Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
#297 Printing with TPU flexible filament
171 Plays2 years ago
Topics:
- Saunders got 2 new Haas machines delivered for their training classes
- Grimsmo building their CNC router
- printing with TPU flexible filament
- Taco Bell and Okuma crashes
- recording quality audio
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction of Hosts and Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the Business of Machining episode 297. My name is John Grimsmough. My name is John Saunders. And this is the podcast where John and John talk every week about the manufacturing businesses that they've created over the past 15 years and kind of where they're at right now and where they're going and what we're doing and what we're up to and all the joys and headaches that go along with that.
00:00:25
Speaker
And it's kind of a weird one. Normally we record in the mornings, but now it's like two o'clock in the afternoon for us and it's different. It's a different vibe. You know, normally I drop the kids off at school and then I come in and then we do our podcast. And now it's like, I've already worked many hours and like, it's been a very busy day, hectic, like good. So many good things going on today that my brain's maybe in a little bit different place than it normally is kind of fresh first thing in the morning.
00:00:49
Speaker
I am fried right now in a great way, so I'm leaning on you, bud, to carry you through this one. That's funny.
Arrival of New Machines and Installation Challenges
00:00:57
Speaker
The reason we're recording later is because we just unloaded a truck from Haas.
00:01:06
Speaker
So it was two machines, but the UMC 500 SS, also we ordered it with the 10 pallet pool. So that kind of looks like a third machine when it's on the truck. I saw three things on the truck you posted and I was like, what is, okay.
00:01:25
Speaker
So it's funny because it's what I would think a pallet pool is. It's kind of a standalone 10-pallet pool thing, like sheet metal casting, weld bins, plates, all that, versus when we bought the Okuma and I was like, where's the six-pallet pool tombstone thing? And there were just six pedestals. Each pedestal is the size of like a school lectern. So they kind of all fit together, fought it. I told you I'm fried.
00:01:56
Speaker
in quite a small space, and I frankly don't like that design because each one had to be drilled and anchored into the ground, and you just can't move it. Anyways, the UMC, it's interesting. I guess I'm sure why. I know why, because frankly, there's a lot of good reasons for why folks would want to run one of these. I think we've had a lot of people ask about it, so I'm excited to try it.
00:02:24
Speaker
And we've been filming some footage today showing the kind of unloading and rigging the machines. And I mentioned in the video, look, we don't need the pallet pool. If there's not, I can't show you the, you know, final, you know, business cases to what justified that investment, but you can't add on later on the complete convert as I think you are from having the hundred percent. Yeah. The aroa on the current, which I guess is something you could add later, but, uh,
00:02:50
Speaker
we with the horizontal, it's just been such a game changer. And then I sort of had three thoughts. One is that if we want to use that machine for R&D, fixturing stuff, test stuff, then having different setups live on different palettes, but we just call it whenever we want it to.
00:03:06
Speaker
huge checkbox. The purpose of that machine is for our training classes. And if we have students that want to put their part away while another student pulls theirs up, I'm not sure we'll do it that way, but that's also great. And then we probably will end up using it for some production stuff. So the ability to have it run unattended during the day or overnight
00:03:30
Speaker
It's not necessarily the machine spec or all that that I would have bought for full-blown. Production, yeah. Yeah, but holy cow, I am excited for
Advantages of Pallet Pool Systems
00:03:39
Speaker
this thing. Yeah. I mean, it gets your feet in the door with a palletized UMC 50 or 500. You bought it for the training class, which will have a lot of benefits, I think, for your students and for everything. Not just the coolness of like, wow, I'm running a palletized five-axis machine in a training class. This is amazing. Yeah.
00:03:59
Speaker
I mean, you're going to realize all your staff that like in the evenings that machines not doing anything. Yeah. Like if you have easy cake work work to go on it's like, I'm just going to walk across the road and like load up 10 things and go home.
00:04:15
Speaker
I think it's good too, even if someone's not considering the Palette Pool to see it. It's not a bad thing at all to see it. It's quite a good thing. Look, the problem though is it's a continuum. If someone's looking in earnest at a VF2, there's a lot of reasons to say.
00:04:33
Speaker
Why don't you look at a UMC 500, which is kind of one of those, you know, Haas is smart about sharing a lot of components across machines. So there's different parts of those machines are just pulled from different three axis builds. Can you use the pallet pool on a three axis machine? Haas has now table changers. Okay. So they have a four.
00:04:57
Speaker
It's like a Miteco, but I think a Miteco only swaps one out for another. This is a four table shuttle system for a VF2, which look, I totally get it for a quirky use case that justifies it. It just, it seems strange to me for reasons I can't totally apply. But I don't follow Haas that closely. And I know that the Palette Change is fairly new-ish to their product line.
