Recently I found out these printers are becoming more accessible to end users. Until a couple weeks ago, I thought they were industrial grade equipment, not something one could have at home.

Does anyone know if there's a "main 3D printing" forum, something like bitcointalk.org for 3D printing? I've googled a little but all forums I found were almost "ghost forums", with just a couple dudes posting something once in a while...
The subject is quite interesting, I'd like to learn more.

Okay, unstable was the wrong term. The distro I was using, linuxcoin, proved to be fairly unstable FOR ME. No disrespect to the guy(s) who worked on it as it is great for many people.

Linux is just fine if you know what you're doing. I was mostly pointing to the fact that I don't believe there is a huge power savings and as noob I felt like I was led to believe there was.

Of course, there are added costs to windows rigs, licenses and drives. Drives are coming WAY down, especially the 30gb SSD's. Just bought two for $30 each and they use 2 watts at peak.

Didn't intend to start a windows/linux war. Linux just has driven me insane for months and I think newer miners should know they don't HAVE to go the linux route to be efficient. I lost more money with rigs that wouldn't run than I ever would have if I had just started with windows. Even if I had to buy the licenses and drives.

Just putting this out there for new miners, UPTIME is everything, the rest is negligible when you do the math. Yes, an efficient linux machine might costs $200 less(windows license+drive) but if it doesn't run consistently or you can't get it working for weeks, you've lost more than that already.

I estimate I lost about 300 potentially mined coins screwing around with linux. At current prices that is $1500. Had I started right away and bought 9 SSD's for my rigs at $99 each(64gb) I'd still be ahead since I have the licenses.

even if you buy 7 home premium when it's on sale at newegg for 79.99 and a $50 30Gb ssd that's $130 per rig, still would have only cost $1170 for 9 rigs.

Nevermind, you can sell the windows with a built rig down the road and the SSD. Not so much with used thumb drives.

Arduino with relay board and ethernet shield works out to something like 275$ for around 40 ports. 160$ of which is relay boards, 8 of them.
Tho requires a bit of work to get running, but ought to be rather easy after that.
Not a perfect solution, but half way there.

I've done quite a bit research on this for servers, namely how to build a cluster of cheap servers on the cheap.

One option is to use Arduino with a Relay board and Ethernet Shield.
That will give you maximum of around 40 relays, depending upon model of Arduino used etc.
Parts can be sourced from: http://arduino-direct.com and eBay
Some information: http://arduino-info.wikispaces.com/ArduinoPower#4-8

As for finished product i ended up choosing IP Power 9258T and Avocent Direct PDU for initial setups for it's low buy-in price.

For KVM i ended up choosing Belkin Omniview for larger setups and Aten CS1716i for smaller setups.
For big setups Belkin Omniview works out somewhere around 30-40$ per node, depending upon do you get your gear from cheap or expensive place.
Aten CS1716i is a few $ more expensive per node only, but the Belkin also provides saner setup by the means of using CAT5 cabling

gotta love the FUD.

goxing zhoutong?

I have the majority of the hardware except the extruder, Im leaning towards reprap, makerbot is ok too, but I think reprap is the one that will satisfy my needs..

Any suggestions?  there are a few more worth mentioning, I just cant remember their names..

Awesome article, Im actually in the process of making a 3d printer...

Since I was there and went to dinner with these guys, I got to hear what some of these things were.  Some of them were not things we would want to post in the forums - about how X person at Y company was totally interested - as we anticipate that those very same people will be browsing these forums and aren't going to want to see their own name in our brags before they even get a chance to do their research and take the temperature of what people think of Bitcoin when they get back home.

For example, I understood that somebody responsible for managing the point-of-sale networks for large chain of truck stops had a lot to ask.  Do I dare say who in the forums?  Of course not, my interest in not alienating them by having them see their own company name in our forums exceeds my interest in satiating everyone's desire to know who it is.

I don't expect an influx of 4chan newbies suddenly dumping bazillions of dollars into Bitcoin just having heard of it for the first time due to their first encounter at CES.  If they had never heard of Bitcoin, their first impression from seeing a Bitcoin booth is that it's another company just trying to peddle a whiz bang product, and CES is overflowing with of those.  (I did notice though, that people who understood and used BitTorrent were much quicker at grasping the magic sight-unseen than those who did not - based on that observation, I am seriously considering a window sticker on my car: "Bitcoin will do to money and banking what BitTorrent did to music and movies.")

But on the other hand, what keeps me excited, is the people who came up to the booth and say things like "Hey! I've heard of Bitcoin. I don't yet know what it is, but I heard <whatever>, and want to ask questions, because we do <this> and <that>, and I was wondering if Bitcoin could help us do a better job of <this>".  These are people who are already well-situated in a career where their buyoff on Bitcoin can be a major part of a big company's decision to take a real look at it.  Those are the ones who will make a serious difference when they get home.

While hallucinations are not to be trusted, the relationship between your interpretation of a hallucination and it's effects on your mind/body should be, as this just goes back to self-reflection or introspection.

Whether or not a hallucination is "real" (there are arguments to be made on both ends), it's effects on you are very real in a self-evident kind of way, and you can learn one hell of a lot from this.

in the next 24 hrs, as someone is going to post this anyway, so here it is - enjoy