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Ep. 45: The Great Coolant Massacre of ’25
177 Plays1 month ago
Join Curt and Jamie as they discuss their week, including topics such as Bertha’s farewell move, the Coolant Flood Disaster, Carl’s lucky retrofit, Spinderella’s VFD woes, and why admin work might just be the real horror show.
Links Discussed:
- Jamie's phase converter: https://arcweld.co.za/phase-converter-single-three-phas
- Wild DIY CNC: https://www.youtube.com/@TheSuntravel
- M66: https://linuxcnc.org/docs/devel/html/gcode/m-code.html#mcode:m66
- Mediocre maker syil x4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC6kKlsh2sQ&t=638s
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/
Want to try out Toolpath? Give it a go and get 10% off by using the code TLM10 at checkout: https://toolpath.com/
Jamie:
Curt:
Recommended
Transcript
Kurt's Digital Robot Vision
00:00:14
jamie peacock
Welcome to the Lone Machinist podcast where it's just you, your machines and the work. What have you got going on this week, Kurt?
00:00:21
Curt
ah This week I'm going to talk about how I need to hire digital robots, ah if I want to CNC the manual A, the slippery slope, and how I'm a YouTube sellout. How about you, Jamie? What are you going talk about?
Machine Mishaps and Musical Chairs
00:00:34
jamie peacock
We broke the chuck on Bertha. Carl should buy a lotto ticket and we played musical machines this week. So yeah, how are you doing today, Kurt?
Daylight Savings Debate
00:00:46
Curt
I'm doing good. I'm doing good. It's ah Daylight Savings here, which you guys don't do, so ah we're recording a little earlier on my end, but actually ah works out pretty good.
00:00:50
jamie peacock
No.
00:00:52
jamie peacock
Ah, okay.
00:00:53
Curt
So, yeah.
00:00:54
jamie peacock
Yeah, the the thought of daylight savings in Africa is hilarious.
00:00:58
Curt
The thought of Daylight Savings here is stupid as well, but we still do it, so.
00:00:58
jamie peacock
Everyone would... Dude, everyone would just be late for work, early for work for half the year. Like, there's no way that that would work here. The people are way too dumb for that shit.
00:01:11
Curt
I don't, with the advent of like lighting in homes, I don't understand why do we do it anymore, but hey, whatever. So.
00:01:17
jamie peacock
Yeah. I mean, we we got back now. It's just gotten dark. It's just after seven.
00:01:22
Curt
Hmm.
00:01:22
jamie peacock
We got home at quarter to seven. It was still somewhat light out. So took the doggos for a bit of a walk because my wife is still adamant about this whole walking up a freaking hill story.
00:01:26
Curt
Hmm.
00:01:32
jamie peacock
Like, I don't know what's wrong with that chick. But yeah, what what have you been up to this week?
Digital Solutions for Efficiency
00:01:39
Curt
ah ah My world's kind of been boring. I've just been so like i had all my stuff and I'm just selling it. ah Like all my pens were finished. So just doing kind of boring finishing, which is nice. This is actually ah with the with the style doing its job as it should be now.
00:01:52
Curt
I was able to like kind of bulk out all my times of like what everything actually takes me. um And the machining process for everything, regardless of the machines I have, even if they're, so you know, slightly slow, like let's say my lathe is, know, my lathe is not a Swiss.
00:02:05
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:02:06
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:02:07
Curt
It's not going to crank up parts, but like I'm just timing the the bottlenecks that I run into.
00:02:11
Curt
And it's crazy how much of it it is just associated to like dumb, dumb tasks, which is, why I want to like, ah I'm talking about hiring digital robots, like answering emails, answering DMs. I don't understand how companies that grow to, I mean, obviously companies that grow to a certain size, they hire people for this reason. But like as a say single guy operator shop, like just dealing with like messages, DMs, and then like order fulfillment and processing, like I got to bet. And my systems are automated somewhat, but I got to get better at it. Cause it's like, it's crazy how fast that kind of stuff can,
00:02:45
Curt
pile up to hours and hours of work, which is like the worst work to do.
00:02:49
jamie peacock
yeah well that actually that kind of leads into uh one of my things from this this week there was there's an issue with the quote form on the website
00:02:51
Curt
So.
Website and Fulfillment Enhancements
00:03:00
jamie peacock
If you fill out the request to quote for an anchor point form, it comes through as a new subscriber to the newsletter. So I just ignore it. Because when we send a newsletter, Danica goes and pulls the emails.
00:03:00
Curt
ah Okay.
00:03:10
jamie peacock
So I've got a comment on one of the podcasts saying, Hey, I sent this thing. I don't know if it's not working. Like what's what's going on? I've requested a quote twice. So I went and looked and oh no, there they are.
00:03:21
jamie peacock
They were just labeled incorrectly. So I ignored them.
00:03:24
jamie peacock
So yeah that's now i went through and checked there weren't any other ones that got sent off today. But yeah, that like the form works. It sends an email. If you're expecting an email, then yeah, sure.
00:03:24
Curt
Oh, shit.
00:03:34
jamie peacock
But it comes across as newsletter sign-up or subscriber sign-up or something.
00:03:38
Curt
Right.
00:03:39
jamie peacock
So yeah, Danica said she fixed it, so we shall find out. Also, we now know what tariffs roughly are going to cost. so we're going update our shipping option there. So $70 shipping and you roll the dice and deal with FedEx or $230 shipping and it's prepaid.
00:03:57
Curt
Okay. Okay.
00:03:58
jamie peacock
So that's basically what ah what it calculates out to on an anchor point with an extra set of pallets.
00:04:04
Curt
And you're using, you're using like a third party fulfillment that goes through FedEx, like tunnel or whatever.
00:04:08
jamie peacock
a I'm using ya tunnels. So tunnels based like Shippo, they get a good rate for FedEx.
00:04:15
jamie peacock
And they booked shipment FedEx pitches up here grabs it from me and it goes and they prepay the duties and stuff.
00:04:15
Curt
Right.
00:04:20
Curt
Okay.
00:04:20
jamie peacock
So yeah, they're they're basically just a shipping broker, but they move enough stuff that they get a really good rates.
00:04:28
Curt
I was just going to say, like, do that because I know a few people in my world right now that are shipping via UPS and via FedEx directly, not through like ah a ah third party.
00:04:33
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:04:35
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:04:37
Curt
And they're still getting whaled. Well, sorry. No, it doesn't apply to your system because you're not. Yeah, you're not under CUSMA or anything. you're You're just paying straight tariff.
00:04:44
jamie peacock
ah Okay, yeah, no, fair enough. So so tunnels Tunnels thing, I've seen a couple of Instagram and scra ads for them.
00:04:45
Curt
Yeah. yeah So it's not going to matter.
00:04:50
jamie peacock
Their thing is, what we quote you on our website is what you will pay. If you're paying duties, and it lands there and the duties are higher than what they quoted, they cover the difference.
00:04:54
Curt
Nice. Yeah.
00:04:59
jamie peacock
Like what you pay on the website is what you pay.
00:05:00
Curt
yeah
00:05:02
jamie peacock
So like, yeah, I still haven't got paid out for the missing anchor point. Still waiting on that. Apparently, the insurance company is US based and they're just cocking around.
00:05:08
Curt
Yeah.
00:05:12
Curt
Yeah.
00:05:13
jamie peacock
It's yeah a little frustrating. Actually, that reminds me quickly.
00:05:20
jamie peacock
Sorry, dead air.
00:05:21
jamie peacock
It's the best. We need a new we need a new one that's tarping on the podcast.
00:05:21
Curt
No, no worries.
00:05:26
Curt
Typing on the podcast. On the podcast.
00:05:27
jamie peacock
Yeah. Oh, jeez, now I'm tarping on the wrong thing.
00:05:31
Curt
Yeah.
00:05:34
jamie peacock
Yeah, don't know if you caught the Taps for Patients episode where the outro song was that one.
00:05:37
Curt
Oh, I totally did. I totally did, yeah.
00:05:38
jamie peacock
Yeah, that was great.
CNC Innovations and Collaborations
00:05:41
jamie peacock
Yeah, so just remembered i remember something. I've send something out tomorrow. I'm waiting for some connectors to arrive then I can send out. So I'm CNC breakout, the breakout boards I make for the 7C81 because Jacob is doing a stupid and he's making a CNC bandsaw.
00:05:53
Curt
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:05:58
Curt
Oh.
00:06:01
Curt
Oh, that sounds fun.
00:06:01
jamie peacock
So Yeah, look, it's not the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I still going use that drawlets for the up and down feed. But put I told them to put a string encoder like literally one that rolls up a string.
00:06:13
jamie peacock
um So or even an angle encoder would work or a rotary encoder. So you know how hard the saw is. And then just have a bunch of parameters in beginning your program. You said cool on 20 pieces this long. This is how big the bar stock is the saw goes up feeds forward and cuts.
00:06:28
jamie peacock
like yeah So we're discussing doing it with M66 digital input codes. don't know if you've ever messed with those.
00:06:37
Curt
No, no, I haven't.
00:06:37
jamie peacock
So in Linux CNC, and 65 are digital outputs. So M64 is switch on, so it's M64, and then P0 through 3. Above default is only 4. And then M65, P0 through and then p zero through ah default is only four and then m sixty five p zero through p three will turn those digital outputs off m66 will read in a digital input again default is for but it can go up to like ah as many as you want as far as I'm standards but you then give it a I think it's a q variable and that determines the what happens so if there's there's I think four different options it can either wait until the signal changes state so you run your code you get to the m66
00:07:21
jamie peacock
And when the signal changes it continues, or when it goes from high to low or low to high, or there's a whole bunch of options, or if it's already high, that's fine, carry on. I'm going to be implementing it on my parts catcher to make sure that it's out of the way.
00:07:21
Curt
Yeah.
00:07:34
jamie peacock
So I'm going to make a Yeah, these are built into Linux NC by default.
00:07:34
Curt
So these are
00:07:38
Curt
are... And therere they're like a digital like a digital state state inside. they're not like They're not like for outside um interaction. though like...
00:07:45
jamie peacock
none No, no, they're external signals.
00:07:45
Curt
Oh.
00:07:47
jamie peacock
It's a digital input pin.
00:07:47
Curt
oh
00:07:48
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:07:49
Curt
Oh, okay.
00:07:49
jamie peacock
So I've used them before I wrote a thing on Bertha that would lock the spindle.
00:07:50
Curt
Oh, interesting.
00:07:55
jamie peacock
So it would rotate the spindle slowly until a proxy would pick up a slot and then it would deploy the lock. and then it deployed the lock while doing a little two hour RPM and broke the little locking pin off, but not the point.
00:08:03
Curt
Okay, yeah.
00:08:08
jamie peacock
um So yeah, you can basically wait until so you can have it wait for an external input. That's like, and we I'm sure we discussed two channel, I discussed it somewhere two channel CNC machines with Linux CNC and that's how I go about doing it is with the m 65 m five and six.
00:08:26
jamie peacock
So you could basically have your one controller run and then wait for the other controller to send, literally flick a relay until the other machine to run.
00:08:36
jamie peacock
So you could do, know, you could do wait codes like that. So very, very useful.
00:08:36
Curt
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:08:40
Curt
Okay.
00:08:41
jamie peacock
used it. So going to use it. I'm going to write a custom custom M code for the parts catcher that when I call the parts catcher, it'll come forward, do its thing.
00:08:47
Curt
Okay.
00:08:49
jamie peacock
When I stow the parts catcher, it'll hold itself in a loop until it's detected.
00:08:51
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:08:53
jamie peacock
It's all the way back. and think there's also a timeout function there.
00:08:55
Curt
Interesting.
00:08:56
jamie peacock
So super, super interesting.
00:08:57
Curt
Yeah.
00:08:58
jamie peacock
I think we need to put a show note there for that because it works with Tormach as well.
00:09:02
Curt
Yeah, um i I pulled it up because I'm going to look at it because that's... Of course, yeah, yeah, they're on the backbone, so.
00:09:07
jamie peacock
Yeah, because it's yeah, and they their version is going to normal enough. He said there were 16 digital inputs and outputs by default in their config.
00:09:15
Curt
Interesting.
