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

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

#361

Post by yetihehe »

Small customized souvenirs for local tourist attractions or shops.

Ask in nearby townhalls if they would like some souvenirs for visiting important guests, some commemorative stuff for various contests.

Ask local hardware shop owners if they have ideas for custom brackets or some parts that could be easily machined but are unreasonably expensive.

Ask nearby sawmill owner if they need anything machined, typically they have requests from clients for some simple parts but don't have resources to have own people manning cnc's. Typically they will have requests for wooden or metal ornaments or curved parts of wooden windows, maybe artistic cabinet doors or house doors.

Wooden and metal signs for various shops.

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

#362

Post by culopatin »

rodolphoarruda wrote: post #357

Meal kits for low income groups. Buy ingredients directly from producers. Sell the kits directly to local consumers if you can reach them. Sell indirectly via regional resellers that could be registered online and place their orders via a web channel as simple as a Google form. About the meals, don't worry about anything fashionable or attractive to middle class consumers like "low carb", "organic" or the like. Make…

Anything food related at least in the US is incredibly difficult. Things like needing an alcohol license to sell kombucha and having to go to an industrial kitchen to even qualify to sell it.

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

#364

Post by gryfft »

upstarter wrote: post #360
gryfft wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are your thoughts on the potential for this technology to unlock absolutely untold devastation? As with the fission and fusion atomic reactions, the weaponization of this technology could potentially threaten all life on earth. An ICBM-delivered payload of a gyroscopically stabilized flywheel spun up to arbitrary (relativistic?) velocities would have literally no ceiling on potential yield with infinite free ene…

Well, this is only my humble opinion, but what I see here is a pretty low-tech (and thus rather easy to build) way to produce free energy. Which means 0 pollution (once it is built), which to my knowledge doesn't exist elsewhere in this manner. I don't see "arbitrary (relativistic?) velocities" as you say. There must be mechanical limits to the speed of the rotation here. What is unlimited is the duration that the en…

Why would there be mechanical limits to how fast a flywheel can spin? If the wheel is suspended, say, in a frictionless magnetic harness, there should be no limit to how far it can be spun up. Thus, a single device should be capable of cracking the Earth's crust and ending all life on Earth, without the expense and engineering necessary for fusion weaponry. I don't believe you've thought through the dangers here.

> When you say "weaponization of this technology could potentially threaten all life on earth", I actually think of nuclear energy, as in the one we have right now.

The difference is that nuclear engineering is expensive and difficult. Magnets are cheap and ubiquitous. A nuclear reaction can continue only so long as there's fuel. Infinite free energy is, well... Infinite.

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

#366

Post by upstarter »

gryfft wrote: post #364
upstarter wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, this is only my humble opinion, but what I see here is a pretty low-tech (and thus rather easy to build) way to produce free energy. Which means 0 pollution (once it is built), which to my knowledge doesn't exist elsewhere in this manner. I don't see "arbitrary (relativistic?) velocities" as you say. There must be mechanical limits to the speed of the rotation here. What is unlimited is the duration that the en…

Why would there be mechanical limits to how fast a flywheel can spin? If the wheel is suspended, say, in a frictionless magnetic harness, there should be no limit to how far it can be spun up. Thus, a single device should be capable of cracking the Earth's crust and ending all life on Earth, without the expense and engineering necessary for fusion weaponry. I don't believe you've thought through the dangers here. > W…

Like Monty Python said: Always look on the bright side of life. Assuming you're right, then your first buyer would be the US Army. You would never have to work a single day in your life ever again. :-)

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

#367

Post by h4waii »

chubs wrote: post #308
mcsniff wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sell the only "generic" version of an item that is both costly in money and time to obtain. Imagine you had a bunch of arcade machines with a proprietary button to turn each on. You can buy the button, but the manufacturer requires their service people physically install and bind it your arcade. Most operators want multiple buttons cause they always break, but they also don't want to deal with downtime during repla…

Thanks for explaining! That indeed sounds like quite a niche. Can I trouble you to ask how you discovered this niche? Is it very difficult to interface to these propriety systems?

I saw the need after wanting something similar, but nobody was offering it. Guess I have some cross-domain knowledge to know it was possible to do.

For me, reverse engineering it was easy, the most difficult part was/is sourcing electronics with custom specs.

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

#368

Post by h4waii »

vturner wrote: post #106
h4waii wrote: 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…

How did you come to have the skills to design and build whatever it is you manufacture? I'm guessing you have a mix of mechanical and electrical background. I always have ideas for little products (some involve electronics others not) I'd like to build, but how to go from raw idea in my head to working assembly, I'm lost on: choosing motors, control board, mechanical reliability, etc. Maybe I just need to read some M…

It's a little hyperbolic, but the idea was too good for me to ignore, so I had to do it, learning curve be damned.

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

#369

Post by gryfft »

upstarter wrote: post #366
gryfft wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would there be mechanical limits to how fast a flywheel can spin? If the wheel is suspended, say, in a frictionless magnetic harness, there should be no limit to how far it can be spun up. Thus, a single device should be capable of cracking the Earth's crust and ending all life on Earth, without the expense and engineering necessary for fusion weaponry. I don't believe you've thought through the dangers here. > W…

Like Monty Python said: Always look on the bright side of life. Assuming you're right, then your first buyer would be the US Army. You would never have to work a single day in your life ever again. :-)

> Monty Python

Somehow, I don't think you're taking this seriously. If you really believe in the potential of this technology, it should scare the daylights out of you.

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

#370

Post by throwaway787544 »

egorfine wrote: post #336

In Ukraine we are building combat drones and UAVs. Lots of these startups around the country and some will successfully monetize after the war, especially given track of success on the battlefield.

How can we help? (With anything, not just drones)
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