I'm still working my way through the 50-count bag I bought in 2018; evidently I don't actually encounter that many broken cables, they just exert an outsized effect on my psyche when I do.
This!! It's also given me a lot of insight into industrial design. As in how do you make something strong in the right places yet not use too much material. I'd seen the result of such choices when opening up devices but the "why" never sank in.
Obviously this is not a super important thing in the scope of our world and my day job. But still, it feeds my curiosity (as does this site) and that alone is more than worth the investment to me.
Also, being able to design and manufacture a plastic part in a matter of hours any time of day or night has become a really useful tool. Only a few days ago the window latch on the front door of our apartment broke off and we've already had too many break-ins. It was too late in the day to go buy a new one but the printed one works really nicely.
That's ("how to make something strong the right places") is not really industrial design though (but mechanical engineering). Industrial design of course also take that into account, but it's more about making it usable and the aesthetics of it.
Although this seems to me like saying "learning BASIC has taught me Computer Science" -- yes, the principles of MechE can be learned by study + some actual 3D printed models. But to truly grok MechE, you need mastery of some CAD program (OpenSCAD is my choice, but I also use FreeCAD), and the ability to fabricate in some other materials (metals) using subtractive methods. Plus, you know, a little math here and there...
I like your reasoning tho; I got mine when it was on sale, and just before the pandemic - so I have plenty of learnings about PLA, ABS, PETG, temperatures, glue or not, surface, and most of all -- plenty of piles of material creating 'modern art' rather than my planned masterpieces. '-)
It's not mastering mechanical engineering that it teaches you. But just a basic hands -on understanding that is very useful in the life of a maker with a broad range of interests.
Becoming a wizz at industrial design was never my goal. There's universities for that. But it's wonderful to see how everything comes together.
Also, imagining something only in your head and then seeing it come to life on the screen and then in the real world is a magical thing.
I guess carpenters and sculpters etc get this all the time but I totally lack the manual skills needed for that. The 3D printer solves my handicap of having two left hands.
Most people that buy a 3d printer download some models from thingiverse and then get bored with it. It's when you learn design that it really becomes amazing. And it's not all that difficult at all.
Out of 120 credits for my ME degree, only 2 were CAD (directly).
Mechanical engineering consists of learning tools for analyzing designs, such as fluid mechanics, materials, solid mechanics, thermodynamics, statics and dynamics, control system theory, etc.
Thanks. When you say "learning tools for analyzing designs" -- do you mean calculus, differential equations, other math and such? Or do you mean "XYZ Software Tool for Fluid Mechanics" etc?
You need all of that math to understand the topics, then you can apply them to real life. FWIW you can probably be a decent design engineer with an industrial engineering degree plus some thermo, circuits, dynamics and a lil CS... I see more than a few jobs open up that accept both degrees.
I think you can really pick up Fluids, vibrations, and advanced mechanics on your own with that background, if you end up needing it. But to the larger question, yeah you need calc 1-3, ODEs, and actually a good bit linear algebra to be able to understand and apply 300-level engineering and beyond.
I think you took this the opposite way. My interpretation was that using a computer (web browsing, editing word documents, whatever) doesn't teach you CS. In the same way, using a 3D printer doesn't (by itself) teach ME.
Perhaps, distilled, it's this: having a 3D printer, by itself, won't turn you into a MechE. But, if you do have a 3D printer, you can learn the basics of ME and try out some practical ideas with real parts.
I specifically got my 3D printer to make gears. I do have a Sherline mill, as well as a 12" (Chinese) lathe; so I do have the specific tools to create involute gears out of metals. However, since I planned on doing so many different gears, as I wasn't really sure what I needed, AND the fact that with subtractive manufacturing, if you make certain mistakes, you throw the whole piece away and start over -- 3D printing makes creating new parts as trivial as starting it up again. The other total win of 3D is e.g. Thingverse where you can d/l a design -- it's the closest thing we have to Star Trek's replicator.
My favorite CAD story came from around the time when the ability to create 3D renderings from the plans came around. The company my dad worked for had a disagreement on the location of a set of pipes running along a corridor. Once the 3D render was available, it was clear that the plans were very wrong and would have placed the pipes in an impossible manner. I never did learn why the CAD ops were so sure they were right, but just one of those funny stories that stuck you just made me think of it again.
Just a minor nit. Mechanical engineering ain’t additive manufacturing. And CAM isn’t mechanical engineering. Also 3D printing and CNC, which creates far stronger parts, are quite different. CNCing ferrous and non ferrous metal is quite challenging - but again, this is CAM which is more a machinists job, not a mechanical engineer.
It works the other way around too. Got some nasty scars from disassembling cheap PC cases. That told me a lot about stamped sheet metal and costs-cutting in assembly lines.
On the other hand, no better way to learn an STM32 and automatization than looking into Prusa Mini firmware github ;-)
Yeah, that was my experience. Now I just model stuff in Blender and haven't printed anything in a while. I'll probably get back into printing stuff once I get a new storage solution for my filament (and install some of these upgrades I've been sitting on for a year).
You just added more evidence to my theory that there are a lot of 3D printers sold to "enthusiasts" where it sits in a corner covered by a sheet just like a lot of grease monkeys have a car in a garage covered by a sheet that one day will get restored.