00:09:16
jamie peacock
Yeah, so we're chatting to him on Friday night about it. Anyway,
00:09:20
Curt
Yeah. Hmm.
00:09:21
jamie peacock
I see you've got a CNC manual lathe. When you decide to go down that route, just let me know. I'll send
Manual to CNC: The Conversion Journey
00:09:28
jamie peacock
you some boards.
00:09:30
Curt
Oh, okay, cool, cool, cool. um
00:09:32
jamie peacock
Works with a Pi and a and then I've got breakout boards that'll do everything.
00:09:33
Curt
Yeah.
00:09:36
jamie peacock
That'll give you all the I.O. that that thing has. It's got 54.
00:09:38
Curt
Ooh.
00:09:39
jamie peacock
for I don't know. Yeah, I think 54 or something. It's got shitload of I.O.
00:09:44
Curt
Wow. Yeah, yeah. That's a ton.
00:09:45
jamie peacock
Yeah, and I've broken it all out. So you got four axis control, then three encoder inputs, you just got of flash the correct firmware to the Mesa board and then it works. So it's actually on pretty much all of the retrofits I've done recently.
00:10:00
Curt
Nice. Nice.
00:10:01
jamie peacock
yeah So what do you want to do to your poor lathe?
00:10:02
Curt
Yeah.
00:10:04
Curt
uh so i mean this all stems from this is not a uh i mean it's kind of a do it because i could like it would be beneficial of course for production but it's also a kind of do it because i want to um just to let me get around some of the current manual limitations like i want to feed slower at certain things there's a lot of repetitive tasks that i do that i do that i don't want to put on the hard edge because hard edge is already doing certain other tasks and
00:10:20
jamie peacock
yeah sure yeah left rots up down
00:10:28
Curt
this lathe doesn't anyways um that's how i'm justifying it my brain and like cncing a lathe is not exactly hard it's like a couple ball screws a couple servos and you're off to the races like yeah well then i found this too this is i gonna anybody who listens to this that is remotely into um mechanical crap uh there's a guy on line on youtube uh
00:10:39
jamie peacock
lift ros up down
00:10:53
Curt
you you mattern uh you w e um m-a-t-t-e-r-n i'll have it linked in the show notes uh he built yeah yeah he built a like he has a manual lathe um nothing fancy import manual lathe and then he put like ball screws on it servos he's running i think centroid acorn on it which is a pretty decent control honestly um
00:11:00
jamie peacock
Yeah, well... Ooh.
00:11:15
Curt
And he has like linear scales on it.
00:11:16
jamie peacock
Oh, I guess.
00:11:19
Curt
He has a Y axis on it, live tools.
00:11:20
jamie peacock
Oh, jeez.
00:11:23
Curt
Like he went over the top, full C axis on it, like on just your, your import, you know, it's a, it's a sizable one.
00:11:26
jamie peacock
Yeah. It looks like it. It's genius.
00:11:30
Curt
His videos are actually really good. They're, they're very, um ah they're like five minutes long and it's just like one little tech aspects, not a lot of explanation, just a lot of just showing you what it does. And it's,
00:11:39
jamie peacock
yes yes
00:11:40
Curt
It's addicting. I've been watching all of it and i was just like, no, I kind of want to do it. And like, I just, and like he built it, he built it. So the hand wheels ah still control the lathe. Like if you want to use it in a manual fashion, but they're, they're MPGs.
00:11:52
Curt
um So then you have the benefit of like actual accuracy in the hand wheels. And it's just like, Hmm, I don't know.
00:11:58
jamie peacock
Well, if you're going to go down if you're going to go down that route, the breakout boards I've got support three MPGs or three encoders.
00:12:06
Curt
Oh, sick.
00:12:07
jamie peacock
So you could do spindle encoder on one board and then X and Z encoders or MPGs on others. So can twiddle it knobs.
00:12:13
Curt
Yeah.
00:12:14
jamie peacock
um
00:12:15
Curt
Yeah, it would yeah'd be fun.
00:12:16
jamie peacock
Yeah. cause So that's the cool thing with the 7C81. You can run, the firmware is called 3XXXX. 3x Bob or something or 3x5 Bob.
00:12:29
jamie peacock
So it's meant to run three of the five access breakout boards.
00:12:29
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:12:33
jamie peacock
So it supports three encoders and like 12 steppers.
00:12:34
Curt
OK.
00:12:38
jamie peacock
twelve stepper
00:12:41
jamie peacock
It's freaking insane.
00:12:41
Curt
That's a lot, yeah.
00:12:42
jamie peacock
I've broken it out a bit differently. So I've broken out four steppers and then each board has its encoders. So you can in the config, you say three encoders.
00:12:50
Curt
Yeah.
00:12:51
jamie peacock
um The PWM pin comes out. Those are isolated as well because they are like the hardware is very defined which pins are which. If you don't define it, it's an IO.
00:13:03
jamie peacock
Then you can use it as IO. But if you say three encoders, they have to be plugged in on those specific pins. uh same thing with any additional steppers other than four there are specific pins allocated to those it's not just you yolo connected here um but yeah they're wicked little boards and i bought a bunch of last time so have then you can jump from a soldier i don't don't do it good
00:13:18
Curt
yeah
00:13:23
Curt
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm fighting it. I'm fighting the urge hard because like that's not something that but I mean, it's a fun it's a it's a fun thing.
00:13:29
jamie peacock
So, well, the thing is, you you well if you're going to use it to turn the bodies, if you can load a body and have a turn and disengage, and you don't have to be there for that.
00:13:30
Curt
It's just like, do I need a project?
00:13:40
Curt
Yeah, no, absolutely. And like, I am kind of just like, I'm being a little, uh, glossing over things of like, yeah, there would be a ton of things I would actually use it for in a production sense as a CNC.
00:13:41
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:13:50
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:13:51
Curt
Like if I just had another CNC lathe here right now, absolutely.
00:13:53
Curt
I would flood it with second op work.
00:13:55
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:13:56
Curt
Um, And all my second op work is not super heavy duty, you like aside from the OD turning.
00:14:00
jamie peacock
its face off for nubbin
00:14:02
Curt
Yeah, like it's nothing it's nothing that needs like, you know, crazy coolant and ah stuff like that. Like um I'm turning the bodies on a manual aid. Obviously, I don't have flood coolant on it and it's working just fine. um So yeah, I don't know.
00:14:12
jamie peacock
yeah the last one for turning the bodies you were complaining about that being soul destroying
00:14:14
Curt
i I'm debating it. I think it'd be itd be fun. It'd be fun.
00:14:23
jamie peacock
If you can have it, do it while you're doing something else. Even if, so if you're standing there you're doing a body and you're loading one after the other, if you can load a body, walk away and do something, and when it's done, it stops and you can come back and load another one, you can spread out that, say say for instance, two hours of work where you must stand there over the whole day, over eight hours, it's still the two hours of being done, except you're not standing there, you can do other stuff.
00:14:23
Curt
Oh yeah, 100%.
00:14:35
Curt
Totally. Absolutely.
00:14:44
Curt
absolutely
00:14:48
jamie peacock
Mark, the idea, who else?
00:14:48
Curt
Absolutely. and the And the problem is like, same thing.
00:14:50
Curt
It's like, it's a two minute operation, so you can't walk away.
00:14:53
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:14:55
Curt
But like you said, if it, if it did it all and then just stopped, it wouldn't matter if it sat there for 15 minutes, I wouldn't care.
00:14:58
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:15:00
Curt
Cause I would just put them through over a week and get, like you said, those that two hours of work done over an entire week where I'm not using up my brain space to do it.
00:15:04
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:15:09
jamie peacock
Exactly. No, that I tend to do stuff like that where if I can have the machine running, it can sit for half an hour if I'm busy with something else.
00:15:09
Curt
So yeah, it's.
00:15:13
Curt
Mm hmm.
00:15:17
jamie peacock
When I walk past it, I load something in again. I mean, yeah.
00:15:19
Curt
Yeah.
00:15:19
jamie peacock
That's what I was doing today.
00:15:21
Curt
That's.
00:15:22
jamie peacock
That's what I've been doing over the last frickin while like busy with other stuff.
00:15:26
Curt
Well,
00:15:27
jamie peacock
And John.
00:15:29
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:15:29
Curt
That's why you buy these.
00:15:29
Curt
Like, that's what I do with my pocket clips. I load them up into the machine when I kind of have dead time because I have to make so many of them. And I just, like, I hit go. And then I walk away and I forget about it. And then I'm like, oh, the cycle stopped, you know, 10 minutes ago. I'm like, oh, I guess I'll swap a new blank in, hit go, and walk away again.
00:15:41
Curt
And, like, you know, it's just, like, all a sudden, before you know it, you're like, oh, I have every single part made. And I don't even remember putting the effort into making it because it's just, like... when you had a five second downtime, you just swapped apart and hit go.
00:15:53
Curt
I mean, obviously anybody that runs a machine shop understands this is how it's supposed to work, but it's like, yeah, it's yeah.
00:15:56
jamie peacock
yeah Yeah, how it's supposed to work out actually works are not necessarily the same.
00:16:02
Curt
Yeah. Yeah. So, but yeah.
00:16:04
jamie peacock
The stress was something
00:16:06
Curt
So how did your, uh, how did your Tetris game work? I, I, I saw the machines outside and then I saw them briefly getting loaded in and then I see them a lot cleaner now and starting to run.
00:16:09
jamie peacock
else.
00:16:15
jamie peacock
the stress was stress was something
00:16:15
Curt
So, uh, tell me the, uh,
00:16:18
Curt
Tell me the story. Yeah.
Workshop Setup and Logistics
00:16:19
jamie peacock
so the day before we prepped everything i was all sad because birth is leaving and that literally the first big machine i bought at retrofit and whatnot so a little bit sentimental got it all prepped put the m car on wheels the night before put uh the slowio on wheels and then left the coolants because i only got the i only got the stuff to kill whatever was alive in the good way on tuesday
00:16:29
Curt
yeah
00:16:47
jamie peacock
No, Wednesday. So I left it to run through the night, cycling the coolant in the driveway, in the machine. And the whey oil got emulsified and then blocked the return and flooded the nice poisonous stuff down my driveway to my front door.
00:17:03
jamie peacock
So i woke up in the morning, opened the front door and there's coolant. I'm like, well, shit.
00:17:03
Curt
Oh, no.
00:17:07
jamie peacock
So went out, pumped it out.
00:17:07
Curt
no.
00:17:12
jamie peacock
The inside of the casting has baffles.
00:17:16
jamie peacock
So you cannot get all the stuff out of the tank as much as you want. You fucking can't. So I ended up spending, was at the machine six in the morning pumping with Monica, trying to get everything else.
00:17:28
jamie peacock
The sludge and crap in there was fucking still is something else is in Monica. um Fucking disgusting is a compliment to that. Like it was truly disgusting.
00:17:37
Curt
Oh,
00:17:39
jamie peacock
ah You know, got it mostly out, got the top taken off of the machine. And then the rig is pitched up and we went to roll the Emco out and the wheels collapsed.
00:17:49
Curt
no. Oh, no.
00:17:49
jamie peacock
The wheels broke the wheels. Fuck. Okay, it's fine. We have a forklift. So we forked the machine, put it in the driveway. Then discovered something really cool about my workshop. Since I put, when we put Bertha in, I had tilting garage doors.
00:18:03
jamie peacock
Now I have the sliding doors. Forklift and drive right into my workshop. So they literally drove right in, picked up Bertha, side shifted, put her down, reforked her, and reversed out.
00:18:08
Curt
oh
00:18:14
Curt
Sick. Okay, awesome. That's nice.
00:18:15
jamie peacock
yeah So, so Commissioner was saying, yeah, he felt a bit bad about me paying for half the rigging. I'm like, dude, I knew what this was going to be. So we pulled Bertha out. They put Bertha on the truck. Then we wheeled the slow EO to the door, started going down the ramp, and I forgot to chock in the trolley.
00:18:34
jamie peacock
So the trolley, you've got like half inch on each side, you've to drop something in, otherwise it can slip loose. It slipped loose. So we then got them to come with forklift and pick the slow EO.
00:18:44
jamie peacock
It didn't tip or anything, it just stopped. We chocked it, and then they came in with forklift and picked it up, put it on the curb.
