This is the Best Time To Be Alive | 3D Printing Podcast

In this episode of Layer by Layer, we talk about how incredible it is to be alive right now...and a wrench.
00:00 What a Time to be Alive
13:44 What a Wrench
18:06 Etsy, API, & Custom GPT
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About Slant 3D
🏭 High-Volume 3D Printing: Scalability Meets Flexibility
Slant 3D's Large-Scale 3D Print Farms utilize 1000's of FDM 3D printers working 24/7 to offer limitless scalability and unparalleled flexibility. Whether it's 100 or 100,000 parts, our system can handle it reliably, while still allowing for real-time design updates, ensuring products evolve with the times. This adaptability is key in today's fast-paced world.
🌿 Sustainable Manufacturing: Eco-Friendly Efficiency
Embrace a system that drastically reduces carbon emissions by eliminating carbon-intensive steps in the supply chain, such as global shipping and warehousing. Our approach minimizes this footprint, offering a more sustainable manufacturing option.
⚙️ Digital Warehouses: Parts On-Demand
Think of print farms as a "Digital Warehouse", meaning we can store your parts digitally on a server rather than physically on a shelf. parts are available on-demand, reducing the need for extensive physical inventory.
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Produced by Slant Media

[@binthem7997]

EASILY my favorite 3d-printing channel on KZbin. Advanced design details and tutorials made easy.

[@BradKwfc]

I completely agree with you. The opportunity we have in front of us and the exciting things that are coming in the future is amazing!

[@AR-iq7mq]

Dude this is the video I didn't know I needed, everyone is constantly complaining. Like you said, this world isn't perfect, but god damn its nice to see someone not so focused on the negatives. This video is a perspective that I've slowly been loosing, thank you for re-enforcing it homie.

[@bobbywedding]

I agree totally with his positivity! Technology...yes it will only get more amazing. 1 thing that really bothers me though. I'm sure there is 1/2 the people here who won't agree with me. So far on this subject I've been dead on since the 90's. Climate change from humans. All this super fast advancements and explosion of the world population & industry just in last 30-40 years will come at a price. Everything really good comes with a price in life. We don't have an answer for that yet at the rate the globe is warming up. I'm an engineer, and have studied this for decades. I think it's our biggest challenge to humanity now. But I'll stick to your positive attitude today! Thanks man

[@jameslmorehead]

