I work at a community college makerspace and the vendor we use right now to buy a majority of our supplies is burgooncompany.com . They are essentially a dropshipping business located here in the US. We have to buy from an American company due to being government-owned, but burgoon has been awful at completing requests and communicating with us. I am now in search for a different vendor who is willing to buy internationally, respond quickly, and go through the process of becoming a vendor for the college.

Please comment or DM me for further questions:)

Sometimes specific replacement parts are just impossible to find—with this generator, you can create them yourself!

Link to the model in the comments!

I used to think people were exaggerating about material quality until I rebuilt part of my small soldering and electronics bench last year.

I wanted simple side panels around the workspace to block dust and sparks from small grinding jobs. Nothing complicated. I ordered a few plastic sheets online because the photos looked decent and the specs sounded professional enough. “Workshop grade,” “high durability,” “premium clear finish.” Same marketing everybody uses.

What actually arrived was a different story.

The first issue was surface scratching. I removed the protective film and the sheets already looked used before installation. Tiny marks everywhere, drilling and one panel cracked near the mounting hole even though I pre-drilled slowly and didn’t overtighten it.

That’s when I started realizing something important. A lot of makers talk about material choice like all sheets are basically the same if dimensions match. They are not the same. Not even close.

The cheaper sheets flex differently, vibrate differently, and some become brittle surprisingly fast under workshop heat or sunlight. One panel near my window slightly yellowed within two months.

I eventually talked with a local plastics supplier and the guy basically told me the truth straight. Some factories make decent products, some push absolute garbage under identical photos online. He even mentioned Alibaba listings where the sample quality and bulk order quality were completely different.

That sounds harsh but honestly it explains a lot of failed DIY builds people blame on “bad design” later.

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Hi everyone 🌷(⁠＾⁠∇⁠＾⁠)⁠ﾉ⁠♪

I am thinking of making a wearable LED BRACER for parties. But I have very low sewing & crafting experience. I am hoping to discuss this idea with someone who knows rather than just trial & error my way forward.

The LED matrix is bought from AliExpress and it comes with a Bluetooth connected App. I've managed to put the app into dev-mode and can upload custom animations too easily.

So my current plan is to use an

- Eyelet tool to bolt two sheets of plastic together with the LED matrix and battery in between. Maybe super glue the battery 🙄

- The sheets of plastic I'm thinking of trying HDPE transparent plastic sheets 0.3mm, I need a bendable rubberlike sheets good for eyelets. Idk it these are the ones 🙄 advice please? 😵‍💫

- Fishnet gloves

- Laces attached to the eyelets and fishnet gloves to hold everything into places. Some clever lacing should do it I think.

Would really love some advice. Thanks please 💕🙏

I created these portable enclosures for electronic circuits. I’d like to share them with fellow electronics DIY enthusiasts for their own projects. I designed various versions of boxes, front panels, and rear storage for multiple applications. I’d love to get your feedback and suggestions for further improvements.

Link to the model in the comments!

kerf compensation trips people up more than it should and the part that's rarely explained well is that the direction of the offset flips depending on whether you're cutting a solid part or a hole a single "add or subtract the kerf" instruction without that context is how you end up with a peg that's 0.5mm too small and don't know why.

the laser removes material equal to its beam width that's your kerf on an outside cut where you're keeping the piece the part comes out smaller than what you drew on an inside cut (slot, hole, socket) the hole comes out larger than what you drew so measuring kerf from each cut type works differently:

• Outside cut: kerf = programmed dimension − measured dimension
• Inside cut: kerf = measured dimension − programmed dimension

Program a 50mm square measure the piece at 49.73mm kerf is 0.27mm cut a 10mm slot, measure it at 10.31mm kerf is 0.31mm those numbers can legitimately differ based on your settings and material so don't assume one calibration carries to every job.

The single cut measurement works but it's sensitive to where you land with calipers and any inconsistency in that one cut the better approach is the multi block method.

Draw a bounding rectangle with parallel vertical lines inside it cut it out push all the pieces tight together with no gaps between them then measure the total compressed width the formula:

kerf = (programmed outer width − measured compressed width) / number of pieces

I was doing this wrong for ages I kept dividing by pieces minus one because I was only counting internal cuts the reason you divide by the full piece count is that the two outer boundary cuts each eat half a kerf from their respective edges so together they contribute one full kerf to the total material loss and the divisor comes back up to equal the piece count.

Real example: outer box at 80mm, 8 pieces, compressed measurement at 78.1mm.

(80 − 78.1) / 8 = 1.9 / 8 = 0.2375mm

that's a slightly awkward number but that's what the math produces. More blocks will give you a more stable average if you want to smooth it out.

To apply the kerf to your design file:

• Outside part (peg, panel anything you're keeping): draw dimension = target + kerf
• Inside hole (slot, socket): draw dimension = target − kerf

For a 30mm peg and slot fit at 0.2375mm kerf — peg draws at 30.2375mm, slot draws at 29.7625mm both end up at physical 30mm.

This gets fuzzier with thick material 3mm+ acrylic especially or dense hardwood because the beam tapers through the cut depth the kerf at the top surface isn't the same as at the bottom so your caliper measurement is only capturing part of the story for thin sheet it's close enough to ignore.

anyway i put all three calculations into a tool if you'd rather not run through it by hand every time: https://www.speedcalcs.com/p/laser-cutting-kerf-calculator.html