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#449 Don't go chasing waterfalls
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Topics:
- Dollhouse of SMW
- custom tips for dial indicators
- bismuth, wax, thermopolymers
- Blade fixturing
- Ai automations
- Don't go chasing waterfalls
- Precision microcast podcast
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Episode 449
00:00:01
johngrimsmo
Good morning and welcome to the Business of Machining episode 449. My name is John Grimsmo.
00:00:06
John Saunders
My name is John Saunders.
00:00:08
johngrimsmo
And this is your weekly manufacturing podcast where John and John talk about their businesses, you get into the weeds, talk about technical stuff, talk about big picture stuff, talk about stress, burden, headache, fun, everything about manufacturing. And this is this is our life.
00:00:23
John Saunders
This is our life. I wouldn't trade for the world, to be honest.
00:00:25
johngrimsmo
Exactly. wouldn't have it any I will take the stress all day long over other kinds of stress.
00:00:26
John Saunders
i
00:00:30
John Saunders
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Feedback and Business Adaptation
00:00:32
John Saunders
For sure. How doing?
00:00:33
johngrimsmo
So how are doing, man? Oh, I got you first.
00:00:35
John Saunders
Oh, how am I doing? Uh, great. I mean, I'm staring at a whole bunch of boxes. I'm staring at a broken bamboo printer. Um, I'm a little behind today, if I'm being honest, except life's great.
00:00:47
John Saunders
Everything's great.
00:00:48
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:00:48
John Saunders
Yeah. You?
00:00:50
johngrimsmo
Yeah, same here. Lots of projects on the go. Lots of unfinished business. Lots of ah lots of things are working well. And lots of things need a lot of work. And that is the daily state of all business.
00:00:59
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:01:00
johngrimsmo
All right.
00:01:02
John Saunders
A few ah few years ago, somebody sent some nasty feedback about the podcast that I repeated myself too much on some topics. And that's, you know, sometimes it's hard to hear stuff. The reality was they were probably true.
00:01:13
John Saunders
But as ah someone who tries to be introspective, I try to have some sense of self-awareness. And I will say the same thing is about to apply to the fact that I've used the phrase like overhaul the shop for probably three years now.
00:01:24
John Saunders
And I sort of need to maybe recognize that that is, you know,
00:01:24
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:01:28
John Saunders
The only thing that's constant is change. And cause that's what, that's what we're in the middle of yet again with boxes, machines, all that.
00:01:30
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:01:33
johngrimsmo
Yeah. yeah It's, it's a constant evolution.
00:01:36
John Saunders
i can talk more about it.
00:01:37
johngrimsmo
Yeah. I mean, the day we stop evolving and stop changing and growing is the day the business starts declining.
00:01:38
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:01:42
John Saunders
Right.
00:01:43
johngrimsmo
Like I don't want that.
00:01:44
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah.
00:01:46
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:01:49
John Saunders
What's on your, what's on your list?
00:01:49
johngrimsmo
right.
Project Updates and Innovations
00:01:51
johngrimsmo
On my list for today, um, a deep dive on LEDs, uh, a blade clamping update, a quick slip roll update.
00:01:56
John Saunders
Okay.
00:01:58
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:02:01
johngrimsmo
And like mentioned last week, talk about bismuth wax and thermal polymers. and Fusion AI Automation.
00:02:09
John Saunders
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. um A brief update on phone systems for the shop. A couple carryovers, dial indicators and custom tips and some stuff from Minto Toyu.
00:02:22
John Saunders
a AI, come kind of a funny thing I think is maybe helpful with AI. But then, um oh, and then waterfalls.
00:02:33
johngrimsmo
All right.
00:02:33
John Saunders
I want to talk about waterfalls, but not in the way you're thinking about. um It's actually, no, don't go chasing them.
00:02:36
johngrimsmo
Don't go chasing them.
00:02:40
John Saunders
Although 90s music was the best.
00:02:42
johngrimsmo
The best.
00:02:42
John Saunders
um My kids totally agree with that too. um No, it's actually, look, I get really excited about being a dork about financial sort of operational things that help me process.
00:02:54
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:02:55
John Saunders
And so this is a, I'm excited to show this tip. um
00:02:57
johngrimsmo
Love it.
00:02:58
John Saunders
But I'm going to start off with one that's been carried over a few weeks, which is, I had um struggled about best practices around three d printing, things like machine tools and other objects that I want to build.
00:03:11
johngrimsmo
like for Not for sale, like we talked about last week, the stimp works. Okay.
00:03:15
John Saunders
No, sorry, for our our Lego sort of 1 32nd scale dollhouse of Saunders Machine Works.
00:03:21
johngrimsmo
Oh, got it. Got it.
00:03:22
John Saunders
So like I, you know, it's pretty easy to find models models of our brother machines or Okuma's so forth. And I want to scale it down 1 32nd scale and then three d print it so I can play layout.
00:03:33
John Saunders
and The problem when you scale down a three axis mill, as an example, is that there's all this hollow area in the middle with the table and the but the the air space, and that doesn't lend itself to 3D printing. So I think I had elaborated on how I'm handling it so folks can go back a few episodes. But two things that are worth the sharing. Number one is Fusion.
00:03:55
John Saunders
has an option that's one of those I feel like is not often used or known about, which is called replace with primitives. So you can go into an object that is quite complicated and I believe it's under modify, ah simplify, and then replace with primitives.
00:04:09
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:04:10
John Saunders
um Not always what you're looking for, but if you wanna take something super complicated and it kind of turns into a dumb shape with a few edges, it may be perfect. um
00:04:19
johngrimsmo
Can you define what primitives means in that example? Like, okay.
00:04:22
John Saunders
Go play with it and maybe um maybe I should do the same.
00:04:24
johngrimsmo
Cause that whole modify menu, like I don't go into that modify menu much, you know, there's like one or two things that I use in there and that's it.
00:04:28
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:04:31
John Saunders
My thought when I played with it, it was now two weeks ago, take a traditional three axis mill that has a footprint, but a footprint that can be extruded straight up, except most of the time those machine tools have a little bit of a front tap taper to the door and that kind of gives them a look. And I i like that. I like recognizing the feel of the look of the machine.
00:04:52
John Saunders
um You can do that with two with a project of the whole body, extrude up, and then a side project to get the angle. Then you can actually do a combined to get a little bit of the door look. And I find myself emotionally identifying with that as a machine better than just a rectangular blob.
00:05:08
John Saunders
But the other method, if you have access to SOLIDWORKS, this is a shout out and courtesy Robin Ramzetti, is you can take an assembly and you can save a whole assembly as a single part with only the exterior surfaces.
00:05:22
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:05:22
John Saunders
and that will turn it into a single component or part, but just those exteriors. Um, so in that case, you don't have all the detail of say the table inside or, um, and in that case it might work quite well because you don't necessarily care if there's permanent support material inside the three axis machine.
00:05:27
johngrimsmo
Neat.
00:05:39
John Saunders
Cause it's just a watertight blob.
00:05:40
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yep. Dollhouse, I like that.
00:05:46
John Saunders
been super helpful.
00:05:47
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah. Especially as you're kind of redesigning, like we haven't moved things in forever.
00:05:48
John Saunders
Um,
00:05:53
johngrimsmo
Um, but when we did, like when we moved into the shop, I measured out and drew every crack in the floor so that as I, I knew was a current was coming and i was like, I don't want this current straddling a crack.
00:06:04
johngrimsmo
I need to know where all the cracks are. Once we have poxie the floors, we won't be able to see the cracks. So I have a sketch file.
00:06:08
John Saunders
oh Oh.
00:06:09
johngrimsmo
I have a sketch file of every crack, not, not just the expansion joints, but the cracks, the physical cracks in the concrete. Um, and it was great.
