3d Printing Meets Adventures in Home Ownership

Home ownership is full of its up and downs... and recently it has been more downs around here.

Last Friday I wake up, get out of bed, step onto soft spot next to the bed. Crap. Open the door to the HVAC system and feel damp breeze waft out and see water all around the bottom of the unit dripping down from the ducting going up into the ceiling. Fun. Let work know I won't be in. start soaking water up with towels and start calling around town to find an outfit with an opening that day in the first week of the first real heat wave of the summer. Right... well I get lucky and after some begging get someone to send a tech by to at least try and help me figure out what the problem is and what to do. Ducts are water logged... leaking back down. Need to replace ducts. Set up duct replacement. Continue changing out towels. Maybe its not that bad. Come home from work to change out towels on Monday and remember its time to change the filter. Lift filter and see a glint... a reflection.... CRAP. Shine flash light.... DOUBLE CRAP. Take vents off and take a picture of.....

Not what you want to find in the space below your HVAC system. 

Needless to say the words to describe the feeling that hit at that point are numerous, short and involve lots and lots of beeps. Quick trip to Home Depot and I am sucking up fuzz and .... whatever the hell that was into the new super suck 9000 unit (RIGID Shop Vac). And seeing plenty of drips still coming down so obviously the towel routine had not been as effective as we thought. Start going over the unit and find the source as the access less PVC drain pipe coming off what I later learn is the the condensation pan. Water is pooling on the top and weeping down the side of the unit coming primarily out from where the pipe connects. Didn't look like much really, just all adds up. Ok... now what. I really don't want to turn off the unit but I can't let the water continue to soak into the wood. To late to go to the store. Previous adventures in plumbing tell me to leave the damn pipe alone and let someone that knows what the hell they are about deal with it. So my brain runs through a few dozen different possible ways to re-direct the water so I can get it gathered before it gets to the floor. Stop gap one was using a towel as a wick to get into a bucket, or change out before it starts dripping (worked, but to much water)... Tried getting it to a bucket, got about half of it going through the towel.... not bad but not good enough. 

Then it hits me. I have a 3d printer now. 2 hours later the mark one Home Emergency Weeping Water Redirection Unit (HEWWFRU).... or really just a quick and dirty flat sided funnel.... pops off the bed.  

Mark 1 Home Emergency Water Re-direction Unit (HEWWFRU) .... also known as a flat sided funnel

Not the best outcome. Can't see it here but the top layers (in terms of print direction) of the funnel before the spout partially failed to fill in so there was more than the expected hole through the spout which I had thought to use with some tubing to run out into a large bucket for a reservoir. Couple of magnets and a rag as a wick and it is mounted to the side of the unit and the majority of the water is now going where I want it... a gallon pitcher down the side of the unit. But... the flat lip is problematic as there is still more than a little bit of water escaping down the side (and back) of the unit. Enter the Mark two. 

Mark 2 Home Emergency Weeping Water Flow Redirection Unit  or HEWWFRU (right)... still a funnel, but a bit more specialized one

It is wider. Has angled edges into a curved lip to gather a wide area of weeping water into the collection area. To get it far enough away from the side to drip where I want it, I extended out the skinner section. The holes were in the design (ie didn't have to add them later). The angles selected and the walls mean no overhangs (overhang was the problem with undesired holes in the MK 1 seen above). Those with sensitive dispositions may look away now, extreme item repurposing below. 

Mark 2 installed with multiple magnetic fastening units, water wick and Trojan water seal

So the rag is wrapped around the pipe junction with the unit and sitting where the water has been pooling and is draped over the side into the Mark 2 HEWWFRU (gotta be a better acronym... it will do for now). You may notice a repurposed prophylactic (Trojan© Water Shield or TWS) is providing a nice water tight shield to prevent water from slipping down behind the HEWWFRU. Why a Condom? Well it was the quick fix. I later tried some plumbers putty but couldn't get it on thin enough and it caused problems with the magnets. I didn't want to epoxy the thing to the side so I went back to the TWS solution. Worked like a champ. 

You can't see them here but inside are a couple of neodymium magnets I had laying around and that is what is holding this all in place. 