I sometimes use my 3D printer just so I can get the thing right now. For example, I once printed a small electrical box, the kind you can find for $2 in any hardware store. Totally not worth it in normal circumstances, but it was Sunday, shops were closed, and I needed one, so I just printed it, and finished the job, didn't have to wait the next day.
And you got things wrong, 3D printers don't print bottlecap openers, they print little boats ;)
I had to print some little "brackets" for the blinds in my daughter's room after she broke some (she's a toddler) and we needed to close them for bed time;
Half an hour in CAD and another half an hour of printing a dozen of them, and now I can replace them any time they break.
I also printed some curtain clips for my wife rather than drive to the DIY shop or wait for Amazon to post me some; Perhaps not cost effective, but better than driving a couple of miles for £1 of plastic clips?
I have young children so I occasionally print aesthetic things, but as a rule, I reserve 3D-printing (or "printing" as my daughter knows it because she's never known printing to have fewer than 3 dimensions) for practical things.
It's funny, my wife has never been on board with my hobbies so much as she is with 3D Printing.
Are you talking about those blue outlet boxes? If so, those provide a lot of fire safety that your 3D Print does not. You really should rip that print out of the wall.
Funny thing, except for the occasional 3D print that becomes a pile of plastic, they're pretty good. Keep it clean, level, change the nozzle occasionally, use good quality material, and it's pretty good.
For 2D printers: they are just money pits due to the toner costs; and do everything they can to make sure you buy Their toner. Buy a name-brand color laser, use it sparingly, and it's a wonderful way to have the occasional color picture, graph, or research report w/color diagrams. (I have a Brother, which I like.)
It certainly depends on your printer. Some are incredibly reliable, and some are known for being crap.
Of course, you can upgrade them, but if you have an off-brand printer it can be hard to find good upgrades to fix the problems.
I started off with a clone of a decent printer, but the clones are iffy. I lucked out and got a good one! The next one I bought from that brand was crap.
I recently printed a Voron v0.1 and it's been decent so far, and I'm working on some upgrades. Luckily it's really popular and there are lots of known upgrades. The kit was more expensive than my other 2 printers combined, and it's a lot smaller... But I'm planning on using it to completely retrofit at least one of the other 2 now.
I have an Ender 3 with a few upgrades (metal feeder, new springs for platform height adjusting, new silicone boots to keep the head isolated & insulated). What brand was good at first but the 2nd was terrible?
I find that when you 'dial in' the particular material (best speeds / feeds / temperatures) then yes, you get reliable performance.
But, I find that every spool of material -- especially PETG types --- require some experimentation to find when there is good adhesion to the glass plate, temps, speeds, etc.
And, yes, I printed this RJ-45 clip a little while ago in PETG that I know well, and the part looks good; I think I 'overbuilt' the supports because the center is packed full of material.
TronXY. My XY2-Pro printed really well straight from the box. My X5SA-2E was total garbage and needed at least 2 upgrades to print at a basic level, and I never got it printing well.
The XY2-Pro is actually an Ender 3 clone, and I think that's part of why it was so good. A friend of mine got a new Ender 3 V2 and it was smooth sailing for her. I definitely recommend the Ender 3 as the budget printer for newcomers. Prusa is another one, though obviously a lot less "budget".
One nice thing about the Ender 3 is that through its sheer popularity there's a vast library of printable upgrades and attachments. Probably this is true of some of the other popular models.
Except HP LJ 2100 - that thing will outlive your entire carreer. Our ops dept. threatened helpdesk with stabbing when they wanted to take the "old" one for themselves and get us something "new"
They have problems, but they're usually easily solved, and you'll never fight with drivers.
Furthermore, the cheapest 3D printers are _made_ to use with generic supplies, it's not like the "give away the inkjet, sell the ink" model you see with 2D printers. They're almost universally based around open-source software and mostly-open hardware now, so there's a thriving ecosystem of mods and upgrades, which can be bewildering but you don't need any of that at all to get started.
The problem is that they're mindblowingly slow. A typical 3D print might run 5 or 10 hours, to make a functional object like a desk pen organizer. And because parts of the thing get hot, you don't want to leave it unattended -- fires are rare but they can happen. So, you have to plan your prints around your life, or vice-versa.
Mercifully, the default mode of operation is just to read files from an SD card that you sneakernet over to the thing. That gets annoying if you're doing a lot of small prints and tweaking things (and there are network options for that, or direct USB connection), but it's a godsend when your printjob is longer than your workstation's typical uptime...
Not at all, more precisely, they are annoying but in not in the same way.
Most cheap 3D printers are children of the reprap project, and the hacker spirit is still there.
3D printers are often made of cheaply available standard parts, and use the same type of filament. Not all printers can print all materials, but there are no technical measures preventing you from trying, and they tend to be mod-friendly. On the software side, they almost all run open source firmware, and take standard G-code. G-code is generated using a slicer, there are several of them on the market, also typically open source and compatible with all sorts of printer from many brands. Everything is interoperable, even when a brand has the whole vertical. For example Prusa makes filament, printers, slicer software and has a repository for models, and none of these are tied to the brand. No DRM, no huge drivers, no overpriced consumables, totally unlike 2D printers.