00:06:16
John Saunders
Has your floor been stable?
00:06:18
johngrimsmo
as far as I know. don't know.
00:06:20
John Saunders
Well, you'd know it. Your epoxy would crack if the floor was cracking.
00:06:23
johngrimsmo
True, the epoxy has not cracked.
00:06:24
John Saunders
Yeah, that's awesome. That's great.
00:06:25
johngrimsmo
Yep. Yep. But the, the concrete panels outside the bay doors and stuff, they definitely swell when the ground freezes. And one of the man doors we can't open up when it's winter.
00:06:36
John Saunders
No kidding.
00:06:37
johngrimsmo
Yeah. It swells like an inch or two, like an inch maybe, be but just enough for the door to like hit it and not be able to open.
00:06:39
John Saunders
Wow.
00:06:42
John Saunders
That's
00:06:42
johngrimsmo
And then, you know, a week later when it thaws and it's not negative 15, it's it works again.
00:06:50
John Saunders
hilarious.
00:06:51
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
Handling Materials and Tool Demos
00:06:54
John Saunders
All right. What's up on your list?
00:06:55
johngrimsmo
All right. um Let's get some of the older ones off the list. So a couple weeks ago, we talked about um a sheet of bronze that i is a little warpy, and I wanted to slip roll it.
00:07:04
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:07:07
johngrimsmo
So the chat we had here and the comments I got from that, and then the video clip we put on Instagram, and I got some really good comments from that too.
00:07:14
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:07:14
johngrimsmo
um I wanted to hear from people who have used slip rolls before, like big ones, small ones, whatever. And a lot of guys were like, yeah, it would totally work. You might not get the ends, but
00:07:23
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:07:23
johngrimsmo
like rolled perfectly fine. A lot of people recommended a company called, oh, I can't, ARCU, it was a four letter where it starts with an A, that they make like $100,000 rolling machines, but they also do contract work.
00:07:37
johngrimsmo
So if anybody ever needs that, but it's like a multi-roller system where imagine, you know, 15 rollers in a row and you just feed the whole thing through like a conveyor belt that just goes bend, bend, bend, bend.
00:07:43
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:07:47
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:07:47
johngrimsmo
And it comes out flat. So a lot of people will use that in production, like making rulers, like the one guy that emailed us or all kinds of stuff. So that's really cool technology to know. um A lot of people said heat up in between two plates and then just kind of like compress it and let it cool down kind thing.
00:08:02
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:08:04
johngrimsmo
So you're sort of annealing it or stress relieving it or whatever it is. so I'll probably go that route because that's kind of easiest for us. You suggested that too on the podcast. I don't think I'm going to buy like a $500 or $200 slip roll because i don't need it.
00:08:19
johngrimsmo
So i'm going to try this kind of heat up in the oven to whatever temperature it needs and then squish it between our chilled aluminum quench plates and just like see if it's better.
00:08:19
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:08:28
John Saunders
I
00:08:29
johngrimsmo
Easy peasy, right?
00:08:32
John Saunders
like that.
00:08:36
John Saunders
Good.
00:08:39
John Saunders
um
00:08:39
johngrimsmo
what you got?
00:08:40
John Saunders
Have you ever made custom tips for a dial indicator?
00:08:49
johngrimsmo
Not in the past 15 years. but But before that, I think I did.
00:08:52
John Saunders
you did prior to that.
00:08:55
johngrimsmo
i remember I remember holding a bearing ball in a vise in soft jaws and like milling a hole into it and gluing that to a little ceramic shaft or so something like that.
00:08:55
John Saunders
So I'm trying to.
00:09:02
John Saunders
Oh, wow.
00:09:05
johngrimsmo
I don't know.
00:09:06
John Saunders
Interesting. um i wanted a custom indicator. They are oddly five to four 48 threads.
00:09:17
John Saunders
It's like, why couldn't you do four 40? Even a lot of the Mitsutoya stuff that would come out of Japan appears to be Imperial threaded.
00:09:23
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:09:23
John Saunders
Um, ah so and, but then i was like, Oh man, that's a kind of a pain in the butt. So I went ahead trying to be, um, to battle, know, fail fast, fail cheap. I bought some McMaster screws in that pitch that way.
00:09:35
John Saunders
Instead of needing to, um, thread mill that on a mill because I'll never single point a lathe again, thread my life in my life because lathes, lathes are terrible things. Um, so I figure if I own a screw, then you can easily machine or surface in, or even 3d print a thing with a hole in it and just screw that in. Um, but we're trying to look at ways to do like a pinch measurement of our fixture plate by sticking a feature, um,
00:10:01
John Saunders
sticking a blade or disc through the hole and being able to have it spring back and measure thickness
00:10:07
johngrimsmo
Oh, like the backside.
00:10:08
John Saunders
Well, it would be a pinch. So you can have a, this is a 3D print, so ignore the quality of course, but you could have this be ah a hard hard hardening ground or lapped datum. And then you could have a repeatable object down here.
00:10:22
John Saunders
And then you would push the plunger down through a hole and then it's going to come up and it's going to measure that.
00:10:26
johngrimsmo
Love
00:10:28
John Saunders
um Indicators obviously normally push away, but I just overrode it with a different compression spring on the top.
00:10:34
johngrimsmo
Love it. love it
00:10:35
John Saunders
um And that was actually perfect because I have no, really no amount of time or effort into that. And that led to a conversation with our Mitsutoya rep and credit to them. I'm pretty sure I'll do this for anybody, but they're willing to send us to showroom hand tools on demo because they're not, none of them are particularly expensive.
00:10:55
John Saunders
They're five to $700, but I don't want to to buy them if they don't work. And, um and, and,
00:11:00
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:11:02
John Saunders
um You know, micrometers can vary by user. Obviously the thimble training and then the and the use of a clutching thimble mitigates a lot of that, but we're looking for something that's more non-contact, sorry, itll contact apart, but I um would prefer to have the user present the tool to the part we're trying to measure, and then they can take the measurement without their own hand
Challenges in Measurement and Past Marketing Experiences
00:11:28
John Saunders
actuate.
00:11:28
John Saunders
So it's a repeatability through a spring mechanism or so forth. And so they've got a couple different tools. I'll i'll throw them up on Instagram when they arrive that I'm excited to sort of test and see if they work.
00:11:37
johngrimsmo
Yeah. So one application I have in mind here for this type of, so it's say dial indicator, not a dial test indicator, but like a one inch travel dial indicator.
00:11:46
John Saunders
Correct.
00:11:49
johngrimsmo
And instead of squishing it, you're you're compressing it around an object and letting it retract and
00:11:56
John Saunders
v
00:11:57
johngrimsmo
Mike's the material with a dial indicator pretty much so like on your fixture plate that has through holes, you could theoretically put it through the through hole and pinch measure the thickness of your plate at whole number 412 interesting as.
00:12:09
John Saunders
Big up.
00:12:10
johngrimsmo
interesting
00:12:10
John Saunders
Yep. Very similar to how a CMM would work where a CMM normally has a probe stylus that's just like you have on your Renishaw.
00:12:11
johngrimsmo
that's clever
00:12:18
John Saunders
it's just a single probe, but they also sell star probes. so if you think about having a star probe, one probe, that same star probe could use the 90 degree arm part of it to measure the top of the plate.
00:12:21
johngrimsmo
v
00:12:27
John Saunders
And then it could, you know, lead to center of the hole, travel through the hole. So presupposing the star is smaller than the hole's minor diameter and then catch measured on the upside.
00:12:34
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:12:37
johngrimsmo
o Yep. And if everything's calibrated properly, that would work.
00:12:38
John Saunders
That's what i'm trying to do. Yeah. Side note, we also have, sorry, good
00:12:43
johngrimsmo
Cool. No.
