I am Michael James, Makersmiths Forge, and Michael-Tech Enthusiast on various platforms. I am a Computer Systems Architect, and I design systems, data centers, and test hardware/software platforms as my day job.

As Makersmiths Forge, I build Virtual Pinball Machines, Retro Gaming Consoles, and various electronics projects. I design things for 3D printing and Laser Cutting and I optimize things I find on the internet that are poorly designed, don’t work at all, or can be modified and improved upon.

Reviews, Beta Tests, and Evaluations

I started when Elegoo gave me an Elegoo Mars Resin Printer to test in July of 2020. I produced an unboxing and a certification video for published under my makerspace’s channel. After that, I was given KVMs to evaluate from GreatHTek, Splitters from Asahom for their permanent outdoor lights, and chargers from Lcisso.

After those evaluations, I was selected for the Amazon vine reviewer program which allows me to select up to 8 products a day to order and evaluate. I maintained a 94% evaluation rate over the 254 products in the initial 6 months which qualified me for their gold tier for this current 6 month period.

I also do unpaid evaluations just to I can let people know how the products that I’ve purchased for myself perform, tips and tricks for using them, close ups of important components, and in depth comparisons of products. These include the Kobra 3 Combo, Creality Falcon2 60W diode laser, Cleveland Software Design’s virtual pinball components, a Temu fume extractor, Kobra 3 Ceramic hot end replacements, Prusa XL 5 head, Hohemi Steady M7 AI tracking Gimbal, and more.

I’m an engineer at heart, so I like digging deep into the specs of products and comparing them. I recently posted comparisons of Desktop CNC (Makera and Nestworks), UV Printers (Longer, xTool, OMTech, Roland), and DTF Printers (xTool, Obziy, OMTech). I helped the community drill down on a new type of printer from inew3d. I found information on the company, it’s parent company, and it’s parent’s parent company.

I did several videos from the 2026 CES convention where I talked to vendors, was invited to 1 on 1 discussions of new products, and sought out fun technology.