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Ep. 41: Jamie and the Hallucinating AI
116 Plays14 hours ago
Join Curt and Jamie as they discuss their week, including topics such as Troubles with Ethercat, PDX CNC benchmark, and gutting the Goodway.
Links Discussed:
- Old School Turret Lathe Manual: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89089665293&seq=7
- PDX CNC Benchmark: https://portlandcnc.com/blog/2023/7/apple-silicon-f360#gsc.tab=0
- thead gauge: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32859323852.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.50.377f18027zdkqX
- High precision inch Thread gauge: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000295675687.html
- Parts Department Podcast: https://dept.parts/
The Lone Machinist:
- Website: https://thelonemachinists.com/
- Bonus Content: https://thelonemachinists.com/#bonus-content
- Merch: https://www.jspeceng.com/online-store
- Patreon: https://patreon.com/TheLoneMachinists
Need Work Done? Check out Subtract Manufacturing at: https://subtractmanufacturing.com/
Jamie:
Curt:
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Weekly Topics Overview
00:00:09
jamie peacock
Welcome to the Lone Machinist podcast, where Kurt and I talk about our weeks in the machine shop. What you got going on this week, Kurt?
00:00:17
Curt
ah This week I'm going to talk about box turning tools which were made in like a thousand years ago, ah how ChatGPT is not on drugs, and actually running the X5 for you know what it's worth.
00:00:28
Curt
about you? we What are your topics?
00:00:30
jamie peacock
ah Yeah, I've got discussing how EtherCAT is higher grade, ChatGPT is on drugs, and I saw a giant DC generator, which is really awesome. So yeah, let's let's hop into it.
00:00:40
Curt
Ooh. Okay.
00:00:42
jamie peacock
So how are you doing today, Kurt?
00:00:45
Curt
I'm doing really good, man. How are you doing? I know we kind of, kind of, I don't know what I'm talking about here. Had our guest episodes, and now we're just, we're stocked full of topics to talk about this week. So yeah, I think could be a good show.
00:00:57
jamie peacock
Yeah, it should be hopefully a good one.
00:00:57
Curt
But
00:00:58
jamie peacock
now yeah we've I think both had a lot going on in the loss last week.
00:01:02
Curt
yeah.
Challenges with EtherCAT on Lathes
00:01:03
Curt
So how is the lathe? I know you've been, I've been watching your posts on getting that EtherCAT all sorted for it. So how's that coming along?
00:01:10
jamie peacock
Turns out EtherCAT is higher grade, like seriously higher grade. um
00:01:15
Curt
how do you mean?
00:01:16
jamie peacock
ah It requires a lot more config than I thought. Also, getting the Raspberry Pi to actually do EtherCAT
00:01:19
Curt
ah
00:01:23
jamie peacock
I installed fresh versions of LinuxCNC on that par, I think, five times on Saturday. back Things weren't working. ah Okay, start from scratch again. Go through, run through the... the con There's a couple... There's a GitHub...
00:01:39
jamie peacock
tutorial went through that fails at a certain point eventually i was like okay can't have over this now and i was like let me go to step in direction and then doing a bit more research turns out there's some really fancy xml files you need to make it work that are very specific to the drives and as far as i can tell i'm the only person in the world with these drives
00:01:57
Curt
Mmm.
00:02:02
jamie peacock
There is nothing anywhere on the internet. I got our drug riddled chat GPT to scour the internet for manuals or any mention of these drives. Nothing. Only place you can find them is on AliExpress.
00:02:16
jamie peacock
I reached out to the seller. I've got all the manuals they provided, all 200 pages of not complete manuals. um So yeah, ended up fighting with that.
Considering New Drives Due to Configuration Issues
00:02:27
jamie peacock
on are then on Saturday night, so then by the fifth install, I'm like, screw this, I'm going to step in direction.
00:02:34
jamie peacock
I bought these drives knowing that I could put them into step direction mode and run them like that. Except ChatGPT's instructions were hallucinated.
00:02:46
jamie peacock
So I tried. I did the settings suggested. Some of the settings weren't there. I couldn't find reference to them in the in the manual, the 200-page manual. So as far as I can tell, ChatGPT was inferring stuff.
00:03:00
jamie peacock
ah And then eventually I called it quits on Saturday night. I'm like, okay, cool. This is what it is Let me go see how much drives are going to cost. I'm just going to buy a different servo drives. But now we have a problem because there is a very tight timeline on this lathe retrofit.
00:03:10
Curt
Hmm.
00:03:13
jamie peacock
so like lathe is running before the end of the month kind of timeline.
00:03:15
Curt
Hmm. Hmm.
00:03:18
jamie peacock
So ah looked online, can get a set of drives for $300 or so i can get them locally between but money don't want spend. eight hundred dollars that i could get effectively tomorrow but money i don't want to spend So was like, let me sleep
Using AI for Solutions in Machining
00:03:38
jamie peacock
on it.
00:03:38
jamie peacock
I'm not going to jump the gun. Like, let me sleep on it. Sunday morning, went back into the workshop, was messing around with settings, thought, let me put this through Notebook LM because it's a bit better with actual manuals.
00:03:51
jamie peacock
Threw the 200-page manual into there, asked it some questions. It gave me different answers. But now I'm also going ChatGPT and ah Notebook LM, trying to just confirm the wiring for the step and direction pins.
00:03:57
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:04:08
jamie peacock
ChatGPT straight up just hallucinated the wrong things. I look at the picture, take a picture with Google Translate, picture ChatGPT, not the fucking same thing. um And then I got Notebook.ilm to give me instructions on how to put the things into step and direction mode.
00:04:25
jamie peacock
So followed these instructions. I just go through set parameters and nothing. I'm like, okay. I've now looked up where, like, follow instructions. It says set digital one high, and that will enable the drives. If you go and change the setting, blah, blah, blah.
00:04:42
jamie peacock
Busy poking wires to see, and I hit digital five, and the drive enables. So I'm like, okay, cool. Go into the parameters, check the parameters for digital five. It's set to parameter 13, variable 13.
00:04:56
jamie peacock
Apparently, that's drive enable. Not according to the documentation, it isn't. So, okay, now i've got the drives enabled. I'm like, woo, we're moving in the correct direction. So messing around, and there's a setting to put it out of EtherCAT mode into and location mode or position mode.
00:05:14
jamie peacock
And then there's another another parameter that will put it into um analog input or... um clockwise, counterclockwise, signaling, or quadrature signaling, or pulse and direction.
00:05:30
jamie peacock
And that one I was told to set to number one. So I set it to one, nothing. Well, set it to two and see what happens. And the motor starts spinning. So I'm like, okay, I think that's a analog input that it's reading, and it's just biased a little bit to one side.
00:05:43
jamie peacock
So I'm like, let's put it to zero and see what happens. so All of a sudden, step and direction works.
Insights on Technical Manuals and AI
00:05:51
jamie peacock
The manual and a fucking drive do not correspond. Like the manual is just straight up wrong. So I'm going to make some notes and then I'll have those parameters written down and I can get it working. So I got the drives working.
00:06:05
jamie peacock
Holy cow, they are fast. I had to mess with the timings in Linux CNC because by default, it's got a 5,000 nanosecond pulse time. You can't go over like three meters a minute.
00:06:17
jamie peacock
You need to drop that down.
00:06:17
Curt
Oh, yeah.
00:06:18
jamie peacock
So I dropped it to 500 nanoseconds and now it'll do 30 meters a minute with no load.
00:06:23
Curt
Nice.
00:06:24
jamie peacock
it zooms.
00:06:24
Curt
Nice.
00:06:25
jamie peacock
It's freaking scary fast. So yeah, at least I got that resolved. um But yeah, like the... Notebook LM, when you have a manual, feed it into that rather than ChatGPT. ChatGPT tells you what it thinks you want to hear.
00:06:39
jamie peacock
Notebook LM will give you instructions and then cite in the manual. So you can click and it will up a piece of manual to correspond, which makes it so nice.
00:06:46
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:06:48
jamie peacock
You go, okay, cool. It says to this, click on it. Oh, okay. Read the actual section of the manual without having to search through it.
00:06:56
Curt
That makes sense, yeah.
00:06:56
jamie peacock
So yeah, got got that working there and a fresh install of LinuxCNC this morning because the
LinuxCNC Fresh Install and Efficiencies
00:07:01
Curt
Oh.
00:07:01
jamie peacock
previous install, I had tried to get EtherCAT working.
00:07:04
jamie peacock
So I'm like, no, I want no baggage on this ins install. Fresh install, backed up the config file and whatnot, pulled that into the new install and then got it running again in relatively short order.
00:07:18
jamie peacock
But yeah, I didn't want any baggage of like dodgy Ethernet ports and things like that.
00:07:23
Curt
Yeah, no fair.
00:07:24
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:07:24
Curt
Fair.
00:07:24
jamie peacock
So now I'm going back to the way I know how to do things because time crunch.
00:07:29
Curt
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no doubt. um I mean, at least you have the option to go EtherCat, like if you want a toy with it in the future, but if it works, i imagine you're probably not going to toy with it.
00:07:31
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:07:35
jamie peacock
Yeah. No.
00:07:38
Curt
It's going to stay as is.
00:07:39
jamie peacock
Nothing more temporary, and nothing more permanent than a temporary solution.
00:07:43
Curt
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:07:43
jamie peacock
um
00:07:43
Curt
Right.
00:07:44
jamie peacock
Like I did consider just buying different different drives and just putting these on a shelf until I want to play with them. Because, mean, I have a 400-watt servo that I've connected up to just make sure I wasn't fucking insane.
00:07:50
Curt
Right.
00:07:54
jamie peacock
And then I could actually drive a servo. And that works worked flawlessly. That I'm going to keep one side for when I decide I'm going do turret.
00:08:04
Curt
Oh, yeah, yeah, fair. Fair, fair, fair.
00:08:05
jamie peacock
Because, yeah, you know how it goes. So, yeah, what's ah what did you do with ChatGPT?
00:08:08
Curt
Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:08:12
jamie peacock
Let's get through all the AI bullshit in the beginning.
00:08:14
Curt
Okay, well, I think... I mean, with a caveat, yeah, chat GPT will definitely bullshit you and it'll confidently bullshit you unless you know that it's wrong. Be like, hey, hey, hey, no, you're wrong here. And it's like, oh, right, yeah, I am wrong. It's like, you sneaky little creature.
00:08:28
Curt
um But if you know enough, it suit like to me, it's not on drugs, but I was using it in a sense where there's probably a lot more documentation on the internet. So there's more for more stuff for it to scour us.
00:08:36
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:08:38
Curt
I was basically asking it questions about the Siemens control for my fourth axis because I'm still like...
00:08:41
jamie peacock
Ah, yes.
00:08:43
Curt
I'm still not getting perfect results out of that. And it's driving me insane. um So i was like, you know what? I'm going to ask it because I'm getting, I'm like, I'm near my wits end here. um Like i I talked to style they're like, no, it should be just fine.
00:08:51
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:08:53
Curt
And they're like, I don't, your code is fine. Everything is fine. i wass like, but i it's tiny. It's like, now it's like a 10,000 deviation from path that I like, I want it to follow perfectly.
00:09:03
jamie peacock
aye
00:09:04
Curt
And it's it's really close. So I'm like, well, maybe it's deflection.
00:09:05
jamie peacock
Yeah, but
00:09:06
Curt
So I ruled out all the mechanical things, like check the machine for backlash, like all the dumb things that you would check first. um And then i I asked chat and the cool thing is like it spit me out like a like, okay, this um like what you're describing sounds exactly like this and it listed a very specific aspect of the control like it's like, you know, the path planning organization system like it's taking into account all the axes.
00:09:27
Curt
It's like try reducing the amount of axes that you're running in simultaneous like even though they're not moving.
00:09:27
jamie peacock
yeah
00:09:31
Curt
the path planner is still looking at the x and the y or sorry the z and the y even though those ones aren't moving in this instance it's a fourth the x and um the z but the z isn't timed i don't really care so it's like remove those so it'll it'll lighten the load on that and like just it had a bunch of really cool steps and it's like okay single block like make sure that the one diagonal that you're seeing instead of it being like a billion little points just code it as one block
00:09:41
jamie peacock
yeah
00:09:54
jamie peacock
yeah
00:09:56
Curt
So you can rule out any path planning because that's a straight straight code.
00:09:59
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:00
Curt
Anyways, it had a bunch of dumb steps um that I could try. And it helped a ton, honestly. and i think what part of it is, is part of it... I'm not entirely sure yet because I still have to test it. um Part of it is the control... or Sorry, the post I have. It...
00:10:15
Curt
When it goes in and out of inverse time, and I did try to pull it out of inverse time, um
4th Axis Control and ChatGPT's Role
00:10:19
Curt
but getting my post to post fourth axis code without inverse time is kind of making my eyes bleed. um It's not just like a simple toggle.
00:10:26
Curt
So that's something I will mess with.
