(me giving live conference presentations in 2024 and 2018)

This page is to provide specific examples of projects I’ve worked on & my current career goals. This includes photos of my professional work at Ichor Systems (2019-Present), HP (2016-2018), Palmer Manufacturing (2014-2015), Accutek Testing Lab (2011-2014), as well as personal projects.

• Relevant Link 1:  Michael’s LinkedIn Page
• Relevant Link 2:  Michael’s Resume  
• Relevant Link 3:  Michael’s Professional References 

Michael’s Bio, Strengths, & Career Goals:

Results-driven multi-discipline engineer with a proven track record of developing innovative robust solutions for complex engineering challenges. Technical career path.

• Current Tech Focus: Controls + Automation Software Programming
• Prior Tech Focus: Mechanical Machine Design

Skilled in mechanical design, controls engineering, and project management. Committed to lifelong learning and dedicated to delivering creative, reliable, engineered solutions. Seeking a senior level test/automation engineer position in the Portland Oregon Metro.

I seek technical roles where I can enjoy a variety of challenges, have an appropriate degree of autonomy,  and continue pursuing technical mastery of my craft. I happy to communicate with customers and manage small technical teams, though I want my focus to remain technical as opposed to a managerial role.

I do not have a preference on company size.  I’ve owned many small projects and have also worked as part of small and large teams managed by others. 

What I do best is produce creative, reliable, engineered solutions to novel engineering problems. I love developing robust turnkey systems that make complex controls easy on the user.

On a personal level, I’m the guy who attends every lunch & learn & training type of event offered and I do whatever it takes to get to a job done right & on time. When I have to balance priorities I will always  quality over speed. Im equally happy sitting a computer all day as I am working with my hands. I always show up on time, with a positive attitude, and a passion for what I do every day.

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PROJECT GALLERY:

Ichor Systems (August2019-Current)

• I work with a fantastic small team! My role within the Test Engineering Group is to develop custom controls solutions and troubleshoot complex systems on an as-needed project basis.
• Projects typically revolve around programming PLCs, Raspberry Pi’s, electronics palette layout, & designing associated 3D printed components.
• The nature of my programs usually revolves around signal processing, data acquisition, user interfaces, manual & automatic machine controls, report generation, & notification systems. The test fixtures always take different forms. 

I worked on software, electrical, mechanical, all of the above. But these following 6 photos are the biggest achievement I had at Ichor. A full stack data architecture and standardized software stack for use on ALL of our testing equipment. The same software that we could then feed configuration files to accommodate the specificity of the application. 

 

I’m proud of my work photographed below. The fruit of my labor 5x’d production throughput of final test phase of our product! No technicians are present because we caught up on a significant backlog of work!

HP (Jan2016-Nov2018)

HP Multi-Jet Fusion (MJF) 300/500 Series 3D Printer (the exact model pictured). I spend the entirety of 2016-2018 developing a variety of printer hardware including one of 10 major subsystems with a small team.  I was fortunate to join the project at an early stage and stay until production release. This product was designed for Medium/High volume manufacturing, and I spent my time identifying/predicting problems and developing hardware solutions from idea to prototype through tooling & production. This includes dozens of injection molded plastics, lasercut & formed sheet metal frames, die cut seals, thermoformed cover parts, FFC & Discrete electric cables, and production MJF parts.

I took advantage of the unique opportunity to work for a great company like HP by letting the management know I was always hungry for more exposure & challenging problems. As a result I was able to work on some pretty interesting stuff & interact with talented mechanical teams, testing technicians, and electrical/firmware engineers.  I was also able to travel overseas two times to support the assembly line by troubleshooting, training, & developing work instructions.

I took full advantage of MJF’s capabilities to design creative solutions to a variety of design problems. This included things like live hinges, breakaway features, odd geometries, and I even figured out a clever way to sidestep our part numbering process by literally chaining together multi-part assemblies into “one-part”. Challenges included balancing the long term cost of injection molded plastics vs MJF, and designing for MJF’s specific manufacturability criteria.

