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I also have a Pi3b+, and if I decide to use that, I'm gonna draw power from the printer's psu with a purpose-made power converter from th3d:
Raspberry Pi - 3 Amp Direct Wire Power Adapter - TH3D Studio LLC[^]
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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I have Fusion 360 set up so I can use 3D Print under Tools to send straight to CURA and then the OctoPrint plugin in CURA so it can send straight the Pi 3B+ and start printing.
The Pi is powered off the printer's PSU (via buck converter) and also controls relays to switch the 24V supply to printer on and off.
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Be careful with buck converters. I did the same thing you did and discovered that many buck converters (specifically the ones with over current detection) have a small ~0.1 ohm resistor between input negative and output negative terminals to detect the amount of current flowing (which IMHO should be on the positive line). If the Pi is connected to the printer via USB cable (which it will be), you will get strange current flow on the negative rail and some weird things happening.
I'm retired. There's a nap for that...
- Harvey
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Thanks for the info!
Do you know if removing the power wires from the usb cable would solve it or would it make it worse by throwing off the data lines?
How could I make it so that it won't do funky things?
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Thanks.
My Pi is actually powered via pins 2 & 6, not the USB. I am aware this bypasses the input fuse so has a slightly increased risk. I'll take a look at the buck converter circuit and see it it has low value resistor. I'm also looking at redesigning the case I printed so I can power the Pi via the USB and access the HDMI!
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I have an old Prusa, it's paid for itself many times over. Check out Tinkercad | From mind to design in minutes[^] for a very easy way to design stuff. You will have teething problems but stick with it and try to fix one problem at a time. Don't use super cheap filament it nearly always causes problems and level your bed before each print. Have fun!
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I have the same - as anyone else will tell you levelling is a real faff but extremely important, choice of filament can also be tricky, I've had cheap stuff that age hardens in no time flat making it unuseable, also different colours from the same manufacturer that require different settings to get a good print - strange but true! I'd start with PLA and get some smaller quantities from different manufacturers until you find something that works well. I have a couple of test objects that I print regularly to check everything is ok - a 30mm cube for checking dimensions and visually checking print quality, also a 150mm x 150mm square 1mm thick for checking levels after adjusting, thickness can be measured all around with a vernier and it doesn't take long to print. Printing larger objects always seems to be a problem for me, I'd suggest a test object (150mm topless cube?) with 5mm walls before tackling anything complex. FreeCad and Slice3r have been good to me, both free, reasonably easy to pick up (I've never used CAD before) and fairly flexible.
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I run a Creality CR-10S Pro. It's been exceptionally reliable. Rare to have print failures. As others have said, without CAD modeling you might be bored quickly. I also recommend Fusion 360, free version for the personal user and lots of resources to learn it.
I use KISSlicer and Cura for slicing, different types of parts behave differently. KS will take learning but I believe the toolpaths are higher quality than Cura and others. Cura has some great features, especially for generating better supports.
Material is all over the spectrum, spend a little more and you will get a little more. I prefer Paramount 3D filaments, good price and high quality.
Here's a make I did on Thingiverse with the CR-10s Pro.
Makes of 3D Printable Jet Engine by LayerShaper - Thingiverse[^]
Good luck!
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Yeah I have an Ender 3 Pro. Clever observers will note I haven't been doing much of anything else the last several months. I've been spending all my time printing things. Just emptied my second spool of filament.
I'm retired. There's a nap for that...
- Harvey
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I've an Ender 3. I've had it for about 6 months.
I've emptied 2 spools and am well on the way to emptying the 3rd and 4th. I just counted that I have 13 spools of PLA open and stored with another 6 unopened in boxes.
Well, you've got to have a choice of color when printing! 
Red (2), orange, yellow, green (2), cyan, blue (2), purple, pink, white (2), black (2), gray (unopened), gold, silver & transparent.
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I recently created several demonstrations of message queues, and demonstrations of custom async/await scenarios.
Some time ago I created self-hosting service executable, which presented a neat way to control your service, install/uninstall it as a service, or simply run as a normal console application that blocks until it receives a kill signal.
I've been thinking of combining them into a kind of inherently asynchronous service framework where you can create these little self hosting hybrid service/CLI apps and then your code inside them can do things like spawn background workers that report back to your primary thread like they do on winforms so everything is synchronized between threads.
The trouble is, I think most services people are writing these days are internet facing and on the ASP.NET, node.js or similar platform rather than being like daemons.
I'm not even sure if this would be that valuable.
And if it is, do you have any ideas you'd like to see in it?
Thanks for your thoughts!
Real programmers use butterflies
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Any well written article is worth publishing. Even if you think the subject is somewhat specialised it may still contain things that people can use elsewhere. You will only really know if it's worth it by the votes and feedback.
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True. I guess I'm just curious if people write service executables like this anymore.
Real programmers use butterflies
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In my last job I wrote several of them. Many solutions to the projects we were working on were solved using Windows Services.
I developed a template (not a Project Template, just a chunk of code to start from as it didn't work right for me) and started off all my Services from that. It was basically a stub Service with a DLL that did all the real work. This way I could easily run it in debug via a debug stub.
I always wanted to expand the "template" to handle all cases but I never had the time.