00:10:27
jamie peacock
yeah
00:10:28
Curt
But um when it goes in and out of inverse time, it cycles the break on the fourth. And I don't know if just that quick break cycle is causing little, like it to essentially lag behind a fraction of a second before it moves again.
00:10:34
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:10:44
Curt
Because I'm seeing on um like a straight section and then when it goes into where it needs to be simultaneous, where it comes a word goes into um inverse time, I'm seeing like a little like a witness mark on the tool um where it looks like the tool paused for a second.
00:10:44
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:10:55
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:10:57
Curt
So I'm i'm wondering if it's the break.
00:10:58
jamie peacock
Is... Is there not a way to just disable the break in code?
00:11:02
Curt
I mean, i can manually just say I can manually disable the break, but
00:11:04
jamie peacock
No, but it's not the problem.
00:11:05
Curt
no
00:11:06
jamie peacock
The controller is going shit itself because it's looking for that brake movement. Whereas if you can give it I'm sure there's a code to override it that it will stay disabled until you enable it again.
00:11:16
Curt
I asked Sile if there is a code.
00:11:17
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:11:18
Curt
and They said not on this, like not on the X5 with this control.
00:11:21
jamie peacock
Yeah,
00:11:22
Curt
They said you can't disable the code. Like I can, because the way the little piston works inside the fourth axis, the little little cheater pit, like I could just disconnect it from the actual brake and it would work.
00:11:27
jamie peacock
you just
00:11:31
jamie peacock
Yeah, that's...
00:11:32
Curt
But I also don't want to do that.
00:11:32
jamie peacock
I would be inclined to... No, would be inclined to try that.
00:11:37
Curt
Yeah, I just don't know if it's still going to process like the weight, because it's still it's still waiting for the signal, so I don't think it's going to change anything.
00:11:37
jamie peacock
Like...
00:11:41
jamie peacock
it's still a weight code, yeah.
00:11:43
Curt
And the like cycling the brake on and off doesn't... like I had it fixed in position and with a dial indicator on it, and then to cycle the brake, it doesn't move, so it's not that.
00:11:48
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:11:51
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:11:52
Curt
um Yeah, so...
00:11:54
jamie peacock
Just out of curiosity, how are you finding your center line of your... of your rotary? Yeah.
00:12:00
Curt
I basically just put like a like a dowel pin into it and then just probe probe the dowel pin.
00:12:03
jamie peacock
ah Okay, probe that.
00:12:05
Curt
Yeah, spin it probe it a few times just to make sure I'm on center.
00:12:07
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:12:08
Curt
Yeah.
00:12:08
jamie peacock
Now, was just curious because that could also be a could also lead to a similar artifact to what you're having where it's concave on one side and convex on the other if you're off center.
00:12:09
Curt
Yeah.
00:12:17
Curt
Well, I did correct for that. That would that kind make sense, I guess.
00:12:23
jamie peacock
Okay. Yeah, yeah.
00:12:24
Curt
um Yeah, I'm i'm i'm with intense. Like I measured them with intense, so it should be fine.
00:12:26
jamie peacock
okay yeah
00:12:27
Curt
But I did fix the concave convex. um The post was spitting out a ah ah maximum speed of a feed speed on inverse time of 9999.9.
00:12:39
jamie peacock
ah okay
00:12:40
Curt
And I noticed the code was maxing out a few times. It was hitting that that limit. So like, well, I'm like, there it could process way more. So I'm like, I'll throw another nine in there.
00:12:48
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:12:49
Curt
So now I can process much higher speed or it's time at that point, but, um or slow, I guess that'd be slow.
00:12:53
jamie peacock
Oh,
00:12:56
Curt
Regardless, um that fixed the the Boeing issue perfectly.
00:12:58
jamie peacock
okay.
00:12:59
Curt
So now i'm just and I'm just seeing a minor little change that I can only notice under a magnifying glass, but it's driving me freaking nuts because my cheap little homemade hobby mill doesn't do it.
00:12:59
jamie peacock
So it doesn't, yeah.
00:13:07
Curt
And even even with the same feed rates, because I tried to rule that out too, I ran it slow and I'm still seeing it. So it's it's something something fighting me.
00:13:14
jamie peacock
Yeah, because i would say your brake there is tied into the ladder, that when the access is stopped for a certain amount of time, the brake enables.
00:13:19
Curt
Yeah.
00:13:22
jamie peacock
um
00:13:22
Curt
Yeah.
00:13:24
jamie peacock
ah know my machine, it's got M codes for the brakes on 4 and 5. like in the list of in the list of M codes.
00:13:34
jamie peacock
So it would, yeah, I don't would think it's, I know that the HASSes, the UMCs, you can give it an M code at beginning of your program that will keep the access unlocked. Yeah.
00:13:46
Curt
Yeah, like, I'm going to probably have to alter it, because asked Sile, and they said no, as soon as it reads, ah either it's a G93 or a I forget which one is inverse time.
00:13:49
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:13:53
Curt
As soon as it sees that, it ah it basically activates a break. So it's it's in the...
00:13:58
jamie peacock
As it comes out of... Yeah, so as it comes out of... Out of inverse time. So G94 is your linear feed move whatever.
00:14:07
jamie peacock
fee Feed per millimeter.
00:14:07
Curt
Right.
00:14:10
jamie peacock
So can you not leave it in an inverse time?
00:14:10
Curt
Yeah.
00:14:14
Curt
Yeah, I totally could. I have to alter my post to leave it at in inverse time.
00:14:15
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:14:16
Curt
I just haven't figured that part out yet. took me ages to get it to spit out inverse time, and now I'm trying to be put me out code, but not inverse time, but still fourth axis code.
00:14:18
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:14:21
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:14:25
Curt
It's like, yeah, it kind of shits the bed.
00:14:26
jamie peacock
Yeah, that's...
00:14:27
Curt
So I'll figure that out too, but yeah, pain and pain.
00:14:29
jamie peacock
Yeah, because that might be the the trick is just leave it in G93 that it's an inverse time and run the whole program in inverse time.
00:14:31
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:14:36
jamie peacock
look It's just your engraving.
00:14:38
Curt
Yeah, or I...
00:14:38
jamie peacock
It's not like you're milling a block and then coming to do a fourth axis job.
00:14:43
Curt
No, and I even thought, I'm like, what if I but if i like skew the entire like system just like a fraction of a degree so it just it forces it to do even straight lines in fourth axis?
00:14:51
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:14:52
Curt
And I was like, that's a hacky way to do it, but...
00:14:53
jamie peacock
Oh. It's not the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Like,
00:14:57
Curt
No, like and just like a tenth of a degree over. Like you wouldn't even notice it measuring wise, but it would force the control to constantly stay.
00:15:00
jamie peacock
yeah
00:15:04
Curt
don't I'll figure it out. I'm sure it's something dumb, but at least now I know it's like, it's not the code. It's not mechanical.
00:15:08
jamie peacock
yeah okay yeah there's always well yeah that's it chinese yeah chinese documentation winning again same shit i had with uh with the drafts yeah
00:15:09
Curt
It's so it's something in the way the machine is processing it. So I get licked, but it is the tis a price you pay when you buy a budget machine, especially a budget machine with like a new control.
00:15:20
Curt
Yeah.
00:15:25
Curt
Yeah, well, thankfully i can read ah yeah I can read all the Siemens documentation, so that's nice. and ah yeah
00:15:30
jamie peacock
But yeah. Now the Chinese, that's thing like the the servers I bought.
00:15:33
Curt
yeah so
00:15:35
jamie peacock
Chinese servers, nice and narson cheap, except there's no documentation. That's why they're nice and cheap.
00:15:39
Curt
Totally, yeah.
00:15:40
jamie peacock
Or there is documentation, or 200 pages of incorrect documentation.
00:15:40
Curt
Yep, 100%.
00:15:44
Curt
Yeah, exactly.
00:15:45
jamie peacock
Yeah. yeah
00:15:47
Curt
Yeah.
00:15:47
jamie peacock
Endlessly frustrating. But yeah, so yeah.
00:15:49
Curt
No doubt.
00:15:50
jamie peacock
And then you've been running your X5, which is a bit of a change.
00:15:54
Curt
Yeah, I was I was feeling like you last week. I we had the one holiday day here and I ran it, I think for six hours that day, which wasn't insane, but I wasn't here. Like I was just I was out in the yard playing and I was running screws on it.
00:16:04
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:16:06
Curt
So it ran for six hours and the next day. I think it ran for seven hours. And then like the next day after that, it ran for the full day and then it ran for the next full day. And it's just like, oh, I'm like, it's it's nice to have that machine now just like fully chomping away.
00:16:19
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:16:20
Curt
um feel like i'm actually getting something done.
00:16:21
jamie peacock
Well, that's...
00:16:22
Curt
Yeah.
00:16:22
jamie peacock
That's like like I was saying the other day, when you've got a good hammer, it's really he's easy to hit the nail. Like, I ran parts today.
00:16:28
Curt
yeah
00:16:29
jamie peacock
ah ran a part last week, and I ran parts today. It's an over-center lack latching mechanism. And it's like, cool, we need to hit size on these.
00:16:35
Curt
Yeah.
00:16:37
jamie peacock
ah It's a 3mm dial pin that goes in. It needs to be a nice tight, or a nice sliding, like, tight sliding fit. Didn't even try. 2mm end mill, bore it out. There we go, we're on size.
00:16:49
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:16:49
Curt
yeah
00:16:50
jamie peacock
Bored a thing for a 16mm carbon tube. Used my 12mm that's in the machine. No compensations. Put the bore mark exactly 16. Made a thing needed 6.5 diameter.
00:17:00
jamie peacock
Used a wear comp in the machine. Mark it exactly on size. It's like, it just, it does the thing.
00:17:06
Curt
no
00:17:07
jamie peacock
Like, yeah.
00:17:09
Curt
Oh, yeah.
00:17:10
jamie peacock
Take it for granted these days, but like, it really just, it does the thing and it does it well.
00:17:15
Curt
Well, yeah, and like I was like those screws I was machining.
00:17:15
jamie peacock
Like...
00:17:17
Curt
That's a tiny tool. And like every single one of them was like of the of the tools.
00:17:19
jamie peacock
Yeah, how many have you killed?
00:17:23
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:17:24
Curt
Finally one, but it took like over 100 screws to kill it where I was killing it every 10 to 12.
00:17:26
jamie peacock
Oh, nice. That's...
00:17:29
Curt
So, it's.
00:17:30
jamie peacock
That's impressive.
00:17:31
Curt
Yeah, I was super pumped for that. But same thing. It's like the first one comes out.
00:17:33
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:17:34
Curt
I might get it's perfect. but Like the 50th one.
00:17:36
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:17:37
Curt
I might get it's perfect. Like it's so cool to like not have to like constantly be chasing chasing tolerance.
00:17:43
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:17:44
Curt
So yeah.
00:17:45
jamie peacock
That's something I'm looking forward to with the new lathe. Because Bertha...
00:17:48
Curt
Yeah.
00:17:49
jamie peacock
Okay, so remember the controller on the control PC on Bertha shut the bed a few months ago and I retrofitted it quickly to a power?
00:17:55
Curt
Right. Yeah.
Machine Acquisition and Retrofitting Strategies
00:17:58
Curt
Right.
00:17:58
jamie peacock
When the coolant pump comes on, the screen flashes because the coolant pump is a 220 volt pump that gets switched on the main relays. So it's making a little bit of back EMF.
00:18:06
Curt
Okay.
00:18:07
jamie peacock
And I'm like, okay, I have a 24 volt relay. I'm just going to move it some to the other side of the cabinets. Problem will go away. and had the guy bought bertha here yes uh yesterday yesterday before i don't know i think yesterday he was here to machine some parts on bertha and we were rapidly out and he wanted me to stop so we could check the size so i just hit escape and then the machine has a following error i'm like there is no way you have a fucking following error you have no way of knowing where the motors are how the do you have a following error
00:18:38
Curt
Right.
00:18:40
jamie peacock
It happened to us two or three times. It was infuriating. Like, dialing in the size and then, ok okay, now we have to take another cut and reset because the machine is fucking drunk. But yeah, it's trying not to get sold.
00:18:52
Curt
oh
00:18:53
jamie peacock
Which is a bit annoying.
00:18:55
jamie peacock
But the machine, so currently own one and a half lathes. Tomorrow I'll be back to owning two lathes.
00:18:55
Curt
It likes you.
00:19:06
jamie peacock
One lath and then half of two other lathes. Because Bertha's been paid half and the good way I've got to go drop cash off tomorrow to pay off, ah to pay the first half of that machine. But yeah, i was there today.
00:19:17
Curt
So, but...
00:19:17
jamie peacock
I'm like, cool, just give me an invoice. I'll do an EFT. They're like, oh no, they kind of wanted cash. I'm like, sweet, no worries. I'll bring cash tomorrow. But I'm gutting this motherfucker now. So there are more Fanuc drives in that machine.
