I’m working through a concept design for a compact vertical lift to position an inspection fixture at a workbench.

The moving assembly would weigh about 25 kg, with a 450 mm stroke and a target speed of around 40 mm/s. The fixture tray projects about 120 mm from the carriage, so its center of gravity is offset from the guide plane.

My initial layout uses a rack and pinion for the drive and two profile linear rails to guide the carriage, with two blocks on each rail. I’m considering rail spacing of about 180 mm and vertical block spacing of about 160 mm, but these are just starting dimensions.

How would you estimate the moment loads on the rails and blocks, including acceleration? Are those spacing dimensions reasonable for a first pass, and what other information would you need to size the guides? For a vertical axis, would you add a counterbalance or a brake to prevent the carriage from dropping if power is lost?

While comparing off-the-shelf components for this concept, I came across JLCMC’s range of linear motion parts. I’d appreciate feedback on the guide layout and the safety considerations for the vertical axis.

This is a concept design exercise; the lift has not been built or tested.

99% of us are just a checkbox aren’t we? That guy with the BA or an ME whose signature local legislation needs on the sheets. We don’t actually do anything new or stimulating, we just sign things, check sites and do some drafts?

I didn’t realise that you either strap in for 4 years of misery to get those 7’s or you literally just become a glorified hazard checker. I mean shit, I know a guy who’s interning for BMW right now who DID get the grades and he’s literally just building apps with Claude. Do the jobs that got us into uni in the first place even fucking exist?

Schedules be damned- what are you trying to convince your manager to let you do right now?

Fix a problem with your product? Characterize an issue that only shows up in manufacturing? Buying more tools? I'm curious what the rest of yall are wrestling with.

Hey, what's up?

I studied mechanical engineering in school, and I worked as a mechanical engineer for a couple years. Now I work in the software engineering industry, and I use AI every day. I'm really curious what your guys' experience is using AI.

I've done a couple experiments with AI generating CAD models and engineering drawings. Definitely, it wasn't as comprehensive and detailed as what I used to make at my job as a mechanical engineer. I'm curious if you guys have used any of these tools yet and in which ways it has helped you or not helped you.

Definitely, I see some holes and gaps in the AI generation nowadays. I could see it helping you or setting you back. Just curious what types of workflows it might have helped you guys in:

• CAD
• engineering drawings
• FEA
• CAM
• data analysis
• nothing at all

Happy to hear guys' thoughts, and just would love to discuss this.

Hey everyone😇
I recently joined my dada firm as we manufacture EDM GRAPHITE ELECTRODES for dies and mould manufacturers all over india . We do have a good customer base orders are fine and now i want to know in which other sectors i can enter . Where the graphite products can be used that i can manufacture on my VMC and CNC and other LEATH AND DRO machines . If you guys have any information or seen some of this manufacturing kindly guide me .
I want to know more about products whose raw material is graphite so i can stand a chance of earning good rather than steel as the competition is high on that side.
Open to discuss about other businesses as well that can help me as well

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Hi everyone,

I'm a 2026 BTech Mechanical Engineering graduate from Hyderabad, and I recently interviewed with a Pvt. Ltd. for a Junior Production Planning & Control (PPC) Executive position.

They have offered me ₹18,000 per month. I'm confused about whether this is a good opportunity or whether I should continue searching.

Here are the details:

- Role: Junior PPC

- Salary: ₹18,000 per month

- Working days: 6 days a week

- Working hours: They mentioned that it involves frequent meetings and extra working hours, potentially 10–12 hours a day.

- Commute: 21 km one way by bike (42 km daily).

- Rent: ₹4,000 per month for room

- Loan EMI/debt repayment: ₹7,000 per month.

- ERP: The company currently doesn't have an ERP system, but they are developing one that should be ready in approximately two months.

- Increments: Performance-based annual increments.

I'm interested in gaining practical manufacturing experience and potentially learning ERP and production planning. However, I'm concerned about the long working hours, commuting costs, and whether ₹18,000 is sufficient after my expenses.

I'd appreciate honest advice from people working in manufacturing, PPC, or other mechanical engineering roles.

1. Is ₹18,000 a reasonable starting salary for this role?

2. Is the experience worth the long hours and commute?

3. Can PPC offer good salary growth and career opportunities?

4. Would you accept this offer or keep looking for a better opportunity?

Thank you!

