Its_All.Lost

Because hope just breeds everlasting misery…

Spaghetti Detective (Obico) on the Neptune 4 Max

Neptune and Obico

I have been using the Neptune 4 Max for a little over a month now. Love the printer, but it can misbehave. I have been printing for a few years now and I can count on one hand how many spaghetti monsters I have printed. That number has already been dwarfed with the addition of my N4M. While doing some research on why and how to stop it I came across the Spaghetti Detective (renamed Obico). I have heard of this many years ago and just never had a use for it, plus it costs money. I did a little more looking this time and found out you can self-host the platform to use the detective. No more paying for it. I like free. I should note that Obico does have a free tier, but it only provides 10hours of AI crunching detection.

Here’s how I installed Obico/Spaghetti Detective on my Neptune 4 Max. You should be able to follow Obico’s installation instructions and just adjusting the file paths but just in case I wrote up how I did it. I have a small Linux server (an Intel NUC) that sits in my office and runs all of my goodies. Anything that needs to run 24/7 or be accessible at all times lives there. Unfortunately while a Raspberry Pi is great for most things Obico states that they do not have enough power to run the AI software. A more robust piece of hardware is required, any old computer or laptop should work. They did just release the Pi5 so I am curious if that would work. If the machine has an NVIDIA card in it even better.

Obico released a small guide to get you started with Obico and the Neptune 4 Max with the cloud. These directions will get your printer setup for Obico. There are similar instructions below on how I did it for the self-hosted version of Obico.

[https://www.obico.io/blog/elegoo-neptune-4-and-obico-ai-3d-printing-revolution/]

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Elegoo Neptune 4 Max

Elegoo Neptune 4 Max

(UPDATED)

Let me start all of this with I am not an engineer nor an expert at 3D printing. This is all just shit that I have picked up over the years, read about or came across. I just want to spread some information and maybe help someone. Try the following at your own risk, I am not responsible for what you do. Don’t believe everything you read on the internet.

 

Intro

A month or so ago I upgraded my trusty old Monoprice Maker Select v2.1 to a Elegoo Neptune 4 Max. Wow. I’ve been printing non stop. This thing is a beast! Its freaking huge and it prints fast! My Monoprice is still going strong, and I actually gifted it to my son-in-law, but I needed a bigger build platform and I wanted speed. It was down to an Anycubic Kobra 2 Max or the Elegoo Neptune 4 Max. If you do your research you will find tons of posts of people that got the N4M and hated it, to return it and get the Kobra 2 Max. With just as many people who did the opposite and ended up sending the Kobra 2 Max back to get a Neptune 4 Max. I was sold on the fact that it runs Klipper. It may be an Elegoo version of Klipper but it is Klipper. There are people working on OpenNept4une, a firmware replacement for Elegoo’s Klipper. I have also heard that someone is working on a pure Debian version of community Klipper. That would be fantastic. Unfortunately this requires buying a USB to eMMC adapter to flash the machine which I don’t have. I have not done this yet and I am not sure if I will. But it is an option. You can find more information on the Elegoo Discord. Some are also upgrading the main board to something like a BTT Manta and Pi TFT50. One of the things I’ve heard when playing with the alternate firmware(s) is you may lose the functionality of the touchscreen, no bueno.

If you are new to printing or this is your first don’t expect a nice fat user manual or handbook to walk you through. You are going to have to survive off a collection of online help. Don’t expect to get a ton of super helpful customer support from a company in China like Elegoo. You are much better off on their Discord or in a Facebook group, and websites.

Even with my knowledge of the past few years it took me almost two full rolls of filament to get it dialed in. But now it prints beautifully every time, and fast. So expect to be tweaking your profile for a bit and doing lots of bed leveling and printing lots of first layer sheets and benchys along with XYZCubes. Run the tests, it helps.

The following is a mash up of some tips I have tried and figured out, or I have read about and found online.

Some of these steps may seem tedious or you just don’t want to do them, but it will save you time, headache, and filament – which is money. When I first started out for the longest time I never wanted to “waste” time with the calibration prints. Trust me you waste more time by not doing them. Orca makes it easy now anyway.