00:05:25
Speaker
It's made for the UMCs at
Training Classes and Facility Improvements
00:05:27
Speaker
the moment, right? It's not really made for a VF2. No, no, well, you can go on to your HFO right today and purchase a VF2 that has a table changer.
00:05:37
Speaker
Okay, but that is different than loading small pallets. That's correct. I don't believe Haas has anything that would be the equivalent of a Haas branded Haas factory made thing that drops smaller pallets on top of a three axis table. Right. Which in my mind is needs to happen. It's brilliant. It's a good point. Yeah. Because there's like a Trinity automation thing. People can put a rose on them.
00:06:00
Speaker
House has robots for sure. Maybe that's, they already have that for like, don't they have a FANUC arm system? Yeah, they do. That's what I'm thinking of in that line, I guess. Yeah. Okay. That's awesome. That's so exciting for you, man. So UMC 500 with the Pallet Changer and the second machine is. Almost an identical ST20Y.
00:06:21
Speaker
to the one you have in production. Bingo. Okay. So we didn't necessarily need the sub spindle on the training class one, because I don't think right now, I don't think we're going to get into sub spindle programming. There's just a lot. There is a lot. So you didn't get a sub spindle? We did. Well, because I got all the way to the finish line on the quote,
00:06:45
Speaker
And then I kind of thought, what am I doing, John? Like if our machine, I'm always reminded of you and I have, even though we're not as young as we once were, we generally have newer equipment and a newer story and so forth. And everything that is mechanical will break at some point. Like it's really sad to think that in a hundred years, your current will be in a landfill in a hundred years. Like it's weird to think that way, but it just won't exist. And so we rely on our SD20 a lot right now.
00:07:15
Speaker
And I just thought wait here, I'm all the way there minus two yards. You know, why wouldn't I get a machine that could be a little bit of work, but it could be take over SMW work if for some reason we crash our lathe or it goes down.
00:07:31
Speaker
Yeah. So it's, but it's the only big thing we didn't buy as a bar feeder, which is fine. Um, but again, the point there is to start offering in probably 2023, start offering a five axis class, uh, and then separately offering a turning class. Yeah. That's exciting.
00:07:50
Speaker
Yeah. And for folks that want to learn more, um, you can go to Sondra's machine works.com or you can actually go to learn CNC.com that'll redirect you. Uh, we have a signup when we do launch those classes and I'm, I'm humbled and proud to say that our classes are sold out. We actually added a couple of more classes to help with the demand, but otherwise they were sold out through February, March.
CNC Router Projects and Challenges
00:08:13
Speaker
So nice.
00:08:15
Speaker
It's a great situation to be in. I'm proud of the curriculum that we got and the equipment and the focus that we put into it. Yeah. What have you been up to?
00:08:29
Speaker
Very busy. Like today has been a whirlwind of activities. So we're building the CNC router. That's come together. We're moving the accesses. It's coming together. I've got another company locally building the table and the enclosure for it out of 8020 and other stuff. I knew I wanted to build an 8020 table and enclosure, and I have a design for it. And I was like, yeah, we could just source all the materials and build it ourselves and then talk to this local company.
00:08:58
Speaker
He spent quite a lot of time building the design and sourcing out the components and everything, all the brackets, everything. This is what they do. It's great. So send me a CAD file. It's like, it's done. Here's your quote with the dollar figure. Do you want to approve it or not? And I'll be honest, the price was significantly higher than I mentally pictured. Got it. Like twice what I thought it might cost.
00:09:23
Speaker
And then I was like, oh, I should just do it myself, blah, blah, blah. And then I was like, just bite the, you're not gonna regret it. Just bite the bullet, buy it, move on.
00:09:33
Speaker
I told them last night, I was like, that hurts, but yeah, I'm sure it's worth it. Just go nuts. Get it done. We've got plenty of other work to keep us busy while you build that and then we'll have it done. What size is the router? The working space is two foot by three foot, so 24 by 36. It's small. It's not like a sheet of plywood kind of router, but I want small. It doesn't take up too much floor space and it's perfect for exactly what we need.
00:10:01
Speaker
I would be surprised if 80-20 enclosure is more than a couple grand at most. Yeah, it's several couple grand. Oh, man. But under the next limit there. But it's fancy. It's nice. It's going to be really great. And it's, I mean, I'm trying to build a really nice machine here. It's got clear path servos. It's got a nice spindle on it. It's going to have a tool changer. Yeah. It's got the mass control touchscreen. That was awesome. Kind of going all out on this thing. Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:31
Speaker
But it's going to be exactly what I want and it's going to be zippy and it's going to be amazing and it's going to be fast and we've got quite a bit of work lined up for it. So I'm really excited about that. Good. Yeah. I mean, I think so. What's next steps or what's stopping it from going to work? I mean, the enclosure is one thing, but we still have a lot of fine tuning and tune the steppers and stuff like that. So yeah, we're just picking away at that.
