Transcript
johngrimsmo: Good morning and welcome back to the Business of Machining episode 461. My name is John Grimsmo.
John Saunders: My name is John Saunders.
johngrimsmo: This is your weekly dose of manufacturing where we kind of talk about what's going on in our machine shops and our businesses and projects that we got working on and just how we're, you know, making our way through life and trying to enjoy every second of it.
John Saunders: How are you?
johngrimsmo: I'm good. i don't have too much to report. I feel like the past week, um feel like I didn't do much, even though i did, but I kind of honed in on just a few very specific projects and was able to make progress on that.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: And I took some time off with the kids and yeah, and here we are a week later.
John Saunders: I totally agree. Sometimes you're like, oh my God, was i which i just wildly unproductive over the course of seven days? But no, the reality is you break it down.
johngrimsmo: right.
John Saunders: You're like, no, it did a ton.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, exactly.
John Saunders: um What projects were you working
johngrimsmo: um Interferometer a little bit, and then getting the new air system installed on the Bloom laser for the Speedio.
John Saunders: Okay. Okay.
John Saunders: Right.
johngrimsmo: Turns out to be a bigger job than I thought it would be, and we'll talk about that. And then hard milling updates. That's my list.
John Saunders: Love it. I owe everybody an update on our tuned machines. Some good conclusions of automation issues. I have a question for you on collimation cameras or collimated cameras.
johngrimsmo: Yes.
John Saunders: Some really exciting stuff on DIY metrology or quasi DIY, which is why i jokingly said to you when you started the Google call or whatever the call for this that I was literally just printing out 10 microns equals 0.000393737 then three seven three seven and then
johngrimsmo: millions or no.
John Saunders: one micron is four tenths of a tenth and you actually just said no John the way to remember it is five microns is two tenths which I yeah yeah yeah
johngrimsmo: Yeah, that's what's burned in my brain is like five microns is two tenths. Whenever I'm, you know, in Canada, I have to use both, although I'm i'm mostly an inch shop. But the more you get into ultra precision, we stopped using inch.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: We use metric, we use nanometers and and microns and things like that.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So like I have to constantly like jump back and forth. I still don't really have the nanometer to inch. I can't do that in my brain as easily.
John Saunders: OK. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: But micron to inch, I'm getting better.
John Saunders: Oh, go ahead.
johngrimsmo: Right.
John Saunders: It was a funny moment because we had a metrology demonstration yesterday from a company and they were like, what are you an intrametric shop? And we're like, Alexander, we're an inch shop. and um And then he puts a sample part of ours on and actually humble brag, it was a half inch turned pin and he puts it on his $30,000 machine and it shows up on the screen 0.5001.
John Saunders: zero point five zero zero one was one tenth over, which is actually right in our tolerance band. I was like, that's awesome. We grabbed a random part. i mean, it should be the case, but like it's still fun.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, exactly.
John Saunders: and But then it was laughing because he's looking at a different feature.
johngrimsmo: okay
John Saunders: He's like, well, what's that feature? And it was like 7.77 something. Alex was like, oh, that's 18 millimeters. okay
johngrimsmo: On the same part.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Oh, Love that.
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah. Well, shoot. Take it. Kick us off here. What you got?
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I'll kick us off with the um the air system on the bloom. Once I got it all installed with a five micron pre filter, a coalescing filter, and then two carbon vapor filters and the regulator at the end. It's this beautiful, like clamped together system. um All like you've seen these airlines that kind of the the two units clamp together with a little clamp in the middle with an O-ring instead of pipe threading everything.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So the whole unit basically has ah ah push to connect on either end that is pipe threaded in, but the whole thing is kind of clamped together, which is just beautiful.
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Is it Wilkerson by any chance?
johngrimsmo: It's not. I went with Norgren, which also from McMaster, but there's basically like five top brands that McMaster carries all of them because they have to.
John Saunders: Okay. Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um But yeah, Wilkerson also makes really good stuff apparently. And it's just a beautiful system. And once I got it all plumbed in and set up, I'm like... I feel good having ultra, ultra clean air going to my whatever cost $10,000 bloom laser.
johngrimsmo: Like I just feel better doing this. Um, and I replaced the air hose. I replaced, i had to rewire in the new, um, The thing under the bloom laser, the smart dock with little pistons inside the valves that move air around.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: So i bought a new one of those, had to wire it myself, had to snake it through and then got it aligned, trammed, got the airline plugged in.
John Saunders: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: And then as I'm doing my calibration, I hear this like from the back of the machine. I'm like, oh no, so around the back. One of the airlines, eight millimeter had started popping out. And so I push it back in. I'm like, hmm, maybe I didn't push it in enough. An hour later, it again.
johngrimsmo: like, what?
John Saunders: What?
johngrimsmo: the Heck, these are push to connect fittings.
John Saunders: Oh, is it 3 eighths?
johngrimsmo: No, it was eight millimeter hose, eight millimeter fitting, ah Parker hose, Parker slash Legree fitting.
John Saunders: Yeah. Okay.
johngrimsmo: And then I'm like, what the heck? So I start doing do some research. The a hose that I got has a thinner wall diameter and it's very squishy.
John Saunders: Interesting.
johngrimsmo: even though it's like the real brands with the real fittings, it was squishier. So last night I, um, impulse bought a McMaster version with a thicker wall diameter that came in today and you squish one, you squish the other.
John Saunders: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: It's like massive difference just with ah a, what quarter millimeter of wall difference between the two.
John Saunders: Interesting.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Huh.
johngrimsmo: So one has eight millimeter OD. So six millimeter ID on one and 5.5 millimeter on the other. Um,
John Saunders: It is not, you don't think it's a different material? You think it's just a wall?
johngrimsmo: They're both the same polyurethane, I'm pretty sure.
John Saunders: Interesting. now
johngrimsmo: Yeah, just the thickness of it makes it squishier.
John Saunders: Right.
johngrimsmo: And it was squishy enough that I guess it wouldn't bite or whatever.
John Saunders: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: So whatever the new host came in today, kind of nice being able to get McMaster literally next morning from to Canada, like which is epic. um Didn't used to be the case.
John Saunders: Yeah, that's great.
johngrimsmo: But even for reasonable shipping and import fees, it's fine. So I got that installed all good now. And now last turtle is running the full calibration with the calibration pin on the laser.
johngrimsmo: And the problem is it's reading off like 11 thou diameter wrong.
John Saunders: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: This calibration pin is six millimeter.
John Saunders: Ooh.
johngrimsmo: And I have to tell the machine, this is six millimeter laser.
