This is the third post in my 3D-printing series. The first article covered the story of how I got into 3D printing and how my printers evolved over time. The second article covered the bigger lessons. This one is the project archive: the actual prints, fixes, experiments, and favorite builds.

Most of these projects originally showed up as posts, follow-ups, or little experiments shared in the PrinterKnowledge community, which is part of why this article works well as the catalog companion to the first two.

Jump to: Gifts, Awards, and Display Pieces | Workshop and Organization | Car, Bike, and Gear Accessories | Printer Accessories and Mods | Fun Prints and Experiments | Household Fixes

Gifts, Awards, and Display Pieces

Chicken Trophy Award ³⁰

Reason: A BackYardChickens member hit 100,000 posts, and I wanted something much more personal than a generic trophy.

Notes: I built the trophy from a mix of source models, a scanned chicken silhouette, custom text, and a lot of manual color swaps. The base was weighted first with copper BBs dropped into large infill cavities during the print, then later improved with a cleaner internal pocket for tire weights when I made additional versions.³¹ By the time I was printing the third major version, I was still refining orientation and weighting details.³²

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Workshop and Organization

Pegboard Tool Wall ²³

Reason: I wanted the wall above my workbench to fit my actual tools instead of settling for generic hooks and clutter.

Notes: I ended up spending days designing and printing holders for drills, sockets, Allen wrenches, a flashlight, a tape measure, and a bunch of small containers. It took far longer than buying off-the-shelf hardware, but the result fit everything perfectly and even helped me get rid of duplicate tools that had been sitting around for years.

Early Filament Dryer Hack ²⁰

Reason: I started noticing filament problems and wanted a quick way to dry a spool without buying a dedicated solution.

Notes: I turned a twenty-plus-year-old dehydrator, cardboard, and clear plastic into a temporary filament dryer. It was crude, but it worked well enough to prove that filament moisture deserved more attention than I had been giving it.

Temporary Bag-Style Dry Box ²¹

Reason: I wanted a stopgap dry storage solution while I figured out what a more permanent box should look like.

Notes: This was my total ghetto version: a zipper bag, a Bowden tube passing through printed ports, and a desiccant box inside. It was temporary, but it was also one of those classic 3D-printing setups where a quick ugly solution taught me exactly what the more permanent version needed.

Dual-Spool Dry Box ²²

Reason: I needed a cleaner long-term way to store filament, feed it directly, and keep an eye on humidity.

Notes: This build combined an airtight box, bearings, spool hubs, a PTFE exit port, desiccant, and hygrometers. It worked well, but it also taught me that the whole feed path matters, not just the humidity number inside the box.

“Just in Case” Mini Case ²⁴

Reason: I saw the design, liked the joke, and printed a quick slim version because it was too fun not to.

File: Printables file

Notes: This is the kind of small side print I would not build an article around, but it belongs in the project archive because it captures the lighter side of the hobby well.

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Car, Bike, and Gear Accessories

Mazda 6 Coin Dispenser Tray ²⁵

Reason: My Mazda 6 had no good coin tray, and the first thing I tried was not robust or quiet enough.

File: Thingiverse project

Notes: I went through multiple designs before landing on a spring-loaded dispenser that actually felt right in the car. After the first version, I also adjusted the tray height, narrowed the body, and added a backstop so loading coins one-handed would be easier.²⁶

Tesla Model 3 Console Tray / Charge Adapter Holder ²⁷

Reason: I wanted one part that could hold the Tesla charge adapter, coins, ChapStick, and a small tool without rolling around in the console.

File: Thingiverse project

Notes: I got the charge-adapter profile by scanning it on a flatbed scanner, cleaning the shape up in Photoshop, importing it as an SVG into Tinkercad, and then building the whole tray around that geometry. This is one of the most me projects in the whole set.

Bike Handlebar Adapter ²⁸

Reason: New handlebars left me with thicker mounting areas and less room for the gear I wanted to attach.

Notes: I designed a clamp-style adapter in Onshape so I could bridge from the thicker section of the handlebar to the smaller accessory mount. The follow-up discussion also turned into a useful material question, because I was still deciding whether the finished version should stay in PLA, move to TPU, or end up in something more outdoor-friendly like PETG.²⁹

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Printer Accessories and Mods

Early Monoprice Utility Prints ¹⁴

Reason: One of the first things I loved about 3D printing was using the machine to print things that made the machine itself better.

Files: Control dial extension, razor blade holder, filament dust filter, filter bar

Notes: This cluster of prints came almost immediately after my first useful print on the Monoprice and set the tone for a lot of what came later: practical, small, and weirdly satisfying because the printer was helping improve itself.¹⁵

Monoprice Fan Cover & LED Light ¹⁶

Reason: I was tired of holding a flashlight to watch the first layer go down.

Source: Based on a remix of this snap-on fan cover

Notes: I added an arm that aimed toward the nozzle, angled holes for the LEDs, and wire clips along the side so the light would travel with the hotend and spotlight the exact area I cared about most.

CR-10 Modular Tool Holder ¹⁷

Reason: I wanted a tool holder that fit the CR-10 better than the original Monoprice setup and that I could keep customizing.

Source: Inspired by this modular holder

Notes: I extended and changed the original idea, moved it to a better position on the printer, and added custom holders that slid onto the rails. It was basically a tiny pegboard-on-rails system attached right to the machine.

Ender 3 V2 LED Light Bar ¹⁸

Reason: I wanted better visibility around the nozzle without depending on overhead room lighting.

Source: Fang duct based on this duct

Notes: I printed a glow-in-the-dark fang duct, paired it with oversized fans I could undervolt, and then designed my own LED arm in Onshape so the light would stay close to the nozzle without getting in the way.

Big Nozzle Experiment ¹⁹

Reason: I am impatient by nature, so bigger nozzles were always tempting as a way to print faster.

File: Test model based on this design

Notes: I spent about a year being too nervous to change the nozzle, then jumped straight to a 1.0 mm nozzle just to see what would happen. The thick extrusion was hilarious, some layer heights were obviously too silly, and I ended up settling on a 0.6 mm nozzle as the most practical result of the experiment.

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Fun Prints and Experiments

Cat Toy Set ³³

Reason: I wanted some lightweight prints that would actually be fun for the cat rather than just fun for me to model.

Notes: This started with a downloaded ball toy that had a loose ball trapped inside, then quickly evolved into a wobble toy that I designed in Tinkercad with room for weights, string, and feathers. The progression from downloaded toy to scratch-built toy is a pretty good snapshot of how I tend to use 3D printing when a project starts getting more interesting.³⁴³⁵

My First Totally Useless Print ³⁶

Reason: After a long streak of highly functional prints, I finally decided to print something that was absolutely useless just because it amused me.

File: Thingiverse model

Notes: Even this one was hard for me to leave completely alone. I scaled it down, added a magnet in the bottom to keep it weighted and in place, and of course appreciated that I already had the right filament colors sitting in the dry box.

Failproof Fidget Cube ³⁷

Reason: I wanted a fun print that would actually get used instead of just sitting around looking clever.

File: Thingiverse model

Notes: We printed two of these on the CR-10 and my girls immediately claimed them. I even customized one in Tinkercad by embossing my daughter’s name and bunny ears into one side, which made it a good early example of how quickly I started personalizing other people’s models instead of printing them completely stock.

Ghost With Tongue ³⁸

Reason: Sometimes I just wanted an easy, funny print that showed how satisfying a goofy little model could be.

File: Thingiverse model

Notes: I printed this one at 50 percent scale with a 0.6 mm nozzle and 0.3 mm layers, which made it a quick reminder that not every satisfying print has to be ambitious. It was just a super easy, low-effort print that came out better than it had any right to.

