Not OP.

That sucks. Especially having to make poor people financial decisions, you often can’t afford to make changes that will save you money in the long run. Been there done that.

Still, there may be some things you can do to save electricity.

Cheapo line meter. I use one on my well pump. It shows usage over time. You can figure out what’s using the most juice. It does 200v as well as 110 and clamps on. Does have to be wired in to for it’s power supply and ground.

Also, Kill-a-Watt clones. $9.99. Shows you how much plug in things use.

Offhand things that might help:

• Hot water heater on a timer and turn down the thermostat. There wil be bitching.
• If you have an electric stove, inductance stoves are supposed to be the most efficent, but you probably can’t afford one. Electric kettles for boiling water probably beat using a stove to heat water.
• Use a kill-a-watt to figure out what is using juice when appliances/TV/PC/etc. is on standbym
• Check freezer temp, it may be colder than you have to have it, turn up the thermostat.
• Check anything with a motor that plugs in with the kill-a-watt, like box fans to see if they’re pulling too much juice, when the motor bearings get shitty, you’ll pull more over coming friction.
• Use that clamp meter to check things like whole house blower fans, bathroom fans.

Good luck.

This is interesting. Can you give me a ballpark on your hardware cost for an 8 camera system? What does integration for NAS look like?

Thank you for the thorough response!

It’s unfortunate that the design compromises result in a tool with limited usability. I’m slightly interested in the desktop mills and lasers but haven’t done much research on them. Your comment about printing being slow actually perked my ears up as that suggests increased rigidity needed for milling. It sounds like if I ever do decide to get a tiny mill or laser, I’m better off with a purpose built machine.

As for software, G-code for a specific machine is all about the post at the professional level. Unfortunately, pro-grade CAM is around $20k a seat. A good post is often $4k or a lot of time painfully producing and testing it yourself. CAM/CAD is the only thing keeping me from Linux at work and on my primary home PC. I wasn’t impressed with the 1.0 release of FreeCAD. The UI still seems to be designed by aliens.

(Lemmy weirdness: I only received notification of your response last night.)

Could you please give your thoughts on its milling and laser capabilities? Do you own the 4th axis rotary?

There’s the whole thing where the first few joints of your fingers and toes turn black and rot off, but sure, eat some ergot.

Also, Datura is a common weed. Collect a bunch of seeds and share with your friends so y’all can all trip for days and not even know it. The kidney failure can kind of suck.

Wait, is there a new worms game for real? The best couch multiplayer, dog cuss your friends and family game ever.

It’s an old saying, longer version I know is:

“Saddest thing in the world is a cat scratching at the window because it used to be an inside cat.”

Tuva. Isn’t that the Mongolian metal band that does that dual tone throat thing? That shit’s grindy as fuck. 🤘

That’s unholy and should be cleansed with fire and chanting.

It would require Von Neumann machines to do it. Of, course, we could end up being turned into grey goo with that sort of tech.

But, yeah, simply invent self-replicating nanotech. Shoot it at the moon, Mars, Ceres. Viola, data centers in space. Use the same tech to clean up the enviroment and eliminate oil dependence. Might as well rebuld the coral reefs and old growth forests. Also cures cancer and the common cold. And is the fountain of youth. And we all live happily ever after in the computer.

I often code directly on the machine control, including single blocking a running program and adding a line while the program is paused.

Editor on older CNC machines usually doesn’t even do lowercase and often has limited alphabet keys. Think '80s green or amber screen.

A machinist’s coding workflow can be real fucky. I go from CAM which is like a highly complex visual programming IDE to notepad. If I’m being fancy I use notepad++ for syntax highlights and diff’ing.

Got tired of paying high prices on razor blades, using disposables was wasteful, and the exponentially increasing number of blades wouldn’t get under my nose.

Switched to an old school Gillette Tech safety. Switched to Barbasol instead of the thicker stuff. Shaves better, cheaper, just as fast. No stupid rituals required. No shaving soap, mug, bristle brush or horseshit required. (I do recommend starting with one of the combo packs of razors to find the one you like).

I even shave my balls with it.

My son has his own tech, and has never tried any of the goofy ‘modern’ crap.

This was a solved problem nearly 100 years ago. Funny how marketing works.

Not who you were responding to.

I’ve given up. I don’t have it in me anymore to keep trying. Never was able to get anyone back to reality after they went deep into it. Friends and family. It’s a terrible damn problem. Basically a big chunk of society needs to be deprogrammed and I haven’t seen anything that will do the trick.

Not that I’m in any way disparaging your efforts. Good luck and god speed. Maybe you’ll find some sort of magic that will flip the switch. You’d be a motherfucking hero, no irony.

Fun for the whole family. “Click!”

I lost my religion but I still thank jeebus for fat bottom girls in yoga pants.

I like to mention this when the subject comes up.

Late one night, slide under the truck with a 1/4" drill and a grease zerk fitting. Pop a hole in the muffler and screw in the fitting.

Using a grease gun, add the filling of your choice: silicone, tar roof patch, etc. Maybe add some canned tuna for fun.

That tasty gif never gets old.

Boom! Knocked the fuck out.

That wasn’t SOAD? What about the Metallica Imperial Stormtrooper march?

Second on Scratch. Then Python or Java.

(Pretty sure windows doesn’t come with any compilers anymore. Even if it did, it lacks an ide.)

I’ve actually drawn once in a defensive situation. Juvenile mountain lion was curious. I was growling and hissing at it but it kept coming so I drew. It finally turned and I didn’t have to try and kill it.

Peak life experience. I was really lucky to get see one and I’m so glad I didn’t have to shoot it.