00:12:46
John Saunders
We also have Keyence coming in Friday. And i was I was polite, but also honest to the guy. And I was like, I called, I found out who our sales rep is. I called him. i was like, hey, I'll just be totally honest. um You were probably on your like like corporate do not call list because we were pretty direct about, you guys just aggressive, if way too market, ah marketed to us way too hard four or five years ago. We weren't ready for you. And and frankly, we'd had enough of it, but we'd love to hear. And the guy was actually super cool about it. He's like, yep, totally get it.
00:13:16
johngrimsmo
ye Yeah, it's it's I'm finding their company extremely interesting because they make phenomenal stuff like truly wonderful, like high quality stuff.
00:13:16
John Saunders
um So yeah, i thought that was funny.
00:13:24
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:13:27
johngrimsmo
You just get emails for the wrong stuff. Like I am on their list right now and I'm getting maybe two emails a week, which is not crazy, but it is getting annoying because it's always for like stuff I don't need.
00:13:38
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:13:39
johngrimsmo
But yeah, it was from one of those, you know, at the shows, can I scan your badge kind of thing?
00:13:44
John Saunders
Sure.
00:13:45
johngrimsmo
And whatever, I'm fine with it for now.
00:13:46
John Saunders
Sure.
00:13:47
johngrimsmo
i If it really starts bugging me, I'll get off the list. But yeah.
00:13:52
John Saunders
For people that want to be like this, when you sign up for a trade show, just do, assuming you're using either Gmail or we use Google admin. so Saunders Machine Works emails handled through Google. I can just do John or whatever my email is.
00:14:08
John Saunders
I can do whatever plus imts2026 at And then you can see who everyone they sell it to is. And and you can also easily
00:14:16
johngrimsmo
ass your As your IMTS login email is what you're saying.
00:14:20
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:14:20
johngrimsmo
Yeah, cool.
00:14:20
John Saunders
who
00:14:21
johngrimsmo
That's a good idea.
00:14:21
John Saunders
And then you can see how they sell it to and you can also filter all that junk out.
00:14:25
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah, i've I haven't done that for like trade show use, but it is a good Gmail hack for sure.
00:14:27
John Saunders
So.
00:14:32
johngrimsmo
The plus, plus whatever.
00:14:34
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:14:35
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Cool.
00:14:41
johngrimsmo
All right. What's next? do You want something?
00:14:44
John Saunders
No, you saw you.
00:14:45
johngrimsmo
Yeah, okay. um Talking about or thinking a lot about bismuth, wax, and thermopolymers as a backing for a varying size thickness support material. So like on our blade, it starts as an eighth inch piece of steel.
00:15:05
johngrimsmo
And then we cut, we mill and grind one bevel. And the cutting bevel of the blade is not the sharpened edge, but like the tapers of the blade, right? So we machine one bevel, grind it, and then when we move it to the other side of the fixture, because the blades are on the side of the fixture, we have this unsupported first bevel. So we want to like back it, this tapered angle. We want to back it with something. Up until now, I've been machining Delrin pads, bolt them into the fixture, and now that Delrin supports and cups the blade, as well as my dimensional tolerances kind of allow.
00:15:37
johngrimsmo
um But through the wear of those pads, I've started to see the the wear patterns. And if side one doesn't machine perfectly accurate, then when it goes to side two, it's either not going to touch the insert at all, or it's going to compress against the insert and the blade's going to bow out. And it's it's either like perfect, wrong or wrong.
00:15:57
John Saunders
Yeah,
00:15:57
johngrimsmo
And perfect doesn't exist in like really. So I've always had this this desire to like clamp on a blade and pour something in place and have it conform perfectly to the blade.
00:16:09
johngrimsmo
And I even tried this back in the old shop like 10 years ago with stuff from Caswell, I think.
00:16:16
John Saunders
sure. OK, well, anybody has their wax.
00:16:19
johngrimsmo
Yeah, so that's on the list. um And then, i you know, we've had friends talk about bismuth as that low melt alloy metal. So I did a whole lot of research on that and actually bought some from McMaster because you can just buy it.
00:16:32
johngrimsmo
It's not that expensive. And I was all ready to go. i bought myself a hot plate. I bought myself a pot from the the thrift store and learned all about there are some hazards to it, both skin contact and vapor breathing and stuff.
00:16:46
John Saunders
Interesting.
00:16:47
johngrimsmo
Yeah. So youre it's it's lead, like 50% lead. um
00:16:51
John Saunders
What?
00:16:51
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:16:52
John Saunders
I had no idea.
00:16:53
johngrimsmo
And cadmium too, 10% cadmium, which is not good to breathe or drink or eat. um So it's not like a toy for sure.
00:17:02
John Saunders
Yeah, sure, for sure, sure.
00:17:03
johngrimsmo
Yeah. So that started to get me a little concerned because we're trying to be really, really considerate with our, you know, SDS reports and and safety.
00:17:11
John Saunders
Sure.
00:17:12
johngrimsmo
Obviously we want to live and do this forever, like for a long time. And I, as a business owner, don't want to introduce anything like stupid to the business. So that started to hesitate me.
00:17:23
johngrimsmo
but i had this theory where i could like melt the business business pour it behind the blade and it would just harden and i like sweet now i have a metal conforming thing that matches you know a perfect first grind something like that not something i want to do every time but maybe i could make one insert and it would just work until i saw one video on youtube after watching all the other videos on youtube about bismuth i saw this one guy on his kitchen table try to fill this aluminum cavity
00:17:37
John Saunders
Right.
00:17:50
johngrimsmo
and he had taped the bottom and he left the top open and he's pouring this molten metal inside and it just poured all out over his countertop.
00:17:58
John Saunders
oh Oops.
00:17:59
johngrimsmo
And then because the tape didn't hold.
00:18:01
John Saunders
Sure.
00:18:02
johngrimsmo
And that was the moment when I realized, oh, darn, this is a liquid. This is water at that temperature.
00:18:09
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:18:09
johngrimsmo
And my my fixture is not sealed enough to like hold water to be able to melt.
00:18:10
John Saunders
Right.
00:18:14
johngrimsmo
So I was like, that's not going to work at all for this application. Because when you clamp a blade to the side, like there's gaps and there's whatever. It's just not watertight. Duh. So wax fixturing, I don't think will work here because I need like a blob.
00:18:29
johngrimsmo
um I prefer preferably want a single like permanent reuse over and over and over again, not like heat up and refixture every single time.
00:18:39
John Saunders
For sure.
00:18:40
johngrimsmo
So wax is out for that, but I do want to use wax and I will be using wax for other stuff. And then, um, do you remember back in the day, Tormac had this, uh, little jar with all little beads in it.
00:18:52
johngrimsmo
It,
00:18:52
John Saunders
Still ah still have one.
00:18:53
johngrimsmo
I still have one. I had two and I still had one at home.
00:18:54
John Saunders
Yes.
00:18:55
johngrimsmo
So i like went digging through the basement and figured it out.
00:18:55
John Saunders
Hilarious.
00:18:57
johngrimsmo
I've never been happy with them. Every time I've used them, it's just been trash.
00:19:00
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:19:01
johngrimsmo
It sticks to everything. It goos. I don't know. I never liked it. And there are higher quality ones and there's other brands out there. Like the Tormac thing was like five bucks.
00:19:12
johngrimsmo
And I bought another one that was jewelers use um from a company called GRS, which is Graver something. Some guys who do like fancy engraving on jewelry. And it's like $50 for a jar of that. I was like, I watched all the videos on that and it's a low melt thermoplastic. So it's basically same beads heated up in water or with a blow with a hairdryer.