00:19:29
jamie peacock
I couldn't get the plugs to own plugs, so I took side cutters and just cut the fucking plugs.
00:19:29
Curt
Oh, no.
00:19:32
Curt
Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:19:32
jamie peacock
So I've got all the drives with little pigtails of plug on them. I'm like, fuck this. Good enough. So I'm busy in the process of selling off the Fanuc spares.
00:19:37
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:19:42
jamie peacock
Looks like I'll recoup about a quarter of the cost of the machine.
00:19:46
Curt
That's awesome. That's good.
00:19:47
jamie peacock
I probably could have got half the cost of the machine, but whatever. I'll take a quarter. ah um
00:19:52
Curt
Yeah.
00:19:52
jamie peacock
So I pulled out the screen and whatnot. Pulled off the whole front door so I can work on the user interface here before the machine arrives. um Took off the way covers to get to the x-axis motor.
00:20:04
jamie peacock
Turns out the x-axis motor is like like not even super powerful. Hang on. going to play this while I quickly calculate it. Okay.
00:20:15
jamie peacock
587 watts. 2.0.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.2.1.1.2.1.1.2.1.1.2.1.1.2.1.1.2.1.1.2.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1. time
00:20:17
Curt
Oh, I mean, it's reasonable.
00:20:19
jamie peacock
five hundred and eighty seven watts
00:20:23
jamie peacock
ah two point ah stall current stall talk of two point six newtonmeters my new motors have two point three at three thousand rpm they stole at six news meters
00:20:37
Curt
Nice.
00:20:37
jamie peacock
so they the little little of but us very concerned that they were underpowered
00:20:39
Curt
Yeah.
00:20:41
jamie peacock
because they're so much smaller but yeah they are beefy So those are those are going in. But yeah, I was there today. the The ways on that machine look mint, like mint condition.
00:20:51
Curt
Oh, nice. Cool.
00:20:53
jamie peacock
So I've got to fix some of the oiling stuff. And I had the covers off today. The whole back open so I can get to everything. It's kind of nice. And then I'll pull all the Nook bullshit out of there and getting panels plasmid or lasered so that I can get all the VFDs mounted because the thing has got five VFDs and two servo drives in it.
00:21:13
Curt
hello
00:21:14
jamie peacock
yeah we've got spindle motor cooling fan coolant pump chip conveyor ah
00:21:21
Curt
Oh, right. Right, right, right. Yeah.
00:21:22
jamie peacock
hydraulics spindle and then the two axes so a shitload of VFDs but yeah busy busy working out all the electrical stories for that but yeah a very nicely built machine like having a look at the inwards of it yes
00:21:26
Curt
Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. yeah
00:21:34
Curt
Cool.
00:21:38
Curt
And did you did you say that was Boxway? Nice. Okay. So you got some rigidity there.
00:21:42
jamie peacock
And they move super fucking smoothly.
00:21:43
Curt
Sick.
00:21:44
jamie peacock
I'm excited as hell.
00:21:45
Curt
Sick.
00:21:46
jamie peacock
So ordered some four inch by four inch by three inch plate today to make gang blocks for it, to make two gang blocks.
00:21:46
Curt
Sick.
00:21:54
jamie peacock
um
00:21:54
Curt
OK.
00:21:54
Curt
Hmm.
00:21:55
jamie peacock
And then I think I'm going make the gang blocks that I've got a U-drill or a boring bar and then an OD tool next to it. But like super compact. And then on the gang blocks, I'm going to mill like where the bore for the U-drill is, is going to be semicircular. And i'm going to put a steel plate on the top and thread the steel for the locking screws.
00:22:17
jamie peacock
so that they don't strip out.
00:22:17
Curt
ah okay
00:22:18
jamie peacock
Because even my steel ones in the current lathe have stripped some of them out. So I'm going to just go the little little bit extra in the beginning, and then anodize them purple, because it's me. um And then, yeah, steel plates across the top.
00:22:27
Curt
Yeah.
00:22:29
jamie peacock
But yeah, now I've got to replace most of my freaking lathe tooling.
00:22:33
Curt
Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:22:34
jamie peacock
I want to go to slightly smaller bodies, like either 12 or 16 millimeter, just because I don't need it to be 20 millimeter.
00:22:39
Curt
Yeah, yeah.
00:22:40
jamie peacock
Like, the only reason I use 20s is because that's what the old machine came with.
00:22:45
jamie peacock
um
00:22:45
Curt
Yeah, those are chunky.
00:22:46
Curt
Yeah, for your work anyways, yeah.
00:22:46
jamie peacock
Yeah, they're pretty big. They're just over three quarters of an inch. So I'm going to drop down to like half inch tooling or 16mm, which is something in Imperial.
00:22:51
Curt
Yeah.
00:22:56
jamie peacock
My cable for my Imperializer got stolen. um So yeah, it's going to mess with buying new tools, but yeah that's buying new tools. now I've got to buy new tools, new tool post, because I'm going to put a quick change tool post on it again for when I need to do the odd jobbing job.
00:23:10
jamie peacock
Then I've got the quick change, but I'm buying the Italian style one, not the American style one, because they repeat a little bit better.
00:23:18
Curt
What's the Italian one?
00:23:20
jamie peacock
I'm trying to think how describe this. ah but Hang on one moment.
00:23:28
Curt
We're just full of them today.
00:23:30
jamie peacock
Oh yeah, no, no, we're on the outro in the next episode of of Taps and Patience, they used that as the outro song, which was hilarious.
00:23:32
Curt
ah
00:23:41
jamie peacock
um I'll make sure Danica puts a link to this, but there we go.
00:23:45
Curt
okay Like so the sliding wedge ones or the piston or then like
00:23:50
jamie peacock
So, yeah, Simon, I'll send you a link now that you can quickly have a look while we're on the podcast because Googling on the podcast. um So you get the sliding wedge type, which is the 250s.
00:24:03
jamie peacock
um
00:24:04
jamie peacock
So if you go 250, 100 tool post, that's the, it's got the piston that comes out. It's got a dovetail basically. And then there's the 502 ones.
00:24:05
Curt
Yeah.
00:24:12
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
00:24:15
jamie peacock
which is toolpost.
00:24:16
Curt
yeah
00:24:19
jamie peacock
Yeah, this website's great. um Those are the ones that pull a locking like T-slot story in, and it locates on... The corners.
00:24:29
jamie peacock
it I think it's a bit more repeatable because the dovetail ones do not repeat. Like, we're talking 2,000 easily on diameter when I change a tool.
00:24:37
Curt
Yeah, yeah.
00:24:39
jamie peacock
So I want to go to a different one. Yeah, I know it's fine for roughing and parting, but for finished turning, not if you want to hold any reasonable size. So I'm going to probably put one of those onto the onto the new machine.
00:24:48
Curt
Yeah.
00:24:51
jamie peacock
And then I ordered K110 today for the new face of the collared chuck.
00:24:52
Curt
Nice.
00:24:56
jamie peacock
tried to print it except prusa slices on drugs today and spat out like a random hodgepodge of code and crashed my printer and i've got to fix it with hot glue and um i've got just hot glue the fan back onto the fan shroud it was hot glued on initially yeah not not total savage maneuvers um but yeah my printer's not a commission until i do that um
00:24:57
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:25:11
Curt
Okay. Okay. Okay.
00:25:20
jamie peacock
But yeah, i was trying to print one to just go test fit because um'm order the K110 arrives later this week and I'm machining it, sending it for heat treat, and then I'll hard turn it finished when it's on the spindle. So I'm going to leave the bore undersized like half a mil, leave a little decorative thing on the face and leave the ODI, and then when it's installed, I'll skim the ODI, skim the face, and then bore the bore to for the collets.
00:25:43
jamie peacock
the calls
00:25:44
jamie peacock
I also picked up some collets for like $2.50 a collet.
00:25:44
Curt
Nice.
00:25:44
Curt
Nice, nice, nice.
00:25:48
jamie peacock
Picked up five of them.
00:25:48
Curt
Nice.
00:25:48
Curt
Yeah,
00:25:49
jamie peacock
Yeah, no, like basically free. That was when I bought the eccentric press last week.
00:25:53
Curt
yeah I saw those like rubberized ones for holding raw stock.
00:25:55
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:25:56
Curt
Those are kind of wild. I haven't seen that before.
00:25:57
jamie peacock
They are. They're called Verabore or um there's another one. It's a rubber grip or something. But yeah, they're three millimeters of stroke.
00:26:08
Curt
That's insane.
00:26:08
jamie peacock
Like, they've got a huge amount of travel.
00:26:09
Curt
Yeah.
00:26:09
jamie peacock
So we're going to see. I've got i got to run some stuff next week. and They'll fit into Bertha, I'm going to run them in Bertha and see how they work.
00:26:16
Curt
Are they like, is it like a rubberized spider that's holding all the like metal bits together that actually clamp?
00:26:19
jamie peacock
No. but you
00:26:20
Curt
Or is it just rubber on?
00:26:22
jamie peacock
No, so it's ah it's eight or however many segments, and they've got, like, a T-slotty rubber that holds them...
00:26:26
Curt
Yeah.
00:26:30
jamie peacock
It doesn't actually lock them together. it just It slots into the sides and then there's a spring ring that goes on it, like just a big C-clip type thing that goes around to hold them all together.
00:26:35
Curt
OK. Yeah.
00:26:40
Curt
OK.
00:26:43
Curt
So the thing that's grabbing, like when it's pulled into your spindle, the thing that's grabbing onto the raw stock, or whatever, which way?
00:26:46
jamie peacock
I know. it's So my spindle is a dead stop, so it pushes forward. So it's getting located in the bore of the faceplate and then the back cone pushes forward and clamps it.
00:26:51
Curt
Yeah, yeah.
00:26:54
Curt
Yeah.
00:26:58
Curt
um just I just mean like what is physically touching the material? Is it rubber or is it like metal fingers that are...
00:27:02
jamie peacock
No, it's steel. It's steel, steel pads.
00:27:03
Curt
Okay.
00:27:04
jamie peacock
Yeah. No, no. It's textured steel pads.
00:27:05
Curt
Interesting. Okay, yeah.
00:27:06
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:27:07
jamie peacock
They're really cool looking.
00:27:07
Curt
Interesting.
00:27:07
Curt
Yeah.
00:27:08
jamie peacock
We'll see how they work on 30 millimeter bar next week.
00:27:09
Curt
Yeah, they are cool.
00:27:11
jamie peacock
I've got to order the guys.
00:27:12
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:27:13
jamie peacock
I'm like, oh, can we have 50 tubes? i'm like, guys, I order a six meter length. That makes 120 fucking tube ends.
00:27:19
Curt
Right, yeah, yeah.
00:27:20
jamie peacock
So yeah, I'm a little bit annoyed with them, but it is what it is.
00:27:20
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:24
jamie peacock
We don't burn them down yet.
00:27:24
Curt
Yeah.
00:27:25
jamie peacock
They're starting to place orders again. Turns out they've been just been using all the stock that they've had in backlog. They've just been using it all and not replacing it. So hopefully they will be panicking and trying to get stuff out of me quickly because I like money.
00:27:40
jamie peacock
And they'll learn to build stock up again because the whole point of them carrying stock was that if my supply chain is ruined, because Eurus, you're like, oh, sorry, we're getting stock in a week's time, then they not shit out luck for an extra week.
00:27:55
jamie peacock
But yeah, we'll see how that that whole thing unfurls.
00:28:01
Curt
Yeah, not fair. Fair, fair, fair.
00:28:02
jamie peacock
Yeah. um
00:28:04
Curt
Cool.
00:28:05
jamie peacock
So what's with the box tooling cutter?
Box Turning Tools for Precision
00:28:08
jamie peacock
What?
00:28:08
Curt
Okay.
00:28:08
jamie peacock
Box turning tools. Yes, there we
00:28:10
Curt
Yeah, so I was, like, I messed around with this, like, a year ago, and then the email, I just never got a reply back and kind of just fell off my radar. um But are looking at this?
00:28:18
jamie peacock
Also, what's going on in your chuck? Is that a chuck in a collet chuck?
00:28:23
Curt
it's a chuck and a chuck and a chuck all with their all with their keys in them um um i had some time i was waiting for you so i was like oh fuck around with this um anyways
00:28:25
jamie peacock
Nice. The key is even better.
00:28:31
jamie peacock
Just for anybody who's wondering what we're talking about, the video is available, or you can see the video on YouTube. If you Machinists, you'll find it. Yes.
00:28:43
Curt
anyway uh yeah box turning tools so essentially what i was doing is like for the for the hard inch it can't do a long diameter turning because it doesn't have a tail stock um
00:28:46
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:28:51
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:28:52
Curt
So the only way to do it would be to ah essentially use a follower rest. I mean, I've Swiss turned it like a turn a little bit, stick it out, turn it a little bit, stick it out, but you're limited by how concentric your bar is.
00:28:57
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yes.
00:29:02
Curt
If your bar is a little off, even if you like, don't let it spin.
