I got back into Pokemon Go recently after a few years off and started looking into auto catchers. I wanted to catch Pokemon and spin Pokestops on walks without having my face in my phone the whole time. After a bit of research I found that the Pokemon Go Plus+ was Nintendo's latest device, and once I realized it doesn't just throw Pokeballs and spin stops, but also throws Great Balls and Ultra Balls, I knew I had to have one. To my surprise it had been "discontinued" (this was around August), so I checked a few online marketplaces and saw people charging $100+ for used ones and up to $300 for modded ones.

I'd been thinking about designing a Game Boy Pocket board for a couple of years. I wanted it to be one of my first projects that involved working from schematics and doing serious routing. Fortunately, there's a wealth of open resources available. Big thanks to Gekkio, Natalie The Nerd, Skimzor, and Bucket Mouse for their contributions.

It’s been a while since I have made any updates on my site, but I have been pretty busy with all sorts of new adventures. I recently got into designing PCBs, learning even more about electronics and have been just messing around with even more Gameboy stuff.

I’m back with a few new things that I’ve been working on for the past few months. Recently I started picking up Game Boy modding again. I’ve done some tinkering and modding a while back and even sold some on eBay. It has been more of a hobby for me than a side hustle or anything. I just enjoy taking things apart and putting them back together and Game Boys have always been an interest of mine since my parents bought me a Game Boy color back in 2001.

Hey all, I'm still here. I've been pretty busy these past few months and I keep on trying to put pen to paper, so to speak but just have not had the time to do it. Today I finally felt like I could.

It’s been about 8 months since the Pandemic went into effect. During these past 8 months of working from home I have had a bit more time than usual. Work is as busy as usual but without a commute and more time at home I have been delving into different hobbies. I have gotten deeper into lawn care, played and tinkered with my 3D printer more, fall deeper into the rabbit hole of mechanical keyboards, and recently I started leather crafting. I have been pretty interesting in leather crafting for a while. Like all hobbies there’s a lot to learn and I know I’m just scratching the surface. If I finish my wallet project I’m currently working on I’ll post a guide about it. I’m starting this hobby with the bare minimum tools you’d need and although I’m not an expert or a pro by any standard I hope it’ll help out anyone who stumbles on this site.

It’s been a good while since I’ve last written anything personal on here. With COVID-19 still around work/life balance for me has significantly shifted and honestly I kind of like it. I feel less anxiety over having to go from point A to point B everyday. I’m getting more exercise and feel like I’m eating healthier, in large part due to my wife. Along with all these new changes I’ve found that I now also have more time to devote to hobbies and things that I enjoy doing. As of lately I’ve been doing more work out in the yard when I have down time. I have learned about sprinkler systems, lawn care, weed prevention, and so many other things that I just never had the time or energy to learn.

I know I haven’t updated in a while but things have been pretty crazy with this whole COVID-19 situation here in the states. Currently my entire company has shifted to a Work From Home policy and I’ve been busy getting things in order. With people hoarding food, toilet paper, and everything else I have been putting my projects on hold until things calm down a bit more.

Over the week I took some time to do something completely random and unplanned. I decided to disassemble my perfectly working MK3S Bear and remove the Einsy Rambo board. I replaced that with the newish BTT SKR v1.4 Turbo 32 bit board running TMC2209 stepper drivers. This was the first time I’ve done a board swap on my printer and the first time in a long time since I’ve messed with vanilla Marlin.

I ordered an MSLA printer and will be receiving it in a few weeks. I decided to opt for one that I haven’t seen much about and there currently aren’t many reviews out on it. The price was right at about $640, so let’s see how it works out. I plan on doing just an initial impression on it and then eventually doing a full review of it. What I really want to do is open it up and look at the internals because it’s amazing how much cheaper MSLA printing is now in 2020. My thoughts are that it’ll go in the way of FDM printers, as parts become more abundant things will become even cheaper. As much as I’d like a Prusa SL1, it’s build volume is just too small and the cost is way too high, I like the way it functions but I can’t justify paying that much for a printer at the moment.

I've been prepping to get my Elegoo Mars Pro for about 2 months now. The journey into MSLA printing was started after I realized that my prints just weren't high enough in quality. I've been 3D printing for about 6 years now. My first 3D printer was from a Kickstarter by a now defunct company called New Matter. The idea of the 3D printer was supposed to make it easy for anyone to get started. The printer didn't require any leveling, only printed PLA, and had a super simple slicer. The printer worked well for a while but eventually gave up the ghost and I was left with no spare parts because the company had gone out of business.

I’ve been itching to produce something tangible that would allow me to look back on projects and experiments I’ve done. The other day I realized that I don’t have any sort of documentation on personal hobbies or remember what I could have done differently. These thoughts were prompted the other day when I was trying to recall how I managed to do something that I at the moment was not able to replicate.