Ahhh....this touches on the technician versus engineer struggle. I've been an R&D technician for nearly 15 years. I've handled everything from building HDI electronics to 3D printing prototypes and models (including creating the models and running them through CAM). CNC machining, manual machining, dealing with ordering and QC parts from vendors, vacuum molding, and design and construction of test facilities. At every step, I've always had an engineer not even associated with the project step in to say I should not be doing what I'm doing. That because I don't have their education level, that there is no way that what I'm doing would work. Now, mind you, they always would go to someone over me first and not just talk with me. I always would do by due diligence. Two projects stand out in my mind the most. The first was a simple set of shelves. All be it, these shelve were very large. They were 8 feet wide, 2 feet deep, and 12 feet high. Each shelf was designed to take a 2000+ pound load. The engineer went to my boss saying he was going to call OSHA on me for making an unsafe work environment and the shelves needed to come down immediately. Now, to get to these shelves, you had to walk around a fake wall 10 feet tall made from nearly identical shelving units, but only 4 feet wide. I built those years before to turn a nook in the warehouse to an out of sight small parts storage. So, the back of those shelves were sheeted in plywood to give the appearance of a wall after everything was painted to match. After going back and forth about the big shelves design and the calculations I did to ensure the safety, I just lost it. After all, I spent a decent amount of time calculating tortion, shear, and compressive loads to get the design prefect before the first board was cut. I also did a design for manufacture cycle to make construction easier. After all, if you can't get the materials, even a solid design is no good. So, without him even asking for that paperwork, or allowing me to bring it out to show the design had a safety factor of 4, I just lost it. I climbed up the shelves like a mad man, or King Kong depending on your perspective, and used all 220 pounds of my body weight to shake the shelves at the top to show that even the most dynamic load I could throw at it would do nothing to the shelves. Heck, it would take a 2,000 pound side load at the top to pull over the unloaded shelves. Adding weight just made them more safe. After my little....demonstration, the engineer relented and said that we just need to be careful loading with the forklift. Yea, no duh. I think I might publish the prints for those shelves. They were designed to be made from dimensional lumber and plywood with as few unique parts as possible. The same cut lengths were used in as many places as they could. This really made construction go quick. It also used the factory edges of the plywood to hold the unit square in all 3 axis. The second project was a simple lifting tab. The engineers were using a jib boom on the forklift to hold up a chain fall to facilitate the assembly of a fairly complex motorized tubular system for oil and gas production. With all the rigging, the chain fall would only give them an inch or two of clearance. Then, you had to deal with the hydraulic cylinders leaking down while they worked. As anyone knows, you never rely on a hydraulic cylinder to hold a load. Especially one where people are working in close proximity. So, I looked to the roof structure for a solution. It just so happens that a few feet away from where they were working, the Z beam had been drilled out for various building configurations. So, after pulling the building's prints to get the exact specs of those beams, I ensured the beam had sufficient dynamic load to take the 1,000 pound load they were lifting. A single beam was capable of taking 5,000 pounds spread over the center 1/3 of the beam. The placement of the holes were just 2-3 feet from one of the 3 foot tall I beams that span the width of the building. I didn't even bother looking into if that could take such a small load. Then, you have the fact the beam I was using was doubled in thickness from the beam spanning the adjacent section overlapping this span by well over 10 feet. Then, this beam was doubled up with an identical setup 10 inches away, with plates running vertically between the two to maintain alignment. So, I calculated what applying a vertical load to the vertical section of the Z beam would do for deflection, torsion, and rolling. Everything was well within a margin of safety. I then designed an aluminum tab to bolt on in place where the holes were already located in the beam. A single plate worked, but didn't have enough of a safety margin for me, so I doubled the plate up. We didn't have equipment to weld the plates together, so they were bonded with both solid pins and hollow pins. The hollow pins were sized and placed for several of the bolt holes. The solid pins were press fit in blind holed around the plates as to not induce stress risers. The bolts used to attach the plates to the beam were partially threaded as to act like a low cost shoulder bolt. The threads started 2-3 threads into the last plate. On the opposite side from the plates, I made another plate covering the area being bolted to help spread the load. Finally, fender washers were used everywhere along with doubled up nylon locking nuts. Doubling up a nylon locking nut takes some skill to not just ruin it. But done properly, it compresses the nylon more and gives even more holding strength. A bit of blue thread locker was added just for overkill. The static friction load between the plates and the beam was greater than the vertical load. If by some mirical the friction load was removed, the shear strength of the bolts was much greater than the load. A single bolt in shear would hold the load with a good margin, and there were 8 bolts being used. Total overkill. A mechanical engineer, again not associated with the project and frankly who should never have been in that area, went straight to my boss (an EE) and complaned that it was unsafe and the whole lot, once again without talking with me nor including me in on the conversations. It was decided that the lifting tab was to not be touched. Again, not talking with me one bit. This time, I dropped everything else I was doing and spent three days putting together a technical brief outlining the design, giving the full building print and beam information, outlining the calculated loads versus the allowable loads, giving a fully modeled explanation of the construction, construction methods, and why those were chosen. I then had one of the other MEs run the models through a series of FEA simulations to back up my calculations and to find the ultimate failure point. The final conclusion was the failure mode would be the bolts pulling through the beam at a load of 20 tons. I figured that would be more than enough of a safety factor. Nope. That tab sat unused even after I left that company. Facts don't overcome feelings when it comes to level of formal education.

[@monkeywrench1951]

Very upbeat and true. It is very easy to complain and ignore the good things. At some point I realized that wishing a Monday turned into Friday was dumb because weekdays and weekends are a human construct and started trying to make the most out of every day.

