I have this bad habit where every time I bring in a new tool, I cannot just leave it alone. The new machine works completely fine right out of the box, but my brain immediately decides it needs a custom cord clip, a rearranged shelf, or a dedicated scrap bin before I can even start.

Take the Aliencell sitting on my bench right now. Instead of just cutiing what I planned, I spent half of yesterday measuring clearance underneath for a slim material tray and rerouting cables so theyr un flush against the leg. Nothing was broken, I just could not stop fiddling with the surrounding space. Sometimes organizing the gear takes twice as long as the actual project.

Have you ever made a completely unnecessary tweak to a took setup that you were unreasonably proud of?

Let’s see if we get voltage when adding tap water.

Full dev logs and progress are also syncing to my site: www.lgooomfc.com

I need something that will let go of a rope line after say 20-50 pounds of force tugs on the line. It has to stay securely attached to the rope until the pull force parameter is met. I imagine there are ready-made devices like this that works via spring detent or friction mechanism, but their names escape me. Ideally, it would be something light and relatively easy to reattach once released.

3D-printed enclosure, looks like it's holding up pretty well—no leaks so far! 💧

right so i have been meaning to get into this for many years, i’ve wanted to ever since i was like 11 but i was lowk hella bullied out of it by my family so i just went on and kinda forgot all about even wanting to do it up until earlier this year when i realized im an adult and can just do it now

I HAVE:

- a bambu A2L + AMS Lite and a fucked up ender 5 plus, a bunch of hand and power tools handed down from my granddad (not a lot of place to use most of them tho)
- about 10-14 years of 3D modeling ‘experience’, i didn’t really do much most of the time, but i feel comfortable enough working in a 3D environment and know how to get around like the back of my hand, picked up CAD absolutely no problem aswell
- very basic knowledge on wood and metalworking and electronics (no arduino or raspi tho i’ll get to that) and an adequate basic understanding of physics and mechanical motion
- a good portion of my room to work in, no garage or basement or shed tho, not even an outside workbench
- a very “i’ll fuckin make it work” mindset, from playing engineering games i tend to over-engineer very trivial things just to make it work nicely, it’s THAT kinda autism i fear

so i’ve kinda already got a project in the works, but it doesn’t feel like enough, it’s just mostly lights, i wanna try something more mechatronics focused, i could just do the good ole robotic arm but once it’s done idk what i’d even use it for, i might jst be overthinking it but if y’all have any cool ideas for me to have a crack at lemme know!

Adult hobbies have a way of turning into projects with deadlines even when nobody asked for that. A detailed miniature, puzzle, drawing, or similar desk activity can be enjoyable precisely because the progress is slow, but unfinished work can also start to feel like one more thing waiting to be completed. The useful distinction may be whether stopping halfway still feels okay. For adults who stick with a quiet at-home hobby for years, what makes it easy to leave a project unfinished for a while without feeling like you’ve fallen behind?

both easily removable and fast to put on. this is WIP, and I am planning to make a hand gauntlet as well as an extension for a modular system.

computer vision reads your full-body pose in real time, calls out moves Simon-Says style, and a mechanical arm swings a padded glove when you hold the wrong pose or lag. cv for the pose classification, kinetic energy in springs and electromagnet release for the strike, foam hands so it bruises your ego not your face. happy to go into the detection stack or the mechanical aspect if anyone wants.

Hello, I have been messing with an arduino micro to get a hang of peripheral creation.

I have gotten it to work as a mouse and as a joystick independently of each other (with the mouse and Xinput libraries respectively), but I don't see a way to combine the two in a way that would get picked up by steam (such as with a PS controller), is there a way to do this with an arduino? If not maybe with a pi pico?

Thank you for any help

I forced myself to learn to solder so that I could bring a project to life.

In doing so I documented it all as a beginners guide for how not to solder

Let’s me know if there’s anything I could’ve done better.

What’s the worst mistake you made when learning to solder?

https://youtube.com/shorts/5Z1GvC2orD0?is=fjydkMsK6pfbcAEZ

Curious how you do this, because it's quite of a painful experience for me every time. Designing takes some time but it's at least kinda fun. Ordering from Chinese stores not really

So the design side is done. Schematic, layout and firmware are ready faster or slower depending on complexity, but AI helps quite a bit. Then comes ordering the components which is painful by itself (at least for my wallet 😄). Digikey for the MCU and passives, LCSC because some of it is half the price, JLC for the boards, Amazon for whatever I need fast. Either way there is a lot of searching, clicking and a 100 tabs open. Especially when ordering custom mechanical components, there is sending RFQs, waiting for quotes, ...

