My 6 input (5+1) mixing hot end

deckingman

I'm up to part 7 of my journey now https://somei3deas.wordpress.com/2020/04/18/my-6-input-mixing-hot-end-part-7/.

I haven't been posting updates here, but this latest post might be of interest to some, as it contains details of how I use the nozzle as a Z probe/homing switch. This is an extract...

"I now have a Z probe / homing switch that is arguably as precise and repeatable as they come, has zero offset between the physical nozzle position and the switch trigger point in X, Y and Z, has no hysteresis, does not need any deployment mechanism, does not need any signal conditioning, and is self compensating in that the physical end stop is intrinsically linked to the electrical trigger point. Oh, and it was cheap"................

deckingman

I've just published part 8 of my journey https://somei3deas.wordpress.com/2020/04/28/my-6-input-mixing-hot-end-part-8/. There is a little YouTube video embedded in that post which shows my "nozzle as Z probe" (that I gave details of in part 7) in operation. I'm quite chuffed with the way that turned out.

deckingman

I'm now up to part 12 of this particular journey but I've moved over to doing updates via my YouTube channel rather than my blog. Link here if anyone is interested. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl4DMXJHvnU

Phaedrux

@deckingman Does that signal the end of the written form entirely for you? No more blog posts?

deckingman

@Phaedrux said in My 6 input (5+1) mixing hot end:

@deckingman Does that signal the end of the written form entirely for you? No more blog posts?

Undecided but probably yes. There is a chance that I could make a small amount of money from YouTube. It would never be much as it's a bit of a niche market and I don't do reviews which is what drives a lot of traffic. But if I could get some income, however small that might be, it would help towards my development costs (although knowing me I'd likely spend it on photography gear).

There are two criteria one has to meet. The first is to get 1,000 subscribers and I've recently made that target. The second is to accumulate 4,000 public viewing hours in a 12 month period. I only have 1,600 or thereabouts. So I have some way to go with that.

But I'm always open to feedback. Which format do you prefer?

Phaedrux

I like both. Youtube more for entertainment/edutainment. It's good to see things in motion sometimes, but it's also nice to be able to read a long form description with technical details and study a still high quality photo.

arhi

@deckingman said in My 6 input (5+1) mixing hot end:

Which format do you prefer?

both

Phaedrux

If I HAD to choose, I'd prefer long form blog posts.

deckingman

Hmmmm. I'll give it some thought. Both formats take a surprisingly long amount of time to do.

Phaedrux

@deckingman said in My 6 input (5+1) mixing hot end:

Both formats take a surprisingly long amount of time to do.

I have no doubt.

dc42

@deckingman said in My 6 input (5+1) mixing hot end:

But I'm always open to feedback. Which format do you prefer?

I prefer blog posts because I can skim through them. But if you have financial reasons to prefer video then I'll try to add to your viewing figures.

PS - also I can more easily search for your blog posts. I recently needed to link to your work on moving the extruder gantry less than the print head, and it took me a long time to find the video. Maybe you could publish videos and also short blog summaries that link to them?

T3P3Tony

@deckingman personally prefer the blog posts as a reference. The videos are useful for illustration (easy to see the differential head movement on a video, would have taken more time to describe that). As David says, will continue to watch/read along either way!

deckingman

Well here is the thing. My blog has been running slightly longer than my YouTube channel (although there isn't much in it). Until recently, the only YouTube videos were those that were made in support of blog posts with links in the blog to the corresponding video. So there are actually less YouTube videos than Blog posts.

Stats for blog;

Total followers - 43
Views for October - 85

Stats for YouTube channel

Total subscribers - 1027
Views for October - 2522

So the YouTube channel reaches a lot more people than the blog.

I'm still learning a lot - standing in front of camera and talking to myself doesn't come easy (and I hate the sound of my own voice) . It's surprising how many times I clear my throat or say "um", which I wasn't aware that I did. I have to cut those bits out which is why the videos look "jerky".

Maybe I should write it all up on my blog, then use that as the script for the video. But that brings it's own problems in that I find it hard to read from a script without it sounding like that's exactly what I'm doing.

