Just pulled the trigger on a custom email inbox using my own domain, it’s been a looooong while since I’ve wanted my own email domain and this is it.
For any inquiries please email me at: contact@l21degrees.com
Category Personal
It’s (real) espresso time!
Like my list of semi-abandoned hobbies didn’t need to grow, I just replaced my Nespresso Vertuo Breville machine with a cheap set of coffee grinder and espresso machine with a steam wand which included a nice tamper and a chrome frothing jug along other small accessories. Since then, I’ve added a “bottomless” portafilter and a kit that contained a portafilter funnel, a WDT tool, a filter plate and a brush. I just received a tamping/knock box station. How did it go? I’ll go back to this in a bit.
Don’t get me wrong, the Nespresso Vertuo Breville machine is EXTREMELY convenient and precise, you insert the pod, and the barcode reader on the machine does its magic identifying it setting up all parameters for a consistent brew, always exact on size, temperature, timing and variable speed within it. The texture was also amazing, it is not the same as traditional espresso, but the centrifugal extraction created a long-lasting coffee “froth” (not actual crema) that added to the taste. BUT, all that convenience and precision come at a price, each coffee pod goes for around $1.40USD which adds up if you drink several cups a day. Also, if you recycle your pods, takes away from the convenience storing and then mailing/dropping at boutique (if close), if you dispose of them, the guilt builds up. So, what do you do?
Reusable pod kits!!!! Some let you reuse the original used pods which you reseal, there’s metal and plastic reusable plastic or aluminum pods with either disposable seals or reusable silicone ones, and plenty others. Now you’re saving plenty of money on coffee and you get to use the exact coffee you want at the cost of some of the convenience, you can spend 1/2 – 1 hour a week prepping 30-40 pods. This is also messy, there’s always the pod cleanup and spilled coffee grounds afterwards which gets old with time and gets you rethinking your overall experience, I still reminisce of my old $10USD Walmart single cup coffee brewer many years ago with a reusable mesh filter, it was cheap, it was all plastic, but it did one job and did it OK, not the best, not the worst, but it did it.
No, I didn’t go back to that $10USD coffee machine because I wanted nice cappuccinos and lattes and I’ve been background watching 1-2 hour long first-person-view videos of baristas making coffee in coffee shops and James Hoffmann on YouTube. I was ready, BRING IT ON!
So I went looking for the cheapest OK experience, found that the De’Longhi Dedica clones are good overall and cheap enough to have a good starting point. Started drooling to the nice $500, $1000 and then $5000 espresso setups but it didn’t make sense for me to go all-in when I’m not a coffee afficionado and didn’t care for subtle differences, I was hoping that just upgrading my experience from fancy pods to freshly ground beans and a traditional brewing process would really make a difference.
So, yeah, I got the Gevi espresso machine and coffee grinder for $203USD, it came with a pressurized portafilter and two cup sizes, a very nice solid metal tamper with a wooden handle, the grinder comes with a conical burr and portafilter holder, the machine has a small water tank and a steam wand for milk frothing. It’s an awesome value for a complete beginner’s setup! Did I mention it came with two double-wall insulated glass cups?
After a couple of weeks, I’ve found out that I enjoy the coffee making process, I look forward to drink coffee just because of it, and I know I’m getting a very similar experience to a fancy coffee shop! A small investment for hopefully years of good coffee experience return. If it breaks and I can’t fix it, I’ll look into used fancy machines. I still suck at latte art, so don’t ask about it, it will take lots of time, my progress is not progressing :p
That Keurig Duo is very nice and a good middle-ground (get it? ground?) between pods and actual ground coffee, which also made the Nespresso Breville doubly redundant. Wife likes Keurig so I think that with this setup we got all coffee enjoying and sharing scenarios covered.
Oh, what is a WDT tool? It sounds fancy but it’s a handle with long needles that help distribute the coffee grounds evenly in the coffee basket (portafilter) for better extraction, it stands for Weiss Distribution Technique in reference to its creator. How deep does the rabbit hole go?
No, I’m not pregnant.
Wanted to reaffirm just in case this was not obvious, in this day and age, nothing surprises me. In a world where social media, false news, and realistic AI creations are everywhere, it’s worth to put a bit more effort to digest the information you receive.
