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Comment by Causality1 | Hacker News Reader

I have questions. If you're doing it all yourself why do you need to go to a silicone shop and "talk to the experts about your needs"? Why tell a beginner to use 3D Builder or Meshmixer when you could do it in ninety seconds in Tinkercad? Why would you slice it in Chitubox to get the volume when your original modeling program or regular slicer would give you that info? On what printer is 0.25mm a step-integer layer height? Finally, is this really any better than printing your dildo and using a $35 clone-a-willy kit?

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1. Not all silicones are equal

2. Different 3d modeling programs are better at different things. Meshmixer is really good at some organic shape manipulations. Tinkercad is very limiting.

3. Not all slicing programs will give you the volume

4. Just because it isn't a default in your printers config doesn't mean it won't work.

5. Clone a willy kits have limitations, may not suit your needs or be available, or you may want more control of the process.

> Meshmixer is really good at some organic shape manipulations.

FTR, Blender and MoI3D is also good choice for organic (NURBS/B-spline) surface modeling.

Blender loves making non-manifold stuff though, or are least when I try to use stuff people "designed in blender" I get spaghetti instead of a radawesome toy for my kid.

Definitely, and Zbrush does as well. Meshmixer has an easy to use function that heals non-manifold models if you want to take another run at any of those toys.

From the Guidelines : https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.

That's not a shallow dismissal. I don't understand some of these choices and I want to know why they were made. I want to know why I'm wrong.

Allmost all your 'questions' are closed questions and include your assumed preference. They are not really questions. The tone is belittleing ( is that a word? )

I disagree with all your assessments. I think specific, discuss-able questions like this lead to educational answers. Asking questions about something isn't disrespectful.

the way they are asked can be though, as evidenced above.

From the guidelines:

Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

I think it's now pretty obvious from your lack of reply to my responses to your questions that you didn't actually care to have your questions answered.

I think the trouble was your tone, it's important to remember that another real life human made this article.

Just to try and help explain why people think you have a negative tone: written words tend to be interpreted negatively by default since you can't hear the person's tone of voice, so you have to use extra words to reinforce your positive intentions, and avoid using phrases that can be construed as positive with the right tone but have negative connotations by default.

For example, "Why do X when you could do Y" assumes they were aware of Y and consciously chose X over Y. It is overly presumptuous especially since you don't know them. It also carries the implication that you think Y is a better "default" choice and comes across as a prompt for them to defend why they chose X instead. It might be better phrased as "Had you considered Y instead of X, and if so, I am curious why you chose X instead?"

Also the phrase "Why would you do X" kind of comes across as "Who in their right mind would do X". A better way to say it is something like "Curious about the use of X? In my experience Y works better, have you had a chance to try that yet?"

100% all of this.

Thank you for taking the time to explain <3

That isn't a shallow dismissal.

hey thank you for saying this, I also though the tone was pretty off.

You go to the shop and ask so you get the right product because silicones that are safe for this are rare and rarely advertised as such.

Because 3D builder is legit better than tinkercad in many ways, but you're free to use tinkercad, it's totally a matter of preference. I actually list it as an option in the article, so not sure what prompted this comment.

Tinkercad won't give you volume info and nor will most organic sculpting software.

Are you talking about "magic numbers" with regard to the layer height? If so, I'm printing on a delta so it basically doesn't matter.

Yes, because it removes the layer lines, which is the main health risk in printed toys (and without smoothing those layer lines just get transferred to the toy, silicone picks up microscopic details)

Why not spend 90 seconds building it in TinkerCAD? My experience is that it took a year for me to get to the point where I could build it in TinkerCAD. Love it, but I really struggled at first. Now it's my go-to, and you can make some awesome stuff quickly, but I'm the only one in my house that can do, well, pretty much anything in 90 seconds in TinkerCAD. :-)

Why do this rather than clone a Willy? If your willy looks like the sex toy in this blog post, you'd probably better see a doctor.

why not get the real one if you gonna go through all this hassle for a dildo

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