00:18:50
Curt
Okay. Okay.
00:18:52
jamie peacock
Then picked up the good way. drove that straight into the workshop and placed it on some nice hard blocks that I made came out picked up the emco put the emco in for me picked up the slow wheel put the slow wheel on its wheels and in my workshop and then proceeded to tie down bertha and whatnot the crane they bought with can do four and a half tons at 10 meters extension
00:19:20
Curt
e
00:19:21
jamie peacock
yeah
00:19:22
Curt
That's a big one.
00:19:22
jamie peacock
So 33 feet, it can do 8,000 pounds or 9,000 pounds.
00:19:24
Curt
Yeah. Yeah, that's sizable.
00:19:28
jamie peacock
It's insane. Yeah, it's nuts.
00:19:30
Curt
Yeah, that's a lot.
00:19:30
jamie peacock
So yeah, there they came with a truck and a trailer, loaded Bertha on the truck and then lifted the forklift and popped it on the trailer. And like, I wonder how they're going to tension that chain.
00:19:39
Curt
Oh, I guess. Yeah, you can lift the forklift. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:19:42
jamie peacock
Yeah, lift the forklift.
00:19:43
Curt
Yeah.
00:19:43
jamie peacock
um So they put a chain through the back. i like I'm like, what are they going to tension? That guy jumps to the fork, it starts, it just does a burnout, pulls it on the trailer, and then chains the front. I'm like, yes.
00:19:54
Curt
That works, yeah.
00:19:55
jamie peacock
So yeah, then they left and I followed the guy bought at Kamesh back to his place so I could help them just put it in there. So we got that installed and powered up.
00:20:03
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:20:06
jamie peacock
And yeah, that that that was easy. They just drove it straight into into his shipping container. He's got two 40-foot shipping containers. The... the high ones. So like really nice little workshop got a couple milling machines in there just manual bills, manual a surface grinder and then our CNC lathe.
00:20:16
Curt
OK.
00:20:23
Curt
Sick.
00:20:23
jamie peacock
But yeah, that was that was the Tetris thing. And then when I went down there, I went to bought new wheels so we could put the emco back on wheels because I did not like where it was placed.
00:20:31
jamie peacock
The CAD said it would work in reality, it was not going to work. So we then, I think Carl came around on Friday, and we put her back on wheels and moved her where she ended up being.
00:20:31
Curt
Okay.
00:20:42
jamie peacock
And then I was running on the weekend.
00:20:43
Curt
Hmm.
00:20:44
jamie peacock
So yeah, it's Tetris.
00:20:45
Curt
Nice.
00:20:46
jamie peacock
And then, yeah, pallet jack to move the good way. All good and well. It can lift it, except it doesn't roll. Because of the rubber mats on our floor, the wheels sink in.
00:20:58
Curt
Oh, yeah, okay, yeah.
00:20:58
jamie peacock
So I have a stick, giant two by four, shove it under there and then push the machine along. um So it's where it's going to be for now. I think it might move a little bit or move some other furniture around it.
00:21:11
jamie peacock
We'll see. I'm still working on it. But yeah, it's in.
00:21:14
Curt
Cool.
00:21:16
jamie peacock
Which is cool because I can work on it late at night. Like on Friday night, Danica phoned me at half past 10. Like, are you still alive? Because normally I'm bed with them and I'm like, I'm working on the machine. I'll be in, nah, nah. And then I carry it on for like another hour.
00:21:28
jamie peacock
Because it's inside. I can just work on it and have light in things.
00:21:32
jamie peacock
But yeah, that that was an adventure moving the machines. It was really an adventure.
00:21:32
Curt
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:21:38
Curt
Well, I'm um'm glad you got them all in without getting crushed or dropping anything, so...
00:21:39
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yeah, we tried to catch one of the machines where it tipped. You know, reflex. It wasn't going fall, but ah yeah.
00:21:47
Curt
Yeah, of course. Yeah, this the stupid human reaction.
00:21:49
jamie peacock
But I got it. Let's...
00:21:51
Curt
Yeah.
00:21:51
jamie peacock
Yep. I think it was his birthday. And then when they offloaded birthday, oh my word, they offloaded birthday and it's like tippy on the fricking forks. So they pick it up, reverse into the road, drop it right down and then took it around, dropped it, forked it properly and yeah, it was fine.
00:21:59
Curt
Ugh.
00:22:06
jamie peacock
It was a little, little terrifying. But yeah, that's, it was a fun adventure.
00:22:10
Curt
ah
00:22:12
Curt
I remember back in the day when i was at my old day job, and we ordered a, ah like we had a delivery of a like five by 10 CNC and they jammed into a box truck like lengthwise. um So we had to like a pallet. So the pallet is like,
00:22:25
Curt
Because a 10-foot bed and then the control cabinet, it was like, i don't know, 15 feet long. And all the weight is like, it's all you know giant, cat like huge box beams. as heavy as hell. And we had our forklift, which could lift it, but we had extensions on it.
00:22:38
jamie peacock
yeah
00:22:39
Curt
And it's like, the extensions were just... long enough to get to the balance point and like we lift it up and remember like my boss telling the guy he's like drive the truck driving we just watch you're watching the forklift like the extension slowly bending and we're like oh this is we're gonna dump this and like we were a startup we had no money like if it hit the ground we were hosed and oh i remember everyone just being stressed so yeah
00:22:49
jamie peacock
yeah dude we used literally have guys sit on the back of the forklift when we loaded machines.
00:23:03
Curt
yeah i could yeah
00:23:03
jamie peacock
Because it was bouncing. like honor
00:23:07
jamie peacock
We've done some dangerous things with forklifts. Forklifts are lots of fun. I like them. I want one.
00:23:07
Curt
ah
00:23:13
jamie peacock
Danica seems to think I'm not going to get one. But I have a plan. Super secret plan.
00:23:13
Curt
Yeah, big, heavy things.
00:23:20
Curt
i I kind of want one of those like people crushing forklifts. I forgot they're called, like pallet handlers or something like that, like the most dangerous thing you can buy. like They're like a forklift, but you like kind of walk behind it, so you can like you can like lift a nice heavy pallet up to like a point where it's super tippy and then just dump it on yourself and crush yourself.
00:23:33
jamie peacock
uh foot i okay cool a pallet stacker pallet stacker yeah we sell them where used to work yeah it's been super dodgy but yeah um yeah it turns out my four kilowatt vft is not uh strong enough to run the 3.7 kilowatt motor yes so there's one on order now and now i'm playing the waiting game
00:23:37
Curt
I forgot what they're called now. think they're called pallet handlers or something. palette Maybe a pallet stacker? I can't remember, but... Just tiny little guys, yeah. and they Yeah.
00:23:49
Curt
Yeah, everyone dies, yeah. yeah
00:23:55
Curt
Oh, for that spindle motor?
00:23:58
Curt
Yeah. Hmm. Ah, okay.
00:24:01
jamie peacock
So Spinderella is getting kicked down the fucking road while I wait for a new VFD.
00:24:07
jamie peacock
I considered putting a 2.2 kilowatt motor, but by the time I make the adapter and everything, I may as well just buy a VFD.
00:24:07
Curt
oh
00:24:14
Curt
Oh, okay, okay, yeah, yeah, fair.
00:24:15
jamie peacock
So by the time I buy the pulley that I need and waste my time going to my mate to weld and design and plasma cut the brackets, I may as well just buy a VFD.
00:24:26
jamie peacock
So I did that.
00:24:27
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
00:24:28
jamie peacock
And then also the lube is fixed on the good way. That was this afternoon.
00:24:32
jamie peacock
On Friday, yeah, on Friday, the pneumatics people had their Murrensuk thing, their fucking golf day. So they weren't open. And I went to go buy ferals and they didn't have.
00:24:32
Curt
I was watching that, yeah, I saw that, yeah.
00:24:42
Curt
ah
00:24:43
jamie peacock
So yeah, that got done today and then got the weight covers back on. And yeah, it's a zooming around. I need to tune those motors, something horrible. They're fast as fucking accurate, but they're humming badly.
00:24:58
jamie peacock
So I just need to read, need to spend a bit of time reading through the parameter, well, asking notebook LM to read through the manual that is in Chinglish and figure out what the fuck I need to change. But there are some auto tuning settings like it went from overshooting like significantly.
00:24:59
Curt
Oh yeah.
00:25:09
Curt
Right.
00:25:15
jamie peacock
So if I put my indicator on it, and I'll tell it go comma one, it would go comma 15 and then bounce back to come back to the comma one increment.
00:25:22
Curt
okay, okay, yeah.
00:25:23
jamie peacock
So I did some auto tuning stuff on it, like one of the parameters, all of a sudden, dead nuts, dead nuts, move five microns and moves five microns. So it's got one goes from one does 15 meters a minute.
00:25:31
Curt
Sick.
00:25:34
jamie peacock
But the motors are going me the whole time. So I need to just figure that shit out.
00:25:38
Curt
Yeah.
00:25:40
jamie peacock
I'm sure that's just there's a setting I need to go and poke with a stick. And then that will be unproblematic.
00:25:47
Curt
Nice.
00:25:48
jamie peacock
But yeah, i just being
00:25:48
Curt
Nice.
00:25:49
jamie peacock
Been working through the wiring on that because there's a lot of things, but it's pretty much all all working now. I need to still do the hydraulics and connect up the pneumatics to the control system. pneumatics are plugged in already.
00:26:04
Curt
Okay, okay.
00:26:04
jamie peacock
So, ticking shit off the list very quickly. i'm gonna have nothing to do on the machine until I get a spindle motor very shortly, which could be a little early.
00:26:10
Curt
Cool. Yeah, I think think I briefly caught the story where you said you're going to have one your friends machine a plate, but yeah, going with a proper VFD is probably a lot easier.
00:26:17
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:26:20
jamie peacock
Well, it comes with own set of issues because now instead of 20 amp EMR filter, I need a 40 amp EMR filter, which is not available locally.
00:26:20
Curt
Yeah.
00:26:29
Curt
Hmm.
00:26:29
jamie peacock
So I had to order one of those as well because the new VFD can pull 33 amps, which is more than the LK pulls. The LK is on a 32 amp breaker.
00:26:39
Curt
Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:26:40
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:26:41
Curt
Okay.
00:26:42
jamie peacock
So yeah, we will see. I might put a smaller spindle motor on this thing anyway. But yeah, for now, i want to use that spindle motor and see. see where it gets us.
00:26:49
Curt
Yeah.
00:26:50
jamie peacock
But all the other systems are coming together, with the chip conveyor is working and also disgusting. That'll get fixed with coolant. I'm gonna throw some I'm gonna throw just enough coolant in, let it cycle and then probably pump it out.
00:27:01
jamie peacock
Just to try get rid of the rest of the crap that's in that machine.
00:27:02
Curt
Right, okay.
00:27:06
Curt
Ugh, yeah, that's gross.
00:27:07
jamie peacock
But speaking of CNC machine retrofits and things, Carl's machine arrived.
00:27:16
Curt
Oh, okay.
00:27:17
jamie peacock
On Friday, So the machines moved on Thursday, his machine arrived on Friday in my driveway.
00:27:22
Curt
Right.
00:27:23
jamie peacock
He needs to go buy a lotto ticket.
00:27:26
Curt
Why is that?
00:27:27
jamie peacock
Dude. So that machine arrived, we pulled the controller off. I look on the back of the controller, it's got a little data plate thingy. Take a picture, Google Translate.
00:27:38
jamie peacock
What do you think the drives interfaces are?
00:27:43
Curt
I don't know.
00:27:43
jamie peacock
Step in direction.
00:27:44
Curt
um Just simple step direction.
00:27:46
jamie peacock
Depend direction.
00:27:47
Curt
Nice.
00:27:47
jamie peacock
And the VFT for the spindle?
00:27:48
Curt
Sick.
00:27:49
jamie peacock
0 to 10 volts. I'm like you lucky bolster.
00:27:51
Curt
Oh, sick.
00:27:52
jamie peacock
So I've been finding manuals for that and running through the manuals trying to find voltages on control signals and things.