John Saunders: Got it.
johngrimsmo: Do whatever you gotta do to read six millimeter. And it's not, it's like ignoring it. for some reason. So it's, you know, I have a pre-check that measures it as not 0.232, 236 inch. It measures it as like 200 or whatever.
johngrimsmo: And then, and then I calibrate and then I measure it again to like deprint and confirm all this stuff. And it's just not updating. So that's where I'm at right now.
John Saunders: Strange.
johngrimsmo: I don't know the answer. Maybe I have some like, like skip variable that if it's beyond this tolerance, then like can ignore it or whatever.
John Saunders: Oh, sure. Don't overtake us
johngrimsmo: So I'm digging through the code trying to figure that out. That's, that's the last thing. And then after that, we are like back in business better than ever kind of thing. So
John Saunders: Is the machine down?
johngrimsmo: yes.
John Saunders: Okay, so you're not even running anything until this gets fixed.
johngrimsmo: now yeah we ran it on monday and then it was down all tuesday and then today's wednesday so half of wednesday and maybe we'll get a bit of stuff in the afternoon which is like fine for a couple days but it's going to start hurting real soon so
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah, sure, sure, sure. Good. Well, thanks. Yeah. I always wonder if it's like, should you be fixing it instead of talking to me
johngrimsmo: yeah yeah no it's good
John Saunders: Good. Well, we had a kind of a similar, well, so a surprise event. My college roommate was in town Friday. His son is super into making. They wanted to swing by, did a big little make vacation out of it. You know, who who wouldn't want to come to a central high for vacation, right? And so we come in the shop Friday morning and right before I came in, the guys at Texas, they're like, Hey, our compressor is down.
John Saunders: And I'm like, okay, I kind of figured like it's something small and they had already started to take a look at it. I think they had bought a few of these small fuses, like one amp, um yeah little finger sized fuses. And it blew them again. And was like, well, i'll be in a few minutes, let's take a look. And so they had already started to take some parts off and it's kind of one of those like really good, I'm actually, I am really proud. I didn't have as as much conviction when i started the process, but like, you just take a deep breath, start thinking through what could go wrong.
John Saunders: and with it, both e-stopped and then also even the disconnect flipped, by hand rotated the belts to see would it rotate through, knowing there is some possibility that you have a true mechanical interference, like the the two screws imploded or whatever.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Then you're just like, okay, order a new compressor, like you're done.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Hmm.
John Saunders: And it would rotate, but it wouldn't rotate consistently easily. So then we pulled the belts off and the good news was that the compressor screws, the pulley there rotated very smoothly by hand.
John Saunders: So then I just moved my hand back to the motor. I started to rotate the motor and I'm like, oh, bearings are shot. And so we have two compressors. I'm glad we do. We can run on the second one.
John Saunders: um i thought it was easier with you I thought it was going to be easier to run on just the second one, but we just use a lot a lot of air for blow-offs that are quasi-optional, but we just were in a good enough place where we could just leave a few machines down.
John Saunders: Ordered the new motor that same day, it and it got here yesterday.
johngrimsmo: Did you buy it from the menu from the air compressor people or?
John Saunders: ah I did, yeah.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: um And I do wonder if I could have gotten a better deal, but I wasn't going to spend the two hours to look.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, exactly.
John Saunders: um Now, what is going to be interesting is I am, after this, got to run downtown town in here in Zainesville, and I'm going to take... There's a company in town that does electric motor work for 50 years.
John Saunders: So I don't want to mess around with pulling the bearing. I'd love to think we could, but like...
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah.
John Saunders: yeah I've seen enough bearings installed to know like you you know, do you want to heat the shaft? How much? How do you put it on? What kind of bearing?
johngrimsmo: The people with the right tools can do it in one-tenth of the time you can.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, we've got a place like that in town that will like rewind the motors and everything.
John Saunders: Yeah. I'm going to drop it out with them and sort of just say, hey we'd like to fix it and have it back up.
johngrimsmo: It's great.
John Saunders: But like if it's if it's X percent of the new motor, we'll just scrap it.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: So yeah, that's a that's the punchline.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: i don't know if there's any other lesson learned.
johngrimsmo: Nice.
John Saunders: I probably could have... you we'd found out that it was a bad bearing within about an hour of being down. I probably could have driven to them and seen if they could have like, maybe there's an emergency fee, but like they probably could have replaced that bearing in a half hour.
johngrimsmo: yeah
John Saunders: Um, I don't know if they ah even offer that, but we probably could have been back up the same day if if I really needed to.
johngrimsmo: that's true what you're going there next right you could ask them that yeah yeah it's good to have that kind of stuff in your in your brain of like oh if i if i need something i know the people and i know what they can do um
John Saunders: Yeah. Oh, that's true. I could have asked that. Yeah. right. That's good point. but Thank you.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: It's kind of like going to any ah any kind of, whatever you call it, technical store and just walk in every aisle, taking a mental inventory of everything you know the fitting store has.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: Just so like, okay, I know where it is when I need it.
John Saunders: Yeah. Well, the other quirky hiccup we had was Yvonne got the water bill and she was like, what? And so we had a, we think it was just a toilet running that was like substantial,
johngrimsmo: No way.
John Saunders: Yeah. And so the annoying thing is not only do you pay for the water, but the way our billing works, and maybe this is common elsewhere, you also then pay for the sewage of it, even though you're just running, <unk>re you're earning tap water through the system.
johngrimsmo: Oh.
John Saunders: So, um, you know, we're talking hundreds of dollars, not thousands, but, um, into what I did not, I assume our water meter is outside. It's not, it's inside.
John Saunders: um So then I'm like, well, how do they read it? Cause they don't come inside where they read it because it's not cellular, but it does broadcast a local radio signal. Like so they can drive by the building. And so now I'm like, wait a minute, if they can drive by the building, it's a radio signal, chat GPT, Googled it. Yep. It's not encrypted or difficult. So I have a $40 sensor in my cart to order so that we can then hook it into an ESP 32. This is,
John Saunders: debatable whether I should do this or not, but because it's never happened before, but it's also it's annoying when it does.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: But basically, if they can read it, I'm going read it and I'm going to have home automation tell me if the water is leaking.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Sure.
John Saunders: Right. Why not?
johngrimsmo: Yeah. That's funny.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: who Interesting that a toilet running is...you found the toilet, obviously. like it's
John Saunders: Yeah, I knew it was. um And we heard it I thought we fixed it within a few days. It must've been running longer, but it was barely running, but I guess that's just 24 seven is a lot.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Interesting. And then you can notice it on your your actual water bill, like from normal payment to like, whoa.
