Wednesday, the stromer drama

content/blog/wk6day3.md

@@ -1,7 +1,106 @@
 ---
-title: "Week 6, Wednesday:"
+title: "Week 6, Wednesday: Stromer Drama"
 date: 2024-09-04T21:55:00+02:00
-draft: true
 ---
 
-{{< image frame="true" width="17em" float="right" src="/img/headline/todo.png" alt="Credit: " >}}
+{{< image frame="true" width="17em" float="right" src="/img/headline/dreamscape-02.png" alt="Credit: Kushsessions, Dreamscape, YouTube" >}}
+
+After all of this printing heaven from yesterday, I got a little bit hooked. I liked what I saw with
+the Prusa Connect, as an alternative to my tested and tried [[Octoprint](https://octoprint.org)],
+and particularly it's nice to be able to send objects directly from the Prusa Slicer UI to a device
+queue, and mark the printer _ready_ once the finished parts are removed and the bed is clean.
+
+As it turns out, these features with PrusaLink are also available for the MK3! You can print a
+different Einsy container which allows for a companion Raspberry Pi Zero to be attached to the board
+using overly long (18mm) header pins. And it so happens that I have both the pins as well as a
+Raspberry in my electronics box.
+
+Off i go, using the MK4S to print new parts for the MK3, and while I'm at it, I also see that
+there's an upgrade path from MK3 to MK3S+, with a few new parts to be printed. And now I'm in the
+rabbit hole, and I'm in deep, and I see that there's *also* a few new parts on the extruder for my
+oldest MK2.5S printer. So I use the MK3 to print parts for the MK2.5S, while the MK4S printer makes
+parts for the MK3S+. I feel like I'm in an _Inception_ movie ... Printers printing Printers, must go
+deeper.
+
+Once the new board holder is printed, I solder the pins onto the Raspberry and flash it with the
+Raspberry Pi imager and a stock Prusa image. I plug it in, and go off to lunch, as the instructions
+say that the first install can take a while. When back from lunch, the printer is up and running,
+connected to WiFi, and is asking me to associate it with Prusa Connect. That task takes no longer
+than a minute, and I send my first object directly from the PrusaSlicer to this MK3 - slick!
+
+The rest of the day, the printers are doing 8h, 10h prints for all the replacement parts for the
+MK3->MK3S+ and MK2.5S refurbishment. I may end up selling the MK2.5S, in case you're interested, let
+me know and I'm sure we can work out a reasonable price for it!
+
+Now it's time for housekeeping. Marina and I divvy up the work in the bathrooms. I'll take the
+ground floor and second floor attic, she'll take the first floor. We take care of the porcelain
+thrones and wash basins and showers and what-not. Marina cleans the shower by .. taking a shower. A
+rather novell technique, I must admit.
+
+One that is out of the way, Marina and I go shopping. We plan the rest of the week and weekend in
+terms of evening meals; and try to make it diverse with fish, beef, tofu, potatoes, rice and pasta.
+But Marina also needs to finish her home improvement project, to upgrade the plungers on our toilet
+water reservoirs, a drama that keeps on giving: every time she makes an improvement, it turns out
+there is still water leaking through once the reservoir is full She decides to get yet another part
+to see if that helps; and while we're at _Jumbo_, I also get an extension with a water filter for
+our basement faucet.
+
+At _Coop_, we end up keeping to our shopping list _roughly_, although we have a conversation about
+an italian wine from _Vecchia Torre_ that I am pretty sure we have in our cellar, although Marina
+disagrees. You get one guess only: who do you think was right?  At the grocery store I'm reminded of
+an old Googler buddy of mine - Pascal Bovet - who moved to New York a long time ago, but from time
+to time I still cross paths with him on LinkedIn. His login name at Google was bopa@, and at our
+local _Coop_ grocery store, they were doing some works, revealing this [[bopa.ch](https://bopa.ch/)]
+branded concrete construction block. I pinged him on LinkedIn, hoping to solicit a smile.
+
+### The Stromer Jynx
+