00:27:53
Curt
Super easy. yeah
00:27:59
jamie peacock
Not much info. But if I put in 5 volts and it doesn't work, then I'll put in 24. I'm not going to start with 24. um But yeah, I think we're going to have everything out my driveway in like two weeks.
00:28:10
Curt
Nice.
00:28:10
jamie peacock
We've got to wait for it a chuck adapter.
00:28:10
Curt
Nice.
00:28:12
jamie peacock
That's it. And there's nowhere on those ways. at all.
00:28:16
Curt
Oh, beautiful.
00:28:16
jamie peacock
Yeah, I don't ever rent brass never and coolant. There's never been coolants in a coolant tank.
00:28:22
Curt
Huh.
00:28:23
jamie peacock
It's grand brass at our local tap manufacturer.
00:28:28
Curt
Right, right. youre I think you're saying that.
00:28:29
jamie peacock
Now get literally has a flag and he spoke to the guy bought it from me he was like, Oh, no, um they bought it on auction from them.
00:28:29
Curt
Yeah.
00:28:36
jamie peacock
And then it arrived in the parameters are missing and they couldn't get anyone to fix it. it just stood there until they sold it. It also came with like, probably 50 meters of nice big trailing cable.
00:28:43
Curt
Yeah.
00:28:48
jamie peacock
So my machine is getting a piece of that trailing cable to power it. That's orange one.
00:28:52
Curt
ah Oh, cool, cool, cool, cool. Yeah.
00:28:54
jamie peacock
It looks cool.
00:28:55
Curt
oh pretty.
00:28:55
jamie peacock
So yeah, and then yeah, we're looking at phase converters. I actually put a link in the notes for the phase converter that I have because it's actually really cool. They've a picture of the insides on their website. Super basic, but steps the voltage up, which is kind of cool.
00:29:11
jamie peacock
yeah So I figured I'd put a thing in the show notes.
00:29:11
Curt
Cool.
00:29:13
jamie peacock
If anyone is interested, they can have a look at the phase converter because it is kind of interesting.
00:29:17
Curt
Nice.
00:29:18
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:29:20
Curt
Cool.
00:29:20
jamie peacock
Okay, before we continue, let's shout out our Patreons.
00:29:21
Curt
well
00:29:23
Curt
Yeah, man.
00:29:24
jamie peacock
We got a new Patreon. Thank you to Brad for joining the Patreon.
00:29:26
Curt
Ooh.
00:29:28
jamie peacock
And then thank you to Jade from Benchmark20, Luke from Fabtastics, AJ from Subtract Manufacturing and 20 other companies, AJ from Nocturnal Welding, Jason S. and the Aussie Machinist.
00:29:40
jamie peacock
You guys make the wheels on the podcast go round and round and make it so we don't sleep on the streets Chicago, which would be less than ideal considering there's sandwich-throwing crackheads there.
00:29:46
Curt
Yeah, I appreciate it.
00:29:53
jamie peacock
It was great fun.
00:29:53
Curt
sandwiches would be the least thing worst or least worrying thing to be thrown.
00:29:56
jamie peacock
and I literally had one throw ah I had a crackhead throw sandwich over my head while I was waiting for an uber one night during nine years last year.
00:30:01
Curt
Oh.
00:30:03
Curt
Sandwiches way better than way better than poo, so I'll take... Throw sandwiches at me.
00:30:07
jamie peacock
Fair enough. Anyone like that?
00:30:08
Curt
that's fine. ha ha. ha ha.
00:30:10
jamie peacock
Okay, throw them in front of a train.
00:30:13
jamie peacock
So how have you become a YouTube sellout good?
00:30:13
Curt
Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha.
00:30:16
Curt
Oh. Uh, so I'm becoming a sellout, um, because some member I talked about last week that, uh, uh, Revelpoint company reached out to me with their scanner.
00:30:23
jamie peacock
Nice. Yeah. Okay.
00:30:25
jamie peacock
Interesting.
00:30:25
Curt
So yeah, they're sending me one, which is kind of wild.
00:30:26
Curt
Um, So yeah, they sent me in their like brand new like blue structured light scanner. um Yeah, I'm kind of jazzed. I've always wanted it like a decent scanner, and this one is, quote, metrology grade.
00:30:37
Curt
um So I mean, the the specs on it are pretty impressive. so I'm curious to see. I told them what I'm trying to scan, ah something crazy tiny. they're like, OK, well, it'll be a it should do it. I'm like, well, we'll see.
00:30:48
Curt
So yeah.
00:30:48
jamie peacock
okay interesting
00:30:49
Curt
Yeah, they were cool. They said I could, you know, share my honest opinion and all that jazz. Like, obviously, it's a you know, paid. They're giving it to me to do a video on it. So I'm going to do a video for them.
00:30:58
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:30:58
Curt
and um but yeah, then I get a scanner out of the deal. So I was like, why the hell not? I've always wanted one. And it's the first piece of like the first person or the first company that's reached out to me where I'm like, hey, you're not just slinging like flavor of the month kind of like a widget or something.
00:31:13
Curt
So like, this is something that actually looks like it has some use to it. So I give it a whirl. See how it works.
00:31:16
jamie peacock
Yeah. So your workshop model is going to become super accurate.
00:31:22
Curt
exactly yeah it's uh i i don't know what i'm i'm gonna scan goddamn everything i get my hands on but it's it's it i was just gonna say it's gonna make use of my like i have 64 gigs of ram and already i'm like okay that i might be upgrading that to like the the next size up here because it's crazy how many polygons you can start generating when you're you know doing a high detail scan like it's like
00:31:27
jamie peacock
Oh, 100%. I have a 3D scan of both that I can't use, because Fusion just hates me when I try.
00:31:45
jamie peacock
Yeah, we'll scan it.
00:31:47
Curt
multiple gig models is not difficult to accumulate. so
00:31:52
jamie peacock
Oh, I think i have figured out the musical PCs that I'm going to be playing shortly.
00:31:58
Curt
How's that? What do you mean
00:31:58
jamie peacock
because this computer up here can't be upgraded to Windows 11 because apparently it's too freaking old so like okay the PC that runs my laser cutter is from 2011 it's my gaming PC from 2011
00:32:06
Curt
Right.
00:32:13
jamie peacock
And it was being dumb this morning, like had to reseat the memory and whatnot. So I think it might be on its way out.
00:32:19
Curt
Okay.
00:32:21
jamie peacock
So going to take Danica's laptop with that there at the the laser cutting PC.
00:32:21
Curt
okay
00:32:26
jamie peacock
Take that case because it's a really nice Antec case. bring it up here order an upgrade kit that has a mini atx motherboard for that case take my ryzen 5600g put that in there put a 5700 or something equivalent so an upgraded cpu into my pc with the graphics card from this pc and then this pc will end up downstairs as my media pc for watching tv
00:32:56
jamie peacock
And I can make it all work because she needs more RAM and she needs more storage. So got to sort that out for her.
00:32:56
Curt
Okay.
00:33:01
Curt
Right. Yeah.
00:33:03
jamie peacock
We don't play games on the PCs anymore, really. So musical PCs will make it work. And then, yeah, got something else to discuss in the the Google box section.
00:33:09
Curt
Cool.
00:33:13
jamie peacock
I don't know if you've been watching that.
00:33:17
Curt
Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
00:33:17
jamie peacock
Yes, okay, cool. I want to discuss that with you, but we'll do that later. That can be that can be an after show topic.
00:33:22
Curt
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
00:33:24
jamie peacock
um
00:33:24
Curt
Tempt people.
00:33:26
jamie peacock
Yeah, so your digital robot, what is your plan
Automating Business Operations
00:33:31
Curt
Yeah, I think, well, first of all, like all all the shipping stuff, i can I can do a better job of automating that, which is taking me ah a decent amount of time. I use ShipStation. It has a lot more like things in place where it can like auto populate, auto bring in my proper SKUs, like do everything so I can just one click it.
00:33:31
jamie peacock
there, Kurt?
00:33:46
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:33:48
Curt
Because I have it set up so that I can like one click every country, like one click all the US orders, one click all the Canadian orders, one click all the international orders. But I want to populate that up so it pulls all the shipping stuff properly. So i don't even have to do that anymore.
00:34:00
Curt
um And then I'm to find some more. We talked about this like months ago and I just sat on my hands and didn't do it. And now I'm kind of kicking myself is um more auto responders for like ah messages like through my phone and then through email. Not not so much auto responders, but like auto response generators.
00:34:16
jamie peacock
canned, yeah, like canned messages.
00:34:16
Curt
So that. Yeah, give me a canned message that I can put four words in to make it sound like it's not a canned message, but then I don't have to spend the three minutes typing out an email that I've typed out 150,000 times.
00:34:29
Curt
i don't want to be a like I don't want people to be like, get a message that's like, thanks, insert name here, for your message. like you know like I don't want that, but I also don't want to like answer the same question i've answered a billion times. so
00:34:42
jamie peacock
Gmail did a not super shit job at that today for me, actually.
00:34:46
Curt
Yeah, yeah.
00:34:46
jamie peacock
chatting to the guy reached out for the shipping, and he wanted to know carrier we use, and it literally knew what carrier we used, which was kind of creepy.
00:34:47
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:34:54
jamie peacock
And then I just deleted the second half the email and typed something else in there.
00:34:55
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:34:57
jamie peacock
Because i didn't feel like typing the words FedEx. So what's full task?
00:35:01
Curt
Well, totally. And with how good like AI, like language, you know, models are getting, like, I'm sure there's something out there that will do a really good job and, you know, save me 90% of the work.
00:35:06
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:35:11
jamie peacock
a Do you listen to the map manufacturing automation product podcast?
00:35:14
Curt
Excuse me.
00:35:17
Curt
On occasion, on occasion.
00:35:18
jamie peacock
Okay, so they they've been going through automating these things using AI assistance and whatnot.
00:35:24
jamie peacock
And then i it works, it works, and then it just shits the bed. And then you get a redev it and it works and works and then it just shits the bed. So yeah, it would be the only concern I would have with one of those.
00:35:24
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:35:34
Curt
that's that's kind of why That's kind of why I wanted to run a local one.
00:35:35
jamie peacock
I think they're using perplexity. Yeah, you know
00:35:40
Curt
And that's main reason I built this PC with so much RAM is to run kind of a local AI that would just help me in my world of like, this is what I do.
00:35:46
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:35:47
Curt
like Answer all its questions or provide it information and let it help me. I'm sure that exists out there.
00:35:51
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:35:51
Curt
I haven't looked into it, but I'm sure it exists. And that would help a shit ton because like, yeah, I get a lot of get a lot of that.
00:35:54
jamie peacock
OK. Yeah.
00:35:58
Curt
I don't mind it. I love interacting with the community, but then it's like, on on these days where I put out sales, like, it gets to be a lot where I'm spending, like, multiple hours just answering emails and messages and, like, yeah, it gets...
00:36:09
jamie peacock
Yeah, no, that admin sucks.
00:36:12
Curt
Admin does suck. Yeah. It does suck.
00:36:13
jamie peacock
You're machinist.
00:36:14
Curt
It's the one part that... Well, and it's the one part that makes, like... Like if you, like from my perspective, I'm dealing with whatever X amount of people, like and there's so many of them, but to each single, each of those single people, like it's a one-on-one conversation.
00:36:27
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:36:29
Curt
So like, if you, if you can respond to that one person, it sounds like you sound like an asshole, but like, and people get it.
00:36:31
jamie peacock
Yeah, no, 100%.
00:36:35
Curt
Like people are fine and people cut me a lot of slack. Like if I'm, you know, if I'm late responding to something, no one ever gets upset, but it's still like, I'd like to get better at that without having to not sleep.
00:36:46
jamie peacock
Without having to actually get better at it.
00:36:46
Curt
So
00:36:49
Curt
Well, this is the one area where it should be really... Like, I don't need frickin' AI to start building the art. Like, AI, do this work and do it well. And then I can, you know, do the fun stuff like draw pictures.
00:37:02
jamie peacock
Yeah, no, no, fair enough.
00:37:02
Curt
Anyway.
00:37:03
jamie peacock
But yeah, no, no, the Edmund stuff is freaking killer.
00:37:04
Curt
That's what I want to piss around with.
00:37:06
jamie peacock
I hate it. I was responding to walls and dump shit today for drone tags.
