Slate says its electric pickup will never track you

With no embedded modem, the Slate Truck is the antithesis of today's connected cars.

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[Smeghead]

My impression is that you have to calibrate a printer, there'll be a bunch of misprints until you get it calibrated properly, then you have to learn something like FreeCAD (which I wrote some python code for to interface with some other program, but I never had to actually draw any shapes for - ugh! I almost failed drafting in college - drawing / sketching 3D shapes, even if I have them in my head, is HARD), and then you have to experiment until you get the hang of doing it right. So like 100 experiments, each of which takes time, to start getting good. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't have hundreds of hours in spare..

Manual calibration is largely not a thing any more, at least not to the level of determining whether a print will even complete like the early days. Most decent printers have evolved from being hobbyist things that require endless tinkering to tools that can largely be relied upon to vomit up an object on demand, so long as the model isn't completely stupid.

I started on a monoprice mini many years ago, which was mainly a cheap trinket printer that could also do a few small functional parts while needing decent levels of babysitting. I bought a Bambu X1C a couple of years ago, and from day one it was a completely different beast, one that I don't have to actively watch. It's now "old" enough that it's recently been discontinued, and newer printers have advanced significantly.

You do still have to have some knowledge of materials and their properties to pick the right tool for the job, and some level of awareness that it's easy to create a part that won't have a hope in hell of printing well, if at all, due to poor bed contact area, small features, or a bunch of other reasons. Calibration these days is more about attaining higher dimensional precision for tighter tolerances, and even that's still something of an art given how your part will shrink as it cools, etc. and honestly, is more important if you're trying to incorporate existing parts or mechanisms. Stuff printed on a given printer will often have similar biases in terms of precision, and multi-part objects will usually assemble together just fine as a result.

But yes, unless you're content to just use other folks' models, you'd have to learn some sort of modelling package. Workflow in the likes of FreeCAD and Fusion 360 is pretty similar, 95%+ of which involves repetitions of creating a 2D sketch on a plane and then extruding that into the 3rd dimension to either add to or subtract from your model.

I did reasonably well at "technical drawing" in high school (no idea what it's called these days; I'm an old fart) so I was able to pick it up fairly quickly, at least well enough to be dangerous. It still took time and effort, though - it's no different than learning any other new skill. Even then, my fusion 360 models would likely send professionals running screaming from the room, but I'm at a level where I can solve unique-to-me problems with it, which is where the real fun begins.

A multitude of services have sprung up that will print parts for you, but for me personally a large part of the learning experience was immediate feedback on whether a design would work or not and being able to make changes from that feedback. Having to wait a week or two each time would have broken that loop for me.

Before the whole Bambu GPL thing (the stupidity; it burns) I would have said that an A1 mini is one of the best gateways to discovering whether a printer is something you need/want. Their sale price is only a little above what I paid for the monoprice mini back when, and has a level of refinement that simply wasn't a thing in a small, cheap printer. It's a ~10lb blob that fits in a little over a cubic foot of space, and you can chuck it in a storage tub or whatever when not in use.

Now? I don't know.

 

[ReducedForQuickSale]

I've seen 2 electric windows break. 1 on an Astro van (dead motor I guess) and another on a VW Jetta when the window fell into the door by magic.

I've not see broken hand cranks but I can imagine it happens. All my hand crankers were fine but I've also had fine luck with powered.

I don't think I'd go back to hand crank but I can see some appeal. Hand cranked windows, no infotainment, keep an old 90's Razor phone and no new fangled smartthing.

Early 2000s Hyundais are notorious for it. We had one where 3 of the 4 windows detached from the regulators. I suspect the only reason the 4th didn't fail was that I got paranoid and stopped using it.
Had the driver's window on a Toyota of similar vintage get jammed, but that was because the weatherstripping got messed up.

