Transcript
John Saunders: Good morning. Welcome to the Business of Machining episode number 474. My name is John Saunders.
johngrimsmo: My name is John Grimsmo.
John Saunders: And John and I talk each week about, at this point, metrology, DIY metrology project.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. That's all we think about.
John Saunders: No, no, it's really good. um No, love, love. fostering our passion for manufacturing and technology and thinking. and uh but also being commiserated on what we're struggling with and so forth so Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: How you doing?
johngrimsmo: I'm doing wonderful.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, things are flowing. Things are really really good right now.
John Saunders: Good. Good.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Awesome.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: ah Same, actually. um kind of ties right into my list which is updates uh updates and questions on barfed mills uh diy water jetting granite our telecentric project ai question we hired somebody which i want to talk about and then um We've got some stuff listed for sale that I'd love to plug.
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
John Saunders: How about you?
johngrimsmo: Um, My list is hard milling lock inserts. Win.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: Uh,
John Saunders: Hmm.
johngrimsmo: Thorlabs stuff. Grinding ceramics. and pressing in balls.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: Rust?
John Saunders: boom
johngrimsmo: and ASI
John Saunders: ASI.
johngrimsmo: It's a... um brand of... motion stage, like an XY table.
John Saunders: Yes, you mentioned that. Okay, okay, okay.
johngrimsmo: yeah Yeah, so I got some notes on that.
John Saunders: Okay. Oh good.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: um I will plug our stuff for sale. It's on our Saunders site at the bottom, equipment for sale. But an older UR robot, shunk vice, fifth axis stuff, one of our screw compressors we're upgrading to a larger size on. um i won't make everybody else listen to more than that but um all that stuff we can and will sell so anyone's interested again on our website the very bottom equipment for sale
johngrimsmo: Nice. I will also plug today's sponsor, Grimmsmo Knives.
John Saunders: There you go. Love it.
johngrimsmo: Christmas is coming up. If you guys have ever thought of getting a saga or one of our knives, our new buyer's choice system on our website. now has a daily buyer's choice access so if you go there you can like literally place an order uh,
johngrimsmo: most of the time, as unless we're all sold out for the day.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: um So it's pretty sweet that people. and can and are um placing impulse orders for a custom buyer's choice. system as opposed to like waiting for the email to come around and waiting waiting for yourself to get picked.
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: so That's working out super super well.
John Saunders: It's actually, ah I'm glad you brought that up because I feel like I'm a bad friend that I can't answer this question without asking you but
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
John Saunders: If a friend asked me, hey, I love Grimmsmith stuff. I want to buy something. Can I buy a Saga? Can I buy a Rask? Can I buy a Fjell? Can I buy a Norseman? what What is the lay of the land today on just... ah how to get your stuff.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, and that's a good point that we haven't really like. done an awesome job at telling everybody that making it clear, making it obvious, making it well known, talking about it all the time. um Basically now we have two options. you option one which was our traditional way you sign up for the list and we pick names periodically so many names a day so that we can essentially get so many orders a day and keep our cash flow and and order flow going. um and that could have people waiting for you know weeks or months to get picked, but...
johngrimsmo: eventually you'll get picked and then if you're ready to place an order at that time you place an order conversely now we also have the daily option where you can go to our site and you can kind of place that impulse order to get all your options all the same system um you want a rask with three color fade triple anodizing with an acid edge blade you can do that now
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: And third thing is sometimes we do have knives in our inventory. So if you look at our inventory.
John Saunders: Okay. Hmm.
johngrimsmo: you know, as we have things available or make them available. um They're right there, available for instant purchase. ship ship in a day or two you know
John Saunders: And our sagas, because I did look a while back, sagas are sometimes also available in inventory or maybe more regularly.
johngrimsmo: Yep. yep Yep.
John Saunders: Cool. I think that's like from a, to take off our marketing hat here and for most. shilling our products on the podcast and talk more about, you know, our friend to friend conversation about the business. It's like, you know. You you got to, you know.
John Saunders: like I say it with, you know, if a school wants to buy two VF2 plates for their new machines in their lab. and They want to give us money. our job is to take their money and give them our product right like there you know there's the moment of time
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yeah.
John Saunders: and for you is probably even more poignant as a consumer product it's like hey i i have this emotional state where i want this knife now or a connection or i have the money today or ah like
johngrimsmo: Right. Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, and... and ah Since I tend to overcomplicate everything, maybe... All those three systems I just told you are too complicated. Maybe they're simpler ways. Maybe they're, I don't know. But...
johngrimsmo: Yeah, more communicating that better to our fan base and our customers. can only help. you know, without feeling like you're shilling.
John Saunders: Yeah, sure. sure maybe say it Maybe flip it around and say... We do sell. our products via inventory however rarely are they in inventory now you're also sounding kind of exclusive.
johngrimsmo: Mm. I like that.
John Saunders: um You know, it's kind of like you go. you you want to go buy a Ferrari, usually you still have Ferraris on the showroom that you can drive off with.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: So, you know, we we do We will list our products in inventory, but they just aren't around. So that's not always the best choice. So if you want to be. along if you want to join in the part of our community you can sign up for our list doesn't cost anything and that gets you access to when stuff is available. and we have been way more proactive with crushing on our manufacturing front which means we also have fairly regularly available slots.
John Saunders: uh in our Um, buyer's choice.
johngrimsmo: Mm hmm. I love that I'm trying to remember and write it down right now.
John Saunders: It was recorded. You can listen to it.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. I can can't Ken Canty.
John Saunders: You can read it. ah
johngrimsmo: Actually didn't even think about that. That's funny. Okay.
John Saunders: Although I, again, like my wife, I love it. it means a lot to me that she listens because she listens because she wont like wants to not because i ask her to but then it's like if i get in the car and it's playing i'm like that you gotta stop it i don't wanna
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah, I don't want to hear it.
John Saunders: ah okay Awesome.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, well said um no that was that was Really good job, actually. Um,
John Saunders: But it's not, thank you.
johngrimsmo: i like I like the order of it too.
John Saunders: But it's it's you, you're the one that did that.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Like, it's like, you want to become become part of our community. you Maybe you want to buy more than one product, like join the list. um you want customization we actually are so good at what we do that we've been able to offer that like But I think it's nice to clari clarify that this isn't unobtainium.
John Saunders: Like you can get a feel now.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah Yeah. True. and And honestly, we want you to. like
John Saunders: Yeah, yeah, right.
johngrimsmo: you know
johngrimsmo: Nice.
John Saunders: A big win, tentative win for me. I should probably share some of it. as we go through this journey, but we hired. the most unique position or role that I think we've hired to date.
John Saunders: The person doesn't start for three weeks, but. um That the person. If I wasn't on a public podcast, I would probably be.
John Saunders: as open as i'm going to be anyways the the description could be as as not low that's a terrible word to use but as simple as kind of a maintenance manager and and shop helper to as high as right -hand man, chief of staff. doer of you know john clone um and it'll hopefully shake out somewhere in the middle um but what
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: What we thought of it as from a role in hiring and so forth was like, hey, there's just so much stuff that. I don't get to or shouldn't do it's kind of a classic like you know your buddy Mike at Milterra, like he shouldn't be checking bricks. But as the shop owner, a lot of us just have that point of pride. And so.