00:37:08
Curt
Yeah.
00:37:12
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:37:13
jamie peacock
Drones have to be registered here for commercial use with a fireproof tag. We do the fireproof tags. I got an email. Can I have a quote? I'm like, cool. Here's the pricing. And then I'm like, are you that registered? He's like, No, I'm like, okay, cool. Those are the prices. I'll just give you my banking details. you You don't need an invoice.
00:37:30
jamie peacock
That one I have to share money with the government. Screw them.
00:37:33
Curt
Yeah.
00:37:34
jamie peacock
So yeah, like, and then it's okay. That's not eight emails that have gone back and forth for, for a 10 or $15 order. It's like, woohoo.
00:37:44
jamie peacock
A little annoying.
00:37:44
Curt
yeah
00:37:47
Curt
Well, and same thing, like I would like to just be able to tell my computer, be like, hey, ah follow up with my insurance company and say that it's paid. So I don't have to go open that email and it's in, you know, this folder and then click into it and be like, the thing was paid today.
00:37:59
Curt
Thank you so much. Submit. Like, I just, I don't want to do that baloney work. Like there's smart systems out there.
00:38:04
jamie peacock
No, 100%.
00:38:05
Curt
Like it can do this for me.
00:38:06
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:38:07
Curt
So, yeah.
00:38:08
jamie peacock
No, 100%.
00:38:09
Curt
Yeah.
00:38:10
jamie peacock
Admin sucks and hate it
00:38:12
Curt
Yeah, it does. It does.
00:38:13
jamie peacock
Yes. Did you see my story from this morning?
00:38:17
Curt
ah Which one?
00:38:19
jamie peacock
The Blisk.
00:38:21
Curt
ah I don't think so.
00:38:22
jamie peacock
Remember I left the hole out?
00:38:23
Curt
No.
Machining Challenges and Adaptations
00:38:24
jamie peacock
Okay. You remember I left the hole out?
00:38:25
Curt
Oh, yeah totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but it's not for the listener.
00:38:28
jamie peacock
They spotted that. So I left the whole lot because didn't feel like dealing with it. And they spotted this. So I had to put the hole in.
00:38:35
jamie peacock
So this morning, what, that I left the hole out? No, I just didn't mention it to them.
00:38:36
Curt
But weren't they aware of it?
00:38:41
jamie peacock
And then they were oh, it's missing. It's missing. Oh, sorry, I missed it on the drawing.
00:38:41
Curt
Oh, shit. I thought you told them that.
00:38:45
jamie peacock
I didn't want fucking do it.
00:38:45
Curt
Oh, okay.
00:38:46
jamie peacock
So then I had to order, had to order a stupid extension. So 10 diameter. extension 150 mils long, so 3-8, call it 6 inches long, down to a, not a 1-8 tool, a 3-millimeter freaking tool, which I don't have headmills that are 3-millimeter shank, all my stuff is common for.
00:38:47
Curt
um okay
00:38:55
Curt
Yeah.
00:38:59
Curt
yeah
00:39:08
jamie peacock
So anyway, I found a NC spotting drill that was 3 mil that I had. So I put it in this extension, put the extension into my tool cutter grinder, ground down this thing to 1.8, and then stepped it to 2.05,
00:39:20
jamie peacock
before door off drilled a test piece because I had ah the one of the previous blisks, test piece, and then proceeded to rapid the machine right through the fucking drill bit.
00:39:33
Curt
Oh,
00:39:33
jamie peacock
So there were a few swear words that came out of my mouth. And then opened the drawer and I'm looking, now I'm looking for another tool because I need to make a plan. Like was going to take a three mil end mill and grind that down and use it as a drill, which wasn't going to go well.
00:39:46
jamie peacock
And then I found some 1.5 millimeter ball noses that I had.
00:39:46
Curt
Yeah.
00:39:50
jamie peacock
Three millimeter shank, don't know where they're from. Like, don't know why they're in my draw, but anyway, put one of those in. Started boring, it's not long enough, to take it out. Put it in the tool and cutter grinder.
00:39:50
Curt
Mm. Mm-hmm.
00:40:01
jamie peacock
Relieve the shank. And then put it back in, and then I interpolated the bores. And they're done. So they are finished.
00:40:07
Curt
Nice.
00:40:07
jamie peacock
But that fixture, our Fusion was shitting the bed hard today.
00:40:08
Curt
OK.
00:40:13
jamie peacock
I pushed the thing to toolpath, the fixture. When I tried to pull it back, Fusion just exploded.
00:40:16
Curt
Yeah.
00:40:17
jamie peacock
I'm like, fuck, okay.
00:40:19
Curt
OK.
00:40:19
jamie peacock
Reboot Fusion. Fusion explodes. try again. I'm like, okay, fuck, there's a program with my hand. So I quickly programmed it. And yeah, interesting fixture. So it's got a locating feature on this side.
00:40:30
jamie peacock
Then I turned it over and I machined. So when it was this way, I machined the 15 degree angle. So when I put in my vase, it located at the 15 degree angle. And then I had an undercut at 15 degrees that I just surfaced to the ball mill so that I could probe and find an edge that I could use to program.
00:40:47
Curt
right Right, right, right, right, okay.
00:40:47
jamie peacock
it worked yeah it worked pretty well. Like, actually went pretty well. Clearance was like less than a millimeter to that 10mm extension. Like, it was stupid. But anyway, it's now done, and I never have to see them again.
00:41:00
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:41:00
Curt
as I was going to say, I thought you were going to say like you rapid it into the work and then just totally had to do it all again.
00:41:01
jamie peacock
yeah And then...
00:41:07
Curt
I was like, oh no. but Okay, that's nice.
00:41:08
jamie peacock
you No, no.
00:41:10
Curt
That's nice. That's nice.
00:41:10
jamie peacock
And I was a lot more careful after that. But yeah.
00:41:13
jamie peacock
ah
00:41:13
Curt
i bet.
00:41:13
Curt
Yeah.
00:41:14
jamie peacock
And then we went, so went to go drop those off. Came back and as I pull up to my house, one of my customers delivery vans said, look, I haven't spoken to them.
00:41:24
jamie peacock
Wasn't expecting anything. Drops off this big box. Okay, cool. Open. I'm like, what the fuck is this? I'm not expecting anything. Grab my keys, like rip open the box. Okay, cool. So messaged the guy. Hey, you guys just delivered raw material. What do you need?
00:41:37
jamie peacock
No, we need 200 of these things. It's a part I do for the bank for these guys who do it for the banks. It's a recurring part. So I've got fixturing. Set it up, and the last tool's a one millimeter end mill, and before the program's done, it does a tool break detect.
00:41:51
jamie peacock
And the tool break detect finally caught a broken tool.
00:41:52
Curt
Okay.
00:41:55
Curt
Yay!
00:41:55
jamie peacock
I'm pretty sure it's the first time I've caught a broken tool with my tool break detection. I was so happy that I broke the tool.
00:42:00
Curt
yeah
00:42:03
jamie peacock
But yeah, I've got a machine, 200 of these things. I think I'm like 40-something in already.
00:42:08
jamie peacock
or close to 50.
00:42:08
Curt
Nice, okay.
00:42:08
jamie peacock
I get load and go. they are then Zero points. Throw the fixture in. Hit chooch and it just runs. Like, I think I went from the machine being off to running parts in like under five minutes.
00:42:09
Curt
Okay.
00:42:18
Curt
Yeah.
00:42:22
Curt
Oh, nice. Okay.
00:42:23
jamie peacock
Yeah, 100%.
00:42:23
Curt
Yeah. Nice bread and butter work. Yeah.
00:42:26
jamie peacock
And it's going to run for the probably the whole of tomorrow. And then we'll be done.
00:42:29
Curt
Sick.
00:42:30
jamie peacock
I'm like, cool. The work is starting to roll in for the end of the year because that's coming up now. in a month's time, we pretty much won't be able to get material anymore this year. So I'm, i was meant to send email today, I'm going to chase down, I get to do it tomorrow to write it for me. So it doesn't sound like, oi dickheads, place orders. We're going to make it sound little bit better than that.
00:42:50
jamie peacock
Basically saying if you want stuff by the end of January, you best place your orders this month, like middle of this month. And if you only want to deliver it in January, best you pay a 50% deposit now, because I ain't bankrolling that shit.
00:43:03
Curt
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:43:04
jamie peacock
like Because it's a couple of my customers on 30 days, but sorry, I'm not rolling it for 60 days on my on my account. It's not happening.
00:43:11
jamie peacock
But I'm trying to just make sure they don't go without ports.
00:43:11
Curt
Yeah.
00:43:12
Curt
Yeah.
00:43:15
jamie peacock
Because that is one of the things that things that are stressing me just a little is the fact that I don't have the ability to make one of my biggest one of my highest quantity part numbers until that VFD arrives.
00:43:16
Curt
Yeah.
00:43:27
jamie peacock
So that is mildly, mildly stressful.
00:43:32
Curt
Yeah, I could see that being stressful. Yeah, for sure.
00:43:34
jamie peacock
No, just ever so slightly. Kurt, there's only one topic left and it's a great one.
00:43:37
Curt
Yeah.
00:43:41
Curt
i Yeah, it sounds it sounds heinous, so ah tell the story.
00:43:46
jamie peacock
So what do you think I did all day yesterday?
00:43:49
Curt
ah Cried in a corner? Oh, okay.
00:43:51
jamie peacock
ah No, not quite. I went to go, well, kind of, because I had a really rough night before, anyway.
00:43:53
Curt
Okay, that's good.
00:43:56
jamie peacock
Went through at about 10 a.m. m to Bertha to go and give a guy training and get him up to speed and run some parts he needed to run.
Client Training and Overcoming Hurdles
00:44:03
jamie peacock
Then we procrastinated until the machine was in his place. So we got Fusion working for him. He's running the free version, so can only output a single tool at a time, which is a bit annoying when you've got Tool 14 as a drill and a boring bar because it's u-drill.
00:44:17
jamie peacock
So you have to output the drill and then output. Yeah. Anyway, then are we I was having to go through and edit because there's rapids either.
00:44:20
Curt
yeah Totally.
00:44:23
jamie peacock
I was having to edit that.
00:44:24
Curt
Yeah, that's all. Yeah.
00:44:25
jamie peacock
um But anyway, we made some parts, smoked a Udrill. um I gave him an old Udrill I had. I'm like, yes, the Udrill, yes, I'm spare inserts.
00:44:35
jamie peacock
Gave him a T6 wrench, not realizing I had opened the screws up and made them for a T7. So we couldn't change the inserts. So we ran the Ali inserts and we ran one part, no problem, and then smoked it on the second part.
00:44:49
jamie peacock
So we then, he's got a manualyn manual, a manual that just drilled the parts out. Like it's not the end of the world, we used a boring bar. And we made our way through all the parts we need to we had to make eight eight parts.
00:45:00
jamie peacock
It took us 10 hours. They're not complicated parts.
00:45:05
jamie peacock
But when he ordered material, ordered 75mm materials, so I'm busy programming it. I'm like, cool, what's the material? Oh, 75, sweet. Put it in the machine, the first facing pass. Sounded a bit like it engaged, to kind of wrong.
00:45:05
Curt
Oh, OK.
00:45:17
jamie peacock
First facing pass, second facing pass, drops and take a 5mm cut and sends it and fucking throws a chunk of by 100 long e nineteenine condition t
00:45:30
Curt
e oh no oh no
00:45:30
jamie peacock
and So, stop, stop the machine, loosen it, reseat everything. In fact, it looks like it's running out a little bit. we I'm like, let's try to see what's happening. Like, pulled all the jaws out to check if maybe we snapped one of the teeth off the jaws or something.
00:45:47
jamie peacock
no everything looks okay. Hey, this one's a bit tight. Look there, crack next to the middle tee piece on the jaw.
00:45:55
jamie peacock
Like, shit, we've just broken your chuck. So... we turned the jaws around so we could close the chuck more to grip and we're like, Tata, it's not opening.
00:45:55
Curt
ah oh no
00:46:05
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:46:07
jamie peacock
The crack's not opening. So we carried on running.
00:46:10
Curt
OK.
