This is interesting. Can you give me a ballpark on your hardware cost for an 8 camera system? What does integration for NAS look like?

This is a very sharp article. Think I first saw it on Hackaday. I should be using the checklist more often. If there is to be a 3D print bible like Machinery’s Handbook, this article is foundational.

In particular, chamfers and fillets and their relationship to strength by reducing stress risers is often missed on amateur designs.

I need to look at crush ribs and ribs for screws/bolts more.

The idea of a sphere being the most efficent shape is counterintuitive when most mechanical design is inherited from subtractive manufacturing. Also, speed holes reducing strength and increasing material usage is wild. These are powerful ideas that are going to cause almost a philosophical change in manufacturing. It’s going to take decades. Absolutely mind-blowing stuff when you really think about it.

DFM, in general, is a woefully underappreciated aspect of engineering. One of the great things about 3D printing is that the designer is generally forced to eat their own dog food.

MEs should recieve more education about DFM. 3D printing would be an easy way to force them to understand the difficulty poor design causes. Of course, DFM for subtractive is a larger and more complex subject, but printing would at least teach the lesson with a little sting.

I check on FreeCAD every so often. The UI team should be forced to wear underwear made from pinecones until they fix that horror. Been doing CAD/CAM for more than two decades and FreeCAD is so unintuitive that it is unusable. Making a sketch or taking a measurement shouldn’t require research. Recently tried it again and was unable to sketch angles for a brace I was making and needed dims on. Tried libreCAD (unfortunately 2d only) and was able to get my angles and lengths in 15min or so without any tutorials.

I hear and agree with what you’re saying about open CAD software. However, I don’t want my son trying to learn something that will just frustrate him. I wish OSS would catch up on CAD/CAM, I could ditch windows for good.

I watched the RepRap development back in the day, but eventually stopped following 3D printing closely. (Ended up with an Atlas Craftsman lathe with milling attachment that did all the home manufacturing I needed). Prussa and Voron are our top contenders for printers now. He’s got a spreadsheet where he’s comparing specs and I’m getting him to read the quick starts and manuals.

I’m going to dig into the Voron world and see if it’s a reasonable project for me to support my son on. Not sure if it will be beyond his attention span. Otherwise it will be either a Prussa or maybe an Ender.