r3boots

Amateurs are often poorly positioned to diagnose problems stemming from floor sweepings, parts recovered from e-waste, cheap knockoffs, or outright counterfeits. eBay parts not in those categories are often free samples you can request yourself.

Paying a premium for a new part with predictable characteristics isn't always a mistake.

Thanks for your work on this, and for releasing it open source! I used to run Paul's app locally for peace of mind; now I self-host an instance of your version. Encoding the simulation in the URL is brilliant for sharing and teaching.

Good FOSS 3+ axis CAM software, preferably OS-agnostic.

There's a quiet FOSS revolution happening in machine tool motion control: several usable CAD packages (FreeCAD, LibreCAD, SolveSpace, to name a few), a powerful motion controller (LinuxCNC), even a few open embedded servo drives. But flexible, powerful CAM to glue these parts together seems to be the type of tough niche problem, requiring a lot of domain knowledge, where anybody capable of taking it on wants to get paid for their work. A lot like the EDA field before KiCad gathered some momentum.

Not to ignore the work put into PyCAM and other small efforts in this space. It's definitely a start.

> If the solder has lead the fumes are toxic.

I encourage you to support this statement. Lead doesn't vaporize at anywhere close to soldering temperatures, and from what I have read there is no lead component to soldering fumes and consequently no exposure through respiration.

Rosin and particularly No-Clean fluxes do pose a respiratory hazard, so fume extraction is a good idea regardless.

See also the subsequent companion piece, Studio Ghibli on why a director's gender doesn't matter:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jun/16/studio-ghibli-p...

Possibly one or more PIN diodes, cheap and cheerful if not particularly sensitive:

https://www.maximintegrated.com/en/app-notes/index.mvp/id/22...