John Saunders: Oh yeah.
johngrimsmo: Interesting.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: yeah Yeah, I know we use quite a bit of water for cleaning parts, washing parts. Some of the guys will run the sink for like, like a long time while they're like rushing through cleaning parts.
John Saunders: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: And, you know, the the eco warrior inside me kind of walks by sometimes just because that's like a lot of water. We're just you're using it, you know, 8% of the time that it's running because that's how it, you know, you wash parts, you put them over here, it's still going.
John Saunders: Yeah.
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: yeah.
John Saunders: Right.
johngrimsmo: It's like part of me is wondering about having like a foot pedal in the shower because you're not always standing under the water. You step out to like soap up or whatever. I don't know. It's silly, but.
John Saunders: you You try that at home and let me know how it goes.
johngrimsmo: Exactly.
John Saunders: i would suggest ducking or having a couch nearby to sleep on.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, exactly.
John Saunders: No, but it is the funny parenting thing when you're like, turn the water off when you brush your teeth, which like, yeah, it also is like the joke about the World Cup when it's like, you know, save the world as the World Cup president flies his golf stream to every single game.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah. All right. What's next on your manufacturing list?
johngrimsmo: Let's talk about hard milling. ah Moving towards hard milling are Norseman and Rask Lockbar inserts out of their 58 Rockwell AEBL stainless.
johngrimsmo: And we've been making them soft. We heat treat the parts. They definitely grow and change and elongate and do weird stuff and warp. So I'm trying to move towards hard milling. But it required some purchase of lot more tool holders, collets, like RegoFix stuff. Not cheap.
johngrimsmo: I still don't have them yet. And then I've really been liking the YG. hard milling end mills, the X1EH line, because they're like, well, they're getting more expensive.
John Saunders: yeah
johngrimsmo: They were like 40 bucks, and now they're getting closer to 60 to 80, depending.
John Saunders: So may I interrupt?
johngrimsmo: Yeah, please.
John Saunders: i don't know what's going on, but we are basically stopping to use YG1. They have gone through like a 60 plus percent price increase and we are wondering if it has to do with like corporate decision type stuff and less about just what's happening in the carbide industry, et cetera.
johngrimsmo: yeah interesting.
John Saunders: But um I put a few feelers out to figure out and make sure it wasn't something we were just us or like something of misunderstanding. And so we actually had a meeting this morning about, we actually pretty cool. We pulled a Lex history report sorted by SKU.
johngrimsmo: What do I? OK, yeah.
John Saunders: and I'm intentionally not showing this closely, but like, um and then it shows the four, but four of them are probably 80% of our spend.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: So i was like, okay, this morning let's find the replacements for those four end mills. um And the rest stuff is far far less important.
johngrimsmo: Are they more kind of generic NMLs?
John Saunders: um One is a kind of a specific finisher that we really got to like, not worried about replacing it. One is a really good general purpose finisher rougher.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: um
johngrimsmo: For steel?
John Saunders: Yeah, looks yeah for all for steel.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I mean, most brands will have a similar offering kind of thing. Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah. YG1 for years for us, I thought, represented an absolute great value, true value in the sense of like higher high enough quality tool at the right price.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah.
John Saunders: And that immediately evaporated when you double the price.
johngrimsmo: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I built um a price history into GURP with a little chart. um So I'm just trying to find a good example of a price increase here.
johngrimsmo: But I'm up like, I don't know, I can't see it yet, but a lot of percent.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: There we go.
johngrimsmo: 40% just on this one example.
John Saunders: Yeah. We were seeing 40 to 80%.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, so that's not fun. The other hard milling hard-meing tool that I use is Moldino, which is top tier, like doesn't get much better, but they are expensive.
John Saunders: Sorry, you were saying that hard enough.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: They're closer to $100 tool. for a tool um 80 to 100 depending and US.
John Saunders: Japan.
johngrimsmo: don't know. Well, the price listed is in US.
John Saunders: Ah, forgive me. got it.
johngrimsmo: um And then I'm comparing like YG1 Canadian prices versus Moldino dollar prices. And I'm like, oh, the number is close. Well, no, it's not. The exchange makes a difference.
John Saunders: No, it's not here.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. um So we use those selectively. They have a high feed hard milling tool that is phenomenal.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: And we use that a lot. um
John Saunders: Who's we? Sorry, YG or Moldino.
johngrimsmo: mold dino does yeah and then yg also has a hard milling or a high feed end mill but it's not high feed end mill it's just a large corner radius tool and i'm like guys that's not a high feed animal like stop calling it that yeah it's almost offensive i'm like no that's not that's not correct they call it a large radius corner whatever but uh
John Saunders: Okay. Okay.
John Saunders: That's really, really funny.
John Saunders: Yeah, sure. Totally different geometry.
John Saunders: Oh.
johngrimsmo: Otherwise, their X1 EH line is very good, performs very well for us. And it's that thing like when you play with hard milling and just use regular end mills, you're like, oh, end mills don't last very long for us anyway. And then you go to hard milling tools and you use them properly. And you're like, OK, I see it now.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: It works. What are you guys using?
John Saunders: Are you nervous about the hard milling of this?
johngrimsmo: yeah To a point, I'm certainly i was hesitating the cost investment of the extra holders, the extra call outs and the tooling that I need, because we use a lot of tools and I'll have to simplify the whole program from like 13 tools down to six or something. So it's a lot of work to do it. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And then I'm still worried about burr formation as you cut through the backside. Ended up buying a very expensive hard milling thread mill to back chamfer some of the holes in the features from Harvey Tool.
John Saunders: Oh, interesting.
johngrimsmo: So that came in. And it needs to be like small, like 98th hour diameter head with a 60th hour neck or whatever.
John Saunders: Yeah.
John Saunders: Shank, yeah.
johngrimsmo: So like like a narrow tool, but dumb expensive for the hard milling line. um So yeah.
John Saunders: Just to knock the burr off, though?
johngrimsmo: im Yeah.
John Saunders: I would have... You didn't ask my opinion, but I would have just bought a regular for that because you're just knocking the burr off.
johngrimsmo: we use We use the regular thread mills for soft steel and even they kind of wear enough.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So I thought about trying it, but I'm like, well, let me just me just order the right tools that I have it. I can still try the both, whatever, but.
John Saunders: But that's why i would it's a question, not a challenge to you. If you're actually dealing with ah a burr that's been rolled up, a you know hard mill tool wants to see a stable, hardened, engagement, whereas that's, you're basically dumping it into a sea of uncertainty as that tool is going to engage with remnants and flashing and parts that are tearing off at the micro level.
johngrimsmo: yeah
John Saunders: So I will be i'll curious to see how you along. I'll leave it at that.
johngrimsmo: yeah it's interesting um yeah so those are some of the other concerns of like will i get the same result or i'm basically just shifting the effort and the problems and the money from processing them soft and dealing with the warp and the the
John Saunders: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: you know, ovalized features and all that stuff versus like putting all the effort into machining and tool selection and all that stuff.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And yeah, so it will be great once it's running.
