Oh Ares Ares!

Never expected that I would write about my Ares 4-in-1 3D printer from Easy Arts from Wuhan, China, in this fashion. Here is where it all began.

Ares and all its entourage.

Much earlier in August 2014, I backed my 1st 3D printer: CraftBot from CraftUnique, Hungary. It was through some of my fellow CraftBoters, that I got to know about the Ares and subsequently backed it.

Partly inspired by some dramas and movies, where the opening scene does not start right at the beginning of the story timeline, instead viewers are shown the scene in the middle of the story timeline or sometimes even at the end, then the scene gets “rewinded” till you are returned to the opening scene.
Now, before we build up the plot, here are the main casts:
1. Ares: The 4-in-1 3D printer, consisting of: I) 3D printing, II) 3D scanning, III) CNC engraving, IV) Laser engraving.
2. OctoPrint.
3. RaspberryPi 2 Model B (a credit card size computing board, origin: UK)
4. HP Pavilion 15 Notebook.
5. Asus, Dual-Band Wireless-N600 Gigabit RouterRT-N56U.

The Ares is a machine with lots of power-pack features, as introduced above. Now, join me in unveiling the Ares. You will do well to bear in mind that the beginning is not the beginning…..

YouTube video of Ares 4-in-1 3D printer: playing Reversi on the Raspberry Pi 2B and beating it by 18 points – 6/6/16
Like I said, this is not a typical unboxing write up or video. I wrote this so that I could remember the memories of my experiences with Ares. Some planning was in store for writing this, but the bulk of it just flowed as I listen to these 2 awesome songs (copyrights of the respective Artistes, which I do not own) in :

Shout to The Lord & Agnus Dei (Darlene Zschech – Revealing Jesus)

Never expected that I would be playing the Reversi game against the computer which in this case is the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B board, which sits inside my Ares, much less beat the computer by 18 points!
Big shout thank you to Mr Yuan Liu, the “valleyman” for his advise in Use router to simplify network connection. I tried it (connected my Ares directly to the router, 1 of the steps involved in getting the Dynamic IP address (DIP)) and succeeded in getting this DIP:

*You can also check out our Ares 3D community in Google+.

* The laptop or desktop computer (I got to mention the good ol’ desktop as not everyone uses a laptop) communicates wirelessly through the OctoPrint with the RPi 2 Model B board inside the Ares. Amazing how everything all fits together and from a remote location, you can get your 3D printer to print, once it is all set up properly. But, hmmm,,,, I still am unable to visualise myself 3D printing wirelessly, Not now, maybe later.
To hook up to the RPi 2 Model B board wirelessly via OctoPrint, a DIP is needed for Remote Desktop Connection. Looking carefully and taking lots of time to read through manual by Ares, didn’t help in the beginning, when I wanted to get the DIP (though the Ares manual did help at a later stage, after I finally managed to get the DIP through valleyman’s help).

Hopefully you guys are not confused after reading the past few lines.

*PS: I may later also post this write up in another blog of mine.

Please drop me a note and tell me what you think about this article. Much appreciation and thanks.