David Malawey

Hooray! 🎉 We have a 2026 Tape of the Year!
📼 3M Micropore 530-3!

Amazon: amzn.to/4tn96bz

This is a tape that can do things I’ve tried in the past and failed! For example: 🔧
1) I never found a tape that can reliably stick to fabric but it leaves no sticky residue. 🍯
2) It also creates a surface that accepts marking and doesn’t bleed through. That means it’s perfect for labeling or adding information on surfaces that are too rough or too slick. Yet, you can remove & change your mind later. ✍️
3) this tape can stretch slightly and conform to skin (of course it was designed for that) so I can use it like a bandaid that has less bulk and doesn’t feature bulky wrinkles that interfere with using a cut finger. 🩹 See the image with this tape pulled in a shear direction. Most tapes would tear, or peel up, or make large wrinkles that self-stick.

[Bonding rough surfaces:] 🪵
see the photo with the tape on a gray textured mat. You can lift the tape and reposition it, but you can also raise the bond 3x by pressing down and each tiny pit will make contact with the tape. Most tapes can’t flex enough to conform to tiny details like this. Now we can tape the untape-able.

[Holding textiles] 🪡
Textiles are relevant though I’ve not yet shared much about them! I believe textile materials are as important as the whole category of 3D printing. Lacking repeatable methods keeps them out of our engineering designs at times. This tape adds a ton of solutions for positioning textiles to be fastened, glued, or fused into 3D printed and machined parts, simply because other tapes & fasteners aren’t very compatible.

[Engineering precision] 📐
Most tapes have no datasheet. This tape has DETAILED technical specs including holding force and tensile strength and exact thickness. Even cooler: Moisture transmission rates! We can run exacting trials with humidity, air pressure, and flow characteristics defined in prototypes with this! That’s better precision for design of filters, seals, or dosing mechanisms as we invent stuff 🤓

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11 hours ago | [YT] | 188

David Malawey

**"How can engineers contribute to openlab?"** - this question has been asked a bit more recently. So I wrote up some examples and added a photo for each example. I'm on a journey to make openlab execute each thing in the best way we know how, so there are unlimited topics and unlimited improvements. Each gray box describes a challenge statement consisting of "improve a thing, and share it." Each challenge is something I'm going to execute myself eventually though it maybe years from now before I reach it.

This is just four examples of discrete, clearly defined improvements among thousands that are possible. I mention this because you might see a possible improvement that is not listed. The ideal situation is that each expert in the audience has already generated an improvement on one particular thing, they have already executed it in their own workspace, and they continually benefit from their own invention. Outside of these prompts, here's how you can identify your own:

We can see David is working with (insert type of tool) every day, and I work with those too. I set up a better way to store my (insert tool) and keep them sharp. Is it noted in openLab? No. Is it implemented? (check photos of the tools) no. So I describe my experience, describe the method that improves the experience, and make photos or video to explain it. Share the info in David's discord.

We can see David demonstrated how to set up an air filter, and I also run air filters but I devised a better way to run mine, or select a filter, or store them for some better result. Does he know about it? No, because he shared a video showing the best way he knows how to do this thing. In his video, I made a comment about my idea but he replied "I'll have to look into this" - that means he didn't get to it yet. OK, so I describe my improvement, take photos or video, and share info on Discord.

Anyone who can clearly document an improvement - that's an improvement we want to adopt for OpenLab, and I can learn from you, I can post your content among my content, etc. I can make a video and credit you, I can post the digital documents on OpenLab webpage, or collaborate in any way that makes sense.

**[How to Navigate Openlab website?]** This question was also asked, and I began to form an answer but it isn't perfect. I made an unlisted video and you can view it if you wish to know more! https://youtu.be/J8UYb3aOcWk

Cheers everyone! -David M, 2026 April 20

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14 hours ago | [YT] | 24

David Malawey

Millions of people are buying gloves and getting ripped off. 🧤They tricked me too 😓until now. As I worked a hole in my Milwaukee gloves I realized I let the hardware store choose my gloves. I let the hardware store decide how to protect the 2 most important tools in my life. My hands. Why didn’t I learn?

In 2009 and after, i’ve worked in some of the world’s most advanced facilities 🏭 where gloves are worn and I had noticed the gloves there. The professionals buy gloves that don’t look like the ones I buy at Home Depot or Harbor Freight. Why? It’s because I never actually chose a glove. I let the retailer choose for me. Whatever I saw on the shelf that looked cool. We can do a lot better than that. 🤓🔧

🚘Engine assembly takes place with woven gloves. They have better conformity to the hand and better flexibility so the worker can feel the parts they work with. They feature a rubber front layer for grip and a fabric backside for breathability. They protect from cuts effectively just like mechanics gloves but they’re lighter and actually stronger, with fibers like kevlar and advanced composite materials from decades of research. And the price is actually lower than most of those hardware store options. Since they’re made from one solid woven part, they don’t drop debris in sensitive assemblies as they wear.

