Sorry, this is not really 3d printing related. But as we have some cool folks here OS wise. I hopped you could help or point me the correct way.

As I have mentioned before my brother and I own a tiny narrow boat we are doing up.

The engine room is a nightmare. 4ft high with no top access. We are disabled (visual and flexibility basically old can't bend and classed as blind but some vision. ) So we have difficulty measuring exact space in a room we have to crawl through. Well it's very like Star Trek Jeffries tubes but greasy. ;)

We need to plan and mount electronics in there to support our use. (I sought advice on printing to help with this a while back and got fantastic help)

I am now starting to think having a 3d model of the engine room would make working out the layout much easier. So here is where advice is needed.

We are skint (poor for the US) so spending 1000s ain't an option. And likely not worth it anyway.

I have heard of android apps that use photographs. And that level of accuracy is likely fine for our planning needs.

But I'm a Linux 100% user. Since the late 90s So need some way to do this that can be done on Linux and fed into FreeCAD and or Blender.

Does anyone know much about tools in this space. And what the process for doing this with photographs is?

I have never used a 3d printer. But have done a little research.

Be great if someone could confirm my intention is sane.

I have loads of Linux experience so my plans relate to open source all the way.

First off I am brassic(poor). So looking cheap all the way. My brother and I have a tiny narrowboat we are refitting. And plan to use the printer for stuff within the boat.

Due to this printing PA6 to go in the bilge is important. (Diesel and water bad for most other plastics)

As we are both vision impaired and old. The idea is most of the electrical mountings etc will be self designed and painted to make future access quick and easy with our rapidly worsening vision.

So my plan. I am looking at a elegoo Neptune 4 pro.

Because it is cheap but great value. Uses kipper. And seems easy to modify as I grow in use. Also supports temps needed for PA6 etc.

But I will need an enclosure to work with PA 6 and a dryer.

Dryer is cheap not an issue.

But I'm thinking of a tent enclosure. Some good well insulated ones on amazon for £50 with hose to vent out smells.

Will one of these tents be suitable for keeping temperature stable while printing PA6. And can anyone offer other advice for cheap solutions to make this easy.

On a related novice front.

Gue to the vision. One of the projects is to print mounting boards for din rail fuses etc. The idea being to mix colours.

Ie flat surface faces from and back in white. The the inner support fram in a bright colour. This will mean holes to support thumb screws etc for easy low vision future maintainance. IE easy to find the pre set screw holes.

This plan means I can swap colours when printing layers so should be easy without over (for me) briced multi head printer.

But can anyone share experience with doing this with nylon. IE how dose delays in printing the layers while swapping filament t effect the linking of those layers.

As I say complete novice o the actual doing this so any advice will be helpful.

Was watching the kings' speech on BBC. While the interviewed members of the 3 leading parties.

Amazing that the Tory member can make claims with no challenge. Specifically.

We will ensure labour stick to their promise not to raise taxes. (paraphrased)

They have claimed this throughout the election. Without labour or the media questioning it.

The actual promise.

Labour will not increase income tax, national insurance or VAT. (cut and paste from labour.org.uk)

This is not a promise to not raise taxes. It is about very specific taxes that generally affect the poorest more. Corp taxes capital gains etc are still free. But It seems intentional that Tories choose to ignore that.

Also, intentional that labour do not choose to publicly disagree.

Some claim about the nationalisation of rail costing a fortune.

While he included GB energy and others that do have some cost. He very openly attacked rail as the main cost.

This really needs challenging. Since privatisation, the government has spent way more inflation adjusted running the pseudo privatised gift to the shareholders. Then national rail ever cost. Nothing has improved since rail was privatised. (honestly safety has but due to modern standards not privatisation).

Nothing labour has promised is a cost sink. Yes, as company contracts end, the gov will need to take over running costs. But as we are already funding huge chunks of that cost now. The argument that nationalisation of rail is expensive is crap.

The more honest analysis is the Labour Party has little in the way of plans to fund needed improvements.

As much as I hate to admit, it's not going to happen.

The only reason to have the BBC is so that capital interests do not take over all UK media. And it really seems like the BBC no longer has that mantel.

