Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
#441 Keyence microscope demo
3.3k Plays1 month ago
Topics:
- Tool life and strategy
- Okuma Horizontal for sale
- Keyence microscope demo
- Custom python programs
- Bar-feedio
- Expectations in a shop
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Yearly Goals
00:00:00
johngrimsmo
Good morning and welcome to the business of machining episode 441. My name is John Grimsmo.
00:00:06
John Saunders
My name is John Sonners.
00:00:07
johngrimsmo
And this is the weekly dose of manufacturing where we get to talk about kind of the cool nerdy things that we're working on that we're doing the problems were challenged with the running a business and all kinds of cool things just two friends having a very private conversation that nobody listens to.
00:00:24
John Saunders
Well, I think that's top of mind today, because I'd like to get into some stuff that I wanted to make sure I try to treat like it really is a private conversation, talk about the goals for the year and just what's on
Keyence Microscope Demo and Tool Issues
00:00:35
John Saunders
top of mind.
00:00:35
johngrimsmo
Top
00:00:37
John Saunders
What's on your list for today?
00:00:39
johngrimsmo
of the list is Keyence demo for microscope, which just happened half an hour ago.
00:00:42
John Saunders
Okay.
00:00:44
johngrimsmo
um More speed optimization, wide light interferometer, hard milling, Python programming, and a tool that keeps breaking that I think I fixed it permanently.
00:00:50
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:00:55
John Saunders
Tackle that one.
00:00:56
johngrimsmo
Okay, you have a list?
00:00:58
John Saunders
Oh yeah, right. ah Okay. I, sorry, I've been mixing my list with yours now, which makes it a mess. um when I want to talk about business processes is am my kind of like business tip or question. um Selling the horizontal, updates on using the Brother S700 with steel and automation and robots and lights out. Talk about our Saunders 2026, not a wish list, it's like a do list that we did last year are doing again this year. And then goal for the year.
00:01:26
johngrimsmo
Nice. All right. I'll jump into the tool breaking. So we have an eight flute quarter inch ball mill that Zadaro makes for us, um, which works fantastic in titanium. And that's how we do all the surfacing on our Rask and Fjall handles.
00:01:42
John Saunders
Okay.
00:01:43
johngrimsmo
Um, and generally,
00:01:44
John Saunders
Just didn't just didn't didn't want to go for the 12 15 flute, John?
00:01:47
johngrimsmo
yeah yeah, exactly.
00:01:47
John Saunders
Wanted to call it at eight?
00:01:50
johngrimsmo
It's been good to us. Um, I mean, it, it makes our parts twice as fast as the four flute.
00:01:57
John Saunders
Hilarious.
00:01:57
johngrimsmo
it It like literally does.
00:01:57
John Saunders
But does it, at what point does it just sort start looking like a carbide burr?
00:02:01
johngrimsmo
Exactly. Yeah. Even at eight at a quarter inch, it kind of does look like a burr.
00:02:04
John Saunders
It's big.
00:02:05
johngrimsmo
Um, it's usually been great. We get like 2,500 minutes out of the tool, which is a long time.
00:02:10
John Saunders
Oh my god.
00:02:11
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:02:11
John Saunders
oh wow.
00:02:12
johngrimsmo
Cutting titanium, like surfacing titanium. And then even then it just starts to get a little smeary. Um, and we have two tools in the machine in the current, we have a rougher and a finisher. So we'll, you know, cut through the, um,
00:02:25
johngrimsmo
the skin or whatever of the titanium and then going with the finisher. But the rougher has been blowing up, which causes the finisher to chip out and leave crappy finishes.
00:02:33
John Saunders
Right.
00:02:36
johngrimsmo
um And I'm like, why? And it's, it's been doing the RASC for years and having consistent, like very consistent tool life. And now that we're making a lot more fjells, I think it's blowing up on the fjell, but I don't know for sure, for sure.
00:02:48
johngrimsmo
Cause we run both interchangeably and all of a sudden the tools blown up.
00:02:50
John Saunders
Oh.
Machining Strategy and Tool Engagement
00:02:52
johngrimsmo
So after dealing with this too many times and scrapping a few handles, because it's clearly not good enough, I finally sat down in fusion and I kind of went through line by line with, or, you know, op by op in full simulation, just like put my mind in the eye of the tool and okay, so I'm coming into this material, how much material is left?
00:03:12
johngrimsmo
And turns out my strategy was poor. um My initial rough is eating too much material. and And then I'm stepping downwards when they wish I could step sideways.
00:03:25
johngrimsmo
um
00:03:25
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:03:26
johngrimsmo
And those kind of things where I get to like, I kind of remember about a year ago when I programmed that and i was like, we'll see how it goes. And then I let it go for a year and it's led to problems.
00:03:34
John Saunders
Oh, mm-hmm.
00:03:35
johngrimsmo
And then I look back it and I go, oh, dude, come on, do it. Like now that you know what you know, Sidestep it, side mill it. Make sure you're getting consistent engagement on every pass.
00:03:44
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:03:46
johngrimsmo
No big passes that are like potentially blowing up a tool. And because it's held in a vice on a small pallet, there's like possible vibration issues, things like that.
00:03:56
johngrimsmo
And i'm I'm ripping this tool at 100 inches per minute um in titanium.
00:04:00
John Saunders
Yep.
00:04:02
johngrimsmo
And yeah, so i implemented that from home, sent new programs to the Kern, and it should be good now. I haven't heard. That was a couple days ago.
00:04:11
John Saunders
Okay. So basically just programming that needed to be revisited.
00:04:16
johngrimsmo
Exactly. Yep. Yep.
00:04:17
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:04:17
johngrimsmo
And it's one of those things I can't tell if it's any better.
00:04:17
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:04:21
johngrimsmo
It's not like, oh, it's fixed. It just hopefully won't be there anymore.
00:04:26
John Saunders
Yeah. It seems pretty plausible though.
00:04:27
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly. So that's my little thing.
00:04:31
John Saunders
We, that is what we started to do. And it's, I wouldn't say we've lost our way, but we've kind of morphed it into something different for a bunch of things I'm going to tell you that are just
Importance of Regular Meetings in Machining
00:04:41
John Saunders
excuses. But those Wednesday meetings we have, where we sit, I sit down one-on-one with each machinist.
00:04:46
John Saunders
The original idea was just pick up, make a list of your own parts and let's go through them one by one. doesn't have to be super, Yes, we're interrogating it, but we're interrogating for the sake of like, what are we missing?
00:04:57
John Saunders
What should we look at? Questions you have?
00:04:58
johngrimsmo
do
00:04:59
John Saunders
Should we stylistically change stuff? And the whole hope there had been that that also is a good time to force a dust off, because otherwise, you know, you and I can go six years without realizing, oh, we were doing this, you know, oops.
00:05:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:05:15
John Saunders
um
00:05:15
johngrimsmo
Or even worse, like the team keeps doing it without your knowledge.
00:05:16
John Saunders
mr
00:05:19
johngrimsmo
It's like an old process that nobody's revisited.
00:05:22
John Saunders
Yeah. Well, like we caught one, who caught it i think Ed caught it that, um, a, we scallop, we surface in via scallop, a <unk> a threedimenal champ, chamfer on the Modvice top jaw.
00:05:22
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:05:36
John Saunders
And I'm sure I was the one that originally programmed it. It's probably been five years ago. And for whatever reason, whether it was a fusion change or whether an operator or somebody goofed on a, change some sort of a tolerance even inadvertently and now water falls over and that tool now goes like, you know you see the scalp to a path and it waterfalls in into the park.
00:05:54
johngrimsmo
Yep, yep.
00:05:55
John Saunders
You shouldn't be doing that. And like, you don't catch that stuff unless you're actually deliberately looking through stuff like that.
00:06:01
johngrimsmo
Yeah. I've had that on the Fjall for sure.
