I’m normally a pretty calm person — it takes a lot to get me riled up.  But now, I just hate Microsoft’s “Customer Service”.

I purchased my own personal Visual Studio back in 2012, since I do a little custom programming, and at now in my 60’s, just wanting to keep involved with the technology.  I’ve played a bit with Azure, and enjoyed the meager $50/month “free Azure account” that comes close to maxing out during every month… even those months that I don’t manage to even visit Azure.

The initial license was $1200, and each year since then I’ve sucked it up and paid $800 to keep the MSDN access going.  Apparently it expired (Microsoft says it expired in 2016, I say 2017), though I’ve been diligent about keeping it up to date whenever I get the renewal notices.  Then, in November 2018 I get a notice that my allowance for Azure is going away because my subscription has expired.  (At that point, I didn’t realize it had expired in 2017.  Of course, NOW I know.)

I contacted Microsoft Customer Service via Email, and was basically told that all I needed to do was re-subscribe, and everything would be okay.  So I went online in “chat” mode and arranged for the upgrade.  After receiving the Email confirming my purchase, I attempted to install the subscription key, and it complained — I’m not exactly sure what it complained about, since the little error window was too small for the error message to fully display.  The next day I tried installing it again, but the error message says that the subscription code has already been installed.  I go into my account, which tells me that my account no longer has an active subscription.  Where did my subscription go?

I open yet another ticket with Microsoft via Email, only to be “reminded” that my account was expired, and that since the subscription has been expired for longer than 30 days, “your renewal purchase can no longer be activated.”  NOW they tell me definitively that I’m screwed… but nobody had the balls to tell me that before — or they didn’t look at it close enough to tell me the truth.

I’m told “If you still want to have a subscription, I suggest to purchase a new one at https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/pricing/. ”  And then they’re kind enough to add, “Since you already purchased the renewal, you can reply to this email with confirmation to request for refund.”  Well thank you for that!

I called their 800 number, and started getting the usual overly-friendly Customer Service voice on the other end trying to explain me what happened and what my options are.  I just had to stop her and say “Look, I’m usually a pretty patient guy, but all I really want right now is for you to process my refund.”

I’m done with you, Microsoft.  I guess I’ll stick to WordPress now.

I’ve been learning a lot of new “stuff” lately.  I thought I’d share my pain.

Most of my development in the last 10 years or so has been of the following flavors of things:

• Microsoft Visual Studio.  I’m accustomed to it, I like it, I’ve grown with it.  And I’m probably going to stay with it, so if you have a zeal for another IDE — I’m happy for you, but no, I’m not changing that.
• Some of my development has been Windows Desktop applications.  I know a lot of people that still use PCs for most of their “real work”, and a lot of things I’ve been doing just “live better” there.
• Virtually all of my development has been using Visual Basic.  But it’s getting more and more difficult to find good/working/recent (meaning “up to date”) examples and troubleshooting guidance on VB, so it’s about time I tried diving a little deeper in C#.  I’ve stubbed my toe on C# every time I’ve dabbled in it, but I haven’t really given it the “honest try” that I should.
• My web development, however, while being centered around Microsoft’s ASP.Net, has been using the old traditional “Web Forms” approach.  Again, I’ve been “comfy” using that approach for years.  But the MVC approach — short for Model View Controller — has some elegance in it that I really appreciate.  Again, my attempts to pound MVC in my aging brain have met with resistance… until a couple of weeks ago, when I found a great video tutorial on Pluralsight.  I’m finally “getting it”.  But of course, the course and most of the examples I find are C#, not VB, so I’m multitasking as I cram “new stuff” in my head.
• Most of my web hosting has either been in a corporate IIS environment or on GoDaddy (Windows hosting, mind you).  Along with my MSDN subscription I have a monthly credit for Azure usage, and while I’ve poked around that beast a little, off and on, I’ve been hesitant to dive in with full force.  Like everything else, I’ve poked a toe in only to find “this one’s too hot, this one’s too cold.”  But — you guessed it — I’m taking the plunge now.
• Lastly, my experience with SQL has been more of the old school, “let’s define some table and columns using SQL Server Management Studio”.  And while I’ve read about Entity Framework a little, I haven’t been close enough to any to even poke a toe in it, except that now that I’m diving deeper into MVC, I’m running into it more… and I like how it “feels”.

