It takes some practice to beautify it. You’ll also spend more time doing that than the whole time taken to build the core.

Your best bet might be to use a laptop as the basis. They are already designed with power efficiency in mind, and you won’t need an external screen and keyboard for local problem solving.

I would also consider having a raspberry pi 3 or similar as a companion. Services that must be up all the time run on the pi (e.g. network admin). The main computer only gets kicked out of sleep mode when required. The pi 3 needs less power than the newer pis, while still having enough computing power to not lag unless pushed hard.

I definitely agree with SSDs. HDDs don’t do well when rotated when running. Boats are less than a stable platform.

Screw thanking aliens, it’s an incredible team of engineers that have the skills and dedication to do what seems impossible. This was 100% humanity at its best.

They rebuilt the most critical core code on a near antique spacecraft that has effectively left the solar system over an equally ancient radio link. They had 1 shot, and nailed it.

It’s worth noting we are at the start of an arms race. It will iterate all over the place.

For example, smoke and chaff deploying drones would make defensive fire harder. Anti air can be either baited (and so depleted) or rushed. Lasers can be shielded against, at least for a time. Jamming can be countered with line of site communications.

In turn, each of these can be countered.

A key thing of note is that your solutions are heavy. Fine for defending a static target, but problematic when dealing with defending a mobile unit etc infantry of transports. In those situations an extremely rapid, focused highly dynamic response would be required. The obvious way to deploy those fast enough is to have them automated and airborne, aka a drone swarm.

I might be completely wrong, current drone warfare is akin to the invention of the smoothbore musket. How it will develop remains to be seen (for better or for worse).

The only reliable counter to a drone is likely another drone.

I suspect Peter F Hamilton got it close, in the Confederation series, with WASPs. They are space based weapon platforms. They carry a mix of offensive and defensive subsystems, and operate with swarm logic.

I could easily see a larger drone carrying a swarm of 1 shot micro drones. When close, some would be sacrificed to get better sensor data, others would go on the attack. Conversely, a defensive target would launch their own swarm. It’s goal would be to stop the attackers getting a good shot on a high value target. It might also counterattack, either against the mother ship drone, or backtracking to find the launch site.

Jamming would also be part of this. A jammer could easily cut off the swarm from external data sources. Live satellite or remote surveillance systems would be cut. Point to point lasers are far harder, as are burst transmissions. Local sensor drones could easily punch short range data back, or paint targets, until they are destroyed by defensive systems.

GPS is useful, but not required for operation. Inertial guidance, and ground tracking cameras can easily maintain a good position sense, while completely RF passive. This is also already normal on many toy drones.

You would also want to jam it over a large area. That jamming is akin to a “kick me” sign, in neon lights.

Edit, apparently I’m an idiot and my ability to tell truth from fiction is a lot worse than I thought.

In my defence however, all the parts are completely viable. I also saw it mixed in with Boston dynamics videos.

I’ll leave the original comment for context of my folly.

The US already has them.

There are single shot drones, designed to be deployed into a building, or cave system. They then use cameras etc to navigate, while running face recognition. When they find their target, they fly just in front of it. The shaped C4 charge is designed to reduce their head to red mist, while not risking those close by.

AI + cheap drones will completely change warfare. Probably on the same level as the tank, or machine gun.

A non-rechargable battery can also have significantly more capacity. A suicide drone likely doesn’t need to be recharged.

OpenSCAD is particularly good for jobs like this. You can import an stl and do an intersection with a “cube” to get the part you want.

OpenSCAD is script based, so does have a little bit of a learning curve, but it’s an excellent tool to have in your toolbox.

There’s nothing for a ground pin to be connected to, the case is plastic.

The bigger issue is that a lot of light switches also lack a neutral connection. They have live, and switched live. You can get devices to allow them to scavenge power, but they can also cause led bulbs to glow dimly.

It was a domino effect. When a car with a cold battery tried to charge, it had to wait for the heaters to get it up to a working temperature. This meant a 20 minute charge became 20 (initial) + 10 (heating time) + 10 (replacing extra power lost to heating). A 20 minute charge then takes 40+ minutes. The next car has the same issue. Once this happens a few times, even cars that were warm have cooled down, while queueing.

It’s the EV equivalent of the petrol panics that happen to ICE cars. They idle in the queue until they run out of fuel. It’s an infrastructure problem combined with people learning the limits of a new technology.

A desiccant (silica) based dehumidifier and a print tent, or other small enclosure would work fine. They output warm, dry air, and dump the water into a tank at the bottom. They are also small enough to fit in a small enclosure.

This sort has the advantage of actually lowering the moisture content of the air, not just raising the temperature to reduce the effective humidity.

A full-on air-conditioning unit in dehumidifier mode would also work, but would be massively overkill. The mini units work far better for smaller areas.

I’ve found joining in the conversation works 80% of the time .15% they complain, but it still works. The 5% can get awkward, unless you’re really up for making a new, highly extroverted friend!

First, avoid inkjets. They need to be used regularly to work reliably. If you don’t print, they will periodically blast ink through, till they run out. If you leave them turned off, the ink dries, and they clog up.

For day to day. A colour laser is the best bet. More expensive, and they struggle with photos, but they just keep on going. 1 refill costs 5x the cost of an inkjet, but will do 50x the prints.

If you need photos, a dye sublimation printer is the way forward. They are expensive to run, but create professional grade photos. The consumables also keep indefinitely.

As for brands. Brother is the best bet. They quietly produce the battle tanks of printers. They do 1 job very well, no faffing, no unnecessary bells and whistles.

In short, a brother colour laser printer is exactly what you are asking for.

The reprap movement was exactly that. A self replicating rapid prototyper. While it never reached true replication, it got close enough to cause an explosive growth of the community. That, in turn led to the huge number of low cost suppliers and designs we have now.

It appears to be slowing down. That means it’s either generating thrust (outgassing etc), still being impacted by debris, or their measurements have been thrown off by something. All would be interesting, in their own way.