John Saunders: That'd be great. Thank
johngrimsmo: So just waiting on the final tools to come in and then I'll start, I've already started the reprogram of that, but. I am looking forward to it because now that I've seen under my vision system microscope, I was able to like measure the whole spacing of a soft versus hard part. And it's like a few thou they moved.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I'm like, whoa, okay.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: that's That's a real thing. No wonder why some of them don't fit.
John Saunders: Yeah. I was showing somebody your knife. Oh, I'm dumb with that I don't remember who it was. Um, and they were a mechanical type person, but not a nice guy. And they were like, how does it lock up like that?
John Saunders: That well, it was kind of fun as like a, you know, not just a friend to be like, oh yeah. So look at how this lock bar interfaces with that. And there's different diameter pins and they, they can do the, what do you call the slap test where you strike it upside down spine lacking?
johngrimsmo: Spine whack.
John Saunders: Yeah. I was like, don't do that.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: But like, that's what they do.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Nice. And that's actually an interesting perspective that ah we as a company need to continue to do better at explaining that to the customers like yourself so that they can have that in their brain.
johngrimsmo: So when they're showing their friends, they like, they feel like they really understand what's going on.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And I want to continue to share that and promote that so that it's like tip of your tongue kind of thing.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Like, you know how it works, which is just cool.
John Saunders: Maybe. Yeah. Well, this gets brought up with us of like, how do we improve and change your, the customer experience of buying a fixture plate? And it's like, okay, what, what QR codes do we have or what, um, landing pages, if you want to visit post sale.
John Saunders: And it's like, for you, it's gonna be like a video of like, Hey, here's how we prepare it. Like, please don't spine whack it on yourself. It is a real safety risk, but like, this is what we do and show people that off, which would cool.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We do it so you don't have to, but you can take, you know, comfort in knowing that we do it.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And
John Saunders: Right, right.
johngrimsmo: ya Yeah, like that.
John Saunders: The lawyers told me to tell you not to do it. good Right, right.
johngrimsmo: that
John Saunders: Well, on that note, I'm going to share a gripe that actually kind of makes me proud of us. I bought um two separate items, kind of on the unrelated to work per se, but um one, I called the company to ask and they're like, yeah, we don't have them stock, but we have a good relationship with this company. It's like, definitely, I just talked to them It's like three to four weeks.
John Saunders: You know, send us an email. We'll get this put into paper. So I sent the email in and the guy wrote back, And it was just, maybe I'm reading the tone with my own perception or choice, but like, i was like, cause I sent the email and I'm like, Hey, Perk's conversation with Brandon was interested in this. Like, it sounded like it was, you know, three or five weeks out, but just wanted to see what next steps might be. And they were, I wrote back he was just like, it would be late 2026 or early 2027 before we could accommodate you. Please let me know if you even want me to send you a quote.
John Saunders: And I was just kind of like, don't even bother them. Like, like the way the guy shared the like, Hey, have a good relationship.
johngrimsmo: Right.
John Saunders: I just talked to them. It should be this long. It's like, you just don't now want my business bug off. Um, and I know it'll,
johngrimsmo: Yeah. You get two hugely different timescales from two different people at the company. Right.
John Saunders: Yeah. Yes. Um, I just thought, found that really distasteful. Also like sales 101, like don't, i mean, know what you're doing. You're just telling me to go away. Like maybe that's what you wanted, but like, otherwise it's just like, we were even talking about that.
John Saunders: Uh, it's Saunders cause we've had longer lead times than I want right now as we're working through our, um, steel backlog of, late production. Um, and it's like hey how do we deal with a customer that has right now it's like an eight week lead time and it's just like don't apologize for it like just sort of say yep we'd love to make you know we'd love to do it right now that plates would be scheduled to ship this date um you don't apologize don't like draw attention to it like yeah like it's it's internally it stinks but like it'll get way better but um close the seal like if they want a different if they go us if we lose the sale we lose the sale but um don't
johngrimsmo: Ask for permission or like, right.
johngrimsmo: here
John Saunders: I don't know. Yeah. Um, be positive and fair and communicative, which is my other gripe, which is another company. I bought something and I wanted to call to make sure everything was good.
John Saunders: And the guy's like, yep, we have that stock. It'll ship today. It's overnight shipping. Um, it was not like particularly cheap. And, uh, the guy calls me at like five 30. He's like, yeah, we got busy. Um, I just got it packed up, but we missed the UPS deadline. So it's going to go out tomorrow.
John Saunders: And. It's just like, I didn't even actually need it next day, but yeah, I don't know.
johngrimsmo: right. He did call you, though, let you know.
John Saunders: Maybe I'm just a bit of a Karen about this stuff, but like, I didn't ask you to ship the same day. You told me you would. so this And it was, John. is boxing up one thing and putting it a box.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Like, this is not, mean, I guess I don't know what happened, but I got the sense that this is just kind of like, I think this is lackluster. This is not what, the companies I look up to and know, you know, whether it's a Pearson kind of guy or a McMaster car, it's like, you don't voluntarily tell a customer it'll ship and then just Cavalier be like, oh, actually, sorry.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah, we'll get it tomorrow.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, which is a really good customer service lesson as as we continue to improve that because oftentimes in a company, especially with more than one employee, you have like your service department, your salespeople that are like communicating with the customer that really don't know how the thing is made.
John Saunders: Sure, sure.
johngrimsmo: And then ah the people who are making it, they're like, no, that's we can't do it that fast. or you know But the the person communicating is like, yeah, no problem.
John Saunders: Yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: I got you, customer. It's great. Yes, we're trying to navigate that.
John Saunders: we We shared it, that story at our meeting meeting here and we were laughing because the last time we remember a customer being irrationally upset at us, like have we committed this sin, was somebody who wanted something overnighted, which we don't even offer on our site, you need to call us because we don't wanna be in this position if we can't meet that obligation.
johngrimsmo: Yeah,
John Saunders: They called us. we're like, yep, we can FedEx overnight that. We get the account number. We'll get it ready for you. It was in the winter, and it was a snowstorm. And we walked we personally walked it over to FedEx. And the FedEx, for the first time I've known in 10 years, because it was a level X emergency, that that FedEx facility closed.