00:10:57
Speaker
So me and Pierre pretty much are the ones putting it together and building it and making good progress. Should be able to cut something in the next few days basically. Was it Versa that built it, had his name? Yeah. I'm asking, I'm not interrogating. Did he not do all that though? Did it not work for him?
00:11:17
Speaker
Yeah, Versa CNC is the guy who built the electronics enclosure. So all the wiring and relays and the Maso controller and all the stepper drivers and power supplies and all that stuff. So he built that kit and I sent him one clear path servo and I sent a spindle to him so that he can test and wire up. I see. But he didn't tune the machine. He didn't have the machine.
00:11:42
Speaker
I thought he was like, I thought he was kind of giving you a turnkey machine. Right. Okay. Just electronics. Cool. Yeah. So we built the machine. And then Pierre said when he turned it on and tried to like jog X, like it moves a little bit. And then it's just the whole machine goes and it vibrates and it shakes and something. I think for one, because it was on a U-line wheelie cart.
00:12:04
Speaker
Oh. And the steppers had feedback sensors and all that stuff, and they just went nuts. You mean servos? Yes. Aren't they stepper servos? They're kind of... No, not at all. Yeah? Clear paths are legit servos. They are legit? Okay, well, sure. Yeah, there's nothing stepper about them. Okay.
00:12:22
Speaker
But I will start saying Serbos. Yeah, I'm very excited to use the ClearPaths. And then when he did the tuning program, which I've never done, but I've seen videos, and he plugs in the little USB stick to a laptop. And at this point, it was not on the Uline cart, but it was on a
00:12:40
Speaker
we move the machine onto a pallet that's on wheels. And he said when he tried to tune the X, it would shake the pallet on the wheels, and it was just trying to roll around a little bit. And he said the tuning did not work very well. The feedback sensors are just going all over the place. So we moved it onto a rigid, rigid box right now, a wooden crate, basically, until the enclosure comes in. So it should be pretty happy right now. So we'll retune the motors. And then
00:13:06
Speaker
Button up all the limit switches and travel limits and get everything's wired up and powered up and pneumatic up right now. So now it's just Playing, you know, it's awesome. Yeah figuring it out
00:13:19
Speaker
We, uh, boy, this has been years ago. Clear path sent us to test and play with a, uh, one of their clear passer roads, which there are different sizes of them, but this is the one that was a little bit, you know, about the size of your fist, which I feel like is about 34 equivalent maybe. But, and then it was on a, they had a little linear stage with it. So it was two linear rails with a carrier on it and a ball screw.
00:13:43
Speaker
Um, which is, it was very nice, low friction, all that. And we mounted it vertically and put a two, four, six block on it, which two, four, six blocks probably weigh. Five pounds, maybe like they're not light and two, four, six. I don't even have one of those. Yeah. Um, and we did the tuning program that you're mentioning and it kind of did all that learning. And then we started programming the feed rate as pushing as far as we could go in this linear stage was probably.
00:14:11
Speaker
either 2436 inches, and it could move that five pounds called five pound weight, which is no joke, like it was 246 blocks or heavier. It could move that thing up and down at a feed rate that was so fast, it scared you and would hurt you. Like it was legit. Oh, so that's kind of exciting for
00:14:32
Speaker
Would you get that things out and tuned in? Oh, yeah should cook. Yeah. Yeah, and I want it to wrap it fast and to just be fun and fun to use and impressive and not just this slow like boring like me Yeah, and it's I mean it's it's Quality of life You know kind of tool. I want it to be nice. Yeah, not gonna apologize for that, but it's gonna be sick and
00:14:59
Speaker
Yeah, and the spindle goes up to 24,000 RPM. I think Ed has one of those on that Datron thing he's trying to build at home. I think that project has been deep-sixed. Yeah, but my point is, I think he bought one of those spindles. Yes, yes. And yeah, excited for that. That's awesome. So that's good. So at this point, we are completely out of Norseman foam that we ship our products with.
00:15:28
Speaker
So either the router goes together immediately, or we put the foam on another machine for the moment, because the UMAC is not functioning at the present moment in time. Got it. We did spend some time trying to get it fixed, and it just didn't. Those machines just need somebody who wants to give them some love. That's it. And I did have somebody reach out who was quite interested in them, actually. So that could work out very well. Good.
00:15:53
Speaker
But yeah, they need to not be here anymore. They need to be somebody else's loving project. Yes. I'm totally cool with that. I'm very flexible on price, by the way, if anybody's listening. Yeah. Motivated seller. What are they are 12 by 30? What are the travels stuff? It's like a VF2, pretty much. Oh, OK. That's great. They're 19 by 15 travels, like 500 mil by 400 mil or something like that.
