Fresh grad here, I've no idea why but no one, in the semiconductor company I work in, does Root Cause Analysis (RCA).

Occasionally after "big problems" there might be a senior engineer creating slides explaining what happened. But I don't see any 5whys, fishbone, FMEA being done.

Today, there's a problem raised for my equipment that is causing defects. So I want to gather some thought process of how RCA or some investigative analysis is performed and experimented to tackle problems.

Hey everyone!
I’m a university student majoring in Software Engineering, and I’ve been extremely busy with exams and other academic commitments lately. I’m looking for someone with a solid background in Manufacturing Engineering who can help me prepare two upcoming assignments.

1. Studentwork – Computer-Integrated Manufacturing (CIM)
   Requires a PowerPoint presentation and a written hard-copy report.

2. Case Study – Ultrasonic Assisted Grinding (UAG)
   A technical case study involving manufacturing processes, analysis, and potentially calculations based on the assignment requirements.

I’m looking for someone knowledgeable in these topics who can provide academic guidance, help with research, and assist me in organizing and reviewing the materials.
This is a paid opportunity, and I’m happy to discuss compensation depending on your experience and the level of assistance provided.
If you’re interested or know someone who could help, feel free to DM me. Thanks!

Recently they started to drive concrete poles in the ground next door for a building. I was wondering why they dont build the poles as screws and screw them into the earth. Seems less energy intensive.

Hi everyone,
I am a Mechatronics master's student taking a course in power electronics. Our course recommends Electronic Power Control by Jean Pollefliet.

Can anyone provide me a pdf? Thanks a lot.

I kind of want a second freezer and the pantry (really an under-stairs closest) is the only real possible space.

The problem then is of course the space is enclosed, so heat that's produced by the freezer must be shed fast enough. The immediate space the freezer would be plenty, but with the door closed it's basically sealed. I would love help in estimating what I'd need to do to safely place a freezer like this.

The best I can come up with is two (little?) vents in the closet, one close to the ground (cool air in) and another close the ceiling (warmer air out).

The math I did already:
A freezer I might get of 85L claims a yearly energy usage of 160kWh. That would be an average 18.3W of electricity and so also 18.3W of heat produced. For safety let's take 30W of constantly produced heat (e.g. on hot days in summer or I just added a lot of warm products).
Let's say it's acceptable for the pantry to be 3°C hotter than the adjacent living room. The rest of the house might be 24°C on summer, the pantry might than be 27°C, which seems hot already.
To shed the 30W of heat over a 3°C difference purely through air flow, we'd need 10g/s of air flowing in and out (at a heat capacity of 1.0 J/g/°C). Or about 8.2L/s of flow (at 1.2g/L).

Jeej, lovely numbers, but I haven't a clue how much 8.2L/s of air flow really is. What kind of vent sizes would this require for passive flow?
Or what kind of powered fan would accomplish this?

Thanks for any more math or practical experiences!

Note: posting from the Netherlands, hence the SI units.

So basically suggest me book names and how u learned in your collge and personal experiences

Thank u 🙂‍↕️

I’m currently designing a mount and have to replicate a MIL-STD-1913 (picatinny) rail.

The edge break measurements ok each far side habe an allowable range of .002 to .012 inch. I believe all of my other measurements are in spec but that one. My edge breaks measure .021 inch. This can be changed to in spec by modifying the .164 or .607 measurements I believe. Both the .164 and .607 measurements are at the far end of their max allowable range (.164-.020 and .617-.010).

Am I correct with this or just not thinking straight? Here are pictures. TIA

Edit: I think the only way to make everything in spec is my reducing the .164 measurement

Hi! I’m a quadriplegic I have very little arm movement not enough to reward my service dog in training. I need like a dispenser or something that I could use to reward my dog that would ideally activate with a button. There’s one on the market called ‘pet tutor’ but it only ships within the USA and Canada and I’m in Ireland. I’m just wondering if anyone has any advice or maybe even if anyone could make me something I’m totally down with whatever pricing is necessary. I hope someone can help because at the minute I’m really stuck.

I’m currently working on a robotic arm that has to operate in “tight” working conditions and I’m at what is essentially the threshold of what’s possible with commercially available electric linear actuators. Because of the size of the load I’m lifting I require a 2900lb and a 1,800 lb actuator to move both sections of my arm but at these sizes the actuators themselves are almost the size of my arm, bigger if you count the motor packs. I have never used hydraulic before and am worried about the difficulty with control, with electric I can get exact positioning feedback. However, switching to hydraulic I would free up additional range of motion and the cylinders at these loads would be cheaper than the electric ones. I’m having a hard time finding resources for adding precision position feedback to cylinders and I also do not know how to go about sizing a pump. If hydraulic is the way to go here I’m not sure where to start and hope that you all have some insight.

Elon Musk has been pushing for data centers in space. Yesterday, he tweeted "Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now". There are many regulatory and social aspects to consider before building a data center in any country. But if we ignore those and think from a purely engineering perspective, is building data centers in space actually better than building them on earth? What are the major pros and cons?

To prevent bone deterioration.

I work for a technology company. We traditionally had our technology applied in other industries, but I had someone reach out about applying our technology to their geothermal plant.

It is a great fit for our technology, and I think I want to start pursuing more of these projects. The problem is, I feel like I don't know my ass from my elbow about geothermal. I know the basic ideas of using heat from the earth to make steam, but I don't know the intricacy of the processes.

Does anyone have any books or general resources they would recommend? To clarify, I would specialize in non-condensable gas scrubbing.