Now I had another problem. With the water redirected I could  now determine how much was coming out. Gallon jug lasted 2 hours. Half a gallon an hour. More short expressive words and broadcast beeping. This caused two issues, one: retro calculating back to first indication of a problem several days prior meant there was a crap ton of water presumably now spread through out the sub floor. Two... I would need to get up to empty the damn thing every 90 minutes or so (not to mention not being able to leave the unit on and go to work). This found me bleary eyed at Lowes soon after it opened the next morning. The Mark 2 had taken several hours to print and I didn't want to try and design a printable tube on the design again after the mark 1 failure... so I just wanted to figure out how to get from that drop out of the MK II into a bigger bucket outside the closet the unit was in. 

Quick Aside: while all this was going on I had of course immediately called for the HVAC guys to come back once I found the water under the unit etc... and once I had shop vac'ed up that standing water and crud I had a bunch of pans under the unit in that horror space catching the drip off from water collected under the unit. At this point I was pretty confident that the water was no longer getting to the floor of the house otherwise the unit would have been turned off. This was later confirmed by the contractor contact from state farm who came out to assess the water damage with the help of his humidity sensor. While there was still some collecting under the unit but that was kind of 'damage is done' deal.  Replacing or even shoring that up from underneath is going to be a bastid....

Returning from my early morning Lowes run I had some .5" tubing, a through hull, a sacrificial plastic box, an adapter with a barb to get from the through hull to the tubing. Hmmmm... sacrificial box was to wide, forgot to measure damnit. Hmmmm.... used baby wipe plastic box is the right size. Cobble cobble cobble together.... out with the gallon jug, in with the Lower High Capacity Receiving Unit (LHCRU.... or more accurately a kludge). The tube from the LHCRU is run out to ye olde 5 gallon bucket (YOFGB). 

Lower High Capacity Receiving Unit (LHCRU) For The HEWWFRU with TWS

If you look close you can also see that after I put in the new highly modified HEWWFRU LHCRU I added a final piece of flare in the form of a splash reduction apparatus ( SRA AKA a spare piece of Lexan) to reduce the amount of..... splash. Right. 

Now I have a reasonable amount of time where what I thought was the source of the leak (failed pipe connection) is re-directed so that everything else should be drying out. Only to find while most of the drips underneath had stopped... there were some still going. Far lower rate that what I had going into the bucket but still problematic. So in addition to the bucket I am occasionally changing out/draining pans under the unit and waiting for HVAC. 

Now lets be clear on a couple of things. The above is meant to be a bit humorous and the silly jargon and acronym stuff is all with tongue firmly in cheek. If I knew what the hell I was about I would have fixed the problem rather than simply stopping the damage from continuing. Once the guys that do this for a living got there it took them about 30 minutes to diagnose and fix the problem. Turned out to be a clogged condensation drain. The pipe connection was fine, water was coming from the overflowing pan, just happened to be primarily coming out above where the pipe join was. While they were at it I had them install a safety float switch that shuts the unit down if this ever happens again. This also provides access to the drain pipe so I can easily blow it out/drop bleach down it etc... Very expensive little switch at 200 bucks... but worth it. 

As I mentioned In the midst of this I also had a contractor in to assess water damage and they found the humidity out away from the unit was low enough it wasn't registering on the detector. So the steps I took were effective otherwise I would have shut the damn thing down. The other bitter sweet bit of news was those soft spots were now crackly where they had been spongey. Neither the initial HVAC tech (who missed them damn leak) or the Contractor believed I needed to shut it down as long as I was getting the water taken care of. Basically, the bottom line of all the above shenanigans meant I didn't need to shut the unit off in 90+ degree heat and take us all to a hotel or something while waiting for a repair to be made. 