John Saunders: And so that's when we called the guy back. and like There's nothing we are aware we can do.
johngrimsmo: yeah.
John Saunders: Anyway.
johngrimsmo: Sort of driving it 18 hours to drive it off at you or whatever.
John Saunders: I, yeah, I mean, I, yeah, sure.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah.
John Saunders: Anyway, I'll end my rant there, but it makes me appreciate when companies communicate, follow through with what they're going to say.
johngrimsmo: Crazy.
John Saunders: yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: I
johngrimsmo: It's like under promise over deliver, but like the real version of it, you know, um like we ordered stainless bars from a company that we've been buying from for 10 years and they always have it in stock.
John Saunders: think.
johngrimsmo: They've never had like a delay. It's just always in stock and we buy them and they show up um and we bought them two and a half weeks ago.
John Saunders: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: And then I just got an email, actually a phone call, but I missed it. That said, he said, oh, it's scheduled to ship in like in three weeks, which I'm like, fine, but like,
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: you had two weeks to tell me that. Like I ordered two weeks ago already, you know, um the the sooner you can communicate the the issue, the better.
John Saunders: Right.
John Saunders: Yep.
John Saunders: Yeah, agree.
johngrimsmo: And then the customer, it me in this case, can make the decision like with as much information as possible, as soon as possible, what to do next. You know, if I if i was critical, if I needed that, that would be a problem.
John Saunders: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: I'd been waiting for two weeks. Now got wait for another three and I'd go somewhere else, you know, if it mattered.
John Saunders: Right.
johngrimsmo: It doesn't matter in this case, but
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Okay. What else you got?
John Saunders: um okay but a bit belated at this point but the horizontal is gone and the two brothers are here
John Saunders: 100%. Okay. A bit belated at this point, but the horizontal is gone and the two brothers are here. um I don't remember.
johngrimsmo: Do miss it? Horizontal?
John Saunders: couldn't be more excited for the setup we have.
johngrimsmo: Good.
John Saunders: Horizontal was great for us.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: I don't miss it. Nobody misses it.
johngrimsmo: Nice.
John Saunders: um They're truly, truly still a great machine for the right fit or use case. And I am just, we're loving the way the current brother's running.
John Saunders: And then we bought two more identical, oh, sorry, not identical. They have the they have been normal high 16K spindle. The one that we already owned was the 10K high torque, but otherwise totally identical.
johngrimsmo: OK. Yeah.
John Saunders: And one of them will have the identical robot setup that has been mostly prepared offline. So it's kind of ready, if you will. um And then the other one is going to be our R&D bar fed mill experiment with a fourth axis.
johngrimsmo: Nice.
John Saunders: But what I'll share and then hopefully can kind of move away from discussion around automation shortcomings. But I've i've kind of like think you heard me sort of mention, like I like figuring out where it doesn't work.
John Saunders: And um for sure.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: um Steel chips have continued to be more problematic than we anticipated with everything from how they build up, how they get flushed out, and then even things like melting cables or sticking to cables because, you know, they get just hot enough where they'll kind of grab the rubber, but also even affecting Hall effect sensors in the machine. So those are things we've mostly now improved with various, mostly sheet metal, some 3D prints, but obviously...
John Saunders: 3D print's gonna have the same issue of collecting the chips potentially. um But the other thing is that's a big difference with steel versus aluminum is that most of what we're using is hot rolled. And so there is enough scale on the material where a vacuum is just not a good fit.
John Saunders: um
johngrimsmo: Oh, it won't like stick.
John Saunders: Woke can reliably consistently stick.
johngrimsmo: Yep, yep.
John Saunders: um And the simple answer is we will no longer use the vacuum on the steel. We're going to rotate the parts upright so a mechanical g gripper can come in and grab the part. You'll lose
johngrimsmo: You were vacuum vacuum sucking the part with the robot to lift it and put it in the machine? OK.
John Saunders: Yes, we actually were doing that fairly successfully for quite a while, except we were having to kind of inspect each part, clean each part, some material we were even decking, which is of course, you know, terrible long-term.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: um And then we, then we started vacuuming so originally we were vacuum holding all the way into the vice which is frankly insane now that we look back on on it then we moved to vacuuming just into a a double angled re-grip station so when the vacuum drops it off the part falls down on a compound fall line so it basically is almost perfectly oriented for the mechanical g gripper to grab it that was better but we're even having vacuum reliability
johngrimsmo: Nice.
John Saunders: in that and so rather than the parts being laid down where you could sack up multiple we're just mechanically grabbing them and you reduce your infeed density but on steel it won't matter because we can still fit plenty of parts for your average overnight run so it's kind of like the maturity realize don't fight this battle on the aluminum machine we will absolutely the vacuum
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yep.
John Saunders: So grant was really the one that headed up all that. And it's cool to know that like, we can even do pressure checks on the PSI so PSI level of the vacuum to to figure out whether you've got the part or not.
johngrimsmo: Oh, like if the if the grip is good enough, if you're pulling, you know, 10 inches versus 16 inches.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: um Yeah, I like that.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: sure um Last thing I've been playing with lately is more interferometer stuff.
John Saunders: Love
johngrimsmo: I made ah an eBay purchase a few weeks ago that came in a piezo actuator. So exactly.
John Saunders: Yeah, the accuracy, sorry.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. so a super accurate microscope stage with a piezo stack, like 10 or 20 discs that move.
John Saunders: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: I think they move like three thou a hundred microns. What's a hundred microns, john
John Saunders: well five microns happens to be two tenths, so that would be 20 times two tenths, so would be two, 40,000, four thousand? fourth thousand Sorry, four thousand, yeah, thank you.
johngrimsmo: Fourth hour, I think. Yeah. Or 393, whatever. So fourth hour of movement in this stage, which is not much, but it's plenty to, yeah, to sweep across the fringes, basically.
John Saunders: Yes.
John Saunders: That's crazy.
John Saunders: Oh my gosh.
johngrimsmo: So buying the Piezos is not hard, but buying the control actuator, um it basically converts a, i don't know what it is, zero to 10 volt signal from your Raspberry Pi or whatever into a, get this, a negative 30 volt to plus 130 volts.
John Saunders: That's crazy.
John Saunders: Okay.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: So you can shrink the Piezos stack by giving it a negative voltage and you can expand it by giving it up to 130
John Saunders: Interesting.
John Saunders: No kidding. So it's 160 range correlates to fourth out
johngrimsmo: Yeah, exactly.