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Philips Hue Alexa Naming Scheme

Philips Hue Alexa Naming Scheme

Yes, how you name your Philips Hue lights is highly important when you are connecting them to a Smart Assistant (with voice commands). Get things wrong and you end up with your Amazon Echo constantly spouting off “I’m sorry the Master Bedroom doesn’t support that.” You could also get plagued with your devices randomly becoming unresponsive with Alexa. Oh fun. Nothing to piss you off more than your lights just not working. I know first world problems right?

If you are just using the Hue app with no voice assistant you can get away with naming them whatever you want because it doesn’t really matter. When the voice commands are added the names of the rooms or groups you have them in as well as the names of the individual lights matter greatly. Not only will your smart assistant constantly just not fucking work with your lights, you may also get tired saying a particular phrase for a light or it may turn out you never actually called that light that name to begin with. Spend some time thinking about light names, seriously.

In my previous home I had a shit ton of Hue lights. When you have that many lights they end up becoming numbered. “Master Bedroom One,” “Living Room 3,” etc. Then when you have the rooms/groups of “Master Bedroom” or “Office” the lights with numbers in their names wont ever conflict with each other and their groups/rooms. Now that I am solo and in an apartment I only have a small handful of lights so I don’t need to number them anymore. Now I was getting conflicts with my names.

With my most recent struggles I have noticed, and eventually found the cure with the problem and the names I had chosen. I thought I picked them simply and perfectly because I honestly do not have that many lights in my apartment. As is turns out the biggest thing that was causing constant strife with my Echos and lights was the names I had chosen for the Echos themselves, along with the same conflicting name for the rooms they are in. For example, I have an Echo Dot in my master bedroom which I had named simply “Master Bedroom” because I was only thinking of my Echos at the time and not in conjunction with the light names; “Master Bedroom,” “Office,” and “Kitchen.” Well I had also made some rooms with the Hue app with the same names of “Master Bedroom,” “Office” and “Kitchen.” Same names as the Echo names, damn it. The lights worked initially when I set them up but after a few houros or day or so they all stopped and my Alexa started rebelling.

 

The Simple Fix

So there is a simple fix, which took me hours to figure out in the middle of the night I hate to admit. I ended up renaming the Echos first. “Master Bedroom Echo,” “Office Echo,” and “Kitchen Echo” to separate them from the name of the groups/rooms for the lights. I also figured out that I was getting multiple devices with the same names in my Alexa app because of the scheme I had originally chosen. So I removed all groups and rooms from the Hue app. I don’t use the Hue app much as it is, primarily just the Echos with the lights or Apple Homekit. So my Hue app has just one group now called “All Hue Lights” so they are easy to get to in the Hue app if I ever need to use it. Then in the Amazon Alexa app I did a device discovery and it pulled the one group and all the lights and Echos. Then in the Echo app I created the groups of “Master Bedroom,” “Office” and “Kitchen.” No more conflicts now, the lights all work and no more unresponsive remarks from Alexa or the apps.

Finally the shit works.

 

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/amazonecho/comments/v98igr/naming_convention_for_rooms_hue_and_just_making/

https://www.homeagenius.sg/blog/tips-on-naming-your-smart-devices-for-better-voice-control

UDM Pro Transmission and Reception Errors

UDM Pro Transmission and Reception Errors
All of this began after a recent update about a a month ago (around June 3-5th?), I think it was update 7.4.156 according to a post I read. I found change log entries of Ubiquiti fiddling with ports and port profiles. Then all of a sudden all of the UDM Pro’s that I manage starting sending me “Transmission and Reception” error notices. At first I freaked out, but then I found it very odd that multiple UDMs were having the same issues. Then a week later my personal UDM started sending me the same notices. Well as soon as I received them of course it was off to Google/Reddit to figure out what the fuck was happening. A lot of people were (still are) having this issue. In short it seems that Ubiquiti made some changes and now the UDMs are reporting Transmission and Reception errors on ports. I have also noticed that this seems to happen when large chunks of bandwidth are used. Whenever my server downloads a huge amount of shit or when I am really getting busy with my Xbox I notice I get these messages. The UDMs I manage have a lot of CCTV bandwidth going on. The notices matche up when the end users are remotely streaming large amounts of CCTV footage.