00:06:04
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:06:05
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:06:07
johngrimsmo
Nice.
00:06:07
John Saunders
Um, I guess those, those meetings have sort of shifted more into other stuff, which,
00:06:12
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:06:13
John Saunders
I'm okay with, cause it was kind of like, let's feel it out. And also a lot of it is, it's kind of a weird, well, it's not weird. Saunders is now has a bunch of verticals that make fixture plates has the Willemann and it has the horizontal, but the horizontal is leaving or is going by by.
00:06:31
John Saunders
And so i'm we're not going to interrogate all the programs in the horizontal when it's yeah.
00:06:35
johngrimsmo
fair
00:06:38
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:06:39
johngrimsmo
yeah i'd say try to stay true to the the goal of that meeting even if it evolves but you know make sure that the person running the thing gets the op it gets the opportunity to be like yeah this really bugs me like wouldn't it be nice if
00:06:40
John Saunders
Um,
00:06:47
John Saunders
You're right.
Selling Okuma Machine for One-Piece Flow
00:06:55
John Saunders
No, you're right. Again, all excuses, but it's also kind of the realistic way. Like we started this maybe September and that went great through November and then, and then the year end stuff, shop change, like started talking about stuff, project, all good. And then the holidays. So now it's like, okay, buckle back in. What do we want it to be? And obviously i think you do this for six months and then everyone has the ability to do more of it on their own. It's kind of like, Hey, you look through this first, then let's sit down together. So that way, um,
00:07:23
John Saunders
The example I always give is the chamfer that's or the, yeah, the chamfer tool that's plunging at two inches a minute.
00:07:27
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:07:28
John Saunders
It's like, um,
00:07:29
johngrimsmo
Which I actually think I have one of those on the curtain that I'm still ignoring.
00:07:33
John Saunders
everybody has one of those.
00:07:34
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:07:35
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:07:37
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I mean, on that note, um something Angela really wants to do this year is process planning for everything, like write down every every operation in the shop, every process, um kind of every step by step of how everything is done so that A, we have an overview, B, we have a hard reference of this is how it's getting done.
00:07:49
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:07:57
johngrimsmo
And then we can go through and be like, well, why? Like, let's fix that one. Let's, you know, documentation first, say what is happening. And it is a bit of an interrogation process.
00:08:05
John Saunders
Yep.
00:08:07
johngrimsmo
But I mean, there's nothing wrong with it because it's how everybody is doing their job right now. Like, I just want to start tracking and documenting it, have that visibility so that I know i know how things are done.
00:08:15
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:08:17
johngrimsmo
And then maybe I can take my experience and look at an op and talk with the person and and figure out you know ways to improve. Or you can look at all of them and you can start to pick the biggest hurdles first.
00:08:28
John Saunders
Yeah. For sure, to me it's about... it's about It's fine to brainstorm and think big picture long-term, all these like big long lists, but then it's like, okay, hard, hard stop, hard pivot into like, what are we actually going to do in the next two weeks or something or sort of, sort of actionable thing, almost an overreaction on my, on our side to making sure what we can want to do happens.
00:08:52
John Saunders
Um, that makes sense.
00:08:53
johngrimsmo
Yeah. I like it.
00:08:55
John Saunders
Well, that's my pivot too, which is a unapologetic sales pitch. We have a beautiful, wonderfully functional Okuma horizontal that we had installed in March of 22.
00:09:07
John Saunders
And she runs great, runs to this day. Six pallet pull 217 tool, ATC, and what else? 15K spindle, through spindle coolant, I mean, pretty loaded on options.
00:09:23
John Saunders
And it runs great. We're just moving to one piece flow. So we have it up, all the info, the prices on our website, Sonners Machine Works. You scroll down to the bottom under equipment for sale. It's listed right there. um And ah we are i'm sort of like thinking about how I want to get it sold, but um I've been talking to some folks in industry looks like it's priced appropriately, but if it's not, you it'll sell for it. So it's it's going like, it'll sell for Salesforce. so So probably in about a month, if it's needs to, we're going to, I was thinking about doing something like, Hey, don't Every day I dropped the price by a thousand dollars until like, it's just, it's going like a big part of my plan for this year is to,
00:09:56
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:10:03
John Saunders
is contingent on that machine being gone because then we can start looking at the the new layout, some other improvements to the building.
00:10:05
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:10:11
John Saunders
And I'm not gonna be sitting here in you know August being like, oh man, I really wanna figure it's a great machine, it'll sell. um So yeah.
00:10:19
johngrimsmo
And you'll be running it until then?
00:10:23
John Saunders
Yeah, because it makes, it's kind of a chicken and the egg. We have, we are building up inventory as needed. um And as soon as it goes, we'll end up putting more three axis mills with robots in to replace it.
00:10:38
John Saunders
And I'm comfortable that we'll be able to bridge that gap period.
00:10:39
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:10:42
John Saunders
But yeah, we plan on running it until we can.
00:10:44
johngrimsmo
Perfect. Perfect.
00:10:45
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:10:46
johngrimsmo
Well, cool. Yeah. Good luck with that. I think, yeah, you just got to get the right word to the right person and it'll get snatched up.
00:10:48
John Saunders
Thank you.
00:10:52
John Saunders
Yeah. I, I've had a good relationship, honestly, with, um, one particular machine sales broker, like really had, but the last three or four machines we've sold, um, whether it's because you and I have an audience or whether it's because the internet's the internet, like I just didn't, I ended up selling them all myself.
00:11:08
John Saunders
And, um, the broker, they usually want 10%.
00:11:09
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah,
00:11:12
John Saunders
Um, and on a horizontal, that's not a small amount of money. And, and then the ringer, is it like they didn't, where it was a value is if it's just like, hey, I don't want to talk, like, here's here's the here's the but machine listing, call me when you need my wire info to send me the payment. It wasn't that. It's like all sorts of questions and inspections and coordinations and can you do this and what? And it's just like, well, I might just handle this on my own.
00:11:35
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:11:37
John Saunders
But I'm also very hesitant because i'm as ah I as i'm mature as a business person, that's like, nope, find the right people to help you do the right thing and and then get it. I guess I could still engage a broker later if need be.
00:11:48
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:11:48
John Saunders
Anyway.
00:11:49
johngrimsmo
Nice.
00:11:49
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:11:50
johngrimsmo
And it's not a small machine.
00:11:53
John Saunders
Correct. No, if fit well, it's funny you say that. You're you're right. um But the machine itself is actually surprisingly not huge. But the pallet pool, the mist collector, and the ATC definitely add add to the space.
00:12:01
johngrimsmo
It's all the stuff.
00:12:05
johngrimsmo
like I know our current came in crates, like wooden custom-built crates for sea travel or whatever it was.
00:12:08
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:12:10
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:12:10
johngrimsmo
um And i I mean, it's one thing to move a little three-axis mill and you know throw it on a transport truck and bring it over. I don't know much about moving used, bigger machines without the original crates and all that stuff.
00:12:24
johngrimsmo
Whatever.
00:12:24
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:12:25
johngrimsmo
It's kind of a rigger problem, really.
00:12:25
John Saunders
Yeah. Sure.
00:12:29
John Saunders
Yeah.
Advanced Features of Keyence Microscope
00:12:30
John Saunders
Okay. can i I actually, well, want to hear about all yours as always, but for sure, Python and Keyence.
00:12:37
johngrimsmo
Okay, separate things. yeah kind of Anyway, um because I went to the CMTS show a couple months ago, I got scanned by Keyence and I'm on their mailing list now, which anybody who's on the Keyence mailing list knows you get emails very often.
00:12:43
John Saunders
Okay.
00:12:47
John Saunders
thoughts Thoughts and prayers.
00:12:52
johngrimsmo
However, because of my absolute obsession with microscopes, they got me and the local local sales rep was like, yeah, come on.