00:19:35
johngrimsmo
And these beads kind of form together into a very silly putty kind of plastic thing. And then when it cools, it's rock hard.
00:19:42
John Saunders
yeah.
00:19:42
johngrimsmo
And I think that will work phenomenally perfect for my OP2 support where I'm using Delrin right now because I can just heat it up.
00:19:48
John Saunders
Yep.
00:19:50
johngrimsmo
I can put a blade on. I can shove it into place. I can let it cool off. And it should be a somewhat permanent, like conforming to the scale, like exactly to a perfect grind OP1.
00:20:01
johngrimsmo
And it should be good. So.
Blade Support Solutions
00:20:05
johngrimsmo
That's good. So I bought some of that, have it in. Very excited to try it. I got two different brands and kinds, slightly different. One's called Jet Basic, and that's the white beads, and one called a GRS.
00:20:16
johngrimsmo
GRS True Lock, True Grit, True Total Lock, something like that. that It comes in like sticks, like like ah half-inch tubes that are six-inch long.
00:20:24
John Saunders
Uh-huh.
00:20:27
johngrimsmo
um So very excited to try that.
00:20:29
John Saunders
And the the point is you need to, do you just need to have some support on the now beveled side that is no longer being cut? The opposite side is being cut, but you don't want to, okay.
00:20:38
johngrimsmo
correct yeah yeah thanks for clarifying um because i don't want the blade to move out of the way like we're hard milling with a decent amount of load and we're grinding and i don't want the blade chattering or burning or want it supported um
00:20:41
John Saunders
No, no, I'm making sure I'm not.
00:20:46
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah.
00:20:51
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:20:55
John Saunders
So we and it never occurred to me, we actually did something like this in production that we've we've since moved away from it for other reasons. um and i the to To try to translate it into the idea that I'll pitch to you here, um you know what the blade taper should be.
00:21:13
John Saunders
We all recognize that that you know you'll never have a, you know you know, that feeling when you drop a lapped plate down on a surface plate and it's effectively its own air bearing.
00:21:20
johngrimsmo
Oh yeah.
00:21:21
John Saunders
You're never going to get that here because the world exists and with it's all of its imperfections.
00:21:21
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:21:27
John Saunders
But What I think I would recommend you consider um could be as simple as a 3D printed insert. um Over time, there could be a better way to source those or make them, but you have a 3D printed insert that has probably 3,000, 10,000 of right?
00:21:41
John Saunders
clearance And then you have a setup jig. So every time the the blade comes off and the one bevel is done, you set the blade in a fixture, offline fixture that holds the blade at a known location. Your your three d print insert is also held at no location. Then you just apply some, um, the black magic or whatever, super glue, and that's going to fill that gap. And it's going to, it's going to hold the blade will be in its correct location. The fixture will be in its correct location. And the two are now secured together in 10 seconds.
00:22:14
John Saunders
And when it's done, they can be removed quickly and it's completely sacrificial, but also relatively scalable.
00:22:23
johngrimsmo
So the you're saying you're suggesting the blade gets glued to a 3D printed insert and the assembly gets mounted to the fixture.
00:22:31
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:22:34
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:22:35
johngrimsmo
And if your setup fixture is accurate enough, then you're in use fixture. Yeah, that could work very well. And then you're gluing a blade to 3D print. So you have to like acetone dissolve it afterwards.
00:22:47
John Saunders
Sure. Sure.
00:22:48
johngrimsmo
Would totally work though.
00:22:48
John Saunders
Heat, heat, acetone, leave it, let it soak in a tub. Easy.
00:22:52
johngrimsmo
Yep. Yep.
00:22:53
John Saunders
Basically your're you you have to recognize your the fit between the two, let's call it a mold.
00:22:59
johngrimsmo
Wilbury. Yeah.
00:23:00
John Saunders
The fit's never gonna work. So you don't need it to work.
00:23:01
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:23:02
John Saunders
You just need to you're just needs a force multiplier, bingo.
00:23:04
johngrimsmo
A compliant layer. Yeah. Yeah.
00:23:09
johngrimsmo
That's a cool idea.
00:23:11
John Saunders
And there could be ah you could order a thousand of that of aluminum too.
00:23:11
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:23:13
John Saunders
like These are gonna cost 50 cents each and you you have a quick fixture of glue, boom, boom, done.
00:23:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah. yeah
00:23:19
John Saunders
and
00:23:20
johngrimsmo
I thought about half of that. I thought about trying to glue the blade to the fixture directly, but I'm like, ah that's annoying because now you've to like demold the whole fixture and you've got to heat it up or acetone the whole fixture something like that.
00:23:27
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:23:30
johngrimsmo
a removable insert, even if it is 3D printed or metal or whatever, that's basically disposable or cleanable. If it was metal, you could just reuse it every single time.
00:23:40
John Saunders
That's true too. Sure. That's true.
00:23:42
johngrimsmo
And i'm I'm definitely trying to keep in mind the mounting time and and effort for these blades, because with with the clamps that I was using, you just literally crack them a quarter turn loose and the blade lifts up.
00:23:48
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:23:55
johngrimsmo
And then the next blade goes in, like it's really fast.
00:23:56
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:23:58
johngrimsmo
And with my new method, um I have to screw bolts all the way through the blade, which takes time. Oh, for sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, support.
00:24:07
John Saunders
You're still gonna want screws. The fixturing that I'm talking about here is is just gonna be what helps give you that support, yeah.
00:24:13
johngrimsmo
Yep, but that's like another thing to like, the screw's got to come all the way out. This whole thing has to slip out however it's located.
00:24:19
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:24:21
johngrimsmo
um That is a good thing to keep my back pocket though. I like that idea. Instead of gluing the blade to the fixture, you're gluing it to a removable part of the fixture.
00:24:26
John Saunders
The... third
00:24:31
John Saunders
Yes, but the secret sauce here that I hope is coming through is you have an offline jig that's very accurate. that it It controls the location of the blade and it controls the location of the pad.
00:24:36
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:24:40
John Saunders
We'll call it the pad. And then you glue it together and the glue is going to soak up all of the inconsistencies. And when you're done, you ah you know the relationship between the bottom plane of the pad and the and the and the knife face itself.
00:24:55
johngrimsmo
Yeah. yeah And I'm trying to keep in mind, what is my reference surface? It's not the bevel really. i just want to hold the bevel. The reference surface is the flat of the blade that I want clean up against the side of the fixture.
00:25:09
johngrimsmo
And so, you know, one thought I had was to have and a replaceable aluminum side to the fixture, like a whole side panel that comes off that I could say I could heat up.
00:25:16
John Saunders
who
00:25:20
johngrimsmo
I could use a wax fixture. I could glue, I could do whatever. But now I have a whole nother, like, shear plane attachment point of thing to both locate, but also be perfect.
00:25:31
johngrimsmo
And the the less items, the better basically.
00:25:31
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:25:34
John Saunders
Totally.
00:25:35
johngrimsmo
So yeah, your way could probably be more accurate than the thermoplastic way. But since i already have the thermoplastic, I'm going to try that next. And I think it will just be a more accurate, more conforming way than my Delrayn insert is right now and could do everything we need.
00:25:50
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:25:53
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:25:54
johngrimsmo
But the real update is last week, I think I talked about making my little clamps, not in titanium, but in 17-4 stainless steel. And so I did that and I saw a 30% increase or decrease in bending of the blade.
00:26:08
John Saunders
No way. Really?
00:26:10
johngrimsmo
Yep. So with titanium clamps, I was bending the blade to thou, like deflecting it, warping it, bowing it, whatever you call it. With the 17-4 clamps, I went from 2,000 down to 1.3, I think, 1,3 tenths, which is significant, but the problem's not gone.