So here I am now, programming a multiple-application web site, hosted on an Azure Web App Service, writing in C# using ASP.Net MVC with Entity Framework/Code First.  And most days, I actually make real progress!

This morning was not so good, though, as I tried to implement SendGrid to ship out Confirmation Emails from my user registration process.  I used SendGrid before earlier this month while I was searching out resources to use in my new development project… but that was VB-based.  Today, I had all sorts of issues getting it to work in my C# project.  I finally went back and forth between the two projects and checked out the NuGet package versions, and turned out my VB SendGrid was 6.3.4, and the C# SendGrid I loaded this morning was 7.0.2.  Was this major version difference the real problem?

When I went to the SendGrid site, I was immediately flushed with emotions — good and bad.  There it was, in big block letters:

I was mad and relieved at the same time.  But now I’m calm, and moving on to more learning.

My wife got a Bluetooth headset less than a year ago, which she loves wearing at work, listening to audio books when she can.  This morning on the way in to work, though, she found that the power switch didn’t work.

It floated back and forth freely — not with the usual friction and click to go from off to on and back again.  She muttered, “And I probably didn’t keep the receipt.”  She bought it at the local Fry’s store, so it’s not like Amazon or some other stores that can whip a new receipt out of the computer to give to you.

Once I got home, I got to looking for support and parts information on the LG web site.  What crap!  Nothing of value!

3D printed part in “clear”, original (damaged) part in orange

Then of course a wider web search, which led me to a cool YouTube video where a guy opened up one of these and replaced busted ear plugs.  I thought: “This looks doable!”

So I opened up the side with the power switch, and sure enough, there’s some damage — looks like some missing “stuff” — to the little piece of plastic that moves the actual switch inside.

I’ve been trying to 3D print a part… but it’s pretty small, and hard to get all the clearances “just right”.

I did find a guy that sells the 3D printed parts online for what I’d consider a “reasonable price.”  I might go that route if I don’t get more success at printing my own.

Concept:

My wife and her mother are working on a project to put 5 x 7 inch pictures in a wooden frame, and they thought it would be a nice touch to have a frame holder to display the picture on the tabletop.  My thought, of course, was to 3D print one for each frame, perhaps in different colors.

When I asked my mother in law what colors she wanted, she asked, “Can we do it in clear?”

I’ve recently been learning about making molds and casts at the Phoenix office of Reynolds Advanced Materials, and so I decided to give clear frame holders a try. Here’s the concept drawing:

So I developed a basic plan, based on the following steps:

1. Design and print a 3D frame holder, using FreeCAD for design, and Slic3r and Printerface for pushing the file down to my Lulzbot TAZ 4.
2. After manually shaping the part a little, make a “negative” mold using any available mold material.
3. Cast a plaster “positive” from the mold.  Refine the plaster cast with some sanding as needed.
4. Make a negative mold from the plaster cast, using some material suitable for multiple casts of the final item. (After all, I’m on the hook for four frame holders!)
5. Cast into the fine-tuned mold, using epoxy resin, which comes out clear.  Smoothness will depend on how smooth the plaster cast turns out.  Some buffing will surely be required.

Step 1 – 3D Model

So the picture you see above – with the frame inside the holder – is a screenshot from within the FreeCAD design tool.

Essentially, there’s a thin (2mm) horizontal base on the back, to keep the holder and frame from tipping over backward.  The side “grips” each have a slot to allow the frame plenty of room to be lowered into the holder without damage, but not so much slack that it will fall out of the back.

There were a few rough spots on the 3D print which needed some additional work.  I used a little clay to shape some edges by hand, and a Dremel tool to smooth down some rough spots.

Once I had the 3D print prepped, I inserted the frame to ensure a good fit.

Step 2 – First Mold

With the 3D printed holder ready, I prepared Alga-Safe.

I’ll be adding more to this shortly… stay tuned!

Photo credit: @Vyeth

So you’ve likely seen my Dragon Project link and read a little about what I’ve been planning: a shoulder-mounted animatronic dragon to wear with my wizard outfit.

This week I’ve stumbled upon another option: a full-size dragon suit with its own animatronic features.

I ran across this Tweet response to Smooth-On’s #SoMakeItMonday post back in early August:

@SmoothOn work in progress dragon mask for #somakeitmondaypic.twitter.com/TL3SBx2UdZ

— John Dart Miller (@jmillart) August 3, 2015

John and I discussed where I was heading with my project, and along the way I made the comment, “… instead of animatronic, maybe I should go with a dragon costume!”  John’s reply – “or applied animatronics in a costume even” – got me to thinking “inside the dragon” (as opposed to “outside the box”).