Wolf Costume: Claws, Fangs, and Ears ³⁹

Reason: My date for a party wanted to be Red Riding Hood, which made wolf the only answer that felt worth doing.

Notes: I designed claws in Tinkercad, hollowed them so my fingertips would fit inside, printed wolf ears with magnets so they would mount cleanly to a hat, and even made printed fangs using moldable plastic impressions of my teeth as the base. It was one of the clearest examples of 3D printing letting me skip a generic store-bought costume and build something much more personal and specific instead.

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Household Fixes

First Custom Toilet Seat Nut ¹

Reason: I wanted my first real design to solve an actual problem instead of making random trinkets.

Notes: I built this in Tinkercad before the printer even arrived by importing an existing nut, building a polygon body around it, and then merging in a wingnut shape so I could tighten it by hand. A quick test print later showed the geometry idea was good, but the actual bolt size was wrong, which was a pretty good early introduction to calipers and iteration.²

Custom 2-Gang Wall Plate ⁶

Reason: I was combining two switches into one smarter Wi-Fi-controlled setup and needed a specific wall plate that was not worth buying.

File: Thingiverse project

Notes: I customized a wall-plate model, printed it, then refined it with thicker walls and slower settings so the installed version would look better. The finished cover used only about 19 grams of filament, which worked out to roughly twenty-three cents in plastic cost at the time.⁷

Filebox Cam Lock Lever Latch ⁸

Reason: A decades-old folding file box had broken latches, which made the lid handle basically useless.

Notes: I remixed an existing latch design, built a better arm in Tinkercad for my specific box, and even used pieces of filament as pins before melting and flattening the ends to lock everything together. It ended up feeling much stronger and more satisfying than I expected, and at the time it felt like one of my most rewarding practical projects.⁹

Crest-to-Colgate Toothpaste Transfer Adapter ¹⁰

Reason: I wanted to refill a travel-size Crest tube using Colgate toothpaste and needed an adapter to marry the two thread types.

File: Thingiverse adapter

Notes: I printed and tested two existing adapters individually, then merged them in Tinkercad so they would work together. This is one of those delightfully specific prints that nobody would ever mass-market well enough to make it worth buying.

Sugar & Salt Measured Dispenser / Neti-Pot Lid ¹¹

Reason: I wanted a clean measured-pour lid for dry ingredients and neti-pot solution mixing.

File: Printables remix

Notes: I rarely post remixes, so the fact that I posted this one says a lot. It is a good late-stage example of the kind of useful, small, specific print that still feels worth making years into the hobby.

SodaStream TPU Gasket ¹²

Reason: My girlfriend’s SodaStream was leaking badly and the original gasket had apparently vanished.

Notes: I measured the opening with calipers, modeled a replacement O-ring in Tinkercad, mocked it up in PLA first, and then printed the final version in TPU. It worked perfectly as a repair, which made it one of the most satisfying first-TPU prints I did. Later, after finding the original part, I could see that the TPU version had compressed and lost its bounceback over time, which turned it into a good lesson in long-term material behavior as well.¹³

Toilet Seat / Bidet Spacer ³

Reason: Adding a bidet raised the seat and left a gap between the seat bumper and the bowl.

Notes: I scanned the original bumper, cleaned the shape up in Photoshop, imported it into Tinkercad, and iterated until I had a spacer that fit correctly while still keeping the feel of the original rubberized bumper. It was one of the most satisfying projects I did because it turned an annoying little household fitment problem into a clean custom fix. It was also fun seeing Chuck pin my comment on his video after I used his scan-to-Tinkercad approach.⁴ Later on I reprinted a stronger version with higher infill and more walls once one of the lightweight test versions broke.⁵

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Between this catalog and the first two articles, the goal is that the bigger story, the bigger lessons, and most of the actual printed work all have a place to live without any one article having to do every job at once.

If you want the full story behind how I got into 3D printing and how my printers changed over time, go back to the first article. If you want the bigger takeaways on materials, CAD, workflow, and what the hobby actually taught me, that is in the second article.

What 3D Printing Actually Turned Out to Be for Me

What surprised me most about 3D printing is that the novelty wore off pretty quickly, but the usefulness did not. The part that stuck was the ability to design and print my way out of little annoyances, broken parts, awkward gaps, weird fitment issues, and all the other problems that are either hard to buy for or not worth buying a whole commercial solution for. That is the thread running through almost everything I have enjoyed most about this hobby. I really did start out wanting to keep my printing limited to things I actually needed, and over time I realized I had also become the kind of person who was always tempted to see whether I could fix something with a 3D print.¹²

That is also why I still think about this hobby less in terms of printer specs and more in terms of how often it has helped me solve real problems. Years into it, I was still saying that I was constantly amazed at how many situations I had solved just by having a 3D printer sitting nearby. That still feels like the clearest summary of why this hobby lasted for me.³

A lot of those lessons got pressure-tested over time in the PrinterKnowledge community, where I could bounce ideas off other people, compare what was working, and keep refining how I thought about materials, workflow, and practical prints.

This article is deliberately curated rather than exhaustive. The broader project catalog lives in the third article, so this one can stay focused on the bigger lessons, the experiences that shaped how I print, and the projects that best illustrate those points. If you want the full chronology of how I got from the Monoprice to where I am now, that is in the first article.

The First Layer Really Does Decide Everything

One of the earliest things I learned was that bed adhesion is not a minor detail. It really is one of the most critical and frequently difficult parts of successful 3D printing. Early on, my preference was heavily shaped by impatience. I was mostly printing PLA, I did not want to wait around for a heated bed, and I cared a lot more about repeatable results than about doing things the fashionable way. For a long time that meant blue painter’s tape on a cold bed, a slightly squished first layer, and a brim when I needed extra insurance on tall or narrow prints.⁴

Eventually I gave glue-on-glass another real try and finally understood why people kept recommending it. The key detail turned out not to be just glue in the abstract, but the actual glue. After comparing Elmer’s purple glue against cheap dollar-store glue on the same bed, it became obvious that the Elmer’s worked dramatically better. Once I switched over fully, the combination of glue on a Home Depot mirror gave me an almost absurdly reliable first layer on a cold bed. I could get a lot of prints without constantly refreshing the surface, and removing parts was easier than it had been with tape.⁵⁶

By 2022, I could summarize the entire adhesion progression pretty cleanly: blue painter’s tape on bare metal, then glue stick on cold glass for years, then finally PEI on spring steel. That PEI move felt like a mature version of everything I had been chasing before. The textured side liked more heat and gave the nice self-release effect once it cooled. The smooth side was more forgiving for smaller prints. It did not make experimentation disappear, but it did make the whole process feel more stable and less improvised. The lesson was not that there is one perfect build surface. It was that every surface is a tradeoff, and the right answer is the one that works reliably for the way you actually print.⁷⁸

Filament Taught Me That Storage Matters

I do not burn through filament nearly as fast as some people do, which meant I ran into moisture and brittleness issues fairly early. That turned into one of the more practical parts of my 3D-printing education. First I hacked together a filament-drying setup using a 20-plus-year-old dehydrator, some cardboard, and clear plastic from a two-liter soda bottle. Then I made a temporary bag-style dry box with a Bowden tube passing through sealed ports. After that I built a proper box with bearings, dowels, desiccant, and hygrometers so I could keep full spools dry while still feeding filament out of the enclosure.⁹¹⁰¹¹

What I learned from all of that is that storage is not just about low humidity in theory. It is about the whole path from spool to extruder. At one point I solved one problem and created another because I had too much Bowden tube and too much drag in the feed path. On top of that, older filament can still become brittle, especially when it is tighter on the inner part of the roll and has to bend more sharply as it feeds. So the lesson was not just keep filament dry. It was keep it dry, keep the path simple, and do not forget that age and winding tension can still bite you.¹²¹³¹⁴

