DAVE.
PRINCIPAL DESIGN ENGINEER · OWNER, BEASTMODE DEVELOPMENT
Twenty-six years of mechanical design in my day job. BeastMode is what happens between seven and ten at night, and it is where the interesting problems end up.
Twenty-six years, same discipline.
By day I am a Principal Mechanical Design Engineer and have been at the same company for twenty-six years, most of it on customer power-system design. That is a long time doing work where a mistake costs real money, and it shows up in how I approach a hobby-scale part: tolerance stack-ups, design for manufacture, and a bias toward the version that can actually be built.
Mechanical is my focus, but the boundary is soft. I draw electrical schematics and wiring diagrams, build system block diagrams, integrate firmware on microcontrollers, and pick the sub-components. That means nobody has to own the seams between disciplines, because there is nobody to hand them to.
I learned 3D printing by building and tuning open-source printers from parts, back when that was the only way in. It is the reason I can look at a failed surface and tell you whether it is the model, the slicer, or the machine.
- DISCIPLINE
- Mechanical, with the electrical and firmware attached
- DAY JOB
- Principal Design Engineer, 26 years, one company
- BEASTMODE HOURS
- Evenings, Morgan Hill, California
- HOW WORK ARRIVES
- Referral. Never an advert.
No advertising.
Just referrals.
Two kinds of people find me.
Individuals with an idea
You can describe it perfectly and you have no way to make it. I take it from a conversation to a model to a part in your hand, and I will tell you early if it is not worth building.
Companies, by word of mouth
High-end work that arrived because somebody vouched for me. I have never run an ad. That is deliberate — it keeps the queue short and the work good.
It’s truly remarkable to physically grasp something that once only existed within the confines of your imagination.
DAVE — BEASTMODE DEVELOPMENT
Bring me the hard one.
Every job is quoted case by case — the technology, the approach and the end result decide the number. Tell me what you are trying to build and I will tell you straight whether I am the right shop for it.