00:16:22
Speaker
30,000 RPM HSK spindle. Yeah, it's got a spindle chiller. Like it's got pretty fast rapids. They're 2002. The old machines but yeah, they're extremely tight too. Like you put a test indicator in the spindle and you jogs the up and down like a 10th indicator and you cannot notice backlash at all. That's awesome. Even on my Maury I can and I'm like these things are tight like you can
00:16:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I need some ball screw tuning, some ball bar testing to be able to tighten that thing up. Not much, but a couple of tents for sure. Interesting. It's been a long time since I've done that. Um, but yes, it'd be good to get the, the UMAX gone and then get the router put together. And, um,
Shop Improvements and Maintenance
00:17:10
Speaker
yeah. Awesome.
00:17:12
Speaker
Good. But the big news is the chip conveyor slash paper filter I've been making for this video is done and it is fantastic and it is the coolest thing ever. Good. That's great. It absolutely, like I'm actually blown away with how well it's working and how functional it is. Like now we're just making parts. We're just running that machine.
00:17:35
Speaker
all day. Oh, that's great. Oh yeah. It's fantastic. It has solved our problems. There's fine tuning to do obviously. The thing's made of 80-20 and 3D printed parts. It's a little loosey-goosey, but it functions, functional concept, like off the charts. So, so happy with that.
00:17:54
Speaker
That's great. I've been logging into the Prusa website every two weeks to be like, when is our new machine shipping? Because we are ready for another 3D printer. Yeah. And you ordered the big one, the XL or whatever? Yeah. Yeah. Excited for that thing. Yeah. Yeah. I've been thinking a lot about printers too. Have you seen that new one, the Bambow X1? A couple of people have been getting. It was a big Kickstarter campaign. What was it? It was made by the designers of
00:18:25
Speaker
some big household company that you would have heard of. I can't remember, but it's a big Kickstarter campaign, new 3D printer. Bam bow. Bam bow, like bamboo, but bam you at the end. Really impressive little printer for like $1,500, $2,000 decked out, 10 inch by 10 inch by 10 inch working cube, extremely fast.
00:18:50
Speaker
Oh, guys, what's the so what there? Okay, it's fast. Insanely fast and a package off the shelf. I'm tempted to buy one. I know a couple of people that have gotten them already and they're like, this thing rocks. This thing is pretty sweet. Anyway, having printed a whole bunch of parts over the past three weeks, I'm like, I need more printers. No, I know. That's what I was laughing because I've seen you posting on Insta a few different 3D printed things.
00:19:19
Speaker
Man, I feel like you just want to have one that's not busy because he's like, I want to just try something or print something. Yep. Ideally, I have two that are not busy all the time so that when I need them, boom, done. You've got OctoPrint on them. Everything just send files to it like webcam. That's like, yeah, it's empty. Hit go. It's got filament. Okay. Yeah. That's a good segue into like, okay.
00:19:43
Speaker
We have to, I have to babysit myself around the days off in the shop. Like, okay, we need to stop sometime. It's gonna be tough because we're gonna be, I think we're gonna be busy with the sales and work through the rest of the end of the year. But, you know, like don't make excuses, just do it. And one of the things on that list is to,
00:20:10
Speaker
Get the tool room organized into a tool room, but I have room next door and I talked about this last week, I think, but like probably could still have the 3d printers in there. Um, Frankly, I was thinking about moving them to my office, which is bigger than it should be, but I don't, I can't have the noise of them printing when I'm recording stuff. Yeah. Anyway, get the printer printers. I want to better set up better shelves or layout and looking neater and nicer. Yeah. Um, so yeah.
00:20:36
Speaker
Yeah that's a good idea. Yeah my printers I've got right now one at home, two at the shop, one at Pierre's house because he took it home to like upgrade it and fiddle around with it a couple weekends ago. I'm like I need that back. Yeah. Like sooner and then I'd like to get a couple more and make some nice shelves and a nice little. So I put
00:20:57
Speaker
My little voron I usually have at home and I brought it into the shop and it's been on the shop floor on a granite surface plate for the past two weeks or so. I think the humidity in the shop is really affecting the filament in a way that did not at home. I never even thought about it. The shop, one of our things said it's about 70% humidity.
00:21:17
Speaker
just a clock humidity gauge. I don't know how accurate it is, but print a couple of things. It's like bubbling and oozing and making not great prints. I'm like, maybe it is just the humidity. Didn't even think about that at all. Buy one of the $30 print spool dryer things. If you did little dry boxes. Yeah, I don't have one yet, but everybody who does is like, why don't you have one yet? Yeah. We only bought it because I bought a spool of PVA and never ended up using it. That's the Elmer's glue dissolvable
00:21:47
Speaker
Dissolvable filament option, because we have an IDEX printer. So the theory, you could print overhangs via the PVA that dissolve away, but again, never use it. But that stuff is super hydroscopic, so you have to store it or use it in the dryer thing. Classic preparatory purchase to bring back an old bomb word. Never used it, but I own it. Somebody used that on me the other day, the preparatory purchase.
