I did a lot of poking around when I first started. Tried ~10 different apps. On one end there are the toys, and the other end were sophisticated apps that were too big an investment in time. Settled on SolveSpace as the Goldilocks solution and have been using it for 4 years now. Can run on Linux, never crashes, GUI based, parametric constraints (which as someone that is not a mechanical engineer was the hardest part to get my head around), no cloud and no concerns about it getting crippled by a vendor. In the beginning, it took a day to get a simple design right. Now things can be whipped out in as little as 30 minutes. I'll caveat this as I don't make fancy stuff, just items in support of homelab projects and the workshop (examples at https://www.printables.com/@HighDesertHacker).
Several years ago I made a simple 2D display with WS2812B led strings, just daisy chained together for a serial interface. Controlled by an ESP8266, with a number of static images (snowflakes, xmas trees) that scroll or display with various effects (e.g. falling snowflakes).
9 led strings are simply draped over a ~9 ft tall pvc rack in a coarse 2D front and back display.
Not that much work to put together and surprisingly nice looking effects are possible.
Solvespace is freaking awesome. I tried so many different tools and it hits the sweet spot for reasonable learning curve (esp. for someone that is not a mech engineer), power, Linux, cost (free), and safe from disruption (no way I'm subjecting designs to all the risks of hosted offerings). Keep up the great work!
Organizers are so essential in my workshop and homelab. The mill alone has hundreds of items to keep track of. You can only go so far with misc cardboard boxes. I've been using SolveSpace MCAD to design simple just right size boxes, but these are so much nicer.
It seems like one could do this design in Solvespace with several parameters for the overall box. The interior compartments/partitions could be done in a single 2D sketch.
I master all files on the home nas. No more files on a local laptop. Everything, including photos. Photos moved off of phone and stored on nas. Plex has access, and Home Assistant displays random family photos every couple of minutes.
Nas is replicated offsite via tunnel to another home. Occasional backup to a usb drive kept in a safe. No third party cloud.
Made the switch to Obsidian a couple of years ago for notes. A big step up in searchability. Combined with syncthing to replicate the vault on mobile phone.
How would you compare your vision to EspoCrm?
It has nice UX, custom fields, formulas, can be self-hosted, is very low cost, api access, with add-ons for workflows, reports.
Absolutely love HA, it's been deployed for 6 years now. I try and run as much as possible through a mosquitto server to keep things decoupled.
The biggest pain has been ZWave devices. I've had multiple in wall switches croak for no obvious reason. Also devices dropping out, intermittent problems receiving commands. Recently installed a whole house surge protector in the main panel...we'll see if that helps.
The biggest hit with the household is the random family photo on the dashboard, updated every few minutes from the NAS archive.
Zero dependencies on cloud services. Wherever there are no good choices, instead I make custom ESP8266 devices, all integrated to mqtt. Have deployed one to listen to my weather station, one to control outdoor lighting, a roof snow melt system, even one to control the sprinklers intelligently.
Following. Inventor of OrCAD CIS (Component Information System) here. Still using an old version of Eagle (7.3.0) before it got neutered by Autodesk. I mostly just use schematic capture for documentation, rarely layout an actual pcb, and just use a solderable breadboard for hobby projects. Kicad has been on my list to check out, comments here most appreciated. Didn't know about Horizon, which also sounds worthy.
Ran across Orcad CIS for the first time last week while downloading symbol files from Intel/Altera. Trying to convert to Altium. Is there any documentation that exists for sucking out symbol info or do I need a full install of Orcad?
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