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Ep. 7: Probing the Rabbit Hole
64 Plays25 days ago
Curt and Jamie go into detail about their probing and tumbling habits.
Companion Guide: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LC1j4SkurHQtTGsXvWGDIjwIgX0oz_cV/view?usp=drive_link or on our website
Website: https://thelonemachinists.com/
Jamie:
http://instagram.com/jspec_engineering
Curt:
Recommended
Transcript
Weekly Catch-up and Podcast Prep
00:00:46
jamie peacock
Oh, it's good. How are you doing today?
00:00:48
Curt
Good, Jamie. How you doing, man?
00:00:50
jamie peacock
Yeah, just finished up a somewhat busy day.
00:00:54
Curt
Yeah. Got your but your supper finished and ready to chat.
00:00:58
jamie peacock
Yeah, yeah, I'll make sure I have dinner before before the podcast because, yeah, it's coming up on seven o'clock this evening. So I knocked off at like hopa four came inside, just took a breather, watch some watch some TV with the wife, had dinner and then ready for the podcast.
00:01:13
Curt
Nice. Nice.
00:01:13
jamie peacock
Yeah.
Addressing Podcast Audio Issues
00:01:16
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:01:16
Curt
See how it looks like you had an interesting, interesting week.
00:01:20
jamie peacock
Yeah, so, oh, first, sorry, before we get into the week, just want to apologize to everyone for last week's intro being super quiet, and then Kurt and I shouting in New Year's. ah That was my bad. I slid the volume down on the intro by accident and didn't catch it until the episode was out.
00:01:35
jamie peacock
ah Yeah, so had an interesting week. um Yeah, so I don't know where you want to, where you want to start with that, because you've also got a copy of the list.
00:01:44
Curt
I, I definitely want to, yeah, I want us to third hear about the melting, the melting issue sounds the most interesting.
00:01:44
jamie peacock
and Should we start from the top?
00:01:49
jamie peacock
ah Okay.
Siemens Technician Visit and Fixing Controllers
00:01:52
jamie peacock
So see the Siemens guys finally came around after a year. I'm not complaining. I'm just saying it took them a year, but I didn't pay for the visit either. So not complaining. ah yeah The guy from Siemens came around. we I'm waiting for him to come back to me about setting up custom M codes. He said it should be pretty easy. He's just trying to get a SOP for me so that I can do it myself. That way I don't have to pay them to come and set up M codes.
00:02:16
jamie peacock
um He came through, we got the probe, well, we got two wires that I was touching together to simulate the
Creative Equipment Troubleshooting
00:02:23
jamie peacock
probe. We got that working on the Siemens controller. And then he wrote a, um just an MDI, he wrote a a measuring cycle that we could test that it was actually triggering correctly like it's supposed to.
00:02:37
jamie peacock
And that worked. And I said, okay, cool. It's a 24 volt input. I can just put 24 volts through the TS27i. He's like, yeah. I'm like, it's a kinematic coupling. It'll be fine. ah He's like, yeah maybe start with five volts.
00:02:49
jamie peacock
I'm like, 24 volts, let's go. So I connected it up and then it was a bit stiff and didn't want to move. So I was like, okay, this is a bit weird.
00:02:59
jamie peacock
Then disconnected it, put my multimeter on it and it was open permanently, the circuit.
00:03:05
Curt
Uh-oh.
00:03:07
jamie peacock
So I'm booping it, trying to figure out what's going on. Eventually did the thing, I plugged it into my old Pro-B box to just try and troubleshoot. Nope, not working. So I ended up taking the TS27 off of my machine, opening it up, which yourishha really don't appreciate.
00:03:25
jamie peacock
um And it was crunchy in a direction, it was it was never crunchy before. So I'm like, something's obviously not lacquer. And it's got a little kinematic coupling unit that is, it's a stainless steel housing with a, it looks to be like an Altam insert. And then they they roll the edge over so that the stainless basically closes and crimps it in place.
00:03:49
jamie peacock
So I could see something was a knacker so it ended up in the lathe and I just machined away their little swagie thing so that it would come apart.
00:03:49
Curt
Okay.
00:03:59
jamie peacock
So I took it a apart and I'm like oh okay I see what's happened yeah this pogo pin's going through and because the 24 volt is the machine's 24 volt and the ground is the ground on the machine I think there may have been a grounding issue and it basically heated up one of the springs until it melted that Elton pot.
00:04:18
Curt
Oh nice.
00:04:20
jamie peacock
so i had this So I took the thing apart, very, very cleverly built. We'll get into that in a little while, but very, very cleverly built. I then took a Dremel to it and ground away the melted bits, ground away the spring, and soldered a piece of wire between the two ends of the pogo pins.
00:04:35
jamie peacock
Because it's, well, me.
00:04:35
Curt
And then this has worked.
00:04:37
jamie peacock
it hat so and you It has. has um Just fix this quickly. Sorry listeners, you get to listen to the awesomeness of me fixing my camera. um Yeah, so it was then working. went up When I probed it, it would work. But in the process of opening this, I managed to drop two of the ball bearings that are in there.
00:04:59
Curt
Oh no.