John Saunders: And some of it is, I think, unapologetically my job. If the guys are all busy. doing their jobs at their machines and something is. falling behind, that can fall on the business owner to pick up.
John Saunders: on that. um But there's a difference between doing that one off and having that just be every day or every, you know. And so. um the person doesn't have a manufacturing specific background so there'll be definitely a steeper learning curve but from a from a attitude culture fit.
John Saunders: We had them come in and shadow. um I'm... more than cautiously optimistic. that that'll be a good thing and certainly i start to get kind of drunk on the idea like we've created our hey here's a list of things that we would have handed off that are recurring. And here's a list of things that we would hand off that are kind of one -offs.
John Saunders: Um, And I think it's. has the potential to be a ah real game changer for us.
johngrimsmo: Amazing.
John Saunders: Yeah, I'm excited for it.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, looking forward to touching base on that in a few months.
John Saunders: Yeah. But we're starting to think through like, okay, how do we do training?
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Like I got to, we, we had our meeting this morning and I was like, Hey, just remember everybody like. we normally hire machinists or people that have this background like this person isn't going to know what a feeler gauge is or a Haas is or.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: bricks you know or refracts. So like we've got to be we've got to go out of our way to make sure we're doing a good job. but helping them come up to speed. and and It'll take you know it will take time. It's not something that we expect to happen.
John Saunders: I figure, you know, three months, they'll start to really feel like they're not lost, if you will. And it'll probably take six months to a year to really feel like they know.
johngrimsmo: Mm hmm.
John Saunders: um a lot of stuff here
johngrimsmo: So in this case, you're not necessarily hiring for direct skill talent experience in in this industry. You're hiring for... culture fit, work ethic.
johngrimsmo: a vibe fit. and just someone who gets stuff done.
John Saunders: Yeah. A want to do it. Yeah, exactly.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah
John Saunders: And I was like, really? it's kind of my personality. I was really transparent. I was like, Hey, like some of this stuff has an aspect of feeling like it's. it's the like low end of the totem pole work to do like hey i want every day to handle the bricks or like even like you're gonna laugh and maybe this sounds Kind of sounds weird to say that loud, but like sometimes we will clean our trash buckets.
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
John Saunders: Like. we use we We have color -coded trash bins.
johngrimsmo: For sure.
John Saunders: um We use red. on They're beautiful red. They happen to be Harbor Freight. But we put a big Saunders actuallyll say we put a big saunders sticker over the Harbor Freight logo.
johngrimsmo: Interesting.
johngrimsmo: So it's a five gallon bucket.
John Saunders: If I got a bucket.
johngrimsmo: But...
John Saunders: But like inside, sometimes it gets nasty.
johngrimsmo: That's cool.
John Saunders: and
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: You know, 30 seconds in a hot. sync with some agitation helps stop it from just looking like. you know, Chernobyl in in a year. And so I was like, that sounds.
John Saunders: Really? like a crappy thing to do but To be clear, I will do it.
johngrimsmo: right
John Saunders: like i don't No one's too good for that. And it does tie into like, hey, let's have a nice shop.
johngrimsmo: Mm hmm.
John Saunders: And it means, you know, spend a few minutes cleaning up the...
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: clean up the trash buckets.
johngrimsmo: I like that.
John Saunders: or are we We buy new ones if they're beyond repair, like to be clear. It's not like ah it's not a rooted in pure frugality.
johngrimsmo: Sure. sure No, I like that. So I want to hear more about your color coded trash buckets. I want to hear the other colors, but First point I want to make, I was reading some book, maybe a Jocko Willink book or something, but they talked about in like Navy SEALs, Bud's training or whatever, like they take out the trash every single night so that they come in in the morning and. The trash cans are empty.
johngrimsmo: And they just make a point of like... emptying the trash every night, even if it's got one thing in it. um
John Saunders: Oh.
johngrimsmo: more for for the habit, for the you know optics of like, we keep trick clean trash cans, kind of like what you're saying.
John Saunders: Yeah, we... do
John Saunders: Okay. We do that too, though. i guessma is that
johngrimsmo: But like every day?
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: Really?
John Saunders: Now it's one person, so it's not, there's not the team aspect of everyone has to. help. um We do do that with our Tuesday tasks. That's once a week where everyone has a rotating schedule of like, hey, clean the fridge, clean a toilet.
John Saunders: um
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: because I do think that's like, no one hears you know no one hears above that.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yeah.
John Saunders: uh I actually like, and this is, I believe a Jay Pearson inspired thing is. if you're doing it from a team aspect sometimes it's easier to do it first thing in the morning because
johngrimsmo: Mm.
John Saunders: you know if you leave at four o 'clock most of us at 3 45 are trying to fit six things in before we leave
johngrimsmo: yeah Yep.
johngrimsmo: Cool. Okay, so color -coded trash cans. Why red? Why?
John Saunders: We were mixing up trash cans with when we wanted five gallon buckets for for fluids or water. And I was like, this is not complicated. Let's get nice trash buckets for trash. written they happen to be red we use lowe's blue home buckets for liquids that could be water or coolant mix or other stuff and that means it's pretty simple that we don't put trash in the blues and then we use the orange Home Depot ones for.
John Saunders: weird things like projects or or whatever we just know that those are not trash or fluids. that's it
johngrimsmo: Nice. No white ones?
John Saunders: Oh, we could. haven't hadn't Thought about it or needed it, yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yeah, most of ours just happen to be white, whether they be... ah Oh. Yeah, or the orange for people ones.
John Saunders: I should bring some, maybe I should bring some Canada tire ones back for like... some other like you can't you can't get them here so
johngrimsmo: Yeah. if The unobtainium. These are the the Skunk Works project division.
John Saunders: Right. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Canadian tire.
John Saunders: Is it?
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: and Sorry.
johngrimsmo: It's fun.
johngrimsmo: You'll see.
John Saunders: I see. good It's been a while, dude. It's been too long.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Excited.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. make sure here Make sure your passports are up to date and all that.
John Saunders: Okay, what's... Yes, we're good on that. We got got passports.
johngrimsmo: And make sure not to bring firearms across the border. Just FYI.
John Saunders: I will. actually so total overshare but i really like um I really like super glue and in fact, I cut myself pretty bad last week.
johngrimsmo: the
John Saunders: It's not going to focus. And so I... I got some super glue on it real quick and then I keep baking so that my... desk here and at home for You know, the curing superglue trick.
johngrimsmo: Yep, yep.
John Saunders: And I was like, I really, I carry super glue in my medic kit in my bag. And I was like, man, I'd really like to have some baking soda. And so I 3D printed a micro. microcontainer and then put baking soda in it. And I'm like, I should probably not fly internationally with this.
John Saunders: Like this doesn't look great.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah so little personal sized white powder container.
John Saunders: yeah exactly I'm like, I'm pleading with the, like, whatever.
johngrimsmo: That's funny. Yeah.
John Saunders: I'm like, I swear his bakeys are there. Yeah, okay.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah, sure.
John Saunders: What's on your list?
johngrimsmo: That's funny. Um... Big win for yesterday. I spent the whole day or the afternoon. um finalizing the my hard milling project for hard milling the lock inserts for our Norseman and our Rask Norseman first so we used to soft machine them and then we would heat treat the individual insert and
John Saunders: Oh. Okay.
