At the end of 2024 it was finally time to upgrade the computers and other technology that I use on a daily basis. The post will talk about the computers I upgraded to and other electronic equipment I use while performing my job.

Hi everyone, Kevin from mechanicaladvantage.com

If you have followed any of my videos on YouTube, you can probably predict how the video is going to start. The hope of that line in the videos is for those that might be curious, they will head out to my website and poke around a bit. However, I don’t think this strategy is working. You can expect to see a bit more self-promotion in my videos, but I won’t go over the top.

Do you have a Patreon?

I often receive emails asking me if I have a Patreon or a way to “buy me a cup of coffee” after watching one of my YouTube videos that has helped a user out. I don’t have Patreon or Venmo or any other services set up for that. A lot of times just hearing from someone that has let me know one of my videos has helped them is thanks enough. It’s nice knowing the videos you make aren’t just going into the interwebs where they aren’t useful.

Before I would consider starting a Patreon, I would want to make sure that I can produce regular helpful content on a consistent basis. Maybe I will set up a Patreon in the future, but for now, I think I have an alternate idea.

Hi everyone. You will see a couple of updated items in the Training section of the website. A new schedule of training classes has been published. There are both work day options and evening options for the Mill Fundamentals and Lathe. Over the course of the winter I was focused on some different projects both externally and internally. I hope to be able to share more news on the internal project soon. I think a lot of people are going to be excited about it. Stay tuned for more news on that when it is ready.

If you follow me on YouTube, you may have noticed there hasn’t been a whole lot of machining content. There is a good reason for that. Before I give you the story, I want to be clear that the issue has nothing to do with a failure of the machine or the American Rotary phase converter. Both of those things have performed with zero issues. The issue also wasn’t caused by improper installation. The job was done by a professional electrician and inspected by the Minnesota electrical inspector. My electrical panel is rated for 200 amps and everything in the panel is setup properly for all of my electrical needs.

A new training schedule has been published to the website www.mechanicaladvantage.com/training for the remainder of 2022. The 2023 schedule will be posted sometime around the end of November/beginning of December. You can also find the training classes by going to www.mechanicaladvantage.com/schedule-now and choosing Virtual CAD/CAM classes

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I see so many people looking for advice on what computer to for running Fusion 360. This article explains the criteria I use when I buy computers to run Fusion 360. I’m not going to tell you what computer to buy, but instead talk about the different components that make up a computer and what to spend money on and what to not spend so much money on.

For the longest time I’ve had a Canon color inkjet printer. I don’t do a lot of printing and haven’t had much of a need to replace it. Sure, often I was frustrated with the cost of replacement ink cartridges or the cartridges drying up from lack of use. It did the job for the amount of printing I had to do. As I work with more and more customers, I’m often asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement as part of the process. While my printer had scanning capability, it was a pretty old and I didn’t have the needed drivers for the scanner to work properly. So, when a customer would require me to sign an NDA, I would have to print the form, fill it out, and then head to a courier service like UPS or FedEx to have the document scanned so I could send a signed copy of the document back to the customer. My printer just wasn’t going to cut it anymore.

This is something that is probably long overdue. I’ve never really provided a lot of information about who I am, what I have done in my career, why I started Mechanical Advantage, and why should you trust me for your training and consulting needs.