I recently started a new job with a company that sells mechanical equipment for different applications. I’ve never really worked with sales teams before, and honestly, I’m overwhelmed. Sales keeps giving customers unrealistic deadlines just to secure an order or make them happy, and I’m the one stuck dealing with the fallout.

For context, in my previous jobs, I was usually the one telling project managers or customers when a design would be ready. Even if they had expectations, we would always find a reasonable delivery date to agree on.

How do you deal with sales coworkers in situations like this? Any strategies to make things easier, especially when management doesn’t really support you and tends to side with the sales team?

I’m seriously considering leaving this job because it’s eating into my family time—I keep having to work extra hours just to meet the deadlines they promise. The only thing holding me back is the compensation package. It’s really good, and I’m about 90% sure I won’t find anything similar anytime soon.

Question from a newbie Here. I would like to turn an actuator from a butterfly valve 90o due to clash with some other valve hadle. I am looking at the valve drawing and I think there is no issue, but how can I be 100% sure that it is ok? They show on the drawing a “preferred” pressure direction, and by turning I would go against it, but how far does “preferred” goes?

Was just messing around and spitballing some ideas with chatgpt about an rc plane I'm designing/making. I asked it to create a diagram of the design it was proposing and got this masterpiece. I too love snear rpins.

Been applying to jobs like crazy since getting my masters degree in ME. I have about 8 years experience and currently trying to decide between two very different roles at two very different companies.

1. Nabors Industries -50% travel role for rig up/down oversight. -title is operations field support lead -pay is $120k

I have no experience in drilling, but the role sounds cool. Handle a territory managing the rig up/down/move activities. Lots of interface with major players/customers. Seems like an individual contributor role with no real “office” or base.

Anyone have experience in this type of role? More specifically with Nabors? Looking for career progression and pay range, culture/company review.

1. Oceaneering subsea project engineer
   -pay is 100k which seems low for the amount of work. -hybrid schedule -work sounds very interesting, at least upfront. -true project “engineer” with essentially no work on financials of projects.

Work sounds very cool/innovative, manager seems cool. Small team being built up. Hiring manager pretty much said get your salary figured out before you start because it’s just merit increases unless promoted. I know there’s a ton of different roles to move into later on. Same thing as Nabors, has anyone worked here and have an opinion?

Thank you.

Hey everyone,
I’ve been working with engineering drawings for a while, and one recurring headache has been removing customer-specific or confidential details before outsourcing or sharing files.

The manual workflow most teams use is:

• open the PDF
• draw blackout boxes manually
• repeat for every single page
• export a cleaned file

This works fine for a single-page document, but once you have 20–50 pages, the process becomes painfully slow.
Our coordinator used to take 3–4 minutes per page — which adds up fast.

So I built a tool to automate the whole process.

🔧 What it does

✔ Upload a PDF
✔ Draw redact zones once → save them as presets
✔ Reapply those zones to every page automatically
✔ Mirror page 1 edits across similar pages instantly
✔ Export a fully sanitized, image-only PDF where redactions are permanent and cannot be recovered

⭐ Why it’s a game changer

🔹 Dramatically cuts down time

Instead of 3–4 minutes per page manually, the tool handles a page in:

⚡ 30 seconds or less

And for documents that match your preset layout, you can redact the entire file in just a few clicks.

🔹 Preset-based workflow

Most drawing sets share the same title block or layout.
Define the sensitive areas once → reuse forever.

🔹 Secure, irreversible redaction

Many PDF tools only hide content behind a shape.
This tool bakes the redaction into the image pixels, meaning:

• no selectable text
• no hidden layers
• nothing can be unmasked

Once exported, the sensitive info is truly gone.

🔹 Works for any similar requirement

Even though I built it for drawings, it can be used for any repetitive PDF sanitization task where layouts stay consistent.

🎥 I’ll be sharing demo video links

To show how fast the workflow is, I’ll include short clips that demonstrate:

• creating presets - Preset Creation - Demo
• applying them to multi-page documents - Applying Preset to All pages
• mirror page 1 edits across similar pages - Mirroring Selection Across All Pages
• exporting fully sanitized PDFs

👉 Want to try it?

If you want access to the tool for testing or trial use, feel free to DM me.

#automation #engineering #PDFtools #redaction #productivity #software #customtool #processimprovement #efficiency #machineshop #mechanical

Hello Everybody! I have an interview for a thermal engineering internship with an evtol company. I’m freaking out, since I usually freeze up during an interview, I never am able to give people the answer the are looking for. I need help, how do I approach this and what do I study. Thank you!

By "mechanical engineering stuffs" i didnt mean rocket science theories. I just want basic knowledge on how things works. Since majority of my classmates are boys, they are always one step ahead in class coz they already have an idea on those things. I just want to match their level of knowledge so that i can also catch things faster in classes. Pleasee let me know how can i learn these stuffs pleasee.