John loaned the master mold to a friend, James, who has expressed a willingness to make a cast for me at what I think is a very reasonable price.  Working with a little larger character actually makes the animatronics a good bit easier.

More soon!  I’ve got lots to think on…

The Tower Light Kit 10 foot tower was all hooked up yesterday, so last night we fired it up.  It looked pretty good in the nearly-dark dusk… and this morning in the dark, it looked fantastic!

See the video on YouTube here.

This demo was run at 1/4 power!  It could be quite bright even at 1/2 or 3/4.

There’s a run-down of the equipment used, etc., in the previous post.

What is the “Tower Lights” Project?

I’m investigating attaching LED light strings to the guy wires that hold up short to medium height radio towers.  I got the idea driving past Rustler’s Rooste nearby.
They have strings of low-wattage incandescent lights along 6 guy wires attached to the upper portion of the tower, as well as along 3 guy wires each at about two-thirds and one-third the way up, for a total of 12 strings of lights.  But theirs are all white, and left on daily from sun-down to sun-up, so they’ve got to be costing several hundred dollars a month in electricity.

What’s involved in the “Night Test”

Top portion of the tower at Rustler’s Rooste

To make the demonstration unit portable, the whole unit can be disassembled and reassembled as needed.  The PVC pipe slips into a pretty large base, the kind designed to hold umbrellas.  Each of the ropes (the pseudo guy wires) attaches to a ring that is around the PVC pipe, and after connecting the LED strings, extension cables, and control unit, the center end of the ropes is hoisted from ground level to the top of the pipe.  The far end of each rope is attached with quick-release hardware to an eye bolt embedded into a large brick.

What  is the Tower Light system made of?

Hammond waterproof enclosure for microcontroller and wirings, with Switchcraft EN3 connectors attached

While researching connectors, I met Richard Roberts at Moss Marketing who showed me a variety of connectors, including those from Switchcraft, which I knew would meet my needs. Richard in turn put me in touch with Larry Cairo at the Phoenix Allied Electrical office, where I ordered the Switchcraft connectors and Hammond enclosure.

I bought rope and the hoisting hardware from the local McFadden Dale store here in Phoenix.

I’ll post an update with night-time  video soon!

What’s the long-term goal?

What I’d like to be able to do is create “Tower Light Kits” made from “standard” lengths of LED light strings and extension cables to be connected to a standard controller box.  They’d be easy to install and maintain, and use very little electricity.

The light show could be customized by the user, selecting display times, brightness, and color schemes:

• Red and green for Christmas
• Shades of green for St Patrick’s day
• Red, white, and blue for Fourth of July
• Orange and brown for Halloween

Sometimes it really does come down to “necessity is the mother of invention”, and 3D printers make this possible for nearly anyone willing to invest a little time. Today, I did it again – from design, print, and ready in under 2 hours!

Note that you can click on each picture below for a larger, more detailed image.

The need

DeWalt sander with included dust catcher accessory

I’ve been working on a three tiered plant stand for the back yard, made from mostly 2×4 lumber.  Wanting to stain the finished item, I’ve been sanding each piece before assembly with my DeWalt orbital sander.  While the sander comes with a nice dust catcher, the instructions mention being able to push your shop vac hose onto the output nozzle and reduce the overall amount of dust that escapes from the sanding process.

My shop vac hose will “fit”, but only loosely, and after some experimentation yesterday, determined it would fall off within a couple of minutes.

What other option did I have, but to design and print an adapter!

Measurements

Measurements for shop vac to sander adapter

Out to the garage with my caliper, pen, and paper I went. Since the nozzle has several inner fittings, I took all the measurements I thought I’d need. 

It’s possible to push the actual shop vac hose directly onto the adapter I’m about to make, but there’s also a small “tool adapter” that came with the shop vac, so I took measurements of both.

Several possible configurations

Sander dust nozzle (left), shop vac hose (top right), and included shop vac tool adapter (bottom right)

My initial thought was to fit one end of my adapter to the largest ring of the dust nozzle, and push the shop vac hose onto the other end of the adapter… and forget about the shop vac’s included tool adapter.

Design

Screen shot of FreeCAD design of Sander-to-Shop Vac accessory

Next I made the cylinders on which to attach the shop vac hose, offsetting it about 30mm from the other end (blue in the FreeCAD screen shot).