00:12:58
John Saunders
right
00:13:00
johngrimsmo
I'm i in your area for a demo. And I was like, sure you are. But also, okay, you you are...
00:13:05
John Saunders
Okay. I love that we've turned to you cynical now. This this is great. Yeah.
00:13:09
johngrimsmo
But also like, okay, yeah, bring it by. Like I read the whole brochure and I'm like, okay, this thing looks really sick. It's probably like $100,000. But yes, please show me how it works so that I can build my own.
00:13:21
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:13:21
johngrimsmo
um And the guy came by, he's physics engineer, dude, really smart guy, loves microscopes, more of a, you know, on the hobby side, more of a bug microscope guy.
00:13:32
John Saunders
OK.
00:13:32
johngrimsmo
like he likes to microscope bugs, but he really knows his stuff. And that was really good. I was kind of worried that it would just be like a salesman that doesn't know what he's talking about. But from what I've seen so far, Keyence is actually, they they like hire actual engineers to be their sales guys, at least locally here. So that's really cool. Anyway, so they brought the VXH, something like that, microscope with two different heads on it. And It does end up being $50,000 to $100,000 for this package compared to our Zeiss, which was more 8 to 10
00:14:07
johngrimsmo
But it's pretty sick. it They're actually zooming in past the diffraction limit of light, which I didn't think was possible.
00:14:17
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:14:17
johngrimsmo
And there might be some digital zoom in there, but he like showed me and i was like, what? What?
00:14:23
John Saunders
what What sort of part were you looking at?
00:14:25
johngrimsmo
ah He brought some samples like a coin and some other things. And then we started putting our blades and pen parts under there.
00:14:30
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:14:31
johngrimsmo
So Eric came by too, and he brought a, one of the damasteel blades that he's polishing.
00:14:37
John Saunders
who
00:14:37
johngrimsmo
And when he's polishing, it's like going good, going good. And then he, reveals a new scratch or creates a new scratch or something and like oh man everything's wrong now now I gotta do it all over again and so he brought one of those blades over with one of those weird scratches and we got to like image it and look at it and it's like not even a tenth deep but but it's a visible scratch and I was like what I didn't think it would be that little yeah barely but
00:14:56
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:15:03
John Saunders
Visible to the naked eye. Okay. And are you saying you're, you, are you, do you know with measurement ability that it's less than a 10th or you just were saying it's really shallow colloquially or how do you measure that?
00:15:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah, it was um with this optical microscope, it can do a couple different ways, but it can do focus stacking where it moves to a Z height, takes a picture, moves to the next Z height, takes a picture on all different focuses, and then stitches together 50 plus images.
00:15:19
John Saunders
Okay.
00:15:30
johngrimsmo
So you you have a deep depth of field that is completely in focus.
00:15:31
John Saunders
That's cool.
00:15:33
johngrimsmo
And then you can, because you have the focus Z reference, you know, I moved one micron per focus stack, you have a Z map.
00:15:42
John Saunders
That's pretty cool.
00:15:42
johngrimsmo
It's super cool. And it it knows how to automatically focus on the part. So it knows the height of that pixel, and then it moves and knows the height of the next pixel, and it can extrapolate and average and comp compute and all that stuff.
00:15:50
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:15:56
johngrimsmo
But we measured, what was that scratch? I think it was seven microns deep, which is like five microns is two tenths. So that's like three tenths.
00:16:05
John Saunders
yeah insane
00:16:06
johngrimsmo
Yeah. And then the edge of our damasteel, was also super interesting so i have an etched blade where you have your shiny metal and your etched metal on stripes or lines or whatever um i'm like how deep is it because i can feel it with my fingers it's like three tenths deep
00:16:18
John Saunders
okay yeah yeah i believe that no you can human hand can feel yeah
00:16:26
johngrimsmo
i thought it would have been deeper i don't know yeah it was just cool to like have that feedback loop and see it and be like wow that's so cool um
00:16:37
John Saunders
So for that price point, you're you, there is a metrology measuring aspect to it. It's not just a vision scope.
00:16:43
johngrimsmo
Yes, absolutely. And it's actually pretty impressive.
00:16:44
John Saunders
Okay.
00:16:45
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:16:46
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:16:47
johngrimsmo
Yeah, not only surface profile, but height of scratches, width of scratches, but also feature recognition and feature. You could put an engraving on there, say you engrave text or whatever, and you can use light to dark feature recognition because your engraving is deeper and darker to measure the height of the engraving, measure the depth of the engraving, reverse image the whole depth to be an actual 3D hike map that you could like rotate around and stuff.
00:17:04
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:17:13
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:17:15
johngrimsmo
And this is really, really cool.
00:17:17
John Saunders
We, I know that something like that will be part of our One Piece Flow robot system, but I'm not worried about it yet because we're not there.
00:17:23
johngrimsmo
me yeah
00:17:26
John Saunders
Like we're just not, but also no joke. I'm literally going to create like a dummy. i I'll create a dummy website and company and, and email Keyence through that. Cause it's like their, their marketing ethics are like beyond ethical.
00:17:38
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:17:38
John Saunders
Um, but it's also like, I want to learn and I got to get my get my ego out of the way to learn what we need to learn about the products.
00:17:44
johngrimsmo
Absolutely. He also told me that Keyence is one of the top five biggest companies in Japan.
00:17:51
John Saunders
Sure. i mean, I'm not trusting.
00:17:52
johngrimsmo
Sure. It's just like, that's that's big.
00:17:54
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:17:55
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:17:55
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:17:56
johngrimsmo
Because I'm just saying they do a lot more than we think they do, like in the world, in the industry kind of thing.
00:17:56
John Saunders
Interesting.
00:18:01
johngrimsmo
um At that scale, i don't know.
00:18:04
John Saunders
Yeah, right. No, it's nice hear you say that because you do get the, sometimes you get the, I get the idea that they just hire smart, sharp, young, hungry folks entering the workforce and then tell them to go be as aggressive as possible back by the market.
00:18:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:18:16
John Saunders
And it takes away from the end use, like remember years ago being an area 419 and they were putting their muzzle brakes and parts on a, um Key and thing that looks like a grocery ski a grocery scanner, like it's just like a flat glass thing and you dump it on there and it immediately was recognizing features and bores and tolerances and threads.
00:18:34
John Saunders
And with a robot being able to have that be part of your one piece flow for every part or every 10 parts, like 100%, pretty cool.
00:18:38
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:18:40
John Saunders
pretty cool
00:18:42
johngrimsmo
Yeah, super, super cool. And as I'm learning, building my two microscopes, the vision system and the interferometer, everything's a trade
DIY White Light Interferometer Challenges
00:18:50
johngrimsmo
off. Like if you want to be able to see a four inch by four inch part in one scan, your accuracy won't be that much because you're going to have to zoom out a lot.
00:18:55
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:18:58
johngrimsmo
So you're.
00:18:59
John Saunders
Okay.
00:19:00
johngrimsmo
you won't be able to resolve like a tenth of the whole diameter or something like that. um
00:19:05
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:19:05
johngrimsmo
If you want that, you have to zoom in to like the size of a US quarter. And then that's all you can see in one view, but you get much higher accuracy.
00:19:14
John Saunders
Can you program it to do both in an automated workflow?
00:19:17
johngrimsmo
you You can, yeah, ah fancy ones will have XY motorized table that'll take take multiple images and stitch them all together.
00:19:22
John Saunders
Okay.
00:19:24
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:19:25
johngrimsmo
So for my system, I'm contemplating building a DIY XY gantry table that is super accurate so that I can properly stitch all these photos together. But I and don't know if that'll be necessary yet.
00:19:36
johngrimsmo
I just want to get everything functioning first.
00:19:39
John Saunders
Well, that reminds me of the guy you sent me that built the 3D printed flexures that were insanely accurate for the XYZ motion system.
00:19:47
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:19:48
John Saunders
Oh, can remember that, guys?