00:29:03
jamie peacock
yes
00:29:05
Curt
Like I keep it clocked to the, to the collet as it's pushing it out. I'm like, stopped the spindle, push it out, clamp again. um Even then you'll, you'll get blend lines. You just, you're not going to get a perfect cut. And um so what I do is I turn in between centers on the manual, which is fine. It just, it's manual. And I'm,
00:29:21
Curt
kind of same thing if i think of 100 folds like i don't mind doing 10 of them but by the time i've done 10 bodies i'm like i am ready to walk into traffic like i would like to do something else besides this i don't even care if it's slower um so i put a follower rest on the on the manual just because i'm like well that's essentially what this box turning tool is is a follower rest and that worked pretty good um except i want to want to put on the
00:29:24
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:29:32
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:29:43
Curt
the CNC lathe because on a manual like as soon as you back it off then you're like okay well now to get to the exact same setting that worked it's kind of tedious you're granted just too much and I'm trying to hold like sub thou tolerance along its length so like any little deviation you're kind of just effed
00:29:45
jamie peacock
yeah
00:29:55
jamie peacock
yeah
00:29:58
Curt
So I found these box turning tools a long time ago. um The company I'm looking at is, I think, Tranji Flow. think they make a more modern-ish version. And essentially what it is, is it's all encased. It's like one big block of steel. It's got a turning tool in it.
00:30:11
Curt
um They were really common on turret lathes back in the day, and they have some ah follower guide bearings. So you turn the first diameter of your stock, like whatever...
00:30:18
jamie peacock
yeah
00:30:19
Curt
10 mils of it so you have the finished size then you stick it out as far as you want and then this tool kind of indexes onto it the little bearings ride on the finished side and then has a tool just in front that cuts so it it cuts exactly to size and there's no deviation because it's holding it as it's cutting and then it just feeds through it's got a hollow core um and you could you know you could turn two feet like that if you want um and anyways
00:30:27
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:30:32
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:30:37
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:30:40
jamie peacock
Yeah, that that's what I was going to say. What about putting the steady on the other side, but you then obviously have to prep your material, but that's not the end of the world.
00:30:48
Curt
Yeah, well, and then the cool thing about these tools is once you finish turning um and you get to the end, as soon as you stop, as soon as the cutter pressure drops, the cutter springs out of the way. So now you can back off off the rod without scratching it.
00:31:01
jamie peacock
sure
00:31:01
Curt
um So if you're doing finish work, and the cool thing is the bearings that are running on it are burnishing too.
00:31:05
Curt
So you get the added effect of burnishing as you're cutting.
00:31:06
jamie peacock
yeah
00:31:08
Curt
So long as the chips don't wrap up in the, in the little wheels that I've been reading about, and um it cuts really, and they have special inserts that direct the chips away. Um, but yeah, the finishes are apparently fantastic and it's specifically designed for turret lathes.
00:31:16
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:31:20
Curt
So I think I might, I was going to build one and they're like a thousand bucks to buy one. i was like, you know what? I'm going to spend more and a thousand bucks trying to fricking cobble something together.
00:31:27
jamie peacock
Yeah. No, 100%. Yeah.
00:31:30
Curt
And mine's not going to spring out of the way.
00:31:30
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:31:31
Curt
Like I'm just going to have to stop the spindle or like it,
00:31:33
jamie peacock
yeah
00:31:34
Curt
back off or like i mean it's gonna scratch it and then i'm i'm trying to get it so that the part comes off without needing any more hand finishing like it's ready for final finishing so yeah i think i might just order one it's not a huge price to test it and if it's if it's crap i can always throw it on ebay some other sap will buy it so yeah yeah exactly
00:31:41
jamie peacock
Sure. Okay.
00:31:45
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:31:49
jamie peacock
Well, yeah, said it somea so some unlucky bastard. Well, speaking of of old school things, I saw a big thread whirler for the first time the other day. My mate's shop that he's got them.
00:32:01
Curt
oh yeah
00:32:02
jamie peacock
I've just never seen them running. So he's got like three lathes that are just dedicated to long shaft work. And it's really cool.
00:32:08
Curt
Cool.
00:32:10
jamie peacock
Like it had it used to have a blower in it. They take that shit out because they run with coolants and you don't really want to blow and coolant.
00:32:14
Curt
Right.
00:32:16
jamie peacock
But yeah, they were running ah about a one inch diameter shaft putting threads. The thing was like, I think threading a four foot section of it so and things just spin slowly and just really, really cool.
00:32:27
Curt
Yeah.
00:32:28
jamie peacock
It's like, it's old school as hell, but like they've got those machines and they specialize in doing that.
00:32:30
Curt
Yeah.
00:32:34
Curt
Well, that's that's the cool thing. It's like all that old school tooling was it it was built for like doing... like I'll throw link in the show notes.
00:32:39
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:32:40
Curt
um it's ah I think it's like the Lathe Turner's Handbook. i don't even know when it was written. It looks pre-1950s. Because like the chapter on lathe turning...
00:32:48
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:32:50
Curt
um Actually, there's a chapter specifically on this thing. It's like page 60 or so that talks about these little box turning tools. It has like...
00:32:56
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:32:57
Curt
It's like one page devoted to like how to use them and like 15 pages on how to sharpen the tooling for it. Cause like you just, everyone made their own tooling.
00:33:03
jamie peacock
Oh, nice. Yeah.
00:33:05
Curt
Right. So I'm like, I'm not going down that road, but yeah.
00:33:06
jamie peacock
So I don't know if you...
Durability of Old vs. Modern Machines
00:33:08
jamie peacock
I don't know if you watched the Inheritance machining video from the weekend.
00:33:11
Curt
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. That instantly gets washed in my feeds.
00:33:13
jamie peacock
Dude, like, yeah, he's got a he's got a point there that, like, these machines are just getting scrapped.
00:33:19
Curt
Yeah.
00:33:19
jamie peacock
And I was saying to Danica, like, the thing is, it's not just the ability to run those machines that's gone. It's the ability to design those machines without all the fancy CAD stuff.
00:33:29
Curt
100%, 100%, yeah. 100%, yep. Mm-hmm.
00:33:29
jamie peacock
Because, like, was chatting to the guy who bought Bertha. We were discussing, like, any dick can build a bridge. But building it to within an inch of falling down but not falling down, that's engineering.
00:33:42
jamie peacock
And machine tools, when Bertha's from, when the good way is from,
00:33:42
Curt
hundred percent yep
00:33:47
jamie peacock
When in doubt, make it stout. So when in doubt, make it thicker. Just make it double it. It'll be fine. Whereas now, I like machines are built to, like, OK, this is the rigidity standard we need, and we'll make it exactly that strong.
00:34:01
jamie peacock
And we'll run it through FI, and we'll make it only that strong. Whereas back in the day, they just threw extra metal at it.
00:34:08
Curt
Yeah, well, I mean, fast forward 50 years, like if I just change nothing and I ran these machines as is, I'm going to bet my style is going to have something that's ba fairly big that would need to be replaced in order to maintain its tolerances.
00:34:09
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:34:13
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:34:21
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:34:23
Curt
My hardinch, I think it will still be producing the same parts in 50. I mean, mind you, it's a lot simpler.
00:34:26
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:34:28
Curt
There's a lot less going on, but the same thing. it's built like a brick shithouse.
00:34:30
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:34:32
Curt
Like it's from the seventies and it still hits like the manufactured specs for like tolerance, deviation, all that stuff.
00:34:34
jamie peacock
It's done.
00:34:39
Curt
Like, and it's ran probably tens of thousands of hours.
00:34:42
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:34:42
Curt
Like it's, yeah, it's just
00:34:43
jamie peacock
Back when they weren't building to a price point, they were building to a so quality point. That's the same thing.
00:34:49
Curt
totally.
00:34:49
jamie peacock
i don't know if you watch Rotary S&P on YouTube.
00:34:52
Curt
Yep. Oh yeah.
00:34:53
jamie peacock
Yeah, his video for his Maho, he's like, he was going to build a machine.
00:34:54
Curt
Yeah.
00:34:57
jamie peacock
then he was like let me just buy one because I'm going to build it to a budget.
00:34:58
Curt
Yeah.
00:35:00
jamie peacock
They built it to a stiffness standard. They were like, with this load, the thing needs to reflect this many microns.
00:35:03
Curt
Right, yeah.
00:35:06
jamie peacock
And that's why doing a retrofit on an older machine is way better than building something from scratch because it was made to rigidity standard, not a price point. Like obviously price point comes into it, but not as much as when you're doing it from scratch by yourself.
00:35:17
Curt
Yeah.
00:35:21
Curt
Yeah, yeah. One, I mean, we've made a lot of it we made a lot of advancements.
00:35:22
jamie peacock
ah john I don't know ah don't know if you...
00:35:25
Curt
Like, you're not going to buy a modern lathe nowadays with boxways.
00:35:25
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:35:27
Curt
Like, it's going to be linear guides because it's better.
00:35:28
jamie peacock
ah Do you want a bet?
00:35:31
Curt
I guess.
00:35:31
jamie peacock
you can't
00:35:32
Curt
I mean, i guess.
00:35:32
jamie peacock
ah toy You literally have to specify that you want boxways because you want the rigidity. Because they are more rigid than linear guards.
00:35:38
Curt
Yeah.
00:35:40
jamie peacock
But Leadway... and Yeah, Leadway. leadwell Leadwell. They offer their lades in linear version and boxway versions.
00:35:45
Curt
Yeah.
00:35:49
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:35:50
Curt
Right. But I mean, like I guess you're focused on production, like your your linear machine is going to be so much faster than a traditional guideway.
00:35:53
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:35:56
jamie peacock
But if you're hogging a shitload of material, then you want to go for the boxways.
00:35:59
Curt
Yeah, that's true.
00:36:00
jamie peacock
Like, it's surprising how many of them actually still sell.
00:36:03
Curt
Interesting.
00:36:04
jamie peacock
Like, even a lot of the Kitsamoras, the high-end Kitsamoras, are all boxways.
00:36:04
Curt
Interesting.
00:36:08
Curt
Yeah. yeah yeah
00:36:09
jamie peacock
Like, it still exists for a reason. Like, yeah, it's not yeah it's not the the worst technology in the world.
00:36:14
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
00:36:19
jamie peacock
It's not dovetails.
00:36:21
Curt
Well, look at those screw machines, the Davenports and stuff.
00:36:22
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:36:23
Curt
Like those things are, I love watching them. They're so beautiful.
00:36:25
jamie peacock
They still run, yeah.
00:36:26
Curt
But they're just like covered in oil. There's usually rags hanging all over them and there's like, they're still running.
00:36:29
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:36:31
Curt
They've been running for a hundred years doing the exact same thing.
00:36:33
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:36:34
Curt
It's like, yeah, incredible.
00:36:34
jamie peacock
No, exactly. Like, yeah, like they just run forever. But anyway, before we continue, let me shout out our Patreons. We've got a new Patreon.
00:36:43
Curt
Hmm.
00:36:43
jamie peacock
Bart, thank you for joining the Patreon. not going to drop your whole name and... expose you uh but yeah thank you to jade from benchmark 20 luke from fabtastic ej from so sorry not ej well ej from nocturnal welding aj from subtract manufacturing and 17 other companies jason s and the aussie machinist you guys make the wheels on the podcast go round and round you also get the after show where we talk lots of fun things so yeah
00:37:08
Curt
And if Kurt gets his act together, um I can send you guys all kinds of cool things. Because Jamie sent me like sweet keychains months ago, and they're still sitting on my desk looking at me every day going, when you going to send these out, you jerk?
00:37:13
jamie peacock
oh yes i forgot about that
00:37:19
Curt
So they'll come out eventually. I will get them all out to you.
00:37:21
jamie peacock
um Do you follow EJ, Nocturnal Welding, on Instagram?
00:37:26
Curt
Yep, I do.
00:37:27
jamie peacock
Okay, did you see finally successful on the lures?
00:37:30
Curt
Yeah, I saw. yeah ah He had the Starburst pattern of Tulia.
00:37:31
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:37:33
Curt
It looks really pretty.
00:37:33
jamie peacock
So he's been struggling, like just exploding tools.
00:37:33
Curt
hes Yeah.
00:37:36
jamie peacock
And eventually on Friday nights, i'm like, dude, quarter inch tool.
00:37:37
Curt
Yeah.
00:37:40
jamie peacock
Just take your half-inch tool, put it in the drawer, go buy a quarter-inch tool that's going to cost you a quarter of the prize, and run that.
00:37:41
Curt
Yeah.
00:37:43
Curt
Yeah.
00:37:47
jamie peacock
Runs perfectly. He was overdoing the tool load on the anchor point and was actually lifting the anchor point and exploding the tips on his tools.
00:37:49
Curt
Well, it's a... and'
00:37:55
Curt
Well, it's a BT-30 machine he has. that Is it a VF-2?
