
Ask HN: What physical product do you make? - rubidium
What physical product do you make for your job? Perhaps you are working in more traditional hardware, firmware, and systems engineering? Tell us about your work!<p>If you&#x27;re building a website or app, sorry this Ask HN isn&#x27;t for you. This is for those makers who are creating physical things: headphones, medical devices, cars, furniture, etc...
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HeyLaughingBoy
Up until my current job, my entire career involved physical things. Either
doing electronic design, or writing firmware that controlled something or
both. The current day job's not that interesting, so let's talk about the side
gig instead.

My most interesting product converts position signals from old machine tools
(e.g., large planers and mills built in the 70's, 80's and before) into
signals that modern motor drives can read. It makes it much easier to retrofit
old machinery with modern controls.

It was built at the request of a single customer and I did it mainly for fun,
but over time it's opened my eyes to the market for tools to retrofit and
modernize old equipment. They're still actively buying these from me, but I
know there _has_ to be a larger market.

Product #2 is still being developed: a generic "leveling module." Basically
it's a motor controller designed to keep the load level in one axis.

For the last 15 years or so I've also been making modules take a pulse input
at one end, and send an accumulated count out the other end over an RS232
serial interface. I don't sell a lot of them, but the surprising thing is that
demand hasn't dropped off over all this time. Could probably sell more, but
it's really not interesting enough to put a lot of marketing effort into. The
fun part is all the customizations I'm asked to do.

~~~
rwmurrayVT
It's not even just retrofitting and modernization. Even just repair of larger
CNC machines is unbelievably expensive and very cool.

Are you removing old motor drives from machines and installing new drives to
extend life? There is certainly a larger market. I'm in Norfolk, VA and there
are machine shops all over the place. I'd love to hear more from you.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
I personally am not; my customer's core business is repairing and retrofitting
the machinery. They kept running into the issue doing some retrofits where the
new drives weren't compatible with the signals from some of the old machines
and it was causing them to have to modify the drives (breaking the warranty)
to make it work.

They realized that if they had hardware to read the original position
indication, do some DSP and convert to something the new drives could handle,
it would simplify everything. That's where I came in.

It's been working out pretty well for everyone concerned so far and I'm now
working on version 3 of the product!

------
L_226
I am a SWE at stenon [0], we make a portable nutrient analysis probe for
agriculture. It is basically an electronic shovel that you stick in the
ground, and you then can view a real time breakdown of bioavailable and
mineral nutrient content of that soil on your phone or tablet.

I often say we're actually building three products, ML, hardware and software.
It is pretty challenging but a lot of fun, and very rewarding.

[0] - [https://stenon.io/en/](https://stenon.io/en/)

~~~
contingencies
Great if you can make this work. My questions would be how long does a probe
last before you have to re-jig it? Does it work with sandy soils? Clays? To
what extent do readings swing massively based on soil substructure and poor
contact/other random chance? Does it internally capture material and create
liquid solutions to get around this problem? What range of data can you
sample?

Ideas: Don't just target industrial agriculture, consider the residential and
commercial garden and surveyor markets. For inspiration or allies, look at the
mining industry's established ecosystem of prospecting and sampling related
service and software companies. They could also be customers: with open cut
mines, they often have to do site remediation, eventually, and it's well
funded.

------
heelix
The job that pays the bills is pushing code. On a personal level, I build
airplanes. I've done a couple different techniques end to end - composite and
classic cloth and tubing. If things don't totally fall apart, hope to start my
first sheet metal construction this summer. Were one to compare what I spent
to what I got back... well, some of these dot bombs don't seem so silly. :)

------
jurgenwerk
I have a side hustle where I produce niche desk ornament sculptures and busts
made from concrete. Etsy link:
[https://www.etsy.com/shop/jurgenstudio](https://www.etsy.com/shop/jurgenstudio)

This brings me around 500 euros per month. Recently the sales of Marcus
Aurelius took off nicely, so I'm seriously thinking about expanding this
business by making busts of more famous philosophers and leaders. I'm in the
process of adding mini concrete busts of Alan Turing, Steve Jobs, Slavoj
Žižek, Nikola Tesla, Plato, Aristotle, Jordan Peterson and more.

If anyone is interested in how I these are made (3d printing, molding,
concrete pouring), please check here:
[https://twitter.com/matixmatix/status/1243116129289146368](https://twitter.com/matixmatix/status/1243116129289146368)

~~~
mrfusion
How did you do the digital sculpting? Any tutorials?

