Just curious, what do you guys actually do for a living?

Scrolling through comments here, you can tell there’s a huge mix of people, some clearly technical, some more creative, some who sound like they’ve been in the working world for decades, others who feel like students or early in their career.

No particular reason for asking, just genuinely curious what kind of professions make up this community. Feel free to keep it as vague or specific as you’re comfortable with.

Drop your profession below, and if you want, one thing about it people usually don’t expect.

  • BoxOfFeet@lemmy.worldEnglish
    15·
    1 month ago

    Mechanical Engineer. 14 years in automotive interiors. I design tooling for instrument panel toppers, door uppers, arm rests, etc.

    Primarily, the type of tooling I specialize in is known as edge wrapping or edge folding. Basically, you have the plastic “substrate” and the leather or vinyl “skin” that is either vacuum formed or press laminated to it. Extra material is left around the edges, and that is heated, wrapped, and glued around the back of the part with a number of metal fingers. I do the wrapping tooling, as well as the lamination tooling.

    The most complicated tool I ever designed was for a large, flat component behind the back seat of a car, by the rear window. Let me walk you through the sequence for it.

    • Operator loads plastic substrate in tool upper
    • Operator loads flat skin pattern in the lower on skin pins, and a clamp in the rear
    • The infrared heating shuttle moves in and the upper closes to the heating position, where the skin and substrate are blasted with tens of thousands of watts of IR heat to activate the glue
    • The IR shuttle retracts, and the tool fully closes to the lamination position, and the skin pins all retract. In the case of this tool, it had (I think) 0.25mm of compression a-side of the part.
    • Seven slides extend to laminated areas that were either undercut in tool draw, or protruded in a way that prohibited skin loading.
    • Three 200C hot air heaters extend down from the upper to heat the back edge of the part, and around the two speaker openings.
    • Once those retracts, 25 edgefolding pieces wipe the skin around the back, and up through the speaker openings (that’s the coolest part)
    • The edgefolders retract in the reverse sequence of which they extended
    • The slides retracts
    • The tool opens, and the skin pins extend
    • the Operator can now step in the light curtain to remove the part, then return with the new substrate and skin.

    So far, I would say it is the pinnacle of my career. But car parts are getting more complicated all the time. My design focuses lately have been focused on simplicity over that level of complexity. Where can we use a guided cylinder where we used to use linear rails? Can this detail be made in multiple pieces to reduce waste material? What components can be 3D printed? It’s great fun, really. I do love my job.