00:22:16
Speaker
Yeah, good. Nice. The other thing we did, and I just did it, which is great, is we buried the gutters behind our shop. So this is the least sexy topic to discuss. But what does that mean? So our gutters behind our shop used to, like many gutters, just terminate at the base of the building. And they'd have a little 90 degree flange that would be
00:22:37
Speaker
take them out two inches, three inches. And I had installed different troughs and corrugated pipe over the years to try to get the water away from the building with mediocre success, including, look, a lot of people don't really want to deal with mowing around them or moving them.
00:22:53
Speaker
And so a buddy of mine runs a little side business with a mini excavator that he does stuff like this, like ditches, dog fences, gutter stuff. I actually ran into him. I was like, hey, I've been meaning to call you. Can you come take a look? And then it's perfect because that was on Saturday. Yesterday he came by, took a look, texted me a number last night and said, I can start tomorrow morning if you want. And they're already done, John.
00:23:13
Speaker
It was actually funny because he was doing it while we were rigging those machines this morning. I'm like, I cannot look at the excavator. I love watching excavators run. But I had gone through and looked at, okay, what are things that I need to make sure I'm doing to not let this business or building get
00:23:33
Speaker
in a bad place because I think very few folks want that, but life passes by you. I'm glad that we want to avoid any water ponding at the end of the building, which happened once. We had to fix the gutter, which should solve that. But still, I want that water that runs out of the gutter. I want that water away from the building. Done. Interesting.
00:23:54
Speaker
That's my PSA though, to be a nugget of encouragement for anyone who's thinking about, this isn't the most fun way to spend money or time, but I've seen other businesses and other people that have just let stuff get run down. And tell you, if it gets too far, the numbers get too big to fix it and you get too, it just gets easy. I just don't want to be that, so don't be that.
00:24:17
Speaker
Yeah, you get used to it. You get complacent. It's always been like that, but it's actually getting worse. Yeah, some of the things in our building are like that. And we're releasing this building. We don't own it. So we've talked to the landlord, but sometimes they haven't done stuff. And we're just kind of ignoring it. But if this were our building, we would have to put the money into fixing that and just get it done.
3D Printing and Material Management
00:24:41
Speaker
And a couple of things we've actually paid the contractor and did the thing and sent the bill to the landlord. Oh. We fixed it, which works sometimes. Let's just say, yeah, interesting. Little things, but with communication with them. They're like, yeah, you take care of it. Well, whatever. Got it. Yeah. Good. What else is going on? Speaking of 3D print, have you ever printed with TPU?
00:25:11
Speaker
Oh yeah, all the time. Yeah, I just started a couple weeks ago and I'm like, this stuff is amazing. It's like a rubbery, flexible filament that feels like a wet spaghetti noodle when you're holding it and it's super weird. But yeah, printing stuff I've never had and I'm like, why did I wait so long? This stuff is incredible.
00:25:28
Speaker
All of our magnetic machine signs, which again, in the, in the, what has failed, what has succeeded in like ideas, those things work great. So every machine that we have has a six different TPU printed signs, the magnet behind it. So like chip bin is out, coolant valve is turned off.
00:25:47
Speaker
Run with options, stop, set up and process. And they're different colors that mean different things. Yellow or an orange one is speeds and speeds override. And they are easy to just take off the side panel and put it on the door. And that way anybody who's near that machine knows what's going on. The big one is probably chip in out. So you don't want it if that's been out or cool it nozzle off because sometimes we turn the cool it nozzles off for a reason. And then if you don't turn it back on,
00:26:14
Speaker
start breaking tools pretty quick. Yeah, I can see that. I like that. I like that a lot. But they're nice on the TPU because we actually have a couple that were PLA and it's not something you want that's rigid. It doesn't feel right. It's nice having the sort of pliable TPU.
00:26:37
Speaker
And some of the things I printed based on your infill percentage, like a 5% infill, it's squishy. It's like a stress ball, like squishiness. But if you go 20%, it gets quite rigid. And if you go more, it's like hard, but still just has that little rubbery give to it.
00:26:53
Speaker
It's cool. Yeah. I'll be curious to see what we end up doing with that Prusa printer, because I plan on buying it with the maximum number of heads. Yeah. Which is what, four or more? I think it's five. Ooh. So I think one will be a detailed nozzle. One will be a big honking nozzle, like a 0.8 or one millimeter. Yeah, for speed. Yep. One will probably be TPU. I don't know about the rest.