00:19:48
johngrimsmo
The diffraction limited on it on on YouTube, his micromanipulator.
00:19:51
John Saunders
Thank you.
00:19:53
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:19:53
John Saunders
Yes, like insane.
00:19:56
johngrimsmo
Hats off.
00:19:57
John Saunders
Yes.
00:19:57
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I'm basically copying a lot of what he's done into my projects.
00:20:03
John Saunders
And that, sorry, I'm rambling. That's reminds me of an idea I had years ago that I was never going to run with. Maybe it's applicable here is let's say you have that diffraction limited style, super, super accurate flexure that has only has call it 40 millimeters or half an inch of or something, whatever, one inch, one inch.
00:20:20
johngrimsmo
That's about what his is, 50 millimeters, yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:20:22
John Saunders
Of travel. Okay, fine. You put that on a system that's you spend 300 bucks on a pretty high quality 12 inch ball screw. And then you can move the 12 inch ball screw around for your macro.
00:20:33
John Saunders
And then the micro manipulator for the micro.
00:20:35
johngrimsmo
anded
00:20:35
John Saunders
Now you gotta to figure out how to code that to have it be like.
00:20:37
johngrimsmo
Yep. It's totally doable though. And with image stitching, you don't actually need apparently perfect XY movement because the image stitching overlaps by 10% and matches pixels.
00:20:39
John Saunders
o
00:20:48
johngrimsmo
So the movement between frames doesn't have to be nanometer perfect.
00:20:48
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:20:53
johngrimsmo
I think that's what ChatGPD is telling me anyway.
00:20:57
John Saunders
I had an old person moment when I realized, you know, i grew up with film cameras. I think like we had film cameras and exposure.
00:21:03
johngrimsmo
Yeah, for sure.
00:21:04
John Saunders
And, um, now when your iPhone, when you take a five second exposure or two second, it says, hold still. I was just always assuming like, I got to hold still here. No, the phone wants you to hold still because it makes it easier on the phone to stitch it together.
00:21:16
John Saunders
But like you're moving around all over the place and it's just digitally shifting every frame it takes to synthetically put the image together.
00:21:22
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:21:24
John Saunders
isn't that crazy?
00:21:25
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:21:27
John Saunders
Which is why, fun fact, because William and I got and discovered this through getting into a little bit of astronomy stuff lately. If you put your phone on an iPhone on a tripod, the phone will sense that it's stable and it will actually give you a 30 second exposure setting on your camera.
00:21:41
johngrimsmo
Oh, that's cool. Nice. Did you ever get a chance to watch, we talked about a few months ago, Hugin's Optics on YouTube has a bendable mirror, bendable telescope mirror video.
00:21:59
John Saunders
Not ringing a bell.
00:22:01
johngrimsmo
it It is really cool, especially if you guys are into telescopes. He explains, he explains.
00:22:07
John Saunders
This is on my watch later list, Arjan.
00:22:08
johngrimsmo
Yeah. yeah
00:22:09
John Saunders
Yeah. Okay.
00:22:09
johngrimsmo
The coolest thing that I got from it is he explains how astronomers on earth can image through the clouds and through the atmosphere, like by shining a laser at the clouds and measuring it back and like weird stuff like that.
00:22:10
John Saunders
That's why.
00:22:16
John Saunders
It's crazy.
00:22:20
johngrimsmo
And I'm like, Holy cow.
00:22:22
John Saunders
Yeah. It's really crazy. That's cool.
00:22:29
johngrimsmo
So last thing on that the the So my vision system pretty much works. The software pretty much works. I can recognize two d profiles around parts and like measure things fairly accurately.
00:22:42
johngrimsmo
The white light interferometer is an addition to that or kind of a separate thing. And I told you last week, um i can't get interference fringes yet. um
00:22:52
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:22:53
johngrimsmo
And I tried again last night and I still can't get it. And so eventually I ended up filming like a three minute video and sending it to Cyrus and be like, please please help me. yeah
00:23:02
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:23:02
johngrimsmo
Here's what I'm doing. i got everything. i think um everything should be right. I'm now wondering if my light source, which is an actual flashlight with its own reflector and stuff is the problem.
00:23:15
johngrimsmo
Because in in the two other setups that I've seen, it's ah like a bare LED. Yeah. not a microscope with or sorry not a flashlight with a reflector bouncing light rays all over in weird different places
00:23:28
John Saunders
oh Oh, cause your flashlight has a reflect dome.
00:23:31
johngrimsmo
exactly yeah it it has like a you know shiny metal reflector bit that moves the light and i do have a piece of aluminum foil on front with a tiny little hole because you want a pinhole light source and then you expand that pinhole into a lens and then that lens makes straight light beams
00:23:32
John Saunders
Interesting.
00:23:38
John Saunders
Right.
00:23:44
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:23:50
johngrimsmo
but because my flashlight is different than the two other examples I've seen of DIY interferometers, maybe that's my problem.
00:23:58
John Saunders
Can you just disassemble your flashlight and put some Sharpie over the everything but the dome, but but the Korea, assuming it's like a Korea or something.
00:24:05
johngrimsmo
Not the flashlight that I'm using, but on ah on certain flashlights, maybe you could. um And I do have bare LEDs here at work.
00:24:11
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:24:13
johngrimsmo
I just didn't have them didn't have them at home at night.
00:24:14
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:24:15
johngrimsmo
so So anyway, I'm just wondering if that's,
00:24:15
John Saunders
Yeah. This seems solvable.
00:24:19
johngrimsmo
ah totally solvable because I'm doing something wrong.
00:24:20
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:24:21
johngrimsmo
I'm just not seeing it yet. um
00:24:23
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:24:24
johngrimsmo
And my my setup is pretty slapdash and i just want to see fringes. I just want to like, don't pass go until this is achieved. Now you can make it good.
00:24:34
John Saunders
Is that the Python programming comment too then?
00:24:37
johngrimsmo
No, actually.
00:24:37
John Saunders
Oh, ah
00:24:38
johngrimsmo
Okay. So I'll transition to that too. But anyway, the more I don't have a white light interferometer, the more I want one. Like no joke. I,
00:24:47
John Saunders
yeah, but good.
00:24:48
johngrimsmo
I want one so bad.
00:24:50
John Saunders
Cause I'm sorry.
00:24:50
johngrimsmo
Good. Like I will use it like every day at work. I'm like, oh, there's a problem with this tool. Oh, this surface finish is kind of weird. Yeah. If I could see that really close, I would know exactly what's going on. And there is a fading.
00:25:04
johngrimsmo
um fear amongst the team, specifically my brother, going, don't look that close, John. We don't want John looking that close at everything.
00:25:12
John Saunders
Oh.
00:25:13
johngrimsmo
Because as you know, when you microscope, everything looks worse under the microscope.
00:25:16
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:25:17
johngrimsmo
I'm okay with that now because I'm over it. And I know, yeah, it looks bad on the microscope, but I know it's fine. Whereas it's hard to take somebody's work and put it on their microscope and be like, yeah, see how bad this is? This is you.
00:25:30
johngrimsmo
and That's not what I'm trying to do. But i I want it as a tool so when I can see what's happening, I can know how to fix it.
00:25:40
John Saunders
How about you bart borrow the Mitsutuyu, don't think they came up with this, but that's who I learned it from.
00:25:41
johngrimsmo
If there's a problem.
00:25:48
John Saunders
The Mitsutuyu idea of you need a metrology tool that has a 10 times higher resolution or accuracy than what you're actually trying to achieve.
00:25:51
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:25:58
johngrimsmo
I like that. and I think I have said that to a couple of guys, but not enough. And that's important. Yep.
00:26:04
John Saunders
Yeah. But it's also worth like our job as leaders is also to make sure um we're we're balancing conviction with listening. And it's like sometimes, you know, it was part of what i love you about you, but you are a little crazy.
