Stuff Forge

Stuff Forge LLC · Pine River, Minnesota

Two machines in research.

Stuff Forge is leaving IT support and building technology instead. The open work is a network LLDP port scanner and an aluminum–sulfur battery. If you want to talk about either one, write us.

Write [email protected]See the two programs

Shop board

  • 01LLDP port scannerIn research
  • 02Aluminum–sulfur cellIn research

01 — Programs

What is actually on the bench.

Both programs are open. Write if you work on either one.

A dark workbench with a bare circuit board, an ethernet cable, calipers, and an unlabeled metal housing.
Bench reference for the scanner work.

In research

Network LLDP port scanner

Managed switches already announce themselves. LLDP, Link Layer Discovery Protocol, tells the other end of the cable the switch name and the port you are in. Reading that at the jack is the whole job.

A laptop can do it. So can a certification tester that costs as much as a used car. This program is a smaller tool for the person on a ladder who only needs the port ID, not a full network audit.

Stage: research and early prototyping. We are not quoting range, battery life, certifications, or a date.

A steel bench with brushed aluminum, a dish of yellow sulfur powder, graphite, and a small clamp press.
Materials for the cell work.

In research

Aluminum–sulfur batteries

Aluminum and sulfur are common. Lithium supply is not, and a lot of stationary jobs do not need a phone battery’s chemistry. An aluminum–sulfur cell is one of the chemistries being studied for storage where cost and what the cell is made of matter more than packing the most energy into the least weight.

Stuff Forge is in the materials work. Cycle life and energy density stay off the page until there is a measurement worth publishing.

If you work on this chemistry, or you need stationary storage and are willing to talk about the job rather than a spec sheet, that is the note worth sending.

02 — Approach

From a bad hour of work to something that can be built twice.

  1. 01

    Name the failure

    The device has to remove a specific bad hour of work. If we cannot say whose hour, it does not get built.

  2. 02

    Measure the ugly version

    A prototype exists to answer one question. How it looks comes after the measurement, not before the pitch.

  3. 03

    Manufacture what held up

    Production is the repeatable version of a part that already worked. Not a render, and not a preorder page.

The shop comes out of years of hands-on network and systems work — the closet, the bad label, the diagram that does not match the wall. That is why the first device is a port scanner. IT support is not the offer anymore.

03 — Write

Useful notes are specific.

Field techs who live in mislabeled closets. People already working on aluminum–sulfur cells. Shops that build small hardware. Say which program, and what you actually need.

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