~~~
manifoldgeo
I make and sell (used to sell) art toys on Instagram, and I make my digital
sculptures in Blender since it's Free and Open Source. CGCookie.com just came
out with an up-to-date course in sculpting with the newest version of Blender
(2.8x). I highly recommend it. It's mostly up to par with zBrush, and you get
the benefits of the FLOSS community.
[https://cgcookie.com/course/fundamentals-of-digital-
sculptin...](https://cgcookie.com/course/fundamentals-of-digital-sculpting-
blender-2-8)

------
mcaravey
Bread: [https://pearlbakery.com](https://pearlbakery.com)

We are moving the operation out of downtown Portland OR, but this virus will
slow down our opening.

There’s a surprising number of ways to apply technology to bread baking.
Inventory management, formula calculation, delivery planning, etc. There’s
also the problem of trying to optimize the production schedule , i.e. when to
mix, how long to rise, when to shape, and when to bake, across your entire
menu with orders changing day to day.

~~~
shoo
> There’s a surprising number of ways to apply technology to bread baking.
> Inventory management, formula calculation, delivery planning, etc. There’s
> also the problem of trying to optimize the production schedule

Yup! For example, here's an old press release from a vendor of combinatorial
optimisation software (LocalSolver) -- the type of software that you might use
to optimise Operations Research type problems: inventory management, supply
chain, planning, routing, scheduling -- about a successful integration and
deployment of their product to cost-optimise a large Japanese bakery's supply
chain decisions:

> [Pasco Shikishima Corporation]'s supply chain involves 15 factories in
> Japan, each one with several production lines, and more than 100
> distribution centers. Pasco's catalog contains more than 1,000 products.
> 900,000 orders have to be executed each day in Pasco's factories. For each
> order, Pasco has to decide where and when to produce it. Moreover, Pasco has
> to decide where to source raw materials and which routes to deliver
> distribution centers. The goal is to minimize production and distribution
> costs over several days of horizon, while respecting production and
> distribution capacities.

> Here is the scale of a LocalSolver instance solved by Pasco to plan the next
> 3 days: 32,670,717 expressions (that is, intermediate variables) including
> 8,307,431 binary decisions, 991,251 constraints, 16 lexicographic-ordered
> objectives. This model was solved in 3 minutes of running time on a modern
> but standard server, including input and output processing times.

\--
[https://www.localsolver.com/news.html?id=70](https://www.localsolver.com/news.html?id=70)

(& apologies for dragging the conversation back towards software, but there's
some challenging mathematical & computational problems involved in figuring
out how to manufacture & distribute physical products efficiently)

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james_a_craig
Lighting systems - most usually illuminated props of various varieties for
ceremonies of big events; things broadly like the Olympics. It's fun but
generally NDA'd to hell, unfortunately.

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mujtaba223
Vehicle Driving Simulators This consists of three major parts: 1) The game
engine that simulates the physics of different driving scenarios and rendering
them to the drivers display. 2) A six DOF motion platform that is used to
recreate the motion of the vehicle. 3) The vehicle body mounted on-top of the
motion platform that has the steering wheel and other controls exactly like a
real vehicle.

The driver inputs are read and fed into the game engine which outputs the
rendered video to the vehicle LCD's. The output from the game engine is also
used to control the 6-DOF motion platform to recreate the physical motion one
experiences while driving.

~~~
waychukucha
Is there a link to view if you dont mind sharing. This is just purely out of
curiosity.

------
auxym
I'm a mechanical engineer working in a university research lab. We're a pretty
broad lab with researchers in diverse domains but focused around one idea:
innovative design. Making stuff that works.

As a research engineer, I get pulled to work more on "development" projects
close to or with industry. Grad students get the more early phase research
stuff.

I'm currently working on a contract for a large aerospace company, which
involves a new kind of thrust-generating machine. I'm solely responsible for
designing and building a prototype and test bench as well as doing the
experimental work when that is done.

It's diverse and rewarding work, but it gets a bit lonely sometimes compared
to working in teams with 10s of engineers and techs in a large multinational
corp. It's still the most enjoyable job I've held so far.

------
netjiro
As a small sideline we've developed a new type of house that is CO2 neutral in
materials over lifetime, low energy to passivhaus, very quick to build, and
healthier to live in.

Designed for Nordic climates but insulates just as well if it's warm outside
:)

The initial target was a modern starter house pattern, that could be expanded
as the family grew, then split for renting out parts when the owners got old.
It had to be cheaper, environmentally friendly, and healthier to live in.

As a bonus it has excellent fire resistance, and is very quiet.

It's fun to work with this kind of problem. Quite far from my normal projects.
But holy hell, I didn't realise how truly broken the bureaucracy around
construction is in many regions.

------
nvusuvu
We make water meters, radios for water meters, mobile radio receivers that go
in utility trucks, fixed radio receivers that go on towers. I test the new and
old products, using a lot of Python to automate and speed up testing.