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: we're finding that in heat treat not only do they warp but they also grow or shrink in weird ways based on material internal stresses, based on whatever position in the oven. I don't know.
John Saunders: Sure.
johngrimsmo: So sometimes they don't fit properly. So they have to be like a reamed out or they don't fit or they have to be bent. Everyone's got to be like tiny hand bent under an arbor press. um It's just a pain. so the The shift is to heat treat a two inch by two inch square.
johngrimsmo: And.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: um
John Saunders: Oh interesting.
johngrimsmo: and a hard mill four inserts out of that so relatively the same program but now we're talking different end mills different speeds and feeds different cutting strategies um
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I installed four new tools in the kern. and uh it It took a while like it took
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: It takes a while. But I'm not doing it for a one -off. I'm doing it for production. I'm doing it so that it just... I can walk away and never think about it again and the guys are just running it. you know.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um So that's my that's always my... method and and goals out of a project like this, right?
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Let's say for a little bit of like tool life learning and figuring out, but we've, we've done enough hard milling on the speedo and on other stuff to like. We know these tools pretty well.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Maldino YG proper hard milling end mills, which we've talked about for years. and um you know if if anybody out there is still trying to hard mill with like your regular basic end mill it's it's just gonna chip and break like way too fast and the hard milling tools that are made for hard milling
John Saunders: Good.
johngrimsmo: Different grade of carbide, different strategy, different speeds and feeds for that matter, different rake angles and all that. Like it matters. It makes a big difference. And the tools command, a you know, two to 10 times price increase.
John Saunders: Can I argue with you though on that real quick?
johngrimsmo: Okay, yeah.
John Saunders: Because, I mean, first off, yes, buy the $100 Maldino.
johngrimsmo: When you need it.
John Saunders: and what's it not ng1 what's the or
johngrimsmo: ah it. NS1.
John Saunders: And that's one. Thank you. And that's tool. That's what it is.
johngrimsmo: End of story.
John Saunders: um Buy those for sure. Like in full endorsement, they're incredible, but. I also don't want to psych people out and we're still using this 316. end mill it happens to be host tooling i'm pretty sure it's just yg1 it's not expensive and it is an unbelievable beast in sixty or like slightly under 60 Rockwell A2.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: So don't like. i don't argue i'm not disagreeing with you john i'm also saying like don't i don't people freaking out
johngrimsmo: Maybe it's more strategy and speeds and feeds that I was doing wrong before. um with like basic tools.
John Saunders: Oh, yeah.
johngrimsmo: but yeah, it just It is machinable. All this stuff is machinable.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Um, And so I've got two high feed end mills, Maldino high feeds where I'm. you know both that taking a whole surface down with the high feed but then also profiling the parts and high feeds are just so good at making small chips and putting the putting the load straight down and and up into the tool not sideways deflection
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Um, And then even, I'm not even drilling. i'm I'm boring. doing a circular bore pattern with the high feed tool. to make these tiny holes.
John Saunders: Oh, interesting.
johngrimsmo: And it works fantastic.
John Saunders: Yeah, yeah. Works good.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah, that's true.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: Do high feeds... Okay, so let's say you had a hole that you needed to take... fourth hour out of does a high feed if it doesn't have a full face to engage with and it's only
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
John Saunders: engaging on the corner kind of radially it's probably actually still actually but you know what i mean do they like do they want that whole engagement or will they clean up a
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: When you're talking about deflection, it's probably going to deflect on that light side load
John Saunders: Again.
johngrimsmo: Because... um the cutting force is not at the bottom at the face pretty much
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: but they are pretty sturdy, stiffer tools. um you know, short flute Thick neck. It's not like you have flutes.
John Saunders: Solid shank. Yeah, right, right.
johngrimsmo: going up a half an inch.
John Saunders: Right.
johngrimsmo: um
John Saunders: But you're boring these holes from... from but ah
johngrimsmo: From Raw, yeah.
John Saunders: Exactly. not They're not pre -drilled.
johngrimsmo: Right. no so i bore them i leave two or three thou on the walls and then i go in with a separate hard milling tool and i do another bore path and i clean that up with uh with a separate sharper tool.
John Saunders: Oh, it's okay. That's interesting. On that cleanup, you'll bore it instead of a 2D contour?
johngrimsmo: Depending on the situation, yeah.
John Saunders: Okay. We've really tried to get away from boring there because you end up wearing out the corner and you want to engage radially without.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
johngrimsmo: Hmm. true and that's a a choice to make yeah for sure
John Saunders: Oh. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, if you're putting all the load into the corner by doing a bore, then... just the corner is going to wear out and and not even touch the side flutes, right?
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um so Maybe all. Confirm. Definitely boring to rough. Maybe I'm doing a 2D contour for these holes. I don't know but
John Saunders: Yes, sir Cool.
johngrimsmo: But yeah, it's going good. I had had ah the first four off last night and aside from a couple like Oh, the burr is... going into the hole because I'm chamfering it afterwards. Um...
johngrimsmo: I need to like...
John Saunders: Oh yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: I need to to to rough. Jamfer, and then... contour the boar so that the burr is
John Saunders: Right.
johngrimsmo: into the head not into the the hole little things like that but fantastic results so far and i don't know if they fit yet for one i know the holes are the right size but uh I'll confirm today if they fit and I'll hand some to Eric and I'll say go nuts because he's having struggles getting Norseman to like not have lock fail.
John Saunders: but you Right, right.
John Saunders: Mm -hmm.
johngrimsmo: um And usually switching out to try different inserts is the solution. So he's kind of mix and matching to find the right one that produces the result he's looking for. but it's too time consuming and it's it's just silly.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Um, So going nuclear and just hard milling them is. absolutely the way to go assuming um It does the thing.
John Saunders: Yeah, which it will, right?
johngrimsmo: you know
John Saunders: i mean
johngrimsmo: ye Yep. Yep.
John Saunders: But i know what you I feel you, man. like It feels like these days to go through like, hey, let's update a whole cam. Let's get new new tools. I don't even know if you keep extra current tool holders around or you to order those.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: and then it's ah It is like a process.
johngrimsmo: Okay. Yeah, it's where even just. you know, Eric came by around four o 'clock in the afternoon and I'm like, okay, I'm going to be writing this in the next 20 minutes. and and i'll have inserts for you like 20 minutes after that right because 20 minute cycle And like three hours later, I'm finally machining it.
John Saunders: Yep. Yeah, sure, sure, sure.
johngrimsmo: Even just loading the tools took a a solid half hour. And I realized. Since I don't do this on a daily basis, but I have. three tool tables that I keep up to date. I have the one in Fusion.
John Saunders: Yum.
johngrimsmo: I have an Excel spreadsheet that quickly tells us stick out length.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: and what tool is in what what pocket in the machine. And then I have the tool table on the current.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: which of the four tools I forgot to update. one of them. And thankfully it was just all zeros and the current yelled at me.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: and just said hey zero to a link that's wrong And then literally I fixed the tool length and I told it to auto touch off and the machine continued. like
John Saunders: What?
johngrimsmo: Once I saved the tool table, I was like. i thought it was alarmed and stopped no it was just paused and waiting
John Saunders: Oh. In a good way, it continued.
johngrimsmo: in a weird way because I wasn't ready for it.