+While we're at the _Coop_, an e-mail pops up on my phone: the Stromer is ready! So we finish our
+business at _Coop_, drive home to unpack and put away the groceries, and I make the faucet look more
+like a mosquitto (once you see it, it cannot be unseen). Then off to Stromvelo we go. When we're
+close by, I ask Marina if maybe she could wait in the car until I manage to pay and retrieve the
+bike. It's at this very moment that I think I jynxed it.
+
+The guy at Stromvelo is super, he walks me over the invoice (which is hefty, but then again this is
+a Stromer ST5, so everything ie expected to be pricey). Theyv'e replaced the rear tire+innertube,
+the +/- buttons on the handlebars, the torque sensor, as well as the front brake disc. All up, a
+good service, but there is one problem. He turns on the bike and the dreaded "Cannot connect to
+Torque Sensor" error pops up immediately. That's the same problem that I brought it in for in the
+first place. He does a quick ride on it and comes back with bad news: problem is not fixed :-(
+
+The Stromvelo guy clearly feels bad, but I've already sent Marina home [duh!] so I ask for a loaner
+bike. He prepares an St5 replacement for me, and I sign the paperwork for it. He tells me the PIN
+code but when I try it, it doesn't work. So off he goes, to reset the PIN code, and eventually he
+comes back outside and I think I have everything I need. Turns out, the battery has only 12km left
+in it, and it's about 7km ride. I insist that I'll be fine, even though he offers to swap the
+battery. 
+
+I ask if maybe the bike can be done before the weekend, as I'll be off to Friesland next week. Alas,
+even more bad news: Stromvelo Buchegg is off for a training course (German: _Weiterbildung_) on
+Thursday and Friday. But, he says, he'll make it a life mission on Saturday to take a good look at the
+bike and see what's up. He promsies to give me a call, and I have the replacement ST5 until then.
+All in all, I'm grateful that Stromvelo made the best of an otherwise bad-luck-jynx situation.
+
+The bikeride home was uneventful, thank goodness.  Back home, I 'made' dinner, which is to say I
+yeeted some potato / r&ouml;sti croquettes and a few _Schwyzer G&uuml;ggeli_ (rotissery chickens)
+into the oven and exercised patience for thirty minutes.
+
+After dinner, we watched a few episodes of _V Wars_ on Netflix, after which I went downstairs to
+enjoy the smell of molten PLA and PETG, paired nicely with a dram of _Grappa Di Vinaccia_ from
+distillery _Vergnano_. You know this stuff is serious when it ships in a one liter bottle.
+
+## Pictures of the Day
+
+{{< gallery-category >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-04/IMG_1119.JPG" caption="The new case for MK3S is printing - it'll contain a special cavity for a Raspberry Pi Zero which will hook up this printer to PrusaLink." >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-04/IMG_1120.JPG" caption="The finished parts for the new MK3 case on the MK4S printer." >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-04/IMG_1121.JPG" caption="The MK3 case is retrofitted, the Raspberry Pi is installed and the display helpfully shows 'PrusaLink' is being started." >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-04/IMG_1122.JPG" caption="I think of my buddy Pascal Bovet who goes by @bopa - he enjoys seeing the picture when I send him a DM on LinkedIn" >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-04/IMG_1124.JPG" caption="The Vecchia Torre that I could've sworn we have in the basement, but Marina says we do not. She was right - damnit she's always right!!" >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-04/prusaslicer.png" caption="A screenshot of the PrusaSlicer showing the printer stats and directly communicating with it over The Cloud (eg. somebody elses computer)" >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-04/IMG_1125.JPG" caption="I added a little tube to our faucet in the basement - it somehow reminds me of a mosquitto that's ready to have dinner" >}}
+{{< /gallery-category >}}
+
+{{< gallery-modal >}}
+{{< gallery-script >}}
+