The printer-shaped-object is a real printer again! (and I have proof)

 Check it:

gosh darn Blogger - here is a backup link in case below video vanishes or malfunctions.

Blogger is being weird (for me), so I can only fullscreen the video sometimes. (WTH)
If the same is true for you, hit the link above if you want a larger / clearer version.
And anyway you're not missing anything special, it's just the printer, printing. ;)

(if you use the link to the Google Drive file, be sure to change the res from 360 to 720)

 
 So anyway, yes, it's a printer once again, finally, and last night it managed to spit out a recognizable Kodama with no great effort from me, which I took as a sign that I may once again be in favor with the gods.

 I had already grid-leveled the bed (software cancelation of bed height variations using BLtouch - I gotta take a picture of the results, it's fabulous) a week ago, so all the printer had to do last night was find home and double check that the center height is where it thinks it should be, which requires just one 'dip' and happens on every print.  I could make it so it doesn't.  I might, when I 'get gud'.  If I ever need to print lots of something, I would want to disable that.

 These "kodama xmas tree ornaments" are a good test for getting (re)started because frankly, they're not as challenging as Benchy.  And this first Kodama has plenty of problems showing.  I think most of that is about the slicer, not the printer settings.  TBD of course.

 Also, at least one maybe two of the steppers on this printer seem to run HOT AS HELL, so that will be investigated and I will report back when I am smarter.  Not sure how I will investigate this since it comes down to "how hot is too hot" and I haven't got a good... ohh, heh-heh-heh well now, that was gonna be a lie.  I have a perfectly good thermocouple plugged into a 'perfectly good' (chinesium) PID controller, which should tell me what time it is.

 Operating temps of steppers routinely reach 70ºC  - 80ºC, so I just need to stick my thermocouple on there.  I am not using the temp control system, and won't really need it except for certain high temperature filaments I'm not ready for and don't even own yet.

 It could be that I'm just not used to working with steppers (true statement) or it could be that the drive voltage needs to be backed off a bit.  There is a lot of mechanical resistance in these inexpensive printers, and maxing-out the driver voltage means maximizing the pole/step hold strength as well as step torque, both of which help overcome that resistance.

 I'd like to believe that is as easy as turning a tiny trim pot on the driver board inside the printer.
I'd rather find out it isn't necessary and that I worry too much.

 Currently I am on hold because my other half is asleep.  The printer is in the basement, the work area is not far from the bedroom above, and the creaky basement stairs pass under the bedroom too.  "St. Jude" has a sleep-in day today, and I would not take that away from her. ;)

 BTW, I crashed the printer near the end of the first kodama print because I was experimenting with the Temperature Control System (TCS, okay? sheesh) which, while not in use, was still causing camera interference. When I unplugged the circulation fan, the printer crashed.

"In my house there's this light switch that doesn't do anything.
Every so often I would flick it on and off just to check.
Yesterday, I got a call from a woman in Madagascar.
She said, 'Cut it out.'"

 Sigh, okay, another useful disapoint, I mean datapoint.  I am gathering the feroids while I may, and when I have enough different sorts and sizes and quantities, I'll start applying them to various cords and seeing what if anything helps.  I'm also probably going to put a small HV cap across the SSR in the TCS box.  A cap across it and a series toroid, or a common-mode choke inside the box, will go further than filters at the victim hardware end.  The TCS box is all metal.  It should be possible to stop the RFI cold before it leaves that box on the cords.  It cannot radiate (much - be reasonable) from the grounded box.

 I also suspect polling from the PID controller could be making noise (WTH?!?) onaccountabecuz there is camera interference even when the SSR is not being commanded on or off, or even when its heater load is unplugged.

 I am aware this sad little Pinocchio SSR is not a real SSR because I've had it apart; oh yes, it comes right apart, nothing is potted inside, and there is a thermopad like device inside, held down to the heatsink plate by a single screw and no evidence of heat sink grease or silpad.  And the screw projected past the heat sink, rendering it unuseable.  I wet-sanded it flat, then half-ass lapped it a little.

 I've no idea what happened to my small collection of SSRs, but they are gone now, apparently.  A real one from a name brand is $100 and up.  So for now, I'm stuck with what I have, whether or not its counterfeit construction contributes to interference.

 This was cheap chinesiunm; the entire kit, including PID controller, SSR, and heatsink for SSR, was $99.  In the western world, you'd do well to be able to buy the heat sink for that.  If you plan on spending $250 - $300 for your own kit using high quality parts from the usual suspects, you'd be in the right ballpark.

 If only there were some instrument which allows one to see a line voltage event with respect to time. <_<

 Again with the measurements this guy... *sigh* okay, where's my ground lift?  (techie joke)
I got 99 problems, but a scope capable of looking at line voltage safely* isn't one. 
Hey, that could totally be a line in a rap song.
 

 Thank the gods the printer and my o-scope are right next to each other because neither is portable at all!  I mean, the o-scope is on a wheeled cart because it weighs right at fifty pounds with four plugins installed.

 Blah blah old guy but at least I never have to hunt through menus, AND there's no one-shot sample rate limit all the way to its 500MHz BW, because it doesn't use sampling to store a signal.  No dots, ever, unless they're part of the signal.  So there.

___
* if you do this, make sure you never connect a probe's ground lead to live power circuits!

 The best practice is to use the signal side of two channels and invert one of them.  Just
take the ground clips off the probes and stow them, for safety.  Also for safety, don't use
"ground lifts" aka "3 prong adapters" to remove the ground reference connection of the
scope.  This is hazardous to both instrument and operator - you could die, so don't do it.