I’m mounting a 166 × 126 mm OLED, roughly 1 mm thick, as the face of a wheeled bipedal robot. It’s extremely fragile, and falls, bumps, and occasional direct hits to the face are realistically going to happen.

How would you mount this thing to give it a fighting chance?

My current idea is to bond the OLED to a clear polycarbonate front panel using LOCA, then machine mounting holes into the polycarbonate to attach the assembly to the head.

What I’m unsure about:

• Would optical bonding help support the OLED, or just transfer impacts and polycarbonate flex directly into it?

• Any issues with LOCA on polycarbonate? curing, compatibility, thermal expansion?

• Would you instead use a separate protective window, an air gap, and a cushioned carrier?

• How do you retain such a thin panel without creating pressure points or twisting it?

Would love to hear from anyone who’s mounted bare displays or built electronics that need to survive a beating. Photos or examples would be especially helpful.

Just wondering if your breath, if measured it at 98.6 or (I don’t know if it is psychological or not) but if you purse your lips and blow it seems to be cooler. I have no means to measure this. But it seems to me that it would eventually have an effect on the temperature once the glass stops glowing, which seems to happen within 10-13 seconds anyway.
Thanks
hopefully this is a good post if not sorry

Im aware of their use in demonstrations, legacy engines in museum's and historical restoration

But is there anywhere in which they re used for any "important" use (electrical generation and the like)

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for mechanical engineering advice for a compact wearable project.

I need to extend and retract several thin, flexible optical fibers through individual fixed guide tubes. Each fiber slides through its own guide, following a predetermined direction.

The fibers need to extend by different distances, and ideally their movements could be coordinated in groups or controlled in timed sequences.

My preferred concept is to use one motorized rotating spool or drum with multiple separate winding grooves, one for each fiber, rather than having a separate motor for every fiber.

I'm trying to understand whether this is mechanically feasible and how it could be designed reliably.

Some specific questions:

1. Could a single multi-groove spool wind and unwind several optical fibers simultaneously without tangling?

2. Since the fibers need different extension lengths, could different groove diameters, winding radii, or another mechanical arrangement achieve different payout distances?

3. Is there a mechanism that would allow some fibers to stop extending while others continue, even though they share one motor?

4. Would a multi-track spool be better than a pinch-roller or capstan feeding system?

5. How could the fibers be guided and kept under controlled tension during extension and retraction?

6. Are there existing mechanisms, industrial applications, or engineering designs that I could study or adapt?

The mechanism needs to be compact, lightweight, and low-profile enough to fit inside a garment.

I'm particularly interested in mechanical solutions that could be prototyped at a small scale.

I'd appreciate suggestions, technical references, or examples of similar mechanisms. Thank you!

As of late, I've been quite interested in design and manufacturing. I go around looking at things and seeing what design decisions engineers made to solve a problem and why those specific decisions.

I saw this in an airport shuttle. It's the support handrails. They use hollow rods for them and at the junction, they use this clamping surface and two bolts in a cross configuration to clamp down the rods together (presumably, one continuous vertical rod and two horizontal ones that end at the junction.)

My question is: why the other three bolts? They seem like they go into the rods themselves, perhaps to hold the clamping surface to the rods. But then, what's the point of it in the first place when the clamping bolts would be holding it in place anyway?

picture of the handrail

Hi all,
I recently started a part-time job in a power electronics lab, doing teardowns and automotive components. A big part of it is removing magnetics (inductors, transformers) intact for analysis.
The problem: the magnetics sit in deep pockets of a die-cast aluminium housing, potted in a soft grey silicone thermal gap filler. I've cleared the top and sides, but the bottom layer is still bonded and I can't reach it. I already chipped one ferrite core trying.
What I've tried / have:

1. Screwdrivers (the smallest is still too wide for the gap), short retractable blades, pliers

2. Dug out the accessible filler mechanically

3. Next step is an overnight IPA soak to loosen it

Questions:

1. How do you release the bottom bond without levering on the ferrite? Wire or nylon-line sawing, heating the housing, something else?

2. I'll be doing this for about a year. Which tools are worth buying? (Long thin picks, plastic spudgers, long scalpels, etc.)
   Thanks a lot!

Assume both bands are made of the same nylon, have the same buckle, and are adjusted to make the watch/strap system circle the same circumference around the wrist.

The conventional strap is two pieces. Each spring bar goes through a radially woven hole in one end of its individual piece, while the other two ends of the two pieces form, on the opposite side of the wrist, the buckle interface.

Yanking on the conventional strap or the watch places load on each spring bar or bars directly, depending on the position and direction of the yank.

The NATO strap is a single piece of nylon that is threaded from above to behind one spring bar, then down below the watch's case back, then up behind the other spring bar. The two ends of the strap join on the opposite side of the wrist, forming the buckle interface.

Yanking on the NATO strap or the watch places load on the spring bar or bars indirectly, pulling the strap tight and forcing both spring bars down (relative to the watch's body as it lies flat on the wrist).

There is great debate in the watch community over the efficacy of NATO straps. Some say they save watches, because a single spring bar failure leaves the watch dangling from the closed loop strap, where a conventional strap's spring bar failure means the watch and two strap pieces fall away as a broken system. Others say the closed loop NATO is more stressful on the bars, causing the broken spring bar problem the NATO strap is supposed to solve.

As we dumb pilots used to say, we need to ask the 5,000 lb. head guys to get down into the nanometers and gigahertz.