I don't think I would have been successful without the HEWWFRU which I could not have done without having my new toy. Without this piece the TWS, LHCRU with SRA and YOFGB would not have been able to do their respective jobs as I do not think I could have redirected enough of the water sufficiently by other means in the time available before I called it quits, shut the unit off and bugged out to a Ho Jo. Between the avoided two or three nights in a hotel and probably a boarded Trudi I think the Printrbot almost paid for itself as a result of this particular adventure in home ownership. Not exactly a reason to justify the purchase of a fancy plastic melter but it was an interesting case of what you can do with one which I thought some of you out there may enjoy reading about. If you hadn't figured it out yet though, this is NOT recommended as a primary solution by any means!

Tech Review: Oculus Rift CV1, VR is here

First off a word about what this is not.... This is not a "is the Rift better than the Vive?" discussion. But if my opinion on the subject is of interest... Vive is probably the better overall deal if room scale is the draw. Otherwise the tech in play is very similar. If that is Greek (or should I say geek?) I'll put it this way... If you want to walk around with a mask on with cables running out of it to experience the most immersion possible get the Vive so long as we are on the first generation. Otherwise the two are so similar that picking by coin flip will work. And no, the later release of Oculus touch doesn't really change that take... no camera on the rift so no way to do something like the chaperone feature of the vive.

There, with that out of the way let's talk the rift and VR in general.

I could go on for ages about the story of Palmer Luckey and his rise to the tech stratosphere... And if it interests you at all I highly encourage you to Google it and read up. But I want to skip to the end. 

90fps + (< 5ms delay) + low_persistence_high_resolution_display = ability to fuck with your brain to the point it will interpret what it is seeing as you being somewhere else. 

This is the "equation" of VR presence. Achieving presence is the difference between seeing a picture of the coliseum and something of the sense you are standing next to it on the streets of Rome. A palpable sense of presence is what is now being achieved with these headsets. Is it perfect? Hell no. Vision is only one piece of the puzzle of the way the human brain interprets its surroundings. But there is something to the adage seeing is believing. Once you believe your eyes are telling you you are somewhere else the rest of your cognition seems to follow to a certain extent.

What does this mean in practical terms? It is one of those rare transformative things for which there is no wide spread understanding upon which to communicate a common understanding. Or put another way.... It's something you need to experience to fully grasp what folks are talking about. I have imagined what it would be like ever since I first wanted to turn my head in a flight sim on a computer more than 20 years ago and even so I was still surprised by what I experienced from my initial experience with the rift. 

The good:

Presence. When it works the mind trickery is magic. I could go on in explicative laden hyperbolic bombast... and if you have had any interest in VR news you have likely read many statements along those lines. But really, this is one you need to experience to understand. Don't let the sheer volume of things I have in the other sections distract from this singular point.

Fit. While nowhere near "stylish" this is light years down the road from the monstrosities of the last VR craze. You can wear it comfortably for a long time and is very well balanced.

The So So:

Current crop of software/games for VR:

In solving presence and getting the tech to the point it is no longer an automatic vomit creation machine for a large majority of the population a new set of problems now need to be resolved.

1. Movement in games independent of your physical movement still largely equals a trip to queasy town for a decent percentage of folks. Everything you have learned about moving in a virtual game world is null and void seems to be what the early games are figuring out and new methods that are VR centric are emerging. Probably the harshest criticism the Rift is rightfully getting is that while the "presence" is awesome.... just adding that to an otherwise standard 2d screen based game has limited appeal... it isn't going to keep driving sales of a ~$1500-2000 setup. Either VR has to get a lot cheaper or it is destined to remain fairly niche in its applications without a better solution in this area. 
2. Looking beyond games is the basic idea of doing work in software with a headset on. You are separated from your normal inputs. A mouse works ok, a keyboard is an advanced course in touch typing. Even the average touch typist still look for those less common hits. Fully navigating a modern OS and Software often requires more than 'typing' for odd button combos... and its a rare person that can hit ctrl-option-function key of choice without looking etc... A part of the solution is a dedicated VR interface device. Vive has the hand units, Rift has some on the way. However, the elephant in the room on both is still typing. This is where VR is at a serious disadvantage to AR tech like Microsofts holo lens. As things sit now AR seems to be a better bet for getting work done where full immersion is not the goal, VR seems better suited to more immersive but ultimately limited interaction gaming solutions. 

