Manufacturing guy-at-large.

Things that are on my plate right now

Added on by Spencer Wright.

Mostly for my own benefit & the sake of catharsis, here are the things that are consuming my attention over the past & for the next few months:

  • Planning my own wedding in October.
  • Having fun this summer.
  • Getting more exercise.
  • Writing a long blog post on the seatmast topper that I had printed (DMLS) by Layerwise, and then tested by EFBe
  • Writing a long blog post on the seatpost that I had printed (EBM) by Addaero.
  • Digging more into McMaster-Carr's iOS app, and comparing it to Amazon's recently rebranded Business offering.
  • Planning a sourcing trip to Shenzhen, where Zach and I will investigate a significant redesign of The Public Radio's speaker & mechanical assembly.
  • Getting more hands-on experience with metal powder bed fusion machines. Because there are none in the New York metropolitan area, this inevitably means traveling for a few days to somewhere where I have a friend in the industry.
  • Doing a deeper dive into the variety of design tools that are cropping up for additive manufacturing. This includes getting better at T-splines (Autodesk Inventor), working with topology optimization software (SolidThinking Inspire; Frustum Cloudmesh), and doing some experimenting with lattice structure generation (with nTopology).
  • Doing a deeper dive into build preparation software, namely Materialise Magics.
  • Building myself a real desk, preferably with a proper toolchest integrated into it. I also want 2x24" displays, a proper Windows computer for 3D design, a new Mac for daily use, and a place for both a Wilton "bullet" vise and my 12"x18" granite surface plate.
  • Writing a presentation on metal 3D printing that covers both my experiences over the past two years (a case study), and my broader observations on the industry. 
  • Getting said presentation accepted to an industry conference (likely either AMUG, RAPID, or Inside 3D Printing).

There are a few more longer-term things, but this is a pretty good list for now.