The flip side is that you feel like you are buying a new hobby rather than a tool. It is certainly a useful tool, but especially on cheaper printers, sometimes, things don't work right out of the box, you have to make some adjustments, understand its capabilities, know what parameters to use out of hundreds, etc... It is rarely "push a button and get your part", you have to know what you are doing, and even then, sometimes, it fails. That's how they are annoying.
I was kinda waiting when 3D printing will be commercialized to few brands that fight with eachother, DRM everything yet are popular because they are just cheap, but thankfully (and weirdly enough) that hasn't happened.
You don't. You need to slice your model first (and right there you have hundreds of tunables). Its a bit like using CUPS to control a CNC machine - the machine's definition of "printing" is quite different from CUPS
I've recently been printing a lot of terrain STLs for miniature games (MyMiniFactory or patreons are great) using a 0.25mm nozzle on my FDM printer, then airbrushing to paint them quickly. It's a far more satisfying justification than just printing random brackets and boxes!
Speak for yourself! I get the most enjoyment and satisfaction out of printing spare parts to fix things I own but for which parts are unavailable or prohibitively expensive; or to design add-ons to make the things I already own work better for me.
To me it’s the opposite: printing dust-gathering figurines and other baubles with a 3D printer seems rather unappealing.
I printed a set of new hinges for a large outdoor plastic storage unit. It has my lawn mower, strimmer etc in it. It would have been skipped years ago because the doors kept falling in or out. Bit embarrassed that we bought the bloody thing in the first place but printing new hinges has avoided landfill and a replacement. The new hinges have lasted four years and counting. SW UK, local unofficial temp range -5C to 35C in that time, so not too nasty. The PLA has discoloured a bit due to UV but not gone brittle.
I also have some little tanks on my desk and a dragon. There's some phenomenal models on Thingie.
exactly what i use it for- prototypes, one off jigs and such, spacers etc. its so useful for stuff that needs a certain awkward geometry and fairly high dimensional accuracy. i just dont see myself ever using it for production parts, though i do have a 6 ft auger i printed which has moved tons of material by now with no problems
i printed the flights a quarter at a time, and the have a 1" bore so the got glued to a wooden dowel, and i also printed little alignment pins on them for assembly
I like that attitude, it’s the hardware version of “why spend 5 minutes to do something manually, when you can spend 30 minutes to write a script that does the task?”
The answer is scale! For home stuff it has been 50/50 on time investment (including one of "the hardware I automated went up in smoke"), but for work stuff not putting that bit extra work almost always turned out to be wrong call.
It's a 1 cent item being sold for 22 cents, probably at least 30 cents with shipping. The 3D printer can't compete with the 1 cent but can compete with the 30 cents and definitely with the $15 if you really only need one clip and the "spare parts I may never use" drawer/closet/room is full.
I like the design in the submission more, as it doesn't seem like it'll break as easy as the one you linked. Those you linked have that "open backside flap" that breaks so easily when you're pulling cables around and it gets stuck on something, quickly breaking off. While the submission one has both sides closed, so pulling a cable means it won't get stuck anywhere, much preferred.
I'm legit confused as to why this is a thing. Crimping ends is dead simple with pass-thru style RJ-45 tools. I don't think I'd trust these "repair" connectors for anything important.
For price comparison a pack of EZ RJ-45 (Cat6 rated) is around $20 and a pass thru crimper is about the same. Even cheaper if you go old school.
I crimped Cat6 cables recently and found out that it's not as easy as crimping Cat5 years ago. Maybe it's the older me but I ended up with a lot of failed cables to redo. Eventually the price per working cable is not that good. Next time I bought tool less Cat6 plugs and sockets. Not only they are faster to work with but they are fool proof. Not a single faulty cable. They cost more per piece but for people like me they end up being cheaper.
I feel like you were probably just rusty if you haven't done it for a while. I barely know what I'm doing, don't do it often enough to really get good, don't have great tools, and I still get 80-90% success rate.
I have had decent success using self crimped cables for 1gbit, but for 10gbit my success rate is way lower. Which makes sense, but has made me more hesitant to crimp myself.
Because I can keep a baggie of five of these things at the bottom of my laptop bag, it weighs less than an ounce and takes up almost no space. Could stay there for years and I'd never mind the extra baggage. Then one day, it saves the day.
Carrying around a crimper, stripper, scissors, and a baggie of ends would certainly fit my character, but realistically it's bulky and heavy enough that I'm gonna take it out when I think I won't need it. Which means I won't have it when I actually do need it.
Couldn't you just use WiFi, and/or carry a spare cable? It seems like an awfully specific thing to prepare for, since the solution only has one specific problem it could fix compared to all of the things that could break. Even a small roll of tape would work, and have many more use cases.
I don't own a crimping tool or spare connectors. I do however own a 3D printer and lots of spools that sit around doing nothing. This is probably the coolest thing I've found to 3D print in a while, I'm very excited to try it.
Well, (proper) cable testers are expensive and I'd imagine carrying that in "just in case" pocket is easier than whole gear to crimp and test the cable.
