Watching pallet-jacks moving a bazillion units of filament through snow is a Canadian thing. Well, for us at least. Now that our warehouse is restocked, and with our new shipment, comes new colors!

eSun BASIC

The eSun basic formulations are just that – simplified and less expensive. Ideal for lower-speed printing not needing the qualities the full eSun PLA+ formulations offer.

eSun Silks & Silk-Magic

The silks lineup offers such a nice sheen and finish to a print.

eSun New PLA & Chemistries

eSun simple keeps increasing the number of colors available. Here’s what we’ve selected to add to our inventory. Oh, and a new “Luminous Orange” (aka: Glow-in-the-Dark), and Carbon-fiber black!

These are thermal, not Infrared cameras, returning temperature data in a tight and tidy bundle that can be plugged into Android, IOS, and other USB devices (like Raspberry-Pi SBCs!).

What use is it? Here’s what we’ve done with it over the last month:

Did thermal house-leakage analysis using on my Android phone.
Successfully diagnose a stuck-open thermostat on my truck (it was taking very long to heat up in our freezing Calgary winter).
Detected a bruise forming on my forearm before it was visible
Diagnose a bad voltage regulator on a motherboard
Count animals in the park across the street
Use some excellent open-source software to run it on a Rock Pi SBC for in-store demos

And it’s small. The basic unit starts at just over $220, and there are models with additional macro-settings, pistol-grip mounts, and advanced software settings.

Presently not on the website yet, but it is available in-store at Active-Tech Calgary.

Some of our favorite vendors reduced their offerings in thermal paste, so we searched out replacement inventory. We came across GD-2 being reviewed as a cost-effective alternative to more premium thermal pastes. So we’ve brought in some stock in 1, 7 and 15gram volumes.

At 7.5W/MK, it’s almost twice as effective as our budget thermal paste.

Presently, it’s only available in-store at Active-Tech Calgary.

All the leaves are brown, and the sky is … well, let’s just say with the Autumn comes planning for the the holiday building-season. We’re happy to announce these recent arrivals from eSun filaments and Creality3D printers. Amongst our many cases we’ve recently received, we got some new things to play with. In no particular order of funkiness:

eTwinkle Rainbow! (a.k.a.: Unicorn Sparklebarf)

If that “My Little Pony” Unicorn ever had an all-weekend bender, it may result in a color blend like this. It’s definitely a most intense blend of colors and sparkles. If you’re not sure what color to use, this is the one.

eTwinkle Silver

For a more … tasteful print than our first selection, you may consider the Silver flecked variant in the eTwinkle lineup. Must more refined in nature. Just screams to be used in a holiday ornament.

Silk Magic – Dual-color Red and Blue

I was introduced to “Shot Silk” when I was a kid by my eldest sibling. My young ears though she said “Shocked Silk”. After all, what would you call something that shifted weirdly from one color to another depending the angle you looked at it? In any case, eSun has taken advantage of the low-mixing characteristics of PLA plastic and developed a way to co-extrude two colors side-by side, which really does look striking.

Silk Magic – Dual-color Green and Blue

Similar to the above Green & Blue, but with a more police-esque color scheme. Mid-shift, it turns almost purple. Weird, but true.

Silk Magic – Dual-color Gold and Silver

Again like the rest, but with a very nice metallic gold and silver scheme. Another holiday favorite.

Light-Weight Foaming ePLA – Black

And…something very different. This stuff is making waves in the model aircraft and cosplay communities. This stuff expands like whipping cream out of the nozzle, then solidifies into a solid foam! It’s wack. We can’t wait to put it to use!

Light-Weight Foaming e PLA – Natural

Just like the other stuff, but in a neutral non-colored chemistry. Take a look at the datasheet on the page – the amount of foaming is controlled by your speed and temperature settings.

3D Printer – The Creality CR10 Smart Pro

Yeah, we’re on a bit of a 3D-printing-related kick today. We also have the new CR10 Smart Pro in stock. It’s a pretty polished unit, with built-in networking and video. Honestly though – not completely sold on the “Walled Garden” of having Creality talk to the cloud for my printing (albeit is pretty decent). I’m hoping for a community edition firmware that lets me have more direct control like Octoprint allows.

In the process of trying to keep business as normal, we’ve added the cable-management products from Pico of Canada. It’s all the standard interconnects, looms, and wire terminations you’d find in almost any electrical box.

They’re now online, and also viewable in our Virtual Store!

We’re adding more and more from our Active Tech Calgary store lineup to our website. This week, NTE’s line of head-shrink tubing, and Hammond Enclosures. This reflects what we have presently on hand in the store, which we’re now able to bring to you via the website!

We realize that with the new dataload our website is seeing, it’s a bit slow. We’re working on that aspect too.

So why do we suddenly have over 100 kinds of fuse for the website? It’s one of the easier products for us to bring across from our Active Tech Calgary store location into our website. Start with the easy stuff, then ramp up. Increase power gradually, so you don’t blow a… well you know…