[@lspostma]

Just so you know, I follow your page for 3D printing stuff. However, I enjoy the content you are adding that ISN'T specific to 3D printing. Thanks for the education of what we HAVE in this day and age, compared to yesterday, last month, last year, last decade, etc...May our country continue to flourish and prosper. REd wave in 2024 please?!?!

[@boonhobo]

Coming expecting 3d printing innovation. Got a person who loves the world and how awesome it is today and how it could potentially even better. Honestly, we need to be reminded of this every so often.

[@slant3d]

Thanks

[@Maleko48]

i have similar feelings when i listen to the things others complain about. good morning

[@alang6402]

50 years ago I was studying engineering and electronic calculators were just coming out. You still had to write SR in exam paper answers if using a slice rule rather than log tables and we thought that there was no better time to be alive. We dreamed of hand-held devices that we could call up formulas and put in parameters. I had just written a program that could optimize compression springs in Fortran and had a stack of punched cards. This was Northern Ireland in the middle of the Troubles.

[@skiplgoebel8450]

With great power comes great responsibility. That's what's missing. And there in lies the greatest danger! What we need is responsible leadership. Since that doesn't exist, it is up to the individual now. Embrace the chaos...

[@b1tw0nder]

that wrench is neat btw. there is a disadvantage to that locking approach though. you can't tighten to pipes to get a good grip so works better on non-round nuts with parallel faces. but i do have an idea that would allow a smooth glide while also being able to thread it the rest of the way. most pipe wrenches now use a rectangular threaded bar with a nut. if the threads of the nut are modified to disengage at certain points and add a mechanism to engage the missing threads when needed by having them on separate parts, you can get the best of both. it does add more complexity though.

[@glennfelpel9785]

Thank you. We needed this reminder. Count our blessings.

[@JohnyPatrick]

Sometime back I read a book which talked in such great detail about this exactly thing as to how amazing this time is to be alive. The safest time in history despite the wars (think world war 1 and 2). And yet people are gravitating towards the negative things in life and life has almost become unlimited and it is indeed a great time to be alive!

[@FunDumb]

Of all these new technologies I'm probably most grateful for Dawn Dish detergent. And if you placed the dish detergent on your hands first before spray painting that pipe wrench, it would make the scrub off so much easier. Or you can use some rubbing alcohol to demolish those hand stains.

[@joshuahammer4454]

I am amazed at how many manufacturing capabilities 3d printing has brought me over the past 2 years

[@ronb7105]

Uncanny I was thinking how amazing I can design something and print it out literally free. I'm 58 and have been participated in a lot of these changes, its a ride and I'm not ready to hop off yet. I can see good things coming out of technology and how its utilised. Thanks for the intro. Wash that hand, they've invented a liquid to help you like ages ago....

[@b1tw0nder]

18:18 like how in my tweens i thought it would be cool to cut and layer paper automatically into a 3d model later became reality in exact form 10-15yrs after but a similar idea using resin already was patented in the early '80s... AKA a 3d printer!

[@Gee-Dee-q1e]

I wish I could disagree with you. There are a bunch of nuances, but I decide to side with your great arguments! You effectively described a way to teleport products across an ocean. Great times indeed! 😁

[@DanielRhoades4122]

I agree. It's good to hear someone else say it. Tech has made my life soooo much more enjoyable. The only worries I have are how to design my prints & how I'm gonna make my projects work, lol. I love old tools & mechanical devices. My parents have always collected antiques so I always keep an eye out for tools like that. Someone put some time into those kinda designs.

[@logicalfundy]

It is amazing what we can do. Heck, when I was young I never imagined having essentially a mini-factory in my house. Amazing times. Over-engineering stuff to be super durable kinda died as we became obsessed with efficiency, and the ability to make things so precisely became better. So things are now made as close as possible to some sort of "expected lifetime" - aka planned obsolescence. I have noticed that a few replacement parts I've 3D printed have lasted longer than the original injection molded part. Personally, I'm trying to err on the side of over-engineering. Although since I'm new to the hobby, it's not always clear to me how long an item I design and print will ultimately last. With so many people complaining about how throw-away our society is, I'm actually hoping that attitudes will shift and we'll start seeing things better built. Especially since it's so important that things be reusable so we're not constantly disposing of things. When it comes to the times we live in - I do feel as if we've still got some pretty big problems. Nuclear destruction is still theoretically a thing unfortunately - we still have the suitcase, the missiles are still ready to go at a moment's notice. Russia did threaten nukes near the beginning of the Ukraine war. Moral issues still divide us. Racism keeps rearing its ugly head. A lot of what you've described is true in the USA and Europe, but there are still many places (notably Africa) that don't benefit from all of the advances we've made.

