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Absolutely not. No present computer can be built from scratch. The bootloader and microcode are proprietary. People slapping parts into a case are not building anything. No one can read the datasheets and build a machine like Woz, for some unethical asshat like Jobs to steal. The hardware is undocumented at this level and is now propriety because of a culture of moral decay. When x86 got established, it was only because it was open source with full documentation, and not only that, it was required to be second and third sourced to ensure no one could manipulate customers even with just the sourcing. That culture of never trusting companies and accountability is dead.

Trust, required for proprietary products, is feudalism. Ultimately that loss of ownership rights is a coup against democracy itself when normalized in culture. This is a dystopian world I recognize for its broad implications for a terrible dystopian future and wholly reject. I can only affect change in myself, and tell others. It is a complicated balance.

I will not hesitate to speak up with my personal opinion. However, my personal opinion is not a moderator here. I really should edit the community details to make my position clear. I have a policy of very conservative moderation. I have communicated to other mods and mentioned openly that my policy towards moderation is to never take actions when I am involved in a conversation. I will defer to other mods if ever necessary.

My personal opinions hold no sway over moderation here. Guerilla marketing is prohibited, but determining so in practice follows a set of undisclosed rules that will remain undisclosed to avoid gaming them.

I am only human. I can be easy to dislike by many, so I am told anecdotally. I'm very abstract in my thinking and reasoning. One of the positives to such an abstracted personality is that I am, I believe, more capable than average of disconnecting my internal sense of morality and beliefs from my actions in judgment of others. I value the idealized judge I wish I had, altruistically, in the actions I take for or against others far more than enforcing any internal emotional perspective I retain. In other words, I care about the community members more than my principals that are intended to better said community. I will never attempt to hurt the community to shape it to my will or dilutions of an ideologue incapable of adjusting to reality, even dystopia.

As a person, I'll never shut up or stop pointing out that proprietary is the refuge of criminal thieves and cowards. That it is selling yourself and ultimately citizenship and democracy in the biggest picture. However, as a moderator I welcome all to share their experiences in 3d printing, completely unhindered and openly. I will not stop them from sharing in any way, but I will not silence those that object for moral reasons either, so long as both sides remain respectful and positive overall. Hopefully that clearly defines my stance and puts any doubts to rest.

There is no reason to worry about the ambiguity of that moderator tag here. I engaged, therefore in this place, by my own rules, I am not a mod in this instance or any other similar instance. I will always tell users directly if I question or engage as a moderator, and this is only applicable in instances where I am not already involved. As a mod, I am only here as the janitor to herd bots and sort out issues like bigotry. The community is just as much yours as it is mine as a mod and as a user. As a fellow human, I do not matter here any more than you.

I tried to relate the limited niche where having closer together gearing makes a noticeable difference. Unless you are operating in a very small margin, you will never notice having close together gearing. I only ever noticed the difference with racing where I'm on the edge of blowing up throughout the entire race and happen to feel like I'm on a knife's edge and spinning a little too fast or slow to hang on for more than a few minutes, and comparing times on a given route and pulling a few minutes out of an hours long route. In all other instances, having more range has been better for me. So I prefer to have as wide as my drivetrain supports. If I have any choice, I prefer a tighter set of low gears and a bailout final cassette cog.

Sorry if the abstraction is hard to ground in your understanding. Broadly speaking, this is how I setup any bike. I wouldn't worry about the total, and would start with the widest cassette that will work with your current setup. Then I would only change the front chainring if you still feel a lack of top speed. In my experience, only the standard combinations and matched group sets shift really well at a racing or top performance level. The more unconventional setups can be made to work reliably but shift speed and shifting under load become lower quality in ways that are not worth the compromise. There are subtle elements like how the front derailleur cable is routed that are designed for a specific combination. While it may seem trivial, in practice I have seen issues from moving a derailleur up or down significantly beyond normalcy, or changing a chain line, or even tooth profiles between models of chainrings.