Bottom line here... if you really are wanting to see where VR is headed keep an eye on the software store content levels along with the price of a decent entry level rig. More software (and I mean from established AAA content makers) means more sales means bigger market means lowering price of entry. If that cycle starts in earnest it is hard to predict where this tech ends up in 2-5 years. If it doesn't, then things are unlikely to change dramatically from its present state.

The resolution of the screens:

If not for the recent push to super high resolution displays you couldn't have VR.... but.... they have not yet gone far enough. While CV1 Rift and the Vive have largely gotten ride of the glaring "screen door" effect (seeing the space separating the individual LED pixels) of the earlier dev models, it is not gone. The end result is that despite the high resolution the graphics quality is actually a step back overall. It is a factor of how close your eyes are to the screen. The screens in use are the first round of purpose built VR tech... they will get better. But pressing forward in resolution comes with an inescapable need to push quite a few more pixels. That said, Nvidia's pascal line of video cards bodes well for the future of even higher resolution VR headsets. 2-3 generations of video cards designed for VR and screens designed for VR and we could be in some very interesting territory. For now the graphics are "good enough"... but not what they need to be in the long haul. Especially for non-gaming functions.

The bad:

VR sickness: I didn't choose the phrase "fucking with your brain" lightly. Make no mistake, VR is seriously fucking with one of your primary senses.  When done poorly or irresponsibly this thing is a guaranteed chunder fest. Fooling your eye is not the same as fooling your inner ear. When those two senses get to disconnected you are in for a bad time. It does not take much of this for a large portion of the population of the world to revisit their last meal upon whoever or whatever is nearest in short order. It is also hard to predict. I play project cars... my Wife is a huge F1 fanatic and during the weekend for the Monaco Grand Prix I wanted to have her drive a lap around Monaco in VR because its awesome. What was awesome for me and had zero stomach flip factor made her dizzy and nauseous instantly and had her off kilter for the next hour or so.  

Lack of optimized interface. Mouse and keyboard doesn't work well. Tracked controllers are still in their infancy. Very awkward to transition between the two modes in order to deal with more complex interactions like.... Typing.

Missing depth adjustment. You can adjust the IPD (distance between your eyes) but not back and forward. Doubt long term any headsets will not have both of these.

Think oculus goofed not launching with the touch controllers. without them you really are reliant on the controller (Xbox or Oculus puck) but they can be sorely lacking at times... and trying to blind find a keyboard while in VR is a BITCH. That goes back to the seeing is believing thing. Once your brain buys that you are somewhere else visually it is HARD to keep a separate physical map. IE reaching for a keyboard in reality when your VR world has no such thing causes a pretty weird disconnect. I almost have to shut my eyes and revert to other senses to determine my surroundings. 

Conclusion:

Much as I hate to say it... VR does not have its "Killer App" at this time. I have little doubt some form of consumer level VR is here to stay but I think the jury is out on whether or not this is the 'iPhone' moment for the technology. By that I mean the thing that takes a tech from the geeky corners and into the mainstream. This may be more of a blackberry/palm pilot era for now. The focus until now has been on getting the graphics good enough to not make people sick... but the interface questions still loom large. This is still a good parallel to the early smart phones and PDAs where the capability of the pocket computer was undeniable... but it was all locked behind an impossible input conundrum that took capacitive touch and a firm break from desktop OS interface tropes to resolve. For anyone who has experienced the thrill a good 'presence' experience can provide it is fairly obvious there is something here to exploit. We just need to figure out how to actually harness it. 

Do I regret my purchase? No.... make that... HELL no. But hindsight being what it is I am thinking a bit more patience may have been the better path if I had it to do over again. The only thing I am really frustrated at right now is being denied my high quality general aviation simulator with a VR headset experience. FSX hasn't been updated in a long time and doesn't support VR. Xplane worked with the Dev kits but does not work with CV1 that I can find. Oculus dropped OpenGL support for the time being. But there is DCS.... and they have a freebie P-51 mustang model :-) Landing a mustang is a real challenge.... and it is made harder by the headset in some key ways, and much easier in others. Visual cues and being able to look out the side easily as the nose obscures the runway is good. Interacting with all the special keys to do gear, flaps, mixture, throttle etc.... Not so much. 