 

[ERIFNOMI]

I tried PETG, but it's a little too flexible to print reliably on my current rig. There's a ~2cm gap between the filament feeder gear and the hot end. There's a part I downloaded for the print head, but apparently I can't be arsed to take the print head apart to install it. I finally got tired of my sun visor falling in my lap, and ordered the print online. Apparently I can't be arsed to install that part either.

Hm. I had pretty good luck printing PETG on my old bowden printer.

 

[MechR]

For me, going so barebones as to not actually have a stereo option in any shape is a bad idea. By all means, offer a delete option, but if they're so worried about out of date infotainment, then there should have at least been the provision for a simple stereo that takes bluetooth in; that's not going to be completely obsolete any time soon. If they made it a double-DIN mount, owners could then replace/upgrade it as needed, and they would then also be able to sell a carplay/android auto version just by sourcing a head unit from sony/kenwood/whoever.

Honestly, I find the notion of a dash holder for a portable bluetooth speaker laughable. That basically forces a very narrow range of form factors (basically risking obsolescence again), and the sound quality inside a car will be appalling. They appear to recognise this, with the option for a "sound bar with our accessory speakers", which is also a cop-out.

I did the bluetooth-phone-in-a-holder thing for years, and only recently got on the carplay train (my old car got drowned in March, forcing me to buy a new daily). I had big plans to replace the head unit (and almost did it last Christmas) and thankfully never got round to it. The experience of carplay on a fixed touchscreen is much more usable when it comes to answering calls, etc. than the phone-in-holder route. It's been my experience that most holders bounce a little in motion, resulting in the controls literally being a moving target. I'm assuming the android is nearly identical these days.

Their FAQ claims that built-in infotainment systems "have high failure rates". The reason my old car's stereo failed after nearly 21 years was because it was under water. Everything about it, including the CD player, still worked fine. And again, since they're not doing the car-controls-through-the-touchscreen crap, just having a standard double DIN mount would mitigate high repair costs in future; carplay-capable receivers from the big brands usually start at about $300. Bluetooth receivers without a touchscreen are half that.

Similarly, if they put standard speakers in the doors, those would likely be cheaper to replace than whatever this proposed sound bar thing. I had to do my front speakers about 10 years in as the rubber between the frame and the cone perished, resulting in a buzzy mess. I paid under $100 for a pair of polk speakers and did the swap in about an hour or so. I bet this sound bar option costs a lot more.

I don't need the best car stereo in the world, but for me a decent one is absoutely a requirement.

I see some sort of stereo-speaker option in the customizer, other than the center-bar and Bluetooth-rack options. They go in the far-left/right flip-up dash compartments rather than in the doors, though:

 

[stormcrash]

What are you talking about? The back seat is a bench seat. And you can just delete it if you want more space.

I meant a bench seat IN the cab, like a classic truck

 

[thequietplace]

Yes, unlike the EU (where the Slate would be illegal without a redesign) there is no federal mandate for an embedded modem in your car.

If you click the link i included where I mention automated license plate readers you’ll see why the current US government doesn’t really care, they’re still tracking you anyway.

2019 backup camera mandated?

 

[ERIFNOMI]

2019 backup camera mandated?

What about a backup camera means there needs to be a cell modem?

 

[Aurich]

Surprise to me - Best Buy DOES sell them in-store.. I just don't have the time. All I overhear is Bambu locking everything up, wanting monthly subscriptions. And I'm totally averse to that. And spending $500+ for something I'll use maybe 3 times a year? Any free time I have goes either to family, or the odd track day..

You are confused, Bambu does not have monthly subscriptions. You can buy their printer, connect it to their cloud or ignore it and connect locally. No fees either way.

Or, buy a printer from someone else, there are a ton of options.

You also don't need to spend over $500 if you don't want to.

If you are like every single person I know who got a printer you will use it a lot more than 3 times a year too.

Or ... don't buy one. I don't care. But I really recommend everyone own one. They're much more useful than you might realize. I use mine constantly, I cannot imagine going back to not having a printer since I got my first one 8 years ago.