Materials, Safety, and Risk Tolerance

Another thing that became clearer over time is that I do not think about 3D-printing safety in absolutes. I never jumped into ABS early because I had no enclosure and my printer was sitting in a tiny office where I spent most of the day. That was enough to make me cautious before I even got into the chemistry or emissions side of the discussion. More than once I found myself coming back to the same basic idea: people make risk decisions in all kinds of areas of life, but the important thing is to make those decisions based on decent information rather than vague assumptions.¹⁵¹⁶¹⁷

That same mindset showed up in smaller decisions too. Years later, when I posted a sugar-and-salt measured dispenser remix for a mason jar lid, I did not pretend PLA was universally food-safe in every possible use. I just looked at the actual use case: dry materials, relatively inhospitable environment for bacteria growth, and a level of risk that I personally felt comfortable taking. That is more or less how I think about a lot of 3D-printing decisions now. Not zero-risk fantasy, not panic, just tradeoffs and context.¹⁸¹⁹

Learning to Design Changed the Value of the Hobby

At the very beginning, I was still trying to understand the whole chain of creation. First create the part, then slice it, then print it. Tinkercad was the perfect gateway drug for that stage. It was free, web-based, easy to learn, and approachable enough that I immediately liked it. I could tell right away that it was opening the door to creating useful things without forcing me into a deep engineering-software rabbit hole on day one.²⁰²¹

It also did not take long to run into its limits. I remember being frustrated that I could not even measure the distance between two points in a model. That was the beginning of the long push toward more capable CAD tools. The funny thing is that I put that off for years because I was honestly afraid of it. I thought parametric CAD would be over my head. What finally got me moving was following along with a handful of build-with-me videos and realizing I did not need to understand everything at once. Once I got over that mental wall, I wished I had started sooner.²²²³²⁴

At the same time, one of the most useful lessons I learned is that the best CAD tool depends on the job. Onshape became much more powerful for exact-fit parts and more sophisticated geometry, but I still found myself running back to Tinkercad whenever I needed something quick and dirty or whenever the job was simple enough that speed mattered more than elegance. That is still how I think about design software now. The goal is not to prove loyalty to a platform. The goal is to make the part and solve the problem.²⁵²⁶²⁷

TPU, PEI, and the Difference Between a Successful Print and a Lasting Part

I built TPU up in my head for a while before I actually tried it. I bought a roll of Overture TPU, assumed I would probably struggle on a stock Ender 3 V2 with a Bowden setup, and basically went into the experiment expecting frustration. That turned out to be a good reminder that sometimes the internet makes a process sound more impossible than it really is, especially if the part you are printing is simple and the use case is well matched to the material.²⁸

The project that finally pushed me into TPU was a leaking SodaStream. The original gasket had gone missing, so I measured what I needed with calipers, modeled a replacement O-ring in Tinkercad, mocked it up in PLA first, and then slowed everything way down for the TPU print. I printed on a PEI sheet with a lot of glue stick, kept the speeds at 20 mm/s, and the result was almost suspiciously easy. The final gasket worked perfectly in the machine and felt like one of those moments where the right material really did open up a new category of useful fix.²⁹³⁰

The more useful lesson came later. The gasket worked, but when I eventually found the original and compared them, the TPU version had compressed and lost a lot of its bounceback. That is a perfect example of the difference between a successful print and a durable long-term part. Getting something to print is one milestone. Understanding how it behaves under load, compression, heat, time, and repeated use is a different one.³¹

The Prints That Best Show Why I Love 3D Printing

These are some of the projects that best explain why the hobby stuck for me. I cover them here because they illustrate bigger lessons, but I put the more complete project-by-project archive in the third article.

The Toilet Seat / Bidet Spacer

This is still one of my favorite examples of why 3D printing is worth the trouble. I had a cheap bidet attachment on a toilet where the seat no longer rested correctly against the bowl. Instead of living with the gap or trying to find some weird off-the-shelf spacer, I looked at the existing bumper, scanned it, cleaned up the image in Photoshop, imported it into Tinkercad, and started building the geometry I needed around it. I went through multiple iterations, kept refining the shape, and ended up with a part that solved the exact problem cleanly. It was one of the most satisfying projects I did because it combined scanning, CAD, fitment, iteration, and real daily usefulness.³²³³³⁴

The Wall Plate and the Pegboard Wall

The two-gang wall plate was a smaller project, but it captures a lot of what I like about functional printing. I needed a very specific switch cover because I was combining two controls into one smarter setup. I could have bought something close enough, but instead I customized a model, printed it, and ended up with exactly what I needed. The finished part cost about twenty-three cents worth of plastic. Even better, I iterated once more, thickened things up, slowed the print down, and got a version that looked noticeably better when installed.³⁵³⁶

The pegboard project took that same idea and scaled it way up. I spent days designing and printing custom holders for drills, sockets, Allen wrenches, a flashlight, a tape measure, and a bunch of other tools. It probably took vastly longer than just buying generic pegboard hooks, but the result fit my exact tools and my exact space. The unexpected bonus was that it helped me declutter. Once I had specific places for the things I actually used, it became easier to get rid of duplicate junk that had been hanging around in drawers for years.³⁷

The Tesla Tray, the Bike Adapter, and the Kind of Parts Stores Do Not Sell

The Tesla center-console tray project is another good example of the kind of custom-fit problem that 3D printing handles beautifully. I wanted a holder for the charge adapter, a coin dispenser, a place for ChapStick, and a spot for a small tool, all in one part shaped specifically to the car. To get the adapter profile, I scanned it on my flatbed scanner, cleaned it up in Photoshop, imported it as an SVG into Tinkercad, and built the whole part around it. That project really captures the combination of digital design, physical fitment, and practical usefulness that keeps pulling me back into this hobby.³⁸

Years later, I was still doing the same kind of thing with better tools. When I changed my bike handlebars and ran out of room for the gear I wanted to mount, I opened Onshape and designed a custom adapter for the thicker bar section. Around the same period I also posted a mason-jar dispenser remix for measured sugar, salt, and neti-pot solution. Different parts, different tools, same underlying pattern: if I need something specific and it does not really exist in the form I want, there is a decent chance I will just make it.³⁹⁴⁰

The Prints I Remember Most Fondly

The Chicken Trophy

If I had to pick one project that best combines creativity, design, problem-solving, and sheer fun, the chicken trophy is high on the list. I wanted something truly special for a BackYardChickens member who had hit 100,000 posts, and buying a generic trophy felt weak. So I built one. I merged and modified different source models, used a scanned chicken silhouette, added text, created a faceplate, and then started getting clever with the base. Instead of just accepting a lightweight print, I used Cura’s gradual infill steps to create cavities and literally poured copper BBs into the print while it was running so the base would feel heavier and more substantial.⁴¹

What I love about that project is that it did not stay a one-off. I made later versions, improved the weighting method by designing an open cavity for tire weights, and kept refining the process. That is another pattern I have come to appreciate in 3D printing: sometimes the first version proves the idea, and the second or third version is where the design really settles in.⁴²⁴³

The Cat Toys

Not every memorable print has to be a serious utility part. Some of the most enjoyable ones are just fun in a different way. The cat toys fit that category for me. I started with a printed ball toy that had a break-away ball inside so it would make noise while rolling around, and then I moved almost immediately into designing a wobble toy from scratch with room for weights in the base, string, and feathers. That mix of downloaded model, remix mindset, and scratch-built design is a pretty good picture of how I naturally use 3D printing. Sometimes you start from someone else’s idea. Sometimes you jump into Tinkercad and make the exact version you want.⁴⁴⁴⁵⁴⁶

