Thanks, I'll definitely use these - I'll go through them and put them to work.
You're right that the messenger is the crowded space. The project I'm actually most excited about is exactly the "use the carpentry" one you pointed at: software for CNC and laser machines. I've got a laser at home that's made me a lot of inlays and gifts over the years, and the existing tools (LightBurn etc.) are good but kept missing the technical, specialist features I wanted - so I started building my own. It's called Nexus Studio. That's where my maker side really drives the design, not the messenger. The messenger was where I learned; this is where I solve a problem I live with every day.
And honestly - I think you know more than I do here, and that's a good thing. I've been learning by making a lot of mistakes, and the small hooks and details I pick up from conversations like this are exactly how I get better. A person learns their whole life. People who know things are worth listening to. Thanks for being one of them.
(English isn't my first language - AI helps me translate.)
Sounds like a plan - when Nexus Studio is ready I want to put it on Kickstarter too, and yeah, I'll absolutely want people on forums like this to kick the tyres and tell me honestly whether it's worth anything. That kind of feedback is the whole point.
On your friend's machine: I can't cut metal on mine - they're optical lasers, so metal's out for me - but the real question is what controller his laser runs. Nexus Studio is built on GRBL, so if his machine is GRBL-based (or I can find out what firmware/controller it uses), I'll do my best to wire it up so he can actually test whether it works on his setup. That would genuinely interest me too - testing it on hardware that isn't mine is exactly what I need.
So don't worry, I'll reach out. Thanks for the message.
And if it's not too much of a privacy thing to ask - whereabouts did I reach? US, Australia, somewhere else? Just curious how far my message travelled. I'm in Germany myself (though originally from elsewhere - bit of a hybrid, you can laugh 😄).
(English isn't my first language - AI helps me translate.)