00:46:11
jamie peacock
So he's going to take it off. star he's goingnna take He'll take it off this week, ah strip the chuck, heat it up, and then just fuse that closed with the tick.
00:46:20
Curt
OK.
00:46:20
jamie peacock
And then you'll see if it cracks.
00:46:20
Curt
OK.
00:46:22
jamie peacock
You'll see the crack in the in the fuse. And like we were discussing it, okay, cool.
00:46:24
Curt
Yeah.
00:46:26
jamie peacock
Next time, four-jaw chuck for op one. And then soft jaws in that chuck for up to because then you can have the chuck a lot more closed. It's a bit more rigid. It's fine. It's not the end of the world. He's not going to have to go buy a new chuck tomorrow to carry on.
00:46:40
jamie peacock
But yeah. And then I know it's a manual chuck.
00:46:40
Curt
Well, and that's it's a man but's a his manual chuck, right?
00:46:44
Curt
Like that's not the hydraulic?
00:46:47
jamie peacock
So it's not $200 or so $250 to buy new one.
00:46:47
Curt
Yeah.
00:46:47
Curt
OK. So it's not. Yeah. Yeah.
00:46:51
jamie peacock
But yeah, you don't have to buy new one if you can avoid it. um
00:46:54
Curt
Totally. Yeah.
00:46:54
jamie peacock
And then the machine decided it wanted to be possessed.
00:46:59
Curt
OK.
00:47:00
jamie peacock
So I've had a ah big left-hand boring ball that I gave him as well because have two. Coming to bore the soft jaws, put the spindle into reverse, and the machine goes, fucks off sideways.
00:47:12
jamie peacock
So i'm like, what the shit just happened? Did I maybe leave the, did it cycle start or something? So I cleared the program that was loaded, put the spindle warm-up program so there's no X or Z movements.
00:47:25
jamie peacock
Come back and start the spindle in reverse and it fucks off up again. I'm like, what the hell is going on? The only thing that we could figure because we power cycle, then it was okay for a while.
00:47:38
jamie peacock
The VFD is pushing back EMF and the back EMF is exciting the fucking step signals.
00:47:49
jamie peacock
That's the only thing i can figure. It's never been possessed before. And now that we've swapped the VFD, it's a fuck up.
00:47:53
Curt
yeah
00:47:55
jamie peacock
So I'm going to take my four kilowatt VFD that have and go and install that on Bertha just to try and mitigate these stupid issues.
00:48:02
jamie peacock
But yeah, really weird. Only in reverse. Doesn't do it and when you go forward. I'm like, what the fuck?
00:48:02
Curt
Yeah, that's weird.
00:48:08
Curt
That's a little weird. Yeah, that's bizarre.
00:48:09
jamie peacock
It's super weird. It's not showing it as movement on the screen. It's just like the drive's tuning fuck lets go.
00:48:17
jamie peacock
And then it did it in the Z as well, once or twice. So yeah, really weird.
00:48:17
Curt
Weird.
00:48:21
Curt
That's weird.
00:48:21
jamie peacock
Like we were just trying to get the job done. And it was being really, really possessed.
00:48:28
jamie peacock
But anyway, at the end of the evening, we got all the jobs done, all pretty good tolerancing. So yeah, it was a success, but it took us 10 hours.
00:48:28
Curt
That's bizarre, yeah.
00:48:39
Curt
ah I mean, i guess i guess it's guess it depends how simple the parts are, but that doesn't that doesn't seem crazy.
00:48:39
jamie peacock
I was expecting like two or three, 10 hours, whole sudden gone.
00:48:46
jamie peacock
It's no, no, they're pretty simple parts.
00:48:46
Curt
But, you know.
00:48:48
jamie peacock
It's like fucking 10 minutes of machine on each one. and The problem is like also you ordered 100 mil long material.
00:48:51
Curt
Oh. okay.
00:48:53
jamie peacock
Now in the future he's going order 80 millimeter long material or 85 because he needs 25 for the one part and 50 for the other.
00:48:58
Curt
Yeah.
00:49:01
jamie peacock
So we don't want to be roughing off 25 mils of material with 0.45 facing passes because we also don't trust Chuck too much.
00:49:07
Curt
Yeah.
00:49:09
jamie peacock
So like, it's finding a balance and dialed in now. But we made folders on the machine, as you put code, we're archiving all the code.
00:49:13
Curt
Yeah.
00:49:17
jamie peacock
So it's all if he wants to run it again, it's all there and you can just run the code.
00:49:22
jamie peacock
But yeah, it was it was fun.
00:49:22
Curt
Totally.
00:49:22
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
00:49:23
jamie peacock
And yeah, he's pretty chilled about the whole experience. um Other than the machine being a little fucking possessed. That was a bit annoying.
00:49:31
Curt
That's a weird one. That's a weird one.
00:49:32
jamie peacock
Yeah, but that VFD was causing so much back EMR that it was freaking the EMCO out.
00:49:39
Curt
Oh, okay. Well, yeah.
00:49:40
jamie peacock
Yeah, I think that I think the issue is just the fact that VFD, I'm just gonna swap the VFD for the four kilowatt that I have and then it'll be problem solved.
00:49:40
Curt
Okay. Then maybe.
00:49:47
jamie peacock
Or put the old one back on. But then the runs out of horsepower on the old one.
00:49:50
Curt
Yeah.
00:49:53
jamie peacock
Like you can take twice the depth of cut with the new VFD.
00:49:57
Curt
Hmm.
00:49:58
jamie peacock
Yeah, so anyway.
00:49:59
Curt
Yeah.
00:50:00
jamie peacock
But yeah, it was fun and exciting. That's what's important.
00:50:05
Curt
Yeah. Well, it sounds, sounds apart.
00:50:05
jamie peacock
Now, on a more exciting note, we got some questions in the Q&A today.
00:50:11
Curt
Ah, yes. Yes, we do
00:50:12
jamie peacock
Yes, are very fancy.
00:50:13
Curt
So thank you to the people who dropped Q&As. I did not have a link on my site. So whoever sent them to Jamie, actually, we'll shout you out right now because we're going to go through them all.
00:50:21
jamie peacock
Yes, that's the plan. Ooh, and I thought I would but just check and we have another one.
00:50:27
Curt
Ooh.
00:50:28
jamie peacock
Yes, Croft.
00:50:30
Curt
Well, while Jamie types, ah I will sit here and sing you all a song. No, I'm not going sing anything.
00:50:37
jamie peacock
Yeah, no, hang on, I don't know, while we're processing.
00:50:42
Curt
um
00:50:44
jamie peacock
I'm trying to get the name correct, and then I'm not in the rough.
00:50:45
Curt
so Go get yourself ah a nice drink or a snack. This is the ah but halftime of the podcast. where we yeah as ah This is a low production show.
00:50:56
Curt
So we...
00:50:57
jamie peacock
This is a minimum effort show. Well, we have music at least. Okay, there we go.
00:51:02
Curt
Yeah.
00:51:03
jamie peacock
Anyone else who puts in questions, it's too late now.
00:51:03
Curt
Done.
00:51:05
jamie peacock
So...
00:51:06
Curt
ah
00:51:07
jamie peacock
first question you know oh oh what fixed okay cool okay first question is uh i'm pretty sure aimed at me and that's from uh one of my main customers musa uh he wanted to know when will spinderella be running as soon as my vfd arrives
00:51:08
Curt
I can't see the question because you your box is on it, but
00:51:14
Curt
it's invisible to me. There we go. Now I can see it. It was weird. It was highlighted. I couldn't see it.
00:51:21
Curt
Yes.
00:51:29
jamie peacock
because I to order a big effect of BFT. So yeah, two weeks or so, and then that will be running. Then we've got Armstrong Power Lifts, which is an awesome name for a power lift because their arms are strong.
00:51:41
jamie peacock
Yes, what is the average machinist salary in your countries? Asking from Australia. So Danica and I actually discussed this this afternoon while we were our walk.
00:51:51
jamie peacock
And she's like, you need to give context. for cost of living before i just go and do my thing because if i convert to dollars when i left where i was working it was don't feel like doing maths in my head one moment please loading divide bar at the time it was about 16 and a half rands i was just shy of 1600
00:51:51
Curt
All right.
00:51:56
Curt
Totally. Yeah, yeah.
00:52:21
Curt
Okay. Okay.
00:52:22
jamie peacock
Yeah, so hourly rates on that was... I would say an hour was my hourly rate.
00:52:38
Curt
Okay.
00:52:39
jamie peacock
Which is hilariously low when you compare it to everyone else. But then again, loaf of bread here cost us less than a dollar.
00:52:42
Curt
Yeah.
00:52:46
Curt
Yeah, fair. That's, I mean, that's half of our minimum wage here, so.
00:52:47
jamie peacock
So...
00:52:49
jamie peacock
Exactly. So yeah, our minimum wage is absolutely hilarious in South Africa.
00:52:51
Curt
Yeah.
00:52:55
jamie peacock
With the current exchange rate, it is $1.58 per hour. 100%.
00:53:03
Curt
Yeah. Yeah, but like you said, it's a different economic world, so it it works. Yeah, yeah.
00:53:07
jamie peacock
So yeah, thing. like And machinists, yeah... You're pretty much kept at that what I was earning like, because your boss doesn't want you to earn more because then well, then you think you're in the place and he want pay you any more than that.
00:53:20
jamie peacock
So yeah they they tend to take a bit of advantage. ah They know you can't even earn more elsewhere because everyone pays the same.
00:53:24
Curt
Fair enough.
00:53:26
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:53:28
Curt
Yeah.
00:53:29
jamie peacock
That's my experience. i But also I live in the poor people place of the world.
00:53:33
Curt
Yeah, yeah, well, fair, yeah. um So here it's, I don't know, it's I mean, obviously it's it's more, but our cost of living here is quite a bit different. So if I want to convert, let's say I'll convert them to US because probably most people are US. I'd say the minimum for like ah like a very basic like button pusher, literally nothing else, but like maybe putting a part in device, tightening it, and hitting the green button. And then if it starts to make a lot of noise and things and sparks, you hit the red button. Like one of those kind of people, maybe you'll make,
00:54:01
Curt
The lowest it probably pays about like maybe 20 US an hour. um That's kind of probably your like general labor almost level. I wouldn't even call that a machinist because you you're a button pusher. You can call yourself machinist, but you're just a glorified button pusher.
00:54:12
Curt
And then if you're like doing setups, cam, stuff that, I mean, you could... $40, $50 an hour um is probably kind of commonplace if like if you're skilled.
00:54:24
Curt
um I mean, there's probably, there's definite like people doing crazy work like out of town in higher risk environments that are probably going to make more. And there's people that are you know doing less work that's going to make less.
00:54:34
Curt
But I'd say that's a probably a good span between, somewhere between 20 and let's say 50 is probably pretty average here for machinist's salary.
00:54:39
jamie peacock
move
00:54:41
Curt
Yeah. definitely a reasonable like if you're if you're coming out of school like it's definitely worth going into like you you're you'll make money um so yeah
00:54:41
jamie peacock
yeah yeah 100% now the trade trade's always good to go into if you're coming out of freaking school you just get a bad rap for some stupid reason
00:54:53
Curt
yeah like and yeah it teaches you so many other things yeah i know so many yeah i i trade school is fantastic there's a lot of there's a lot of trades here where you can i mean if you're willing to work out of town here oil field stuff you can make a crap ton of money like double triple that without
00:55:08
jamie peacock
Or even just go be a turd herder. Just go be a turd herder and you'll make a killing. People are always going to shit. fuck
00:55:14
Curt
Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's jobs for sure. Yeah. So
00:55:17
jamie peacock
Yeah. but yeah um Okay. Tommy Turbine1.
00:55:24
jamie peacock
If you had employees, what would your view on personal projects on idle machines be? Yay or nay?
00:55:24
Curt
Sick name.
00:55:35
Curt
you want to start off or let me do?
00:55:37
jamie peacock
I'll start off, I'm pretty sure my boss would, where I used to work would never let that happen again, because I took full advantage. I built a CNC machine on the machines after hours so I could afford to leave.
00:55:48
jamie peacock
I had free reign. Like, if, like, even if production was running, I'd slot my own shit in between, because they weren't paying that much attention that I could get away with shit like that. i used to run parts on the wire cutter for myself.