Workflow Matters More Than Internet Consensus

One of the more mature lessons from the later years is that workflow matters just as much as print quality. I have thought about switching from Cura to OrcaSlicer more than once. Angus likes Orca, and I respect him. There are also cases where a model will behave badly in Cura, then print fine in another slicer. I am not blind to that. But the reason I stayed with Cura for so long had nothing to do with brand loyalty. It was because Cura could print directly to my Ender-3 V3 SE over USB, and since most of my prints are quick and small, that convenience mattered more than theoretical feature advantages elsewhere.⁴⁷⁴⁸

The bigger lesson there is that I have become a lot less interested in adopting tools just because they are newer or more hyped. If a new slicer fixes a problem, great. If a new tool removes friction from my actual day-to-day workflow, even better. But if changing tools adds hassle without meaningfully improving the way I work, then it is probably not an upgrade for me yet. That is why my own conditions for fully switching stayed so simple: either the software needs to support the workflow I already value, or I need a printer whose connectivity changes the equation.⁴⁹

What I’d Tell Someone Getting Into 3D Printing Now

1. Start with something you actually need. The fastest way to understand the value of 3D printing is to solve a real annoyance in your own house, car, office, or workshop.⁵⁰⁵¹
2. Get the first layer under control early. Nothing makes the hobby more frustrating than fighting adhesion every single time you print.⁵²⁵³
3. Learn some CAD sooner than feels comfortable. It does not have to be perfect, and it does not have to start with the most intimidating tool.⁵⁴⁵⁵
4. Keep filament dry and keep the feed path simple. Storage problems and feed problems often show up together.⁵⁶⁵⁷
5. Use the workflow you will actually stick with. Convenience is not a shallow concern. It is part of what determines whether you enjoy using the tool.⁵⁸⁵⁹
6. Think in terms of informed tradeoffs, not rigid rules. Materials, safety, food contact, and printer placement all live in that category.⁶⁰⁶¹

At this point, that is probably the cleanest summary of what 3D printing has been for me. It is not just a machine, not just a hobby, and definitely not just a collection of Benchies and upgrades. It is a practical tool that rewards curiosity, iteration, and a willingness to make your own exact solution when the off-the-shelf answer is either wrong, annoying, or nonexistent. That is why it has remained one of my favorite hobbies for so long.⁶²⁶³

The first article covered how I got here. This one covered what the hobby actually taught me. If you want the cleaner project archive with the actual prints, practical fixes, and favorite builds, continue on to the third article.

Why 3D Printing Had Me Hooked Before I Owned One

I’d been fascinated by 3D printers since they first came on the scene. Before I had one sitting on my desk, I was already thinking about all the random little plastic parts that are a pain to get, and how great it would be if I could just make a perfect replacement myself.¹ Because I was already immersed in the world of traditional printers, 3D printing didn’t feel completely foreign to me either. In my head, it had enough overlap with the printer world I already knew that it felt like a very natural rabbit hole for me, and I even found myself pointing out that some of the earliest medical 3D printers were basically inkjet printers with different cartridges and an added Z axis.²

That interest was strong enough that I started asking PrinterKnowledge members whether they wanted a real 3D printing section on the site. I didn’t like creating empty sections just because something seemed interesting, so I wanted to see whether there was enough real interest first. By July 2017 there was, and I finally launched a dedicated 3D printing section on the forum. Around that same time, after a brutal emergency business project had eaten most of May and June, I admitted that I was worried I’d get consumed by 3D printing if I finally let myself get into it. That turned out to be a very accurate concern.³⁴⁵

Buying My First Printer

Once I gave myself permission to stop just reading about 3D printing and actually get into it, I went for a machine that matched both my patience level and my budget: the Monoprice Select Mini. At $220, pre-assembled, well reviewed, and popular enough to have a mountain of videos and troubleshooting help online, it felt like the safest possible way to get into the hobby without starting with a kit that would test my patience before I ever made a print.⁶

1. The price was almost absurdly low for what it promised.
2. It was ready to print right out of the box.
3. The reviews were strong both on Amazon and on YouTube.
4. It was popular enough that I knew I’d have plenty of information online to pull from.
5. And if I’m being honest, part of the appeal was that The Hat already had one and could help point me in the right direction.

I had already spent months watching videos on that printer, so by the time I finally bought it I had myself thoroughly convinced it was the right starting point. I wasn’t looking for the biggest or fanciest option. I was looking for something I could actually learn on without fighting it from minute one. This was one of the early videos that helped sell me on it.⁷

First Prints, First Failures, and the Moment It Became Real

When the printer showed up, I skipped the throwaway sample model and went straight to a control knob extension from Thingiverse as my first print. That felt more like me. Even on day one, I wanted useful output, not just proof that the machine worked. My second print was a razor blade holder, and not long after that I had a little lineup of printer upgrades sitting on my desk. In those first few days I printed a control dial extension, a razor blade holder, a filament dust filter, and a filter bar. One of the first things I loved about 3D printing was the recursive nature of it. The machine could make stuff to make itself better.⁸⁹

That honeymoon lasted right up until the first layer adhesion problems started. I had prints that would not stick, a gyro spinner that failed over and over, and a short-lived experiment with oil that definitely did not help. Even then, I could already tell I was hooked. The failures were annoying, but they weren’t discouraging. They just made me want to figure out bed height, temperature, speed, material, and every other variable that might get me to a more reliable result.¹⁰¹¹

The part that really pushed me over the edge was that I started designing before I even had the printer in hand. I really did want to keep my 3D printing limited to stuff that I needed, and that pushed me toward my first real custom design: a better toilet seat nut that would be easier to access and tighten by hand. I built it in Tinkercad, imported existing pieces where that made sense, and started modifying them to suit my own use case. That was the first time the hobby stopped being about downloading files and started becoming about solving my own problems.¹²

What I liked about that project was how practical and improvised it was. I imported an existing nut because I didn’t want to waste time fighting thread sizing, built a polygon body around it, hollowed out the center, and then merged in a wingnut shape because I wanted something I could tighten by hand. Even before I had a printer on the desk, I was already trying to make the part better for my own use instead of just reproducing what already existed.¹³

Outgrowing the Mini

The Monoprice Select Mini was a fine tiny printer, and great for getting me introduced to the hobby, but I needed bigger. I could already see the print volume becoming a limiting factor, and that sent me looking hard at the Creality CR-10. It seemed to offer exactly what I wanted next: a much larger build area, a strong support community, and something close enough to ready-to-run that it wouldn’t turn into a full kit build. At the time, the list in my head looked something like this: larger print volume, a heated bed, auto bed leveling, a touch screen, a good price per build volume, and a big enough support community that I wouldn’t be stuck troubleshooting alone.¹⁴¹⁵

On August 15, 2017, I pulled the trigger on the CR-10. The 300 x 300 x 400 build volume felt huge, and I gave myself a short trial period to decide whether I really needed both printers or whether the bigger one would replace the Mini.¹⁶

The CR-10 immediately opened up prints that were simply too big or too tall for my first machine. It also introduced its own set of annoyances: a bulky fan shroud, a louder control box, more bed adhesion issues, and more dialing in than I had hoped for. Still, it was obvious almost right away that I had crossed into a new stage of the hobby. I could print things that had been completely out of reach only days earlier, like the bike phone clip that was too big for the Mini and a credit-card glider that was too tall for it.¹⁷

Part of what pushed me there was simple workflow friction. I was already realizing that even switching printers and profiles in Cura was enough of a pain to make me want just one machine. For big prints the CR-10 had an obvious advantage, and for small prints I still suspected I would prefer one primary setup instead of splitting time between two ecosystems.¹⁸¹⁹