Lastly, I made the cones to adapt the sander-end ring to the shop-vac-end ring (orange in the FreeCAD screen shot).

Print

Printing the sander-to-shop vac accessory on my Lulzbot TAZ 4 printer, about half way through.

I imported the gcode file into Printerface, which estimated2423mm of filament and 1 hour and 3 minutes duration. I fired up the extruder and bed temperatures (200C for the extruder, 70C for the bed), and started the print.

An hour and 5 minutes later, it was a real part!

The part

Hot off the printer, and ready to test!

It fits!

Sander-to-shop vac accessory: designed, printed, and tested in under two hours.

Keep in mind that suction from the shop vac will naturally tend to hold everything together — as long as there is some friction to assist. I would not stay together by suction alone without an adapter.

The shop vac hose is more like “hard rubber” (with some “give” to it, as opposed to “hard plastic”), and it fit over the right-most end with a small amount of effort; it felt “just right”.

How did it turn out?

To make it functional: 2 wire ties and a small bungee cord

So in the first couple of minutes of use, guess what happened? The shop vac hose fell off. *sigh*

Turns out there wasn’t enough friction to hold everything together, especially given that the weight of almost the entire shop vac hose was dangling off the end of the adapter. I reached into my shop cabinet and wrapped two long wire ties around the base of the shop vac hose, and grabbed a small bungee cord from my bungee bundle and attached them as you see here.

Ultimately it seems to work fine. I adjusted the positioning of the loops in the wire ties a few times, and I guess sometimes it depends on what angle you’re working at. Still, for “under two hours”, this worked out fine.

Future plans

When I have some “extra time”, I may redesign the sander end to “clip” onto the dust nozzle assembly, and then fashion some sort of tie-down strap to hold the shop vac hose in place. But until then, this works just fine.

In my previous post (read it for more details on the artist and his studio), I displayed a picture of the 2 inch print of an STL file I received from “Gullwing”, the artist at Images in Depth/Lifecast Arizona. Here you see a deconstructed 4 inch print (left) along with the removed support material (right).

Since the print is larger, it seems to be slightly thicker, as you might expect.  And I tweaked Slic3r‘s settings in an effort to make the support material easier to remove – which seems to have been successful.

Slic3r Settings

I started with the “fast-PLA-pt35noz-pt28layer” settings file provided by Aleph Objects (maker of the Lulzbot TAZ4 I own), but made the following changes on the Print Settings tab:

• Infill menu
  • Fill density: 40%
  • Fill pattern: line
• Skirt and Brim menu
  • Brim width: 2mm
• Support Material menu
  • Generate Support Material – checked
  • Enforce support for the first 2 layers
  • Pattern: rectilinear grid
  • Interface layers: 2
  • Interface pattern spacing: 2mm

Lulzbot TAZ 4 & Material

I printed with Printrun/Pronterface using 3mm clear/natural PLA, with an extruder temperature of 200C and bed temperature of 70C directly to the Kapton surface.  I’ve learned with experience – especially here in Arizona where it’s very dusty – to clean the Kapton everyone morning before printing, usually with a little denatured alcohol (I’ve been using 15%) and a cotton ball or a lint-free wipe such as Kimtech (also used in my Up Close Imagery microscope pictures).

Printrun estimated a usage of 1622 mm of filament and 55m 36s to print, and the actual print time was 1h 7m 13s.

Coming Up…

I’ve ordered the Structure Sensor which should arrive today, and I’ve already had discussions with Gullwing about coming back by his studio and doing my own 3D scan.

May 22 I attended a Lifecasting seminar at Reynolds Advanced Materials in Phoenix. While there, I met a gentleman who has been doing this for 20 years! But he has a very special approach to it. Take a look at his web site for more on that. Be sure to browse his Gallery from the menu!

A few days later I visited his studio up in northern Scottsdale (or southern Carefree, if you know the area). He has quite the setup, with many ongoing projects (a bit like me, except I’m technical, and he’s a real artist!).

He showed me 3D print he had done, which was quite nice.  Someone had 3D scanned one of his life casts, generated a mesh file model, and printed it.  I asked if he received an STL file (a popular file type for mesh 3D model distribution, if you are new to the world of 3D printing). He said he had… and was willing to share it with me.

A few days later I received his STL file, and i scaled it down to 2 inches and printed it with clear PLA.