John Saunders: interesting
johngrimsmo: And that's the output voltage. I think your input signal voltage is like 10 times smaller or something like that. I don't know yet, actually.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: So I found this, um there's this piezo company called PI...
johngrimsmo: Piezo Industrieknic whatever or something. And they just do this.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: And the the thing I got on eBay, I got it for $60. Normally they go for like many, many hundreds of dollars. And it's like the Piezo stack in a beautiful little flexure in a machined aluminum housing that literally holds a microscope objective.
johngrimsmo: And I got the OEM control box that has like, you know, the brains and stuff and sitting there talking to chat.
John Saunders: Dude.
johngrimsmo: I'm like, I can't make my own piezo actuator. Like it's too complicated when when you could just buy one.
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: You can buy one from Thor labs for a thousand bucks, but I'm like, not really.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: So I bought this one and now i have it and the two units plug together, but there's a three position, three pin plug and a four pin plug that I have to do something with. So over over the weekend, I was like, OK, obviously, it needs power and it needs signal.
John Saunders: Something.
johngrimsmo: How much voltage do I give it? How much signal do give it? What does this exact unit need? It's out of an OEM install, like probably from some Zygo, like whatever.
John Saunders: ah hu
johngrimsmo: We don't even know. And so it' was actually really fun uploading photos of the whole board to ChatGPT.
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: And you know with my loop, like reading the part numbers on all the MOSFETs and all the transistors and all the things.
John Saunders: ha
johngrimsmo: um And with that, we could trace where some of the leads, the the pin connectors like end up throughout the board.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: and be like, oh, clearly this is this is ground because it grounds to the board.
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: this is This is power because it goes to the input of this voltage transducer thingy.
John Saunders: Grounds easy one, yeah.
johngrimsmo: And then this is probably your signal over here. So I haven't put power to it yet, but I'm i'm getting more and more confident with that it will possibly work.
John Saunders: Oh yeah, that's awesome.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yeah. and then
John Saunders: You know what voltage input it is? That's like the big.
johngrimsmo: I think we're we're leaning towards 12 to start, maybe five, even just to like work your way up, but I think it'll be 12. um And then measuring the output of the transducers or transistors or whatever will tell us like what it's, if it's doing the thing.
John Saunders: Yeah, sure, sure.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Dude, that's awesome.
johngrimsmo: So that's pretty cool. And then yeah, that's, that should move the stack up to 4,000 at max voltage.
John Saunders: see
John Saunders: Yep, yep, yep. So you have some sort of PID loop that'll, or like, it'll look for focus by undulating that or moving that piezo and then stop when it finds it.
johngrimsmo: I have a rough focus, which will be like a servo motor, basically.
John Saunders: Uh-huh.
johngrimsmo: That gets the camera in focus and lets me find the beginning of the fringes. And all this is going to do is scan from one end of the fringe range to the other.
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So with my current testing, I've been moving, think it's 14 micron. um So what's that? Six tenths, right?
John Saunders: Six tenths. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And and ah I'm doing that with a $17 stepper motor.
John Saunders: Yeah,
John Saunders: yeah that's hilarious.
johngrimsmo: and a fine pitch lead screw and my magnetic encoder mount. So I'm moving 6 tenths over the course of about, I forget if it was 30 seconds or 60 seconds.
John Saunders: Yeah, that's crazy.
johngrimsmo: Moving six tenths. And I'm doing it, except it's not consistent. It like waves and waits and waves and goes up. And what I need is an even smooth streak, which apparently the PSO sensor should give me that.
John Saunders: Sure.
johngrimsmo: And that's what all the other interferometers in the world use. And that's what Cyrus uses.
John Saunders: Interesting.
johngrimsmo: And I'm like, OK, I'm trying to do it the wrong way. So let me try to do it the right way. um And then playing, I've got two telecentric lenses and two cameras, one Thor Labs camera.
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: um And I've been mixing and matching and playing with them and trying to get the best like focus and the best. You got to space the camera away from the top of the lens ever so slightly with different adapters and spacers to get everything like lined up properly.
John Saunders: Got it. Okay.
johngrimsmo: And I've not been happy with um one of my lenses and the Thor Labs camera. It's just it won't focus like crisp. And then my big lens um does focus really well. So, but it's it's such a wide angle view that I can't zoom in very much.
johngrimsmo: So I don't have a super high accurate pixel accuracy, right? So I need more zoom basically.
John Saunders: okay
johngrimsmo: And that led me to the theory that probably these telecentric lenses I'm using are not the right lens for a white light interferometer.
John Saunders: Interesting.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. And then I look at all the other interferometers in the market. They're not actually using telecentric lenses. They're often using microscope objectives, very special ones that look just like, you know, the screw on microscope objectives that you see on most microscopes.
John Saunders: Interesting.
John Saunders: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: But a lot of them are either Mitutoyo or Nikon or whatever, and they're metallurgical grade.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: and have a longer working distance so your part can be further away from the microscope, not like kissing it right up against it.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: And then different optics inside. I learned about infinity corrected objectives, which basically once the light comes through the microscope objective and then goes above it, it's basically collimated.
johngrimsmo: It's basically going in a straight line. So you can have a air quotes, infinity gap between the top of the objective and and a blank tube with like, room for beam splitters and whatever else you want lights and then what's called a tube lens on top that kind of fixes it and aims it at your camera lens um so yeah the a lot of times these objectives will have the infinity like symbol like the 8 sideways and that's what that means it's like once top of the thing you can have an infinity amount of space to put whatever in no that's different
John Saunders: Oh, interesting.
John Saunders: Does that mean it has an infinite focal length?
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: And there's a lot of these terms that even though I'm still struggling with, like, yeah.
John Saunders: Sure, sure. Huh. that's awesome. So you you think that's the famous last thing? like You think that's the last piece of the interferometer?
johngrimsmo: Yeah, im I'm kind of at the point now where it's like, sounds like I'm i'm getting close to building version two from from the get here because there's a lot of lessons learned that would be a real hack to put it onto my setup.
John Saunders: Got it. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: But if I'm doing the new piezo stack, the new microscope objective, I want to have a motorized Z stage anyway.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And then I'm like, that's almost a whole new machine right there. So I can leave this one as a vision system, like backlight, 2D profile. It works really well for that. um And then build a second one, which i already have almost all the parts where I just need the microscope objective.
John Saunders: Well, you say that as if like you are disappointed when it's like, no, that's the great outcome. Like you figured like not fail fast, fail cheap, but like, yeah, you're gonna get this point quickly where you realize what you really need to do done.
johngrimsmo: Exactly. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Exactly. And then some of the fancier objectives for interferometers have the reference mirror and the beam splitter like already inside the little objective.
johngrimsmo: And I'm like, that saves me so much complication because right now all my stuff's external.