[@agl33]

Yeeeah! In my country, we often say that our national spor is whyning about stuff, I absolutely agree with you man! Yes we have an economic crisis, but we still live far better. Cheers!!!

[@ronfreedman5848]

Couldn't agree with you more. I've said we are in the golden age of humanity for the last few years. Amazing world today.

[@Liberty4Ever]

I've been saying since 9/11 that we're living in the era that future history books will refer to as The Fall of the American Empire. It'll adversely impact the entire world, but the US most of all. Yes, technology continues to improve, but the economic, social, political and cultural underpinnings of Western Civilization are rotting.

[@Adisken]

I didn't expect "Live Laugh Love" coaching rang from your channel xD

[@mdombroski]

I used to be skeptical about the practicality and significance of 3D printing. You're changing my mind. Also, I'm glad to see that you're pro nuclear power. 👍👍

[@VashDragonTube]

Its funny but i really needed to hear the start of this video today.

[@KevinxJin]

Cut the first 14min and send it to TED or something, that was super motivational and positive and super random with the wrench transition afterwards.

[@HeathNielsen]

Hey, I think you're right. How long have you been doing the Podcast?

[@EmileMac-fy5mh]

Yet the adventures my father told me that were waaaay funnier and intensely lived, than sitting in front of a PC all day long.

[@tedlee5593]

Famous last words! Armies are not fighting! Right before WWIII

[@jannekallio5047]

I am trying to say this all the time :) Thanks, it feels great to agree with this all!

[@HarveyFoFi]

I am not super old, but I was one of the unlucky ones to get polio. I was still able to do wrestling, MMA, Judo, & bouncing, but that took my physically ability way down.

[@ashvanes484]

well, aside from *being* the generation that drilled for nuclear war (I must be out of your target demographic), this is a hopeful message for many. I needed this this week, because I had a loss, but it's helping me keep perspective. Wait, I can sell my Etsy stuff through you now? (PETG??)

[@RussellNelson]

8:36 yeah, I did that. I hid under my desk in elementary school, for all the good that would have done.

[@SneakyJoeRu]

We are indeed in the best time when we have all the fancy new tech, and the planet isn't completelly screwed. I'm lucky enough to have left the country before the actual war started, so I'm grateful for it everyday.

[@EmileMac-fy5mh]

I remember when we needed a special coin to make land line calls. Mobiles? Internet? My first PC was a Commodore 64

[@EmileMac-fy5mh]

I have seen it born, I was one of the first web-designers in Sicily.

[@johnchavez6293]

Starship! 🚀

[@goldgoat22]

No matter what time of day it is, I can buy a pie in 15 minutes.

[@meadsource]

11:30 - The young 3rd world boy watching this on their family phone 💀😂 I'm joking of course, but it did cross my mind 😂

[@KaleyDuke]

what a great pick me up!! although I don't think we should discount the pandemic to "oh no people had to watch Netflix for a while"

[@DonBarthel]

Just a couple days ago we had the very first day where the average global temperature was 2.0°C above the pre industrial baseline. Yes, on many measures, humanity is at its peak. And it'll be downhill from here.

[@ronnetgrazer362]

Well, if you put it like that... Thanks for this rant!

[@yayinternets]

A rant is negative; this is the opposite of that, a rave. 🙂

[@ronnetgrazer362]

@@yayinternets Who doesn't like a rave? 🤪

[@uiopuiop3472]

what a wrench it is really!!

