Need some pieces of advice form expert(Reverse engineering) 2

[Elnabil]

Good day everyone, I hope you are all doing well.

Could you please advise on how to acquire best skills in choosing mechanical parts, as a mechanical engineer I find some difficulties to find the suitable mechanical parts that can fulfil some of my needs, for example the revolute or prismatic links, I Believe it's a matter of experience through the studying of many real mechanism and trying to identify what does each part of the mechanism. I wonder if there are some resources on the internet-Mechanical reverse engineering-(courses, books, channels) which provide these kind of information? I'll be grateful if someone could help me and help la large community of engineers who aim to enhance their designing skills.
Regards.

 

[Jboggs]

I have been a mechanical engineer designing special machines for almost 50 years, and I have never heard of "revolute or prismatic links". Had to look it up. To me it seems like they are just fancy words for a rotary joint or a linear slide.

To address your question - the best teacher is experience, and when you don't have your own experience you must lean on the experience of others. I find many young engineers enter the working world with the mistaken assumption that they are expected to know everything. Actually they are expected to know very little. After all, their REAL education has only just begun. My advice for you is to develop good relationships with as many experienced engineers as you can. Learn to lean on them for advice and guidance. Do not depend on them to do your work, but use them as guideposts. They have a "map of the minefield" and they know where all the mines are buried. Their white hair came at a price. Ask for their opinions and guidance. They will take it as a compliment.

I have seen no book that can teach you what hard experience will. None of us want to make mistakes but we must approach life in full knowledge that mistakes will happen. We must view them as learning experiences. Learn how to test your theories with some easy prototypes. Learn to identify and address the root causes of failures. Learn to distinguish the difference between the "symptom" of a problem and the root cause of that problem. Resolving a "symptom" does not eliminate the problem. It just moves or delays the appearance of another symptom.

Congratulations on your question. It exemplifies my point. You could have come on here with a specific question about a specific issue, but you realize that's not really the problem. The problem is that you don't yet have enough engineering judgment to feel confident in your design choices. The symptom is lack of confidence. The root cause is lack of experience.

My advice is to latch on to some old gray-hairs wherever you can and develop mentor relationships.

 

[Elnabil]

Dear Jboggs,
you've just pointed to the root cause, I thank you for your clear explication and guidance to move forward.
I've used the terms revolute/prismatic links as a theoretical terms, there are many books that use the same terms( I had my study in french, so sorry for some inconvenient words).
I totally agree with what you've said as we( the younger engineer)wrongly believe that we should know everything and provide the solutions to each problems we encounter.
I'll surly remember your advice and do my best to get in touch with those experimented ones.
However,I am a little far from that domain in my actual work and I wished to find some resources to refresh my memory( it is not and urgent issue) but to get some benefits of my free time.

 

[3DDave]

Also: Junk yards with broken things - see how things are made and which parts are good and which are not. You will learn more from the broken ones as they had a function and somehow failed. The practice at figuring out why they failed is a good learning experience. Repairing them is even better. You can also see many videos of repairing items on the internet, more things than you will find on your own. Often it's not mechanism but lubrication or corrosion that is the cause.

 

[Elnabil]

@3DDave
Thank you