My Biggest YouTube Failure

My Biggest YouTube Failure

Hi everyone, Kevin from mechanicaladvantage.com

If you have followed any of my videos on YouTube, you can probably predict how the video is going to start. The hope of that line in the videos is for those that might be curious, they will head out to my website and poke around a bit. However, I don’t think this strategy is working. You can expect to see a bit more self-promotion in my videos, but I won’t go over the top.

Online Store Coming Soon

Online Store Coming Soon

Do you have a Patreon?

I often receive emails asking me if I have a Patreon or a way to “buy me a cup of coffee” after watching one of my YouTube videos that has helped a user out. I don’t have Patreon or Venmo or any other services set up for that. A lot of times just hearing from someone that has let me know one of my videos has helped them is thanks enough. It’s nice knowing the videos you make aren’t just going into the interwebs where they aren’t useful.

Before I would consider starting a Patreon, I would want to make sure that I can produce regular helpful content on a consistent basis. Maybe I will set up a Patreon in the future, but for now, I think I have an alternate idea.

New Class Offering

New Class Offering

Hi everyone. You will see a couple of updated items in the Training section of the website. A new schedule of training classes has been published. There are both work day options and evening options for the Mill Fundamentals and Lathe. Over the course of the winter I was focused on some different projects both externally and internally. I hope to be able to share more news on the internal project soon. I think a lot of people are going to be excited about it. Stay tuned for more news on that when it is ready.

Electrical Issues

Electrical Issues

If you follow me on YouTube, you may have noticed there hasn’t been a whole lot of machining content. There is a good reason for that. Before I give you the story, I want to be clear that the issue has nothing to do with a failure of the machine or the American Rotary phase converter. Both of those things have performed with zero issues. The issue also wasn’t caused by improper installation. The job was done by a professional electrician and inspected by the Minnesota electrical inspector. My electrical panel is rated for 200 amps and everything in the panel is setup properly for all of my electrical needs.

Project Printer Stand - Part 1

Project Printer Stand - Part 1

For the longest time I’ve had a Canon color inkjet printer. I don’t do a lot of printing and haven’t had much of a need to replace it. Sure, often I was frustrated with the cost of replacement ink cartridges or the cartridges drying up from lack of use. It did the job for the amount of printing I had to do. As I work with more and more customers, I’m often asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement as part of the process. While my printer had scanning capability, it was a pretty old and I didn’t have the needed drivers for the scanner to work properly. So, when a customer would require me to sign an NDA, I would have to print the form, fill it out, and then head to a courier service like UPS or FedEx to have the document scanned so I could send a signed copy of the document back to the customer. My printer just wasn’t going to cut it anymore.