00:27:19
Speaker
Extras. I mean, other colors. Yeah, colors. Yeah. Yeah. So we had a knock on wood, hopefully is not going to be a big issue. But Friday night, my wife and kids were out of town. And I was, for the first time in a while, just on my own, batching
Unexpected Machine Issues and Solutions
00:27:46
Speaker
it.
00:27:46
Speaker
And so I got some Taco Bell, love Taco Bell, came back to the shop, was just sitting there relaxing, watching the machine. I was just gonna change one part out and then go home. And so I'm sitting there eating my, what did I get? Crunchwrap Supreme and the Okuma horizontal crashes.
00:28:02
Speaker
what like pure dumb luck that it's two and a half hours after you know we all left I just happened to be back sit down and it sounded horrendous and I don't it's kind of funny I'd like to say that if you had a heart rate monitor on in me it barely even moved and like I got up I didn't even look I didn't even get upset say anything I just hit the stop button went back had it
00:28:28
Speaker
had a sip of root beer, took another bite, and I was like, let's just see what happened. Because I'm like, this is a proven program on a proven tombstone. I'm like, what the heck just happened? But that's what we always do. You always try to play detective when, and then you'll see it, and you're like, oh, of course, I didn't realize that. So I glance in the machine, and the end mill is fine.
00:28:52
Speaker
Now, I've never once had any sort of a crash that the end of it will survive. And then I'm like, okay, so maybe it ripped the part out of the fixture and that's all that the noise was sounded very, very crack. Was that a one thunk or a long term kind of more of a rattling?
00:29:10
Speaker
No no no more of a one loud like if you slam the spindle into the. Yeah. And so then I open the door get horizontal you have terrible visibility so I'd like to open the door to then look in at the fixture expecting to see the parts in a state of disarray and the clamps and the fixtures and all that and they're all fine.
00:29:32
Speaker
Did the machine stop or you stopped it? I stopped it. To your point, the machine had no e-stop condition, the machine until I slammed it. There was no servo overload alarm. Then I actually stopped for a second and like, am I hallucinating? I just heard a crash. Then I thought, oh, hold on a second.
00:29:58
Speaker
So I grabbed my flashlight and walked back around. The matrix dropped a tool. No way. And let me tell you, as a heads up for anybody that ever, God forbid, is in this situation, a Cat 40 tool getting dropped from like eight feet up inside of a house. It's not like a like a tool changer so big that you can walk through the thing. It sounded horrendous.
00:30:23
Speaker
So, shockingly, that carbide endmill, it was actually a quarter-inch lakeshore that's stubby but in a long holder because we use it to slot that we need to reach. Shockingly, the tool was fine.
00:30:38
Speaker
I could see this spot on the ER32 collet nut that got hit when it fell down. I didn't run that tombstone the rest of the night because I thought, let me spend more time tomorrow literally looking to see if something else had happened. I did a couple of quick tool changes. It was fine. I thought, you know what? I'm going to run one more
00:30:59
Speaker
tombstone overnight, and I'll come in the morning and see what happened. And I came in the morning, and it dropped another tool. Different tool. Different tool, but same wine rack in the matrix. OK. So now I'm kind of like, OK, we got a problem. This wasn't a one-off total fluke. But then fast forward, I ran the machine Sunday morning with a camera set up on the matrix to try to look at more detail what happened.
00:31:26
Speaker
ran fine. And then Monday, Tuesday, today's Wednesday, it's been running fine for its full normal production day. So there's no punchline to the story. Sorry if I may have built that up to be something else other than it did it twice, which is a, you know, once, once, twice too many. Yeah. Um, so I don't know. We'll see. Have you heard of this happening to other people before?
00:31:50
Speaker
Chris Fox that runs Digi Ignite down in Australia has the almost identical machine. I think he actually has two. I asked him, he's never had it happen. And I asked my apps guy kind of like, hey, like off the record, is this a thing? Like, does this happen either now or like when they get older or out of alignment? And excuse me, that was my sales guy, not the apps guy. Apps guy didn't seem to think it was the sales guys like maybe
00:32:18
Speaker
No, he hadn't heard of it either. I'm sorry, I'm conflating two different things. We also are trying to learn more about that B-axis rotation issue. And he was saying in his 15 years of selling horizontal, he's really only ever had to have two re-level. Now, look, my opinion is machines move, floors settle. So I think it's pretty normal to have larger machines re-leveled periodically, but we got to figure that out.
