They have a mode called stealth mode that should reduce the quantity of noise produced by the steppers: https://help.prusa3d.com/article/power-modes_2213

Evidently the mk3 was significantly quieter than the mk2 with this mode enabled.

You’ll be fine on a balcony. Prusas are fairly quiet. I have an enclosed printer (a Voron) and it’s fairly quiet. I WFH 2 days a week and am able to have it printing 10 feet from me while working and on calls without issues. I wouldn’t call my old unenclosed printer loud, but it wasn’t quiet either.

That sounds like a pretty sweet gig. Legacy companies especially are filled with lots of opportunities for hacky automation that can substationally improve the day to day lives of worker bees. The trick is getting leadership to support that kind of work. It sounds like you’ve been able to succeed in that regard, so kudos.

Also, my career has caused me to realize how much important stuff around the world relies on some idiotic code snippet someone wrote “as a temporary fix”.

If it’s stupid and it works, is it really stupid?

It’s always fun watching the clash between this reality and compliance/safety/regulatory folks, lol.

Or doomcube, those should probably be in detached buildings. Or you like to print filaments that are high on fumes and don’t have a great way to vent.

My oldest pair of headphones is a pair of Sennheiser HD650s that I bought over 20 years ago. Their headband snapped a few years back, but I was able to track down a spair. They recently got a fresh pair of pads too, but have otherwise been going strong. They have gone through a bit of a boom/bust cycle of usage and are currently seeing near daily usage again.

As someone who recently “upgraded”, I agree. My prior pair of headphones are nearly as good as the new pair and have some functionality that just isn’t offered anymore (lots of physical buttons).

I have a pair of Plantronics 8200UCs that I very recently bought pads for. The first set lasted me since October 2021, so I should be good for a while again. They sound pretty good for music, support multipoint (multiple devices pairing) and aptX HD, have a dongle for teams certification, they support sidetone, their voice feedback is fantastic (muted prompts, etc), and have good physical controls (power switch, dedicated mute button, play/pause, ff/rw, volume, answer/hang up, etc). I wish they had a slightly better microphone and better ANC, but they largely get the job done.

I went down the headphone rabbit hole this holiday season and other than better ANC and transparency mode, which the 8200s lack completely, it turns out that I really wasn’t missing out on much.

So: keep them, unless there’s a very specific reason to ditch them.