Is the term Engineering avoided because it's not involved, not known or not understood?
And no, I don't like illuminated fans, transparent side panels or furry dice!
;-)
- Nick
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Is the term Engineering avoided because it's not involved, not known or not understood?
And no, I don't like illuminated fans, transparent side panels or furry dice!
;-)
- Nick
Seeing this post -
http://www.mycncuk.com/forums/millin...html#post55711
I investigated and discovered that Hackaday is a site which promotes "Hacking" for some it's synonymous with "Engineering" - including CNC as in this case.
Perhaps we're all Hackers?
Or not ;-)
My vote is that while some of these "hackers" or "makers" are very good engineers, a lot of them are "hackers".
My favorite quote about these people:
The Maker Movement - Re-inventing the wheel - the hard way.
I hacked and modded a CAMM-3 mill. It was quite beautiful but IMHO let down by it's crappy motor, crappy collets and crappy firmware.
-br
I changed all 3 and I would call the new firmware a hack and the new parts a mod :whistle:
-br
Then I added flood coolant which I would call bling :hysterical:
And I thought it was Dave that got magicniner going with this thread :whistle:
http://www.mycncuk.com/forums/new-me...html#post55575
For that to work you have to know what "right" is.
If you are doing something new there is a lot of stuff going on where "right" is still to be determined.
I do a lot of development on manufacturing equipment that works on a smaller scale than the machines you can buy.
Sure, I can buy a lot of the parts off the shelf somewhere but that costs money and even worse, time.
That is why I hack towards a working system as quickly as I can with usually parts from just the workshop or local diy store.
All too often I found that doing it right the first time meant that I had to do it again anyway, because the underlying assumption did not work.
For me, hacking my way to a working result and then doing it again to improve what does not work is always quicker than doing everything right the first time....
Engineers use an old technique often referred to as "Design Development".
Hacking sounds like blindly making your way in a jungle with a machete because your sat nav is broken and can no longer tell you the way, in this metaphor engineering is being properly equipped in the first place, climbing a hill and planning a route with a map & compass ;-)
- Nick