3dprinting Archives - Super Spicy Ahi

More 3d prints!

posted on February 6, 2026February 6, 2026tagged as 3dprinting

In a previous post, I mentioned that my wife is into Zodiac signs and all that mystical stuff. I’m not into it and actually actively discouraged her from enjoying it because I thought it was weird. Well weird or not, I’ve come to realize that just as I suppressed all of the joys in my life, so was I also suppressing something that brought joy into hers. So I’ve learned to at a minimum keep my mouth shut when she’s enjoying her thing. But when I asked her if she wanted me to print things, she started giving me a list. And here are a few of those. Above are a pair of Chinese dragons. I don’t know what the significance of them are, but thought they were cool and would look cooler with the gold filament I just picked up for the next project below. They came out so nice I ended up printing a second pair and have them in my office.

I had a few failures between the golden dragons and these cool Chinese New Year dragons. My wife wanted some good luck envelopes printed out that I guess were too thin as the gold mixed with the red and turned into blotches. After two fails, I decided to kick off the red dragons above. This was also my first multi color print which I also discovered takes a long time. The four took almost 2 days to print! This was also the first print I made that required supports. I wondered how they would look and I don’t have to wonder any more. I’m going to end up printing another 4 here in the next week per request from my kids who want a pair each.

Sticking with the dragon theme, I found a project involving printing a dragon and placing it in a printable shell. This was my first multi part project as I had to first print the dragon, and then halfway through the print of the egg, I had to place the dragon inside before finishing off the egg. Of course I forgot to take a pic of the dragon before putting it inside. I plan on giving this away so I don’t want to break it. This has given me a few ideas on how to get rid of some of the basic cards I get out of the sports card boxes I open. I’m thinking of putting them inside an egg and giving them away.

Final project in the last couple of weeks. I was bummed about not being able to give my wife that lucky envelope she wanted so I searched for some that looked like potential successes. My first try was the one above. It’s also more like a really thing box than an envelope which is why I thought it would work out better. Being a box, the “walls” could be printed a little thicker so the contrasting filament would show better. The previous attempts were really thin and the red washed out the gold. I also used yellow filament (third trip to Microcenter!) to see if maybe it would be better contrasting than the gold. I think in this case it was the right call.

She was super happy about this one and wants me to print more of them so she can give them away. I have a month so I’ll space them in between longer projects. All in all, it’s been a fun couple of weeks with the Bambu A1! It seems like I find more things that I want to print, and my growing collection of filament reflects that. Now that I’ve tried four color printing, I’m starting to look at higher end printers capable of more colors. This is turning out to be a really expensive hobby, but the fact that my wife enjoys the results as much as I do makes it worth it. I can’t wait for my kids to ask me to print things. I’m sure they’ll come up with some cool projects. Have any interesting projects that you think I’d be interested in? #3dprinting

My initial foray into 3d printing

posted on January 30, 2026February 2, 2026tagged as 3dprinting

In my previous post, I mentioned 3d printing as my most exciting project/hobby in 2026. I wanted to walk through in a bit more detail how it all broke down on day 1 and what was the first thing I printed. As I mentioned, I live in a small apartment and of course, space is a premium. The other issue is that this machine isn’t a small thing and it makes noise, shakes, and is generally something that needs to sit on something a little sturdy. I watched a ton of YouTube videos regarding 3d printing and noticed that the majority of the folks I watched put their printers on workshop shelves so I hit up my local Home Depot and bought one. It was already late in the afternoon and by the time I put the shelf together it was a bit late so I decided to wait until the next day to set things up. Unfortunately, I also work a part time job on the weekend and I worked the next day as well. It wouldn’t be until the afternoon when I got to it. So there it sat, on the newly built shelf.

The Bambu A1 with AMS Lite

Sitting patiently waiting to be set up

Filament!

The next day I was restless at work as I anticipated getting home, setting things up, and printing out my first 3d thing! After an excruciatingly long 8 hour shift, and another 45 minute drive home, I finally got to putting it together. The instructions were pretty simple, and there weren’t any real gotchas. Everything was set up and ready to go in a bit over an hour. Let’s do this!