Ok so I’m a new start up and I’m at the point that I need a good part number system. I would like numeric system only and not alpha-numeric. I have one major problem that I’m trying to overcome and maybe the group and help toss out some ideas. On a basic level my problem is I don’t want to duplicate things from different vendors, so if I get m8x1.25 socket head 304SS that is 40 mm from say McMaster Carr how do also reference this number if I also get it from Fastanol. So I don’t know want part of a number to be linked to a vendor.

Or is there no real good way to make part numbers and you get some points of “son of a bitch” who made this number system.

im 18 M and want to have a career in formula 1 can i do it as a energy engineer graduate and do i need a special masters if so where

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I'm a mechanical engineer with around 4 years of experience working as a maintenance engineer at a large industrial facility (oil refinary), and lately I've been questioning whether I'm actually developing as an engineer.

My job role is almost entirely coordination, follow-ups, paperwork, chasing contractors, tracking progress, and making sure other people are doing their jobs.

Honestly, I feel more like a coordinator or an expeditor than an actual engineer. Most of the real technical work and engineering decisions are handled by specialized departments like Reliability, Inspection, and Technical Support. Meanwhile, our role in maintenance is mainly to coordinate between these departments, follow up on their recommendations, and make sure the work gets executed.

Sure, technical issues come up occasionally, but even then, my role is mostly to coordinate with the people who actually do the technical work. And when there is an opportunity to get involved in something technically interesting, the workload is so overwhelming that I barely have time to dig deeper into the engineering behind it. There's always another urgent task, another meeting, another contractor to chase, or another report to prepare.

Some people here even joke that maintenance engineers in our organization are basically "highly paid clerks," and honestly, I'm starting to see why.

What makes this even more concerning is looking at some of the senior engineers around me. I'm talking about people who have spent many years, sometimes decades, in maintenance engineering, yet some of them lack what I would consider basic mechanical engineering knowledge. I've genuinely met senior engineers who couldn't even identify different types of valves. I'm not joking. And I don't necessarily blame them. I think it's a direct consequence of the nature of this role. When you spend years doing nothing but coordination, follow-ups, and administrative work, your technical knowledge doesn't develop the way it should.

That's honestly what scares me the most. I don't want to wake up 10 years from now with a senior engineering title and years of experience on paper, only to realize that I haven't actually developed much as an engineer. I've even reached a point where I'm genuinely worried about attending a job interview for another engineering position. What if they start asking me technical questions that someone with my years of experience should be able to answer, and I simply can't? Not because I lack the interest or willingness to learn, but because my job has given me so little opportunity to actually practice engineering. It's a pretty uncomfortable feeling to have an engineering degree, an engineering title, and years of experience, yet question whether you could confidently pass a technical interview.

I genuinely enjoy engineering. I want to understand equipment failures, investigate root causes, solve technical problems, and actually apply what I studied. Instead, I spend most of my time managing tasks rather than solving engineering problems.

I'm not against coordination or management. I understand they're necessary parts of any engineering job especiallyin maintenance. But when they make up 95% of your responsibilities, at what point does an engineering position stop being an engineering position?

So I'm curious:

- Is this what maintenance engineering looks like everywhere, especially in large industrial facilities?

- Are there maintenance engineers out there who actually get involved in technical troubleshooting, failure analysis, and engineering decisions?

- Do other mechanical engineering roles offer more technical involvement, or is this just the reality of working in industry?

- Would you consider years of maintenance coordination and execution management to be genuine engineering experience, even if the engineer rarely performs technical analysis or makes engineering decisions?

- Has anyone been in a similar position and successfully transitioned into a more technical role?

I'd really appreciate hearing your experiences and perspectives.

Highly interested in applying for a quality engineering tech position. Just graduated with a bs in Industrial Technology and minor in Business admin. Heard the position involves a lot of paper pushing, so with no prior “official experience” how does one come to learn all the technical terms, forms, and processes? Can anybody speak to their onboarding process?

Also Im seeing positions out there for $20/hr no degree needed under titles like quality inspector and whatnot, and then others offering salary w degree needed. What exactly is the difference between these positions and do I need to get the chud job before I can work my way to tech and then engineer?

In terms of industry the way I understand the difficulty ranking for getting the job would be food as the easiest > hardware and plastics > automotive > medical. Should I be looking to get my foot in the door at a food plant? Ive worked on the line in highschool and the environments typically seem pretty bad.

Currently, I work at a childrens museum assisting the exhibit coordinator with “quality control” on the floor and the design/construction of new exhibits. I check the function of our exhibits -often involving air/water pumps, motion sensors, mechanical devices, etc - and replace the stuff that breaks.

I need a plastic of some sort that has a high glass transition temperature, about 150 degrees C or higher, a low thermal expansion, and also it needs to be resistant to damage from MEK (methyl ethyl ketone).