00:26:14
John Saunders
um
00:26:15
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:26:15
John Saunders
Like, and and don't you wanna to be a you don't want to be unreasonable.
00:26:20
johngrimsmo
Absolutely.
00:26:20
John Saunders
um
00:26:21
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:26:21
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:26:22
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:26:23
John Saunders
Wait, sorry. What does that have to with Python programming?
00:26:26
johngrimsmo
Well, the, I mean, the whole vision system program is Python.
00:26:31
John Saunders
Oh, okay. Got it.
00:26:32
johngrimsmo
but But that's not...
Automating Data Analysis with Python
00:26:34
johngrimsmo
So I did that a couple weeks ago. It works great. Used cursor to program it. It was fantastic.
00:26:39
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:26:39
johngrimsmo
And I've had this desire... So from the Speedio, we're deprinting a ton of data. Time, date, probed hole diameter, tool life, um various other things. And sifting through a deprint file, it's a text file,
00:27:00
John Saunders
Uh-huh.
00:27:00
johngrimsmo
And it's constrained, like it's consistent, but to compare this number with that number, with that number, with that number, you gotta sift through it. You gotta copy everything into a spreadsheet. You gotta make your own graph. And I'm like, this is dumb. This is time consuming.
00:27:14
johngrimsmo
So I sit down with Cursor and I'm like, here's what I wanna do. Here's my log file from the Speedio. Time and date are pretty clear on there. It says date, it says time, it's slashes in between. There's spaces delimiting everything.
00:27:26
johngrimsmo
And I'm like, i' I want to be able to open a file, see the file. I want to be able to select a string of text and search through the rest of the file and find the last the last number in that line item, which is the measurement, and plot this on a graph automatically.
00:27:45
johngrimsmo
And within like an hour, i had this working. And so every printed hole diameter, every laser tool diameter, every whatever, um I can compare in a line graph.
00:27:56
johngrimsmo
Every thermal comp of the machine that I'm applying with my new stuff shows, oh, cold machine, look at that.
00:28:00
John Saunders
Oh.
00:28:03
johngrimsmo
Warms up, warms up, warms up, stabilizes, cold, sweet. And then i was like, wait, can I search that across all deprinted files? Because it outputs a new file every day. Well, of course I can.
00:28:14
John Saunders
Oh.
00:28:15
johngrimsmo
Of course I can. I can see this over days and days and days, weeks, months, years, and it's starting to get like really cool and powerful. So that was phase one. And then a couple days ago, i was like, well, you know what else I really want to do?
00:28:26
johngrimsmo
And we've talked about this over the years. I want to be able to search G-code files for various things. tell Show me every program that uses a tool breakage to type detection cycle, or show me every program in this folder that uses tool 42.
00:28:32
John Saunders
Sure.
00:28:41
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:28:42
johngrimsmo
And so it does, and it's epic. It's absolutely cool. And it can find and replace, and it can make changes. This is obviously dangerous to mass replace everything, but done safely because on the speedy, I'm using a lot of macros and I'll change things sometimes.
00:28:51
John Saunders
Sure.
00:28:57
johngrimsmo
There's a lot of subroutines and I don't remember which file has which method of whatever. This program now lets me a mass find all files that use this string of text and dis show, display, update, change, replace all, whatever I want.
00:29:08
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:29:13
johngrimsmo
And it's a Python program.
00:29:13
John Saunders
When you say this program, do you mean a Python program or you use just mean that all around? Okay. Okay.
00:29:17
johngrimsmo
it's It's a Python program with a UI that the UI does it like very graphically, very visually.
00:29:20
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah.
00:29:23
johngrimsmo
And it's like the the next morning I needed to use it and it was came in clutch.
00:29:27
John Saunders
It's great.
00:29:28
johngrimsmo
It was like so cool. And I know you you guys had some sort of spreadsheet based system that would like show what tools use, watch which programs use Watch Tools.
00:29:32
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:29:39
John Saunders
Yep, we do.
00:29:40
johngrimsmo
You still use it
00:29:41
John Saunders
ah It's used in a batch style manner. So yes, we, um we on the horizontal is the only machine we use at the SON. So every program every part that's made on the horizontal has a fusion setup sheet posted to a a network drive folder.
00:29:58
John Saunders
So those are HTMLs. And then the Python script that Alex, think Alex might have actually written this pre ah pre-AI, where it's like, you know, you're on like Stack Overflow trying to figure out why you can't, I mean, i'm Alex has done a great job as a non-programming and stuff.
00:30:02
johngrimsmo
Sure,
00:30:09
johngrimsmo
sure. sure
00:30:10
John Saunders
And until you run that script and it populates, it just scrapes the tool information out of the setup sheets and puts it into a Google Sheet.
00:30:18
johngrimsmo
Nice. So you have a...
00:30:18
John Saunders
but it's smart enough to know if two different, if it creates a series of columns and rows, and so it knows if two different programs, it creates a list for the tools and it tells you what programs use those tools.
00:30:19
johngrimsmo
Right, yeah.
00:30:28
John Saunders
So it's it's displayed in the way you'd want to see it.
00:30:31
johngrimsmo
Got it.
00:30:32
John Saunders
That makes sense.
00:30:33
johngrimsmo
Yeah, and I didn't design mine to with that in mind to do that, but I realized i could easily search, like on Hide and Hide It's tool call 42. I could easily search the text tool call 42 in a single folder, in all subfolders, in whatever, in my entire current folder, and it would just display everything.
00:30:47
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:30:50
johngrimsmo
And it's fast. It's it's like instant.
00:30:53
John Saunders
It's crazy.
00:30:53
johngrimsmo
Actually, it takes, if there's a lot of files, it takes about nine seconds.
00:30:56
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:30:57
johngrimsmo
And I ended up putting a seconds timer, a milliseconds timer, like on the screen.
00:30:58
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:31:01
johngrimsmo
um And you know how some programs, when you hit go, it it like freezes the program and you can't do anything and you're just waiting. i was like, that's stupid. Show me a seconds timer and give me functionality so I can actually feel like I'm not frozen.
00:31:15
John Saunders
yeah
00:31:15
johngrimsmo
And and it it like works great. so you see the seconds timer counting up in milliseconds. And then after 12 seconds, it's like, results are populated.
00:31:23
John Saunders
Okay, that's
00:31:24
johngrimsmo
Yeah, so anyway. But then once it's found them all, clicking on everyone, and it auto goes down to the line number where the line is selected, you know, if there's 100,000 lines in this code, it'll, when I'm opening that file with the result, it'll scroll down to line number 900,000 or whatever.
00:31:33
John Saunders
awesome.
00:31:41
John Saunders
No kidding.
00:31:41
johngrimsmo
Just like show it to you right there. It's like, yeah, here it is
00:31:43
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:31:45
johngrimsmo
So, yeah, I should make a little ah Instagram video about this because it's it's cool.
00:31:45
John Saunders
Yeah, that's awesome.
00:31:51
John Saunders
Yes.
00:31:52
johngrimsmo
don't know.
00:31:52
John Saunders
Although now going to ask to have you, no, this is a totally unreasonable request, but have you, have you like email that to me? Cause don't check Instagram anymore.
00:32:01
johngrimsmo
Mm. Then you're gonna miss it.
00:32:01
John Saunders
It's been great. I hate to say it. I really thought it would be hard to withdraw.
00:32:06
John Saunders
It's been like unbelievably easy. Yeah.
00:32:06
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:32:07
johngrimsmo
Good, man.
00:32:09
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:32:10
johngrimsmo
I'm certainly using it less and less over time. I still, you know, like it and get the dopamine hit and feel like I'm learning cool things or seeing cool things or, but half of it is slop and the other half of it is, you know, maybe 10% of it is like the coolest thing ever, you know?