00:37:58
jamie peacock
No, he's got a Cat 40. Cat 40.
00:38:00
Curt
Oh, okay.
00:38:00
jamie peacock
It's a Haas VF1.
00:38:00
Curt
Okay. Alright.
00:38:02
jamie peacock
But he's got a pallet that's bigger than the OEM pallets. So he's got like, it's a bigger pallet.
00:38:06
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
00:38:08
jamie peacock
He's further out. Eventually I convinced he's just got a smaller cutter and now he cut 20 minutes off a cycle time.
00:38:14
Curt
Nice.
00:38:15
jamie peacock
Yeah, so we actually had him going around. got him to just program ramp. Just ramp around the part.
00:38:20
Curt
Mm.
00:38:21
jamie peacock
Like, I think, leave three mils, then ramp again. And that worked.
00:38:24
Curt
Mm.
00:38:25
jamie peacock
And then he went, he got the Frazier tools in. And yeah, now they're running beautifully. It's very interesting, actually, his surface finish on op two, because he was using a four flute ball, and then he went to a Frazier two flute.
00:38:30
Curt
Sick.
00:38:37
jamie peacock
And the cut is entirely different, yeah.
00:38:37
Curt
Yeah, saw that. all that
00:38:39
jamie peacock
But that's because four flutes generally don't center cut very well.
00:38:40
Curt
Yeah.
00:38:43
Curt
Right, right, right. Yeah, or only two flutes are doing the center cutting anyways.
00:38:44
jamie peacock
Because of the geometry. and Yeah.
00:38:46
Curt
Yeah, yeah. yeah
00:38:47
jamie peacock
Yeah. So it was it was quite interesting.
00:38:48
Curt
Yeah.
00:38:49
jamie peacock
But I'm so glad that he's come right.
00:38:50
Curt
Yeah.
00:38:51
jamie peacock
His American flag is assembled and needs to be a final opt and put in a box.
00:38:52
Curt
Oh, me too.
00:38:56
Curt
Nice.
00:38:56
jamie peacock
I've been dragging my feet on that a little bit.
00:38:57
Curt
Nice.
00:38:57
jamie peacock
so um But I'm still waiting for FedEx to for the insurance.
00:39:03
Curt
Oh, yeah, well, you might be waiting a while.
00:39:04
jamie peacock
yeah i don't I don't really mind. i want to get this one sent out. If it never gets paid it never gets paid out. But yeah, they I keep getting messages every week.
00:39:09
Curt
Yeah.
00:39:11
jamie peacock
No, we're still waiting for insurance, people. It's through a third-party insurer, not through FedEx.
00:39:15
Curt
Of course, yeah. Of course.
00:39:17
jamie peacock
So hopefully it'll actually get a get paid out. um But yeah, I don't know when last you tried to threadmill something in Fusion or make a new threadmill in Fusion.
00:39:27
Curt
i I have it running, and I just i run away. i don't touch i don't touch it. And if it works, I leave it.
00:39:31
jamie peacock
That's my policy too. I try to make a new treadmill.
00:39:34
Curt
Uh-oh, what happened?
00:39:36
jamie peacock
Fusion is on fucking drugs. The model tool is not correct. But when I ran it, it ran fine. Like I i couldn't i I was like, I have to dive to risk it. Threadmilling M2. So I didn't have M2 treadmill.
00:39:48
jamie peacock
So I tried to set it up and then it sets it up that the little boxy where it shows the tool looks like when you do it in the tool library, just fucking entirely wrong.
00:39:54
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
00:39:57
jamie peacock
But when I made the toolpath, it it was okay.
00:39:57
Curt
Oh.
00:39:59
jamie peacock
So not the end of days. um Got that sorted out. And then thread milled M2. I like having thread gauges. It's fun.
00:40:08
Curt
Yeah, that'd be nice to have a whole set.
00:40:10
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:40:10
Curt
Yeah.
00:40:11
jamie peacock
I've got M2 through 12. Yeah.
00:40:13
Curt
Ooh, big spender.
00:40:14
jamie peacock
If you want to get small thread gauges, I can send you a link. I know a place.
00:40:20
Curt
Sound like a pyramid scheme.
00:40:20
jamie peacock
I don't actually...
00:40:21
Curt
but
00:40:22
jamie peacock
no. ah The ones from China Land are pretty good and super cheap.
00:40:27
Curt
Nice. OK.
00:40:28
jamie peacock
Yeah. um Well, let me click on that link while we're talking. Cool. So tell me about your, yeah, i thought I'd talk about Fusion and their Threadmills being fucked to try to put some pressure on them.
00:40:40
jamie peacock
Not that this podcast gets listened to by million people, but there has definitely been an uptick in listens.
00:40:43
Curt
Well, I mean.
00:40:46
jamie peacock
It's quite interesting to look at the analytics from the 20th of last month.
00:40:46
Curt
ah
00:40:49
jamie peacock
bump instantly of 40 listens per day for the following two days and then the episode went up by like 30 listens and we've had constantly higher because uh i was a guest on a podcast so interesting to see that in the analytics
00:40:50
Curt
That's cool.
00:40:53
Curt
Oh, cool.
00:41:01
Curt
Yeah. Yes. That's cool. That's cool. That made a difference. So, yeah.
00:41:07
jamie peacock
yes kind of curious see what it's going to do when you go on there yeah well yeah yeah no pressure dylan
00:41:07
Curt
Thank you, Dylan.
00:41:10
Curt
yeah i've I've been on. It's recorded. It's ah it's in the can. We're just waiting now. So. no No pressure. I'm not... i'm not If Dylan's listening, I'm not... i' I don't care. I don't care, dude. I just... i just Yeah, I'm excited. um
00:41:21
jamie peacock
um
00:41:22
Curt
So... ah ah Oh, you're sending me...
00:41:24
jamie peacock
Sorry, one quick thing. your
00:41:26
Curt
Yeah, shoot.
00:41:27
jamie peacock
Your threads, are they metrical or imperial?
00:41:29
Curt
They... They are Imperial.
00:41:34
Curt
Yeah. I know. I'm sorry, Jamie.
00:41:38
jamie peacock
These guys do imperial thread gauges as well.
00:41:38
Curt
Actually... ah When I, the funny thing is when I built that thread, I just, I thought it was a custom thread. I'm like, it. I'm going to make my own thread. I don't give a shit. I'm like, it only has to go to my products.
00:41:48
jamie peacock
Dude. Dude.
00:41:49
Curt
So, so I made it and I realized I'm accidentally made a, a perfect standard thread. Like it's an, it's an existing thread. I think it's a five, six, it's, it's an oddball thread.
00:42:01
Curt
It's like a five, six,
00:42:01
jamie peacock
But it exists, yeah.
00:42:02
Curt
five 16th 40 or something weird, but it exists. It's like, it's like to the thou it exists and you can get a gauge for it. And i was like, that is weird. I just eyeballed it. and I'm like, let's half the material and make a thread there.
00:42:13
Curt
And it just ended up being a standard size.
00:42:14
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:42:14
Curt
So it's kind of wild, but, um,
00:42:16
jamie peacock
Yeah, that's... ah So I made threads for a guy. He wanted... um He wanted me to modify a little reservoir for two-stroke oil in his... um rx7 conversion so instead of having a so wet sump it's got it's got a two-stroke oil injector or something like yeah i can't actually remember but um but anyway we needed to make some plugs but now obviously we don't want to bore the hole out any bigger than necessary but i have uh i have all the thread mills so it ended up being like an m
00:42:33
Curt
okay
00:42:50
Curt
Right.
00:42:56
jamie peacock
think m13 by one or something just to be a dick like yeah like why not okay there we go put a imperial thread gauge thing for you as well i'll put it in the chat there we go for freedom units those will be in the description as well if anyone wants to go look at them yes i have m10 uh m8 10 and 12 from them along with uh some gauge rings
00:42:59
Curt
Oh, yeah. hit Right. Yeah.
00:43:07
Curt
Oh, you're such a gentleman. Look at you.
00:43:12
Curt
Freedom. God, those are so cheap. Those are so cheap.
00:43:23
Curt
Yeah, that's insanely cheap.
00:43:25
jamie peacock
And just because we're doing it.
00:43:25
Curt
I mean, I've just, i I've now made all my Threadgate. ah
00:43:30
jamie peacock
Yeah, I know you've made all your thread gauges, but yeah.
00:43:32
Curt
I've made all my thread gauges, but it's still nice to actually have a proper one, even if a cheap one is still nice.
00:43:35
jamie peacock
Yeah, i was ah using my M3 today. I was doing a thing while was the phone with Dave, and i'm like, hey, hey, check the thread catch.
00:43:42
Curt
Hmm.
00:43:42
jamie peacock
Perfect. Fucking A. Because I'm now up one end and putting in an anchor point, locating on the three precise pins, putting M3 up them, and then machining the second half of the pot.
00:43:54
jamie peacock
Because Dave went and designed the most fucking annoying pot ever.
00:43:54
Curt
Yeah.
00:43:59
jamie peacock
As he tends to do.
00:43:59
Curt
says the guy that's using an oddball thread.
00:44:03
jamie peacock
That's so that they can't go anywhere else. Come on.
00:44:05
Curt
Yeah, exactly. That's future-proofing.
00:44:07
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
00:44:09
Curt
Actually, speaking of thread mills, that leads into one of my topics. of The first time that tool coatings seemed to actually make a difference in my world. um So the little ah thread milling I'm doing on the sile now, like I said, it lasted 100 plus screws.
00:44:20
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:44:20
Curt
um
00:44:21
Curt
Or sorry, no it wasn't thread milling. I just used that as an incorrect thing.
00:44:23
jamie peacock
It was the talk smelling, yeah.
00:44:25
Curt
It was just a Torx milling. It's on a screw. um
00:44:27
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:44:27
Curt
So yeah, that that tool ran forever and ah it blew up and I was like, oh okay, no worries. Like 100 odd screws. I'm like, that's fine. You can blow up now. um So i put a new tool in there, you know, indicated it in, got it, you know, within less than 10th of run out, which is super important and ran it and it like instantly exploded.
00:44:34
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:44:43
Curt
Like after like 10 screws, it exploded. I was like, huh. I was like, ah you were uncoded. And the one that I had in before there was coded. So I'm wondering if I'm right on the ragged edge of what that tool can take.
00:44:51
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:44:54
Curt
And the coding is just making all the difference. So I swapped in one with coding, ran it, runs just fine.
00:44:55
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:44:58
Curt
I don't know if it'll blow up in the next, like I've only had another 10, 20 screws.
00:45:01
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:45:02
Curt
So um yeah, so i was like, I wonder if the coding made that big a difference in this instance.
00:45:04
jamie peacock
Interesting.
00:45:08
Curt
So
00:45:08
jamie peacock
You are running high-spec material. You're running titanium. It's not like you're running fucking aluminium.
00:45:14
Curt
That's true, yeah. and like it's
00:45:15
jamie peacock
Yeah, so...
00:45:17
Curt
if i If I increase the chip load at all, like the tool blows up.
00:45:17
jamie peacock
Probably is...
00:45:20
Curt
So i'm I'm kind of right on the ragged edge of what the tool contains.
00:45:21
jamie peacock
yeah
00:45:22
Curt
It just seems small because it's so... like You're like, oh, it's going so slow.
00:45:25
jamie peacock
yeah yeah no it's okay no interesting like yeah because everyone's a good coatings and yeah in your case you're cutting titanium you're not cutting brass or something so it does make sense how are you machining your screws in your vases still
00:45:26
Curt
It's like, well, for that tool in the tool's you know view, it's not going that slow. it's It's kind of hammering through it. so But... Yeah.
00:45:39
Curt
Right, yeah. Yeah, so I'm curious to see.
00:45:45
Curt
Yeah, on my little 12 palette. And my lovely Jamie palette is sitting right behind me. And I look at it with longing love and lust because I'm like, this is so fucking annoying unloading these little palettes.
00:45:57
Curt
Putting it in the machine, it just goes up to hard stops.
00:45:58
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:45:59
Curt
It's easy. But unloading it is just like... If I had two them, it would be way less issue. But I'm like, I'm not making another one.
00:46:05
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:46:06
Curt
If I'm making another one, I'm making it on the anchor point. I'm like, I'm not going to do this.
00:46:09
jamie peacock
yeah
00:46:10
Curt
So yeah, I keep... i got I got to do the switch. Like you said, you know, you had that switch where you like you switch your whole table over to zero points.
00:46:16
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:46:17
Curt
That's what got to do. I think next, maybe next month, I think I just got to strip the table, build my palette and just, yeah, totally.
00:46:21
jamie peacock
It's a lot of mental inertia to get over that hump.
00:46:24
Curt
And just get it all done.
00:46:24
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:46:25
Curt
Yeah. And then be like, okay, now everything is zero pointed.
00:46:26
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:46:28
Curt
It's good.
00:46:28
jamie peacock
Yeah. The mental inertia thing is real.
00:46:29
Curt
Yeah.