Sr Mechanical Designer, story time (rant and appreciation)!
Fun part
Eleven and a half years as a Sr CAD Designer at my previous company, year after year 3D modeling to fit the new device features into the existing case architecture while incorporating improvements to both the design and CAD infrastructure… the most rewarding thing was being part of the amazing team in charge of developing the most challenging solutions that involved waterproofing, hazardous environments and commercial solutions. My amazing coworkers and managers were always supportive and cheerful even after all this time.
Not so fun part
Very cool, but 11 years of the same was starting to get old, still a “CAD Designer” with no career progression and capped salary. My duties, responsibilities and achievements greatly surpassed the expectations of a “Senior CAD Designer” but discussions about salary and title always came down to the company wants for the position and “middle market value” of it. Yeah, after all my contributions, I was worth middle market value to them, salary cap on a middle market value is still middle market value! Company “restructuring” almost on a yearly basis was keeping us on the edge, the company was doing good but the constant push to reduce expenses meant that everything that made working for the company great, was being reduced or eliminated year after year, events, celebrations, custom merchandise, the “buckets”, little things like biweekly office bagels, etc. A lot of time and resources invested in “CAD templates” where it was pointed out several times that they were not feasible because they became obsolete the moment the current project was finished, with no maintenance plan that addressed expected device changes and incorporating manufacturing improvements. But the part where mayor company-changing contributions are attributed to others is the hardest.
Why so long?
Well, everything started with LifeProof, the ONLY true waterproof phone case that allowed all device features to be fully functional, no compromises, a brand that was everywhere from the local San Diego surfing events to humongous X-Games and RedBull Rampage sponsorships, then being acquired by a brand that had more than half of the market for device protection, it was hard not to feel some pride to see the products you personally modeled in all the phone carrier stores, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, etc.
Also, company benefits were top tier, being a CAD Designer meant that I could fulfill my duties working from home which happened for 4 years, I was very comfortable and became very complacent.
At last, but not least, my coworkers and managers, after all this time you get to know them, and they get to know you so well that asking for time flexibility on both ends is no issue as both trust that each will manage their expectations. That is something that you can only build with time.
Welcome Mechanical Designer, finally!
Not to confuse with a Mechanical Engineer, a designer will quickly bring the vision into a realistic and manufacturable virtual representation utilizing their hand sketching/CAD expertise and their manufacturing backgrounds, often working in conjunction with an Engineer or within a team leveraging and complementing each other’s strengths to bring a solution to life.
I’ve started a Sr Mechanical Designer position at a product design and engineering firm, small enough that feels like a startup but backed by over 10 years of experience working with big and small brands, local and international, developing new and or improved solutions over several markets.
Now I’m creating diverse solutions, my vast CAD experience lets me quickly whip up efficient preliminary designs while incorporating my immense plastic injection molding experience, recalling my extensive sheet metal experience, utilizing my growing additive manufacturing experience and then standing up from my desk and creating physical representations of the screen concepts via the different manufacturing capabilities including SLA and FDM 3D printing and assembling, yes, I’m finally utilizing my nice hoarded tools to their potential.
It feels nice to have a proper reason to stand up from the desk/screen (besides health), grab your tools, pick up the manufactured/delivered parts, build and test/inspect/review looking forward to having fulfilled the client’s requests.
I can now properly call myself a Mechanical Designer. Señor Mechanical Designer.
Gracias totales.
MegaShelf is on the Printables main page!
That’s it, thank you 😀
Listing: https://www.printables.com/model/1144913-keyboard-megashelf-sliding-keyboard-and-peripheral
FanSwap design
I just posted some designing details for FanSwap as a project in this site, this is a high-level thought process, posting it as a project will make it easier to follow as I update it, it’s available on the left menu but I won’t make you look there, you can also click here.
Thank you OtterFriends for 11.5 years
*UPDATE: My heart goes out to everyone involved and I have no doubt in your skills and passion and that you will succeed wherever you set foot, I’m here for anything you need help with, my contact details are here.
*UPDATE2: Thank you everyone for your kind and encouraging words, I’m overwhelmed by the vast amount of support in these tough times.