Yes, the Tories worked hard to do this over the last 14 years, and the number of folks deciding the licence is no longer worth it. While hard to blame them, def has not helped.

But I can't help but wonder how we replace it. In 2024 how do we go about creating some form of a real news and current affairs channel that is free from commercial interests. Free from bias is going to be harder. Free from perceived bias impossible. Most consider the truth to have bias if it disagrees with their objective view.

Hi. I've not really used Windows since the early 2000. Even then not much.

I have a single mini PC with windows on. And use it only for device firmware updates. As a ham radio nerd. You get many devices that can only be modified via windows.

Anyway it was set up with dual boot the normal way. Windows first as it came with it. Then make a real Linux partition to use the PC on my boat while travelling.

Now the issue is I am upgrading the Mini PC. Basically replacing memory and the tiny 128gb ssd. So need to install it all from scratch.

I have order a copy of windows 11 from ebay. (At a price I consider acceptable for the crap)

But its going to take several days to arrive. And I would like to be more efficient.

So I am hoping folks can advice me on the best way to set up the PC with Linux first then install Windows 11 later. Knowing windows has a habit of messing up grub etc.

This is opinion. So read it as such. But consider it please.

Obviously if you read this based on the title. I assume you oppose the Tories.

But if you are wondering why labour are so keen to manage expectations. There is a reason.

Campaign funding wise the Tories are estimated to be 19m ahead of labour. But honestly at the moment they are not spending a huge amount more.

We know the Tories are skilled at election manipulation. So there is genuine fear that the Tories plan to launch a campaign within the last few days.

I.E. when there is less time and funding to ensure fact checking is effective.

They know Starmer is more publicity aware then Corbyn was. He is able to play it in a way that dose not scare traditional Conservative voters.

They also know thanks to Boris, that the courts are unable to punish them for outright lies during any political campaign. And that Rishi is prepared to lie about and accuse civil servants of lying when challenged.

As huge as polling is against the Tories. All it would take is some dramatic claim against the party or Starmer. To convince Tory traditional voters to bite their tongue and vote Tory. While convincing left wing voters not to vote or to switch to 3rd party in seats where labour are the 1st or 2nd party.

The fact we know they have a huge amount of money unspent. Makes it clear they plan to launch something nearer the end of the election. And the only advantage of leaving it so late. Is it will limit the ability of the party to effectively react. Or fact checkers to be able to prove and distribute evidence of lies.

Please be prepared for this.

I cannot really see any other way to interpret this interview.

Remember this when looking at their attitude to protest etc.

TLDR at the end I just post how I propose to convince the new parliament.

If polling is anything near to close. Starmer will enter parlimemt on the 5th with a landslide majority.

Time for us to remember the court case PM Johnson won for the 350m lie on a bus. The high Court simply stated.

Parliment has made no law banning lies during a campaign.

Well we really do have an opportunity to convince Starmer to change that. With Sunak and Co clearly following the last elections lead. Lieing about the civil service backing up their cost estimates.

It is time parliment tried to build confidence in election claims. This would only be practical when it comes to provable falsehoods of fact. Such as the claims made about Starmers campaign. After they have been informed the civil service did not analyse the data they used.

Unfortunately forcing a party to follow its manifesto is not really doable. And if parliment made the law. The next parliment would cancel it.

How to convince Starmer et al

OK so most will remember back in the coalition. The new government claimed to want to be responsive. So they set up an official, way for the public to request parliment do things. Resulting in parliment responding with crappy excuses every single time 10k signatures. Or a dumb argument in committee at 100k.

Now consider a new majority land slide parliment. Walking into government on July the 5th. With a social media publicised request to make it illegal for election campaigns, to continue to publish claims known to be false.

Its a simple law. If your party has received evidence that your clai is false. You must stop using it or face legal punishment.

So assuming 10k votes. The new government would need to write a response claiming they think lieing is OK.

Pretty sure the electorate can eviserate them on social media after that. Changing their mind. The new tory opposition leader. (Or Lib Dem maybe?). Would sure as he'll leap on the new government for such a claim.

But honestly to get the response needed. 100k signatures and the parliment required to have a public committee debate on their right to lie in campaigns.