00:46:31
jamie peacock
Like, I was struggling with it today. So Dave sent me these parts. Like, dude, i fucking need them. Please make them. Invoice me. Like, I need these parts. I'm like, ugh, fine.
00:46:42
jamie peacock
The part, the operation, the one part took 15 minutes each because I was using the wrong slitting saw because i was lazy and didn't want to set up a different one. So I was slotting out...
00:46:49
Curt
Right.
00:46:52
jamie peacock
That's a three and a half millimeter wide slot with a 0.8 slitting saw. So zing, zing, zing, and then go up, and then go down, and then go up, and then go down.
00:46:57
Curt
Oh, yeah.
00:47:00
jamie peacock
So i was just I was using the tools I had on here, like set up. And then the other parts were like three or four minutes each. It's just the mental inertia, getting up the courage to program it and actually run it and figure out what material and all that shit.
00:47:12
Curt
Yeah. Yeah. i Well, that's, that's the thing is like soon as I do it, it's like, okay, all my fixtures are basically put in the trash.
00:47:19
jamie peacock
Fixed.
00:47:19
Curt
Cause I'm like, I have to build new everything. It's like, but once I've built new everything, then it's, I go from walking to running.
00:47:21
jamie peacock
yeah
00:47:25
Curt
So it's like, well, the better and the sooner.
00:47:25
jamie peacock
that's it like then you have a wall of pallets that looks pretty it looks like an amazing yeah and they're out of the way like that's the the biggest thing they're not on a shelf somewhere because that shelf that they were on is screwed to bertha and bertha's going so shelf is going
00:47:29
Curt
ah app Oh yeah. I'm going to make it like yours. Cause I think yours looks hot. I like it all lined up. Like ah they yeah look so pretty. Yeah.
00:47:38
Curt
Absolutely.
00:47:45
jamie peacock
And it's like, yeah, kind of forced to to upgrade. But yeah, like but um I don't know if those files are in the resources section. I must check Danica, ah the files for the rack. But those are just, I've got laser cut them, have them bent. I had them bent and laser cut them, took them to powder coating.
00:48:01
Curt
Yeah, yeah.
00:48:02
jamie peacock
Yeah, super, super easy. And then you've got a fancy rack.
00:48:06
Curt
Yeah, they do look nice.
00:48:06
jamie peacock
but so So yeah, my lovely wife last week,
00:48:06
Curt
They do look cool. So what's...
00:48:11
jamie peacock
ah
00:48:12
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:48:13
jamie peacock
there's the Saabono Center in Joburg. It's like a science center for school kids and whatnot. So a lot of the government schools will bring a busload of kids in during the week so they can get exposure to the science center.
00:48:18
Curt
Okay. Hmm.
Robotics Course and Historical Power Transition
00:48:26
jamie peacock
And they've got off extracurricular activities like robot building and like things like that. FESTO have a whole lab there. um They bring kids in teach in class and stuff. So it's ah it's a government-funded thing, but they have their...
00:48:40
jamie peacock
uh, Cybotics course. This is the first year it's running now, which is a robotics course backed by Cybono Center and a bunch of industry partners. Basically, so when these kids finish school, they've got a certificate saying that they are capable human beings in the robotics field.
00:48:57
jamie peacock
So they got hold of us because we had approached them two years ago to potentially host our combat robot events.
00:48:57
Curt
Mm-mm. Mm-mm.
00:49:04
jamie peacock
And then we never heard back from them.
00:49:04
Curt
Mm. Mm.
00:49:06
jamie peacock
We were bit small at the time. And they wanted us to not call it combat robots. And that wasn't happening. ah Because it is combat robots. The robots are fucking fighting. They were like, can't we call it something other than combat robots? I'm like, just fuck off. No.
00:49:17
jamie peacock
It's combat robots. um Anyway, they asked us to do a demo there. So we had an onstage demo of me beating up a cannon. like in our arena. So that was the whole of third of Wednesday afternoon, we put the box in. Thursday, we went there. We were there about two o'clock, then quickly knocked the box down on the truck and came home.
00:49:36
jamie peacock
But we were set up in front of ah small DC generator. So Johannesburg was built around DC power until they discovered AC power was better.
00:49:40
Curt
Okay.
00:49:45
Curt
Oh.
00:49:48
Curt
Okay.
00:49:48
jamie peacock
So they changed the infrastructure over to AC, but there were a whole bunch of buildings with lifts that ran on DC motors. So in the city, there were a bunch of buildings that had these giant AC motors spinning a DC generator to power each one.
00:50:02
jamie peacock
Each of these jennies would power about 20 buildings around them so that they didn't have to go and instantly replace all the lifts.
00:50:04
Curt
Right.
00:50:09
Curt
Right.
00:50:09
jamie peacock
The last one was decommissioned in the ninetyte
00:50:09
Curt
Okay. Yeah.
00:50:12
Curt
Oh, wow. Okay. So fairly modern still.
00:50:13
jamie peacock
Yeah. Like, ran right up until recently.
00:50:14
Curt
or
00:50:16
jamie peacock
Because looking at thing, I'm like, i wonder what the fucking story of this is.
00:50:16
Curt
Wow.
00:50:18
jamie peacock
Because, like, the casting on the bottom was a good two feet thick, steel casting. The generator must have been probably 12 feet long by, yeah, by, like, another eight or nine feet wide.
00:50:28
Curt
Oh.
00:50:31
jamie peacock
Huge thing.
00:50:32
Curt
Oh.
00:50:33
jamie peacock
Two-piece casting.
00:50:33
Curt
Wow.
00:50:33
jamie peacock
like, this came over on a sailboat, like, from Edinburgh.
00:50:36
Curt
Wow.
00:50:38
jamie peacock
Like, that...
00:50:38
Curt
Right.
00:50:39
jamie peacock
It's impressive. Like, you look at that kind of stuff, you're just like wow. But yeah, very, very interesting to see.
00:50:43
Curt
That's cool.
00:50:45
jamie peacock
like Because was like, why the hell is there an AC motor and DC generator? Then there was a plaque on the side that Danica went and read, and then I went and read later in the day.
00:50:53
Curt
Oh, that's cool.
00:50:54
jamie peacock
But it was one of the, yeah, the back building where the Science Center is was a gen ah generation station and a substation. And then I was looking up at the giant 35-ton cranes, and they all ran on DC.
00:51:02
Curt
Cool.
00:51:06
jamie peacock
I'm like, hey, there's only two wires. So like, you know, an extra crane, you get the the bus bars or the wires that they just drag along.
00:51:09
Curt
no
00:51:12
jamie peacock
Only has two because it runs on DC.
00:51:13
Curt
Right, yeah.
00:51:14
jamie peacock
500-volt DC.
00:51:15
Curt
Right, interesting.
00:51:17
jamie peacock
I was like, that's f freaking cool. Like, yeah.
00:51:20
Curt
Oh, that's scary too.
00:51:22
jamie peacock
ah Yeah, that's freaking terrifying. But yeah, there's a sign saying, caution, high-voltage, 500-volt DC.
00:51:27
Curt
Oh, yeah.
00:51:28
jamie peacock
Like, it's obviously not running there anymore. The cranes are parked and there's one of old aircraft, the Cheetah, hanging from one of them and a really bad replica of a Wright Flyer on the other one.
00:51:41
jamie peacock
I'm fairly certain the wheels on that replica are nowhere near correct.
00:51:41
Curt
um that's cool.
00:51:44
jamie peacock
They look like modern bicycle wheels.
00:51:47
Curt
I was going call out.
00:51:49
jamie peacock
but um I'm to call them out. If I could be accurate or don't be accurate. And then Danica pointed out something that made me feel old. She's like, what is that green thing? I'm like, that's a pay phone. She's like, I thought so. I feel old now.
00:52:00
jamie peacock
The thing we used to use as kids is in the freaking, in the museum. Like, yeah. I mean, I used to keep a few bucks in my in my school bag. So if I missed my lift whatever, I could go to the payphone, phone my mom and say, hey, mom, I've missed my lift.
00:52:16
jamie peacock
Or, hey, mom, I'm catching the bus.
00:52:16
Curt
Yeah.
00:52:18
jamie peacock
Can you pick me up? Because, know, I didn't have a cell phone back then. Back in my day.
00:52:24
Curt
Yeah.
00:52:25
jamie peacock
I'm freaking out.
00:52:26
Curt
Rockin' Friday.
00:52:28
jamie peacock
Well, I had a cell phone. I got stolen.
00:52:29
Curt
while
00:52:29
jamie peacock
And then I didn't have a cell phone.
00:52:32
Curt
Yeah, I used to go to the malls and put my fingers in the change returns on the pay phones to see if there was money in there.
00:52:32
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:52:37
jamie peacock
100%.
00:52:37
Curt
Yeah, go play at the arcade.
00:52:38
jamie peacock
Yeah. We used to get money all the time like that.
00:52:39
Curt
Yeah, yeah. yeah
00:52:41
jamie peacock
Go get free money. Things that people these days have no clue about.
00:52:44
Curt
Poor kid fun. Yeah, no doubt, no doubt.
00:52:47
jamie peacock
like yeah It's amazing how quickly that has all just gone by the wayside.
00:52:53
Curt
Oh, yeah. If you put a gun to my head and asked me to find a payphone in my city, I'd be like, no idea.
00:52:53
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:52:57
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:52:57
Curt
Like, I could go to, ah like, there's a few restaurants that have them, like, as a kind of a prop, but, like, a functioning payphone in this city?
00:53:02
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:53:04
Curt
Good luck.
00:53:04
jamie peacock
I, I'll, um, because all the lines were run with copper, there are no lines left.
00:53:08
Curt
Hmm.
00:53:09
jamie peacock
The guys have literally ripped them out of the ground for scrap.
00:53:12
Curt
Fair. Yeah, fair.
00:53:12
jamie peacock
Like the infrastructure is not even there anymore. It's, yeah, it's kind of sad.
00:53:15
Curt
Yeah, yeah.
00:53:17
jamie peacock
Like everyone, every business I know that has a landline, it is a VRP service that they're paying.
00:53:23
Curt
Yeah.
00:53:23
jamie peacock
That like, no one actually has a, has a landline.
00:53:24
Curt
Yeah.
00:53:27
jamie peacock
I mean, where used to work, we had a satellite dish on the roof that pointed a microwave antenna at another receiver so that we could have internet because the phone lines were stolen every single week.
00:53:28
Curt
Yeah.
00:53:34
Curt
Mm.
00:53:38
jamie peacock
speaking of Speaking of that shithole, I got a picture from ah the guy who owns the building behind that building of a sign that I put on the wall warning people that if they put anything in front of my wash tanks, I will cut it out of the way.
00:53:47
Curt
Mm.
00:53:53
jamie peacock
Because I went to wash the EDM parts because I had my citric acid and whatnot sitting outside. So it wasn't in my office and didn't stink. And there was a pallet in front of my stuff. So I fetched the saw and cut the pallets into pieces.
00:54:04
jamie peacock
And then I put a sign on the wall. If you put anything in front of my wash tanks, I will cut it out of the way. By order of Jamie. And the stick is still on the wall.
00:54:11
Curt
I ordered Jamie.
00:54:12
jamie peacock
Yeah, stick is still on the wall. So apparently they were trying to auction the building off and only like three people pitched up. So the guy was like, me he's thinking of lowballing them, but the area has really gone to shit.
00:54:26
Curt
no
00:54:27
jamie peacock
Yeah, it's it's Africa. But yeah, he still operates from the holding behind. So yeah, had a chat to him this week. It was ah quite interesting to catch up with him. ah
00:54:35
Curt
Cool.
00:54:35
jamie peacock
He buys and sells machines. he'll buy manual machines, restore them and sell them.
00:54:40
Curt
That's cool.
00:54:40
jamie peacock
he makes a pretty good, pretty good buck. I bought the Condia from him.
00:54:45
Curt
I remember that one, yeah.
00:54:46
jamie peacock
Yeah, yeah, that old machine. What am I being...
00:54:50
Curt
Cool.
00:54:51
jamie peacock
Oh, jeez. That seems legit. I don't want to play this video because it's going to be noisy. The guy who Bertha just sent me a video.
00:55:02
jamie peacock
So we can't part off 70 diamonds. We can't part off anything over 40 with the tooling I have. So I just cut a groove in for him, and then he's got it in a vase. The vase in his bandsaw, and the bandsaw cutting the parts off.
00:55:18
jamie peacock
And then he's just going to hold it and skim the back.
00:55:18
Curt
That works, nothing with that.
00:55:20
Curt
Nothing wrong with that.
00:55:20
jamie peacock
So we were discussing ah workflows for him and what I would recommend as his workflow there. um Because he bought material that's got like extra 20 millimeters. I'm like, no, no.
00:55:32
jamie peacock
What you do is you want a material that's got an extra five millimeters. You do the one part, which is effectively a donut. so So we bore it out. You do your OD, you part it off because you can part that off. Then you face it, turn the back of the part that's just a turn diameter, turn it around, put it back in the chuck in soft jaws, and then turn the front reduced section so that you've only got to take off like five mils of extra material.