Can anyone recommend a good tool set for crimping DuPont/JR style connectors too? They’re such a pain to deal with in my experience, I end up just harvesting random jumper cables with the right pin count/connecter and splicing/soldering instead, because every cheap crimping tool/kit I’ve come across has crazy high failure rates
Molex 63811-1000, full stop. I do this professionally (automotive harness prototyping), and this is the first tool I reach for when I have open-barrel terminals to work with. If they have a wire-grip section longer than 2.5mm, this is your answer. That means Dupont, most styles from Molex, TE, Sumitomo, Yazaki, etc.
(The second is the Iwiss IWS-2820M, for open-barrels with a short wire-grip section, 2mm or below. That's basically most JST styles. The Iwiss crimper has all the same nest sizes as the Engineer PAD-11 but is much better made, smaller, and cheaper to boot.)
There are, of course, countless $300-and-up official tools for specific terminals, but as far as generics go, these two are the cream of the crop.
Beware ebay triangulation scams with the 63811-1000. It should cost $55-65, any less and you're being lured. Safest to get it from one of the vendors listed on Octopart. For the Iwiss, as much as I hate to say it, just go to Amazon.
I’ve got that tool and I couldn’t be happier with it. Works good, does RJ11, supports pass-through RJ45, has the color coding on it so I don’t have to look it up. Not too pricy too.
Unsure, sounds like a dark pattern or, being generous, maybe liability avoidance wordage. I have crimped >1000 non "Pass-Thru™" connectors(outdoor/shielded) with mine.
I think I have gone through more than 500 crimps for RJ45s and it is as strong as new. I watch a lot of cableporn and have re-done all the rat's nest at work.
The 2 days of waiting beats the 6 hours I'll spend cursing why the 3d printer isn't printing "just right" later today to be able to wait 30 minutes for it to finally print out a handful of them.
I started with an Anet A8 which taught me a lot about 3D printers (and even more about how they fail!). My Prusa Mini just works, and it's rare I need to reprint anything.
I have a Prusa, it's great, except for when you need to replace something, I really wish they connectorized more stuff so that you could just swap out things in chunks. I had to replace my power supply and the wire mess sucked, I wish it were just a slide-in, "snap", plug connector and go.
Heh. The first thing I do with a new ethernet cable is to break the clip, laptop side. It's orders of magnitude better to have an occasional disconnection than to trip with the cable and make the laptop fall from the table.
I did not invent this. I've seen legendary graybeards do it. I see it as a rite of maturity, like cyclists who discard the caps of their presta valves.
If you're in a situation where you might trip on the cable, surely run your cable better or just use Wifi?
There are already so many things that can go wrong when setting up a network and there's no need to deal with potentially flaky physical connections. When I find broken clips in the lab I snip the cable in half and throw it in the bin. £5 for a new cable is a lot cheaper than spending time diagnosing a network problem.
(if I don't snip it in half, on occasion people extract the 'perfectly good' ethernet cable out of the bin)
you just hunt the guy down IRL based on his writing patterns or any personally identifiable info he let slip over the years, then leave a scrap of paper with the DM in his real-life mailbox
The caps on presta valves aren't necessary as there's no way for dirt to get into the valve stem (unlike Schrader valves which can get clogged). The caps are useful for transporting the tube though to prevent the valve from puncturing anything.
Wheel reflectors are also pretty useless so you can remove those too. Plus you save some weight.
Never understood that. More visibility = potentially slightly less likely to get hit by a distracted driver so why remove the shiny reflectors spinning on your wheels?
And what’s a 20g saving per wheel when we carry so much more extra weight on our bodies.
Weight on the outside of a wheel matters more than weight on the rest of the bike for racing types - it increases the rotational inertia of the wheel, slowing acceleration & braking on top of any actual weight increase.
Personally I just buy tyres with reflective tape on the sidewalls. These are mandatory in some EU countries & are pretty effective in my experience.
Interesting. Though I'd argue that if the valve gets dirt on it, then eventually, when you unscrew it, some of that dirt will get deeper (particularly if you're completely flat and there's no pressure to push it out), and perhaps stop if from sealing perfectly. But I try to keep gear running for a very long time; this approach might be from cyclist who replace things a lot more often?
They are pretty robust, I have been riding the same presta valves on my mountain bike for maybe 5 years which I ride a few times a week, immense amounts of dry silica, muddy dirt, rain, cold, heat.
They are serviceable too. If you find it isn't sealing you can disassemble and clean the sealing surfaces, replace the locking oring or nut etc.
Somewhere I picked up the idea to place reflective tape on the inside of the rim between the spoke holes. Not really for side visibility, but for front/rear off-angle visibility I like it. You can alternate (say every 3) to produce a flashier pattern when you're moving.
I can't relate to this at all! If I have a broken clip, I can't get the plug to stay in for more than about 5 minutes. And I never route the ethernet cord somewhere where I'll trip on it...
Hesitant to admit this, but the cable between my antenna and router is missing the clip one side, and has been for far longer than since I moved in and set it up; seems to work fine. /shrugs
The valve cap thing is really funny. It's funny. I upgraded to a nice aero bike with Dura Ace everything, and then promptly got in an unrelated motorcycle accident and gained 25 lbs.