With all the research I did, one thing that I had to really put some thought into was what I was going to print first. Most people print this test print of a boat called benchy, and I thought about doing that as well. But I also thought, what am I gonna do with it once I’m done? Just put it in a drawer and forget about it? No. I wanted something memorable. Something that I would always look at and remember fondly that it was my first. So I did the most memorable (and probably most people would also think) nerdy thing possible: I printed out a poop bin. Yes, it’s called a poop bin. And no, it’s not for actual poop. These printers constantly flush out unused melted filament, especially when you print out multi-colored things. That unused melted filament is what is affectionately known as poop. And the mechanism to remove this poop from the printer is a little metal plate that launches the poop away from the printer so it doesn’t get into the print. It’s actually hilarious to watch the first few times. But having all this stuff all over the floor isn’t too fun. So I printed out a poop bin.

It was actually three parts, so I guess technically the first thing I printed was the Poop stopper. Essentially when the A1 launches the poop, this stopper is there to stop it from launching away and instead forces it to drop straight down into the poop bin. The poop net catches the poop and since you can remove it, you can twist it just in case some still melted poop falls and sticks to the net. Otherwise, you’d have to scrape it off of the bin which is a little tough. Then there’s the self explanatory poop bin. Soooooo… not the story I would exactly share to others to get them excited about 3d printing. But I do look at that bin every time I print something and remember that was the first thing ever. It started it all and continues to help grow my interest.

It’s only been a few days, but I can assure you that isn’t the only thing I’ve printed. First non poop bin print was a little cute lucky cat for my wife. It was a lot smaller than the pictures showed so she wanted something else. She ended up finding a horse figurine that she wanted for the year of the horse (she’s into all this astrology stuff) so I obliged. I also ended up printing a desk organizer which I’ve been hunting for the past few months. Those things are hard to come by nowadays, and this one had almost every element I wanted in one small package. Hopefully I’ll have more cool things to show off in the future. If you’re into 3d printing, what have you printed? #3dprinting

Happy belated New Year!

posted on January 24, 2026January 24, 2026tagged as 3dprinting, cardcollecting, joybudget, linux, retro

I started this blog, oh about a month ago, just prior to Christmas. At the time I was missing home (I just relocated to a new state about 15 or so months ago) along with dealing with some heavy issues. So I decided to start a blog to document my journey to rediscover what makes me happy. The funny thing is I was fully on board with the idea and actually had a few things lined up to post. I might still go through with a few of them but as is typical with the way I am, passion projects and hobbies took a back seat to what’s going on right now. So now that things on the outside have finally slowed down, I’m able to start going back to projects like this.

#Retro

Don’t get me wrong though, unlike in the past I did stick with a few hobbies with what little free time I had. I bought myself a retro handheld (the Anbernic RG CUBE XX) on which I was able to download a few of the Pokémon games and have been steadily working through Pokémon Blue from the Gameboy. That has absolutely been a blast. I’ve clocked in almost 68 total hours in game just levelling up the Pokémon I have so far to level 30 (just caught a Nidoran that needs to be levelled up; the current Pokémon project lol) while slowly making my way around. I must shamefully report that I have had to resort to using a walkthrough to figure out where to go next because I was totally clueless what to do after defeating the Sarge. This might pop up a bit more on this blog as there are a ton of games I’ve already downloaded that are just waiting in the wings as well. I guess I’ll tag them with #retro if you want to follow that thread.

#CardCollecting

Another thing I’ve started getting back into from the past is collecting cards. I used to collect sports cards as a kid and had a ton of boxes. I lost them all when my moms house was foreclosed and we were evicted with only 2 days to pack and move. So maybe subconsciously I related this hobby with that moment. But as I’ve started to rediscover what’s brought me joy, this and video games were at the top of my list. My first card collecting project is to collect the Collectors Edge 1996 Superbowl Dallas Cowboys signature series. From the greatest football team on the planet and the greatest Superbowl win ever. EVER! I’m looking for one more card. So if you have or know who has Michael Irvin DCA-24 and is willing to part with it, let me know! I also used to play Magic the Gathering and Pokemon as well, but I’ve shied away so far. That requires a time commitment that I might be ready to dedicate myself to. But it’s still on the list. That and my son is a huge Pokemon TCG player so it might prove to be a great way to spend more time with him. For now, I’m sticking with sportscards. I’ll tag posts with #cardcollecting if you want to follow that thread.