00:55:54
jamie peacock
So we're busy building his workflow around the products he wants to put on the machine.
00:55:59
Curt
Yeah, yeah.
00:55:59
jamie peacock
And then I'm giving him training and all the all the fun stuff. Like he's come past twice and I'm like, okay, I'm just going to run this watch what's happening, ask questions. Because at least then you can ask smart questions.
00:56:07
Curt
Yeah.
00:56:09
jamie peacock
Like the questions become smarter and smarter.
00:56:12
Curt
Totally, yeah.
00:56:12
jamie peacock
So and then for some reason, my machine wasn't in G7 by default.
00:56:18
Curt
Oh, well, easy fix.
00:56:19
jamie peacock
Because i reposted or I recompiled the the PNC config.
CNC Machine Configuration Issues
00:56:27
jamie peacock
And that was something I forgot to change.
00:56:27
Curt
Hmm.
00:56:28
jamie peacock
So I go set a diameter and it sets it as radius, not diameter. So yeah then I went and added that back into my line off file.
00:56:38
Curt
yeah
00:56:39
jamie peacock
Because you just added them and then then it keeps the machine in diameter mode.
00:56:43
Curt
Yeah, I run, like, pzconfig once, and then everything I just manually, like, I just do the haul.
00:56:43
jamie peacock
because it's a fucking lathe.
00:56:48
Curt
Because i get way too scared to, like, I don't know what's going to change.
00:56:48
jamie peacock
So, yeah.
00:56:50
Curt
i'm like, I'll just manually edit it all.
00:56:51
jamie peacock
So what I do is in my custom HAL file, I will, everything I've changed and everything else, I go and I copy it in there and I comment it out and say, change this in INR, remove this from HAL, do this in this file, and I have instructions in my custom HAL file.
00:56:55
Curt
Yeah.
00:57:04
Curt
Hmm.
00:57:06
jamie peacock
So it's easy to undo all the fuckery that it does.
00:57:06
Curt
Yeah,
00:57:10
jamie peacock
I also have a backup of my tool library because the new PNC config will replace your tool library with a dummy tool library, which is extremely infuriating.
00:57:10
Curt
Yeah.
00:57:17
Curt
Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've got bit by that for sure.
00:57:21
jamie peacock
Like, yeah.
00:57:22
Curt
Yeah.
00:57:22
jamie peacock
I'm trying to remember why I was... Oh, yes, it's because I enabled the the fault. So if the drives fault, it kills the machine. And that's when I was last doing PNC config.
00:57:30
Curt
Hmm.
00:57:32
jamie peacock
I needed to add in that functionality. It wasn't there. So that's why I was in there.
Considering VFD Upgrades
00:57:38
jamie peacock
But I'm thinking of swapping the VFD on Bertha.
00:57:38
Curt
Coco.
00:57:44
jamie peacock
Because I have one that... ah No, same same kilowatt rating, but has an analog output that I can tie to the current of the VFD and put to the little panel meter instead of trying to read the current draw off of an inductive and doing a bunch of fucking dumb shit.
00:57:44
Curt
ah Just do a more beefy one.
00:57:54
Curt
Oh. Oh, okay.
00:57:59
jamie peacock
and
00:58:00
Curt
Hmm.
00:58:00
jamie peacock
Direct lining at that, you can actually use the the current meter. Because currently the current meter means pretty much nothing.
00:58:07
Curt
Oh, okay, so this is pretty, yeah.
00:58:08
jamie peacock
Or a spindle load meter, yeah. it end If you know how to interpret it, it works, but it's not...
00:58:13
Curt
oh Yeah, that's less useful.
00:58:14
jamie peacock
in Yeah. It fucking starts at past halfway and then fucks off off the thing and comes back a little bit. But yeah, like you've got to listen to the spindle to know how much load you're putting on it.
00:58:21
Curt
Yeah.
00:58:24
jamie peacock
So I need to move a few things around electrically.
00:58:25
Curt
Yeah. Yeah,
00:58:27
jamie peacock
I'm like, if I disconnect this VFD, I can always just put it back. I'm going to configure the new one to use the same set of parameters or same set of inputs so it can always just get swapped back if it's fucker.
00:58:31
Curt
yeah.
00:58:38
jamie peacock
So I think I'm going to do that like this week.
00:58:39
Curt
may i
00:58:41
jamie peacock
I need to climb need spend like half a day just fixing some electrical things on that machine before it goes.
00:58:46
Curt
So when is it going?
00:58:47
jamie peacock
And um end of the month, before the end of the month, last week of the month is when we're planning it.
00:58:50
Curt
Oh, guys.
00:58:53
Curt
Okay, so you got like a solid three weeks.
00:58:55
jamie peacock
Yeah, and the next week and a half, I want to have the good way in my driveway.
00:59:02
Curt
Yeah, fair enough.
00:59:02
jamie peacock
That is the the planned timeline. Because I'm going clean that machine quite thoroughly. um I was in there today and holy fucking cow. um I don't know what coolant they were running, but I'm sure it was fucking ever running that.
00:59:14
jamie peacock
um That was like, yeah. So I scraped a bunch of the shit out today while I was in there. And then I'll just give it a good wash down and then wash it down with like 2% or 3% coolant so it doesn't rust.
00:59:25
jamie peacock
And then get it all reassembled.
00:59:27
Curt
Nice. Nice, nice.
00:59:28
jamie peacock
There's a whole bunch of stuff I've got to figure out as I go with the with the retrofit now. Like cable tubing and shit like that.
00:59:36
Curt
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:59:37
jamie peacock
But that's just your you know the normal fun stuff. So, tell me about this ah PDX CNC benchmark.
00:59:40
Curt
Hey, man. Go.
Enjoyment of the Parts Department Podcast
00:59:44
Curt
Oh, okay.
00:59:44
jamie peacock
Also, hang on.
00:59:45
Curt
Yeah.
00:59:45
jamie peacock
Before you do, speaking of them, i think it's them, they have a podcast parts department.
00:59:46
Curt
yeah
00:59:54
Curt
Yes, I think so.
00:59:54
jamie peacock
I think it's, yes, it's them, yes.
00:59:55
Curt
Yeah, yeah.
00:59:57
jamie peacock
They make us look like we are scripted. I love their podcast. It's fucking great.
01:00:01
Curt
That's awesome.
01:00:02
jamie peacock
No, it's it's really good.
01:00:03
Curt
It's just anarchy. Yeah.
01:00:04
jamie peacock
Yeah. Check out parts department podcast. It's a really good.
01:00:07
Curt
I think I've caught, i think I caught one ah like ages ago when they first started doing them and it just, it, yeah.
01:00:07
jamie peacock
and
01:00:12
jamie peacock
Yeah, no, dude. It regularly devolves into them just making funny noises.
01:00:18
Curt
Okay. Sick. I'll have to check them out then.
01:00:19
jamie peacock
Yeah, and they also have cool intro and outro music because they generate new music every week, judging by what has been spoken about in the podcast.
01:00:20
Curt
Ooh.
01:00:27
Curt
Oh, that's kind of cool. I like that.
01:00:28
jamie peacock
Yeah, that's way too many efforts.
01:00:29
Curt
That sounds like a lot of effort, but that sounds cool.
01:00:31
jamie peacock
Yeah, I just got ChatGPT or whatever the music generator one is to make me music.
01:00:34
Curt
Well, I guess. I just, I kind of, ah AI music kind of makes my skin crawl, but ah anyways, it is what it is.
01:00:38
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yeah, everything annoys me. But yeah, so tell me about this benchmark
PDX CNC Benchmark Results
01:00:44
jamie peacock
thing.
01:00:44
Curt
um So I remember seeing it ah like when they first came out with it and then it just totally skipped my mind. And then when I was doing some benchmarking on the rig I built here, Dylan was like, hey, you should run through like the PDX CNC benchmark. I'm like, oh,
01:00:56
Curt
I completely forgot that they had like a fusion related benchmark. So you download the fusion model. It gives you instructions on like how to set it up. And then you basically run like a bunch of tool paths through it. um And you time your tool paths. And then you do a render test.
01:01:07
Curt
And you time your render test. And you like do it a few times to get an average. And then you can post results online. And they have like you can name your ri I think I named mine the RGB garage monster. I think that's my rig is called.
01:01:19
Curt
And then it posts it up there so you can see like how it compares to everybody else's.
01:01:21
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:01:22
Curt
So, um I mean, with the the CPU I picked, mine like crushes rendering. So I'm top 10 for rendering speed.
01:01:26
jamie peacock
yeah
01:01:28
Curt
um But for like general toolpath calculation, I placed good. I was probably top 20. um But there's still units that are probably significantly less money than mine and that are placing higher just because Fusion doesn't doesn't use all the like cores for but toolpath.
01:01:39
jamie peacock
Doesn't, yeah.
01:01:41
Curt
Not yet, anyways. I didn't really build it for that, but i built it for the future assumption that more programs are going to support multi-core as the years progress, ah which is which why I went that way.
01:01:43
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:01:49
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:01:52
Curt
um But yeah, it's really, really cool test and it's kind of cool to see. And the one thing I've noticed now is just doing my own work. It's like, man, I should have ah should upgraded computers like a long while ago. Like you don't realize like that extra 10 seconds you save, you know, every few minutes, it adds up to so much less frustration when
PC Upgrade Benefits
01:02:07
Curt
you're not waiting on things.
01:02:07
Curt
You're just oh, calculate, boom, it's done, boom, the stock is simulated. like, okay, that's useful. Like, that's nice to have.
01:02:12
jamie peacock
Yeah, no, definitely. I think right now you you were good to do your, you you predicted well with upgrading your PC when you did.
01:02:15
Curt
So, yeah.
01:02:20
jamie peacock
Because I think there's about to be a shitload of people upgrading with the Windows 11 thing.
01:02:24
Curt
I think the October thing is going to, yeah, crush.
01:02:26
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:02:27
Curt
I think a lot of, I mean, who knows? ah Like, people might be like, whatever, I don't care about that. But I was kind of assuming there'd be a run on everything.
01:02:33
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:02:34
Curt
We'll see. We'll see.
01:02:34
jamie peacock
Well, I keep, I've got a problem that I keep coming upstairs to work on this computer and the screen is too small. Because I only come up here like, this is 24-inch 1080p monitor.
01:02:41
Curt
What's your,
01:02:45
jamie peacock
At the workshop, I've got a 271440p.
01:02:46
Curt
Yeah.
01:02:48
jamie peacock
And here like, why am I so big? Like, what the fuck's going on?
01:02:51
Curt
Yeah.
01:02:52
jamie peacock
Because, I mean, ah work on my PC in my office. I watch TV on the PC downstairs.
01:02:56
Curt
Yeah.
01:02:56
jamie peacock
And up here, it's Friday night and Monday night that I'm on this PC.
01:03:01
Curt
yeah
01:03:01
jamie peacock
Otherwise, I don't really use this computer. So I've gotten used to the giant monitor of justice.
01:03:07
Curt
yeah
01:03:07
jamie peacock
And, yeah, um I might just have to buy another one.
01:03:11
Curt
and I know going from a 17 inch laptop screen to a, yeah, whatever, 27 inch 2K monitor.
01:03:14
jamie peacock
Yeah, twenty yeah yeah
01:03:16
Curt
I'm just like, whoa, that's a change.
01:03:19
jamie peacock
I've gotten used to it. It's a bit of a problem.
01:03:22
Curt
Yeah, it's nice.
01:03:23
jamie peacock
I mean, today I was modeling something.
01:03:23
Curt
It's nice on the eyes.
01:03:25
jamie peacock
ah had Fusion on this side of the screen and I had a web page on this side dimensions. And it's still fun like workable.
01:03:31
Curt
Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah, no, was going to, was like, I have to get multiple monitors, but like, no, I have, this is enough.
01:03:34
jamie peacock
I was looking up
01:03:37
Curt
This will work. Yeah.
01:03:38
jamie peacock
I've always been a two monitor person until I got the bigger monitor.
01:03:41
Curt
Yeah.
01:03:42
jamie peacock
Now I'm like, meh, don't really need it.
01:03:42
Curt
Yeah.
01:03:44
jamie peacock
Every now and again it would be useful, but I don't need it.
01:03:47
Curt
Yeah.
01:03:48
jamie peacock
ah yeah Now the the tricky thing I'm running into is on the new lathe. I kind of want to build the screen into the control panel, but I know the day that I do that, that screen dies the following fucking day and I'm not going be able to get a replacement.
01:04:00
Curt
I just have to buy two.
01:04:00
jamie peacock
because it's, yeah, I considered it.
01:04:00
Curt
Just buy two. Oh,
01:04:02
jamie peacock
But then I went and looked. The only refurb monitors I can buy are 24-inch 1080p monitors now.