No new government with a huge majority is going to be willing to face that.

Help

If you have read this far. You will recognise, I am not great at grammar and my wording is not consise. So when it comes to writing the partition on the parliment website. Someone more skilled would be best. Or a discussion here as to the best wording etc.

Do please if this idea seem worth while. (Let's face it what have we to lose. A few mins a day signing a partition and posting to social media over the election. )

Then please join a discussion here. To try to push this idea forward over the next month.

Seriosly. When you lie in a way that make the civil service look biased. You have losf all respect for the position you are trying to win.

Can any history geeks think of a time when a UK pilitician has been publically accused of falsely represeting the civil service.

Yesterday I was pointing out how little effort this would take based on polling. And today a new poll puts electoral calculuses tory seat prediction from 66 to 27.

While it is an early poll.

Honestly if we saw a higher young voter turn out all votiing tactically. A complete distruction of the Tories party is possible.

Imagin an opposition party challenging labours view on FPTP. This would be a real once in a life time change to the old aristocratic power structure.

I am posting this here because it is the closest to a UK specific disability community.

If this is invalid please let me know. While I am not comfortable setting up a UK disability and benefits community alone. I am happy to help run one. It will just need a good few members willing to take an active role.

This post really is to discuse ( and rant) about the proposed changes to PIP the gov is proposing.

What really annoys me. Is the government seems to be getting away with pushing false data.

They keep using the differences in acceptance from 2010 to now.

With 0 recognition that the 2010 rejection rates were seriously flawed. With many winning appeals after being forced to take the gov to court. Where well over 60% were seen as false rejections.

Plus multiple reports of suicide due directly to DWP actions. It really bothers me that no media is pointing out this clearly false data.

While plenty are pointing out the culture war that the tories are clearly trying to start. Some of the charities challenging these distorted claims seems to be needed.

This is independent of other projects I have asked for help on. I'm just looking for anything done similar to my plan.

I am visually impaired. So tend to find most laptop pi projects way to small for common use. But also want an experimental bed for pie projects and experiments in genral.

So my idea is. I'll get a aluminium briefcase like case. Mount a 18 plus inch portable USB c powered display into the lid. It would also be nice if I could have my 15inch display fold out on a vesa mount. As an extra.

Inside the case id like to mount a large 18650 or similar lifepo4 batt. I'm thinking 4s 4p with a BMS so I can power usb 100w output with a 12v hub. This should allow out put to multiple monitors and a pie or 2.

I have a great small wireless keyboard and mouse. That could be popped in and out.

For the main board currently I'll use my waveshare CM4 poe board b with my 32/8 gb cm4.

But long term the itx cluster board looks good. When I have a bit more cash.

The main idea is it will allow me to connect multiple pcie riser cables to the boards via a 4 way wave share pcie switch to start with. Providing space to mount different boards and options as I change projects.

As folks may have seen from other projects. I move between home and my tiny narrowboat I share with my brother. So this will be more about being able to port multiple pie projects as much as being a usable PC type thing.

So if anyone has seen or worked on a project that may point to cool ways to mount this. I'd love to see them.

As I do not have a 3d printer. And cannot really argue the value for as rare as id use it. I am thinking alliminium plate cut and riveted to mount boards etc to the inside. But would love other ideas folks have seen or can come up with.

Sorry I am expecting no here. But cannot help but hope someone knows a way around the limitation.

I have a project where I plan to use an nvme on a waveshare mini b io board.

I am just now learning my way around CM4 pies. So purchased a few parts to experiment before fitting to manage stuff on my boat.

Unfortunately I did not know enough whan I got the dev cm4. Seeing as the cost difference between Emmc and lite was tiny. I decided there was little to lose with getting a Emmc one. Not knowing the EMMC uses the same pin address as the SD slot on io boards.

I now know this will mean the SD card port is not available. As I plan to use that to move software updates.

I was wondering if anyone knows a software way of enabling the internal sd port. IE basically disabling the EMMC.

If not ill just set up with a USB SD reader so all my cm4 can run identical. But if I can use the one on the board. It will be simpler. Maybe have some option to reboot the boat cm4 in either option with an emergency os on the emmc in the event of a fault.