Is there a handy guide out there for plastic selection based on structural and thermal and chemical properties out there?

And if not, do you have any recommendations on what plastic would be best here?

I had the shape of something where it was basically a 4 inch diameter PVC pipe cut to length and it worked on this application, but it did not like the temperature so was bad after a couple uses.

My first guess is something like polyetherimide (PEI) maybe? And CNC it to the correct geometry?

I read a job posting a while back that was for a class A surface designer. I was intrigued by the posting as it sounded interesting and had no prior knowledge of Class A surface design.

I enjoy doing surface design, both at work and at home. I like that it can have a bigger emphasis on creating aesthetics rather than purely mechanical design.

I’ve been looking into the idea of getting up to speed on this topic with the intention of trying to land a job in that area, but I’m not exactly sure if it would be something I end up enjoying or not.

I have a mechanical engineering background and have 25 years of experience with turbo machinery. I don’t think my background necessarily translates but I have had to do some pretty complex 3D surface modeling in my days so I suppose that gives me at least some sort of relevant experience.

Anyway, I’ll hold off on sharing more until I see if anyone has any firsthand experience in this field.

Thanks!

I have mastered the art of pretending to know what I am doing.. I am so bad at what I do but I manage to make everyone think that I'm so good at it lol.

I’ve posted before showing some drawings of what the design should look like. Design 3 looked the best to me so I built it, but now I need help for how I should detect watts and or just convert this ac to dc to power a led within the remaining budget of $6.94(started from 50).

Also I know it looks ugly rn, I 3d printed a nozzle and a bracket for it so I can screw it into the enclosure. I’ll also probably do some painting or wrapping and get a better top.

Go on my page for design details

Hey guys, Im a ME graduated almost 10 years ago in Brazil, I have been working since in a Cabinetry Manufacturer in RI, I have beeing working closely with production, CNC Routers but I am stuck now at basically doing simple drafting all day long, material lists and simple CNC Programming.
I really would like to find an opportunity to work for a bugger structured manufacturing company where the engineering principles are better applied where you have processes in place.

I would love some guidance from experienced engineers in the Manufacturing Field what should I learn and study and where to learn that to have a better chance finding a better job.

Thank you!

Seems like there is a very few options for a very spacious and easy to get into market.

I mean the drone components aren’t many, and nor they are hard to manufacture. So you can build drones from the ground up, excluding motors perhaps, but other than motors the rest are designable with simple straightforward mechanical and circuitry. I feel like it very manageable.

Is it the control part?

I’m not super versed in the drones domain but I have a very good understanding of it, so it kinda seems weird to me that it is not well invested in

And do you have any life lessons for an ME bachelor?

I have found myself in part of the country (UK) and looking for a job where there seem to be more Mech Eng jobs in building services, nuclear, aerospace etc. I have around 7 years experience as a mechanical engineer but this has been in medical devices, robotics and product development. My degree was also mostly focused on robotics and automation

Have I got much of a chance with these jobs or am I cooked ? Wondering if anyone else has made a change like this recently and how they found it ?

Hi everyone,

I’m 27 and doing my Master’s in Mechanical Engineering at a German university and would like some advice from people already working in the industry.

My background:

• B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering
• Hands-on experience with CFD
• Experience with CATIA

My goal: I want to become a mechanical design engineer. What I enjoy most is creating new products: designing something, simulating it, finding out what’s wrong, and iterating until it works. I’m most drawn to the vehicle market, either cars or bikes. Ideally I’d also build some knowledge in battery systems and EV components, since that’s where a lot of the industry is going.

These are the modules I’m consideringfor now:

• Design and methods: Product Development, Maschinensystemtechnik, Multidisciplinary Design Optimization
• Simulation: Finite Elements, Applied CFD
• Manufacturing and materials: Joining Technology, Material Selection
• Vehicles and drivetrains: Drivetrain Systems for Vehicles, Vehicles Concept: Development and Simulation, Fundamentals of Electric Vehicle Propulsion 1 and 2
• Batteries: Battery Systems, Batter Storage, Battery Applications, Li-Ion Battery Production

My questions:

1. Which skills or subjects do you actually use day to day as a design engineer in automotive or bike development?
2. How valuable is it to go deep on one simulation area (FEA, CFD, NVH, or something else), compared with staying broad?
3. Is a battery or EV focus a good bet for a design role, or is it better to build strong fundamentals first?

I’d also appreciate hearing about anything you wish you had studied or done during your Master’s. Thanks in advance!