hamilton.likes.to.draw...

I have so many projects that will never be finished. So many half started, or incomplete things. FilmsWith will probably never be "done". Hell, I've rewritten that thing in like 4 different languages now. A bunch of projects I will keep unfinished forever as lessons for bad ux or design.

But I've been working on my apptools for EVER. The first commit was in 2018, but that was just when I first moved it into github. Just before my Christmas break, I finally moved two chunks of it in to separate repos. Core CSS and QJS. Over the last two weeks, I have been absolutely thrashing through QJS and the routing system. I think I can make great things with it. But also I started writing documentation for it.

One of the reasons I never felt like I could promote apptools was because it was a hodgepodge mess of stuff I had thrown together. QJS has come a long way recently, mainly because I started writing the documentation. While writing it, I started testing all the old things I had made and forgotten about. Now they're tight. And they work exactly how I want them to... for the most part.

And it's good. I think it's very good. I think it might be one of the best things I ever made. I have probably said it here before, but people used to tell me I was a creative person, and I would always argue with them. I'm not a creative. I'm a puzzle solving programmer. That's what I love and what I'm best at. I'm a way better engineer than an artist. And I'm a pretty good artist.

I'm not actually done with the documentation yet. Now that I've written it all out, and gone through all the testing of the code, I want to see what I can build the way of a documentation website with this tool. Now that I have the code in a working state, I don't think I'll constantly be seeing the limitations of my own tools, and instead just be able to use them to move forward.

If you want to peruse the current state of the docs, they're here. That page is made with both the QJS and Core libraries, and it is very exciting. I can't wait to do more. I am going to go to sleep and sleep forever.

I can't express to you just how obsessed I've become. Suffice to say I have kept myself poor recently spending all of my loose money on more and more 3d printing devices, parts, and paraphernalia. It's probably not even funny anymore. I've learned SO much, and I've done so much too. I'm learning about construction, electrical wiring, engineering, 3D design, and so much more.

In about October of last year I bought my first 3D Printer. It was an M3D. It was a learning experience. I found out you had to know so many things to begin to be successful at this particular hobby. I also quickly realized that the tiny, cheap Micro3d printer could just not reach the standard of printing that I wanted. It was fun to learn on and play with, but it was too limited.

In November I purchased an original Prusa i3 mk2. It said it would have a 4 week shipping delay. It ended up being a 10 week delay. But it was so worth it. At the beginning of this year, I received the Prusa and it is an amazing machine. I bought the machine as a kit which meant I had to put it together, in a process that ended up taking me about 10 hours.

All this time, ever since I first got my micro, I had a dream of building a printer from scratch. I started doing research immediately, and after seeing a video on youtube by tech2c, I decided to make a CoreXY printer and use his hypercube design. I started printing pieces for it and ordering 2020 extrusions online. The pieces I printed on the micro were bad and very discouraging. It just couldn't produce smooth sides, and its circles were garbage. But I began cutting the aluminum extrusions and eventually bought more and more pieces every month, trying never to spend more than a couple hundred every month. But every time I bought a part, I bought two. I knew that if I was going to build one 3d printer, I was going to build two.

After putting together the Prusa and seeing what it could do, I was emboldened. I purchased all the remaining parts I could think of and began printing all the parts on this much better printer.

I'm almost done. I just have some wiring to do and I will finally have a 3D Printer that I made completely from scratch. I cut the aluminum, the steel, the wires, and I printed the parts.

It was very difficult to find all the parts needed from one site, but I've finally compiled a list of all the materials and tools needed to make a 3D Printer into one place, and when I put together the second hypercube, I am going to be making a tutorial and a build log to go along with it. For now, there is a page started which describes my process and has a bill of materials that you might be able to follow along with eventually, if you too would like to make a 3D Printer with me.