After a few days of going back and forth, I decided one printer was enough. My brother made a very practical point: if I ever truly missed having two printers, I could always buy another small one later. So I stripped off my mods, boxed the Monoprice back up, and sent it back. At that point the CR-10 had won.²⁰

The Hobby Got Deeper When I Started Designing More of My Own Parts

Even before the CR-10, Tinkercad had already lowered the barrier enough for me to start making simple, useful parts. I was impressed by how accessible it was, and that mattered because one of the biggest things holding me back early on had been the fear that the software side would be a slippery slope I wouldn’t have time to learn.²¹²²

For a while Tinkercad was exactly what I needed. Then I started running into its limits. By 2020 I was finally ready to move beyond it and start learning Onshape. I even said outright that it was time to grow up from Tinkercad, and once I got a taste of parametric design I wished I had done it earlier. That shift mattered because it changed 3D printing for me from modifying other people’s files into making much more specific parts that actually fit the problems I was trying to solve. It also changed how I thought about the hobby. The more comfortable I got designing my own parts, the less 3D printing felt like a neat gadget and the more it felt like a genuinely useful tool. I go deeper into that CAD shift and what it changed for me in the second article, and several of the custom-fit parts that came out of it show up again in the third article.²³²⁴²⁵

The Upgrade Rabbit Hole Never Really Closed

By the end of 2021, I could see how much printers had changed since I bought the CR-10. Quieter stepper drivers, better boards, direct drive, improved screens, easier setup, and lower prices kept pulling at me. I even bought an original Ender 3 on sale and let it sit in the box because, when it came down to it, it didn’t really offer anything I needed badly enough to justify replacing the CR-10.²⁶

That whole period was basically me arguing with myself about what I actually valued. Quiet motion mattered. A better screen mattered. Direct drive sounded appealing. At the same time, I kept asking myself how much build space I really needed, how important the huge support community was, and why I was shopping so hard when the CR-10 still worked just fine. That tension is probably why the original Ender 3 managed to stay boxed up for so long.²⁷

If you want a pretty good snapshot of how I buy printers, that whole period was it. I’m often frugal to a fault, and 3D printers became a running exercise in talking myself into and out of upgrades. I briefly tried an Ender-3 S1 because direct drive and flexible filaments sounded great, got a dead screen out of the box, returned it, and then circled back to the printer that had been on my mind all along: the Ender-3 V2. In a very on-brand move, I returned the broken printer, woke up at 4 a.m., saw the refund had been processed, and took about two-thirds of the money and bought the Ender-3 V2, which really was where I had started that whole decision loop. When I finally got that machine assembled and printing, I loved the big screen and the quiet motion right away.^28293031

When I finally put the V2 together, I took my time. After the S1 detour, I wanted this one to go smoothly. I spent about an hour and a half assembling it carefully, swapped in a few parts while I was at it, and then spent more time getting Cura, the SD card, and the leveling sorted out. That slower start paid off. The first Benchy printed cleanly, the big screen really was much better than the older Creality screens, and the quiet motion was immediately one of the biggest upgrades I noticed.³²

I went through a similar internal debate again in 2023, when the Ender-3 V3 SE showed up at a price that was almost impossible for me to ignore. At $195, with auto bed leveling and a direct-drive extruder, it was just too tempting not to try. When it arrived, setup was fast, leveling was easy, and over time I found myself really appreciating just how simple it was to feed and unload filament compared to my older Bowden setups. What really stood out to me later was that, unlike all my other printers, I hadn’t made a single adjustment to it. Everything just worked fine.³³³⁴³⁵

I also liked how quickly the V3 SE made a good first impression. Assembly was faster than any of the other Creality printers I’d owned, bed leveling was almost absurdly easy, and even using a borrowed speed-Benchy file from YouTube, the result came out remarkably clean for a quick test print. It felt like a machine that asked a lot less from me up front than the earlier Creality printers had.³⁶

Finally Letting Myself Buy the Nice Printer

By late 2025, the internal debate had shifted from whether I needed another budget-friendly printer to whether I was finally willing to buy the nice one. I spent a lot of time doing what I usually do: looking for the thing that would give me 80 percent of the value at 50 percent of the price. I kept talking myself down to the cheaper compromise. Then my girlfriend made a point I couldn’t really argue with: 3D printing had been one of my most favorite hobbies since 2017, and I had saved enough money that I could afford something nice for myself. I had spent a lot of time almost buying other printers first, especially the ones that seemed to promise most of what I wanted for a lot less money.³⁷

This was also one of those moments where I had to admit something about myself that had been true for years: I’m often frugal to a fault, and I do have a habit of putting off my own happiness with some version of, well, this is good enough. That had shaped a lot of my printer decisions up to that point, and the H2S was really the first time I pushed past it on purpose.³⁸³⁹

That was the push that finally got me over the hump. I bought the Bambu Lab H2S because I wanted a larger print bed, an enclosed machine, the option to experiment with more materials, and the feeling that I was finally getting something top-of-the-line instead of talking myself back down to the cheaper option.⁴⁰

• I wanted the larger print bed.
• I wanted an enclosed printer so I could finally test materials I had mostly stayed away from.
• I liked having the AMS option, even if I wasn’t sure how much I would use it.
• I had been telling myself for a while that if Bambu ever released the right larger-bed machine, that would probably be the one.

When it arrived, my first reaction was that it was enormous. My second reaction was that it just worked. The startup routines were noisy, the machine shook more than I expected, and it clearly came with a different set of tradeoffs than my older printers. But the speed, quality, reliability, and lack of fuss were immediately obvious. After years of tape, glue stick, tweaking, and babysitting, it was pretty wild to watch a machine feel that effortless.⁴¹

One of the strongest little moments in that first day was realizing how much old baggage I was mentally carrying from earlier printers. I was still expecting surface prep rituals and more babysitting. Instead, I was printing clean parts at ridiculous speed and thinking about how strange it was that I might never again need the same tape-and-glue habits that had felt normal for years.⁴²

Then the Tiny Printer Changed My Thinking Again

What surprised me most is that the story did not end with the big, expensive machine. A few months later, I found myself less excited about using the H2S than I expected, mostly because of the AMS and how annoying brittle filament could be. I had already picked up an A1 Mini on sale and planned to return it unopened. Instead, I finally opened it, put it where my Ender-3 V3 SE had been, and almost immediately found myself happy printing again. It made a lot of sense once I admitted what I was actually doing day to day: quick, small prints, mostly in a single color, where easy access and low friction mattered more than having the biggest, fanciest machine in the house.⁴³⁴⁴

The A1 Mini section of this story matters because it forced me to be honest about my actual habits. I had a big, huge expensive monster printer in one room and a tiny printer near my desk that I was using all the time. Once I admitted that most of what I print is single-color and that roughly 85 percent of it fits on the little bed, the emotional logic became hard to ignore. The smaller printer felt easier to live with, easier to recover from jams on, and easier to be excited about using.⁴⁵

That was one of the clearest reminders in this whole process that capability and convenience are not the same thing. I had spent years chasing better specs, better features, and bigger machines, only to be reminded that most of what I actually print is small, single-color, and easier to manage on a simple little printer sitting right next to me. The H2S still gave me the huge bed and enclosed printing I wanted, but the A1 Mini reminded me that convenience matters just as much as capability.⁴⁶

From First Curiosity to Obsession

Looking back, the thing that stands out most is how early the obsession showed up. I was talking about the future of 3D printing before I owned a machine. I was opening a forum section for it before I had done a single print. Then I bought the Monoprice Select Mini, started printing upgrades for the printer itself, designed my own toilet seat part before the machine even arrived, moved up to the CR-10 almost immediately, spent years bouncing between printers and design tools, and eventually talked myself into buying a Bambu because I finally had to admit this wasn’t a casual interest anymore.⁴⁷⁴⁸⁴⁹