John Saunders: but Yeah, yeah
johngrimsmo: So it worked but That was the new one for me.
John Saunders: Yeah.
John Saunders: That is one of the things we have on Eric's, the new guy's list is once, I don't know the interval, I'm saying once a month. um He will spend time checking parity between our fusion.
John Saunders: master assets file for each machine are Google Sheets. and the actual ATC in the machine. just this just sort of like It's another thing I'm just taking off my plate is just see if there needs to be some TLC on any of those done.
johngrimsmo: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: And if you teach him Claude, that sounds like ah an automation.
John Saunders: Well, that is so I'm trying to go baby steps, but of course some of this will be also hey
johngrimsmo: Yeah for sure.
John Saunders: learn it and then as soon as you learn it Let's get up. implement a process around it.
johngrimsmo: cool
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: But yeah, I get it. those Those little things, things that you would want scheduled. that are like good ideas, but... have no value until somebody does them
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Um,
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: For sure.
John Saunders: Cool.
John Saunders: The... Telecentric lens, I think. In fact, I really am almost certain. We had a breakthrough last night.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I saw your little ah pajama pants update.
John Saunders: um
johngrimsmo: I loved it.
John Saunders: Yes, I want to confirm it tonight, but it's it's close enough that I'm going to go ahead and share the risk of mismanaging my own expectations.
johngrimsmo: mm -hmm
John Saunders: but um Quick recap is it was really good, except it wasn't. It was like. inconsistently sometimes up to like a thousandth of an inch off and that you know, it's kind of.
johngrimsmo: It's too much. yeah
John Saunders: yeah it's just like well i don't know why you're off and that bothers me
johngrimsmo: And you're talking about not a consistent deviation, but an inconsistent. variants.
John Saunders: and inconsistent. frequency and inconsistent amounts.
johngrimsmo: Right.
John Saunders: Although. infrequent and small, but still it's just like, nope. this is either good or not.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: like Yeah. So. Peace. I think the answer was the backlight. and i think that because of how we fixed it and i think it because it also would describe how a lot of times it was great but the light was either basically bouncing around or bouncing off the edges depending whether it was shiny or matte So what?
John Saunders: Claude had me do was print a tunnel. so instead of the back the backlight is a four inches 100 millimeter square and it was right they wanted it right behind the part so picture you have a a deltronics gauge pinch the size of your index finger and then right right behind it you have a
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
John Saunders: large, happens to be blue, collimated light. um that's four inches by four inches. obviously you're getting a ton of light all around that part.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: and what Claude had me do was move that light back eight inches behind the part. And I now have a very, very narrow tunnel. that happens to be shaped like a man door. So it's like a vertical and narrow, which is really just a reflection of it was assuming I want to measure gauge pins.
John Saunders: And now the light.
johngrimsmo: right
John Saunders: Most of the light. is blocked off and the only light we're getting is light that is slightly larger than the diameter of the pin And that light now is. uh Jumping here. You've done way more work and research on this, but that light is now angularly aligned with the light.
johngrimsmo: Mm -hmm
John Saunders: We're not getting that side light that would come in and flank it at more of an angle.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, because with your four inch um light source. all that extra side light is wasted and it does kind of bleed out and blow out the side of the part.
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um that's something i was wondering with my vision system is could you just make like shutters to close or or put a big circle mask over the whole thing The distance can help because now your angular spread is is less.
John Saunders: Yeah. It's a great point.
johngrimsmo: Um, But... if you just
John Saunders: Oh, you mask it. Keep it closed, but just mask it.
johngrimsmo: keep I wonder if close but masked would give you 90 % the same results as putting some distance behind it. um And for you, that could be a simple just. electrical tape test or something like
John Saunders: Well, it's funny you say that because It actually had me do that. And so I 3D printed a 20 ,000 thick.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: Black PLA mask, and i don't I don't think it was. The answer. maybe it told me okay we need a tunnel I was also, you remember how when you just don't know and you don't.
John Saunders: latch on now i know now i know we got it fixed so i'm willing to go back and like okay because i don't like that right now the system is
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Mm.
John Saunders: with the lens the camera and the lens and then the the focal length and then then the light it's like a 20 inch long system that really should be half of that
johngrimsmo: Yeah. yeah Right.
John Saunders: But I also don't. care in the sense that if we have it working.
johngrimsmo: Mm.
John Saunders: and so that's my that's the fun punch line to share was I did it. Claude was really, really happy with the edge. detection and confidence factor it had around the edge lines. It wants me to add flocking, which I'd never heard this term.
johngrimsmo: o yeah i know I know what flocking is, yeah.
John Saunders: basically you know okay so flocking arrives today six bucks on amazon but it'll help
johngrimsmo: No way.
John Saunders: It'll help. Even the light inside the tunnel, any light that hits the sidewalls.
johngrimsmo: Oh, that's a cool idea.
John Saunders: currently will bounce even off PLA.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: And you see it when you look in that you can actually see a reflection on the PLA. the flocking will effectively minimize or... stop a lot of that.
johngrimsmo: mm -hmm
John Saunders: bouncing there, but I don't. I need a six box. I don't care. I don't think I need it. So punchline. I've been using a 5009 pin. uh as one of my main checks and when we did the tunnel and this it was like hey i now it measured at 509 great i put in a happened to be a 6 .12 millimeter Deltronics, which is just under quarter inch. It measured that perfectly, but it it knew that was what the pin I was using. And I don't trust AI that it wasn't like.
John Saunders: hey i know you've been using these two pins so then i put a new pin in That. Claude had never seen. I just dropped it in the field of view and I said, measure this.
johngrimsmo: e
John Saunders: didn't tell it anything about the pin and it came back and it said i'm pretty sure that's a 50031 pin three tenths over half inch and it was or three point one tenths over half inch and it was three tenths it was a 503 pin
johngrimsmo: e
John Saunders: um That was all the pins I had last night, so I'm bringing home a bunch more tonight and just going to stress test it.
johngrimsmo: Right, right
John Saunders: but um um Really happy.
johngrimsmo: That's cool. So is your goal for the system to have basically automatic detection of the object of the item? as opposed to drawing your own little lines and measurements and things like that.
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: And will that use AI or will the program be its like itself just kind of do that with Python script or Rust or whatever it is?
John Saunders: So. What I did here, I'll keep it short, is... I had had to build this project. starting in August up until last week. And I just wasn't happy with the software and the the clunkiness and the time and measurements and the inconsistencies and the bad measurements. So I actually started over. I had Claude write a markdown file summarizing the work I had done over the past two months.
johngrimsmo: a
John Saunders: And I started brand new. I did some time where I grabbed. ah literature, papers, commercial. you model PDFs and I created this sort of data repo.
John Saunders: and then spent some time working on a new prompt of what i wanted to do i also i mean look i don't know what i'm talking about but everyone's saying do stuff in rust so i said your goal is going to be to build this in rust This is what the end case will be.
John Saunders: What you asked is interesting. I don't need live tracking. in other words i don't need it to follow a part as i'm moving it but i do want it to recognize okay within this general field of view is a pin Here's a.
johngrimsmo: Sure.
John Saunders: the thread measurement or the diameter measurement.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: um So I haven't seen the software yet because we just last night sort of finished the confidence factor around the calibration and the measurement cycle.