------
mihirchronicles
I love building physical products. My first ever physical product was
[https://www.instagram.com/humblepen/](https://www.instagram.com/humblepen/)
but after couple years was shut down.

Now, I don't treat these projects as startups, but solely to share the joy of
building, learning and teaching.

Recently, I built a project called Wise Charlie which is a compact list of
mental models in a deck of cards form.
[https://www.wisecharlie.com/](https://www.wisecharlie.com/)

------
mingabunga
When not running my software biz, I make exercise machines which use flywheels
for resistance. The difference compared to traditional weights is you get
constant resistance at all angles throughout the entire range of movement.
Plus it allows many exercises in a compact package, and the resistance can be
variable based on how hard you work. It also includes an app + sensor
(Electronic hardware is a complete PIA, but we got there in the end)
[https://exerflysport.com](https://exerflysport.com)

------
halfff
We're a small team of doctors that redesign everyday household products to be
more hygienic.

Our first product (launched in December 2019) is an antibacterial/antifungal
2-sided bath towel designed to separate natural bacteria from exposure to your
face.

Several medical research studies show we spread pathogenic bacteria and fecal
matter to our face when we reuse a bath towel.

Our first product helps reduce natural pathogenic bacteria exposure:
[https://halfff.com](https://halfff.com)

------
jxsonl
Network Engineer / SysAdmin / Helpdesk by day in Singapore.

I’m part of [https://www.dwarvin.com](https://www.dwarvin.com) that provide
lighting solutions to model railways. Its a small family business and I help
out with online side of things. Recently was ask to help out with to build a
programmable lighting system and am having tons of fun, brings me back to my
embedded systems class during my CS degree time.

------
DrNuke
Small, tailored, temporary demonstration and applications with sensors plus
very simple software running locally are becoming quite popular for home-made
domotics over here. Many times, it is non-technical people willing to see how
this could be going to work in case it becomes mandatory. They lose interest
soon, though, smart is not smart if there is no visible gain, the like you can
follow with smart meters and bills or with fitbits and health.

------
mronge
We build the computer accessory Luna Display[0] which turns your iPad or extra
Mac into a second display - particularly useful for working from home!

We were originally pure software people, so it's been fun and challenging to
explore the hardware space. I've found it to be a lot like software
development but with much much longer "compile times" aka manufacturing.

[0] - [https://lunadisplay.com](https://lunadisplay.com)

~~~
futhey
Hey, that's pretty neat. I'm on a MacBook Pro that doesn't support Sidecar
with our iPad Pro. Going to seriously consider this.

------
xenospn
I'm the founder of Huan [0] - we make smart pet tags. We're the only ones
making tiny cat-sized ones too (only 17mm in diameter)!

Once I'm done raising this round (great timing, I know) we'll start deploying
our mobile sensors that let us create ad-hoc BLE networks that can be deployed
dynamically and find missing pets very quickly without requiring a GPS.

[0] - [https://gethuan.com/](https://gethuan.com/)

~~~
j88439h84
Those animated buttons are horrible.

~~~
xenospn
That's what I said, but my web designer insisted. Gotta pick your fights!

------
contingencies
Systems that automatically prepare, package and retail personalized meals
direct from fresh ingredients in a 2m² footprint, and can self-clean.

Actually, a network of those plus: a factory to build them; operations centers
to supply them; and a logistics network to resupply, maintain, and repair
them.

Now 4 years in, we have a factory, we're currently finalizing for mass
production, we own our own production equipment, we are way below budget per
unit and we're funded.

------
guptaneil
We make smarter occupancy sensors for your home that know how many people are
in each room while protecting your privacy. You can finally automate your home
to instantly react to you with zero commands, like a sci-fi movie.
[https://www.hiome.com](https://www.hiome.com)

My background is actually entirely software, so this is my first physical
product. It’s been both challenging and a ton of fun!

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monological
I built a digital chip tester from scratch, including schematic/layout,
firmware and software. It's still a work in progress, but I thought I'd share.

I wrote a blog post about the process here:

[https://www.geminicomplex.com/about](https://www.geminicomplex.com/about)

------
nickler
My latest company makes custom furniture, architectural millwork and woodwork.
www.valkyriewoodwork.com

3d Digital design, CNC manufacturing with laser and router machines, and we
still depend on a lot of skilled and talented people on the bench.

So much of my time in software project management has been an asset here.

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ijustwanttovote
I make ice cream sandwiches that I sell wholesale as a side business. It's
hard right now, good thing I have my full time.

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dllthomas
3D printers. Although I just do the software bits.