00:26:31
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:26:31
johngrimsmo
and then And then when I put in the actual through screws, through the pivot hole of the blade and through the tip hole in the blade, so I'm not clamping from the ends of the blade, I'm clamping kind of through the meat of the blade.
00:26:40
John Saunders
Uh-huh.
00:26:45
johngrimsmo
I was trying to avoid. I went down to three tenths of a bow, like almost nothing.
00:26:48
John Saunders
Yeah, minimal.
00:26:51
johngrimsmo
Whether the blade was flat or tapered or good or bad or whatever, it always bowed three tenths or three and a half tenths. And I was like, oh my goodness. So all this work I've been doing was to avoid using these screws basically. And the screws are the answer.
00:27:11
John Saunders
I'll push you though, because I needed to be pushed. And again, Robin was the answer. Robin Ranzetti was, we used um for for our Modvice top jaws, we have a top jaw on the left and top jaw on the right.
00:27:26
John Saunders
and in the center was a uniforce clamp that uniforce clamp as you drove the screw down pushed the uniforce left for the left one right for the right one to hold these in place um that's uniforce screw for a long time screwed into the fixture that also included the stops obviously as you're tightening the uniforce has to have something on the opposing face to push up against
00:27:35
johngrimsmo
Okay. yeah
00:27:52
John Saunders
um we consistently were getting inconsistent movement of the exposed face as you clamped that Uniforce.
00:27:57
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:28:00
johngrimsmo
Okay. Yeah.
00:28:00
John Saunders
No matter how gentle you were and torque wrench and applying pressure, it just all was always, you know, i would I would do what you do. I'd be like, oh, it's not it's no longer one thou, it's only three tenths. Well, no, problem is it's still three tenths.
00:28:12
John Saunders
Like it's still way more than I want. And Robin's answer was so geniusly simple. Instead of screwing the Uniforce screw into the fixture, the fixture and now is a clearance hole and the screw thread is actually in the fixture plate behind it so that the screw, the screwing action has no effect on the fixture itself.
00:28:36
johngrimsmo
The fixture itself.
00:28:37
John Saunders
And in fact, is helping pull it down.
00:28:37
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:28:40
John Saunders
And now when you do that, the amount of deflection that you get every time 0.0.
00:28:40
johngrimsmo
a
00:28:48
johngrimsmo
Wow. So instead of pinching the fixture bottom and top, you are pinching it top only down.
00:28:52
John Saunders
Yeah. Bingo. Bingo.
00:28:54
johngrimsmo
Right? And that's, in a way, I think that's what my fixture ended up being too.
00:28:55
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:28:59
johngrimsmo
Well, in a different way, but yeah. Interesting.
00:29:04
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:29:06
johngrimsmo
And it's it's that simple intuition, right?
00:29:09
John Saunders
Yeah, yeah.
00:29:10
johngrimsmo
It's like, oh yeah, that makes perfect make sense.
00:29:10
John Saunders
I mean, it makes so much sense now that I see it. I think I talked about this years ago on the podcast.
00:29:12
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:29:14
John Saunders
The reason I knew it was happening was that you would see a microscopic film of coolant that would appear and disappear when you clamped it.
00:29:21
johngrimsmo
Yes.
00:29:22
John Saunders
And that was betraying that there was some some movement on the backside of this little insert fixture.
00:29:24
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm.
00:29:27
johngrimsmo
Exact same. When my blades are mounted or done or whatever, I can push on the middle of the blade and coolant swishes out. And I'm like, ah, this is a problem.
00:29:33
John Saunders
Bingo. There you go. Well, so does it still do under the three-tenths?
00:29:37
johngrimsmo
Good question. I think probably a little bit.
00:29:38
John Saunders
Because... Part of me offline wants to know you fix that, John.
00:29:42
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:29:42
John Saunders
Like, I know you, you're going to like, you can do this so that it's neutral forces and it's just, yeah.
00:29:42
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:29:48
johngrimsmo
Exactly. Yep. Um, although at some point I have a million other projects I want to do at some point, three tenths might be perfectly fine. If it's three tenths every single time I'm good.
00:29:58
John Saunders
I hear, I know.
00:30:02
John Saunders
Yes, agreed.
00:30:03
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:30:08
John Saunders
I'm going
AI in Design and Automation
00:30:09
John Saunders
to come back. I meant to mention this earlier, continue to be blown away by AI. I know everyone probably hears any ramble about that, but a few months ago I asked um chat GPT to create a picture of something and it was like, I can't do that. It's not like not what I do. So I kind of logged in my mind that like, okay, that's not like kind of makes sense. Like, okay, you just can't do it. So um before,
00:30:31
John Saunders
we had or ended up getting with Mitsu Toyo to order some of these test gauges. Um, I was thinking about a gauge and talking to chat GBT about it. And I found it to be quite helpful to think through like outside the box.
00:30:40
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:30:41
John Saunders
Um, kind of check your ear at the door. What do you not know? What, what could it tell you? And it proposed this gauge that involved, um, you know, for our fixture plates, it's like, okay, through other holes, you're going to have a spring mechanism go and it's going to pull back up like a leaf spring and it's going to actuate this way.
00:30:56
John Saunders
And I'll be honest, i just didn't follow it. Um, And I was just like, man, is this my own shortcomings, is whatever. And I just didn't follow it.
00:31:04
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:31:05
John Saunders
So I was like, what? don't Doesn't hurt to ask. I was like, hey, can you make me a render of that?
00:31:11
johngrimsmo
my gosh. It even says Mitchitorn.
00:31:13
John Saunders
John. John.
00:31:15
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:31:15
John Saunders
Insane.
00:31:17
johngrimsmo
It looks like a real picture.
00:31:17
John Saunders
um It does. Now, Alex, I showed it to Alex in the same aha moment. Don't ignore the fact that the dial, this looks like a dial here as well. It goes zero, 15, 10, 15, 15, then it's blank.
00:31:31
John Saunders
So there's some pretty good hallucination points, but blew me away that when I asked chat about a electro like a mechanical assembly, that and it was drawing it with ASCII text lines to like, you know, like the ASCII artwork and no full blown photo quality render of the object.
00:31:31
johngrimsmo
Whatever.
00:31:42
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah, I've had that. yeah
00:31:48
johngrimsmo
See, when AI was really starting to get hot about a year, year and a half ago or whatever, I played a lot with the image side of it. I played with mid-journey.
00:31:56
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:31:56
johngrimsmo
I played with whatever that ChatGPT one is.
00:32:00
John Saunders
Sora.
00:32:01
johngrimsmo
No, before that. um That's the video version, isn't it, Sora?
00:32:02
John Saunders
Oh.
00:32:05
John Saunders
Oh, you might be right, Charlie.
00:32:05
johngrimsmo
It was can Canva or Car, whatever.
00:32:08
John Saunders
Okay.
00:32:08
johngrimsmo
It doesn't matter. And it was always like, eh, I'm not like that impressed yet.
00:32:12
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:32:13
johngrimsmo
i'm I'm quite impressed by that picture you just showed.
00:32:16
John Saunders
Yeah, it was crazy. Yeah.
00:32:18
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:32:19
John Saunders
The other funny yeah AI thing, and then I'll let you have turn, is ah I was having a conversation with somebody and it was about to it was out not the output of an AI and punchline was, there was some frustration about it it's like, just share the prompt.
00:32:35
John Saunders
And it it made me laugh because you did this too, right before we recorded, it you were talking about something. And i was like, sometimes, the way i think two people are gonna start interacting, it' be like, here's the prompt I sent to ChatGPT just to catch you up to speed on what's on my head.
00:32:47
John Saunders
Like the prompt is actually like, cause know, I would never communicate to you or a coworker via the way I send prompts, but it's actually like prompts are exactly what you want.