00:32:18
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:32:27
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad I, listened to friends and people say for over a year, Hey, you should like consider deleting it or changing it. And I, I put a timer on it, but it just, it was the way I approach it with all these other things is just like, just try it for a week. Like you always go back and I, maybe I will i've sort of told my wife, was like, I'll probably reinstall for vacations. i want to check it from the road or post stuff like that. But, um, I'm glad I, you know, I'm a weekend and it's going good. I'll leave it with that.
00:32:56
johngrimsmo
Good, good, good.
00:32:58
John Saunders
Did I show you this last week?
00:33:01
johngrimsmo
No.
00:33:03
John Saunders
Okay, I'm holding up a Sawzall with a 3D printed fixture on the on the front end of on the business end of a Sawzall. So one of my projects for this year is looking at how, if, how, and if, why, and how we could implement a barfed mill.
Optimizing Bar-Fed Mill System
00:33:19
johngrimsmo
like a bar video.
00:33:19
John Saunders
Part of Barfedio. I want to do it because Uh, it's cool. And it's a challenge. I enjoy challenges. I also want to do it because practically speaking, it offers a really strong way for us to diversify away from the Willemann. It doesn't mean we'll get rid of it, but let's, let's let the Willemann do Willemann work and do, you know, Honda Accord work on, barf head mill. And, um,
00:33:42
John Saunders
Two things that make this way easier than it might otherwise be is that for right now, I'm not planning to implement a actual bar loader or bar feeder like you would see from Edge or LN, et cetera. ah The thought is just a single piece of material that's being hand loaded into the machine. So you will be limited to it running unattended to pursue it to the number of parts you can get out of that bar. um The parts, the bar,
00:34:09
John Saunders
will also never be turning or rotating. So you don't need a lot of the design requirements around most bar feeders, which contemplate a multi-thousand RPM piece of material. And um I think I figured the rest of it out in terms of the fourth axis and work holding and indexing the part and functionality, a combination of spindle grippers and and other stuff.
00:34:20
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm.
00:34:34
John Saunders
The last thing though, that I was struggling with was I don't want to um part off every part with an end mill. You could, and you certainly could as a proof of concept.
00:34:47
John Saunders
And maybe we will if if we're otherwise ready to implement this, but long-term parting kind stinks with with end mills. um And so we take a step back and think about the way the world cuts steel, like, you know, the kind of like one inch type steel stuff.
00:35:06
John Saunders
It's with a bandsaw, full stop, like just the most practical way to do so. um And I thought, you know, joking aside, you know, like the go to come to the table with an open mind. was like, well, we have one of those Milwaukee cordless bands.
00:35:21
John Saunders
bandsaws that's, you know, the the kind that you could put in a backpack, like it's cordless.
00:35:23
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:35:25
johngrimsmo
Porta band. Yep.
00:35:26
John Saunders
And, uh, I was like, you could put that on the end of a UR robot. I mean, hundred percent terrible idea, but actually would work.
00:35:30
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:35:33
John Saunders
So we got something. We're starting with something. Um, I also spent some time looking into the, uh, into the, uh, Diablo carbide tipped, uh, circular saw blades that are, you know, seven inches in diameter that are rotating at 5,000 RPM or something quite high.
00:35:49
John Saunders
And in chat was quite educational about explaining why those can violate the surface footage rules that otherwise apply to steel. You know, like why on a carbide slitting saw do I still have to go 400, but on those you can go 6,000 SFM.
00:35:57
johngrimsmo
OK.
00:36:03
John Saunders
I don't remember what it said and so I can't eloquently rehash it, but um if you go look on the Website, these $30 blades and circular saws are regularly cutting through a rebar, um railroad ties, like they really work.
00:36:17
johngrimsmo
They're like carbide insert braised insert saws.
00:36:21
John Saunders
yeah I don't know if I, I don't know. they They use the word carbide in tips. I don't think that they are actual. no I don't know, John, but no, it's not like AB tool is sitting there in centering or brazing on carbide onto, you know, 75 teeth here.
00:36:29
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:36:36
John Saunders
There's, they're too cheap for that.
00:36:36
johngrimsmo
but like in woodworking they have that they have like chop saws that are like that yeah
00:36:42
John Saunders
Yeah. I don't know.
00:36:45
johngrimsmo
and
00:36:45
John Saunders
um But it's it's too janky and it's too unsafe. You know, a 5,000 RPM or 3,000 RPM 7-inch blade, that I'm not interested in it.
00:36:51
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:36:55
John Saunders
I also think that it will, it's unclear what the tool life, blade life would be. And so then I thought back to Sawzalls. Sawzalls are similar to a bandsaw.
00:37:06
John Saunders
Now they reciprocate back and forth, so that makes them very different than an actual bandsaw. But um I think what we're going to do and this is why i was holding this up is we printed a fixture that holds the material um and We can quickly start using this as a test mechanism to see how it's able to to work to cut the material off the research and calculations should show that a $11 high-end blade the two the two blade manufacturers that seem to be the best are the EZ-Arc and then again the Diablo carbide blades.
00:37:39
John Saunders
These are $11 and they should be lasting somewhere between two and four hundred cuts in the material I'm looking to do so
00:37:46
johngrimsmo
Steel.
00:37:47
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:37:48
johngrimsmo
right
00:37:48
John Saunders
and And to replace the blade, you just pull a pin, lift the blade out, put the new one in. It's something where if you're getting 200 cuts proactively, you take four seconds to replace the blade every day.
00:37:59
John Saunders
Done.
00:37:59
johngrimsmo
Oh, geez. Oh.
00:38:00
John Saunders
You also, here's the fun part. You would end up either changing this to a pneumatic system, so it's not an electric sawzall, or you rip the guts out of one of these, put it in a properly sealed and enclosure, and then when you want to cut the...
00:38:14
John Saunders
the machine tool grabs a tool that has a hook on it in your Z axis. Your Z axis is actually what controls the pivot of the saws all into the part. So you have a controlled feed rate and you can use the fourth axis to rotate the the work piece, either to position it at the best angle to cut it, or you can actually have it potentially rotating while it cuts.
00:38:34
johngrimsmo
true
00:38:35
John Saunders
and with coolant and a rigid setup. The Sawzall blades are very tolerant of blade wear. So unlike a carbide slitting saw where one tooth gone is catastrophic. this These are fine.
00:38:45
johngrimsmo
isn
00:38:46
John Saunders
fine
00:38:47
johngrimsmo
there is a weird feedback loop between this the machine not knowing what the saw is doing exactly um if if the saw is too much load and the z is pulling on it maybe you could do force sensing and all that stuff
00:39:00
John Saunders
Yeah. There's a lot of options for sensing camera system, just have it stop. Um, or even have it just stop confirm it's somehow confirm it's okay. And then you can come in and slot the part off and resume and just do slot it. Like there's actually some pretty fun.
00:39:13
John Saunders
Um, but all i'm trying to do is figure out what's stopping me from now realizing, okay, let's buy a machine. Let's get a fourth access on it and let's, let's build this.
00:39:22
johngrimsmo
yeah well doesn't cj have one of his machines that doesn't have an external bar feeder it just loads 18 inches bars from the other palette
00:39:31
John Saunders
Yes, he does.
00:39:32
johngrimsmo
it's an r series uh like palette changing speedio
00:39:35
John Saunders
Yes. I think he, i don't know if he's kept that. I do think he's now iterated beyond that though, to to a proper bar feeding bar fed mill that actually has a true bar change bar fed system.
00:39:41
johngrimsmo
sure okay i got it yeah which is probably better yield um stuff now i mean every part we make on the williman uh pretty much gets parted off with an eighth inch high feed end mill
00:39:52
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:40:02
John Saunders
No, yeah. yeah
00:40:03
johngrimsmo
And it just works. Like it takes a about and eight eight seconds to part off parts. Like oftentimes
00:40:12
John Saunders
Zidaro or DeBoer, okay.