I've never given actors or film makers much thought, but I've started to develop a bit of an appreciation ...........

arhi

@deckingman YT will always have more viewers as ppl are lazy, if you look for numbers YT will beat the blog always, if you look for quality it is other way around...

few suggestions if you don't mind, widen the shot a bit as you can always zoom/crop in post if you want to, but can never widen in post, also if in post you want to apply stabilization for e.g. it will zoom in as it needs to crop out the edges while stabilizing so taking a wider shot is always better idea... dunno what you are using for post but I can suggest daVinci Resolve, free version is awesome and paid version is not too expensive if you decide you need it (paid version have some AI effects and few nice features but for what you are doing free version should be more than enough), in same tool you have full editing capability, movie standard color grading (they are the color grading software that all big studios use), full audio software (ppl say it's professional level, I can't say I'm not audio person, all audio is ok to me ) and some effects too ... so all around package where you can do everything from start to finish and it's free with ton of tutorials online

deckingman

@arhi Thanks for the tips. I only have an oldish camcorder with fixed lens and in the last video I zoomed in a bit to try a get a blurry background - it didn't work but that's the reason for the close up.

I've always used Vegas editing suite (used to be Sony Vegas but now it's Magix). It's one of the very few paid for packages that you can buy outright, rather than the monthly subscription model that a lot of software companies are moving over to. I've heard good things about de vinci but like I said, I already have a paid for package.

arhi

@deckingman dv-resolve is also, pay once but the free version offers more than many other paid packages... anyhow if you are more acustomed to vegas (have not tried it for years but last one I tried was way below than free version of resolve) you can use resolve (free version) for stabilization only, that's how I started with it as even free version have awesome stabilization, and then I slowly moved to it (have not yet got paid version, will probbly get it on black friday)

deckingman

@arhi Vegas had probably moved on a lot since you tried it. A quick comparison of features shows that it does quite a bit more than dv (depending on version). It's had image stabilization for quite some time, although the camera itself does quite a reasonable job of that.
YouTube also attempts to do image stabilization and it's bloody awful. I've uploaded videos with close up shots of the print head, and after YouTube has done it's thing, it looks like the print head is almost stationery but the printer frame is moving around! I must look into that - there must be a way to turn that off.

arhi

@deckingman said in My 6 input (5+1) mixing hot end:

It's had image stabilization for quite some time

awesome

YouTube also attempts to do image stabilization and it's bloody awful.

ah, YT processing is terrible, always better to prepare everything at home and let YT just encode it's required sizes

deckingman

@arhi I came across this https://www.vegascreativesoftware.com/us/video-editing/vegas-pro-vs-davinci-resolve/. It seems that dv has also moved on since I last looked.

Although the source is vegas, it seems to be quite an unbiased comparison - (they do state that dv has better colour grading tools for example).

On balance, they both seem highly capable with not much to choose between them. Both have pros and cons when comparing one with the other. I'd say that Vegas biggest downside for some might be that it's for Windows machines only. It's also more expensive. So if I was starting out again, I'd certainly take a serious look at davinci but as I already have vegas and I'm reasonably familiar with it, I'll stick with it.

arhi

@deckingman good find, looking now, I'd say biggest difference is that dvresolve's free version is way more capable than anything available (vegas has no free option, only free trial, dvresolve is fully free in non studio version where it only lacks the "AI stuff") ... so as you already paid for vegas I don't see a reason to think about resolve at all ... resolve started as professional color grading tool (was doing only that) and used to cost in 5 digits levels but then they reorganized, purchased some companies, created all arounder and went on to big numbers.... I'm mentioning it to ppl "new to video" as most ppl (like me till few months ago) have no clue where resolve is today and how much it can give in free version and use very limited stuff like imovie or shotcut or openshot and similar free but super limited stuff... (or worse, cracked premier/after effects) ... I made a mistake, I see that you are in video for a while, I assumed you just started from the way you went with (I'm noving from blog to YT), but I see you have bunch of videos there already ... my mistake ...