00:32:48
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:32:57
johngrimsmo
It's not, it's not unsimilar. Like if I'm going to open you up to a conversation and be like, here's what I'm dealing with. Here's what I want here. Can you help me with this problem? And that's usually how my prompts are structured.
00:33:08
John Saunders
Right? But it's like so much more, the interaction between humans and and robots is kind of fascinating to me. Like, do you treat them with respect? you say thank you dear you you? Are you courteous?
00:33:18
John Saunders
And it's like, yeah, darn right.
00:33:19
johngrimsmo
To Johnny Five you are.
00:33:23
John Saunders
Anyway, I just thought that was funny. It's like, sometimes you just need to share a prompt.
00:33:26
johngrimsmo
Yep, yep. That's incredible. Okay, so last thing on automation is I update updated Fusion to the latest version and I was quite shocked to see an AI automation panel pop up on the right hand side. I'd never heard about this. I didn't expect it coming. And I was just like, whoa.
00:33:44
johngrimsmo
And gotta be honest with you, I felt weird feelings towards it. I was like, i don't know if I like this or hate it And being that Fusion is kind of my world, i almost felt that like, you know, like, oh, programmers don't exist anymore because AI can just program for you. Well, that's not true. But in a weird case, I was like, oh, no, Fusion's going to take my job away. And like for five seconds. And I was like, hold on, just...
00:34:13
johngrimsmo
A, I can't stop the momentum of any of this. Two, I don't really want to. I like, how do I use this to my advantage? And yeah, it was just kind of weird weird vibes in my head just for a few seconds there going, oh oh, this kind of hit directly close to home now. like
00:34:31
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:34:32
johngrimsmo
So I don't know. i haven't I haven't used it yet.
00:34:33
John Saunders
I'm glad to see there.
00:34:34
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I'm glad to see it too, but it it took me a few seconds to be like, ugh.
00:34:36
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:34:40
John Saunders
I mean, had a conversation with somebody and they were politely sort of like, hey, I thought about taking your training class, but then I realized, why would I take the training class? I wanted to design a sailboat and ChatGPT just created a whole tutorial series for me on how to make a sailboat Fusion 360.
00:34:54
John Saunders
I mean, like, I get it.
00:34:54
johngrimsmo
Yep, interesting.
00:34:56
John Saunders
um i Actually, side note, still think there's a lot to be said for like, which we're we're not even offering at the moment, like still, hands-on training's not going to go away. But, um,
00:35:04
johngrimsmo
yep.
00:35:05
John Saunders
In Fusion, when I'm looking at a part, I should be able to say, what's the best servicing toolpath I should look at for this feature? um
00:35:14
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:35:15
John Saunders
If I have a, whatever you know, like, I think, which I think is what this now does.
00:35:17
johngrimsmo
Or like like the other day, Yeah, I think so too. I haven't played with it, but I'm quite excited to play with it because up until now, you tend to spend a lot of time, like I have ah a need in my head.
00:35:29
johngrimsmo
Like I wanted to, I posted a video the other day where I parted off a one inch round bar in the current by spinning the C axis with a high feed end mill.
00:35:34
John Saunders
I saw that.
00:35:37
johngrimsmo
was like, I want to do that. I've seen people do it. I want to do it. It's cool.
00:35:40
John Saunders
full support, anything, anything to stop the waves.
00:35:43
johngrimsmo
It's the anti-laid to stop the lead.
00:35:45
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:35:46
johngrimsmo
But there are several tool paths that could do that. And even the one that I chose, like paused and did a lead in lead out on every full rotation. Even when I turned the leads to zero or it wouldn't let me do zero.
00:35:54
John Saunders
Oh,
00:35:56
johngrimsmo
So I had to do one millionth. And then it still kind of pauses and plunges down and then goes again and goes down and goes again. And I was like, I just want like a continuous spiral ramping down toolpath.
00:36:09
johngrimsmo
And this would be a perfect example of like, dude, this is what I want. What what toolpath options instead of spending an hour trying to find like the right toolpath.
00:36:16
John Saunders
Bingo.
00:36:21
johngrimsmo
So yeah, I'll be playing with it and I will ah see how it goes. I'm sure it's gonna be amazing.
00:36:26
John Saunders
Well, they, you know, again, it's like, I find myself going over to chat to be like, Hey, help me with this thing.
00:36:31
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:36:31
John Saunders
And it's like, I,
00:36:32
johngrimsmo
and Every day.
00:36:33
John Saunders
If Autodesk can't outperform that within their own ecosystem and fusion and helping steer the prompts, if you will, behind the scenes. Because again, that's my understanding of how a lot of these LMs work is that the way it's, the way your threads are more on point for JavaScript programming thread versus a business thread is that it's pulling in some of the past prompts. So you can better gate the questions, if you will. Yeah.
00:36:58
johngrimsmo
if there is a history, I don't know if like some of the AI systems don't tend to keep like long, long-term history. it I don't know actually.
00:37:08
John Saunders
You hit a limit um because it ends up, again, this is a lame as explanation from a friend who is qualified to just in it, tool path, but it basically keeps looping your prior prompts through.
00:37:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:20
John Saunders
Same way it does, the same way at one point, at least, the same way it was doing ah guardrail filters so that it's not doing hate speech or highly illegal things. It's like every time you send a prompt in, it's like, don't turn this into a destructive device, like ah a fire away.
00:37:35
John Saunders
Like we don't see all that stuff, but that's,
00:37:37
johngrimsmo
Yeah. yeah
00:37:38
John Saunders
But that also goes goes to shit is to say that also because they don't know how this stuff works.
00:37:44
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:37:44
John Saunders
I just part partway through a book about AI systems are grown, not um built. So in the same way, you know, I built Johnny Five or you built a knife, you understand it you grow a plant. Like we might plant the seed and we might water it and we may know what has to happen. We actually don't have a clue about the cellular structure. we Sorry, we do know something.
00:38:06
johngrimsmo
but We do, but yeah.
00:38:06
John Saunders
I know you get the point.
00:38:07
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:38:09
John Saunders
And that's very much the way these these AI systems are trained is they just sort of train it with huge amounts of data sets until it's not an unacceptable answer. And they're like, okay, so this one's really good at solving fractions and this one's really good at geography, making up, you what I mean?
00:38:18
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:38:23
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. and And the more I was thinking about, um you know, you step back on AI automations and you look at it as a tool and you and me as computer nerds have used every tool at our disposal for the past 30 years of our lives. Like if there's a tool out there, i want to use it, you know, and this that's kind of where this is at too. Like even.
00:38:45
johngrimsmo
I'm sure the first websites were literally hand coded and people still hand coded for quite a while in HTML and Java and all that stuff. But then when like programs, Microsoft come up with like front page 2000, I lived in front page 2000 forever.
00:38:57
johngrimsmo
And like it, it puts stuff together for you, you know, and that's, this is just the super advanced next level version of that.
00:39:06
John Saunders
Right. Yeah.
00:39:06
johngrimsmo
That's all.
00:39:06
John Saunders
I hear you.
00:39:07
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:39:08
John Saunders
the Yeah. um I hope, I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to share, but, um, tool path has to come a long way with the cam automation stuff and some new updates and, um,
00:39:18
johngrimsmo
cool.
00:39:22
John Saunders
the, I'll give this teaser that's somewhat vague. The idea of also tying in the ability have humanistic dialogue conversations with tool path to say, okay, i see what you did, but I'd rather drill than interpolate that hole first and then have it actually handle that is pretty exciting.
00:39:30
johngrimsmo
e
00:39:37
johngrimsmo
Yes.
00:39:39
John Saunders
Yep.
00:39:40
johngrimsmo
Yep. The conversational, whether it's programming or design or things like that, it's
00:39:46
John Saunders
Yep.