Home – UDM Pro #6 is experiencing transmission and reception errors. This may indicate a problem with a port or cabling.

The people on Reddit that have been getting these notices have tested their UDMs for packet loss. They found no such thing to be true. I myself have also noticed zero issues when these messages are sent. I think Ubiquitis new port monitoring code needs some tweaks. Next time they do something like this it would be kind of nice of them to actually fucking say something! Almost every owner of a UDM seems to be experiencing this. Fuckin asshats.

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OpenRGB and a Stream Deck

Stream Deck & OpenRGB

I have these two products, a Stream Deck (it’s only a mini, but hey it still counts!) and the OpenRGB software, for the One App to Rule All LEDs! IF you are at least a little bit savvy in the computer streaming and gaming world then you know what a Stream Deck is (not to be confused with a Valve Steam Deck gaming console). I am going to assume that you know what one is but for those that don’t you can check them out here. In short they are a small macro pad with a grid of buttons, the buttons are little LCD screens that are programmable to do and look damn near whatever you want. It is an absolutely beautiful piece of hardware. It was designed for streamers to help act as a digital switchboard for their apps and scenes but anyone can use it for anything. I’ve seen it used for a Smart Home Hub for Home Assistant and that was an awesome idea I never thought of.

I have a page with buttons mapped with icons for use when I play Diablo 4; shortcuts to Skills, Class, Character, Abilities. I use a Mad Noodle macro pad to game with on D4 instead of the main keyboard and the Stream Deck is right next to it. So I get the macro pad action and the Stream Decks sweet sweet LCD icons to play the game with. The other buttons I use are for things like taking screenshots or moving active windows between multiple monitors. One of my favorite buttons is for my Pi-hole. One press and it disables the Pi-hole, another press and it is enabled again, I don’t have to open the webpage and login anymore to do a quick bypass. It also shows the current traffic blocked percentage (or whatever else you want to display). One of my most useful ones is two buttons for switching the PC audio between the speakers and my headset without having to unplug cables constantly! Welcome to the future!

OpenRGB is a useful piece of software as well. If you are like everyone else these days and are into computers you have a plethora of LEDs at your disposal for your illuminated delight. The PC case and motherboard is loaded with em, the RAM these days are poppin’, all the fans are usually full RGB, headsets are RGB, the keyboards are loaded with RGB for the keys and the case, and lets not forget the mouse, and even your mouse/desk pad! All of these LED’ed products usually have their own proprietary software that you need to use. Unless you happen to have everything within the same brand you need more than one app to use and configure them. Fuck that. I can’t stand that, that is a major flaw these days. This is not the way. All of these products use the same LED protocols to illuminate the actual LED component but their apps/software is locked down to only their products forcing you to have to use and install a few of practically the same thing and they’re usually loaded with bloatware or ads or are heavier than they need to be. Corsair iCue I am looking at you!

Enter OpenRGB. Open source software to control (almost) anything with an LED in it connected to your computer. Doesn’t matter the manufacturer or if it is a mouse a keyboard or fan. This app will most likely be able to tap into it and control it. You can now ditch all that bloatware running all those icons in your system tray. I use OpenRGB on my Windows 11 PC. It controls the LED lighting for my ASUS motherboard, the Corsair RAM, the ASUS RTX video card, and every light bar and colored fan in my off-brand case. Don’t forget it also controls my Razer headset, my Logitech mouse and my custom keyboard (keyboard control requires new firmware, not easy). I have been using OpenRGB for a little over a year now and while it is not perfect the developer is active and my issues have always had a work around or an official fix.

This is where it gets good and why you are here. The other day I was configuring my Stream Deck for Diablo 4 use and I came across a post asking about the Stream Deck and OpenRGB. Wait, what?! Why have I never thought of that before? Or using an Amazon Alexa to change the colors (which I can now do also, see some of my other posts). After that I went off and watched a few YouTube videos on alternate uses for the Stream Deck. I also set out to figure out how to use the Stream Deck with OpenRGB to use the buttons to change the active LED lighting profile (change the colors and/or patterns) of everything. Yes, I got it working. I did have to download a current (specific?) WebHooks plugin though.

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