00:05:00
jamie peacock
which was a little
Innovative Machine Repairs
00:05:01
jamie peacock
annoying. There were three millimeter balls and I did not feel like getting in my car and driving to PMG to go buy some balls. It's like, it'll take me an hour to drive there and back. And I just, I was not keen. So I was looking around the workshop and like, Hmm, skateboard bearing. I'm just going to smack this thing apart and steal the balls. But I kind of remember them being a little bit bigger.
00:05:18
jamie peacock
And then I had a tube of balls from a THK, what do they call it, caged ball system, like a sample row of balls in their little plastic cage. I'm like, okay, what size are these? Oh, they're 1.8, perfect, they'll fit.
00:05:34
jamie peacock
So the way this thing works, it's got these, el so um to explain a kinematic coupling, I assume you know what one is, Kurt, but for the listeners, it's three posts that go, the three posts go between two balls each, and then two of the balls are connected to your input and your output on your circuits, and the other pairs are linked.
00:05:44
Curt
Mm-mm.
00:05:54
jamie peacock
So when the when the three rods are sitting in the six balls, the circuit is closed. As soon as any one of the points lift, the circuit opens. So this uses the the Elton part. It's got the spring and the the three little rods in it. Comes to the top and then the ball bearings sit on like in a little cutout. And there's a flexible PCB.
00:06:16
jamie peacock
that links all the balls, or links the pair the pairs of balls, so
00:06:19
Curt
and
Tool Break Detection System
00:06:21
jamie peacock
cleverly executed.
00:06:22
jamie peacock
So the PCB is actually deformed to match the top of the ball, obviously from insertion. And in the stainless steel part, there's divots. So as you as they crimp this unit together, all the balls make contact with this PCB and so do the pogo pins.
00:06:35
jamie peacock
like super elegant solution. Like you're getting all your accuracy from the stainless steel part, but you've got this um this flexible PCB oscillator. It's super, super clever.
00:06:47
jamie peacock
um So anyway, I put this thing back together, and then the way the TS27R goes together, there's a PCB with pads for the pogo pins, then this kinematic unit, and a nut.
00:06:58
jamie peacock
And if you tighten the nut, everything gets held together. So I'm like, eh, don't need to re-swage it together, I'll just reassemble it. And it would work until you flicked it, and then it would stop working. Because now obviously the pogo pins are no longer spring-loaded.
00:07:10
Curt
all right yeah okay
00:07:11
jamie peacock
Yeah. So I ended up putting a piece of masking tape on the, on that little flexible PCB because the balls are now comma two of a millimeter bigger. So that's obviously not butting.
00:07:21
jamie peacock
I probably put a piece of masking tape on there. Got that pogo pin connecting. Then the other side of the pogo pin, I took my wires off their little PCB, soldered them to the pogo pin and chopped a piece of the PCB out. And it's back together and working and repeating flipping well.
00:07:36
jamie peacock
Like I wasn't going to buy new and if I didn't have to, like,
00:07:40
Curt
It's rare that you can take parts out of something, replace it with tape, and then it works again. And these are these are precision parts.
00:07:46
jamie peacock
Yeah, skills.
00:07:49
Curt
It's not like...
00:07:49
jamie peacock
Yeah, so I had a backup plan. Like, shit went really badly. I was gonna just put one of my cheap Chinese probes in, but obviously I didn't want to do that. I want to use the five direction probe.
00:08:00
jamie peacock
And you can get one from China for like $400. So that was the backup plan and probably still will be the backup plan. When cash flows a bit better, I'll probably buy one and just put it on the shelf. So I have it if I need it.
00:08:10
jamie peacock
If the TS27 or dies, because I mean the TS27 or is $1,500 for the probe.
00:08:10
Curt
Mm hmm.
00:08:17
Curt
Yeah, yeah, that's Nice.
00:08:18
jamie peacock
But in all of this, I then now run it off of 5 volts to not blow it up. ah But that 5 volt is also electrically isolated from the machine. So it's ah it's an old cell phone charger, just making me a clean 5 volts that is only for the probe. um And then that I put into an optocoupler, which didn't pull the signal high, it only pulled it to ground, so the controller couldn't read that signal.
00:08:43
jamie peacock
So as a stopgap measure, I put it on a single relay board for an Arduino, and that's working. It just doesn't repeat super well. It varies by about two thou or so. So I just probe, probe, probe till it's consistent, and then I leave it there. That'll get remedy tomorrow. I've got an optocoupler that pulls the signal high and pulls it low, like with MOSFET. That's arriving tomorrow, and then I'm up.
00:09:07
jamie peacock
my woes should be over i will have a jsi unit because i'm not spending 400 on a renish or hsi unit yeah so that that thing's yeeted
00:09:16
Curt
So does all this complication get around the little like tool break breakout board you'd made like a few weeks back?
Troubleshooting Machine Axis Issues
00:09:24
jamie peacock
um this is now in the controller so i rewrote my tool
00:09:24
Curt
Okay. Nice.
00:09:29
jamie peacock
My tool break to detect macro, so that the machine, it obviously knows what tools in there, it knows what the offset is. I saved an additional offset just above the tool setter, so on um the calibrated XY position and about 10 mils above, or saved at about a millimeter above. So what I do is my tool break a subroutine, tells the machine go up, go to that coordinate set, XY, X, y zero x x, y, 0, then wrap it down to 10 mls above the probe and then it runs the built-in probing tool break detection cycle.