I decided last week to research gloves and choose. Simply choosing puts me FAR ahead of not choosing. The black washing gloves are an example. After 6 months the inside surface degraded and they felt sticky. I washed, but it was unrecoverable. Maybe they encountered an incompatible substance. Well, I cannot correct this because there is no datasheet. I can’t read the technical datasheet and choose an alternative because there IS NO brand or datasheet. If I hire a helping hand with a different size, I can’t equip them with gloves. So the key point of the blue gloves shown: they carry all sizes, they list the chemical resistance compatibility, they answer all the needs just like a glove manufacturer should do it.

So I am recommending 3 kinds of gloves for prototyping labs and If I learn of a shortcoming I can update my recommendations! So easy! Please consider spending $3 plus shipping on some professional rubber gloves like these - even less than the price at your grocery store. Assembly gloves for $7 and mechanics gloves for $16.

If you want to learn more, I’ve documented the choices and links, and even the research behind the choices, on OpenLab. It’s qr.net/openlabproject. See the Sidebar, tap “tools” and find subheading “safety”. Includes tabulated part numbers and amazon links.

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3 days ago (edited) | [YT] | 567

David Malawey

Why didn’t anyone tell me you need to clean your water heater?! Maybe that’s normal for Texans, where the water is nasty. I grew up in St. louis with the country’s 💦cleanest water💦 and the strongest crime. Honestly in the 90’s we drank the tap water daily and in 2010’s my friend told me his uncle predicted soon people will sell plastic bottles of water, like it’s coke. 🥤

I was skeptical, but curious. 🧐 That sounded like the dumbest idea - buying water that’s otherwise free at the tap, and buying a bottle when you can keep one forever. A totally foreign concept to me. After moving to texas I realized taps are not to be trusted for drinking.

[The Photos]
First, the refurb of the old steel tank. I learned Ospho works nicely, and spreads far, as shown.

Then, I had to flush the old tank and expel lots of big chunks of mineral junk. There was tons of it.

Then it reminded me to flush my home’s water heater. So I photographed the water as I flushed. Maybe Gemini can estimate something about the water condition from the photos. All my faucets develop scale continually and perhaps I can add a system to improve that.

If you fail to clean your water tank for 3.5 years: the tank will make spooky clunking noises while the chips of sediment swim around. But no chips were detected in the flush out. Next, I’ll need to replace my sacrificial anode.

Soon the maintenance will be caught up and I can get back to building the lab! I’d love to know if this info was useful to readers. I’m sharing because I’d love if someone shared this info with me 🙂-David

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3 weeks ago | [YT] | 200

David Malawey

These two white chemicals are now part of OpenLab! I bought Titanium dioxide for epoxy coloring or tinting paints with white color. Then I had to buy the Hydrated Lime as I’ve learned it mixes with water, can be brushed onto your roof or bricks, and reflect light to reduce the summer cooling load on the HVAC system.

I think it’s interesting the difference is almost imperceptible, and with the first photo you can take a guess at which is which. I’d say when spread out on wood, the TiO2 is just a tiny bit more concentrated “whiteness.” Recently I tested the Lime coating on a brick and a steel tank with those results shown also.

This year we have transitioned from La niña weather patterns to El Niño. Texas had a fairly mild summer last year and but this year we will probably see some extreme heat. So now is a good time to consider a white coating on your roof or home. At least for me I am considering it. It’s too cheap not to try! Only $24 for the huge bag of lime.

From some quick research, the simple coating of lime on the home will wash away if it rains the next day, but if given a week, it will fully cure from a reaction involving airborn CO2. Just wanted to share my initial results because the temperature drop on my samples are really impressive!

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3 weeks ago | [YT] | 156

David Malawey

I never liked the red boxes, so this one will be silver and black. Since I had to disassemble it, I also improved the structure & sealing of gaps. This particular box houses many sensors and sensitive electronics so it gets special treatment.

I filled dozens of gaps, eliminating airflow from the interior to exterior. I’m now anticipating the dessicant in this box to last 2x longer, and the humidity can be controlled more tightly. In 2018 I lost a $120 Bosch distance sensor that was stored indoors, never abused, and simply corroded its circuits away. Now, all the special digital equipment lives in here and by controlling the environment carefully in the box we have an insurance against losing investments like the Bosch sensor. (by the way shame on them for selling such a non robust device at such a high price).

I handled several small details that hopefully adds a bit of strength and reduces squeaks and rattles. All the sealing and cork treatment was only 10% of the effort compared with the painting. And I’ve used the box for 6-8 years so it has earned the upgrade. If the upgrades prove to make an impact, it will all get documented & shared in details in OpenLabProject. There are 50 tools & supplies in the lab which i’ve customized like this (but less intensive) and they are all in a queue to be tested by time and shared per utility. The tools glide better, things stay cleaner, workflows are smoother, and the projects are more enjoyable.

