20260312 Plenum

Topics for the Plenum

What are you currently working on?

• Aaron: Gardening at our front yard
• Milian: Lab Orga Stuff
• Phier: New laser cutter authentication system
• Chris K.: Fixing an Instax Camera with the help of another broken Instax Camera
• Nico: Fixing his old 3D printer and setting up his new one
• David: Also working on the laser cutter authentication system; helping out with the City Council election
• Marco: Just did the Workshop Safety Course
• Korbinian: "Katastrophentourismus"
• Robert N.: Continuing on his 3D printed fabric scale project
• Soroush: 3D printing things
• Dominik: Making his doorbell smart
• Robert O.: Designing his own E-Pub reader
• Martin: Building a battery-powered power meter reader
• Chris B.: Working on several projects, currently reto fitting boxes from the 80s
• Adrian: Making my own Ebooks with AI and Tricorn Head
• Christian: Search engine with AI
• Lera: First steps with machine sewing
• Dominik2: Helping Lera
• Jonathan: Macro-Filming an RC car
• Rainer: Planning new wood working projects

Say thank you

• Dominik for refreshing the matrix Led clock
• David B for taking stuff to the recycling center!
• Aaron for the nice spontanously hot sauce tasting on the last project and cleanup event day.
• Aaron for ordering the nice bike maintenance kit and the custom printed out manual.
• Aaron for his gardening efforts and David B for helping transport the soil with his car
• Aaron, Chris B and Phier for installing more power measurement points and do some more power calculations
• Whoever cleaned the white sink (Ausgussbecken). Never saw it so clean! => Aaron at the last cleanup
  
• Milian for fixing the outdoor lights
• Milian and David for booking the missing membership fees
• Phier, Chris B., Korbinian and everyone else for organising (and pulling through with) the CNC router sale

Projects & Groups update

This is a quick update from group meetings at our space, other long-term space projects (e.g., Lasercutter, CNC, etc.) or of the lab internal projects.

Bye bye big CNC

The big CNC was sold on 08.03. for 450,- €. It will be collected tomorrow (FR 13.3.). Who has time to help the buyer disassembling it? --Phier

• Aaron and Chris B. will help with the disassembly.

Broken Workshop Vaccum

Do we know what's broken? If it's the motor we have a spare one for it. --Phier

• It's propably the brushes. We'll swap the whole motor and have a look at the brushes afterwards.

Workshop Improvement Project

In the next few days, Marco will post the collected and summarized ideas and organize a meeting to discuss the next steps (probably Saturday, March 21st).

Vorstand updates

Costs for electricity

In June, we got our own power meter and now have to pay for electricity based on our actual usage. Previously, electricity was included in our rent.

We’ve just received our first bill, and it’s much higher than expected: 230 days, 9100 kWh - totaling about €3,500. It’s still unclear whether we’ll need to pay the full amount, since in 2025 we were still under the old contract and might receive a reimbursement from our landlord.

Regardless of that outcome, it’s clear that we need to reduce our power consumption, especially our baseline usage. The current level isn’t sustainable long-term, and costs will likely increase further once heating is also billed separately.

There have already been a few initiatives to optimize power usage, but now we need to accelerate our efforts. A discussion is ongoing in the Slack channel #infrastructure, and everyone is invited to share ideas or offer support. A detailed plan is also pinned there on a canvas board.

Current rough plan:

• March/April: Measure standby consumption of larger devices; add more smart plugs for automated control; turn off as much equipment as possible when no one is in the lab.
• May/June: Replace or optimize energy-hungry devices such as servers and the laser PC.
• Long term: Continue improving smaller optimizations and seek additional funding to cover ongoing costs.

Personal note: We should absolutely work on reducing consumption but keep in mind that we shouldn’t remove everything that makes the space enjoyable or essential for a workshop. Our main goal should remain ensuring the club’s financial stability for the future. --- Milian

Support for more funding

It’s becoming increasingly likely that we’ll need to either raise our membership fees, something we’d prefer to avoid or find additional sources of funding. We’re looking for volunteers to help explore available options.

Everyone is invited to share ideas or help us attract more donations. In recent years, most of our donations have come from companies where members have recommended us for internal support or sponsorship programs.

Slack #funding

Wiki: Finanzierung

Update collection of outstanding membership fees 2023 and 2024

Everyone has been contacted and the first bookings from the affected members will start next week. All people who settled with manual payment already got a confirmation e-mail.

Overall, the feedback was quite positive and many current and former members expressed their understanding. As always, a few more questions came up and some details had to be updated. In general, we’re on the right track, even though there’s still quite a bit of work left before this topic is fully wrapped up.

New bank account

The club switches over to another type of Bank-Account at "Sparkasse München"

This will make it much easier in the future to hand over the bank account access from the old Vorstand to the new Vorstand. In the past, there was always a quite long transition phase.

Other topics

Info: A low budget student film project is filmed on the area of the Kreativlabor at night on the following dates:

• 16.03. - 21.03.
• 30.03.
• 08.04.

Get Involved

If you want to be mentioned at the previous section as well, one of the easiest ways is to take one of our MiniJobs or to get involved in one of our Lab Projects.

This is a great way to participate in the Munich Maker Lab and contributing time helps to keep our space in a good shape.

Current key topics looking for additional support:

• Creating welding introduction course
• Instructors for soldering workshop on the Kreativlabor Open Festival
• People who want to support the club and searching for suitable funding

Stuff from the past

What was discussed at the last Plenum? What's the current status of those things? 20260228 Plenum

Things to Buy

• Budget for new soldering kits for workshops: I want to buy different test kits to offer some small soldering workshop with it. In general I want to find nice new kits so sell them in our MumaExpress for people who spontaneously want to test out some soldering or practice a bit more. Additionally we need good new kits for the Kreativlabor Open soldering workshop. For bigger amount of kits I will request separated budget after deciding which one are nice. So far the soldering workshops have been refinanced via donations. 40€ -- Milian
  • Approved
• Additional towel dispenser for men's toilet. So the cleaning staff can store more of the paper towels in the dispensers and it doesn't always run out on the weekends: Link 35€ -- Milian
  • Approved
• Windows 11 license: We want to run another Lightburn instance on a PC which is then accessible from the Internet so members can design/configure their laser cutter files from home. Lightburn discontinued Linux support in 2025 so we need Windows. 15,- € from Softwareeule --Phier
  • Approved
• ESPs (NodeMCU) for making things in the Lab smart or RGB-able. 5 ESPs for 20,- € at AliExpress --Phier
  • 40€ approved for 10 ESPs, but maybe better price/performance ESPs
• Soft chuck jaws for our vice (the self made wooden ones keep braking). Set of 4 pairs: 26,50 € --Phier
  • Approved
• Budget for More (6x) Zigbee Sockets to better measure and control our power consumption. 85€ -- Milian
  • Approved
• 2026 Gardening: 250€ for 600L potting soil for two new planters, paint, a plant scaffolding, two raspberry plants, and Bändchengewebe. The Planters themselves we got used for free from Bernhard and Tina. --Aaron
  • Approved
• 8 Euroboxen with Lid for Member Storage in the storage pit: 100€ --Aaron

- will get refunded when member pay for it.

• • Approved

Request for online participation

If necessary, you can request to participate remotely (via jitsi). Please briefly describe why you want to participate remotely and what topic you want to discuss. (additionally to adding the topic on top!)