00:10:00
jamie peacock
That way it's super quick because otherwise it rapids over and then comes down at one meter a minute, which is glacial.
00:10:02
Curt
Yeah. let's Yeah. That's exactly how mine is.
00:10:09
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:10:09
Curt
It comes over like a six inches because it doesn't exactly know how long one of my tools is going to be.
00:10:12
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:10:13
Curt
So just like D D D D D D D coming down at, you know, super, super slow.
00:10:15
jamie peacock
Yeah, now it's horrid. So like when our when our tool sets, so when I put a tool in the machine for the first time, it needs a rough gauge length.
00:10:24
Curt
Yeah.
00:10:24
jamie peacock
So I made the gauge length estimator, which I put on printables, ah which lets me just put the holder in the thing, drop the little finger on it. It tells me roughly how long it is, because I need it to be within a couple of millimeters.
00:10:37
jamie peacock
Otherwise, it either over travels or under travels and doesn't trigger the probe or triggers it too soon.
00:10:41
Curt
Yeah.
00:10:42
jamie peacock
So that just makes makes life easy, because when you're swapping a tool out, you don't want to... I was battling to get a good a reliable measurement of the tools that were in the machine. Market would go and it would crash the probe and then I'd have to come up, like change the offset again, change the offset again, till I could get it to work reliably, which was a little infuriating.
00:10:51
Curt
yeah
00:11:01
Curt
Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a, that's a good method.
00:11:02
jamie peacock
But yeah, that's, yeah, it's it's working now, so. I'm happy and I got the fiber laser.
00:11:07
Curt
Nice.
00:11:09
jamie peacock
So I'll just fiber laser the piece of aluminium extrusion with ah from 55 mils to a hundred and fifty five 160 mils because my calibration tool which is a face mill over is 55 millimeter gauge length Or to the tip.
00:11:23
Curt
or so you can get everything, yeah.
00:11:25
jamie peacock
Yeah, so as long as everything's in relation to that I slid the piece of extrusion up and down till it read 55 on that tool or on that calibration tool and then everything is in relation to it and it's it's fun and
00:11:37
Curt
Yeah, that's something I definitely have to do because I have all my tools sitting on my desk right here. And I'm like, I should put all my tool offsets because some of them are like, if I'm off by like 50 thou, like I'll crash into fixtures.
00:11:46
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:11:48
Curt
And I'm like, I'll write that down eventually. I know I'm going to break a tool and then not have my offset and then be playing that game again and be like, okay, how much stick out did I have?
00:11:51
jamie peacock
But.
00:11:54
Curt
I think I had about this much and like have to play the backwards game or put a tool in and then, you know, go to probe it and be like, Oh, okay.
00:11:55
jamie peacock
Oh, yeah.
00:12:00
Curt
I'm a little long. And then just like, I have to play the back and forth as opposed to just taking 10 minutes to measure them all right on town, which would save me.
00:12:01
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:12:05
jamie peacock
write them down and you've got it because yeah once they set up in the machine then i mean your machine can probably do 250 tools so once it's in the once it's set up it's set up that's why i've got the tool tags on mine once it's set up it's
00:12:06
Curt
So. yeah
00:12:12
Curt
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You can do a million of them. So yeah.
Machine Probing and Tool Routine Optimizations
00:12:18
jamie peacock
set up yet yeah i would say the tool holders i'm getting from uh china are not horrid and they're pretty friggin cheap
00:12:19
Curt
Yeah. I have the, uh, I have the poor people advantage of not having enough tool holders to worry about that yet. So but once I do, then I can start using them. so
00:12:34
jamie peacock
Like $25 a holder I've had one crack and that's not dedicated to running one of my drills because I don't really care um Like it's straight up just dedicated to my two and a half millimeter drill because it'll flex to run true So I don't really I don't really care like I'm using it for making m3 threads like if it's a little bit big it doesn't matter
00:12:34
Curt
Hmm.
00:12:54
jamie peacock
ah But I've had that one that's had an issue and I had one that I didn't like where the ground ended on the taper in relation to the flange. So that got relegated to running something stupid.
00:13:05
jamie peacock
Like it's not a critical tool. It's relegated to running dumb stuff like a broken end mill for making sure there's no parts in the way after it's letting saw operation.
00:13:14
Curt
Nice.
00:13:15
jamie peacock
No. And then, yeah, so what's cooking with your fourth axis?
00:13:21
Curt
so they're still trying to figure it out essentially. The problem is like, this is one of the issues where like, I want to put more time into it, but I know anything I do, if I mess it up, then they're gonna be like, well, it's on you. You, you were the one, so I'm like, oh, so I kind of at the mercy of like how fast that they're able to troubleshoot, which isn't an issue right now.
00:13:30
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:13:36
Curt
Cause I don't need the fourth axis, but it's kind of one of those things like I paid for it. I want it to work right now.
00:13:39
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:13:41
jamie peacock
No, 100%.
00:13:41
Curt
Um, anyways, yeah, we figured out a bunch of stuff on it.
00:13:44
Curt
Um, sent me a bunch of different parameters.
00:13:44
jamie peacock
Yeah, did you get your topology sorted?