In this restructuring event, a lot of people were let go including the remote Mechanical Engineering force in San Diego, the OG brilliant minds from LifeProof, the ones that figured out, developed and delivered fully waterproof mobile device cases while allowing for full functionality, the LifeProof FRE case.
I’m a bit bitter, a bit sad, seeing my coworkers, my brothers in arms of many years, one by one announcing getting the dreaded email including myself, no explanation yet but we had it seen a mile away.
What makes FRE special? It’s just a waterproof case, why not use a Ziploc bag? Well, once you seal a phone device in a watertight enclosure, you need to worry about sound, about the microphones and how they interact with the software algorithms, the cameras with optically clear lenses and the flash that wants to bleed light wherever it can. And the touchscreen, it needs to seal out 100%, prevent it from creating those rainbow ring artifacts, reduce fingerprints, add scratch resistance, etc., the materials used are also tested for ultraviolet degradation, common solutions (think lotions, sunscreen, alcohol, etc.), button forces, latch retention… and, yeah, drops, the case should continue being waterproof after being dropped, all in a very sleek package that rivals drop protection only cases in size and style. Oh, and it has to be produced millions of times, assembled and tested, yes, each case is tested for water ingress before packaging.
Back to the situation, maybe it was a good thing, maybe it was time, there was no development career for my position and salary was capped for many years. But what if… what if that’s what I wanted to do, to continue the challenges of designing and developing for new series, new devices, maybe I wanted to continue for 10 more years. Maybe there is something else waiting and I needed a push, after all, I wouldn’t been here if it wasn’t for these life nudges.
But oh well, after 11.5 years in the company seeing the evolution from LifeProof to OtterBox and everything in between, my daughter was born a few months before starting here, I’m very grateful to have had the opportunity to build, shape and implement a modeling infrastructure that helped reduce design time from months to weeks to days in some “cases”, the foundation has been baked-in across all case series templates and it’s amazing to see it develop and deploy way further by the team of awesome Mechanical Designers (YOU’RE NOT A CAD DESIGNER, YOU’RE A MECHANICAL DESIGNER, keep the fight on); I’m grateful for being part of the design and development of our most challenging product series, I’m grateful for the opportunity to visit OEM partners and factories across the sea, and out-of-state events; I’m grateful for all the ongoing learning and development that an environment like this provides; but above everything else, I’m grateful to have worked with the most amazing engineering minds here and in Fort Collins, seeing them “kick-ass” solving issues (features) that new devices constantly threw at us, and their growth across all these years, our managers who always put their peers before them and doing the best with what the company provided, and my mountain biking peers whose motivation sparked back my interest in the sport and adventure.
Thank you everyone.
So, what’s next?
I have gone through elevator cab building and designing, shipboard furniture design, injection molding tooling design, then product design and development, I can say that I have enjoyed the last one the most but I’m not afraid of venturing into other areas, I’m very interested in additive manufacturing (ref this website), maybe design services? I can’t be too picky, I have a lifetime project to take care of which is my family, but I hope that the answer comes sooner rather than later.
Thank you for everything…
San Diego
Colorado
Suzhou
Suwon
Seattle
Charlotte Motor Speedway
3D Printing Corner
Recently consolidated and organized my 3D printing corner and here it is going from the bottom-up left to right:
Bottom shelf: Bulk filament storage, first two containers were air sealed using weatherstripping, there’s also two air-tight cereal box containers which will be transformed into sealed individual filament dispensers
Next shelf: Small materials, tools and supplies, batteries, magnets, bearings, glue/resin, foam and tooling and replacement parts for the two printers
Printer shelf:
- Ender 3 Pro converted into V2 with custom upgrade kit from 1stLayer which included a bigger and color LCD screen, upgraded board with silent steppers. Also installed a direct extruder kit, BL Touch for automatic bed leveling, and a Creality Cloud module. I’m keeping this printer with a 1mm nozzle to tackle bigger structural prints where detail and speed aren’t as important. There’s also the possibility to increase the print height with existing materials.
- Bambu Lab P1S, this is the intermediate level of their printers, twice and sometimes thrice as fast as the Ender, CoreXY which eliminates bed slinging for more accurate prints, fully enclosed and as easy to use as an inkjet paper printer.
