on. If it's only been a few hours, it can still take a few seconds. Flick the camera off and back on? It's not slow, but it's not fast either. This isn't a huge deal, but it can be annoying. The X-H2s turns on nearly immediately. That said, the X-H2s will often miss the first shot taken if you turn it on and try to take a photo right away
• The X-H2s takes a photo very predictably when you poke the shutter button. This is also true if you're manually mashing away at the shutter button in AF-C. I found the A7III's shutter button, using the factory settings (eg half press to focus, press more to take the photo), to be very vague/mushy/unpredictable. Interestingly, if configure the A7III for back button focusing, it suddenly becomes very responsive with BBF. I have no idea why this would be the case. This is independent of focus priority setting on the A7III
• This might sound silly, but the X-H2s's mechanical shutter is way more satisfying. It's quiet/well damped and unobtrusive. The A7III has an authoritative thawunk shutter sound. It's not obnoxious per-say, but it is very much there. Before anyone says this is due to FF shutters being physically larger than APS-C shutters, the Z6II has a very satisfying mechanical. Newer Sony bodies are less obtrusive, but Sony tends to be louder than Nikon FF by a wide gap. Between the X-H2s's faster readout (eg ability to use e-shutter more often) and quieter mechanical shutter (to deal with the occasional scenario where the e-shutter is struggling), the X-H2s is significantly less likely to intrude on the moment. Even without the faster electronic shutter, this would still be the case (eg with the X-H2)
• The X-H2s UI is more luddite proof. For example, it will you which wheel controls what in "m" mode and which direction to turn for a given outcome. IMO this is somewhat unnecessary once you're familiar with the camera, but it is still somewhat nice - especially if you're not super familiar with the camera or don't use it very often
• The EVF and screen on the X-H2s are way nicer than the A7III. It's true that the A7III is an older body, but if you want a nicer EVF on a FF Sony you're looking at something like the A7RV, A1, or A9III which are all priced significantly higher than the X-H2s. The A7III is totally serviceable, but who doesn't like a sharper/brighter/more color accurate display?

Point: X-H2s. It's really hard to dislike this camera

Geo location (via companion applications)

I personally really like having GPS coordinates embedded in my photos' EXIF data. I've been spoiled by both my D5300 (internal GPS!!) and smartphones over the years. It seems like basically all camera bodies from the past 4-5 years or so rely on a smart phone to provide location information.

Without actively doing anything, I found that my phone provided location information faster to the A7III than on the X-H2s. Sony's app also doesn't ask for precise location by default and its persistent notification lets you easily know when it will (or won't) work (due to Android relegating it to a background task, an update, etc). I didn't spend enough time with the X-H2s get to know the app that intimately, but the Sony app does just work - at least on my Pixel 3a.

That said, I really like that the X-H2s retains its prior location setting for a configurable amount of time. For example, if you're walking around for a few hours, turning the camera off and on as you go, you don't have to wait for bluetooth to connect again before you get geo data in your EXIF data. This is not the case on the A7III - it will not retain its prior location information. I could probably adjust my habits to accommodate the camera better (eg leave the camera on all the time when I'll be using it sporadically for a few hours), but I don't know if this will fully resolve my concern.

Point: X-H2s for the memory function

Autofocus/AF-C/Face and eye detection/AF intuitiveness

• It's hard to understate how reliable the AF-C is on the A7III. If there's a green square on my intended subject, I can trust that green square to be in focus basically all the time. If I miss the shot it's because of something like my shutter speed being too low. That doesn't mean that the A7III will will always focus where I want it to, but it will always tell me where it is currently focused so I can intervene if necessary (eg change focus size/area, etc). I've missed very few, if any, shots on the A7III due to false positives. Missed shots tend to either be caused by too slow of a shutter or my subject moving at a very high speed
• The X-H2s finds faces and eyes further away than the A7III, or at least does a better job taking credit for them. For further away subjects, the A7III will usually prioritize faces/eyes/heads/humans, but won't always give you the visual indicator of "I know this is a face/eye". It doesn't have a way of saying, "I know this is a head/human" due to not having subject detection
• I've taken a number of photos on the X-H2s that it thinks should have been in focus, but were actually out of focus, despite being set to focus priority. As a percentage, this is not a huge number, but it's not in the approaching zero territory of the A7III
• In general, I did find [the X-H2s's AF-C performance to be pretty good). Certainly better than the Z6II if you value faces and eyes
• IMO, face/eye detection makes a lot more sense on the A7III. If you're in focus area wide on the A7III, you just kind of point the camera at that face/eye you want to prioritize, press your chosen focus button, and you're off. If you're in the zone focus area, the A7IIII will only prioritize faces/eyes in that zone. If the X-H2s finds a face literally anywhere in the frame, it will focus on that face - regardless of what your focus box is telling it. I do sometimes wish the zones were on the A7III were little smaller (a-la Nikon's mirrorless offerings) or could be sized dynamically (a-la Olympus and Fuji). I find the flexible spot to be a little too small
• Being able to dynamically size the focus area while moving it around with the joystick on the X-H2s is a nice feature that's not present on the A7III

Sony A7III AF-C at work, even though it didn't indicate that it detected a face it still focused on the head

X-H2s saying, "I totally have focus" without actually having focus

Related to the above: I have no idea what website I used for that and would love to find it again.

That's not to say that the X-H2s fails to focus all the time or can't handle moving things

Point: A7III

Colors

• I'll edit a RAW if I have to, and do shoot RAW+JPEG, but I'm lazy and time is limited. Therefore, good enough SOOTC JPEGs = a win for me
• I find the A7III's SOOTC JPEGs pretty color accurate, if not a little boring
• People prefer Fuji's JPEGs. I'm honestly a bit on the fence here. I find them somewhat too stylized for my liking and after shooting the A7III for a year and a half I can pick out Nikon vs Sony SOOTC JPEGs on my digital picture frame pretty reliably. Fuji's SOOTC colors seem a little over the top to me, but that's not to say that I can't see their appeal

I think it's worth saying that the raws seem to be basically the same, so if you're a raw shooter this is a moot point. Below are two minimally processed raw files. I'll leave it to you to figure out which is from which camera, although I did inadvertently blow ISO in one of them while ensuring depth of field was the same. Thankfully, you can't really tell :) Maybe that just speaks to the strengths of modern sensors.

And here's a pair of SOOTC JPEGs with zero care/attempt made to make their settings comparable. If anything this shows that SOOTC JPEGs are very variable. I will say that both cameras offer a good base for SOOTC JPEG tweaing/tuning. The A7III below is a bit over the top, but I generally found the inverse to be true when shooting more 'normal' profiles.

A7III

X-H2s

point: tie, especially depending on your preference

#So... which do I prefer?

Well, once my rental was over I did return it. I've been somewhat hunting for a good quality, and well priced, used X-H2s for a few months now to try a "long term rental", but I'm very on the fence about it. It's really hard to beat the way Sony AF works, both in terms of hit rate and control ("I want you to find faces and eyes, but only in this area of the frame. Ignore all other faces outside this area please"). That said, I do hesitate to use the A7III in some situations because of its loud shutter. Maybe I should look at the A9...