00:13:47
Curt
Apologies all sort sorted. Everything is happy. The machine knows all the drives are there. The machine knows it's connected. Everything seems to be working fine. We just checked the PLC this morning, um which was just telling you guys running a few quick machine tests.
00:13:59
Curt
So they thought maybe the clamp on a clamp signal for the break was reversed.
00:13:59
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:14:03
Curt
um But that seems to be fine.
00:14:03
jamie peacock
Uh, okay.
00:14:05
Curt
Um, so yeah, still not getting any move. I get like, uh, basically a non, uh, it seems to be an encoder referencing error where it's like, it's not zeroed, but that's cause it's like, it's not going to zero. It's a fourth axis with like an absolute encoder.
00:14:16
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:14:18
Curt
So it's, uh, it's far enough away from it's like home position that I think it's causing problems, but like even just resetting the encoder is not helping. I don't know. It's something, it's something, it should be something simple because it's not throwing any alarms, but it's just like, yeah, tedious, a lot of back and forth.
00:14:27
jamie peacock
Yeah, I'll figure it out.
00:14:32
jamie peacock
Yeah, I'm sure they'll figure it out at some point.
00:14:35
Curt
Yeah. I mean, and like, I have, yeah, I have like four or five things I could try, but like I said, I can get back into that problem of like, it might fix it and I might be fine or it might not fix it and it might cause a problem.
00:14:36
jamie peacock
Hopefully soon.
00:14:41
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:14:45
Curt
And they'll be like, Oh, you did that.
00:14:47
jamie peacock
Yeah, that's, yeah.
00:14:48
Curt
And I was like, ah, so.
00:14:49
jamie peacock
Well that's, so my my machine, well your machine will have it as well. ah You got two probe inputs, you got one on header 122, pin 11, which is labeled 13 for some reason, and on 132, also pin 11 labeled pin 13 for some stupid reason.
00:15:08
jamie peacock
um Mine, I had my tool set up on the first one. No, it needs to be on the second one. Like, so the measure cycle would work. And if you push the tool setter, it would, the measure cycle would work successful successfully and say it's been triggered. But if you try to do the automatic calibration, wouldn't work because it's looking at the second probe signal. So yeah, that took a little while, but I figured that one out. I was like, I can't wait for yolks to keep coming back. Worst case, it's not going to trigger like it's currently doing. But as soon as I swapped that over, it just yeah started working.
00:15:40
Curt
Yeah. So much, so much complexity in these machines.
00:15:40
jamie peacock
du
00:15:42
Curt
They just don't realize how many like hundreds and hundreds of logic signals are running and like how many backend processes are moving.
00:15:44
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:15:48
jamie peacock
This, yeah.
00:15:49
Curt
It's like, it's not just like a ah big, it's not like just a big dumb machine, like our old ones.
00:15:52
jamie peacock
No, I'm waiting. I'm waiting for the the procedure to add custom M codes. I'm very curious to see that. Apparently it's pretty easy and I'm gonna share that with everybody because well, everyone deserves to use the hardware they have.
00:16:03
Curt
Sick.
00:16:06
jamie peacock
You've paid for it already.
00:16:07
Curt
Yeah.
00:16:08
jamie peacock
Like I've got a whole bunch of relays that aren't being used. I want to use those for automation, like not a charity.
00:16:13
Curt
Yeah.
00:16:13
jamie peacock
Oh, the machines needs to do the things.
00:16:17
Curt
Yeah, no, exactly. I know I'm about like, I'm about a week away from just, I'm going to think I'm going to search out my local Siemens rep.
00:16:18
jamie peacock
No.
00:16:25
Curt
And if I can't solve this in in the next issue, in the next week or so, I'm just gonna be like, you know what?
00:16:25
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:16:29
Curt
I don't care. Like I'll pay them to come out, just make it go.
00:16:31
jamie peacock
Yeah, and just, yeah, make it work.
00:16:32
Curt
And I can figure it out, figure it out in the in the back end. Yeah. Just yeah.
00:16:35
jamie peacock
Yeah, it's probably something really stupid that's causing the issue.
00:16:39
Curt
That's the thing. Yeah. Like it's all, it's, it's all like, from what I can understand, all the connections, everything is fine. It's just, like you said, it's some stupid logic signal, some PLC signal. It's something very basic, but there's a million things to check.
00:16:50
Curt
And I, unfortunately, I'm not an expert on Siemens controls, so I'm getting a lot better.
00:16:50
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:16:54
jamie peacock
Well, I mean, I ah had the Siemens guy here, and we were trying to find out how to invert the control signal or the inputs for the probe.
00:17:00
Curt
Hmm.
00:17:02
jamie peacock
And I'd been reading the commissioning documents for the 8 to 8D. So I was like, no, no, I know where this is in the document. Quickly searched it, pulled it up, changed the parameters, and then you have the power cycle.
00:17:11
jamie peacock
Because you change it, and nothing changes until your power cycle.
00:17:11
Curt
yeah
00:17:13
Curt
no
00:17:14
jamie peacock
But yeah, just although there's like 20 different things you need to change to get probing to work, it's way more than you would expect.
00:17:20
Curt
Yeah.
00:17:24
jamie peacock
I kind of want to dive in now and speed some stuff up on the probing as well.
00:17:24
Curt
Yeah.
00:17:25
Curt
Yeah.