Plus every vendor has its own minimums and shipping, so I end up moving parts between carts to dodge a $20 shipping fee on a $6 order. Then something is out of stock and I'm back picking an alternate.

What does your actual flow look like? Do you stick to one distributor and accept the price, or handle it somehow differently?

P.S. I'm working at a startup - we don't have a purchasing dep to do it for me 😅

Figured i'd ask here. Local hardware stores sometimes have what I want, I'm not sure where the local metal suppliers are, sometimes I just want to order online. Figured I'd see what people here use.

This essentially just detects when someone is 6 ft away using an ultrasonic sensor for distance and a thermal camera so it doesn’t go off if you see a wall.

Hey all,

Like many of you, I've saved hundreds of "IKEA hack" and furniture build videos... and built exactly zero of them. The problem: the video shows the result, but never the measurements, the cut list, or where to actually buy the materials.

So I built Cutlist — you paste a TikTok/Reel/Shorts link (or upload a video), and it deconstructs the build into:

📐 A cut sheet with exact dimensions (metric or imperial), ready to hand to the saw desk at the hardware store

🛒 A shopping list grouped by store (IKEA, Leroy Merlin, Home Depot, Lowe's, Amazon) with quantities and price estimates

🔧 Tools list with beginner-friendly swaps + safety notes

📋 Phased step-by-step instructions, with a hands-free "workshop mode" (big buttons, keeps your screen awake, optional voice readout)

There's a free tier (1 deconstruction/month) so you can try it without paying anything. There's also a small catalog of pre-deconstructed IKEA hacks (KALLAX, BILLY, IVAR, BESTÅ...) you can browse right away.

Link: https://cutliststudio.com

What I'd love feedback on:

• Is the cut list output actually usable at the cutting counter?
• Are the material/price estimates in the right ballpark?
• Would you trust AI-extracted measurements, or would you always double-check?
• What platforms/creators should I make sure it handles well?
• It's early access, so expect rough edges — that's why I'm here.

Tear it apart. 🙏

Hello there. I am a fan/lover of Guinness World Records, i made a cardboard and a paper of GWR logo with a plastic tape that taped to the cardboard, and i used a glue stick to put the paper onto the cardboard. Anyways, can anyone ask me anything about Guinness World Records?

Will there be more? Are the ones who do unhealthy?

I don't know if this is the right sub to ask this, but I got this old zither at a flea market and want to work on it. As you can see it's pretty dirty, a lot of parts have rusted and there's some dirt inside. Also the wood seems to have a few chipped parts. And the bottom part is a bit loose, probably something to do with the rusted screws there.

Any tips for me? Literally never done something like this.

Hello everyone,
I’m curious on how / what you guys do to not make yourself “lazy” with AI? I’m an aircraft mechanic by trade and do lots of woodworking, fabrication, 3d printing, and just general tinkering in my free time. I’ve been trying to learn more about electronics and doing Arduino projects as well as messing around with trying to repair some old stereo systems lately. Long story short, I’ve noticed I’ve been using ai tools more and more over the past year and I feel like I’ve been maybe cutting a lot of corners in learning stuff by just going for the easy answer with ai. I’ve since gone cold turkey to it for about 2 months now, but I know it’s an amazing tool and wanna still get the benifits it offers. I wanna learn as much as I can as often as a can, but I’m busy enough already so I feel like I should take advantage of the time saving convenience it offers without crippling myself. Just curious on how you guys navigate this. Any responses appreciated.

I came across this "magnet adhesive" online and am trying to figure out if this is a real thing or just super glue. I tried googling and can't find any mention of magnet glue.

Hi there. Im looking into laser engravers and hoping for suggestions.

I do not need a large engraving area. Literally 2x4” is more than enough

My needs:

Adequate power - Im engraving dense wood. I dont want to be underwhelmed by the power

Quality - of both the machine and the engraving itself

Affordability - im hoping the non-requirement of a large capacity will allow me to find a machine that has power and quality but is affordable. I cannot spend $1k plus on this.

Thank you so much

I thought maybe a group of fantasy degens would appreciate this boycave project I just finished. It shows our league’s live fantasy scores (w/ a median line). It’ll also periodically show projected final scores.
There’s also screens with league standings, all matchups w/scores, top player scores, and live NFL scores you can flip through with the buttons.
Adafruit RGB LED 64x64 panel with Adafruit Portal S3 and 3d Printed housing and acrylic screen cover