John Saunders: So next step would be to build, which I'm not like at all worried about.
johngrimsmo: yeah
John Saunders: But I haven't done that yet.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. That's awesome.
John Saunders: Yeah, super happy. And if folks ask, like I'm not.
johngrimsmo: Mm hmm.
John Saunders: keeping this stuff closed and my my project is like So much simpler than what you're doing, John. It's like a bachelor camera, a opto -engineering telecentric lens, a collimated light. I think that was it.
John Saunders: Like you could read.
johngrimsmo: And that's pretty, yeah.
John Saunders: i could rebuild this from scratch in like 20 minutes at this point it's not there's no loop what you're doing is so much more impressive but also i like the simplicity of what we're getting out of this
johngrimsmo: For sure. and And I'm... I'm going to integrate both into my thing. So both an interferometer and a vision system, because I'll have the frame and the backlight.
John Saunders: Yeah.
John Saunders: Cut.
johngrimsmo: And I actually bought a Thorlabs. backlight um very similar to yours mine's two inch by two inch because I don't need the four.
John Saunders: Nice. Okay, sweet. Okay.
johngrimsmo: and I'll be mounting that under the ASI table. the XY table that I got off eBay. um So the fun fact about ASI is I get a DM from somebody on Instagram going, hey, those look like the things that we make at work.
johngrimsmo: And I was like, where do you work?
John Saunders: No.
johngrimsmo: And he goes, ASI. And I'm like, dude.
John Saunders: No way.
johngrimsmo: Goodbye. And it's this guy. Ritalfab or something like that. I forget exactly what it is.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: i've been following him or know him for like 10 plus years he's got a speedio in his garage or whatever and he's just been around instagram for a long time and and now he's making and so i'm asking him all these technical questions i'm like i can't find the exact cad file and they have a lot of cad files on their website for this exact one and he goes send me the part number and so i do and then uh and he's like oh that was a custom job for bio genetic fab whatever
John Saunders: No way.
John Saunders: Yeah.
John Saunders: Because you've got to use one, that's why.
johngrimsmo: And. Yeah, exactly.
John Saunders: Okay, got it.
johngrimsmo: And that's why it's like not part of their standard offering the center plate the hole basically where this vision light would go this backlight um And I'm like, look, it's not a big deal for me to. you know, reverse engineer this and scale it and draw my own.
johngrimsmo: center plate because I have the all the big parts. of their cad file are the same. It's just kind of this the center hole of this moving.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: access is different. um So I said... Don't worry about it. But but yeah, he was like showing me pictures of the shelf of their shop. And he's like, oh, we still got parts for that one, like on the shelf. You need anything?
John Saunders: Dude, that's super awesome. where Can I ask where what part of the country are they?
johngrimsmo: It's pretty. Oregon.
John Saunders: Sweet.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: That's awesome.
johngrimsmo: Mm hmm.
John Saunders: Okay. So your big Thor labs came in. Are you just now?
johngrimsmo: Yep. i was I was playing last night.
John Saunders: Go mode.
johngrimsmo: um Yeah, so the the big things, like building the Thorlab stuff into the microscope because their rail system is so plug and play. um that's not hard and everything's so adjustable like in opto engineering you want adjustability.
johngrimsmo: more than like absolute precision.
John Saunders: Yeah, sure, sure.
johngrimsmo: in some ways, which is kind of interesting. Like everything is super well made and super precise, but adjustable.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: and That's awesome. Just so cool. um So... Yeah, my microscope objectives are in I had to buy a tube lens from Thorlabs, which takes the microscope objective image and projects it properly and then shrinks it back down to the camera itself.
John Saunders: Okay.
John Saunders: Oh.
johngrimsmo: um you kind of need a two blends to make an infinity corrected microscope objective to work. So anyway, all that's in. The only big parts of the project left are like the... machined housings to like mount this stuff.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: I need to machine a big heavy bass plate.
John Saunders: Sure. sure
johngrimsmo: I need to... That's pretty much it. just the base plate and everything attaches to the base plate um and then I need to machine or print or both a way to attach the microscope objective to the piezo lifting a adjuster.
johngrimsmo: which is going to lift the objective ever so slightly.
John Saunders: Okay.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um And then... yeah So there's some stuff to do.
John Saunders: Oops.
johngrimsmo: And then my... um What's it called? Breadboard. for electronics.
John Saunders: Sure.
johngrimsmo: Like with the... Push all the wires in.
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: put all your parts i need to turn that into a circuit board
John Saunders: Right right right right
johngrimsmo: And then I'll get JLCPCV to like... Send me one in five days.
John Saunders: Yeah. That was the other, like. plug I would say, and I'm kind of like in a weird spot myself with Send Cut Send. We unapologetically use them a lot for sheet metal these days.
John Saunders: I have not used them for machining. Frankly, it did seem expensive. I think their prices are getting better. And I'm also like. like i just made two weird soft jaw things that didn't fit our normal manufacturing workflow and i probably should have just i should have actually gotten them quoted for sure um and i don't mean to say that you should do that here other than like
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah, like I do think there's some. you know. because this is what we do, it seems like we should always do it.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: And I, yeah.
johngrimsmo: No, I've thought about that too. I did have them quote some parts maybe a year ago and I was like, ooh, like $400?
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: It's not worth that to me.
John Saunders: Agreed.
johngrimsmo: Um, That said. I, I... I don't know if I can confidently say they are expensive because I just, I don't have enough experience job shop quoting anything.
johngrimsmo: Um,
John Saunders: That's true.
johngrimsmo: And like. The real question for me is. In that example. Give them $400 and never think about it until the part arrives. or buy the material myself, make sure I have all the right tools in the machine, spend six hours of my time to make this stupid thing.
John Saunders: Yeah.
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: Like, all of a sudden, $400 sounds a lot better.
John Saunders: Totally agree.
johngrimsmo: Right.
John Saunders: Plus the whole like, especially like for us, it's it's important that we try to keep at least one machine that's kind of R and &D -y, which makes this.
johngrimsmo: Mm.
John Saunders: more okay but like I would be a fool to crash one of our production machines. Cause I'm like, Oh, that already has a vice on it. And he's doing, I'll make this one off part here.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: um Anyway, just don't want to.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, it's it's a weird place to be in, right?
John Saunders: look
johngrimsmo: Like, you know, people might look up to you and be like, oh, he's got like 10 plus machines.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: He can do anything he wants. When reality is nine of those are dedicated to production and not to be touched for anything.
John Saunders: Yeah, I think maybe maybe why I feel passionate about this is that
johngrimsmo: you know.
John Saunders: Knowing what they're going to do with machining. They're going to make it so that people realize, oh, that's a good trade -off. If they haven't gotten there yet, they will.
johngrimsmo: Give me a second.
John Saunders: so
johngrimsmo: ten
John Saunders: Yeah. Like from a pricing standpoint, like, yeah, it's not, it's, you know, maybe it's only $12 of material and I don't really want to spend $180 on it, but.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: They've done this with sheet metal. and so i I'm out. Curious to see if it will happen with machining.
johngrimsmo: Mm hmm. Yep.
John Saunders: Never. Well. So you just have to do more. You have to make parts.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I'm at the point now where almost everything's in. I just have to make parts. And I'm trying to make it as... you know, as Spencer Webb would call it, P1.