00:55:48
Curt
Yeah.
00:56:00
jamie peacock
because it was just easier to do it on the wire cover than to do on anything else. So I would throw out like I've got a bunch of stuff laying around that I like up for shits and giggles.
00:56:08
Curt
Nice.
00:56:08
jamie peacock
But yeah, it's it's a good way to get guys to learn. i know what's his name tabletop machine top machine shop. He made those tiny little turrets.
00:56:20
jamie peacock
And that was all made after hours on the work machines. Like if you're going to need fancy tools, buy your own fancy tools. We use broken and beat up end mills that are on the scrapbook kind of story. And I think it's really good for teaching people as long as they don't break your machine.
00:56:36
Curt
Yeah, I basically echo you echo that perfectly.
00:56:37
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yeah.
00:56:39
Curt
Like, same thing. My old day job, my my boss gave me. I mean, I was a little different situation. I set up all the machines. I did all the cam. I did everything. Those machines were my machines. Like, if I broke them, I cried. So, um like, in in the sense of that. So he had no issue with He's like, dude use the tools. Use the machine. Use our material. Use whatever you want. He's like, if it's going to advance your skills, do it.
00:56:59
Curt
Do whatever you want. After hours, so they're all yours. And i I'm so thankful that he did that because I learned so much. And then for all the people that I eventually got into a more managerial role and anybody that was skilled enough to run the machines without crashing them, like the people above the the red button, green button people, um all those people got the same kind of treatments. Like, hey, come in here, come after hours. If you want to come on the weekend, there's usually someone here. If you want to work on something, do it because it's going to advance your skills far faster than just doing production work because you're actually invested in it.
00:57:27
Curt
And the amount of people that took advantage of that was like zero, which blew my mind. Yeah.
00:57:32
jamie peacock
Well, that that is how I got into two actual big CNC machines was making tricopter frames after hours on the big ass Sigma mill.
00:57:33
Curt
Yeah.
00:57:41
jamie peacock
That's how learned to program it was making tricopter frames.
00:57:43
Curt
Yeah.
00:57:44
jamie peacock
And then my boss was like, No, okay, let's not do this on this machine. We're going use this for production.
00:57:47
Curt
yeah
00:57:47
jamie peacock
Let's build a little, little router. So we built a little, I built a little router. I designed it. We made the machine the parts at work. I built it, I assembled it during work hours, and we used it for doing nameplates and stuff as well. Um, but that's how i got into it.
00:58:00
jamie peacock
was actually who are discussing that with ah discussing it with someone was saying no, I built to my first CNC machine in 2009. When I had my first job working at our local, I call it a freight type story, repairing stuff on Fridays and Saturdays.
00:58:14
jamie peacock
That December took all my money and I followed an Instructables build of a CNC machine up frame like it was horrid.
00:58:19
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
00:58:22
jamie peacock
ah running turbo scenes, my mom's computer that I had to boot with a stiffy disc to make to run turbo CNC.
00:58:23
Curt
Yeah.
00:58:29
jamie peacock
And that's how i got into that's actually how I got the job where I used to work is that was on my CV that I had built a CNC machine and the guys are cool, send me pictures, had a look, is a cool, this light, he knows what he's doing.
00:58:34
Curt
yeah
00:58:39
jamie peacock
ah We can teach him.
00:58:41
Curt
yeah
00:58:42
jamie peacock
So ah
00:58:43
Curt
Yeah, and
Hands-On Learning and Resilience
00:58:44
jamie peacock
yeah, I think it's definitely a yay.
00:58:44
Curt
if I... Totally.
00:58:46
jamie peacock
And that's why I have the slowio. Like Carl wanted to learn. I'm my dude, come crash the slowio. you're not going to break anything.
00:58:50
Curt
totally
00:58:51
jamie peacock
And if you do, guess what? I built the machine. I can rebuild it.
00:58:55
Curt
totally if i if i had an employee i never will but if i had an employee absolutely i'd be like okay run my little kurt run the manual lathe like those things you're not really gonna hurt if you crash them and then if you're you know once you're at that point where i'm not freaked out that you're gonna blow shit up yeah of course run all the machines because it's the only way you're gonna learn that you're gonna learn better when it's your parts so yeah absolutely
00:59:01
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:59:12
jamie peacock
hundred 100%. Yes, because you're invested in it. Good job. and Cool. Then we've got a question from TwoStrikeMafia, aka John. What do you do when you scrap a part that you really did not want to scrap and it puts you in the red?
00:59:28
jamie peacock
I'm assuming the end bit is puts you in the red because the message cut out. But yeah, I like Kurt's answer because we discussed the questions before the podcast.
00:59:33
Curt
OK.
00:59:38
jamie peacock
Go cry in a corner and then cry a bit more.
00:59:40
Curt
Absolutely. Absolutely.
00:59:41
jamie peacock
and then suck it the fuck up and carry it on. um Yeah, I think we've all we've all been there where we scrap things out that happened to me last week on a tool steel job in the whole $250 on material.
00:59:45
Curt
Yeah.
00:59:53
jamie peacock
And ah the guy ended up getting material elsewhere and doing the parts on a manual machine himself because he had a tight deadline ah made the first part Something went wonky with what's all setting.
01:00:04
jamie peacock
I made the second part, the part came loose and shifted on when I was cutting the OD and it's like, okay, it's fucking scrap now. And i was like, dude, this is the situation. I can go get more materials. Like, no, don't, I'll get material and I'll just put on the lathe.
01:00:17
jamie peacock
So I'm in the hole $250 on that job. Like, I didn't deliver the parts. I don't expect him to pay me the fucking balance of what I quoted him. The parts were not right.
01:00:27
Curt
but
01:00:28
jamie peacock
And, yeah, what he was going to pay me, what was, because I misquoted the material as well. So was like, cool, what he owes me, well I will have just done this job for free, but I won't be in the hole. And, yeah, um I'm in the fucking hole. It's great.
01:00:40
jamie peacock
like being in the hole.
01:00:43
Curt
Yeah, I mean, that's, that's, it's no, I mean, it's kind of this,
01:00:43
jamie peacock
But, yeah.
01:00:46
jamie peacock
Cry on a corner and suck the fuck up and carry on.
01:00:48
Curt
cry and then the only way forward is kind of putting your foot in front of the next foot and even if you're wiping tears out of your eyes and like or so sweating profusely because you don't know what you're gonna freaking do next but
01:00:54
jamie peacock
Yeah, there's a reason. Yeah, well, there's a reason the windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror.
01:01:04
Curt
yeah exactly exactly and like yeah yeah yeah
01:01:05
jamie peacock
Shit happens. You've got to carry on. like just keep Just keep trucking.
01:01:11
jamie peacock
Yeah.
Joy and Creativity in the Machine Shop
01:01:12
jamie peacock
And then Joshua from Firmworks asks, ah what makes you boys happy in the machine shop? The only appropriate answer is fondling lades.
01:01:12
Curt
yeah
01:01:21
Curt
Oh, yeah, for sure. I love
01:01:22
jamie peacock
Yes. that no no, that specific comment is aimed at a very specific Patreon. And guest that we've had Mr. Gray, I was on a I was on a tool path call.
01:01:36
jamie peacock
And I mentioned that I haven't really used to part the last week because I've been fondling a lady.
01:01:42
Curt
Ah, yes. Yeah.
01:01:43
jamie peacock
Yes, it was quite entertaining. But yeah, I don't know when seeing the machines run that makes me happy.
01:01:46
Curt
Yeah.
01:01:51
jamie peacock
Money printing.
01:01:51
Curt
Yeah, I think i think me and you both got that unfortunate, fortunate slash whatever way you think of it, interest of just like, this kind of shit lights our brains up.
01:01:54
jamie peacock
Yeah. It makes me happy as well.
01:02:00
Curt
Like, seeing machines run still lights my brain up. Like, I just, even though I've seen him run hundreds, thousands of times, it's still, I still think it's so cool that I can design something digitally and have it machined and have a machine that makes it and then it comes out perfect in my hands that still blows my mind.
01:02:16
Curt
So yeah, that makes me happy.
01:02:17
jamie peacock
yeah not
01:02:18
Curt
That shit makes me happy.
01:02:19
jamie peacock
makes me very happy ah And then a last one from Croft Precision.
Entertainment Favorites: Movies and Audiobooks
01:02:25
jamie peacock
What's your favorite movie or movies? That's a difficult one.
01:02:31
Curt
um mine's a mine's a dead easy one the matrix series i if I had to watch one movie for the rest of my life I could only pick one it'd be that it'd be that series one two three no more
01:02:37
jamie peacock
Fair enough. Yeah, rewatched.
01:02:42
jamie peacock
yeah I rewatched. No, watched the fourth one, which was crap. um Danica hasn't watched them, but I can't get her to sit down to watch them.
01:02:52
Curt
oh that's unfortunate
01:02:53
jamie peacock
She just doesn't want to. I don't know. She's fucking broken. um They're really good. So is the original Alien movie. That's really, really good.
01:03:02
Curt
I'll give you that. Yep, I'll give you that.
01:03:03
jamie peacock
Yeah. After Resurrection, i kind of want to go rewatch that. i Yeah, don't know. Oh, I'm hitting escape. It's over and break anything. um Yeah, I don't know. how Movies. There's nothing I go back to to rewatch super often. I thoroughly enjoyed the I'm ah um'm drawing blank on it. The Tom Cruise movies.
01:03:27
jamie peacock
Mission Impossible.
01:03:28
Curt
Oh, Mission Impossible? Yeah, those are good.
01:03:29
jamie peacock
Yes. i don't know if you've watched the final final reckoning.
01:03:30
Curt
Yeah, for sure.
01:03:33
Curt
Dude, I stopped at like two or something. Not because I don't like him, I just haven't followed up on him.
01:03:34
jamie peacock
like Dude, you need to watch them all through in sequence because Final Reckoning calls back to the first one.
01:03:39
Curt
Okay.
01:03:43
jamie peacock
It's one continuous storyline.
01:03:46
jamie peacock
And it's actually executed pretty well.
01:03:46
Curt
Think what you went about that guy.
01:03:48
Curt
They're they're great shows. Yeah. Yeah.
01:03:49
jamie peacock
but do Those movies, ah you're not watching them to become an intellectual. You're watching them because they're entertaining.
01:03:54
jamie peacock
They're a popcorn movie.
01:03:55
Curt
Absolutely.
01:03:56
Curt
ah Absolutely.
01:03:56
jamie peacock
Like, they're a popcorn movie.
01:03:57
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
01:03:57
jamie peacock
You're watching it for the stunt solution.
01:03:58
Curt
100%.
01:04:00
jamie peacock
yeah There's a lot of popcorn movies that I really enjoy, but they're popcorn movies.
01:04:04
Curt
yeah
01:04:05
jamie peacock
like After Dune Part 2 came out, I went quite deep into the law of Dune, and i'm like, yeah, it was a good movie, but yeah, you could watch it as a popcorn movie, or you could read into it and all the fun stuff that goes with that.
01:04:11
Curt
yeah
01:04:18
jamie peacock
Although, i can tell you now it's going to be your favorite movie that's coming up next year.
01:04:18
Curt
There's so many.
01:04:22
Curt
I hope so, dude. I hope so.
01:04:24
jamie peacock
Yes, I liked your response to the message today.
01:04:24
Curt
I'm excited too.
01:04:27
Curt
Yeah,
01:04:27
jamie peacock
I was going to respond, just fist me, but the other day, let me be, let me not be a sandwich. Yeah.
01:04:32
Curt
yeah no, I'm
01:04:32
jamie peacock
yeah I'm looking forward to Project Hail Mary. I'm very excited for it.
01:04:36
Curt
Yeah.
01:04:37
jamie peacock
I haven't actually been doing audiobooks since I re-listened to that last.
01:04:38
Curt
Yeah.
01:04:41
jamie peacock
I should probably get back into audiobooks.
01:04:44
Curt
Yeah. They're good. They're good.
01:04:45
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:04:45
Curt
Yeah.
01:04:46
jamie peacock
They are. And they turn the brain off a little bit.
01:04:47
Curt
There's yeah. There's so many great movies out there, but yeah, that'd be mine.
