More About my Skills

• Web Design

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  How I got into Web Design

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  Like I said earlier, I've been learning HTML and CSS since the beginning of sophomore year in high school. I learned it because in my JavaScript class, my teacher thought I was an extremely good coder.

  So he had me take an old BPA web design test, and it didn't go well at all. When I took the test the first time, I was really slow and I failed. So he had me take a test on computer basics. I know way more about computers than your average Joe, but I still failed.

  Even after all of that, he still let me join the team.

  Fast forward a little bit to regionals. I had been preparing for this for a while now, and I took several tests and kept practicing designing "fake" websites where ChatGPT gave me a prompt and I coded the site.

  At regionals, I excelled. The test was extremely easy, and the website I had to make was also really easy.

  But there was a problem. I could not submit the website or take the test. The test was the easy part. It turned out that the person in charge of the district BPA had the wrong passwords for the test.

  The second part was submitting the website files. It didn't take long to make the website, but the process to submit it was bad. It turns out that I also had to upload it to a static site and upload the files, so my teacher and I eventually figured it out.

  After all of that, I ended up winning 2nd at the regional competition, and the first-place winner was a senior on my team.

  And this is how I ended up being able to code this site.

• 3D Printing

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  Printer Built From Spare Parts

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  Intro

  The video above shows a 3D printer I built almost entirely from spare parts. Building it was really fun, although it definitely came with its challenges. The project took around 6-7 months to complete, and I learned a lot in the process.

  Challenges

  One major challenge was the Z-axis. I wanted to use three Z motors instead of one Z motor with a belt, but the motherboard from my Ender 3 couldn't reliably supply enough current to drive all three. It would sometimes work, but not consistently.

  To fix this, I soldered the Z motor wires together and connected them to an old Anycubic motherboard running Klipper. It took a while to get the Klipper configuration correct, but once done, it worked very well.

  Why I Don't Use It Much

  I don't use the printer much right now because I still need proper bearings for the belt system. I've noticed black specks forming where the belt rubs against the plastic, which suggests wear. Until I fix that issue, I'd rather not risk long-term damage.

  How I Got Into 3D Printing

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  My First Printer

  I still remember buying my first 3D printer: a Voxelab Aquila X2 for $150. At the time, it was all the money I had. I was even digging through the LEGO bin looking for a few extra cents in there because I was slightly short(TAX).

  The printer itself wasn't bad, it printed fine but I was constantly fixing it. Looking back, that's actually what pulled me deeper into 3D printing. That was the printer that had me understand how 3d printers worked.

  The $40 Anycubic Chiron

  Around six months later, I found an old Anycubic Chiron on Facebook Marketplace for $40. I asked my mom if I could buy it, and she said yes. When I got it, it had extruder issues, so I bought a new extruder and replaced the old one. After that, It ran into problems with the Bowden tube system.

  To solve this, I designed and made a mount to convert the Chiron to direct drive because of the bowden tube issues. At first, I secured it with hot glue because there were no screw mounts on the print head, but it kept slipping. Eventually, I drilled a hole into the print head and properly secured it with a screw.

  I managed to get exactly one successful print from it: a preloaded stringing test file. After that print, the motherboard broke.

  The Motherboard Failure

  The board had already been faulty and the hotend would sometimes overheat, and that probablly had to do with to it breaking. At the time, I didn't know much about electronics and stuff like that. Looking back, I think it might have been a blown fuse.

  Since I couldn't find a replacement, that was the end of the Anycubic Chiron. Then for no good reason, I completely disassembled the motherboard to see how it worked and to try and extract gold? Then I dissasembled the actuaul Chiron itself and used the spare parts in other projects. Now that I think about it, It was the chiron that provided all the parts for ather projects and printers like the printer I built from spare parts were parts from the Anycubic Chiron.

  The Free Ender 3

  The person who sold me the Anycubic Chiron also had an old Ender 3 and offered it to me for free to fix. He said that it needed a new motherboard and a bed. THe reason that he gave it to me was because all of the parts would be too expensive and not worth it for him to replace.

  When I inspected it, I discovered that the small green terminal connector for the heated bed wiring had melted. The bed wires were also frayed too.

  Then I soldered new wires directly to the motherboard where the connector had been. The reason I did that was because I had a old wood burner with gunk on it combined with 3mm thich soldar wire(NOT A GOOD COMBINATION) After that, I soldered those wires back onto the green terminal block so I could still screw the heated bed wires in normally. To this day, I still can't believe that I was able to soldar the green block to the motherboard with a wood burner. But after that, the printer ran perfectly fine. Until like a year and a half later I accidentally shorted those wires during a different repair.