01:04:08
Curt
oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:04:09
jamie peacock
They don't have older square monitors or slower, smaller
Monitor Replacement Concerns
01:04:12
jamie peacock
ones. Like, they're not a thing because...
01:04:13
Curt
you get You guys don't have like ah like a reuse center or something where and buy just old garbage? That's where I get all my old garbage monitors, like five bucks.
01:04:20
jamie peacock
Well, that's what I do. I go to Cash Converters or Cash Crusaders, which is like second-hand stuff, and I've bought all their monitors in the past.
01:04:23
Curt
Sure, yeah, yeah.
01:04:27
jamie peacock
I'm going to have to go and just do that and see if I can find two that are the same.
01:04:27
Curt
Okay.
01:04:30
Curt
Yeah, yeah.
01:04:30
jamie peacock
Although the monitor I've got hooked up now takes a 1080p signal and up the monitor's not 1080p, but the onboard controller scales it so that it can take a 1080p signal.
01:04:42
jamie peacock
It flashes a message like a non-optimal resolution for like 30 seconds and then goes away and just carries on.
01:04:42
Curt
Hmm.
01:04:49
jamie peacock
um So I'd like to use this monitor because I have it and I think I paid like I want to say $10 for it because they didn't have a power supply. So I just made a power supply for it.
01:04:58
Curt
Right.
01:04:58
jamie peacock
Like it's a Samsung monitor.
01:05:00
Curt
Right.
01:05:00
jamie peacock
It's a decent little monitor. I might go try and find another one of those or just Google one and see can buy a second one online that I have a spare.
01:05:08
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
01:05:09
jamie peacock
Because yeah ah i'll live I will literally put the spare in the electrical enclosure that it's there.
01:05:15
Curt
Right.
01:05:15
jamie peacock
There's enough space.
01:05:15
Curt
Right.
01:05:16
jamie peacock
Like, holy cow, that thing has so much space. I could climb in the electrical enclosure. Like, yeah, that machine is going to have space for days.
01:05:23
Curt
awesome.
01:05:24
jamie peacock
But yeah, I couldn't get the the Honda connectors.
01:05:25
Curt
Well, you want to do the...
01:05:27
jamie peacock
So the for Nook Things user, Honda is obviously the manufacturer ah connector. I could not get the fucking things unplugged today at all. Like push the things, it releases the tabs and just I just fucking couldn't get it come loose.
01:05:37
Curt
Oh, that's where the... but
01:05:41
jamie peacock
So eventually just cut the wires. I'm like, fuck it. I'm not going to use the wires. So fucking cut them like a savage.
01:05:46
Curt
Yeah, fair.
01:05:47
jamie peacock
And then I couldn't unscrew the connectors from the motors either, from the the X-axis motor.
01:05:52
Curt
Mm.
01:05:53
jamie peacock
chop those fuckers too zero fucks given like side cutters cuttunk i pulled the motor off i've now got got to get couplings and modify couplings and make adapters and all that the all the fun shit but i was reading the vfd manual last night in bed as one does it's only 100 pages long um and it is actually mostly correct
01:05:54
Curt
Skink.
01:06:07
Curt
Submit.
01:06:13
Curt
Yeah, light reading.
Learning VFD Manual Limitations
01:06:16
jamie peacock
Turns out that VFD does not support high-speed pulse input, which is a little annoying because that's how planned on controlling it. So now I've got to buy a PWM2 0-10 volt adapter. That's fine.
01:06:27
jamie peacock
I've used those. know how they work. It's not the end of the world.
01:06:31
Curt
Nice.
01:06:32
jamie peacock
might actually have one in the Emco that I can steal
01:06:37
jamie peacock
because it's it's running on pole, high-speed, or step direction for the spindle motor now because it's a servo. I was also shocked I turned on the 400 watt server I have. Thing's fucking stiff.
01:06:49
jamie peacock
Like turning that shaft, not an easy feat. It's got, I think it's also like three or four Newton meters of torque.
01:06:56
Curt
Oh, when it's... Okay, yeah, yeah. That makes sense.
01:06:58
jamie peacock
Yeah, when it's enabled.
01:06:58
Curt
Yeah, when it's resisting.
01:06:59
jamie peacock
Yeah, don't know when it's enabled.
01:07:00
Curt
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:07:00
jamie peacock
Yeah, when it's trying to resist. um
01:07:02
Curt
i was going to say, that may be bad.
01:07:03
jamie peacock
Yeah, I was shocked. right yeah
01:07:06
Curt
its yeah yeah it squeaks and rust comes out of it.
01:07:06
jamie peacock
It's a low RPM motor. ah No, and when it enables.
01:07:10
Curt
yeah
01:07:10
jamie peacock
But yeah, that one needs 24 volts to actually run.
01:07:11
Curt
Yeah.
01:07:13
jamie peacock
You have to feed 24 volts into the drive as well as 220, whereas the EtherCAT ones, it's just the 220. They've got internal voltage regulation.
01:07:22
Curt
Oh, cool.
01:07:22
jamie peacock
Yeah, which is super convenient.
01:07:23
Curt
That's cool.
01:07:24
jamie peacock
I don't have to run a million fucking wires to it.
01:07:27
Curt
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no doubt.
01:07:28
jamie peacock
I'm going to have to feed it 24 volts for the alarm signal, but that's, I mean, that's a minor detail.
01:07:34
Curt
Yeah,
01:07:34
jamie peacock
It's just optocoupler that triggers when shit goes fucking south because I've learned my lesson. We put those things into the controller.
01:07:41
Curt
yeah. All right, want to do the Google boxes?
01:07:44
jamie peacock
So, Kurt, what have you been Googleboxing?
01:07:48
Curt
Oh, well, let me tell you, i have been Google box. I think I actually wrote it down here. So I would be, um, so yeah, basically everything we've talked about, um all the board or the, uh, box turning stuff.
01:08:00
Curt
Um, on,
01:08:00
jamie peacock
Yeah, that's very interesting.
01:08:02
Curt
Yeah, looking at old manuals and stuff that, I don't know, it's just kind of and of fun to see that stuff. I've seen DIY solutions of like people making, I was like, I'm not, I'll just make pens. I'm better at making pens than I am at making contraptions.
01:08:11
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:08:13
Curt
so I mean, I like making contraptions, but unfortunately, contraptions don't feed my children, so I'm just going to stick with buying it. um Yeah, ah some of that stuff, those mist collectors that I ordered that I kind of forgot about because the guy with
01:08:26
jamie peacock
Trads order, yes.
01:08:28
Curt
I tried to order and I kind of just gave up on him. He just, and as I was like, F it.
01:08:30
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:08:31
Curt
I don't give a shit anymore. Anyways, he emailed me today. He's like, Hey, they're in. I'm like, son of a bitch. Okay. I guess I'm, guess I'll buy him. Um, I mean, I get a good deal on him. So whatever. I don't like care.
01:08:38
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:08:39
Curt
Uh, so those are coming. Uh, yeah. Bunch of, uh, bunch of random boring stuff. I thought I had something interesting. So you talk and then I'll see if I remember what the hell I wanted to say.
01:08:49
jamie peacock
So it turns out I can buy Vaporust locally, which I need to go do. The price on the RG557 has gone down a little bit.
01:08:53
Curt
Hmm.
Need for New Tool Holders
01:08:58
Curt
Hmm. Hmm.
01:08:58
jamie peacock
I was reading manuals on the Kitagawa Collar Chuck for my machine, looking up stuff on Mantec, trying to buy Vescanite for Vescanite bearings and they haven't got back to which is very annoying.
01:09:09
jamie peacock
um Looking at couplings and voltage thingies, trying to source resin because I don't have any more of the resin I like for my resin printers and I need another four bottles for a job. No one has stock locally. It's a bit of a fuck-up.
01:09:22
jamie peacock
Also, octane workholding. Why the fuck don't you ship around the world? You only ship in the US. I was going to buy some T-slot covers. ah Then looking at tool holders for the lathe, because I need to now replace all my tool holders with smaller ones.
01:09:37
Curt
Fair, yeah.
01:09:38
jamie peacock
But yeah, that's what's in the Google box.
01:09:41
Curt
Oh, the one Google box thing I came across was ah so back in the day.
01:09:41
jamie peacock
Yes. yes
01:09:46
Curt
I played a lot of like ah Red Alert, like Command & Conquer Red Alert 2 was like my
Rediscovering Red Alert 3 in 4K
01:09:50
Curt
favorite game. um And i wanted I wanted to play it again. So I looked up Red Alert 3. And oddly enough, like I have Red Alert 3.
01:09:56
Curt
And it can output 4K. And i was that blew my mind.
01:09:59
jamie peacock
yeah
01:10:00
Curt
I was like, I don't know that it had support for 4K. So yeah, it's kind of cool playing like one of my old favorite games in like modern looking graphics.
01:10:07
jamie peacock
yeah yeah it's really interesting how those engines were built to scale like the game engines it's just a number like if you've got the processing power then go for it
01:10:08
Curt
It made me happy. was getting into that.
01:10:13
Curt
Yeah, no kidding. I was like, there's no way this will... Well, it was like...
01:10:19
Curt
It was like 800x600 out of the box. I'm like, there's no way this is going to go up to 2K.
01:10:21
jamie peacock
yeah
01:10:23
Curt
And it's like, oh yeah, it goes up to 4K. And it's like, this looks beautiful for like 20-year-old game.
01:10:25
jamie peacock
yeah yeah they so what they do is they release um updated texture packs for games like that as well which then make it look even fucking better uh yeah yeah i still play age of vam empires 2 every now and again i'll go run a few campaigns like
01:10:33
Curt
Yeah.
01:10:36
Curt
Yeah, it looks really good. It does not look like a 20-year-old game at all. Yeah.
Store Reopening Plans
01:10:45
jamie peacock
i don't know too often anymore cool so where can people find uh your things
01:10:45
Curt
yeah cool confoundermachine.com there's a contact page you can sign up because that's about the only thing you can do on that page hopefully I will reopen everything I don't know it's not looking like till the new year but we'll see we'll see how fast I get things going doing pretty large batches now so we're kind of clonking through the list a lot quicker which is nice in all regards of life but how about where can people find your wares
01:11:03
jamie peacock
Okay.
01:11:07
jamie peacock
Yeah. ah Yeah, you can find us, or you can find me at jspeceng.com or jspec underscore engineering on Instagram.
01:11:19
jamie peacock
We've got the anchor points available. It's zero-point system on a budget. I've also got t-shirts and mugs and things on the store, which supports... the podcast and my wife and a new hobby of wanting to climb up hills for stupid reasons.
01:11:30
Curt
We match.
01:11:35
jamie peacock
um But yeah, you can find links to those at theloanemachinists.com along with a companion guide and some bonus content. So yeah, what are you up to today, Kurt?
01:11:47
Curt
ah Today, I'm going to do the same thing that made me want to walk into traffic on Friday and do it turn a bajillion pen body so I can load them into the hard engine so I can keep doing its thing.
01:11:51
jamie peacock
fun.
01:11:56
Curt
And then once that's done, that's basically all the manual work out of the way. Everything else is robot controlled. um So yeah, I'll chunk through that today.
01:12:00
jamie peacock
No.
01:12:01
Curt
Throw podcast on and just do the dumb, dumb work. How about you?
01:12:04
jamie peacock
Okay. I'm going go sleep.
01:12:05
Curt
Besides sleeping.
01:12:06
jamie peacock
Yeah, sleep, as always.
01:12:07
Curt
Yeah.
01:12:08
jamie peacock
And then carry on with Dave's dumb shit
Machinery Alignment for New Projects
01:12:11
jamie peacock
tomorrow. And then figure out the center of rotation on my fourth axis tomorrow. So I put the chuck into the jang plate and then put a bar and then I'm going to take a cut, take a cut and mark and figure out where my center line is because I need that for Dave's stupid parts.
01:12:29
jamie peacock
And then I'm going need to get good at it because I'm going to need to do it on the stupid rotor parts that they are insisting we make samples of, even though we're not going to get the order. So I will be charging my customer for that because fuck that noise.
01:12:41
jamie peacock
I tried to weasel my way out of doing it like four times and it hasn't stuck. So, but we'll get into the details of that in the and after show where less people can hear the shit that I know that I shouldn't know.
01:12:52
Curt
Nice. ah it's Nice, nice.
01:12:53
jamie peacock
yes But yeah, anyway, thank you everybody for listening.
01:12:55
Curt
Cool.
Engagement Invitation to Listeners
01:12:57
jamie peacock
If you enjoyed the podcast, please consider sharing it, liking it, rating it, subscribing it, all the things. If you think you know someone will enjoy it, please feel free to share it. If you saw our ugly faces, you can also listen to just our ugly voices on Spotify and Zencast and all those things.
01:13:12
jamie peacock
And if you want to see what we look like, we're on YouTube and if you're AJ on Zencast. But yeah, thank you everybody for for listening and we will see you next week.
01:13:24
Curt
Take care all.