John Saunders: Yeah, that sounds really nice.
johngrimsmo: And yeah, it's really nice. And they're on eBay for like hundreds of dollars.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So I'm like, okay, I think I know I know, right?
John Saunders: But now you, right, now you have the confidence to realize, no, no, don't skip there.
johngrimsmo: Yep, yeah exactly. So I'm pretty excited about that. And then Cyrus got his up and running with new camera and new stuff and his results are like, oh, okay, I'm so close to achieving that as well.
johngrimsmo: And, you know, nine months in or whatever, but trying to do it different than what he did it when if I had just kind of copied him verbatim, I would have done lot faster, but i've I've learned like so much.
John Saunders: I know. Sure. Sure.
johngrimsmo: So yeah, quite excited for that.
John Saunders: Well, that's what your piezo stage thing reminds me of. Not to spill the beans on the wonderful recent episode of Precision Microcast, but Cyrus was talking about the world's most accurate lathe, which has a, I've obviously tuned all this out, but... um as a name or something. And he, I'll try to paraphrase, talked about the three different ways to build an accurate axis. One is, you know, scrape it perfectly. Like, you know, you're, you spend 30 years as a Japanese Zen artist, like scraping away. Second way is just map it and software comp it. The third way is like to do the hybrid comp where you have a pretty darn good rail to picture an X-axis on a milling machine.
John Saunders: as it moves left to right along its axis of travel, there will be errors in Y because the rail is not perfectly straight. But let's suppose that those errors are relatively small, say like under 10 thou or something or under thou. Well, he was positing that you could install a Y-axis stage on that x-axis that has 10,000 travel and then you have a reference edge which static reference edges are relatively inexpensive and then i think he was saying laser interferometer which probably isn't inexpensive but it's inexpensive relative to what you the the outcome that you get and then as your x-axis moves left to right the mini y stage is doing those micro comps to make to make your physical motion result perfect right
johngrimsmo: Yeah. okay
johngrimsmo: I love it. Yeah. Couldn't you just use the regular y-axis to comp that? I don't know.
John Saunders: Yeah, because it was, in ah again, lathe, so I just tuned out.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, exactly. um Yeah, I love it.
John Saunders: So a great segue to what I'm working on, which um is making a defensible approach to some new metrology stuff. and And when I say defensible, i'm not I'm not going to apologize about considering some DIY aspects of it, but it's also, it needs to stand on its own as real,
johngrimsmo: Oh, yeah.
John Saunders: empirically accurate or repeatable et cetera metrology stuff.
johngrimsmo: Got it.
John Saunders: So, You know, one extreme that's janky is like build your own everything from scratch, hard pass. The other extreme is like call up companies that can do turnkey systems, automations with brand names that are five figures, if not six figures.
John Saunders: We're not there yet either. But the hybrid is really interesting because I've learned a lot in the last few days about LVDT as well as as well as just linear gauges.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: and lbbt's are they both could appear physically similar like a plunger style indicator both could be hooked up to what have effectively looks like at an electronic micrometer that has a benchtop display that's digital or analog where it's one of those that like um we have an old one that was given to us by tom lipton but it's like
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: yeah
John Saunders: they can show like sub millions, theoretical resolution, et cetera. And the LVDT is, um a very simplistic term is a steel or, or ferrous, uh, object passing through coils.
John Saunders: So it's infinitely accurate because it's just analog output. So it's really the quality of your amplifier or how you're reading or parsing that voltage kind of funny.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: Cause it's like the same thing with the voltage of your piezo.
johngrimsmo: Really?
John Saunders: Um, which is interesting, but it's a little bit more work to deal with. Like I found a Texas instrument ship that could work, but it's like, BedaFruit doesn't make a breakout board.
John Saunders: This is like ah different level of undertaking. Whereas the Mitu-Twe linear gauges are effectively tiny linear scales. They have glass scales in them and they are thus limited to having chunky outputs, but those outputs are still unbelievably small and and and probably adequate for the task at hand.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, and accurate and stable and readable.
John Saunders: Bingo, but it's just it's just a quadratic output, which is literally the same thing I just did for that home art project using a peak picot and the right Hertz rate and all that.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Okay.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: So i think we're gonna start...
johngrimsmo: That's good. So if you're buying the expensive sensor that and then DIYing the interface, which is, I am all for that.
John Saunders: Bingo.
John Saunders: Yes.
John Saunders: It's kind of what i'm where I'm at, where... And punchline is you can also easily, in and as often as you so wish, check it against a hard gauge, a node reference master.
johngrimsmo: isn't it Yeah, where I'm getting with these DIY metrology projects, which I love, is what is the ultimate source of truth. So like my my most accurate gauge in the shop other than the CMM is probably my Mitutoyo plunge indicator.
johngrimsmo: reads said
John Saunders: OK.
johngrimsmo: It displays to 20 millionths.
John Saunders: OK.
johngrimsmo: And, you know, I could calibrate any DIY thing against that because it's got one inch of travel.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: Like it's a pretty decent thing. um I, you know, the bigger part of me wants like, no, I want the ultimate source of truth. Like I want to build my own laser interferometer that uses, you know, wavelength of light to like accurately calibrate this.
John Saunders: Sure.
johngrimsmo: And I have this idea of basically slapping it to the side of a granite surface plate because that's stable. And then I can, depending on how I build it, I can slide whatever it is I'm calibrating, like horizontally, like laying on the table kind of thing and use the interferometer at almost any distance to like just calibrate the thing.
johngrimsmo: Or if I have a servos rail,
John Saunders: Yeah, sure. Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: with its own motor, I can put one of the mirrors or whatever for the interferometer on this device and I can just have it sweep back and forth and calibrate itself and get like a proper output from it.
johngrimsmo: But yeah, it's, it's, I can, I can build something that shows me accurate numbers, but I do not trust them, you know?
John Saunders: Sure.
John Saunders: Yeah. It's also, we're we're talking we're talking about measures for us here at Sonners that are micrometer worthy, but not, they're not millions. Like it's like, I'm just not worried about it.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
johngrimsmo: You're trying to make a more um user friendly or or better process measurement system?
John Saunders: Well, so one of the things that would be right now when we produce a mod vise, we mic the base in three spots. Um, and that's a lot to do, especially for a hundred percent inspection.
John Saunders: We also care more about the thickness than we do necessarily the flatness. They actually tend to be quite flat, but like they might have a couple of tenths of bow, but they won't necessarily have a couple of tenths of thickness variation.