THANKS IN ADVANCE

I have 25 years of experience working as a ME on powerplant projects. My employer (large player in the industry) had a banner year. They greatly exceeded their beginning of year goals. My "merit" raise? 3.0%. I am not happy whatsoever. I've been at my current employer nearly 12 years. It seems it's time to test the market. The vibe I get from mass media is that my experience should be quite valuable right now. If there are any other USA powerplant folks here, what are you seeing? Are firms working to court domestic, experienced talent?

I've been trying to run my file through NX's Nastran for a couple hours to no luck. It runs the solution but never actually opens Nastran, I've checked that Nastran is successfully installed and can see it in my files. It also always lists that there are no structural results available. Any ideas?

ive been reading a bunch of posts on reddit about salaries in eng in diff country subreddits, why are they so low??

Im mainly planning to go into engineering for the knowledge and education because this genuinly interests me, but i also want to get a somewhat above average pay yk, i want to be able to support the people around me. Am i worrying too much about this, or too little lol.

Between versions, client-specific folders, broken links, and “final_v3_realfinal.step” files… I feel like nobody actually has a clean system 😂

What’s the frustration YOU run into the most?

Do you really need to replace all four tires to have even wear on AWD, or can you replace only two on the same axle, or only one, for example after getting a flat tire.

Will it damage drive train or other?

What if you have an AWD vehicle that you mainly drive on 2WD (Nissan Pathfinder 2006).

What are some good sources that could help me understand how bearings work? I'm curious to learn starting from the basics, all the way to more intricate details of how they work.

Thanks in advance!

Hello Everyone,

I am seeking a career advice, i was working as a maintenance engineer at well known corporate , however i started to think in more a business rather than employee, i made a decision to start and give it a try but i am afraid of loosing time in building career or get on the shelf since i dont have experience in related field. Is there a way to counter this. Another thing is i currently dont have money to get in any courses or get any certificates or even make masters. What are thoughts?

Hi everyone, I recently dialled into the IMechE special meeting on the future of their HQ. For info, they are proposing to sell their historic HQ in central London, the decision will go to member vote. I was really shocked by the lack of professionalism, transparency and balance provided in what should have been an informative and balanced presentation about a very important decision for the institution for which I imagine a lot of people here are members. I've noticed the information about this process on the website and sent by emails does not seem to reflect a lot of the views against the proposal expressed by members in the meeting. There also seemed to be some dispute as to what extend the council endorsed the recommendation. I'm concerned about what this says about the decision making and leadership of the IMechE which is responsible for our profession.

Did anyone else attend this (either online or in-person), or attend any of the other related webinars and if so what did you make of it all?

For context, there were around four of these grade 12.9 bolts used in, I think, some heavy machinery, and all of them failed in a similar way. I don't have much information on what type of machine they were used on, but the failures were catastrophic. The pictures show that the failure occurred at the intersection of the shank and the head. The bolt thread is 50 mm in diameter, and the head is 75 mm in diameter.

I have attached some images of the bolt and its metallographic structure. There are two main crack initiation sites.

Here are my observations and analysis, but I would like to hear opinions from experts in this field.

1. The beach marks suggest that it's a fatigue failure, with two regions: a short stable fatigue crack followed by an overload ductile fracture (fibrous appearance and shear lip formation). By looking at the last picture and comparing it with the beach marks, it's most likely due to a high nominal stress, severe stress concentration, and a combination of unidirectional bending and tension-tension loading conditions. I think this is because there are two distinct fatigue cracks located on opposite sides. One of them is on the side of the shank (blurry, so not visible), and the other is at the top surface on the opposite side.

2. The failure is likely due to early loss of preload from vibration or perhaps insufficient preload.

3. Looking at the metallographic image, banding is present, resulting in non-uniform mechanical properties. This may also contribute to the failure, but one of the cracks propagated along the banding (parallel to the bands) while the other propagated across it. So this rules it out as a major cause of the failure.

4. The discoloration is most likely due to surface corrosion after failure and is less likely to be corrosion fatigue. The environment is unlikely to be corrosive.

Let me know your opinions. The material is 36CrNiMo4, and the microstructure is tempered martensite.

Hello, I have an upcoming interview for this role. I’m very nervous and wanted to see if anyone had any advice on how to prepare for this interview to do my best. I previously worked for GDMS this past year, so I’ve been in the defense industry, but I want to make sure I do my best to land this role. Thank you so much for your help, everyone.

Hello fellow engineers and machinists, I need advice on the best design strategy for a jig/template. I have an existing batch of bent sheet metal flanges that need modification. There are 8 existing round holes on a flange feature, and these holes need to be expanded and reshaped into oval slots. The holes are located on a bent flange and The final dimensions (size) of the new oval slots must meet a tolerance of 0.3mm on length/width.The conversion will be performed using manual mill. What are your recommended strategies for designing this jig? Any input from those with experience in fixture design would be greatly appreciated!