01:04:52
jamie peacock
Yeah, I don't watch that. like We used to watch movies a lot. I used to get thick discounts with my RA, my Times Annuity. They had like a bonus thing that we got movie tickets at I think they were like $3 a ticket and then it was like $2 for popcorn and coke so Danic and I would go to the movies like 5 or 6 times a month because they were cheap so would go watch shit we didn't want to watch just because we could watch it cheaply but yeah then that went away and I don't even know what I went to watch last at the cinemas probably Avatar 2 yeah
01:05:16
Curt
yeah Totally.
01:05:29
Curt
Yeah, i' so I got a laundry, like little people, I got a laundry list of movies that I want to go watch. But I mean, I built a big home theater in my basement.
01:05:34
jamie peacock
But you get to watch Frozen.
01:05:35
Curt
So, oh, dude, I've watched the Gabby movie.
01:05:36
jamie peacock
And then you get to watch Frozen again. And then again.
01:05:40
Curt
I've watched all the Frozens. you Cartoon movies, honestly, like you like ah all the freaking kid cartoon, like Encanto and then Moana.
01:05:41
jamie peacock
was at my
01:05:47
Curt
Like, those are so good. Like, I don't care what anyone says. Those cartoons are fantastic.
01:05:50
jamie peacock
mate's house and his friend wanted his son wanted to watch Luca.
01:05:52
Curt
ah
01:05:56
jamie peacock
so we were waiting for something to run on the machine so we're sitting talking and he the movie would be playing he just look at me and he would just talk the words at me he knows the movie word for word because his boys want to watch it every day i was like oh yeah my nephews also enjoy watching stupid ship it's great fun
01:05:57
Curt
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:06:07
Curt
Yeah, of course.
01:06:11
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
01:06:18
Curt
Yeah. It'd be a while, but then I can start putting in the good movies like the Indiana Jones series and couple of those, those good ones in there.
01:06:22
jamie peacock
yes
01:06:26
Curt
Back to the future. Absolutely.
01:06:28
jamie peacock
Yeah, there's a bunch of awesome some movies that all children should watch.
01:06:33
Curt
Absolutely.
01:06:33
jamie peacock
But yeah, OK, cool.
01:06:34
Curt
Yeah, man.
01:06:34
jamie peacock
So I think that's basically tying everything up. What is in your Google box, Kurt?
01:06:42
Curt
In my Google box is a bunch of eighty s video games because I, once again, had a bunch of finishing to do and I didn't know what I wanted to listen to for audiobooks and I wanted some brain candy.
01:06:48
jamie peacock
One more.
01:06:53
Curt
So I listened to Ready Player One and Ready Player Two because those were some of my favorite books and...
01:06:56
jamie peacock
Ah.
01:06:59
Curt
yeah i just I have all the games. like I have all the arcade games. So whenever they reference one in a in the story, I like look it up and I'm like, oh, and I'll play that. And I'll play a little bit of it like that night just to be like, oh, this is kind of fun.
01:07:08
jamie peacock
yeah yeah they nerfed the out of it for the movies
01:07:09
Curt
So I highly suggest those books, especially if you are at all slightly interested in some of those 80s era games and movies and or yeah movies and songs and whatnot.
01:07:20
Curt
Super good book.
01:07:23
Curt
Oh my god, the movie is not, it does not hold. I was so excited for the movie and then I was kind of disappointed. I mean, obviously, you'd always could be disappointed walking out of a movie after youre reading the book, but the books are fantastic.
01:07:32
jamie peacock
Well, you've seen um you seen met that meme where it's, here's the book, and then they cut the DVD shape out of it.
01:07:39
Curt
Yeah.
01:07:39
jamie peacock
yeah These are the bits they leave out.
01:07:41
Curt
Yeah.
01:07:41
jamie peacock
It's
Exploring New Tech and Ideas
01:07:42
jamie peacock
like, yeah.
01:07:42
Curt
Well, and kids considering that book is like, it references, i don't know, probably like 50, like 100 maybe, um like actual like video games in the book. But they couldn't do that in the movie because you'd have to pay rights to every single video game.
01:07:53
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:07:55
Curt
So like, they stripped all that out of the movie and it kind of ruins it.
01:07:55
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:07:58
Curt
So, yeah.
01:07:59
jamie peacock
Yeah. That's on.
01:08:00
Curt
Anyway.
01:08:00
jamie peacock
it's I think I might actually even have that on my phone currently. I just haven't got around to listening to audiobooks for a while.
01:08:05
Curt
Yeah.
01:08:06
jamie peacock
Like haven't, I want to get, I want listen to the Expanse series.
01:08:06
Curt
So...
01:08:08
jamie peacock
I just haven't gotten into it.
01:08:11
Curt
oh Yeah. Um, so,
01:08:12
jamie peacock
because Because apparently the show is coming back as well, which will be cool.
01:08:18
jamie peacock
So.
01:08:18
Curt
uh, yeah, that's in there.
01:08:20
Curt
Um, that Revol point scanner, I was looking at that, uh, that YouTube guy that you matter in and then, uh, Hey gears printer. I've been seeing a bunch of ads on that. So I checked out their printers, uh, resin printers, super cool.
01:08:32
jamie peacock
Okay.
01:08:32
Curt
Like kind of form for air or like pricing. um But really, really nice looking units um like the big printer and cure chambers. And ah I'm kind of excited about those. i think I would, I don't know. They'd be, a can I was considering the form fours, but these are now a contender. um They're, they're pretty sick, but i mean, they're four or $5,000 resin printers.
01:08:51
Curt
So they're they're not cheap, but really cool.
01:08:51
jamie peacock
Yeah. But then you've got a mechanism that you want to print,
01:08:56
Curt
ah Yeah. I don't know if I'm go to end up printing it, but if I do, we'll see, we'll see. So yeah, look, look really cool printers.
01:09:01
jamie peacock
Okay.
01:09:02
Curt
was geeking out about those. how about you? What's in your Google box?
01:09:05
jamie peacock
So we've got the arc weld for single phase, but phase convert a single phase to three 380 volts. Anyway, there's a link in the doobly-doo for that because Carl needs to buy one, so we're looking at it.
01:09:17
jamie peacock
Then there's a video by a mediocre maker. He bought a 12-year-old Sal X4.
01:09:26
jamie peacock
And he's going through getting it running. So i was watching the YouTube video before we started because nothing on YouTube is less than 40 minutes now. um
01:09:26
Curt
Oh, cool.
01:09:33
Curt
Totally, yep.
01:09:33
jamie peacock
Then I've been looking at the Retroid G2 and I was looking up refractometers because the guy bought Bertha needs a refract to keep the coolant in check.
01:09:36
Curt
Mm-hmm.
01:09:42
jamie peacock
So I found him one for like $15 on our local Amazon type thing. Although now we have got Amazon, but the the cheap k knockoff version of Amazon. I found him a link there so he can buy himself one.
01:09:56
jamie peacock
But yeah um yeah, we're going to discuss the G2 a little bit in the after show. It's in the after show section.
01:09:56
Curt
Mm-hmm.
01:10:00
Curt
Mm-hmm.
01:10:01
jamie peacock
Because I'm fancy like that.
01:10:02
Curt
Yes. Well,
01:10:02
jamie peacock
Oh, no, isn't. It now is in the aftershow section, yes.
01:10:06
Curt
it is now. Yeah.
01:10:09
jamie peacock
Yes, because we're fancy. We have a super complicated dock. Although this dock has made the rounds at this point.
01:10:17
jamie peacock
we'll discuss that on We'll discuss that on the aftershow as well.
01:10:17
Curt
Yeah.
01:10:20
Curt
Thanks Dylan for seeding it.
01:10:21
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:10:23
Curt
We've shared it around like a, uh, something that you'd share.
01:10:26
jamie peacock
yeah Yeah, pretty much. So anyway, what are you up
Business Updates and Future Plans
01:10:30
jamie peacock
to? Oh, wait, where can people find your stuff, Kurtz?
01:10:34
Curt
I will probably reopen the lotteries in the new years and I hope to have a new pen designed in the new years because I'm running out of serial numbers and I want the click and I've finished like 90% of the design for it. So I should probably get machining it.
01:10:45
Curt
So yeah, stay tuned.
01:10:47
jamie peacock
And also, if you're on the on the Reddits, you can find the password to Kurt's website.
01:10:52
Curt
Yeah, if you're on Reddit, you can find the password to my sales and then totally swamp my systems because I don't account for people doing that, but that's okay.
01:10:52
jamie peacock
Or on the Discord.
01:11:00
Curt
It's bound to happen.
01:11:02
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:11:03
Curt
How about you? what's What are you doing?
01:11:04
jamie peacock
um Yes, you can find us at jspeceng.com. We're going to update the shipping. Well, when this comes out, it should be updated for the anchor points so that you don't have to request a quote to actually get the shipping thing. It seems to be pretty stable at this point.
01:11:19
jamie peacock
um You'll find me at jspec underscore in engineering on Instagram. And I think there's also a link in the doobly-doo for both of our Instagrams. And then the Loan Machinists, you can find theloanemachinists.com. That will be the website for the podcast with some bonus content, the companion guide, a link to the merch store where you can buy fancy t-shirts.
01:11:41
jamie peacock
Kurt's busy. Oh, nice. He's wearing the warranty void one. I'm not. I'm wearing this one, which I think is discontinued.
01:11:45
Curt
Who would be the the bigger person?
01:11:46
jamie peacock
Don't be the bigger person. Be the bigger problem. um Yeah, I like my warranty void shirt. It's one of my favorites.
01:11:54
jamie peacock
I need another one because mine's got a hole in it. And then my face small shirt, I ripped the back off. So I'm gonna have to get another face small shirt. But yeah, that's cool. So what are you doing today?
01:11:54
Curt
That's a good one.
01:12:04
Curt
Cool.
01:12:06
Curt
uh today i'm going to box up orders and print labels and um i have a few that i a few kind of custom jobbies that i gotta do so i'm push that to the end and then i'm gonna answer another bajillion more emails uh that i don't want to do and yeah they just admin work admin and run the laser probably run the laser while i'm doing all this so i actually feel productive but yeah how about you
01:12:26
jamie peacock
nice actually ran my laser today um i'm gonna carry on running the stupid little parts for the banks tomorrow and uh probably get the hydraulics into my workshop which is going to be unpleasant and hooked up to the good way because the list of things left on the good way is rapidly shrinking But i want to get through I want to get through all the wiring like tasks before I start that buttoning things up finished finished.
01:12:52
jamie peacock
So want to get the hydraulics working.
01:12:52
Curt
Hmm.
01:12:54
jamie peacock
That's the last big system that needs to be brought online. And then yeah, that's plan make parts do that order material. The tough little job is coming around again. ive got a call today about it.
01:13:05
jamie peacock
Guys, if charging me more than last one right now, I'm not gave you discount. I'm supplying the material. brew So because the material that much I'm like, Yes, it was.
01:13:13
jamie peacock
So yeah, that job, they need that by the end of November. So they will be getting payments and things done tomorrow so I can order their material for them. And then I get to ruin my coolant again. But yeah, this month's are already shaping up to be.
01:13:14
Curt
yeah
01:13:26
jamie peacock
Banger. There you go. Thank you everybody for listening. And we will start up won't see you next week but we will see
Podcast Conclusion and Next Steps
01:13:34
jamie peacock
you next week. But more importantly, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please share it with someone you think who will enjoy it or give it a five star rating.
01:13:42
jamie peacock
All those things. And if you want to see our faces and you can't, well, then you're listening on something weird. Because as far as I know, the video is now on Spotify. Because Danica figured that out.
01:13:53
Curt
fancy.
01:13:53
jamie peacock
yes you don't have to be like You don't have to be like AJ and listen on Zencastr.
01:13:59
Curt
Poor AJ.
01:14:01
jamie peacock
Poor AJ Yano.
01:14:02
Curt
Light him up every show.
01:14:02
jamie peacock
Him and his 20 companies.
01:14:04
jamie peacock
Every single show.
01:14:04
Curt
Well, yeah.
01:14:08
jamie peacock
Anyway, thank you everybody for listening and we'll see you next week. For the Patrons, off to the after show.
01:14:14
Curt
Take care, all.