My weight gain is some multiple of how much I saved. Those Zipps have been outdone by my own gluttony. But one day I shall make the valve caps matter!
What are those for? My laptop has internet, but I don’t need to plug it anywhere for it to work. Is this for computers like they had in the really old movies like Back to the Future?
This is the best troll comment ever :-) Look at the replies taking you seriously :-) Including me.
When you have a lot of wireless devices, for every one you take off wireless, you have less radio traffic, less interference, and everyone else has a better connection :-)
In my network, unless something has to be wireless, I run a cable :-)
> In my network, unless something has to be wireless, I run a cable :-)
i would argue that being seemingly extreme here is worthwhile. If possible, run it inside rigid conduit. Some more cost now, but conduit makes it a much more maintainable system. Solid yet upgradable digital infrastructure, for the home or small office.
I once did this for a small office space which I had the freedom and budget to do as I wished. After that, everything was rock solid for years. Floods, critters, insane humidity... survived it all. If somehow a cable went bad, it could be used to pull through its replacement.
If in 10-20 years fiber became the new LAN cable, then just pull it through yourself without an electrician. If you need to hire an electrician who has the clbest tools for termination, their billable hours will be much lower.
Rigid conduit every room, maybe even two walls per room since you are already paying a pro to be under/over there already.
If it's a retrofit then maybe it's too late, but a renovation or new build... I would always spend that extra money if at all possible.
I'm convinced that a wired connection is better for video calls. Just like headphones. I'm my opinion, those two things are table stakes for a good remote work experience for your coworkers.
I was convinced of that until I was forced to stop using a wired connection (moved to a room that didn't have ethernet). I'm on wifi now and notice literally no difference compared to when I was on ethernet. As long as you've got a decent router/AP, modern wifi is really not bad. I get a consistent 400-500 Mb/s up and down with no hiccups. On my wifi 6 devices I get closer to a Gb/s.
It’s not only throughput. Wifi is more susceptible to jitter as well. But yeah in some cases wifi works well, whereas wired always works well. And if wired doesn’t work then your internet connection is bad and wifi won’t help either.
Ethernet has more bandwidth and lower ping than Wifi. And is mostly immune to interference. If you have a lot of devices on Wifi, it helps to put your main devices on Ethernet.
Often true, but since many a corporation now prioritizes wifi or stops deploying ethernet to avoid the cost, AND wifi keeps getting better, the lines have crossed for me. Oh and I need a USB-C to ethernet dongle. Oh, and a cable. TL;DR for me, wifi now beats ethernet at work.
Thanks to USB-C I just keep my Ethernet cable plugged into my monitor (via a USB dongle), and now when I plug in my external display I not only get power but also wired networking.
Years ago I had a Customer who complained that the Wi-Fi in their conference room “always” failed during a midday meeting. The conference room was right across from a break room w/ a microwave. Sure enough, employees heating food correlated with the outages.
This happened to a coworker of mine. He was having sporadic wifi trouble, always in the evening but not every evening. Plugging in wired would always solve it, so it was definitely a wireless problem.
I handed him one of my old Ubiquiti M-series APs, the ones with the spectrum analyzer function built in. Showed him how to use it on his laptop, how to turn in a circle and estimate the azimuth of the source, etc. He went home that evening and as soon as his connection dropped, he fired up the analyzer. Very quickly localized the source to the driveway side of the house.... to the neighbor's kitchen.
At that point he called me for advice, and I said to knock on the neighbor's door, because this is really unsafe. He put me on speakerphone and I was able to tell them what we found, and they cut me off, saying they knew the door seal was damaged -- it got torn a few weeks prior when someone caught something in the door -- they just had no idea it was a big deal. (It's normal to feel a warm draft near the corner of the unit since the fan exhaust blows out down there, so the warm-sunshine feeling wasn't distinct enough to alarm anyone.)
They replaced the microwave the next day and the problem went away.
What's an urban legend? That your kitchen microwave leaks rf? I'd be surprised if any of them somehow didn't. It takes a tremendous effort to stop all rf leaks in a device.
It's a kind of safety line to keep your packets from wandering off and getting lost on their way to the cloud. Helps reduce the "401 not found" pages you sometimes encounter.
Is this for computers like they had in the really old movies like Back to the Future?
Yep, exactly that. We used the 1.21 Gigawatts standard, which was only half as groovy as today's 2.4 Ghz WiFi.
There's a large number of reasons, reliability, bandwidth, latency, security, but really with the rise of thunderbolt and USB c docks there's no longer a need to plug a laptop directly into Ethernet.
Guys, VincentEvans has almost 10 years old account, I doubt he needs these explanations. I've never seen such joke being misinterpreted on HN. Heartwarming patience for youngsters though.
> but really with the rise of thunderbolt and USB c docks there's no longer a need to plug a laptop directly into Ethernet.
Especially when the laptop does not have an Ethernet port. For me it's USB-C to Ethernet adapter when my laptop is in my office room, and pathetic WiFi elsewhere.
I take it I should try one of these USB-C to USB-C magnetic things (a la Magsafe): don't know if they're any good.
I learned recently that most high school students around here (fairly affluent Boston suburb) write papers - even long 10+ page ones - on their phones.