John Saunders: people in here.
johngrimsmo: you're your prototype one as quickly and crudely as possible so that you can learn what you need to learn to make the real good version.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um But yeah, I'm excited. I'm still kind of Loosely shooting for end of November.
John Saunders: Can you?
johngrimsmo: to have this running
John Saunders: Don't back out of that. Don't loosely shoot for it.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, no, exactly. Exactly.
John Saunders: Can you 3D print the base knowing you'll make out of aluminum, but like this helps you learn? Or is that just a bad idea?
johngrimsmo: Um. well basically i have a z -axis stage that I we got from amazon that needs to bolt. very rigidly to a 50 pound chunk of steel. Um...
johngrimsmo: And then all that heavy assembly goes on a bicycle inner tube for vibration isolation.
John Saunders: Oh, yeah.
johngrimsmo: Which is fantastic.
John Saunders: Sweet, and sweet.
johngrimsmo: So you need the mass and you need the stability and you don't want the arm like nodding forward.
John Saunders: I love that.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Vibration is the enemy. And I'm actually going to put piezo vibration sensors. on the base and on the head. And so that I can see if there's a difference in vibration between the two.
John Saunders: Super cool.
johngrimsmo: And then a third one probably on the table. outside of the isolated system so that I can like...
John Saunders: Mm -hmm.
johngrimsmo: three -way compare. you know what's happening Um, Yes, there's vibration in the house. But is it? getting eaten up by the inner tube? Is it getting all the way to the head?
johngrimsmo: you know so all this stuff Yeah.
John Saunders: Did we talk about LIGO at one point?
johngrimsmo: At one point, yeah, I think you introduced me to LIGO.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: and then i watched a you know 20 minute video and i was like holy cow and then i've seen a bunch more since
John Saunders: There's... Yes. Okay. That's what made me think of this. Like they're trying to isolate. vibration at a level that's never been done by humanity and they did so like
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: it's That's cool. um
johngrimsmo: And there's like other ones popping up all around the world, building on the backbone of what they've learned already.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: And then they're building more in Europe. and then because The goal of measuring whatever gravitational waves that they're trying to do is like having multiple points across the earth is helpful.
John Saunders: Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: for that.
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: That's why they built one in what Washington and one in Louisiana or whatever.
John Saunders: Distance.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: it's cool What, um...
johngrimsmo: and And that is an interferometer. just at a scale that's...
John Saunders: Oh, that's true. That's funny.
johngrimsmo: Right.
John Saunders: Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. hu
johngrimsmo: it's It's like the optical path length of my system is you know one inch by one inch, and the LIGO is what, four kilometers by four kilometers?
John Saunders: In a vacuum, John. The whole thing's in a vacuum.
johngrimsmo: Oh I forgot about that.
John Saunders: We have.
johngrimsmo: The tube, not the tunnel necessarily.
John Saunders: the tunnel.
johngrimsmo: I don't know. Is it?
John Saunders: I believe the tunnel's a vacuum.
johngrimsmo: Oh my gosh.
John Saunders: Yes. ah Why not use granite instead of steel?
johngrimsmo: That's a Good question. I actually bought... a granite surface plate kind of for this originally um
johngrimsmo: I could. Don't know.
John Saunders: selfishly bring it up because The other project which I... Literally filmed an Instagram. clip before we hit record but haven't posted it yet is our our linear gauge thing is now ready to go out into the shop floor free for human use.
johngrimsmo: Nice.
John Saunders: We're not ready to put it on the robot, but.
John Saunders: gauge block and it is to four decimals. good um which it should be like it's actually not bad crazy to to have it be that way. but Um, It's... Currently, still actually, this is a fun story. We made a. we made a kern oh we We made a round of fixture plate for a kern.
John Saunders: um at one point and What's fun is that the, I don't know, know who I didn't remember who the customer was, but they came up to me at IMTS and they were like, We love it. like but up was just very endearing uh because also we were all like we're making a custom plate for a current like Like...
John Saunders: Obviously, we want to do everything we do well, but like this really needs to be good. And for some reason, the first one we made, we we did have a blem on it. And so we we remade it. like if The customer knows this. And so we still have that plate here. It's nothing fancy. It's just a.
John Saunders: looks like a peter size fixture plate. And so Alex is using that for the linear gauge right now. It allows us to bolt the underneath one to protrude through, but.
johngrimsmo: yeah
John Saunders: I don't want a long -term slide of steel part over steel fixture plate. I want to have it be. something that won't. They can be easily cleaned. and a benefit i mean anyone who's been through a machine shop knows this but um the beauty of a granite is that it doesn't really scratch or if you do
johngrimsmo: Mm.
John Saunders: pocket it up. the way granite fractures away doesn't raise a burr doesn't swage up it only fractures out um which shouldn't even be an issue here. um I guess it could be if a robot dropped a part on the...
John Saunders: I think it could be okay.
johngrimsmo: True.
John Saunders: so long -winded answer we need to get a piece of granite which I think household kitchen granite will be fine for this application because it's just a medium to slide the part across.
johngrimsmo: who
John Saunders: It's not really where we're...
johngrimsmo: One thing I've noticed with different granite tables is, you know, some of the ones you buy are like matte or like like dull kind of.
John Saunders: Take care.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: dusty surface finish.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: They're not glossy shiny. And then some of the ones I've been buying from McMaster are glossy.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: shiny. And I don't like the glossy ones. at all.
John Saunders: Interesting.
johngrimsmo: because they stick slip with your parts.
John Saunders: Oh.
johngrimsmo: Whereas the kind of matte dull ones like slide. And it's it's like a really big difference.
John Saunders: Interesting.
johngrimsmo: when When you come by in a couple of weeks. I'll show you the the glossy ones and just like try to slide anything across them and it's like you just feel sticky.
John Saunders: Okay.
John Saunders: Could you lap it or stand it? and mean it may it may be worth your time.
johngrimsmo: you could but now you're like ruining the the ruining the flatness of it unless you're going to go through and check the whole thing.
John Saunders: Yeah, right.
johngrimsmo: But yeah, I don't know how. I actually asked McMaster because. you're always insisting that like oh no don't be afraid to talk to mcmaster um and they said this is just the standard that we get from this manufacturer and it's to spec and everything's still flat but it's like lapped to
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So shiny. Too shiny. It's weird.
John Saunders: Yeah. Hmm. I think what I need to do is get a roughly like 12 by 12 inch piece of granite, which I think again, a countertop it will be okay. And I need to water jet a big hole in it though.
johngrimsmo: Mmhmm.
John Saunders: Okay. Right. Cause I don't know if I want to. you can drill like diamond drill it right
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Um, Either way, I got to get a whole protein one. I don't even know why I brought that up, but yeah.
johngrimsmo: Okay. Yep.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, that should be fine. Bring it over. We'll do it here.
John Saunders: Oh, you have the Wazer, right?
johngrimsmo: Yeah. yep
John Saunders: no i'm if i'm going to smuggle something through customs it's going to be the telecentric lens system which
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: You know, part of me, little i obviously, shouldn't be talking about this on public. broadcast but i'm like do i like put it in my tesla like tire cubby and kind of quote unquote make it less obvious or just put in my suitcase because I have nothing to hide.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, it's nothing to hide. No, it's coming back with you.