00:39:46
johngrimsmo
It's more natural. it's It's weird to get used to for a while, but at the end of the day, it's like, that's how I think.
00:39:54
John Saunders
Yep, exactly.
00:39:55
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:39:56
John Saunders
Yep.
00:40:00
johngrimsmo
Cool.
LED Technology Exploration
00:40:02
johngrimsmo
Well, my latest AI deep dive with ChatGPT, we've gotten very, very friendly over the weekend on LEDs.
00:40:11
John Saunders
Oh.
00:40:11
johngrimsmo
So for the interferometer, I need a light source and it needs to be a collimated light where it's basically same size beam forever. Like it doesn't diverge or converge.
00:40:22
johngrimsmo
it's
00:40:22
John Saunders
Yep. Mm-hmm.
00:40:23
johngrimsmo
So it's a one inch lens. I want a one inch beam forever.
00:40:26
John Saunders
OK.
00:40:26
johngrimsmo
um And then coherent where the waves front is actually like stable coming out of it, which is, I barely understand it myself, but it needs to be columnated and coherent.
00:40:38
johngrimsmo
So I need led through a pinhole, which makes the light spatially coherent.
00:40:41
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:40:43
johngrimsmo
And then you expand it to the last lens and that makes it columnated. So it goes straight.
00:40:49
John Saunders
OK.
00:40:49
johngrimsmo
And I did that and I put it together and it's great, except it's like so dim. It's like barely, you can barely tell it's on. Um, and doing some thinking, like actually thinking myself and also obviously asking ChatGPT. When you put a pinhole on the end of an LED emitter, um you're losing 99% of the light because only the, yeah exactly, only the beams that go straight up get to the pinhole and then get out.
00:41:10
John Saunders
Here, it's like literally you're blocking the light.
00:41:17
johngrimsmo
And i was like, I knew that, but like, sometimes I'm so dumb that I have to see it with my own eyes and my own hands to like really comprehend the concept behind it.
00:41:27
John Saunders
Sure.
00:41:27
johngrimsmo
And that's like Spencer's quote, you know, what is it? P1 only lasts for 15 minutes, like your your first version only lasts for 15 minutes.
00:41:36
John Saunders
Right.
00:41:36
johngrimsmo
That was me. I put hours and hours and hours and hours into this machined LED housing only to realize I'm getting less than 1% light output and it's probably too dim to really use. It might work. So then that led me on the the route of like, well, how do other people do this? Like, how's this supposed to be done? If you space the pinhole away from the l LED and you have another lens to grab all of the light from the LED called a collector lens,
00:42:04
johngrimsmo
um ah You know, an LED makes 135 degrees of light and a collector lens goes right on the LED and captures all of it. And some of them are called TIR lenses, total internal reflection, where light can bounce around inside, but still comes all out the front.
00:42:04
John Saunders
Okay.
00:42:16
John Saunders
Cool.
00:42:19
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:42:20
johngrimsmo
So that focuses 135 degrees into a 10 degree spot size, which is pretty great.
00:42:25
John Saunders
Yeah, that's awesome.
00:42:26
johngrimsmo
And if you put your pinhole there, you've now gotten like many, many times more brighter light. And if you really want, you could put another lens in there and converge it all down to the pinhole. And then you've got most of the light.
00:42:38
johngrimsmo
So I was like, oh, the project just got a lot harder, but a lot cooler.
00:42:42
John Saunders
Do you just buy one of these and put on the end of your LED or is it a whole new?
00:42:45
johngrimsmo
Pretty much. Yeah.
00:42:45
John Saunders
Okay, sweet.
00:42:45
johngrimsmo
Yeah, pretty much. so it's just buying off the shelf components and lenses and collectors and things like that, either from the flashlight world, the LED world or the optics, like just lenses world.
00:42:57
johngrimsmo
But then figuring out how to put it all together into either a machined aluminum housing for heat dissipation or just 3D printed for holding stuff in place.
00:43:02
John Saunders
Hmm.
00:43:06
John Saunders
Yeah, sure.
00:43:06
johngrimsmo
um So yeah, the interferometer is getting really close, kind of stumbles like this, make it, set it back. But I was thinking about it this morning, was staring at it. Next big things are just finalizing the 3D housing that just holds everything in line, getting the motor working, getting the Pi to drive the motor, getting my magnet encoder like functioning properly, and then mounting the beam splitter, mounting the lens on three-point kinematic adjusty mounts.
00:43:36
johngrimsmo
And then a bit of software stuff to get it all to talk to itself. And then it should like measure nanometers.
00:43:42
John Saunders
That does sound like a lot, John.
00:43:43
johngrimsmo
It does, but yeah it's not that bad.
00:43:46
John Saunders
One step at a time, right?
00:43:47
johngrimsmo
Exactly one step at a time. And I think once I have the three d printed housing and everything's kind of mounted, it will feel 95% done.
00:43:54
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:43:56
johngrimsmo
So even though that might not be like the most important step, I think mentally that would be like, that would feel like a huge win.
00:43:56
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:44:03
John Saunders
you're so You're so disciplined, I know, in other aspects of your lives. And I sometimes even forget that with like 75 hard or how much you read or like all that stuff. It's like maybe do you just, do you say every single day in your life from 8 a.m. until 8 until 8 a.m. You pick the time when only half an hour. You're going to do, like, don't think. Don't let your brain think.
00:44:23
John Saunders
Don't make notes. Just order a part you need or or assemble this thing or stay infusioned. um
00:44:31
johngrimsmo
I do kind of do that. I either I prep ahead of time and I'm like, these are the five things I want to get done today.
00:44:33
John Saunders
Okay.
00:44:37
johngrimsmo
Even if they're not done done, I've made progress on them, but it's not so much like, Oh, at 630, you know, I'm going to do this exactly.
00:44:40
John Saunders
Exactly.
00:44:45
johngrimsmo
Um,
00:44:45
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:44:46
johngrimsmo
It's like, okay, it's on my list. I'll get it done when I have some time. Sometimes I'll look at my list and be like, I have half an hour. What can I get done within half an hour? And I'll just pick a thing. And ah basically I've come to the conclusion that if it's on my list, it needs to get done.
00:45:01
johngrimsmo
And it's like, I have half an hour.
00:45:01
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:45:03
johngrimsmo
I can do that. It doesn't matter which I do first because they all need to get done. I'm just going to pick one.
00:45:07
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:45:08
johngrimsmo
It doesn't matter which one I pick. Just do it.
00:45:10
John Saunders
yeah the um I've been drawing a lot on that Tim Grover book that I read years ago on Michael Jordan trainer being trainer.
00:45:18
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:45:18
John Saunders
and like You need to think less. and um and It's been a good thing for me even in the last few weeks of like, okay, I do need to figure this out. and It's like, okay, I just set a 15-minute timer on my little time timer and I stopped thinking.
00:45:31
John Saunders
i think that's the int will look We're all different, so I apologize if I'm rambling about something that's peculiar to me, but like I just need to say, okay, I need to just stop thinking.
00:45:32
johngrimsmo
Yeah. No, no, totally.
00:45:39
johngrimsmo
You know, this needs to get done. So, yep.
00:45:41
John Saunders
Yeah. be Be a surgeon and just just start like, and enjoy it too.
00:45:44
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:45:45
John Saunders
Like it doesn't to be stressful. It's like, okay, pop open this part, program it, or i was working on PowerPoint.
00:45:46
johngrimsmo
Totally.
00:45:51
johngrimsmo
you almost allow yourself to enjoy it because you're removing the guilt, the distraction, the whatever you're like, either I need to do this or I want do this.
00:45:54
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:46:00
johngrimsmo
I'm going to enjoy this movie and I don't care about anything else.