00:32:47
Speaker
Yeah, so both of those issues you don't really have a solution for at the moment. It seems probable, possible and probable that the B-axis rotation is a level issue, which is simple in the sense that you just have to fix the level. I don't grant. We're starting to look at that. I'm not sure if we'll tackle that ourselves. And I asked our service guy and sales guy, look, is this a warranty thing? I mean, I don't know that I have evidence
00:33:15
Speaker
I guess it's an interesting question because certainly leveling is set up the machine on the initial part is part of the purchase, but look, the machine hasn't cut any chips and it needs a couple of weeks to get coolant running through it and really frankly up to temperature and running and so forth. You could see them saying like, oh no, we give you one relevel, but then it's like, I don't know, we'll see. Is it too big you'd want to level it yourself or would you do it anyway?
00:33:43
Speaker
Oh yeah. We, I would be happy to do it ourselves. Yeah. We could probably use some pointers. We have that Sarah master precision grants really good at leveling our verticals. And, um,
00:33:55
Speaker
But if it is something that they want to tackle or is part of service or the install, I'd step out of the way gladly. And if I don't really want to, if anything, I'd like to see if leveling affects it and then we can start to figure out, do we know how to fix it? But it's only, don't quote me on this, but I believe it's a three point machine. So it's really,
00:34:19
Speaker
Yeah, that's weird. That should make it easy on the flip side. I don't know if it's a three point machine why we would have that error. Do you think that would ever be no twist? Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, take a peek at it. Yeah. But yeah, I'll keep you updated on if they learn anything on the tool dropping. Yeah, that's super weird. And unfortunately, I guess you're in the point where it's like, oh, let's just wait and see.
00:34:49
Speaker
Yeah. You're going to put a big piece of foam at the bottom of the tray or something. I built two of our Uline 20 by 8 by 8 boxes or something. They're long and they'll fit a coffin proportion. Nice. I put them at the bottom. I don't even know if it'll save the tool if it falls, but good grief just to reduce that noise. It's like when stunt people jump off buildings into the pile of boxes.
00:35:17
Speaker
Yeah. It's that. I like that. That's a good plan. Yeah. Well, it's almost the end of the day. What are you up to the rest of the day? I'm going to go tackle that router and try to tune those servos and wrap my head around what's next.
00:35:35
Speaker
My dad's picking the kids up from school today, so I don't have to rush back in half an hour. I want to put my head in that. Are you talking about the ClearPath tuning program? Yep. That shouldn't be hard. It shouldn't be hard. Now that it's on the box, I'm just saying it has to be redone. I haven't done it, so I want to see how it's done and then see what else has to be plugged in on the machine. I know the guys were working on it today when I was doing other stuff, so just
Technical Equipment and Audio Enhancements
00:36:05
Speaker
It's a router, traditional router, so it has a long X and a bridge Y.
00:36:15
Speaker
There's two Y ball screws, one X ball screw. Okay, two Ys, that's fine. Do each Y have a clear path? Yep. Okay, so those have to be slayed or synced. Exactly. Yeah, I've got a friend on Instagram who's built the exact same machine with clear paths and everything, and he's been helping me out. He's like, you can't tune both motors at the same time, and you can't tune them individually because they're slaved.
00:36:39
Speaker
You can't just tune one of them. So he said tune the X, get your values. I think he said cut them in half and apply them to the Y parameters because there's two, something, something. So I don't know. I got to look through that. I thought there was a way of linking two together because that's what you want. You want them to understand that they were supporting each other. I don't know.
00:37:05
Speaker
I'm going to figure that out. The spindle turns on, tool changer works. I've got to figure out a way to mount the tool changer grippers. It's just a table mounted like it clicks in and lets go and lifts up. Figure that out and then
00:37:24
Speaker
how on earth does the Maso control work? It's different. It's pretty obvious. It's kind of like Mach 4 sort of thing, but everybody I know who has it. Please don't say that. Yeah. I'm just thinking back in the day, it brings back memories, right? Mach 4 is okay. Mach 4 is a disaster. I never touched Mach 4, to be honest. I did a lot of Mach 3 and then Tormek Pathpilot came out and I'm like, this is sweet. Yeah.
00:37:48
Speaker
I bet you clear, Maso is very similar to Pathpilot just in the configurability and whatever. Everybody I know who has Maso loves it. Was the touchscreen a Maso product or was that like Amazon touchscreen? No, it's a Maso product and they built it to have the
00:38:09
Speaker
brains, the stepper drivers or whatever in the back end of it, but there's no room for your wiring and other stuff. So the guy versus CNC put like gutted the thing and put all this stuff in his enclosure and then ran a DB 35 cable or something, I don't know, whatever, um, to the massive screen. And then we just mount the screen. I've got to mount the screen somewhere and yeah, cool.
00:38:34
Speaker
figure out how to get files onto it, probably just do USB for now, but see if I can network it. And the other thing I'm going to do today is network my speedio, just assign an IP address and do that. And then all the machines should be done.