My new job never seems to use Services and does everything via web-initiated console programs. This is a culture thing mostly -they could do a lot of this stuff with Services but it seems I am the only person here who has had any experience with them and no-one else wants to touch them with a barge pole. oh well.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Thanks for your input!
Today I half decided I might take a break from programming for a bit, so I might delay the project but we'll see
Real programmers use butterflies
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When I was about 10 years old, through until about 16, I made models. Airfix aircraft kits and Tamiya tanks. It was fun!
Recently my wife suggested I had another go as it was something entirely different to programming - although it still needed attention to detail and a lot of patience. It is fun! Why didn't I think of this before? Sometimes a change is what we need to move forward.
Actually, after having a model buying binge on eBay and Amazon, I found I had a lot of fun building a model-making bench in the basement. I refreshed a lot of woodworking skills I used to have and finally made use of nearly every power tool I owned (some hadn't been used for ten years, but I thought I needed them at the time).  Ahh... the smell of polyurethane in the morning!
Anyway, it's up and running and is the best thing I have done for simple relaxation for years. My personality does not enjoy drinking for it's own sake, or sunbathing on a beach (a stupid thing to do right now anyway), or any of the more outgoing, traditional things. I have to be doing something - and model-making does the trick. I am also learning new techniques via YouTube videos that just didn't exist when I was young. 
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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� Forogar � wrote: When I was about 10 years old, through until about 16, I made models. Airfix aircraft kits and Tamiya tanks. It was fun!
I was a weird kid. I didn't talk coherently until i was 5, but i was reading at 3, and making little circuits at 6. Computers (at 8) gave me the instant gratification I loved. At my core, I like building things - and taking them apart. Software gives me that.
But I recently ordered an Arduino and a starter kit for it so I could revisit that childhood hobby.
I might be able to make something useful my father in law has in mind for his pumphouse too.
When I was a teen, I was kind of bike punk and I built lots of frankenstein machines on two wheels including a 10 speed BMX which was one of the coolest bikes around - like a tiny mountain bike before mountain bikes were popular.
A few years ago hubby and I mounted a 2-stroke gas engine on mountain bike, and we used it as a grocery getter. It's growing weeds around it in the side yard now but i've been thinking about getting it road ready again. It was pretty fun.
You sounds like we have the similar passion and love of your different pursuits - reminds me of me where we have to be engaging with our hobbies or we're just not living.
Real programmers use butterflies
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I have 'inherited' some services and have to create new ones using the same design as the inherited ones. They consist of a service project (which consists mainly of internal scheduling and the doing bit [as a separate class in the later ones but intertwined in with the scheduling parts in the older ones]) and a console project for testing that (in the better ones) calls the 'doing' bit. I usually forget about switching the startup from running the console project to running the service project when I publish it. So your article could help me.
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Thanks for your input!
Real programmers use butterflies
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honey the codewitch wrote: I'm not even sure if this would be that valuable.
I learn with your articles, even if I afterwards don't use it. So yes, I think it will be worth.
honey the codewitch wrote: The trouble is, I think most services people are writing these days are internet facing and on the ASP.NET, node.js or similar platform rather than being like daemons.
Not me
honey the codewitch wrote: Some time ago I created self-hosting service executable, which presented a neat way to control your service, install/uninstall it as a service, or simply run as a normal console application that blocks until it receives a kill signal.
I have lately done something that could have used some bits of that, at the end solved in a less fancy way 
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Thanks for your consideration of this. I really appreciate your input! 
Real programmers use butterflies
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honey the codewitch wrote: Some time ago I created self-hosting service executable, which presented a neat way to control your service, install/uninstall it as a service, or simply run as a normal console application that blocks until it receives a kill signal.
tl;dr - yes please
long version - I think they are still 'needed' - Having previously written services with TopShelf, Quartz, when I was 'cut loose due to Covid-19' I started experimenting with self-hosting, DI & IOC, plus async/wait etc so I'm always looking for better/different ways of doing things - oh, plus logging of course .. if someone comes to me with an issue in a 'service' but no logging etc, my response is 'yes, you have an issue, come back when you really understand what at a minimum services should have'
(I think Topshelf & Quartz are still good, but would re-arrange the Quartz jobs for example using DI/IOC)
Quote: normal console application that blocks until it receives a kill signal.
I've always hated the 'press any key to exit program' and much favoured the Control-C/Break trap/handler to send a quit signal
looking forward to seeing what you have - an old dog who does learn new tricks
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I initially thought dev time would be a day or two with the article, but I ran into an issue wherein the service class doesn't give me access to the main message loop (ServiceBase.Run() blocks like Application.Run() does)
That means either my message queue or the service class itself must run on an auxiliary thread. This is complicating things, because it means post await code itself may fire on the main thread like it's supposed to, but things like OnStart() and OnStop() fire from an auxiliary thread, and that's even if I can call ServiceBase.Run() from a different thread than Main()'s but i think it will let me.
As far as the console mode it terminates on Ctrl+C or running it again elsewhere with the command switch /stop
Edit: having to articulate the problem helped me work through it. I just need to figure out what to do about the original OnStart() method. Hmmm
Real programmers use butterflies
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Quote: having to articulate the problem helped me work through it
you need a teddy bear to articulate to - it doesn't need to solve the issue (and likely won't), but as you've discovered, just articulating forces clarification (most times) in your head
good luck, I'm sure you'll figure it out
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