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Ask HN: What can you realistically manufacture in your garage?

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21–30 of 428 posts

Re: Ask HN: What can you realistically manufacture in your garage?

#21
An awful lot of stuff. I wouldn't even know where to begin, especially if you're willing to consider a hybrid model where some parts / sub-assemblies are manufactured elsewhere and delivered to you (for example, having PCB's produced by OSHpark or PCBway, etc.) and you do final assembly in the garage.

If it were me, I'd also be looking at scenarios that involve any kind of "thing" that I could acquire cheaply and re-purpose somehow. Making lamps out of old wine bottles, that sort of thing.

Robots, unmanned vehicles of various sorts, all sorts of small electronic gadgets, probably some auto accessories... really, the range of things you could (at least hypothetically) manufacture in a space that size is huge.

Now whether or not you could manufacture the thing at scale may be a different question. You could probably easily accommodate doing something the size of a small home appliance (think: washing machine size) if you only had to do one at a time. But doing that at scale might well require more space. So is the intent to stay in the garage and run an enduring business there, or just to ship a prototype, prove the model, and then maybe expand? Or is this purely an academic thought experiment?

Re: Ask HN: What can you realistically manufacture in your garage?

#25
post #5

I currently manufacturer a fairly niche product with nothing but a 7 year old $250 3d printer, some off the shelf parts, and a bit of custom electronics. Very high profit margin, as I am the only producer of this item (!). I'd love to move to a more "robust" process, but options for materials and widespread access to 3d printing provides a lot of versatility for a single-person business where I want to control the en…

I would like to hear any advice you/others have about finding a product in your niche to manufacture!

Re: Ask HN: What can you realistically manufacture in your garage?

#28
post #10
post #6

I have a dream of producing custom recumbents. I don't know where to get thin-walled pipes, but a start capital is roughly as you have described.

McMaster-Carr supplies thin-wall chromoly tube [0] suitable for fabricating bicycle frames. [0] tube is measured by the outer diameter; pipe is measured by the inner diameter

McMaster-Carr won’t sell to small companies, my friends and I have tried several times, only to have orders cancelled for the above-mentioned reason. It’s a shame because their website has a wealth of information (CAD drawings, measurements, etc.), one of the best I’ve seen.

Re: Ask HN: What can you realistically manufacture in your garage?

#29
post #13

The legality should interest you. I saw someone have their small business shut down by police because they were running it out of their basement. It wasn't the noise or pollution (which realistically are the nuisances you're going to be inflicting on neighbors) but the excess cars parked and delivery trucks coming and going down the street. One neighbor ratted them out. The problem with the space isn't really the cap…

The way I read it OP isn't saying they are going to ignore legal issues, but that they are looking for ideas and don't want to get into the weeds of legal issues for the moment.

I assume they intend to narrow down ideas based on their specific situation.

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