00:17:27
jamie peacock
Cause I'm sure I can find those variables somewhere and just start messing with them. So it doesn't come down at one meter and when it comes out at three meters a minute, the probe can over travel by like two or three mils.
00:17:36
Curt
yeah
00:17:39
jamie peacock
It'll be fine.
00:17:40
Curt
Yeah, I know I have that in my calibration routine.
00:17:41
jamie peacock
Just to do.
00:17:42
Curt
I have, it's a user variable where you can set how fast you want it to come down for the calibration. And I was like, why would you ever want this cook?
00:17:47
jamie peacock
Okay. Cause my not.
00:17:48
Curt
And like, you want it to come so slow. You're doing calibration. You're not like, you're not doing this every day.
00:17:51
jamie peacock
Your calibration, I would like to slow mine down a little bit. like I'd rather have it move slowly and be accurate than try and win a race and be not accurate.
00:17:55
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:58
Curt
Absolutely. yeah
00:17:59
jamie peacock
luck It's a bit dumb.
00:18:02
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:18:02
jamie peacock
So I was chatting to Justin from Toolpath this week, and he asked me to please dive into how I was doing my tool break detect routine on the on the previous Jamie special box.
00:18:13
Curt
Oh yeah, we were able to break out.
00:18:14
jamie peacock
Yeah, yes, I thought I'd run through that quickly.
00:18:14
Curt
Yeah.
00:18:17
jamie peacock
Okay, so what I did, what I was doing is that little box that was on the front of my machine.
00:18:18
Curt
Sure.
00:18:22
jamie peacock
would beep when I triggered the probe. that That is its function. It had an Arduino in there that would beep and change the color of a light when the probe triggered.
00:18:29
Curt
Mm hmm.
00:18:31
jamie peacock
So I would do all my tool setting with that. So my previously my tool length was in the negative. So it would be basically whatever distance from Z zero when the machine homes, come down till it triggers and then I would say set tool length and it would set it to minus 270 something millimeters.
00:18:50
Curt
Okay. Yeah.
00:18:51
jamie peacock
Yeah, so now ah now the machine knows where it is. And my probe was, the coordinates for the probe were on G 598.
00:19:02
Curt
Okay.
00:19:02
jamie peacock
So I ride like one of my last things that I'm never gonna ever get to using. So that was dedicated to the probe. So what I would do is my ma my subroutine would till the machine go all the way up, G598, X0, Y0, then it would come down to Z10, so to wrap it down to Z10, and then I would till it to, I would then turn my chip conveyor on because that was the only relay I could steal in the back and don't have a chip conveyor.
00:19:28
jamie peacock
When I turned that on, it would turn another relay on, which would connect to the Jamie special box to the starts button on the front of the machine, cycle start button. Then I would tell the machine to use to go to Z minus zero comma one millimeters. So trigger the probe by comma one of a millimeter to guarantee a trigger. It would then go there and pause.
00:19:51
jamie peacock
and it would wait, it would dwell, well, the probe box would wait half a second, and then it would close the relay for half a second, that would push the start button. so And then it would get told to run back up and it will continue running the program.
00:19:51
Curt
okay
00:20:02
jamie peacock
So I would just go into my program wherever I wanted to break detection, I would add a comment in my cam that was TBD. And then once I posted the code, I would just search TBD and remove the semicolon that was in front of it.
00:20:15
Curt
Mm, okay. Mm, okay.
00:20:19
jamie peacock
And then wherever it said TBD, it would just run that macro. So it's at the end of the program. The machine would literally just wrap it up. It's still got its offset loaded. Go touch the thing.
00:20:30
jamie peacock
If it was always was good, it would then continue. If it wasn't, it would sit there paused. And it never, ever caught a broken tool.
00:20:38
Curt
no
00:20:39
jamie peacock
I broke three tools in a row, implemented that, and it has not caught a tool since.
00:20:43
Curt
Well, that's, he's doing his job then.
00:20:43
jamie peacock
which is a little infuriating. Like I'm tempted to just hit the tool with a hammer and make it break just to see if it works.
00:20:51
jamie peacock
My God, it was a bit that was a bit annoying that it never actually caught on, but the peace of mind it gives you was worth every every minute I put into developing that.
00:20:51
Curt
That's awesome.
00:21:00
Curt
Yeah, no, absolutely. And that's, that's something I want to roll in for some, some operations that don't really care if it breaks the tool.
00:21:01
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:21:05
Curt
It's like, Oh, I'll notice it on the next off. But yeah, some of them, it's like, if this breaks a tool, it's going to break a lot of expensive tools sequentially as
00:21:07
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:21:12
jamie peacock
know that Yeah, that's what happened to me.
Material Supply and Order Strategies
00:21:14
jamie peacock
I broke a three millimeter end mill, which caused a two mill to break, which caused my backside chamfer to break. And it then ran through, did the slitting.
00:21:19
Curt
nice.
00:21:19
Curt
Yeah.
00:21:21
jamie peacock
I'm like, whyt why aren't the parts still here? They've been falling off. Go try get the parts off. And it's still got like a millimeter of material.
00:21:29
jamie peacock
So it was not gonna break free anytime soon. So it's, ah yeah, tool break tech just gives you a piece of mind. Like I ran that job, last week or the week before.