John Saunders: So, um, we want a way to isolate that out. So, um, obviously pinching it with a mic allows you to isolate that out so what I think we'll end up doing is building a jig like this except it would be extruded out to the full width of the product and then you would have six this is all subject to continuing to think through it six linear gauges would work three would be really nice if you could have it
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: pressed against pins somewhere, but let's assume you just do six and then you just do six, three pinch measurements between those six and the robot can then just dip the part in.
johngrimsmo: yeah
John Saunders: It logs those measurements and, and that's a pretty, like, I'm pretty excited to see that.
johngrimsmo: Mm-hmm. If you have measuring, just think plunger style or LVDT on either side of the part, like pointing at each other, is that what you're thinking?
John Saunders: move
John Saunders: Correct.
johngrimsmo: Now you'll have a top and a bottom measurement. Do you have to like average them? do you have to like...
John Saunders: Well, you're, you're measuring the, basically what you're doing is you're measuring with two that are co axial, like, because you, you don't want to worry about how the part is oriented or press up against one side, or let's say the part has two thou bow, which we actually want to know about, but that could be a separate measurement.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, this is cool.
John Saunders: You can part that makes to zero thickness, but is a potato chip curve.
johngrimsmo: e Cool. Yeah, I think there's there's something there.
John Saunders: But the last thing, good. um I know we're kind of running late, but we had the demo. One of the demo products was a vision system, and it kind of hit me like a ton of bricks that in this vision system was well into the five figures. um They're just using, and I need to go do some research, it's either collimated camera or a telecentric lens, I don't know which, I actually don't even know the difference right now. You don't need explain it, can go look up. But it just occurred to me, if we can build the hardware that can accurately take these, i think it would be collimated, like the straight line that creates a 2D profile of the silhouette of the part,
John Saunders: we can buy or open source use the software out there to then basically recreate this thing on our own.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Which is basically what I did.
John Saunders: mean, kind of what you're doing.
johngrimsmo: yes Yeah.
John Saunders: Right. I'm laughing because I'm like, I didn't, I'm not doing this to copy you, but I'm also like, wait minute here.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: No, for sure.
John Saunders: This what Grimso's doing.
johngrimsmo: Yep, and there's a couple other people out there that have reached out to me that have done it themselves as well, either before AI or after AI.
John Saunders: Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: It's a lot easier, obviously. um And yeah, so in your in your wording, telecentric g lens basically makes collimated... image. Like if I get this right, collimated light travels in a straight line.
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: It doesn't diverge or converge or whatever.
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: i don't know if you'd use that word for an image, but whatever.
John Saunders: Understood.
johngrimsmo: But yeah, telecentric lens looks. So if you have a one inch gauge block that is square, and You move to one side and measure, you see the squareness. If you move to the other side, you see the squareness.
johngrimsmo: you You still have a focal height where you can't, like, the whole block is not in focus, which is interesting.
John Saunders: Yeah. Sure. Understood.
johngrimsmo: So do you focus on the top edge or do you focus on the bottom edge? And that's what I'm trying to figure out as I play with it. But there are, I remember playing with a, i think it was a Starrett vision system that had some really unique, like, like nice of use features in the software side, like, you know, touch a hole and it just measures it or or sweep with your finger and draw a squiggly line and it'll auto trace all that stuff.
John Saunders: Good idea. Are you sure?
johngrimsmo: And these are doable, but they're just more work to like do yourself. And I'm starting to appreciate the value and the turnkeyness of all these proper metrology systems, even though they're like 50 grand or 100 grand or something like that, depending. um And it's all like, i right now I'm just playing around. But in in my head, I can see the knowledge gained from playing around either turns into internal products like metrology things for our company, or I just go, we're buying that one.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I don't know the answer yet, but I could see that future of either I'm just going to build six interferometers that we have all around the shop, or I'll be like, we need one Zygo and the world will be a good place. Like, i don't know.
John Saunders: Yeah, I'm in the honeymoon phase of thinking about this, but I'm also like, man, you've done, ah look yu view you as a contemporary peer. What you do is incredibly inspirational and awesome. I also would like to think that I could probably do almost anything you could do.
John Saunders: You know what mean?
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: So it's like, wait a minute, if I can get an image of a part with this comic camera or whatever,
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: Then you're done. You just have to pass that image over to a software and we can write the software that just measures a thread or measures ah a width.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
John Saunders: And again, we have the benefit of just, we can always have it checked against a master.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, and I bought a Thor Labs calibration disc that just has like 100 micron circle, 50 micron circle, 10 micron circle, and they're perfect.
John Saunders: Yes.
John Saunders: Yep. Yep.
johngrimsmo: And you just calibrate against that. And now your pixel ratio is like perfect. But there is a lot of nuance, as I'm finding, with ah the algorithm of light to dark shadows.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: And like I'm not actually getting like super repeatable measurements.
John Saunders: fair off Fair enough.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: on real parts, which is kind of annoying, but I don't know if I need more Zoom or more whatever. so And these are the subtleties you just learn as you do it.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And it makes me respect the professionals that like do this for their job, because I'm like, oh, they're like a million times smarter than I am, but I'm still playing. like I'm still in the game.
John Saunders: Oh. You know, 100%. And, you know, we're not, but we're not doing manned space flight here. We're making, you know, like we'll be fine. And part of me thinks from the cynical business side of me thinks like, okay, if you're as German or Japanese company or American company, you figure out this technology that's relatively annoying to recreate, but it might cost you $1,500.
johngrimsmo: yeah
John Saunders: And then you send you write some software and you sell it for, for, 50 grand, like part of me is like, okay, I'm going to play with like the, the, the vision stuff for me is a side project.
John Saunders: The linear gauges are those need to happen or we need a solution and that I'm more confident as a clear pathway to testing, proving it.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: And then if that's a fair way to summarize that.
johngrimsmo: ye Yep. Yep. Yep. Exciting, man.
John Saunders: Thank you. It's awesome. I'm excited.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Anything on tap today?
johngrimsmo: Alright. Just get the bloom finalized. I'm working on my current toilet bowl float next.
John Saunders: Yeah.
John Saunders: Oh yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: okay
johngrimsmo: Very excited for that.
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: And yeah, that's about it. You.
John Saunders: uh, tying up some loose ends and notes on, uh, on literally like I have the, there's so many freaking options on linear gauges and OVDTs and all that.
John Saunders: So just starting to do, um, I will fail fast, fail cheap on that one.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: I'll probably buy one that's used, build a jig offline, not doing a pinch measurement, get a Pico hook a Python script up to it and then start testing for repeatability, that kind of thing.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Love it.
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah. Also, keep you posted.
johngrimsmo: All right, man. Exciting. All right.
John Saunders: Sounds good. i'll see you next week.
johngrimsmo: you next week. Bye.
