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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Engineering Articles. Design, build, test... repeat.
Introduction to Monte Carlo Methods for Engineers
A primer to kickstart your use of monte carlo simulation for engineering problems
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
Engineer's Guide to Lightweight Part Design
A deep dive into the guiding principles and techniques for lighweight part design
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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
Five Flute Founder & CEO
Five Flute Reverse Engineering Series: REEKON T1 Tomahawk Teardown
An engineering exploration of a first generation smart tape measure
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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
Five Flute Founder & CEO
How to Design and Manufacture Anodized Aluminum Parts
A practical DFM guide for design engineers
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
How to Design Waterproof Products
A comprehensive guide to ingress protection in product design
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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
Five Flute Founder & CEO
How to Design a Scotch Yoke Mechanism
An In-Depth Guide for Experienced Mechanical Engineers
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
CNC Machining DFM - Design Guidelines for Milled Parts
A first principles look at CNC part design for manufacturability for experienced engineers
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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
Five Flute Founder & CEO
Design for Assembly (DFA) Best Practices
An overview of DFA principles for mechanical engineers
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
8 Tips to Keep Hardware Product Development Teams Efficient
Practical approaches to speeding up engineering development
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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
Five Flute Founder & CEO
Brainstorming for Engineers
A how to guide on brainstorming best practices for electro-mechanical product development.
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
Engineering Drawing Review Best Practices
A primer for working design and manufacturing engineers
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
Bearings and Bushings - Essential Components for Mechanical Engineers
An overview of bearings and bushings focused on construction and practical applications.
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
How to Run Effective Mechanical Engineering Design Reviews
A playbook for running and moderating efficient and valuable design reviews
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
How to Plan and Prepare for a Mechanical Engineering Design Review
A playbook for organizing efficient and valuable design reviews
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
Best Practices for Mechanical Engineering Issue Tracking
A primer for mechanical engineers developing complex and deeply integrated electro-mechanical products.
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
How to use Waterjet Cutting for Rapid Prototype Development
Best practices for rapid machine design prototyping
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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
Five Flute Founder & CEO
Mastering GD&T - Building Datum Reference Frames
A foundational guide to selecting datum features that accurately communicate design intent with GD&T.
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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
Five Flute Founder & CEO
Advanced RSS Tolerance Analysis
Estimating manufacturing failures and scrap rates using RSS tolerance analysis and z-tables
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
Introduction to Root Sum Squared (RSS) Tolerance Analysis
A how to guide to statistical tolerance analysis for mechanical engineering applications.
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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
Five Flute Founder & CEO
First Principles of Manufacturing: CNC Milling Tolerances
A deep dive into machining tolerances and error sources in part design for CNC milling.
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
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
Five Flute Founder & CEO
Practical Finite Element Analysis
Understanding the fundamental math, guidance for building trustworthy models, and interpreting the results.
William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO
Fasteners and Bolted Joint Design
An engineering deep dive into fasteners and joint design problems for mechanical engineers.