[@uiopuiop3472]

how is this so simple but so perfect to do... why not wrench company do this now

[@StumblingBumblingIdiot]

It would be even better if companies would hire people and train them like they used to so people did not have to get hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt!!! That is the saddest thing about this time I believe as every company wants that piece of paper. It is a great time to be alive but hopefully we keep doing better.

[@williambryce8527]

Outstanding video! Now let the karens start hating you! Ineeded to hear this and Im OLD! How much thing have changed jsut in the last 60 years. We did nto have computers, and my kids never understood that we did not have cell phones!

[@muayyadalsadi]

17:32 don't get me started on Damascus steel.

[@ethanr6655]

I'm sorry but my phone charges monthly to make all calls. My internet also charges me money for the service to access the web and none of that is free

[@slant3d]

You have connection and access that the president didn't have 30 years ago

[@jumphigher-runfaster]

Today is not the best. This time is more difficult than the time before covid, things are more expensive, earnings didn't grow, corporations hoarded more wealth. It's better time now for much less people than just few years ago sadly....

[@masklessninja]

Adversity breeds innovation

[@masklessninja]

After covid though, Doctors seem pretty archaic, incompetent and controlled

[@carboneagle]

Read some history. Today is incredible.

[@lousboards]

@@masklessninja what about the people that suffer in it's wake?

[@jumphigher-runfaster]

@@carboneagle can i find acceptance for a home loan that costs 2 times less than my current rent there? Or food as affordable as 3 years ago?

[@robmacl7]

Testify brother!

[@naturallyinterested7569]

Humanity didn't fall from anywhere. We rose from the mud. Do not dismiss the inhumane as the inevitable. We can and we will surpass the instincts of tribalistic apes, and our enemies in that endeavour are complacency and essentialism.

[@bonovoxel7527]

At 2:15 I would have already voted you.

[@jonjon737]

Best time *to* be alive...

[@Liberty4Ever]

Yesterday's SpaceX IFT-2 launch of Starship is a great example of technology making things way better. I revel in those achievements, but it's important to recognize why Elon Musk is so adamant about a Mars colony sooner rather than later. It's too easy to destroy our species when it's confined to a single planet. The government monopoly on aerospace stunted its development for half a century while they developed bioweapons, nuclear weapons, AI, etc.

[@eyal_the_goat]

bro my county is in a fucking war

[@MrBaskins2010]

the obesity thing you mentioned is a direct result of food deserts and income inequality. quality, healthy and affordable when it's come to food you can only pick two out of the three i just mentioned lol

[@Randomiz500]

According to history thus far, you could do the same type of video tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow..😛

[@sweetmtb3561]

Have you read the book "Factfulness"? Backs up the best time in history with statistics.

[@nielsencs]

So is your essential message "this is the best time to be alive except for 100 year old wrenches"? 🤔

[@logicalfundy]

A lot of businesses are optimizing for profitability rather than reliability. Why sell something once when you can sell it over and over again? I think we need some adjustments to economics.

[@AndrewDasilvaPLT]

15 years ago was the second year of iPhone.

[@Etrehumain123]

He might be off about exact years, but you understand his point

[@erikslan]

WRONG!!!!! we still dont know how the pyramids were build. lol

[@mikelaurie3850]

I worry though that all this comes at a hidden cost to the environment that will eventually cause our extinction

[@neutralbuild6718]

We have inflation

[@roberson607]

Said so well..

[@stevethompson210]

It was better between 2016 and 2020. The last three years…. not so much.

[@cronusradonsystems2036]

I think you missed the point.

[@antonkukoba3378]

Yes tell me please how it's the best time, while I have to live during the war in Ukraine.

[@BradKwfc]

kzbin.infonJB7etK6wS8?si=95u8fhQwDUrZIkRm

[@polycrystallinecandy]

Best doesn't mean perfect. What fraction of the world's population was affected by war or constant mortal danger just a few decades ago, compared to now?

[@Geoff_W]

Your misunderstanding the point. He's not saying it's perfect, he's saying it's better than it was on a macro level, and it is.

[@Actio83]

Combaya

[@LoganKellum]

To*

[@anantsrivastava6969]

my bro is really happy💀 why are ur hands black