Back in the days before indexed shifting, people often played a lot more with gearing, but the issues are different with friction shifting, as are the shifting performance and expectations. This is why people do not generally alter gearing in the same way any more.

The entire hobby should have started in the 1980's. It did not because of proprietary anti competitive cowards. RepRap and Adrian Bowyer created the entire 3d printing hobby and community. The whole thing only exists because of these. The exploitation of this community is the only issue I care about. I will call out thieves every time. You may love stollen goods. I can't change your ethics. I will not call them reasonable or morally right.

In know the history of 3d printing and why I got involved. Bambu changed everything for the worst and forced everyone to lower expectations and business practices. They have been the most toxic community influence to date. Proprietary theft is criminal.

It is a response in the exact same tone I read, and this is exactly how In felt as well. I'm glad that point was clearly made. I did not start that.

It is just a wire and connector. That isn't Prusa. If it was a bambu you would be buying a new printer without an upgrade path, and since a new printer came out, your old suddenly stops working right like some Apple product. Believe it or not, bambu printers have connectors, likely from the same global supplier too.

The quick fix is to remove the connector from both sides, yes the female too. Then solder the connection directly. You can add some hot glue for strain relief. You'll still likely have the other side of the connector. If not, who cares, "it just works."

I know it is a pain, and irritating, Prusa wiring is probably the weakest link. I redid pretty much every wire to make them exactly to length and routed properly when building my MK3 because it bugged me.

I would not try to crimp a new terminal properly given your admission of mechanical ability. Getting a good crimp with a small connector is tricky without experience. It would be easier to order the same connector wire precrimped and replace the end of the wire. Then do a splice a few inches higher. Or just order the parts.

If you need to replace a pin on the PCB, it MUST be done carefully or you'll lift a trace. It is a job that should be done with a full soldering station. However I could do it with a candle and a nail in a zombie apocalypse. The trick is in only barely heating the pin enough to melt the solder completely. That requires a soldering iron tip with as much heat mass as possible so that you do not need too much heat to compensate for the temp drop upon contact. If none of this makes sense, just buy the replacement parts.

Sorry for the bad day, seriously.

I have too many lithium polymer batteries in my spares drawer to justify buying. I think they are easier to design into 3d prints and make more sleek projects with. The cylindrical cell and holder creates a size constraint for your projects. That constraint is not super convenient when used with circuit boards. If you get something like an ESP32 board that includes a batman chip, it is quite easy to find a lipo that fits in the same form factor and is very compact in my experience. I tend to make things over engineered to the point I don't finish a lot of them though, so perhaps a cylindrical cell in a larger enclosure would get more projects completed.

NVCC is still proprietary and full of telemetry. You cannot build CUDA without it.

Xi

Ethically, it is probably a holy grail. Plants are showing more and more signs of awareness within their environment. It seems all complex life basically is a vessel for a microbiome in recent research.

The only time I rode with close gearing was crit racing. I rode standard 53/39 11-28 through the 8-11 speed eras on road most of the time. That worked well for pretty much everywhere for me. I can get away with never using my inner ring so long as the slopes stay below 6 degrees. When I first started commuting hardcore, I rode a 55/39 with a dura ace triple FD and a range of everything from 11-21 - 11/23 - 11/25 - 11/28.

You need to know your rear derailleur capacity to know what will potentially fit.

Unless you're trying to improve your times on a 66 mile round trip daily commute to work, or racing where the differences between riders is miniscule and the perfect gear to sit on a wheel might make of break your race, I would go for the widest possible range your FD/RD can handle. You'll never regret having the extra easier or harder gear to pedal in. If you are never pedaling down hill or in a tailwind, skip the hardest end. If you never see a climb skip the easier. If you like to explore and go wherever life takes you, keep your range as wide as possible. If you do not have the ideal comfortable gear, spin the lighter one faster and consider it cadence training. If you keep at it, within a few weeks you will begin to have a faster average cadence. This is part of race training as higher cadences are more efficient overall. Some people train on a fixed gear or single speed at times to push themselves to higher cadences in unique ways.