00:46:01
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:46:02
johngrimsmo
The world doesn't matter for the next two hours. Like I'm turning my brain off or I'm hanging out with my family or whatever, or I'm programming this part or I'm ordering this led or I'm researching this thing or I get quite excited and quite engrossed in these things.
00:46:05
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:46:17
johngrimsmo
And, uh,
00:46:17
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:46:18
johngrimsmo
And then it's three o'clock in the morning and I'm like, I should really go to bed.
00:46:24
John Saunders
Yeah. i don't know how you do that.
00:46:25
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:46:25
John Saunders
Um, yeah. Okay.
Business Finance Management
00:46:29
John Saunders
can I want, can share my waterfall thing?
00:46:30
johngrimsmo
Yeah, please.
00:46:31
John Saunders
This is really tied together some loose ends over the last few years. Um, jumping back into kind of how we manage the business. Um, especially when it comes to, um, there's just the financial aspect of things. So, um,
00:46:45
John Saunders
We have periodic bills do everything from insurance and property tax to other stuff. um And I was at one point setting up little online, like we use an online, sorry, an online savings bank where we can earn some interest and it helps me silo money so that you know, okay, I've got the money in that for this sort of thing, if you will.
00:47:05
johngrimsmo
This is separate from your day-to-day bank.
00:47:06
John Saunders
a
00:47:09
John Saunders
Yes, it is.
00:47:10
johngrimsmo
Okay. Interesting.
00:47:11
John Saunders
For whatever reason in the US, the business checking accounts don't earn any interest. The interest isn't like a huge amount of money, but it adds up. It's more about being very easily easily able to say, okay, I need to have x amount for property taxes every March. And you put, it's nicer for me to put say a hundred, I'm making that over a hundred dollars a month into that account automatically than to say, oh my gosh, I need this much money in March.
00:47:34
John Saunders
And, and So I used to just eyeball those every month, every quarter, figure out what I needed to do I could set up some different automatic transfers for different things. And I um i stopped all that.
00:47:48
John Saunders
And instead, i know rough amounts overall. Um, and some of this also ties in to the, the personal aspect of running a business i like, how much do you pay yourself at all versus, versus reinvesting? Um, so I'll focus more on the mechanics than some of the decisions I made around it, but it's simple that now I have a waterfall account. So money goes into that account as I, uh,
00:48:14
John Saunders
deem it appropriate. So we try to make a minimum amount each week or each month because we know we need to fund some of these things. And then if you have good sales or something else happens and you can add a little more into it. and So the money grows in that account as the input.
00:48:27
John Saunders
And then I create a little formula. It's super simple. It's like, okay, Every month, I'll look at how much money has gotten to that account and I'll say, okay, first thing that needs to get paid is this thing, or a reserve account. I need to make sure we have enough funded in this and that and that. And then afterward, I can start splitting it up and say, okay, let's top up our...
00:48:45
John Saunders
a rainy day machine maintenance fund to be this amount. And if that's funded and I'm happy that I can say, let's move it into the buy new machines fund or building an improvements fund. And then you can just choose how you want to flow it. um But it's giving me a formula that is wonderful to to think about that way.
00:49:03
johngrimsmo
Interesting. Because you kind of have a priority level, like you have to pay your property taxes. you don't You don't have to have machine budget for repairs or new machines or something like that.
00:49:07
John Saunders
Right. Right.
00:49:12
John Saunders
Exactly.
00:49:14
johngrimsmo
But essentially you're you're allocating whatever percentage or or dollar amount from main business, from your opco to the savings account as a kind of forced savings or forced rainy day kind of expenses, things like that.
00:49:25
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:49:26
johngrimsmo
And that can be as big or as small as you want. But yeah, I like that account where you're, ah it's plenty big enough to cover your your needs, the you know, the taxes and things like that.
00:49:36
John Saunders
Yes.
00:49:38
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:49:42
John Saunders
Yeah, and we've talked about this before, but ah it also is a great way for me to deal with. I know i I desire to earn a certain amount of return on the time and money we put into this business above.
00:49:53
John Saunders
I pay myself a small salary um and I'd like to earn that. I think I need to earn that to always prove to myself that this business is justified what it does.
00:50:00
johngrimsmo
course.
00:50:01
John Saunders
But every penny above and beyond that, we're dumping back into business.
00:50:06
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:50:06
John Saunders
And this is a it's but formula formulaic way to handle that.
00:50:10
johngrimsmo
And is is waterfall like ah an accounting term that people use or?
00:50:15
John Saunders
It is a term um more often seen in in like the investment world or in like partnerships.
00:50:20
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:50:20
John Saunders
So like your law firms will be like, okay, waterfall funds get paid out. It's just, you know, as you trickle down, different people get paid in different amounts. And that that was kind of the inspiration of it.
00:50:29
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:50:33
johngrimsmo
Cool.
00:50:34
John Saunders
Yeah, it's been good.
00:50:35
johngrimsmo
Excellent.
Appreciation for Precision Microcast
00:50:39
johngrimsmo
um Okay, final thing is I normally don't listen to anything in the car, but ah I got the bug in my head of, have I listened to the whole ah Precision Microcast with Adam DeMuth and Nick Hacco or Josh Hacco?
00:50:56
johngrimsmo
And i don't think I have. I've listened to a few of the episodes, but there's like 19 episodes or whatever. So I started from the beginning and I was like, this is fantastic. Yeah.
00:51:07
John Saunders
Unbelievable you mentioned that, John. I literally went out of my way to pull it up two days ago.
00:51:12
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:51:12
John Saunders
It's like at the one-year anniversary today since they published an episode.
00:51:16
johngrimsmo
Of what? Since the last episode, exactly. Yeah.
00:51:19
John Saunders
And i I actually had thought, um I don't know either Josh or Adam that well, but I know well enough to shoot him a message. I was like, I hope both of you guys are going really well. like We miss it.
00:51:27
johngrimsmo
Yeah. yeah Yeah. And then I didn't realize Cyrus was in the last episode or two or something like that.
00:51:31
John Saunders
Hmm.
00:51:32
johngrimsmo
And i was like, oh, I can't wait to get to those. So I'm literally doing like a listen through of every episode, all 19 episodes, just on my 12 minute drives to work.
00:51:42
John Saunders
I couldn't endorse it strong and and I wouldn't say it's optional.
00:51:44
johngrimsmo
Yep, it's wonderful.
00:51:45
John Saunders
It's mandatory. Like it's better than anything.
00:51:48
johngrimsmo
It's better than this podcast.
00:51:49
John Saunders
Yeah. I'm just gonna say the same thing. It's better than us. Credit it to Josh and Adam.
00:51:51
johngrimsmo
But yeah, from what i've I've heard in the few episodes so far, I mean, they put some structure into it. They have little segments. They've done the research. They're very good at telling stories like the story of Zeiss was incredible.
00:52:03
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:52:04
johngrimsmo
You know, a company has been around since 1850. And, you know, when when old man's ice died and it changed and all this, they're just wonderful at crafting stories. And, you know, you and I are just shooting the breeze.
00:52:14
John Saunders
They have classical transition music.
00:52:16
johngrimsmo
But yeah, exactly. So it is a lovely podcast that I'm very much enjoying.
00:52:23
John Saunders
Okay. I'm going to send them an email and I'm going to CC you and they're just say, we hope all is well. We missed the microcast when we hang up here.
00:52:28
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly. Yep.
00:52:29
John Saunders
Okay. Good.
00:52:30
johngrimsmo
Sounds great.
00:52:31
John Saunders
Good.
00:52:33
John Saunders
you next week.
00:52:34
johngrimsmo
See next week. All right.
00:52:36
John Saunders
Awesome. Take care.
00:52:37
johngrimsmo
Bye, buddy. Bye.