00:40:15
johngrimsmo
DeBoer. Yeah.
00:40:16
John Saunders
I might, can I buy DeBoer or is it weird?
00:40:18
johngrimsmo
It's like a, will they ship to the U S probably? don't
00:40:23
John Saunders
Maybe if I come up, I'll buy some from, yeah, exactly.
00:40:23
johngrimsmo
I'll send you some if you want. Yeah.
00:40:25
John Saunders
I'm not against that to be clear.
00:40:26
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:40:26
John Saunders
Like I don't, I'm open-minded, but.
00:40:28
johngrimsmo
Oh yeah, i've I've fallen in love with high feed end mills over the past years, especially if you're going to weird stuff like this, because all the load goes axially. So even though the tool looks really long and sticky outy, it has very little side load.
00:40:37
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:40:39
johngrimsmo
So like on the Williman, what I'll do often is I'll zip through just about halfway, rotate 180 or 90 degrees. I'll hit it from four sides and then I'm left with a...
00:40:49
johngrimsmo
you know, 10-pound nub in the middle that, or or I cut it all the way through, um depending on what I'm doing.
00:40:51
John Saunders
yeah
00:40:56
johngrimsmo
And it works extremely well. It leaves an, you know, a finish that needs an op 2 or whatever, but.
00:41:04
John Saunders
Well, that's another reason why I want to pursue the sawing is that I don't care about the cut quality because it's going to be machined momentarily later.
00:41:11
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:41:14
John Saunders
So for example, I thought about buying a cold saw and mounting a cold saw in it to get that. It seems appropriate. Cold saw is effectively a single access CNC machine, but like overkill.
00:41:24
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:41:25
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:41:25
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:41:26
johngrimsmo
It's cool though. I like thinking outside the box. I like coming up with new ideas because you're learning more. You're learning what can and what can't. And I love the aspect of like, yeah, but like, come on, why not?
00:41:37
johngrimsmo
Like prove to me. Why why not?
00:41:37
John Saunders
Oh, yeah. Oh, no.
00:41:39
johngrimsmo
Exactly.
00:41:39
John Saunders
going to this. Yeah.
00:41:41
johngrimsmo
It's great.
00:41:45
johngrimsmo
Interesting.
00:41:46
John Saunders
and That's my, my other, that was, i mean, my goals for the year, sell the horizontal, um implement more robots. They're going great so far. um By the way, I wanted to mention the brother made its first Modvice part.
00:41:59
John Saunders
I mean, we needed to tweak stuff, but like we're good. Like I'm completely not comfortable. If somebody wanted to, if somebody wanted to start decommissioning the horizontal tomorrow, I would, I would consent. um And it tapped M12 form taps in steel beautifully.
00:42:11
johngrimsmo
That's a big hole.
00:42:11
John Saunders
That was the, that was the big question. Yeah.
00:42:14
johngrimsmo
That's like a half inch hole.
00:42:15
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Now we have the 10 K high torque spindle and I wouldn't, I didn't see it.
00:42:19
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:42:20
John Saunders
And then only have done two holes. So I guess I should clarify that this is not conclusive, but you know, um i we're going to a test block just to make sure we learn a little bit more, but we're, we're okay.
00:42:23
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:42:31
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Sweet.
00:42:34
John Saunders
Yep.
00:42:35
johngrimsmo
Anybody comfortable with a hundred percent Rapids yet?
00:42:39
John Saunders
Wouldn't know. Haven't even been near it when it was running.
00:42:40
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:42:41
John Saunders
I'm sorry. I re yeah, but it scares the crap out of me. That's for sure.
00:42:44
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:42:44
John Saunders
The few times I've seen it.
00:42:45
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:42:46
John Saunders
Holy nuts.
00:42:47
johngrimsmo
Yeah. My guys leave ours at one tick back. So like 50% Rapids or something like that. Cause even though I'd rather it be at a hundred percent, but it's fine.
00:42:52
John Saunders
bull
00:42:55
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:42:55
johngrimsmo
It's fast enough.
00:42:57
John Saunders
The only other thing I'll share that's, you know, more of a personal or intimate detail was I'm on a few different organizations involved with locally. And one of them I finally stepped off of.
00:43:09
John Saunders
And um I know this isn't really directly related to the business of machining, except um in this, this not as a nonprofit board, nothing to do with our industry, but it took a little bit of, I stayed on for probably an extra year, even though I've been wanting to step off because I didn't want to,
00:43:25
John Saunders
just and you know I value giving back being member of the community, but I'm on a couple other boards and I just finally, combination of how demanding this one was, not agreeing with some of the direction of it. and And it feels good to, you know, it's okay to do that.
00:43:41
John Saunders
It is. So that was my other big thing was be more having more conviction about clarity of what I want to focus on and how I spend my time in the coming year.
00:43:50
johngrimsmo
I like that. yeahp that's really It's easy to forget that, to overlook it, to just be buried by all the stuff you have to do without questioning, why do I have to do this?
00:44:00
John Saunders
Yeah. Right. Yeah.
00:44:01
johngrimsmo
That's good, man.
00:44:04
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:44:06
johngrimsmo
yeah that's about all I got.
00:44:08
John Saunders
Go. No, I've written down the speed optimization thing twice. what What is this? If you got time.
00:44:13
johngrimsmo
I mean, we've talked about it many times. It's tracking the thermal growth of the machine, trying to get predictable, consistent results.
00:44:18
John Saunders
Okay.
00:44:20
johngrimsmo
My new Python program to help me visualize the deprinted data has really, really helped.
00:44:25
John Saunders
Okay. Yeah.
00:44:26
johngrimsmo
um I did end up mounting the precision Fjell-Bor blade to the laser.
00:44:31
John Saunders
Yes, right. Yep, yep, yep.
00:44:33
johngrimsmo
And now I'm probing that and recording all the results. And now visualizing them is a lot faster and easier. And that's implemented now. Like, it's it's running. um i don't. yet have enough conclusive data from my operator Steve to be like, so is it better?
00:44:48
johngrimsmo
Are you comping it less? Are you not comping it anymore?
00:44:50
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:44:50
johngrimsmo
Like, is it do is it listening to you? Is it doing what you want? He's running for a couple days now. So I'm it's about time to, you know, check in and see how she's doing.
00:45:01
John Saunders
Awesome. Okay. I think I misunderstood maybe some what some of that optimization.
00:45:04
johngrimsmo
hmm.
00:45:05
John Saunders
You don't mean necessarily like cycle time per se. You just mean me more understanding how to control that machine.
00:45:11
johngrimsmo
Exactly. to To give me consistent results is what I want.
00:45:16
John Saunders
Yeah. Right. um My sort of businessy tip was a desire, but also a question, which is I do want to start a cultural process at Saunders where we have certain tasks that do require the the doer of the task to kind of put their personal signature on it to avoid.
00:45:34
John Saunders
yeah i want to be defensive. We don't have a problem or this isn't like a nanny state desired thing, but it's also like I myself will be like, oh, I'll do that tomorrow. Or I don't, you know, you can always sort of say you're busy. And sometimes I want to just create a like, nope, this is like the way we run things. We're okay. We can take five, sometimes it's five minutes to do this. And I want somebody to kind of sign off on it. And that's where, you know, ERPs and digital systems aren't like the best. Cause you know, even like right now I have to go change,
00:46:03
John Saunders
um the filters in the rooftop furnace it's like i marked it as complete it's on my short-term to-do list i know i'll get to it but like that's not great so i'm trying to think through i'm curious if you have anything at grimsmo or if you're aware of a system that requires you know <unk> know the other example i think about is you know you go into a restaurant and the bathroom the bathroom cleaning log has you know the time and date of the signature of the person who did it yeah what do you think
00:46:10
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:46:28
johngrimsmo
something like that is so easy and especially if it's out and visible then it's not only of not only a visual cue to like
00:46:33
John Saunders
Out and visible good point. Yeah.