Top shelf: filament dispensing and storage, there’s some recently used filament spools inside vacuum sealed bags, a dual filament dryer which I use to also dry desiccant and the amazing Bambu Lab AMS (Automatic Material System) which is the next biggest thing for 3D printing. I got this AMS as a bundle with the P1S and I totally love it, besides multi-color printing, it contains four material/color spools ready to go at any given time in a semi-sealed container. I printed desiccant containers to add inside to help reduce/eliminate moisture.
This was a quick tour, nothing much or big but finally organized and ready to go.
Created a new logo
It’s a shield, showing “L21” in big bold letters and “DEGREES” in a custom font. Very geometric, almost mechanical, all angles measure 21° or a variation of it. The colors (which are still in the air) are burnt orange and misted black, bonus points to whoever recognizes the paint palette this is coming from.
Inspiration for the shield comes from the knights in medieval times, full armor, swords and shields. The shape comes from the honeycomb pattern, who doesn’t like those hexagons nested neatly defying most manufacturing processes? Of course, I added my spin where the side angles measure 21 degrees but still fit an inscribed circle tangent to all sides.
The “L21” was initially going to be a huge “L” behind the number “21” but as I sketched the letters, I decided to do the number “1” in a mirrored angle and bam! Bonus for that nostalgic feel coming from a galaxy far, far away…
“Degrees” almost didn’t make it in there but as the “L21” took that shape, it couldn’t be centered vertically anymore so I needed some bottom filler but also didn’t want to use an existing font and wanted something I could control 100% so I designed a parametric template for the font where the letters became a result of connecting dots where needed. The following shape is just filler for now.
If you were expecting some deeper meaning… sorry, I’m working on that 🙂
All said, here it is!
This is the end.
The end of the modern page posts, I’ve had this site for years and posts after this one are a bit of a bonus for you if you’ve come this far down, I could’ve deleted them but decided to leave them as a time-capsule easter egg.
Last blog post was in 2011, I think I wanted to retake it in 2015 but I abandoned it again until today. This post is named “The end” but it’s actually the beginning of the new purpose, I bought the domain name and hosting because I wanted a permanent place to showcase things and stuffs about me. Yeah, you got me, I couldn’t afford Twitter but on a positive side, only I can create posts 😛
Welcome to L21Degrees of Awesomeness, tacos and drinks included but not paid for.
:)
Comentario al azar…
Varios días durmiendo 3-4 horas… estoy en el trabajo y estoy con el ánimo muy en alto… uff una dosis de Red Bull acompañada de technobase.fm dan resultados!! No, no estoy orgulloso de dormir tan poco, es malo, muy malo, hay que dormir mínimo 8 horas, haré mis cosas al lado y haré eso… lo necesito, en serio…..
Por cierto, ya podré estar dentro de Ze-RO un rato por las noches, haciendo mini-eventos y dando soporte… Kamen se desvela mucho, tenemos 4 horas de diferencia.
¿Había dicho que me gustan los aviones? Creo que no… me encantan, especialmente los jets caza, como este F-14 Tomcat, uno de mis favoritos, esta imagen la bajé de jetwalls.com, tienen una muy buena colección de imágenes de fondo de escritorio sobre jets.
Motocicleta….
Siempre he querido tener una… y estoy enamorado de la Ninja, una deportiva color negro con símbolos chinos en color rojo que nisiquiera se que significan, pero le van bien xD
Ahora manejando, después de cruzar la frontera, en el Freeway 905 llendo al oeste, empezó a hacerce tráfico, y los carros se orillaban a un sólo carril… empezé a ver mucha basura, luego una motocicleta tirada y pedazos de ella regados por ahi… 10 metros más adelante estaba tirado el conductor que seguía enterito, pero quejándose, la ambulancia ya iba en camino. Tenía su casco puesto y un chaleco anaranjado con líneas fosforescentes, muy visible pero probablemente tenía prisa como todos he hizo mal alguna maniobra…
Estaba entercado en comprarme una para ir diario al trabajo, pero todos me dicen que no, y ahora con esto que vi lo estoy pensando más… ¿qué dices?
Estoy enamoradoooo… ese color negro opaco, esas curvas, esa agresividad, ¡toda una belleza! *O*
L21 Degrees of Awesomeness 