00:21:29
Curt
Yeah, i yeah Yeah Yeah, that's the way that is the way
00:21:40
jamie peacock
And it's an hour and 20 minute cycle time. I hit go and I go inside and leave it to run. If there's a problem, the machine will pause and I'll get a notification. Because I also, I can turn on notifications that if the LK sits for more than 15 seconds.
00:21:54
jamie peacock
So if it goes from run, from the run state to the not running state for more than 15 seconds, it notifies me.
00:22:01
Curt
Nice.
00:22:01
jamie peacock
That because that driver does a tool change or anything like tool break detected, won't send me a notification or only send me one if it's stopped for a while.
00:22:09
Curt
Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's clever.
00:22:10
jamie peacock
And I have some of those boards on the way.
00:22:12
Curt
Sick.
00:22:13
jamie peacock
I designed a board that you can plug three machines into. So you plug in a 24 volt from the machines. So anywhere from 12, from five to 24 volts signal with its ground. And then you hijack the signal going to your, the lot.
00:22:29
jamie peacock
and you basically use the green light to know if the machine's running or not.
00:22:30
Curt
Oh yeah. Okay.
00:22:32
jamie peacock
So I've got six channels for that, and then two relay outputs on little ESP-C3. So i ordered I was ordering PCBs, so I just threw those into the order.
00:22:44
Curt
Nice. You can now monitor all your machines and get notifications on all of them.
00:22:46
jamie peacock
Yeah, so I want to monitor. and I'm very curious to see what the lathes do. I'm very, very curious to see what the lathe's uptime is like. Because I mean, Bertha ran for most of the day today.
00:22:57
jamie peacock
Unattended. It runs 30 minutes at 30, 40 minutes at a time. You go there, put a bar and hit go, and it carries on running.
00:23:03
Curt
Nice, nice.
00:23:04
jamie peacock
Same with Amco. It runs silly hours.
00:23:08
Curt
That's awesome.
00:23:08
jamie peacock
But yeah, today I discovered that my aluminium supply doesn't have stock of the aluminium. I order every freaking month. and they won't have for three weeks. So I was saying to to my missus like, we have to we have to just suck it up and bar and put down material for 300 pots on our...
00:23:17
Curt
oh
00:23:26
jamie peacock
on our premises again, that when we have our order, we not now, like now I can, I've ordered the other material, I'm gonna machine the parts, they're gonna sit for two or three weeks till I can get tubing, and then I'm gonna assemble, and then I'm hoping the tubes the right size.
00:23:28
Curt
yeah
00:23:33
Curt
Yeah.
00:23:39
jamie peacock
I'm like, this this is not gonna fly, but also that customer's been ordering small orders, which is extremely infuriating.
00:23:46
Curt
Yeah. Well, that's the same game I played in my titanium. I tried to like, I tried to order small batch quantities. I'm like, you know what? The the actual cost of titanium.
00:23:51
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:23:53
Curt
Yeah, it's expensive, but like the cost of not having it is.
00:23:57
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:23:57
Curt
Massive in comparison.
00:23:58
jamie peacock
So, yeah.
00:23:59
Curt
So now I just buy, I'm like, buy more than enough to keep me running for an extra month or so. Just that way I don't have to worry. Don't have to stop or slow down.
00:24:03
jamie peacock
So, yeah, the last time these folks ordered a big order, I ordered extra 300 parts worth of material, but then they didn't order the next month and didn't order, they had a small order the following month. So I'm like, I don't want to sit on stock.
00:24:16
jamie peacock
for no reason.
00:24:17
Curt
Yeah.
00:24:17
jamie peacock
So yeah you gotta find that balance, unfortunately. So we'll see now, I think when stock comes in, I'm just gonna suck it up and order 600 parts for the 200 that they want and just sit on stock.
00:24:21
Curt
Well, and then I.
00:24:30
Curt
Yeah. When I, I guess it depends on the kind of work you do. Like, thankfully all my stock is like, if I order like a couple months supply, i like I can hold it in my hands.
00:24:33
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:24:36
Curt
Like it's, it's, it's not a lot of material.
00:24:37
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:24:38
Curt
So it's pretty easy to store.
00:24:40
jamie peacock
Yeah, no, that's not not too bad.
00:24:41
Curt
So.
00:24:42
jamie peacock
But yeah, I like this. are My thought is now to just chop it up and put it in my my little grinding room outside. Just that it's not in the rain. It's aluminium, it's not gonna rust, it gets a bit stained, but I don't really care.
00:24:50
Curt
Yeah.
00:24:53
jamie peacock
But I don't want it lying in my driveway either.
00:24:53
Curt
Yeah.
00:24:56
jamie peacock
So I'm thinking just break it all down to length, stash it, and just keep tabs on how much we have on hand and keep stock of a couple hundred.
00:24:56
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:03
jamie peacock
pieces because like now they've placed the order I'm like okay cool we'll get this out in a couple days and we good for my event and now I'm not going to be able to deliver because there's not going to be material so it's like ew this is a bit of a problem like I can do all the work but I can't do the last little bit to get us over the finish line which is a bit infuriating yeah yeah
00:25:14
Curt
Yeah, yeah.
00:25:22
Curt
Yeah. Well, and your world's a little, your world's a little different too. Cause you're like, you're doing fair, or at least I'm assuming those are fairly low cost parts. So the material cost probably plays a bit more of a role as opposed to like.