What also stands out is how consistent the underlying pattern has been. I got interested because I wanted to solve practical problems. I bought the first printer because it seemed like the least painful way in. I moved up quickly because the first one made the limits obvious. I kept chasing better machines, but I also kept coming back to the same basic questions about value, convenience, and whether the printer actually fit the way I use it. In that sense, the obsession was never really about owning the newest hardware. It was about wanting the tool to feel more and more natural in everyday life.⁵⁰⁵¹⁵²

I’m still constantly amazed at how much I enjoy this hobby and how many situations I’ve solved just by having a 3D printer sitting nearby. I still like practical prints more than gimmicks. I still like getting good value for the money. I still enjoy the problem-solving part as much as the finished part. The only real difference now is that I no longer pretend this is a side curiosity. It turned into one of my favorite hobbies, and at this point I don’t see that changing anytime soon.⁵³⁵⁴

That is the story side of the series. In the second article, I get into what 3D printing actually taught me: adhesion, filament handling, CAD, workflow, and the bigger lessons that stuck. If you would rather jump straight to the actual prints, fixes, and favorite projects, that is what the third article is for.

One of the parts of the car where this was most evident was the deterioration of the headlights. The clearcoat protecting the headlights was completely missing on the upper 1/2 of both lights, and this section was VERY cloudy, as you can see in these pics:

After watching a few videos we decided to dive all the way in with sanding and polishing!

Here are the steps we took:

1. 300 Grit wet-Sanding
2. 600 Grit wet-Sanding
3. 1000 Grit wet-Sanding
4. 1500 Grit wet-Sanding
5. 2000 Grit wet-Sanding
6. 2500 Grit wet-Sanding
7. Polish with Mothers Mag & Aluminum Polish

It was really tricky for us to determine when we had sanded “enough” with each grit, but we could at least tell that we were making pretty good improvements with each step.

After the final polish with the Mothers Mag & Aluminum Polish, we noticed that (for the first time in the process) the water we were spraying on the plastic was actually BEADING off vs. sticking in a sheet / layer on the light!

Here’s how they turned out:

We were both actually pretty surprised with how well they turned out! Extremely clear!

All the research showed that we needed to add some kind of protection to the plastic or the UV would quickly cloud them up again. There are different clear-coat applications we could do, but since we had some leftover ceramic coating (that I’ve used on my TESLA) we opted to do a few coats of that and see how it holds up.

Overall we’re VERY happy with how well the process worked and how great the final results turned out!

Four years ago I posted the article, “Cleaning Solar Panels – Does it make much difference”.  In that article I calculate the difference between my dirty and clean panels to be only 1.5% efficiency. That number just didn’t *feel* right to me, so I decided to give the process another try.

I proceeded to export the data on output power for each individual solar panel by hour for the middle 15 days of July. I thought this would be a great test since most of the days were very sunny with great output. My goal was to duplicate the process I used before… basically finding 2 panels that had consistently the same output, then clean one of them and compare the difference. Unfortunately, no matter what I did, the data was NEVER consistent. I spent 2 hours exporting data from every minute, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, and hour. I tried exports for various individual days and ranges of days.

The lack of consistency of data was causing me to go INSANE! Not only did two panels have the same output one day, but not the next, there were some days that a pair of panels were in the top 5 performers for a few days, but were in the lower 5 performers another few days. It made absolutely no sense… and still boggles my mind. My only theory is that the TIGO power optimizer are somehow messing with the individual panel outputs to improve the efficiency of the string? I was about to completely give up.

As I sat at my computer, closing out all my excel sheets and deleting all the data export files, I was about to throw in the tower… er… squeegee, but then I had one last idea. “What if I cleaned one entire string of panels and compared the mid-day total output, as a group, to the total output of the other string? My panels are all right next to each other and in the middle of the day they all get equal sunshine.

I’m VERY pleased with the results!

Here’s a pic of 9 clean and 9 dirty panels (two separate strings):

Here’s the average peak output per-panel for each string:

All Panels Dirty:

7/25/2016 – String 1: 165.11 Watts
7/25/2016 – String 2: 165.68 Watts
String 1 = -0.3% more efficient than String 2

7/27/2016 – String 1: 154.00 Watts
7/27/2016 – String 2: 152.93 Watts
String 1 = 0.7% more efficient than String 2

As you can see, the difference in output for these strings is negligible.

On the end of the day (sunset) I cleaned String 1 and pulled up my output for the middle of the day and it was immediately clear that the 1st string was outperforming the 2nd string:

First, here’s what the output looks like on a great day’s peak output when all the panels were dirty. You’ll notice that the panels in the 1st and 2nd string look pretty similar.

… now check out what the two strings look like when the 1st string is clean:

Wow! It’s pretty obvious that the 1st string is performing WAY better than the 2nd string!

After Cleaning String 1:

7/28/2016 – String 1: 167.80 Watts
7/28/2016 – String 2: 154.64 Watts
String 1 = 8.5% more efficient than String 2

7/31/2016 – String 1: 166.76 Watts
7/31/2016 – String 2: 154.30 Watts
String 1 = 8.1% more efficient than String 2

When I run the data, I consistently get 8% – 8.5% more efficiency with the clean string of panels! In fact, my total output over the past 4 months has barely reached 3kW, but today I peaked out at 3.26kW!

Now I’m convinced I should make sure I give the panels a nice cleaning at the beginning of the summer!

The Acer was the first to have the screen broken. It started out with a black splotch in the bottom right corner. The laptop was still usable, but inconvenient since the menu to the bottom right was inaccessible. Unfortunately over time the entire screen became unusable. Then, last week the HP was stepped on and the top left instantly went dark.

HP Chromebook with bad upper-left corner & Acer Chromebook with entire broken screen

My first thought was, “Well, these are $200 – $250 devices, so it’s not a huge loss. Plus, getting screens replaced is usually around $150+, so I guess we’ll just buy a couple new Chromebooks.”

Well, I figured I do some Googling on “chromebook broken screen” and see what I could find. I was pleasantly surprised to see some excellent Youtube instructional videos on replacing the screens for both models! A quick visit to Amazon showed that I could get both screens for about $50 each!

Here are the links to the replacement screens and “how to replace broken screen” videos I used:

Acer C710 Replacement Screen: http://amzn.to/1c8fxYo

HP 14-c011nr Replacement Screen: http://amzn.to/1R8hJPe

BOOM! All Fixed!!! $100 and about a half hour for a fix vs. $450 for new laptops!

Notes:

1. The HP screen gave me some trouble. The connector didn’t go in super easily and when I thought I had it in, the screen didn’t work. I thought I had a bum screen, but I removed and reinserted the cable / connector and it worked fine.
2. There was also a super thick protective film on the HP replacement screen. I was scared to death while removing it since it felt so thick and stuck to the screen that I thought I wasn’t really supposed to remove it.

If you give this a try, please comment below!

Well, last week I was looking at my data on my solar panels and I kept seeing this one panel consistently under-performing compared to the rest.

I of course know that different panels have different efficiencies from the manufacturing process, but this one panel had never been a problem before.

So, for the last few days I’ve been meaning to go outside and take a look at the panel to see what I could find, and I saw the reason! You can see the darker areas at the top of the middle panel where the dirt is causing the panel to be less shiny.

It turns out that this one panel isn’t as clean as the others.  I guess that when I cleaned my panels a few months ago, I didn’t do a very thorough job on this one panel. It’s obviously making a difference!

Fortunately a couple brilliant people pointed me in a direction that led me to a really great option for storing my backups onto S3!  Here are some links, details and steps that will hopefully help others in their search!