John Saunders: Yeah, right. just
johngrimsmo: Just a nerdy project.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: The more nerdy words you can use if it ever comes up, then be like, well, it's just a cool vision system that I'm creating to show my friend.
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
johngrimsmo: It's fine.
John Saunders: Sweet.
johngrimsmo: It's of no value. It's, you know, a couple hundred bucks on eBay parts.
John Saunders: Yeah.
John Saunders: what's ah What else do you got?
johngrimsmo: Let's see, let's see. um the other big win from the past couple days was as i mentioned the grinding ceramic and um I restructured the way that we. drop and press in our detent balls, and then we grind them.
John Saunders: Yes. Okay. Yep, yep, yep.
johngrimsmo: Um, so This is something we've been doing for 10 plus years. Lockwood originally helped me with the first macro logic to like press in these detent balls perfectly.
John Saunders: The baller and soller.
johngrimsmo: um and And yeah, since a couple of years ago, we've been using the Brent Wells baller installer. And it's fantastic. um and um
johngrimsmo: You. What I want is. the surface of the handle to the top of the ball i i care about that i don't care about the bottom of the handle i don't care about the fixture position i don't care about any of that
John Saunders: mm -hmm
johngrimsmo: um And there's all these. datums to reference in in the current with a five axis tilt and you have your fixture plane you have therefore the bottom of the handle now you have the handle thickness now you have all this stuff and it's like what do i really care about i really care about the surface of the handle to the ball.
John Saunders: mm -hmm
John Saunders: Mhm.
johngrimsmo: But that also translates into the whole rest of the machining of that handle. And I was referencing the... bottom of the handle for the datum in the future but the handles come to us in slightly different thicknesses and so i restructured that to be like top down for everything
John Saunders: oh ah Interesting.
John Saunders: Sure.
johngrimsmo: Um, And then also just the strategy of how I press it in. Um... Make sure it was the same across Rask and Norseman. and that just took hours and hours but the grinding ceramic with A higher RPM, I think I went like five five times higher RPM.
John Saunders: Oh yeah. mm -hmm Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: um faster feed rate. and I think even five times faster feed rate. But I get the better SFM, so just better chip. creation. because you're like literally micro fracturing the ceramic.
John Saunders: That's what it was. You were tearing off the end of it.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: it doesn't it doesn't want to uh you know flow So you need the higher RPM to really. Break it down or whatever um Great results. massive Just no more chipping.
John Saunders: Good. Done. Okay.
johngrimsmo: Um, And then also dressing the ceramic with aluminum oxide stick. um
John Saunders: Mm -hmm.
johngrimsmo: is third Sorry, not toeric the ceramic, the... CBN grinding wheel.
John Saunders: Okay, yep, yep, yep.
johngrimsmo: So like what Spencer does when he makes PFG stones, he's got to... Big. call it a six inch. CBN. surface grinding wheel
John Saunders: Uh -huh.
johngrimsmo: with a resin bond. CBN mixture on the outside. He uses a molybdenum. looks like a quarter inch carbide enamel. and he just kind of spins the wheel and rubs that into it in a cnc
John Saunders: By hand or is it?
johngrimsmo: No. but
John Saunders: Okay, so rigidly held.
johngrimsmo: with the machine you you like jog the machine back and forth um
John Saunders: Yeah, sure, sure. Sure. Right.
johngrimsmo: And that. tears away like the the cv on grits Get stuck in the sticky molybdenum and they tear out so you're truing the surface. You're making a flat plane basically and that's how we've always done the our grinding wheel dressing, but technically that's not dressing.
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: That's just making a flat plane. And now you have basically a flat plane with resin and diamonds or CBN. There's no no... No abrasive sticking out of the resin.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: at this point right
John Saunders: OK.
johngrimsmo: Does that make sense?
John Saunders: I think so. Keep going though.
johngrimsmo: And then.
John Saunders: Because I thought that was dressing.
johngrimsmo: I thought that was dressing too. And then the real trick is to take a white aluminum oxide. stick like quarter inch by quarter inch by six inch or sorry one inch by one inch by six inch
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: Um... Stick of butter, pretty much.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And on a surface grinder, you literally by hand just... um You have the grinding wheel, eat up. this one inch stick. Until it's like gone. I watched this old Norton video that Spencer told me about that said, you want to use three quarters of a stick.
johngrimsmo: like
John Saunders: Every time?
johngrimsmo: Yeah, every time you dress the wheel. which might not have to be that often. But yeah, you want to eat up like a whole stick of butter. um
John Saunders: What?
johngrimsmo: of this stick in order to what you're doing is The CBN abrasives are eating away the aluminum oxide and the resin is just getting eaten away a little bit so that the diamonds stick out more.
John Saunders: Yes, you're you're creating relief.
johngrimsmo: Exactly.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And. So this is something I've never really done with the way we... cb on abrasive here um but i was like let me try it because i'm chipping out these ceramic balls and it's a big problem and uh i don't want to do it anymore so i mounted this
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: one inch by one inch by six inch aluminum oxide stick in the kern in a pallet sticking straight up.
John Saunders: Mm -hmm.
johngrimsmo: And then. made a program to basically plunge mill this cup wheel. into the end of that stick. rent ri a bunch of times. to free up the abrasives to to expose them.
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah. yeah
johngrimsmo: And then I. put it under the microscope, both before and after. And. Before it looked you can see the abrasives, they're there. but the resin is also kind of there. And then afterwards, you can literally see that the resin is removed and there's this mohawk behind each abrasive. Every single abrasive has this mohawk trail behind it that is like support.
johngrimsmo: for the future grinding. And I was like, oh, this must work better. And then that with the greater RPM.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: with uh the better strategy like it's it's all just working and I'm now comping the tool length. based on the result. so i now have like a length comp like a wear length um for this tool as it as it uses as it wears so in
John Saunders: Okay. Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: i set a calendar reminder for myself for a week from now just to like check on that wear length and see if it's
John Saunders: Yeah, sure, sure, sure.
johngrimsmo: Crazy or not. um Because I don't know if... Like how often should I dress? I don't know. It depends on what you're doing. But like before we were addressing every 55 minutes. Because.
johngrimsmo: we were chipping out balls, which is like every two days.
John Saunders: Well yeah, but and maybe you were chipping out balls. if you were pushing on the ceramic with all that support media instead of freely cutting it with an open.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: open dress.
johngrimsmo: and and too low of an SFM. Like all these things put together is bad.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: But I mean, maybe I get. months of tool life out of this. Without. losing tolerance at all. I don't know.
John Saunders: Yes, sir, sir.
johngrimsmo: You know.
John Saunders: Well, it reminds me of, I'm sure I shared this some time ago, but like. on ah our okamoto surface grinder with a regular old like just grinding service grinding steel i don't know what we use but like what is that silicon No, aluminum oxide wheel, I don't know.
johngrimsmo: Aluminum oxide, yep.
John Saunders: Yeah. But just like if you walk up to a shop and they have a little hair 6x12 that they're grinding parts with that kind of surface grinding, you dress like every... 30 seconds. Like you dress all the time.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yeah.