00:25:32
jamie peacock
ah Yeah, on the on that specific assembly, it is the highest material cost of all the products I make for them, which is, yeah.
00:25:38
Curt
Yeah. Okay. That makes, so you don't want to sit on.
00:25:40
jamie peacock
It's still, it's still I was doing the maths in my head, yeah.
00:25:41
Curt
Yeah. A year supply.
00:25:46
jamie peacock
It's still not even 30%, or it's just on 30% of the the actual order value. So it's not like it's 90% of the order value.
00:25:51
Curt
Oh, that's not bad. Yeah, that's not bad, man.
00:25:54
jamie peacock
um Yeah, it's just they placing ah orders for small amounts at the moment. Ending off last year, they're like, no, no, next year we're going to be doing orders. And it's like $5,000 a month orders from them that I'm expecting.
00:26:07
jamie peacock
And they're giving me these little $1,500 orders. And I'm like, guys, this ain't going to fly. like You need to figure out your store easier.
00:26:14
Curt
Yeah.
00:26:16
jamie peacock
I actually dawned on me that they might be getting some of the components from the old supplier.
00:26:16
Curt
Yeah. No.
00:26:20
jamie peacock
So next time I deliver, I'll just go walk into their storeroom and have a look around. I don't think they are. um But yeah, we'll see.
00:26:30
Curt
Yeah. Well, on the, on the news of, on the news of material, I know it's this last, last week I've just been doing, uh, bodies on my lathe and I decided to start like pushing it because I haven't really pushed it.
00:26:32
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:26:40
jamie peacock
yeah
00:26:41
Curt
Um, and I bought some, I have some nice, I like the Tungaloy inserts, uh, for my lathe. So I just started to push the feet rates harder and harder and harder and harder. And it is, um, I have to go through all my feed rates now and like triple them because I doubled the spindle speed and tripled the feed rate and the finishes.
00:26:56
Curt
There's like, it's I do a roughing pass and a finishing pass.
00:26:58
jamie peacock
yeah is that on the the big manual lathe yeah okay yeah yeah
00:26:58
Curt
And they're still coming out exactly where I want them, exactly on tolerance, exactly on specs. And I was like, why didn't I do this? This is on the manual lathe. Yeah, just on the manual lathe. Unfortunately, doing pen bodies, I got a lot of in between center turning. And on the turret lathe, I don't have a tail stock. So I was like, well, the easiest way to fix this right now is to buy a big manual lathe and do all my turning that way. And then I can free up the manual. Because the the big CNC lathe is constantly running parts.
00:27:23
Curt
So I'm like, if I can take a little bit of load off it, um, and just do some manual work while it's working and and get better finishes, it saves on finishing time. And just, it was the cost effective approach. And yeah, it's, uh, it's just amazing what you can get away of.
00:27:35
Curt
of Like, I was like, I don't know if like you turn it by hand. You're like, that's a lot of, like you're putting a lot of pressure in that cut.
00:27:39
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:27:40
Curt
Um, but yeah, I was super impressed with that. So yeah, I kind of quadrupled my throughput.
00:27:43
jamie peacock
Yeah, I ah did that a while ago. I did that a while ago with the recurring parts we do, these tubes, ah machining the ends.
00:27:51
Curt
Yeah.
00:27:51
jamie peacock
i just I was trying to get the chip to break in aluminum, and I still can't get the chip to break, but I'm now running it at like 0.45 feet per rev.
00:27:54
Curt
Mm hmm.
00:28:01
jamie peacock
So it's, yeah, that's,
00:28:02
Curt
Yeah, significant. Yeah.
00:28:06
jamie peacock
17 thou per rev. Like it's a significant cut.
00:28:08
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
00:28:09
jamie peacock
I'll start running out of horsepower before I can go any faster. I was actually meant to get an insert. I must chase that guy up and see if I can get a sample insert.
00:28:17
Curt
Mm.
00:28:17
jamie peacock
Cause we're going to have to run them again now. Cause that's the biggest limits on that is I can't barfeed because the chips get in the way.
00:28:25
Curt
Yeah. Oh, and that's a nice thing about it even, even me pushing these feed rates in titanium, like titanium is relatively like, it doesn't like to break chips, but pushing this insert to oddly enough where it wants to be.
00:28:25
jamie peacock
like that Yeah.
00:28:33
jamie peacock
yeah
00:28:36
Curt
And it's back. It's like the chips are breaking beautifully.
00:28:38
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:28:38
Curt
So just like, yeah, I rough it and just like there's little itty bitty chips that I have to sweep up.
00:28:39
jamie peacock
No, that's a...
00:28:43
Curt
And yeah, it's so nice.
00:28:43
jamie peacock
No, that's a really...
00:28:44
Curt
So nice.
00:28:47
jamie peacock
Yeah, that's nice that you're getting chip ring. I'm battling. I'm using pecking to try and just manage the chips.
00:28:53
Curt
Oh yeah.
00:28:53
jamie peacock
And that's why I have to have the baller to run the run the lathe because ah can't I can't even run five pots.
00:28:53
Curt
That's.
00:28:59
jamie peacock
Because if I run five pots, I'm gonna have a nest in there that I've got to deal with.