Misc:

Weirdest experience thus far:

The Apollo 11 VR experience starts you out sitting in a 60's living room watching a "film" projection on a wall. Two things happened in this. First, it finally clicked why there are so many skew morphic 2d screen concepts for VR (IE sitting in a movie theater, or a living room etc....). On a 2d screen skew morphic design has always fallen a bit flat for me. In VR it MAKES SENSE. seeing a 2d image projected onto a wall, or on a large screen tracks completely with your expectations and it fits. This was almost immediately followed by looking around and going "WHAT THE FUCK... WHERE IS MY BODY" when I looked down into an empty chair that I was "sitting" in. This is the level of brain screwing going on. No matter how cognizant I was of the fact I was not really there the basic level of my brains perception was and remains severely disturbed by not having a visual re-enforcement of my physical presence when doing things like moving an arm and feeling it move but not seeing it in the VR session. 

Coolest experiences thus far:

1. When I was first plopped into the cockpit of a P-51D Mustang at altitude over Tibilisi in DCS. 
2. The shift from the 60's living room to a projection of the moon filling my field of view in the Apollo experience with the space ship coming into view to my side. 3d, stereoscopic rounded detailed moon... peripheral vision registering something and just turning my head to see the Apollo capsule and lunar lander coming by on its way to its date with history. Magic.. as is this whole thing. More than any other 'story' mode VR thing I have tried this one shows the promise of VR to reach people in a new an powerful way. 
3. Oculus dream deck has several cool factor shorts... T-Rex on the prowl in a museum, standing on the edge of a TALL building (serious vertigo just like if I had been there) where the two that registered the most. Another sampler has a Minecraft cathedral that is awesome. 
4. Project Cars sitting in a Mustang GT heading out onto the Nurburgring and FINALLY being able to really appreciate the elevation changes and road camber angles etc.... Close second is the corkscrew at Laguna Seca, driving a Bac Mono around Monaco. 
5. And of course can't leave out getting shot out of a launch tube Battlestar Galactica style in Eve Valkyrie.... absolute crying shame about the rest of the experience. They REALLY need a game/story there beyond the handful of multiplayer maps that it has. Glad it was included, id have hated it if I had paid full price for it. 

Disappointments:

1. Lucky's tale. It LOOKS SO COOL. And it is fun... right up to the point you get told you have to repeat the early levels getting bonus points etc... until you unlock the next one. Super Mario this is not. artificial game mechanic play time extensions are bad enough when the hook sets strong enough to keep you on the treadmill. When your level designs are heavily relying on the novelty of VR as opposed to a honed game mechanic its idiocy. Double so when instead of maybe forcing replays of the most challenging areas... you are forcing replays of the introductory areas. I was liking the build up of complexity and wanted to play the next level... had ZERO interest in repeating levels to get there. Haven't opened it since. Seriously disappointing. 
2. Virtual desktop. It is beta and it may well move out of this column. But right now its buggy and weird running this software through steam on the oculus. Biggest bummer was not being able to define multiple virtual desktops to arrange around me. You can only arrange what you have physically (IE if you only have one monitor attached you can only have one desktop. I get the underlying windows driver issue that forces this.... does not make it suck any less. Absolutley nuts a virtual environment requires real monitors you can't look at to be able to display them virtually. It isn't a physical processing limit... its a "we never thought anyone would ever do that" problem. Hopefully Microsoft releases an update that addresses this. 
3. Pricing of VR titles vs value. Many of the games are at best tech demos but a lot of them are charging AAA release rates. Project cars is the only thing I have seen thus far that rates full price. The Climb may also rate it... but haven't shelled out to try it yet. 
4. Adrift: again highly highly highly cool experience. But once that wears off, it is VERY slow and boring... and it can easily test the fortitude of your stomach in a hurry. Think I would like it more without the 'game'. IE just set me free on that station to explore.... both before and after the accident.... PLEASE. 
5. Farlands: again... the game is not the draw. The ability to pop around in a VR alien environment is and you are severely artificially limited in how freely you can do that.