#Linux

Third thing I’ve started playing around with is something that originally off as a work related thing but is starting to evolve into something I’m actually enjoying. A back story will best explain why. Back during COVID, when we were all cooped up in our homes, I had to buy laptops for my kids who before then didn’t have a need for them but with school moving online they suddenly needed computers. My youngest daughter was only 10 at the time so she didn’t really need a high powered laptop. So I picked up a knock off branded motile 14″ laptop for her. Once they started going back to school physically, her need for that laptop disappeared and I ended up using it as a throw away laptop. Since it was so cheap (I think I got it for $175) I brought it with me everywhere. It served as my go to whenever I knew I was going to be somewhere for longer than an hour but potentially may forget it and possibly leave it behind. Plus it was way more portable than my primary laptop! I carried this thing around with me until I moved in 2024 and just recently found it again 2 months back in the closet. I booted it up but it was slow and unwieldy. Ok, maybe it just needs some updates and things should work better. So I tried to update it only to find out that Windows 11 requires TPM and this doesn’t have it unfortunately. Oh well.

I was about to put it up on eBay when I remembered that I was going to try to earn my Linux+ certification in 2026. So I thought to myself, maybe I can install Linux on this and use it as my study machine. Then I could sell it once I’m done and send it off properly, having been useful again to me one last time. Well, I just installed Ubuntu on it and… it works amazingly. It’s as if it’s got a second life. Things open quickly again, and work like a charm. Chrome tabs? Check. Email? Check. Virtualbox plus a few VMs running at the same time, I have 3 open and running with a little sluggishness here and there (which was pretty much it’s limit with Windows too so no complaints) Heck, for giggles I installed Steam and so far I’ve played one game on it. Granted, I don’t play super intense games but this is from 2020! The fact that I could play a game released last year at all, and on Linux as well, is amazing to me. I’ve spent the last week playing around with this laptop again, and I have found it fun learning how to recreate my workflows in Ubuntu. So far, with a little extra work occasionally, I’ve been able to recreate everything sufficiently that I think this might actually become my carry-around again. One thing I’m currently trying to get working is another new passion of mine. For those who can guess, it has to do with installing Bambu Studio and getting it to work. For those who want to know what it is, read on! I’ll tag any related posts with #linux if you want to read that thread.

#3dprinting

So the thing that has me most excited about 2026 is definitely 3d printing. I just picked up a Bambu A1 printer from Microcenter on a semi whim and I have not regretted the choice. I had been looking at this for a few months now, but space constraints (I live in a small apartment) and cost (while not the most expensive hobby, I had a few other pots stirring but I made room for one more somehow) were barriers to entry. Well, I was projecting my #joybudget (another idea I have for this blog; stay tuned) for February and I looked up the cost of the Bambu A1 printer on their website. I had that in mind when I happened to receive an email ad from Microcenter and wouldn’t you know it, they have the Bambu A1 in stock for the same price as the company does. Ok, compelling. So I headed out to my local store to see it in person. I saw it, saw a few printed figures and fell in love. But I always have a self imposed rule of going home and coming back the next day to make a major purchase. It’s saved me the headache because I avoid buyers regret (most times; it still isn’t a perfect science) as I usually get over that initial rush of excitement and by the next day I either forget about it or decide it isn’t necessary.

That wasn’t the case with the printer. The next morning I dragged my wife along to play devils advocate and try to talk me out of buying it. We get there and she sees a little figurine that she absolutely adores. She asks the salesman if I’m able to print it on the A1 and he says absolutely. But she could also take the figurine because they make those for funsies. We both walked out with a brand new 3d printer, an attachment that allows us to print in 4 colors, and a starter pack of filament. I’ve since gone back and bought 5 more rolls of different colored filament for different printing projects. I’ll tag those posts with #3dprinting if you want to follow that thread.

What’s next

So hopefully with a lot of passion projects that bring me joy, I can add regularly blogging to the list. I think one of the most important things about joy is to share it with others so I hope to humbly share it with you. I would also welcome your feedback as I’m sure there are things I’m doing or not doing that you might know would make my experience even better. and hey, if you end up picking up one of these hobbies because of me, let me know! I want to share in your joy as well. On that note, have a great day and stay joyful. -Gerald