If you have questions or you made your own tool storage upgrades like this, share in the comments!

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4 weeks ago | [YT] | 246

David Malawey

📦Anyone Organizing? 📦 For daily life it’s hard to justify this fine attention to bins. But for running a business, I need decisions to last for 10 years (hopefully longer) and SCALE.

So, I put painstaking detail into these choices of containers for my business, then duplicated the choices for my home. The most important feature of these containers: they’ve been in production for ⏳10+ years ⏳without changes. Same model number, same shape. No distruptions when I need to expand.

Plano. AkroMils. Sterilite. The manufacturers can be counted on 👷‍♂️to maintain their models and styles for years to come. So that means you’ll save hundreds of dollars 💰or hours in the long run. Consider adopting some of these choices instead of the random types of new containers that appear at your local retailer. 🛒

You should know that when you shop kitchen & closet storage (and TOOLS, goodness) at walmart and other major stores, they intentionally make changes so consumers will need to start over and buy more. My sharing here is a way of fighting back against the dishonest antics. Just like a business, we want economical and consistent high quality options at home, am I right?

Lots more details shared at qr.net/openlabproject

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1 month ago (edited) | [YT] | 185

David Malawey

OpenLab continues to grow with documentation now covering the wash station. In modern times it’s very affordable to equip a space with good plumbing and this utility sink is absolutely crucial to this lab’s function! Even if you are building a lab in your garage, it pays off to dedicate some space and about $200 to set up a utility sink.

If you’re new here, I am on a journey to assemble the world’s first fully documented lab for multidisciplinary engineering. This is a lab where we can build anything we imagine, and there’s no cutting of corners like pretending that water isn’t important.

For the filter installation, I actually had a lot of fun learning about water purification and I’m thrilled we have affordable systems under $60 that can make extremely clean water. I also studied the health factors with water filtration. After I fill a 5-gallon bottle of RO water, I add 5mL of my own solution made of natural sea salt with a diverse but natural profile of minerals. The drinking water reports around 50PPM on a meter, after this treatment.

As a lab coordinator at Texas A&M, I really want to equip our labs with a station like this as we presently have no sinks in most labs and no hot or filtered water in the building. So this documentation in Openlab will be ready to go when we one day get approval to upgrade our labs.

see qr.net/openlabproject for details.

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1 month ago (edited) | [YT] | 341

David Malawey

Today I posted washCup.sldprt which is a printable utensil holder - the idea is to store the forks in the same container where I wash the forks. This way there's no loading utensils one by one. The whole container (or set of containers) come out of the dishwasher and go into use.

Generating the CAD model with an elegant feature tree was actually a challenge. When our parts have many holes or repeating features we want a repeated series and simple code behind the geometry, just like a software developer should make clean simple scripts with nested loops. Last year I bounced the idea off another engineer and we couldn't quite reach this result - I'm joyful to say this perforating pattern is worth copying if you're doing CAD models. The last photo shows the "cutting tool" which is the places where cutting takes place, no matter what size the model is. This method lets your perforations go through the walls regardless of the cup size and shape, and guarantees the holes all remain upright.

The teardrop shape is a popular 3D printing technique for holes - it gives a hole without any overhang and is great for FDM printing without supports. So, the perforations are made with teardrops that are extruded out radially. Feel free to download and use this design on your own. I've titled it "washCup" on my grabCAD profile. One photo also shows a holder for the holders. Literally just bond two 2x4s together and lay a strip to prevent slipping. Then, we can set down the green bins and they cannot tip over.

Your other 3D printing and Kitchen innovations are welcome in the comments! Have you tested out any printables that you loved and kept using?

[LINK] grabcad.com/library/washcup-1

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1 month ago (edited) | [YT] | 175

David Malawey

🧰 This is tool box 6. 🧰 Five boxes are posted on OpenLab “tour” section and today I’ll publish this one.

With these photos published online, viewers can see a video and ask “what type of tool did he use to deburr that cut?” or “what was that handy thread measuring thing?” and find the answers all in these photos. I want all my processes to be repeatable, so the open source hardware has no gaps.

In the near future, we could ask Gemini “do I have all the tools I need to replace my barbecue smoker heating element?” and the AI can verify if I need to order something. I bet there are loads of opportunities we haven’t thought of. By the way, you’re a young person weighing a purchase: if the tool is not in openLab you probably don’t need it. That is, to reproduce all the types of projects I perform.

Lastly, feedback: if you know tips I’ve not implemented, or you see improvement opportunities, I’d love to learn from you. This lab is for continuous improvement (kaizen) and gathering best practices from the audience, which I am so grateful for! 😊 Thanks everyone 🫡

EDIT: It’s LIVE now on qr.net/openlabproject 🧑‍💻

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1 month ago (edited) | [YT] | 115