I saw Span a few times. It is a nice idea, but I'm personally not a fan. Doing switching at the panel level seems very clunky. In reality, switching should be done at the device level. Ie per fan , light etc. If they had a self contained server similar to IOTAWATT that just instruments the power draw of each circuit then I would be a fan.
Another vote for IotAWatt . I installed one a few months ago. No cloud app. visit an IP to view the local webserver. Has a neat graphing functions, and can pipe data to InfluxDB. + Home Assistant intergration. Love it. I wish they had a 30 circuit variant, so I can monitor every single circuit in my panel.
I'm assuming your in your 20's. Find a well paying job in an area you want to live in, and moonlight your business. When your business pays more than your day job, decisions and risk calculations are easier to make.
It also forces you to delegate from the get-go since your only have 4 hours "side project" time to work after work. If you're building something big, you will have to work with a team.
If I was more time constrained, I would have probably made more tactical decisions.
If your esports thing works, great! If not, you hedged your risk and you didn't suffer from opportunity cost.
Throw everything I said out the window if you achieved product market fit and are growing at a viral rate.
Also employed self-taught developer here. Learned to code through launching a software-oriented business. It took about 1.5 years for me to figure out the basics of (Frontend,Backend,AI).
Hands down have a project in mind, and start building it. It really helps to have a friend that codes the same stack, so they can provide guidance as needed.
If that is hard to come by, then pay a contractor on Up work to give you advice. I never solicited for outside help, and I deeply regret the time I wasted on figuring out things the hard way. Best of luck!
You have two options. Call up a local machine shop (check Google), ask if they do one-off parts. (They probably won't); then ask them if they have any solid recommendation for a local small-time machinist that enjoys one-off work. They probably have a couple on speed dial for jobs that aren't worth their time.
You can also checkout cnczone.com , practical machinist and a number of hobby/home machinist Facebook groups.
I've dealt pretty heavily in this area (Bought and operated several CNCs over the years) Your price point is going to limit your machines to almost exclusively Chinese imports
Lasers: Boss laser imports machines from China and provides great American-based support. If you can figure things your self, check out Cloudray laser. They ship straight from China; keep in mind the customs/shipping risks. I've purchased from both before. If you're not running production jobs, 75W C02 should be fine. I prefer 150W RECI C02 laser tubes. The go-to Chinese controller is made by Ruida. At the end of the day; most of these Chinese laser brands all have the same part suppliers, just different levels of QC and quality assembly. I'd avoid Glowforge and similar brands. They are a great for first time users at home; but I'd be more worried about work volume, laser power, and future spare part availability. I know quite a few people that outgrew their Glowforge-like machines and went with bigger more industrial imported lasers.
Purchase Lightburn for sending jobs from the PC to the laser.
Routers: I have a few friends that have a larger Shapeko-like machine that works well for Etsy-like products. Think embossed cutting boards, wall art etc. Granted there part is size like 12"x 24". The machine isn't stiff (compared to industrial units); but it gets the job done. Whatever machine you purchase you'd want to stick to linear guide rail motion system for all the axis; avoid the roller-wheel style motion systems if possible. If I personally was going to buy a new router in that price range; I'd buy either an Avid Pro machine or import a chinese machine straight from Alibaba. Start with checking out OMNICNC in China. Depending on your location; check out classifed ads, or talk to some local signmakers. They might be selling their older US-made Multicam machines for cheap.
I can give much more specific recommendations based on your production rate and part size/features/materials.
EDIT: Mirroring what other people are saying. If you just need some parts just to get brewery going, then I'd sub this out to someone else. If you have time, money, desire, love to spend many hours and thousands of dollars to learn the art of manufacturing, then go for it. But I'd recommend to solve the goal at hand first. Your brewery.
OP here: I was looking for a way to search people's interesting personal projects on the internet. I realized the a huge common denominator was many people hosted it with Blogspot. I found this random site that provides search on Blogspot. Seems like a gem of a search tool to view the internet from the pre-SEO stuffing internet era.