Engineering Resources. Our love letter to engineering and hardware product development.
Engineering Articles
Deep dives into engineering topics for product development professionals. FEA, DFM, CNC machining and more!
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Playbooks to help you and your team design, build, test, and deliver world class hardware products
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The best in engineering and hardware product development on the web - straight to your inbox
Engineering Articles. Design, build, test... repeat.
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Project Electra - How to adapt a new electric drivetrain to a 1950’s transmission - Part II of II
Motor mount design and analysis & coupler manufacturing deep dive.
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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Understanding Quadrature Encoders: A Comprehensive Guide for Mechanical Engineers
A deep dive into the art and science of measuring rotation with quadrature encoders
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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Five Flute Reverse Engineering Series: REEKON T1 Tomahawk Teardown
An engineering exploration of a first generation smart tape measure
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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Project Electra - How to adapt a new electric drivetrain to a 1950’s transmission - Part I of II
Drivetrain architecture, spline reverse engineering, coupler design and analysis
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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How to Design and Manufacture Anodized Aluminum Parts
A practical DFM guide for design engineers
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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How to Design Waterproof Products
A comprehensive guide to ingress protection in product design
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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Ryobi Jig Saw Teardown and Reverse Engineering
We take a deep dive into hobby grade tool design to reveal design practices that you can apply to your projects.
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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How to Design a Scotch Yoke Mechanism
An In-Depth Guide for Experienced Mechanical Engineers
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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CNC Machining DFM - Design Guidelines for Milled Parts
A first principles look at CNC part design for manufacturability for experienced engineers
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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Sheet metal DFM - design guidelines for formed and punched parts
A first principles look at sheet metal design for manufacturability for experienced engineers
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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Design for Assembly (DFA) Best Practices
An overview of DFA principles for mechanical engineers
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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8 Tips to Keep Hardware Product Development Teams Efficient
Practical approaches to speeding up engineering development
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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CNC Machining in the Digital Manufacturing Era
An in-depth analysis of U.S. based digital fabrication providers - Protolabs, Xometry, FastRadius, Fictiv, and Fathom
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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Brainstorming for Engineers
A how to guide on brainstorming best practices for electro-mechanical product development.
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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Engineering Drawing Review Best Practices
A primer for working design and manufacturing engineers
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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Bearings and Bushings - Essential Components for Mechanical Engineers
An overview of bearings and bushings focused on construction and practical applications.
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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How to Run Effective Mechanical Engineering Design Reviews
A playbook for running and moderating efficient and valuable design reviews
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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How to Plan and Prepare for a Mechanical Engineering Design Review
A playbook for organizing efficient and valuable design reviews
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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Best Practices for Mechanical Engineering Issue Tracking
A primer for mechanical engineers developing complex and deeply integrated electro-mechanical products.
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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How to use Waterjet Cutting for Rapid Prototype Development
Best practices for rapid machine design prototyping
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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GD&T Basics - A Comprehensive Introduction to Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing
A beginners guide to GD&T and it's application on engineering drawings
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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Mastering Drawings - Top Tips for Creating Better Sheet Metal Part Drawings
A how to guide for engineers and drafters designing sheet metal parts.
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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Mastering GD&T - Building Datum Reference Frames
A foundational guide to selecting datum features that accurately communicate design intent with GD&T.
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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Five Flute Part Drawing Review Checklist
A comprehensive checklist for part drawings so you can streamline your drawing review process, catch preventable mistakes, and move faster with confidence.
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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Drawings 101 - The Basics of Creating High Quality Engineering Drawings
A primer on the creation and review of engineering drawings for individual part manufacturing.
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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Advanced RSS Tolerance Analysis
Estimating manufacturing failures and scrap rates using RSS tolerance analysis and z-tables
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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Introduction to Root Sum Squared (RSS) Tolerance Analysis
A how to guide to statistical tolerance analysis for mechanical engineering applications.
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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Introduction to Common Milling Tools used in Job Shop Machine Shops
A brief review of milling tools commonly used in modern job shops.
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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First Principles of Manufacturing: CNC Milling Tolerances
A deep dive into machining tolerances and error sources in part design for CNC milling.
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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Practical Design for Manufacturability and Assembly
A deep dive into product development, manufacturing, and assembly cost reduction focusing on first principles and design best practices.
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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Practical Finite Element Analysis
Understanding the fundamental math, guidance for building trustworthy models, and interpreting the results.
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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Fasteners and Bolted Joint Design
An engineering deep dive into fasteners and joint design problems for mechanical engineers.
![William Burke](/headshots/william-burke.png)