Preproduction results are starting to come in: A weekend with a TAZ-4 3D printer nets around $750 in product, at a rate of about $30/hour, with attention required of ~5 minutes every 1.5-2 hours. That would be kicking the parts off the build bed, and clicking extrude. total waste plastic, since I’m not printing a skirt (but rather a small “sacrificial body” to prime the hotend), is only 0.17 grams of plastic. Me Likey! Regards, Rando
Author: Force Link
A Wooden (Demo) Vehicle is Revealed
And THAT, my friends, is the makings of the start of a product introduction. What you see here is a new way of managing wires. Initially for a small niche need, but they’re efficient enough to produce, and represent a genuine need in the market for a re-usable, semi-permanent, no-tools required cable management device where you don’t throw it away every time you want to make a change, unlike wire-ties. There are no fasteners and no sharp edges. Each weighs only ~7gm. You can adjust the tension in the arms by using more of the the supplied bands that happen …
What’s he up to now? Cutting WOOD?
Yeah, yeah, anyone can cut holes in a board. What fresh hell is this you have cooking up? Well sure, anyone can cut HOLES. But, can just anyone make THIS kind of holes? That are actually bosses with fillets around and on top, and a chamfer at the entry? All sized just right for a specific set of tubes? Oh…and while you’re drilling those flat-bottomed holes, would you might being so kind as to make a mirror-image copy? You know, for the top…. They’re intended to look like “something a human can’t make–easily” but that doesn’t really draw attention to …
Wait…They charge HOW much?
Check this out: https://www.dxengineering.com/…/nte-adjustable-ladder-style… I post this to show how even with mainstream, crappy wire-retention devices like sold by this reputable vendor, they STILL have markup far more than you’d expect, and well within my ability to print a better solution. Who knew this entire “specialty wire management device” industry was operating on such fat markups in low quantities?
El Reg sent me out “On Call”
For you not familiar with the vernacular, I submitted a true story of strange work happenings to the Register, to their “Back Office From Hell” “On Call” series. I got a message back from them that today they might actually run it. Check it out: Drug cops stopped techie’s upgrade to question him for hours. About everything (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/29/on_call/) Cheers! Rando
Engr. vs. Prod’n: the myopia that never was
Departments arguing at cross-purposes means nobody’s listening! I was reading online about the ever-present rift between “production” (machinists in this case), and “engineering” and how they never listen to each other, and aren’t committed to meeting the needs of the business and how can we just please get along, boo the heck hoo….. Um, let me put this clearly: my job as a design engineer is to specify a legally manufacturable and salable product that can be made most easily and most economically and still fully delight the customer. I have ZERO desire to include specifications of things that can’t …
MY mom would have had a fit!
I had a weird and somehow satisfying day today. Fore-armed with the knowledge that plumbers are smart enough to install appropriately-waterproof electronics enclosures, I stood inside a small-ish room maybe 30 feet by 10 feet, with a 4-foot water tank something like 20-feet long inside it. It was the day to cut up and remove that tank. And with Barry’s dad elsewhere, I got to stand in this unfinished room with a wooden mezzanine, and open paper-backed insulation and exposed wooden beams and stairs in contact with this tank, and watch as Barry cut about 60% apart today. My job …
Encouraging words from strangers
…are always a welcome thing! Well, THAT was weird. Yet very encouraging. As I was coming home from a trip to find tiny rubber bands for this product, I noticed that the local HAM Radio people were having an event in a local park. I swung in, but they were closing it down; it started yesterday. I had brought a couple of this new wire-retaining thing with me to size the rubber bands. We talked a bit and I pulled out the two pieces, and these guys, every one, went pretty much ape-sh!t excited over them. Why? Because when they …
It even fits over the test fixture
Looks like it fits over the test-fixture. Sure hope the test-fixture’s right (will later find out, due to BAD measurements from a “friend”, that these numbers were wrong. How do you f*ck up measuring the diameter of a tube?) Pink was used here for visibility; normally they’d be black. It’s the small victories in life that seem to be so hard-won. Cheers! Rando
I think this might just work!
TL/DR: Presenting 2018-027 4CELNK-YR Gaming-specific Wire Retention Device. Wow…feels like it’s been too many days since I’ve shown anything new and fun. Okay, so here goes. New product, this one with possible legs. You all probably know the 4CELNK-branded brackets I sell. Well, one of those customers asked me to solve a problem they have: the only one making custom wire-retention devices is gouging them, and the product isn’t very good. Can Thom please make a better one? Well heck yeah! This little beauty can hold four power cords in the “permanent” area, and then another EIGHT (SJT) power cords …