Web Resources:

• Amazon s3
• s3cmd – for transferring files via command line to S3
• YouTube video about setting up s3cmd and transferring files
• A few pages for installing and using  s3cmd : How to Install s3cmd, How to Setup & Configure s3cmd,  Using AWS S3 with s3cmd
• Auto archiving S3 to Glacier for even cheaper storage
• and my favorite backup script: Ameirâ€s MySQL Backup to FTP and Email

Basic Setup / Process:

1. Use a combo of the daily MySQL backup script and other backup processes to create backup files of my databases, sites, etc.
2. Copy (sync) the backups to Amazon S3 using s3cmd
3. Auto archive backups older than 60 days from Amazon S3 to Amazon Glacier
4. Delete local server backups older than 10 days.

I get 5 GB of storage free on S3 for the first year.  At most I’ll probably use an additional 5 – 10 GB, but even this is only about $1 – $2 a month!  I’ll then backup maybe 10-30 GB to Glacier which is a whopping $0.01 per GB… YES, a PENNY PER GIG!

Total monthly backup cost: About $3.00

You can do your own pricing calculations using Amazon’s calculator here: http://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/calc5.html

How I set it all up:

First I read and watched all the resources listed above.  I also have a basic knowledge of PuTTY and unix commands.

Next I signed up with Amazon s3 and created a bucket (plenty of info on the web for this process.  I suggest searching youtube).

After I was setup with Amazon I installed s3cmd on my VPS… well, I had my VPS techs do it, but here are the commands they used:

bash-3.2# cd /etc/yum.repos.d
bash-3.2# wget http://s3tools.org/repo/RHEL_5/s3tools.repo
bash-3.2# yum install s3cmd

Next I did some tests to make sure I could access S3 using s3cmd by doing simple commands like:

s3cmd ls s3://mybackupbucket

I then decided to dive in and sync one of my huge backup directories with a bucket on S3:

s3cmd -r sync /home/account/backups s3://s3cmd ls s3://mybackupbucket

Next thing I knew, I had files flying from my VPS over to Amazon S3!  The only thing that surprised me was the speeds weren’t nearly as fast as I would have liked / expected.  I was transferring files at an average rate of 250 kB/s.  I’m not sure if that a limit on Amazon’s side or my VPS.  I did notice that I could open up additional PuTTy sessions and run more sync commands which would run at 250 kB/s, so multiple threads running in parallel didn’t seem to slow things down.

Right now I’m manually running the sync command, but my plan is to setup a cron job that will run the following commands nightly:

• My daily MySQL backup script
• Sync with Amazon S3: s3cmd -r sync /home/account/backups s3://s3cmd ls s3://mybackupbucket
• Delete Old Files: find /path/to/files* -mtime +5 -exec rm {} \;

I’m far from being an expert with this stuff… which may actually help others that are at the same level of technicity that I am.

So, what do you think about this backup process and using this system for storing large files on Amazon S3?   If you have any thoughts or comments on what I’m doing or how I’m doing it, please post them below!

UPDATE 4/7/14:
The backup system is working great!  My charges for the past few months have been:

• November:$0.12
• December:$0.22
• January:$0.35
• February:$0.59
• March: $0.80

That’s CRAZY!

Here’s a screenshot of my most recent bill:

You can see that most of the charge is from my usage in Glacier. What’s crazy is that Amazon just announced a drop in storage pricing!

UPDATE 5/20/15:
Here are my charges over the past year:

I’ve got a TON of old daily backups from a year+ ago that I probably don’t need to keep, but deleting them is almost not even worth it to save $1 – $2 a month.

I’ve been SUPER happy with my Hyundai Elantra.  I can’t believe it’s been over 12 years since I did my geeky car purchase calculations and bought it new!

Unfortunately over the past year I’ve noticed that it’s been harder and harder to unlock my car and disengage the alarm using both of my keyless remote FOB’s.  At first I thought my batteries were dead.  After a handful of futile attempts at replacing the battery, I realized there was another problem and I needed at least one replacement FOB.

I called the local Hyundai dealers and all of them wanted $180+ for a new remote and to also program it!  I can get the units on eBay for $40, but I still have to pay the dealer $90 to program it.  Yes, I know you can program these yourself. I’ve purchased and programmed these keyless remotes for other cars, but in all my research I discovered that for a handful of reasons, doing so with the Hyundai was a total pain.  I figured I’d just eat the expense and get a new one from the dealer.

Well, since I’d be getting a new one, I might as well open up one of the ones I had and see what was going on.  I disassembled the keyless remote and discovered that the super tiny SMT (Surface-mount technology) switch was no longer working.  The little button on the switch wouldn’t depress at all.

Could it really be just this tiny little switch that is keeping both of my $180 remotes from working?  I’ve been so crazy busy over the last 4-5 years that I haven’t done much of any electric work or soldering.   The thought of fixing this itty bitty switch was just too exciting to pass up (click the picture to the left with a dime for size reference).

I went to Fry’s Electronics & Radio Shack and neither had a switch even remotely close to being small enough.   So, I do as I usually do in these cases… rush home to ebay!   I was surprised that within 8 minutes of typing in “SMT Switch” into my search I found an absolutely EXACT replacement!  I got 5 (yes FIVE) “”Tactile Push Button Switch Momentary Tact 4x4x1.5mm 4-pin SMD Surface Mount” of these from china for $0.99 + $1.50 shipping.  Can you believe it… five of these shipped from China for $2.49… CRAZY!

I’ve never been great at soldering regular stuff let alone super tiny micro switches.   Compounding the problem, I don’t have a very steady hand.  How in the world would I be able to remove the soldered switch and replace it with a new switch without damaging all the other stuff on the PCB?

I did what I always do in this case and went to YouTube!   Here is a great video I found on desoldering and soldering tiny SMT parts.

Did I mention how small these switches are (next to a quarter)?

I was in the mood to do this right, so I went shopping and got a few extra bits:

1. KESTER951 no clean liquid flux – Used to clean the parts and help ensure good thermal transfer while removing and adding the switches)
2. Illuminated Multipower LED Binohead Magnifier – Totally geeky, but I was amazed at how necessary it was when looking at these super small parts.
3. Push button vacuum solder removing tool – Ok, I already had this part as well as my soldering iron

When I finally had everything together I got to work!  My plan was to practice on some old computer cards (network adapters) that I had kicking around.  I worked on them in an attempt to hone my soldering skills, but my impatience got the best of me.  I hate to admit it, but I’ve really screwed stuff like this up in the past by being impatient.   I quickly learned that I wasn’t going to become a small solder master any time soon, but more importantly I learned that I could possible use my tiny soldering snips to just remove the leads to the switch!

First I cleaned off the switch using the liquid flux and a toothbrush.  I’m REALLY glad I did this since there was some green gunk all over the switch… possibly some kind of greese for the switch put on at the factory?

With my super geekly LED head magnifier on I slightly pried the switch up a super tiny amount using a sharp soldering pick tool.  It was just enough to get my snip in there to clip the leg.   Next I did the other side, and from there I was able to bend the switch up.

Once I had these two legs detached I thought I’d give removing them a try using the soldering iron… and surprisingly it worked great and I didn’t (at least I believed) fried anything in the process!

Here is the board with the switch removed:

The next step was to position the new switch and solder it into place.  This sounded simple enough, but trying to maneuver this tiny thing into the perfect position proved harder than I expected.   Once again I added some flux and after a bit of finagling I was able to get the switch into place.

Using some tape to hold the whole board into place and my finger to hold the switch into place (I figured the threat of burning my finger would help keep my hand a bit more steady with the iron).       Surprisingly, the legs of the new switch soldered down to the board using the previous switches solder without any problem at all… it was almost too easy!