00:46:37
johngrimsmo
Everybody knows, everybody sees.
00:46:39
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:46:40
johngrimsmo
I think that's one of the biggest keys. like like We do that tiny bit at home, but also like with the kids allowance. you know i had them make a spreadsheet.
00:46:49
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:46:50
johngrimsmo
And if we we often forget to pay them, they often forget to ask.
00:46:54
John Saunders
ah
00:46:55
johngrimsmo
It's funny, but then every now and then it's like late will come up and be like, that has been a few. It's been like, hold on. I did the math. I looked at the last time I got paid and it was like five weeks ago. So you owe me this much.
00:47:07
johngrimsmo
And I was like, all right, it's on the way.
00:47:08
John Saunders
I don't know. Back rent, don't know.
00:47:09
johngrimsmo
Exactly. Anyway, um tracking it, having it out, having it visual. um something we found at home is if it's not out, we will forget all about it.
00:47:21
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:47:21
johngrimsmo
So we like to leave things visual. All the projects are out and around, you know, somewhat organized, but they're not hidden in drawers and put away.
00:47:31
John Saunders
I thank you. I think you just answered it. that What you said is exactly right.
00:47:33
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:47:34
John Saunders
Like I want the view to be, it's a shared thing. I want the culture to be like, okay, if somebody really can't get to something, then somebody else is going to just step in and do it. But it's also like, don't be that person where every week you're the one that's too, but you know what i mean?
00:47:47
John Saunders
um And having it as a visible thing where you use initial, when you've done it, then everyone can see if something's not happening in it. The hope here is it's like self policing. But, but,
00:48:00
John Saunders
but
00:48:01
johngrimsmo
It becomes crowd policing in a way. Like like we have that downstairs for but for vacuuming the carpet in the lunchroom and the the hallway and stuff.
00:48:05
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:48:09
johngrimsmo
And we have the guys put together a spreadsheet where it's like a name date and what you did pretty much.
00:48:09
John Saunders
OK.
00:48:15
johngrimsmo
And you know the goal is after many, many things, if it's always Steve doing it, then
00:48:15
John Saunders
sir
00:48:21
johngrimsmo
why like everybody's you know clearly steve's the only one stepping up and and getting this done um and then it's kind of self-policing to be like the murmur gets out it's like why isn't anybody else doing this why are we leaving it all to him um but there's so there's always that weird interpersonal like i don't know just make it easy make it simple make it straightforward
00:48:25
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:48:34
John Saunders
Yeah, that's what's...
00:48:41
John Saunders
Yeah, there's like a weird... I've never seen a system that involved carrot or stick that I liked. You know, like, if you don't, there's a consequence or um you you don't want to create a reward system where, like, whoever gets the most points gets whatever.
00:48:46
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:48:53
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:48:55
John Saunders
But... um
00:48:55
johngrimsmo
I think at the end of the day, you as the business leader, and I'm learning this too, needs to set a direction, set expectations and be like, I'm putting this up. I i expect it to get done.
00:49:08
johngrimsmo
I expect all of us to pitch in. I expect all of us to do a good job.
00:49:10
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:49:12
johngrimsmo
I expect very little complaining about it. Like it just, this is all stuff that needs to get done. We're all capable of doing this. This is just part of our responsibilities.
00:49:21
John Saunders
Yeah. um ah make you maybe give it a thought like tags to move to machine i'm talking out loud here and i know we're running a little late but um to be honest the first thing that this has come up the most with is handling the use of the freddy on sumps for standard cleaning so the idea we've sort of agreed is that like let's try to have every sump cycle through the freddy every either two weeks or month with the idea that like the freddy means you can um suck and discharge on ours at the same time
00:49:53
John Saunders
So you're not even quote unquote getting dirty. you know Yeah, I mean like it's still maybe a, it's not the cleanest thing to do in the world, but it's not bad. um So there's some hassle though. You gotta to move the Freddy over, you gotta plug it in, and then you gotta like, Freddy's, we're gonna have it stored with the thing open, so you gotta close it up to get ready.
00:50:11
John Saunders
You gotta do the work, and then when you're done, you need to clean out the Freddy. So that is quote unquote dirty.
00:50:16
johngrimsmo
So it's like a 30 minute job probably.
00:50:17
John Saunders
It's actually a good question, it's like time it without, doing it for the sake of being quick about it. Yeah, you're probably right. um
00:50:26
johngrimsmo
Because I always like to know what my commitment is going to be to get that thing done. And I'm i'm trying to with my tracking, I'm trying to teach myself what that will be. Like, you know, that sounds like a 30 minute job to me.
00:50:37
johngrimsmo
Not a 15 minute job, not a 45 minute job, but.
00:50:37
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:50:40
John Saunders
That's a good point. the and The thought I also just had, first of all, I like, i really like some version of a shared whiteboard or poster. Everybody can see. So there's like, like you said, crowd police, but then to give it a little bit of a reward, not in a financial sense, but in a pride sense, you're going to laugh, but, um,
00:50:58
John Saunders
Ohio State football players get on their helmets, they get these Buckeye stickers and I don't know what they're for. I assume it's like if you score touchdown or get a quarterback sack and you get a sticker.
00:51:08
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:51:08
John Saunders
So part of me is like, okay, everybody here kind of knows what machines are theirs and everybody knows who like, you know, Grant has the Willemann and Ed has the, what Akuma and Gary has the Hornwell.
00:51:18
John Saunders
So it's like on the board, you have, dated stickers or something. And it's like, every time you do it, you get to take a sticker off and move it over to the stump and you get to build up the list of stickers as a point of pride of like, yep, it has been cleaned this many times to show off the accumulation of like, yes, we're taking care of our stuff.
00:51:37
John Saunders
That makes sense. Oh,
00:51:37
johngrimsmo
It's grade school, you get a gold star.
00:51:41
John Saunders
I don't know how everybody, I'm not an everybody gives a trophy kind of guy, but you know, right sorry.
00:51:42
johngrimsmo
I know.
00:51:46
John Saunders
Wow. You, you ah yeah talk about explaining something simpler. Thank you, John.
00:51:51
johngrimsmo
yeah ye But it's good. You got to play through all these ideas. As a business owner, you know we want to present the best of the ideas, but we need to think about all of the crappy ones because, i don't know, everything's on the table.
00:51:58
John Saunders
Yeah. yeah Okay, good.
00:52:06
johngrimsmo
and and
00:52:06
John Saunders
This is so helpful.
00:52:07
johngrimsmo
And play, you know, try something.
00:52:08
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah. What I want to avoid, which has happened some, is you try to create maintenance tasks or systems or things and like, just doesn't happen.
00:52:18
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:52:18
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah.
00:52:20
johngrimsmo
Yeah. But as things get bigger and busier and, you know, the air conditioner filters need to be replaced on schedule and the, you know, air compressor needs an oil change, everything.
00:52:26
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:52:28
johngrimsmo
Like, let's not forget these things because they will bite us in the butt. And we've had them bite us in the butt. um
00:52:34
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:52:36
johngrimsmo
So it's all important. But yeah, tie back.
00:52:38
John Saunders
Sweet.
00:52:40
johngrimsmo
It's we as a business are going here and all this stuff needs to get done. And we're all on the team, all rowing in the same direction towards there.
00:52:51
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:52:51
johngrimsmo
And all this is part of it. You know, so there's something in there.
00:52:53
John Saunders
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes, I agree.
00:53:01
John Saunders
making notes here. Sorry.
00:53:03
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:53:09
John Saunders
good talk
00:53:10
johngrimsmo
Yeah, great talk.
00:53:11
John Saunders
Anything else?
00:53:12
johngrimsmo
That's all I got, man. I will see you next week.
00:53:13
John Saunders
Yeah. OK. Sounds good. I'll see you
00:53:16
johngrimsmo
Okay, bye.