00:38:50
Speaker
Is there a fusion post for Maso? I believe so. Otherwise, I've got buddies that can just send me one. But it is a dumb question. But you would post to a Maso format. It's not like you would use a gerbil or a? Correct. I don't know, actually. Fan it. Yeah, you must be right. It must be their own. Because it's an Australian made proprietary control. They just kind of started from zero or from whatever baseline they started from. I don't know. But it sounds pretty awesome.
00:39:20
Speaker
Awesome. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. This video is just running like crazy. It's so good. The guys just run it. Is it? What were you trying to, we were getting into it. Oh, is it pen pen cases? Okay. Those are going. They're going awesome. Like now all the challenges are overcome and it's cake. Like it's just easy. Yeah, that's great. So that's fantastic. Good. Yeah.
00:39:51
Speaker
What are you working on for the rest of the day? The riggers are coming to pick up the forklift. I need to take a look at orders. We've got a lot of custom stuff kind of in the queue. And it's weird trusting Lex, which works, but we're just making sure that the work orders are
00:40:14
Speaker
Assigned aware of so just kind of quarterbacking that a little And then Like some not interesting accounting reconciliation stuff that we had an account problem with I gotta work on I'm working on a you can't see it because it's out of frame intentionally but I'm switching ditching the desktop mic because I Don't like having it in the way of my hands and I don't like having it in the screen for other video work We do I mean the podcast doesn't this be a deal. So I got a shotgun
00:40:42
Speaker
Sennheiser MKE 600, like a decent quality shotgun mic. Okay. And I'm mounting it from the ceiling, like one inch or half inch out of frame, and then running it into a little focus rate Scarlett. I like audio stuff. It's kind of fun. What's a focus rate? It's a audio
00:41:00
Speaker
A to D so it gets a high, well, not like high quality compared to a recording studio, but it's like a home recording studio quality preamp and digital conversion. So you can plug in XLR and fan of powered mics into it multiple mics, and it serves as the inboard sound card to the computer.
00:41:16
Speaker
And so I might actually, what I'm trying to do, actually if there's any audio nerds out there, I'm a little out of date on my audio knowledge, but I'd like to have hardware, EQ, compressor, and gate.
Future Plans and Production Goals
00:41:29
Speaker
And the reason I want hardware and not software is I don't want to tax my computer, but also more importantly, I run the output of the mic into, sometimes I go into the GoPro, sometimes I go into a DSLR, sometimes I go into different.
00:41:40
Speaker
system, so I don't want to have it forcibly be on a PC. So I was trying to look up, like, what are, I don't know, it's rack matter, desktop, you know, compressor, K to Q type options to get a little bit of better audio quality rocket rolling. So just having fun with that. Nice. Yeah. I don't know anything about any of that. Yeah, it's fun. It's cool. It's very cool. Dangerous novice at best. Right.
00:42:08
Speaker
Yeah, I'm pretty worn out though. I didn't sleep great last night and rigging machines, we are really good at it. We had fun. It went very well today. It was our best ever, but you're just laser focused for four or five hours and so I'm pretty beat. Yeah. So you didn't hire riggers. The truck came and you rented a forklift and you unloaded them? Is that what happened?
00:42:29
Speaker
Yeah, we've rigged all our machines except the horizontal because the horizontal was three semi-trucks. And our gosseger sort of implied like, we're not going to let you do this on your own. And good grief they were right. That was a totally different number of things to do. But we're good at Haas machines. The Genos was actually difficult because of how they built the pallet. But that's just because we didn't have experience with that.
00:42:55
Speaker
Palette size Yeah, we do it ourselves. You have one Genos three-axis machine, right? Correct. Right? Yeah. Okay. I didn't sneak a Genos in I I forget these days. No, I know right? Yeah. Yeah, it's funny That's cool. That's cool, man
00:43:13
Speaker
Good. Well, good. Get some rest. Get the rest of your work done, and then go chill. Dude, go get that router run. Yeah, I'm super excited. I'll have it moving today. OK, good. Maybe post a quick circle program or something and just jog. Have you done anything more with the Willemites? I've got to ask.
00:43:32
Speaker
No, but I did do some programming work. Last night I was chatting with CJ. He sent me some inspirational pictures from just the stuff he's working on, and I'm getting jazzed up for it. I'm like, okay, now that this video is running, the chip conveyor works perfectly. I can focus my efforts on some other projects, and Wilhelmin's going to be a big part of it, because I want to focus a portion of my day every day to increase production, reduce scrap.
00:44:01
Speaker
Because we need both of those. And there's a dozen to two dozen micro projects within that category. Increase production, reduce scrap. And it will emit as part of that ecosystem. So it's going to be cool. Be disciplined, even if that means you start to set aside half an hour, not even an hour, and turn your phone off, ignore people, do that. Oh, yeah, it's happening. Yeah, it's going to be cool. Cool. All right. See you next week. Have a good day.