So the 8 pin modular connector(rj-45) may not be the best connector in the world(the 8088 sas connector is a serious contender for that honor), but it does one thing better than any most connectors, it is designed to be field terminated, and as such is easy to fix. the crimping dies are ubiquitous, the process is simple. because of this single fact, I think it is better than just about any other connector in widespread use. because you can fix the infernal thing.
As such the article left me a bit confused, why not just cut off the end and putting a new plug on? with an 8 pin connector this is very easy. But I am in the industry and tend to have a crimper close to hand. perhaps some are not as fortunate.
Your comment is right above someone saying RJ-45 may be the worst connector! That’s just the internet I guess.
I think both opinions are right. If you’re a professional working in the field, RJ-45/8P8C is awesome because you can do large runs of cable and crimp on connectors after which is a lifesaver. The longevity of the connector is less important than ease of installation/replacement. I’ve done a little work with marine ethernet and CAN which uses M8/M12 circular connectors and those are pretty painful in contrast.
For consumers, it’s exactly the opposite. They’re unlikely to have the tools to crimp connectors. Most cables off Amazon come with lots of plastic that makes the cables rigid so it’s a pain to route and use in a home.
Yes, field termination is mostly for permanent installations, but luckily, there are also proper "industrial" connectors that are field terminable. Such as Harting's PreLink M12 connector:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35DKv6bhadI
When I say "industrial", I mean for home use, of course. There is obviously a lot of potential for a more robust yet cost effective and practical connector for home use. Field termination being no excuse. First off, even metal 8P8C connectors have plastic tabs. If single-pair ethernet ever takes off, the "industrial" M8 push-pull connector seems a good one.
I am not sure how important the strain relief is, I never bother, but if you really want strain relief there are connectors with it. sometimes they have a metal band you have to crimp around the cable.
The strain relief is for machine made cables where they glue or melt the relief into the plastic plug. Almost all manual crimp connectors have a strain relief built into them that's meant to grab the jacket and hold the cable right at the entry to the plug.
All my RJ45 and RJ45-EZ connectors in my bag have this locking strain relief tab at the back.
I've just remembered that while having our second child the nurse couldn't get the monitoring in the nursing station due to one of these clips. The ethernet socket was quite high up the wall so the weight of the cable was handing from the slightly broken clip. Thankfully even in my frazzled state I was able to suggest turning the cable around end for end so that the one with a good tab was plugged into the wall.
There’s a joke on Instagram of a lady in the delivery room giving her partner (an electrician) a stern look because he’s testing the outlets for compliance and discussing why some are inverted with the ground up.
I’m picturing you and your partner having a similar scenario and it’s rather amusing. :)
I don't have problems with RJ45 tabs breaking off. I do have two problems with the connectors:
1. Sometimes the connectors don't latch properly in the port and fall right out. I try to bend the tab out further to help it latch but it never stays.
2. Some patch cables have rubber over moulding that covers the latch that's so stiff that I have trouble getting it to release. Who even wants the latches to be covered? One of my cables has a thin rubber tab over the clip that stops it from snagging on things, I guess, but doesn't inhibit unlatching. But it seems that the most popular over moulding is the terrible one.
Imagine twenty ethernet cables plugged into a switch, and you need to remove one. You unplug it, pull it slightly to see which it is below the bundle, grab it there and pull.
You will then discover that an uncovered clip magically catches on EVERY SINGLE other cable on the way through. It will also catch on the rack, any other devices within reach, and somehow the power switch for the entire installation.
In fact if you ever lose your car keys down a drain, simply poke an ethernet cable with an uncovered RJ45 plug through the grate. Your keys will be firmly attached to the tab, along with five other sets of lost keys, several rodents and the grate itself.
To counter your experience tho, the clip helps with cable from coming out of my router, the rubber helps with the tab breaking when it caches on another cable.
That's fantastic, just about every one of these cables I have eventually ends up tabless. They're just built so flimsily that breaking them is a complete inevitability if you need to plug them in more than once, they're like a 5 time use cable.
Comparing it to other types of connectors, RJ45 is probably one of the worst ones out there (at least VGA has screws that don't break), but it's also as prevalent as USB-A so I wonder if anything will ever replace it.
The worst in my book is micro-HDMI. So many broken connectors, adapters, and cables...
Even before USB-C became an option, mini-HDMI is just a different league of reliable without being that much bigger.
A broken RJ-45 is still usable and fixable. A broken micro-HDMI makes you feel lucky it was the cable and not the device that goes in the bin this time. But only after hours wasted on fiddling with it because the closest shop carrying them wouldn't arrive until after the weekend.
They're just built so flimsily that breaking them is a complete inevitability if you need to plug them in more than once, they're like a 5 time use cable.
Erm? You must be exaggerating a bit, I use cables/connectors hundreds of times with zero isses.
Naturally it's an exaggeration, but it really depends on how careful you are, quality of the cable, and quality of the port. Laptops, especially, I've found absolutely eat the tabs since you move them around and often have collapsible ports.
If modern laptops even have ether net ports, they seem to the kind with the little spring loaded flap because the laptop is too thin for a normal ether net port. So I'm surprised they haven't made a slim lightning connector type ether net port.
