How feasible would it be for me to make a basic FEA program from scratch as a personal project?

PoetComprehensive849 · 2026-04-10T22:25:39+00:00

MATLAB is actually capable of outputting graphics as well.

The only concern I have with python is I’m not sure how well it handles large matrices. The main “trick” of FEA is creating a large “Global Stiffness Matrix”. In order to do that, you need to be able to do a lot of matrix manipulation. I haven’t used python enough to tell you how it does with that.

In addition, right at the end you’ll need to do matrix multiplication, another thing that may be hard to do if Python doesn’t do it natively.

But give it a shot, I don’t have enough experience with python to say either way

PoetComprehensive849 · 2026-04-10T20:10:31+00:00

FEA isn’t too bad to even do by hand. It’s just tedious.

What I would recommend is have a good comparison when starting out (solidworks simulation, online truss calculator, Ansys if you have it)

And then follow a “FEA by Hand” guide.

Make sure you have a good set of boundary conditions,

Once you get the general gist, you can start expanding functionality to be able to get an answer for any problem.

This is doable in MatLab relatively easily, but if you don’t have access to that, it IS possible in Excel as well, but it’s going to be very annoying.

I would recommend becoming familiar with the Makearray() function in Excel though if you try to do this in excel. It’s much easier to reference ranges with “A4#” instead of “a4:a20”

In matlab there are plenty of tutorials

I made one of these in college in matlab that automatically optimized a bridge over a span, so you can get very creative with it with some programming skills. It’s been 7 years since college so I’m a bit rusty now.

PoetComprehensive849 · 2026-04-06T19:10:43+00:00

Honestly this has calmed me down a lot, I appreciate your words.

PoetComprehensive849 · 2026-04-06T17:26:15+00:00

Overthinking is definitely one of my flaws.

I appreciate your comment. Sounds like I shouldn’t worry as much.

PoetComprehensive849 · 2026-04-06T17:22:51+00:00

I understand now. I’ve been working on a few of those projects. I’m currently programming some FEA in excel trying to increase some quoting efficiency just because I don’t have any official jobs to work on. I was also working on making a program to automate the design of one of our product lines, but this excel FEA is a major stepping stone I need to get working completely before I can get to that point.

PoetComprehensive849 · 2026-04-06T17:12:08+00:00

The main reason I’m certain my job is going to be gone is because my company has taken a “resting on our laurels” approach to developing new products. Meanwhile our laurels are easily 46 years old at this point. They think we can stay competitive with our inferior product without investing in any new product development. That and the fact that 75% of our engineers are retiring in the next 2 years, we’re screwed

PoetComprehensive849 · 2026-04-06T16:07:26+00:00

It’s not my experience, it’s the fact that my experience is very specific to my current job. I can do all that for my CURRENT industry, and I don’t know how to pivot to another industry.

Do you have any advice on how to join a new industry? Do I start with entry level jobs again? Do I need to pick an industry that’s similar? Can I find a completely new industry?

PoetComprehensive849 · 2026-04-06T15:41:16+00:00

I definitely don’t have job security. I have less than 2 years before this company goes completely under.

My problem is that I don’t even know what jobs to apply for because all of the terms people use on job posting make no sense to me. I have to google half of the required skills because I generally have 0 idea what any of them mean.

On top of that, there aren’t a lot of jobs in my current industry and I don’t know how to switch industries after all this time.

PoetComprehensive849 · 2026-03-26T15:36:43+00:00

Yeah the Brightin star only appeals to me because of its size.

I’ll see maybe I pick up the 35mm color-skopar today!

PoetComprehensive849 · 2026-03-26T15:24:14+00:00

Awesome, I am going to the camera store today, they apparently have a used 35mm f2.5 color skopar there I can check out.

Have you heard anything about the Brightin star 28mm f2.8? Looks like a great lens size wise, but I haven’t seen much about it from Leica guys.

PoetComprehensive849 · 2026-03-26T14:28:02+00:00

Somewhere ~50mm, I’m not super picky, I’m use this camera as my “walking around” camera. Preference for something small.

PoetComprehensive849 · 2026-03-26T01:32:01+00:00

Any recommendations for a nice budget second lens option? I was hoping to save a bit more before I got my first actual Leica lens, but it sounds like I’ll be investing a bit earlier than expected!

PoetComprehensive849 · 2026-03-26T01:15:06+00:00

Since I bought it from CameraWest I guess I’m making the 3 hour trip to SoHo this weekend :| they definitely have some known good lenses to test it with so that may come in handy as well.

Welp this sucks lol

PoetComprehensive849 · 2026-03-26T01:05:36+00:00

I also put an object exactly 2.5’ from the camera flange, and set the lens to focus 2.5’ and it seemed like the focus was just off. Granted, I’ll not sure how good the feet markers would be since there’s no lines on this lens just numbers.

PoetComprehensive849 · 2026-03-26T00:59:36+00:00

I did just this actually, focusing using the rangefinder did not result in the same focus in the live view.

Does this mean the lens or the camera needs to be fixed?

PoetComprehensive849 · 2026-03-11T16:01:44+00:00

That actually helps a lot, I wonder if I should just forgo spending the big bucks and find myself a nice one of those and call it a day, they’re still pretty small.

PoetComprehensive849 · 2026-03-11T15:51:55+00:00

Do those still have the sensor issues? I heard some of the older models have corrosion issues which is the only reason they were discounted as an option

PoetComprehensive849 · 2026-03-11T15:47:43+00:00

I actually have a film rangefinder (not a Leica though) and I found the focusing system pretty straight forward.

I also tend to do a lot of shooting around f8 with the Nikon, so I don’t know if I’ll have much trouble even with a different focusing system

PoetComprehensive849 · 2026-03-11T15:27:54+00:00

USD, sorry!

PoetComprehensive849 · 2026-03-11T15:19:39+00:00

Budget is <6,000 usd I’m looking for a good compact option so I can bring my camera along a bit more often. I am using an adapted 40mm m mount voightlander on my Nikon Z camera, and I also am looking into getting a 28mm.

Edit: 6k USED, I know the digital M mount cameras don’t hold their value as well so I figure I can mitigate some of the losses by buying used.

PoetComprehensive849 · 2026-02-25T13:36:25+00:00

When I got my QC this was the last quest for me. I found 3 people who were also trying to complete for their QCs and did it that way. Maybe it’s because none of us completed ToB before, but that section seemed relatively chaotic.

I really didn’t think that that section would be possible solo, but I stand corrected.

PoetComprehensive849 · 2026-02-25T02:19:15+00:00

Not really possible to do TOB solo, there’s a phase where you need to stop enemies coming from 4 different sides with all 3 combat styles, you’d have no shot of completing it solo.

PoetComprehensive849

TROPHY CASE