Since much of this technology is proprietary the best images I can share here are some generic MJF display parts and a few selections of subsystems I touched from the product manual. Some examples:

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Accutek Testing Laboratory (2011-2014)  (They are now owned by Element)

Accutek laboratory was a small independent mechanical testing lab in Cincinnati Ohio. We performed materials inspections and destructive testing using a wide variety of in house equipment.  My role was to interface with customers to help design and perform custom mechanical testing, create test reports, and to develop new in house equipment. Our team was ambitious and the story with much of the Accutek equipment here is that if we thought we could design a solution cheaper/better than a commercially available one we went for it!

Accutek Custom Extensometer & Calibration jig: Hard to see but those aluminum rectangles in the photo would have cost up to $10,000 were you to buy them new! They are strain gage based extensometers capable of repeatable measurements of .0001″ that I custom designed to measure strain on special tensile test specimens. I also built the red fixture to calibrate it.

Accutek Custom Bearing Testing Machine. (Not intended to look pretty, just carry out a difficult test!) Designed to dynamically load helicopter bearings radially AND axially WHILE spinning them. Assembly used 2 servo-hydraulic pistons and 1 servo motor for control. Precision controlled using RMC motion control PLC software.

Accutek Custom Temperature Probe Testing Fixture. The machine is a two axis gantry designed to repeatedly dip test specimens into two separate very extreme temperature controlled oil baths.  Controlled with DasyLab (similar to Labview) software.

Accutek Custom Test Oven (large). This type of equipment is usually very expensive so designing our own version gave us the capability to run tensile tests at elevated temperatures at a fraction of the cost.

Accutek Custom Test Oven (small). Designed to fit a smaller testing machine.

Accutek Custom ‘Strap Snubber’ Testing Fixture. Many of my projects at Accutek called for custom mechanical jigs for loading random objects in specific ways. These grips were designed for holding and tensile testing toeing straps normally used for cargo trailers.

Accutek Custom Hydraulic Wedge Grips. Designed to grip tensile test specimens at high loads without applying a preload to the specimens. This design was based on a professional set I reverse engineered and shrunk down to suit our needs. The cost difference to make vs buy was ~$10k.

Accutek Custom Sterling Freezer: I took apart a old “Ultra-Low” Brand portable stirling freezer and remounted it into a Coleman cooler. Very proud of this one because it was a messy process and my team had written off the idea as a lost cause but I persevered and dragged it to fruition! The final project could run tests at cryogenic temperatures without the use of liquid nitrogen thus saving an expensive consumable and giving it a short term ROI!

Accutek Custom High Displacement Test Machine: We had a need for a super high displacement ‘stretch-test’ machine but didn’t have the budget for an off the shelf model. I retrofitted existing hardware with ball screws, a servo motor, and old spare parts to make it happen!

Accutek Custom Torsion Low Temp Test: Similar to the high displacement machine, this adjustable torsion tester was built by retrofitting various existing equipment. Used here to twist a rubber ‘bellow’ specimen while a PID controlled liquid nitrogen line was inserted inside to cool it to the specified testing temperature.

Accutek Custom Vibration Tester: Designed an adjustable height fixture to suit any size high frequency vibration shaker machine. (We rented various sized shakers so our hardware had to be versatile)

Accutek Custom Chain-Wear Testing Machine: This machine dynamically tested 4 roller chains at once. Each station had independent load control using a pressure transducer and pneumatic cylinder. All chains were driven simultaneously and the speed was measured using an encoder.

Accutek Custom 3 Axis Load Cells: Each device consists of three custom designed load-cells used for ergonomics testing. They clamp onto the handles of medical carts so scientists can measure the forces imparted on Nurses arms in 3 axes throughout the day.

Accutek Medical Device Testing Fixture: For ‘subsidence’ and ‘expulsion’ medical device testing on spinal implants. Much of Accutek’s business was based on medical device testing and I worked on many tiny custom load fixtures of this nature.

Accutek Custom Servo Fatigue Machine: Adjustable tabletop static & dynamic test machine using a ball screw & servo motor. (Shown as 3D model because I left before this machine was completely assembled). I also laid out & wired the control cabinet for the set of 3 machines. I designed, sourced, ordered, and build this whole cabinet.

Accutek Weird Mechanical Tensile Test: This is an example of a custom test fixture used to apply a proof tensile load in a very specific orientation on aircraft components. When we placed a digital angle indicator on it to verify the setup we were floored that it was on the dot <0.1 degree of our target! 