I had the same thought some time ago and went looking for alternatives to the 5P5C connector. It turns out they exist and are used in industrial applications, like the "ix Industrial" [1], precisely because how fragile the standard connector is. Unfortunately there's no standard and the designs are proprietary.
This made me think, why do we still have RJ45? Yeah of course it won’t disappear anytime soon, but couldn’t USB C replace it? Are there USB C switches (hubs) with say RJ45 input (from Internet) and USB C output ports for connecting local machines? I’m thinking about a small home network with say 8 ports. Ideally, it could also deliver power to smaller units, such as a set-top-box and wifi base station. Larger devices such as TVs could also deliver power to its connected boxes. What if we had an Apple TV with a single cable… it could receive both power and network traffic via the TV and deliver the TV signal back over the same cable.
Someone else mentioned it, it can be terminated in the field. It is a very serviceable connector which fortunately the commercial world still values. You don't want to be replacing a 100m run of USB C cable when the connector breaks.
If you are a consumer who tries to buy right, buy once, commercial products are a great place to look for this reason too. Industry often requires serviceability and robustness.
USB-C has a mechanical detent. There's a metal spring in the male connector, and the center tab in the female connector has an indent on either side for that to snap into.
Looks like a poor match for FDM printing. There's no orientation where the layers won't leave some part of this component very weak. In any orientation, it requires support material; in the suggested print orientation, it requires internal support material, which will leave rough surfaces on areas of the part that have to interface and fit with the ethernet jack.
Essentially doesn't really look like a 3D-printing project so much as an injection moulded part design.
This print would work fine. The forces cables are subjected to are far lower than the break point of the Z-axis layers. I would print in another orientation that had less interior fill.
Material used is rather important. PLA, which is probably the most common 3d printing material, is very prone to stress fractures. ABS on the other hand would probably do alright in this application.
Flex filament is probably too flexy. The trouble with PLA is that it essentially starts forming cracks at zero force. If you keep PLA under load it's only a question of how long it takes before it breaks. E.g. making a coat hook from PLA would probably work fine for a long long time, but one day it will break, Even if you just hang a coat from it and never touch it again.
> The component won't be undergoing any stress at all
It has a compliant clip that bends to clip and release; its entire purpose is to retain cables against being pulled out of sockets; and it is designed to press-fit around the body of an ethernet connector which, if it is not too loose or a perfect fit, will subject it to a continual stress.
I have printed this very model and it wasn't compatible with any of the cables I tried. It's also extremely weak and will break very easily (they all broke within a minute of trying to install them).
It's less than 10 min of print time so it's worth trying, but expect it to fail.
I mean, sure, but reterminating with a new, not broken patch cable only takes 30 seconds, and they cost peanuts.
But sarcasm aside, you don't want to reterminate a pre-made patch cable. Under a very strange Universe fluctuations where you don't have a spare patch cord, spare 8p8c jack with a crimper but you do have a 3D printer with a plastic loaded and ready to print....
What do you mean stranded? If you mean standard ethernet cable, it's 8 solid wires. Putting a keystone block takes about 1-2 minutes (with a tool). I spend more time figuring out which wire goes where than the actual retermination.
Cable bought on long spools to install permanently is usually solid, while patch cables are usually stranded. Most of the time, you'll end up buying pre-terminated stranded cable, and all the cable you terminate yourself will be solid.
Does it even matter if the cable is solid or stranded? When you put on that new RJ45 connector the cables go into the connector with the insulation on.
I've never seen stranded wire in an ethernet cable, but I see it's a thing. I occasionally turn my male-male ethernet into male-female with a keystone block and never see stranded.
I dabble in electronics and I eliminate stranded wire whenever I find it. Some people love it but I find it really inconvenient.
Solid Ethernet cabling should generally only be used on permanent building cable that never move. Stranded should be used on patch cables and cables that get moved around. Beyond being more difficult to handle, regular movement will break solid copper, often leading to intermittent connectivity.
Not much to it. Every individual wire is wrapped up, and stays that way. You just need the stranded cable caps with teeth that pierce through the individual wire wrapping when you crimp down on them. Keystones are a pain tho, nobody seems to make them for stranded cable. But you can terminate the cable coming out the wall with a standard cap, and shove a connector where a keystone would go in the socket.
All those things I learned after accidentally buying tons of stranded cable for re-wiring my house :)
The trick is the jack, you need the plug for stranded cable. and don't try to use stranded plugs on solid core, as I found out the hard way it is nothing but pain.
Yeah, I thought "what kind of newfangled abomination is this" earlier this year, grumbling it was all that was available at Home Depot at that moment. Pleasantly surprised upon using one though, what a great time saver.
I'm starting to think I have dreamt this but... wasn't there an IBM Ethernet cable with instead of the little tab ending in ... nothing, it was a little bridge that went back down, so nothing to hook/snag on. But it didn't look quite like the 3D printed one here, but it was symmetrical looking, like a tiny tiny arch bridge.
Oh, and it was made of springy metal, in this maybe dream.
Pretty sure I’ve seen a version of this cable that had a solid tab that bent in the middle. I have no idea what the brand/name is, and just spent way too long looking for it. It wasn’t metal, but sounds like a plastic version of what you’re talking about. I remember really liking them.
