Category: DIY

Ode to the 3D Printer in the Sunlit Workshop

My new Creality K2 Plus has been working overtime lately, and between the scent of PLA and the soft sound of the extruder, I found myself inspired 😛 This little poem is a love letter to that moment — where technology meets sunlight and imagination.

In the hum of gears and quiet clicks,
the printer sings — a hymn of molten dreams.
Filament threads through polished brass,
a river of corn and code intertwined.

Outside, the sun spills gold through glass,
balcony air dances with faint sweet resin.
The scent — half nature, half invention —
a whisper of fields reborn as form.

Here, man and machine conspire in light,
to summon shapes from nothing but heat and will.
Each layer, a heartbeat; each pause, a breath —
proof that creation still hums in mortal hands.

And when the print is done,
and the room falls quiet but alive,
it smells a little of corn,
and a lot like the future.

Happy printing to you all 🙂

Presonus Eris 3.5 Repair | Crackling / Popping / Hissing noises!

My barely 3-year-old Presonus Eris 3.5 monitors have started making crackling, popping, and hissing noises—depending on their mood!

Two capacitors have gone bad, and the local distributor asked for $200 for the repair, whereas a new pair nowadays costs only $100.

The distributor in a neighbouring country mentioned that there’s no service available for these monitors, claiming they are ‘commercially developed in a production line,’ although the meaning behind that statement is a bit unclear to me.

It seems they might be suggesting that these monitors are mass-produced and not designed for individual repair or servicing. I don’t see how that can be the case, but let’s move along, like obedient citizens in a world of placebo abundance 😀

If you’re facing a similar problem and have access to a soldering iron (or know someone who does :P), consider replacing the two brown capacitors with 24v 1000μF ones, or any other bulging in the cap ones that seem suspect. Good new parts are available everywhere nowadays and cost less than 50cents each…

The problematic capacitors in my case were the bulging brown ones marked with the purple arrows in the following image.

Needless to say, if you decide to tackle the project, do so at your own risk. The circuit involves a high current mains side, so take all necessary precautions to protect yourself.

Have a good one!

Calculator – Cutting large radius on a mill

Milling a large radius on a milling machine does not have to be limited by the size of the rotary table.


When tilting the head of the mill with a large cutter, be it a boring bar, fly cutter etc, the resulting cut is an ellipsis. This technique has been used for a long time by machinists before PC’s, CNC’s and other technological aids made their appearance in the industry.

The problem (or not 🙂 depending on the specifications tolerances) with the existing literature (such as the Machinery’s Handbook and others) is that the formula being used assumes that the desired width of said large radius is 0!

The following calculator averages the angle required to accommodate the width as well to provide a better approximation. By using the following calculator you can approximate a true circle radius with an accuracy of few microns.

Check it out – Large radius milling calculator

Find the detailed equations/maths for it here by Dr. Dimitris Skliros

Have fun!

DIY Motorized Focuser for FSQ 106ED Telescope

The goal of this project was for the automated focusing system to have great holding torque (80Ncm) for heavy image trains (4-5kg) and very fine steps to accommodate the super tight FSQ106 critical focus zone.

The formula to calculate the critical focus zone on a telescope is :
CFZ = Focal Ratio * Focal Ratio * 2.2
For the FSQ106ED we have : CFZ = 5 * 5 * 2.2 = 55microns
So to be able to have perfect focus achieved we need every step on the motor to be 55microns or less for even better resolution.

The motor used on this build is geared and has a reduction of 250:3 which gives us 4000 steps per revolution.

One full revolution on the focuser coarse knob (where we are coupling our motor) makes the focuser move 29.8mm.
Now we have all the data we can do the maths 😛
(29.8mm * 1000) / 4000 = 7.45 microns per step.

The actual resolution achieved with this build is 7.45 microns per motor step!