Accutek Custom Pump Testing Fixture. Designed to safely test Semi-truck water pumps under various conditions.

Accutek Custom Clevis: This is a fun example of my personal pursuit of improvement of a work process. I was slightly obsessed with figuring out how to design a single adjustable clevis that could be used for the majority of tensile tests. I came up with an even better design later you can read about here.

Palmer Manufacturing (2014-2015)

Palmer manufacturing designs & builds custom machinery to serve the no-bake sand casting industry. Their customers are foundries large and small that need “bullet proof” industrial sand preparation equipment.

Much of my work at Palmer consisted of updating large out of date & inaccurate legacy BOMs & CAD, and making technical customizations to them to accommodate new customer’s specific requirements.

Above Left: Palmer Manufacturing Sand Heater: This is a machine used to heat sand so that it is the right temperature for the chemical reactions needed in mixing. I typically made modifications to basic dimensions to accommodate various heating loads, voltages, and sand volumes.

Above Right: Palmer Manufacturing Sand Mixer: This is a portable sand mixing assembly based on various pieces of existing designs. It takes in sand and mixes with chemicals to create a composite that hardens into the casting mold.

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College Senior Project (2010-2011)

 

College Solar Car Chassis Senior Design Project designed, sourced, & built from scratch in 12 months.  This included the frame, front & rear suspension, & steering. A few years later I created an online ‘instructable’ to detail the design decisions & share tips about designing 3 wheeled vehicles here.

  

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Internship with Illinois EPA (Summer of 2010 & 2011)

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency has an interesting summer internship program that employed me full time over two separate summers. I was trained how to identify opportunities to reduce energy consumption & waste production in industrial facilities.  I applied these skills in a high-volume sheet metal stamping business, as well as a train car maintenance business. The result of the program was my presenting the company presidents a report of my findings on how they could save an estimated $55,000 annually through investments in energy use reduction. This included energy efficient lighting upgrades, smart thermostats, a paint rinse water filtering process upgrade, improvements in compressed air management, and simple HVAC heating/cooling upgrades.  Obviously I didn’t expect them to carry out all of my recommendations, but many of my observations and calculations showed an ROI of less than one year for the lowest hanging fruit. Often the case was that the facility was old & dilapidated and the existing lighting, heating fixtures, or compressed air plumbing was out of date. By buying new equipment or drawing attention to what needed repair the company could save money on electricity costs and the IL EPA could declare a win by effectively reducing energy consumption of Illinois businesses.

Personal Projects:

I have a passion for engineering design and I constantly develop my skills through personal projects. The intent behind sharing these here is to show that I am a highly motivated person and a recognized innovator in the areas of 3D printing and electric vehicles. My work has been featured on the front page of websites including Instructables.com, HackaDay.com, 3Dprinting.com, 3DPrintingIndustry.com, and more. 

 

Above: My original collection of open source 3d printable robots for teaching STEM.

Above: I converted an old motorcycle to an electric vehicle, then I wrote a set of directions for how others can do it and I also wrote an article about the things I learned from the experience.

   

Above Left: My invention for preventing house fires.

Above Right: I designed and built a DIY tension/compression test machine so I could run tests on 3D printed objects. (TestrBot)

Above: The Bicycle BoosterPack. A reconfigurable & near universal kit that gives adult bikes an ultralight portable electric power assist.

I share many of my original designs online for free on Thingiverse here.

  

Here are a couple of videos of the side projects I am most proud of! (Check out the rest of my YouTube channel here.)

And finally, during my unemployed time from Nov 2019-April 2019 I focused on developing custom Home Goods, Novelties, and Light up Cosplay Accessories to sell in my online store which can be found here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/RadiantArtifacts

Update May2019: Beyond the artistic endeavors shown just above I have also utilized my recent free time to develop another new business venture. I have identified a market opportunity and an innovation that will given me a competitive edge. I am developing a CNC lathe plotter for the purpose of creating artistically customized cups. I plan to sell these cups on-demand online and eventually offer the full machine for sale as a kit.  (Note to employers that I specifically design my side businesses such that I can support them in my leisure time without disruption to my full time employment.)