This one is fine. But I had better luck on my booted CAT6A cables with this other design. The longer one is what I used and even then, I had to shave the nose a mm or two.
Ethernet / RJ45 could displace USB 3/4. It's technically superior in every way. The only barrier that I can see is the standards folk would need to come up with a new RJ45 connector that is designed for end users.
Sure, if you are very serious about it. But anecdotally, a lot of folks buy 3d printers only for them to gather dust. Unless you are really up there on income, get something cheaper to start. Ender 3, while being objectively worse, can be had for peanuts compared to Bambu Labs printers. I have one sitting in the room next door, bought on a whim after noticing a very good deal. While I would love a better one, it has taught me what at-home 3d printing can be used for, and what are the main features to look for in the next upgrade. And the limits of applicability I've run into have thus far been mainly down to materials and my design capabilities, and better hardware won't solve those.
3D printers have exited the hype cycle and now are in two categories:
People who bought them as a cool consumer gadget similar to VR. These printers are gathering dust because there ultimately isn’t that much interesting plastic junk to print.
Silently churning out hundreds of rapid prototypes a month for engineers & makers. In my circle it’s just become an assumption that you have 2-3 printers running when prototyping a project. 3D printers have just become a background tool rather than something that you actively tinker with + improve. I got mine down to decent print quality and haven’t upgraded it in years, but print daily!
I make monitoring/automation software for 3D printers, and I'm thinking about adding a "make something every day" achievement to help with this. I'm collecting handy/functional prints (like the OP) to make it easy to achieve.
It takes a lot of activation AND creative energy to figure out something useful/functional to print, then execute on your vision.
Given the lifespan of plastic products I don’t think it’s so bad that people let their printers sit unused for extended periods of time. If you don’t have a useful/desired object to print I would rather they not make a plastic object that will last hundreds of years and cannot be currently recycled except by doing it yourself. I would be concerned that achievement hunters would in fact be motivated by your idea and will be printing benchies or other useless objects they don’t actually want to keep the streak up. Maybe instead you could make a handy way for the users to list their print wishlist so they could keep it running with stuff they need/want instead of the ritual.
Thanks for the comment. I hadn't considered that people might print junk just to get an achievement, but that does seem like an obvious misaligned incentive now.
Maybe it'd be better to collect models that solve a specific problem, like "kitchen drawer organizer set" or "cable management kit." I want the game-ification to help provide activation energy needed to do something creative and get into the habit of using the 3D printer to solve household problems. This has certainly helped my house buy less plastic crap shipped from overseas. For example, I need a new dog poop bag dispenser for my curb - instead of buying one, I'm going to 3D print one. =)
If I do launch something like this, I'll make sure the naming is "Make Something Useful" or "Make Something Functional."
I print PLA and I don't think those are very durable. Sure, ABS is. That's why I think for the kind of widgets were printing, i think it's best to use flimsy PLA.
Please consider "make something every week" instead. With how long it takes to think up and design truly useful prints, especially if you have a day job that does not involve CAD... "something every day" will mean "something off of the popular page on thingiverse every day, then into the bin next day" for many would-be achievement hunters.
I dunno if I would call cheaper ones terrible. My 99 dollar Ender 3 Pro with a couple mods does extremely well considering the price. The detail you can get out of it is more than enough for what I've needed it for. I'd highly suggest trying the cheaper ones out first, especially if you live near a microcenter.
I think the amount of modding/tuning required to achieve good results with a low-end printer is a turn-off for most people. Imagine if you had to spend 40-100 hours modding your microwave before you could start cooking quick weeknight meals - that amount of effort isn't worth the trade-off unless you're a modding enthusiast.
I second the recommendations for Prusa and Bambu Labs. My Prusas are especially reliable for daily tasks, and started my obsession with 3D printing a few years back. If you have an open weekend coming up, the self-assembly Prusa kit is a delightful example of excellent technical documentation.
I recently bought a Prusa Mini+ (self assembly kit) and it is truly a fantastic product. The documentation is phenomenal. The step-by-step guide makes it very easy to assemble, and the best part is that when you are done you know every part and understand where to open it if eg. the filament gets stuck somewhere.
Maybe comparable to running MacOS v. Linux for a home machine. They're both basically *nix, but if you're the kind of person who enjoys tinkering and digging around in the guts of the machine, Linux might be the fun way to go. If you just want to use the machine, Mac might be a better choice.
Then again, I use a Mac at home (Linux servers though), and have an Ender 3, so maybe that comparison isn't as valid as I thought it was.
The newer ender 3 pros come with a lot of the mods included now (like the updated board). I think the only real thing I’d mod if I bought another is a bl touch and maybe a pei sheet, wasn’t a fan of the included one.
I will caution that learning the ways of 3D modelling/slicing takes significant investment. Even if all you do is grab something off Thingiverse to print.
The learning curve is not hard and info is everywhere online. But it is of reasonable quantity compared to a $300 printer.
If you already have those skills, then a 3D printer is no brainer.
I'm still working my way through the 50-count bag I bought in 2018; evidently I don't actually encounter that many broken cables, they just exert an outsized effect on my psyche when I do.