John Saunders: Like you even dress. at the beginning of a cycle and before you're finished cycle so you're dressing Literally. If you're grinding for eight hours, you've dressed. 20, 30, 40 times.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: um Whereas I remember touring, I think it was one of the cutting tool companies with their fancy roll -o -matic grinders with the wheel packs that grind carbide. And they're like, no, we don't dress these like they get.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: And you're just like, don I don't understand. Like this is both grinding, but like one is dressing all the time.
johngrimsmo: Exactly.
John Saunders: The other dress is never.
johngrimsmo: So i had a I had a long conversation on ChatGPT about...
John Saunders: purpose.
johngrimsmo: this And I'm like. all the walters and the anchors of the world like how often do they dress uh like is this a normal thing do they have these aluminum oxide sticks in the machine no way and they do anka has the the system and there's some videos online showing this one inch aluminum oxide stick just going to my around like
John Saunders: Yeah. Is that right?
johngrimsmo: ramming it into the wheel i'm like oh so this is a real thing like this is important
John Saunders: ah I can't wait to see this.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. I'll send you the clip. um
John Saunders: but would but so Do you have to put a new stick of butter in the current every day now? or like
johngrimsmo: I'm not wearing it that much.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: I'm i'm taking off like 5 ,000 at a time. So it's probably going to last me years. Um,
John Saunders: you're taking about 5 ,000 butters of the butter stick.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: And.
John Saunders: How much does the butter set cost?
johngrimsmo: Like 10 bucks 20 bucks.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: Oh, it's nothing
John Saunders: But you don't want to use one every time you dress. You don't have to either.
johngrimsmo: Well, that's that's what Norton says. This is...
John Saunders: Well, yeah, it was shocking. They want you to use what it.
johngrimsmo: Oh yeah. That's fair.
John Saunders: Interesting. This is really cool.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Huh.
johngrimsmo: Um, So yeah, I mean, huge win. it's just. all of a sudden it just works and again now i can mostly turn my brain off and not thinking about it but i do need to keep an eye on it over time to make sure that it doesn't run away from me.
John Saunders: Yeah. It'd be great if you had an interferometer and you could see what the surface of the
johngrimsmo: Oh.
John Saunders: see cbn wheel looks looks like well remember when we were hanging out with marv at kern and he
johngrimsmo: Don't I know it.
John Saunders: had it may have been as i go but he had i actually i have the photo from that trip and it popped up somewhat recently. And it was a zoomed in view of some abrasive. It looks like a burr bit, you know, maybe it was only.
John Saunders: two or three millimeters and it looks like you're looking at the surface of the moon or or or like a rocky planet or crystal structure.
johngrimsmo: Mmm.
John Saunders: It's insane.
johngrimsmo: this This was 2019 when we went there.
John Saunders: I think so.
johngrimsmo: I don't remember that I don't remember that part of it
John Saunders: you Remember this? I'll find the picture. i'll sit I'll DM you after we hang up here.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Um. But Marv built his own interferometer.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: What's interesting is I don't think you could use it to scan the surface of the grinding wheel. Maybe maybe you could get away with it.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: But he's doing what's called focus variation, where he basically uses the piezo stage to move in 20 nanometer. z height steps Like nothing.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And he takes a... Photo. and then another 20 and takes another photo or maybe he does a video with frames at every Z height, whatever. um And he can reconstruct a fully in focus.
johngrimsmo: 3D image.
John Saunders: Oh.
johngrimsmo: of of the part of of the abrasive grinding wheel.
John Saunders: That's sick. That's super cool.
johngrimsmo: So that's what he's doing. And then.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: I'm pretty sure you can use that pixel z height data The pixel that is at most focus at this Z height.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: across the whole image. So you get a 3D map of this. photo.
John Saunders: That's cool.
johngrimsmo: And I'll be building my system to be able to do that too.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So it's gonna be so sick
John Saunders: dus So, so freaking awesome.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: Yeah. My last big update is the barf head mill runs.
johngrimsmo: Tell me.
John Saunders: Like works.
johngrimsmo: It just does the thing.
John Saunders: and share. Does the thing um it's Too boring to talk about. But getting all of the measurements and movements lined up is is really quirky, like with fusion offsets and indexing the bar so that the OP2 happens here, but your OP1 is now in the right place.
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
John Saunders: um It's just... it's just more complicated than your average machine because they're all all re related together but yeah um this is flat bar in a 5c emergency call it it indexes it forward it machines the part uh a pisa we use brake line indexes the part forward
johngrimsmo: Yeah, you were mentioning, yeah.
John Saunders: the soft jaws in the pneumatic vise clamp onto it. um the op 2 part happens which mostly is machining the otherwise occluded. edge that was closer to the 5c collet so then the part becomes totally free And.
John Saunders: you The spindle gripper then comes in, picks up and moves it over to a, I bought um extra wire mesh baskets like you have in an ultrasonic. Because I. threw in an old shower bin real quick but like it gets chips and swarf in there i wanted something that's super free that flushes through um and then i looped it through twice to make sure
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: If it worked twice, it can work 30 times. and it
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Now that being said I did just break it.
johngrimsmo: Vroom!
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: Good, I mean good
John Saunders: Sort of. It kind of sucks. I wanted to retest one of the sub operations and... i posted it and it worked correctly and then when it was moving home it tried to rotate the a -axis while the part was still clamped which It has something to do with like the G53 that I didn't.
John Saunders: It doesn't happen when the normal full routine runs because the part has been removed. And so it marred my soft jaws. They'll they'll actually probably clean up or I can just.
johngrimsmo: Right.
John Saunders: Kind of one of the reasons why I was talking about send cut sends, like I should just order these and have more of them on hand rather than.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, fair.
John Saunders: John Tonner spending three hours making them. um but it runs which is freaking and awesome, John.
johngrimsmo: That's awesome.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And that's like with any... um logical robot system or automated cell. It's like starting in the middle of a program or posting just the last half of it.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Like it doesn't work. It's the same for my detent ball dropping and grinding. And it's like, it works great if you run it from beginning to end.
John Saunders: Oh.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: and it has all your special codes and all your extra offsets and all that but if you just post the second half of it. It's not going to work.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So for testing, it's annoying.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: But for production, it's going to be great. But what happens if something breaks in the middle and operator goes, well, I'm just going to start halfway down the code and run the second half because that'll work. Like you, the the programmer has to.
johngrimsmo: avoid those situations.
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, I also want the vice closed because those vices will build chips up. Actually shout out to Matt Blackwell for the tip here. It's the cheap import vices that will pack chips in the actual mechanism.
John Saunders: So you want to leave the vice closed.
johngrimsmo: oh
John Saunders: And we 3D printed these little... nested guards that stop chips from even accessing that point. Anyway. it'll be It'll be okay. And then to see it. working like that was.
John Saunders: for sure one of the more proud moments of my manufacturing life. This is freaking up.
johngrimsmo: That's awesome.
John Saunders: Awesome.
johngrimsmo: Good for you.
John Saunders: Thank you.
johngrimsmo: Super cool.
John Saunders: Yeah. Okay.
johngrimsmo: All right, same time next week.
John Saunders: sounds No, this is the normal time next week.
johngrimsmo: Wait. Normal thought yeah, we're off today
John Saunders: or yeah Nobody else knows that. We were recorded it a weird were time today.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah, looking forward to it.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: I'll see you next week.
johngrimsmo: All right, man.
John Saunders: Sipa.
johngrimsmo: See you, bye.