Here are my final results:

I’m VERY pleasantly surprised at how it turned out… especially that I didn’t burn myself or destroy the board in my impatience!!

… of course, none of this matters if the thing doesn’t work.   For all I know, any number of things could have gone wrong, including

• Wrong switch type.  Just because it looked like a match maybe wouldn’t guarantee the inside circuitry was the same
• Wrong switch orientation
• Overheated the board or neighbor circuits and fried them
• Broke any of the existing circuit paths or possibly made a bridge circuit
• etc.

Almost holding my breath I put everything back together and pushed the button.  The super perfect tactile response of the brand new button felt fantastic.  The other still functioning original button on the board provided a great contrast between what a new button should feel like!   Next it was out to the car for the real test!

It worked PERFECTLY!   The car unlocked with such response I almost felt like the clicky clicky of my new button was somehow sending the unlock command faster than the original OEM FOB button!   Seriously, I can’t convey how nice the new button feels when depressed.  In fact, it felt so nice that I was tempted to pull out the lock button and replace it too!  Fortunately my sound mind prevailed and the adage “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” came to mind, so I left it alone!

What I did do to satisfy my craving for more fixin’ was to grab my other remote with it’s crappy unlock button and replace it as well.   This one went even smoother and I was able to skip the clipping process and go directly to unsolder all four legs!  This left me with an even cleaner surface with which to work!

So, I’m pretty excited and kinda proud of myself for pulling this off.   This adventure definitely ended up being way more about the process and the “Hey, I fixed this!” than about the money, and I’m really glad I gave this a go!

11 years ago I did what I never thought I’d do… I bought a new car.  I wrote a blog post about my new car purchase calculator and how I made the decision on which car to buy.

Well, I went through a similar (but considerably less detailed) process again recently when buying our new family van.   I still usually hold to my theory that many people shouldn’t be buying new cars because of the depreciation right off the lot.  With that said:

1.    I hold onto cars for 10+ years usually
2.    I buy cars that are usually pretty inexpensive and have good value (see my anal calculations on my Hyundai Elantra 10 years ago: https://www.nifty-stuff.com/hyundai-purchase.php )
3.    I absolutely 100% HATE mechanics and worrying about getting ripped off. I’m willing to pay a premium on a car with a great warranty, even if I have to take it in more often, as long as stuff is covered.  My 2001 Hyundai Elantra I got in 2010 is a great example.  5 year bumper to bumper, 10 year powertrain.   I only had to take it into the dealer a couple of times and everything was covered.  I still have the car 11 years later and it’s still doing GREAT.

Again, I HATE mechanics! I remember a friend who was a retired mechanic said:

“9 out of 10 mechanics are crooked, and the 1 guy that isn’t this time will either go out of business or be forced to be crooked the next time.“

When looking for our new van I only had a handful of manufacturers and models I was looking into.   Since we’ve been VERY happy with our Hyundai Elantra we were initially looking for a Hyundai van.  Turns out they only made the Entourage for a few years and it was basically a Kia van (Kia is owned by Hyundai) branded and made for Hyundai.   So, our final choices were Kia Sedona,  Honda Odessey, and Toyota Sienna.   I ran into the same questions and answers with the Honda’s and Toyota’s that I came across with my car purchase:   These two manufacturers have a great track record, but their price premium reflects this and their warranties are pretty short.   After some basic research we decided to go with the Kia Sedona… better price, more features, and a longer warranty.

The Purchase Process:

I was SUPER tenacious when I purchased our van.   I totally played the game and outlasted their attempts to squeeze me.  I even did the “walk away” game which really changed the tone of the negotiations.

Before I went into the arena with the sales person I had a TON of info on hand, including some great offers from dealers on www.carwoo.com  (now owned by Trucar).   I was able to use these dealer’s offers, plus all the price research I did at places like Costco, Truecar.com, Edmunds.com, KBB.com, and others as a baseline for negotiations.

I’m not a super negotiator, so I needed to get some basic skills ready before heading into the dealer.  This video helped a lot (and is a fun watch):

Empowered with new negotiation tactics I was ready to go!

We visited about 3 different dealerships in the area trying to find the color, feature, and price combo that we wanted, and nobody had what we were looking for.   I guess all the dealers have some system that tracks where the new inventory is and where it is going.    From what I understand, they can make requests for specific inventory, but it has to be available – and nothing was that even came close to what we wanted.

We were about to give up on the search but then the dealer closest to our house called and said the exact model / color was on their lot.   It either wasn’t in their system or the color was entered wrong in the system which is why nobody knew it was coming.   We told them we’d be over the next day.

My family and I went into the dealer around 10:00 am on a Saturday.   We test drove the car and then started the process.   I gave my number, they said there’s no way they could do that, I held firm, they offered other incentives, trade-in deals, warranty deals, etc., but the total price was still too high.   After 3 hours of this my family’s complaints started getting louder and louder… they were starving for lunch… and this is where things got VERY interesting!

I told the sales person that I had to leave and get my family some food.   The sales person said, “Go ahead and send your family and maybe they can bring you something back?”  Sure I could have sent my wife to get food, but this was my big “walkaway” moment!    She knew if we left there was a very high chance we wouldn’t come back and all those hours were lost.   I said, “No thanks, I’d like to go with them.”

Sales response:  “Ok, how about you take the van and pick something up?”

Obviously if I took the van they knew I’d have to come back, and they’d still have me.   My response, “No thanks, we’ll take our car.”

I could tell that the sales person was starting to get a little panicky:  “Um… how about we go buy lunch for you and bring it back?!?”

Me:  “No thanks, we’re fine to go get it ourselves in our car.”

Sales:  “Ok, but before you go, let me get my sales manager…”

Ugh… here come the big guns!

A large older man came into the office and said, “I understand we’re having a hard time coming together on a price for the van.”

Me:  “Ya, it’s been taking a while so we’re going to go get some lunch.”

Him:  “Ok, what do we have to do to make this deal happen right now?”

… now we were in business!

Here are the stats online for prices:

The baseline price I was shooting for (based on all the various sites mentioned above) was around $26,000.

Here is where we ended up paying for our new van, a Kia Sedona EX:

Two areas where I did something I never expected:

Trade-In:
Based on my research we probably could have privately sold our Mazda 5 for $7,000.   It had some paint damage, cracked window, and some weird issues where the battery would just go dead even though the battery was tested in fine condition.   If I traded it in I’d be leaving $1,000 on the table, but the thought of just being “done” and not having to deal with selling the car and feeling bad about the condition and the person being upset about the purchase felt surprisingly good!

Extended Warranty:
I NEVER buy extended warranties on stuff, but during the multi-hour negotiation with the dealer I gave in to a warranty as part of the larger deal.  The main reason:  over the life of the car the cost for this warranty was negligible and even if it is a false sense of security, it was worth it.  Here’s the warranty I basically paid $1,000 for:

Company: “Motor Warranty Services of North America”
Plan: “Platinum Plan” (basically is suppose to cover pretty much bumper to bumper for 10 years)
Cost: $1,000 (supposedly they try to sell it for $4.5k and online I’ve read if you can get them down to $2k you’ve got a good deal)

I’ve read some horror stories about these warranty companies piling up new accounts and then going bankrupt right before the majority of people start making claims.  Again, I’m not sure how helpful the warranty will be, but for $1k I felt it was worth the gamble and (potentially fake) warm-fuzzies I get from thinking I won’t have to shop for a mechanic for 10 years.

Not including the trade in and taxes, fees, etc., I got the van and the warranty for $25,500  which is $500 under my target price and $2,000 under the “market average”!

So, what do you think?  Did I get a good deal?  Did I go through a decent process?   What’s been you car-buying experience?