00:29:00
Curt
yeah
00:29:03
jamie peacock
So she runs one at a time.
00:29:04
Curt
yeah
00:29:05
jamie peacock
ah Yes, and with regards to that, there is now a companion guide linked in the description that will explain some of the very creative words that I use because apparently I speak in South African and specifically Durban South African slang.
00:29:06
Curt
um
00:29:19
jamie peacock
So yeah, if anyone's got any questions about the words they're hearing, there is a companion guide and it's got links to a phonetic um dictionary that will actually say the word out, try and give you guys a bit more context.
00:29:22
Curt
Yeah, yeah
00:29:30
jamie peacock
But yeah, really interesting. Have a look at that.
00:29:33
jamie peacock
So I thought I'll just throw that one in there quickly.
00:29:34
Curt
I've been playing with it for like the last 10 minutes.
00:29:36
Curt
it's It's a fantastic.
00:29:39
jamie peacock
Yeah, and that'll grow as we yeah as we discover more words, will we'll let that go.
00:29:39
Curt
Danica did such a good job.
00:29:44
jamie peacock
So if anyone has any notes, just hit us up and we will add it to that dictionary.
00:29:51
jamie peacock
Yeah, IMTS was a lot of fun with ah with me speaking Jamie. Like a lot of the guys were battling to follow. I mean, we went to into dinner with EJ from Eternal Welding and I asked him how old his lattes were.
00:30:04
jamie peacock
He was so confused.
00:30:05
Curt
Yeah.
00:30:06
jamie peacock
Like that's a very South African term, yeah.
00:30:06
Curt
Yeah, that'd be, no one knows that.
00:30:09
jamie peacock
Now that's a super, super South African one.
00:30:10
Curt
Yeah.
00:30:12
jamie peacock
But yeah, it was quite entertaining to watch. He's like, you're looking at me so good confused. Like what the hell are you on about? But yeah. I see you've got a tumbling experiments on you.
00:30:23
Curt
I know we briefly talked about last week about different tumblers. So I sent an email out to, I think the company's called Avalon and they make a centrifugal disc tumbler.
00:30:32
jamie peacock
why Yeah.
00:30:33
Curt
That's relatively inexpensive. Like the one I'm looking at, I think it's about 3000 bucks, but freight is going to be probably pretty brutal because it's somewhere in the middle of the U S and I'm in Canada.
00:30:35
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:30:42
Curt
So it's probably going to be like a thousand bucks to in freight.
00:30:43
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:30:46
Curt
Anyways, send them a quote just to see kind of ah what they would say. I talked to a few people actually tighten ring designs, um, on Instagram.
00:30:52
jamie peacock
Yes, he's got one.
00:30:53
Curt
He has. Yeah, he has a similar model. So I asked him about it and he said he's pretty pumped for it for small parts. He said it's treated him really well and ah and he's used it for like a billion years and it's yeah holding true. So I'm like, okay, for the price I can ah can deal with this.
00:31:05
Curt
Anyways, in the meantime, I was like, I'm going to play with some of my vibratory tumblers just to see if, because I've used tumbler tumblers. Like I built a big tumbler that just rotates and kind of.
00:31:13
jamie peacock
Yellow bucket.
00:31:15
Curt
put your, yeah, you put your parts in like that, but it just bangs the hell out of my parts. And as I'm trying to like hold tighter edges and chamfers and everything like that, it just doesn't play super nice. Uh, so vibratory is nicer.
00:31:24
jamie peacock
yeah yeah yeah i used to tumble over not on my laboratory and i've got a lineman one that i used to run over not
00:31:26
Curt
There's the ones that have a pretty anemic. Um, so I put one of my trash pen body in there and just let it run for, I think I let it run for eight hours with some nice, like fine polishing media.
00:31:36
Curt
And the finishes were so nice. Like they were fantastic. So I'm like, okay, okay. There's merit. Yeah.
00:31:48
Curt
Yeah. So anyways, I found a weirdly enough, I found an instructable article of these are just like your standard five pound tumblers, like here, at least on this side of the world, you can get them pretty much like any reseller is going to sell this five pound vibratory tumbler with various names under it.
00:31:58
jamie peacock
yeah
00:32:02
Curt
And a guy took one and he took the counterweight off the bottom of the motor and spun it around and put it on the top side. Because with the way Tundra is working, you have all ah a bucket of media on top and then a vibrating motor on the bottom, just an off-centered weight.
00:32:14
jamie peacock
Yeah
00:32:14
Curt
But the off-centered weight was so low to the bottom that it's away from the center of gravity. so the action for tumbling, you want it closer to the center of gravity to like agitate everything more anyway.
00:32:18
jamie peacock
It was yeah
00:32:23
Curt
So he spun it around and had significant, uh, performance increases. I'm like, you know what? That's a inexpensive, nothing to do. So anyways, that's what I did the other night. Uh, basically took the motor off, spun the made a new, uh, or I'm actually finishing making the counterweight probably today.
00:32:36
Curt
And then I'll put it back together and see if that helps. Cause even if if I can get it down to eight hours of tumbling, I don't care.
00:32:39
jamie peacock
Hmm.
00:32:41
Curt
Like I'll go to bed, turn the tumbler on and wake up like for right now.
00:32:41
jamie peacock
Yeah, that's fine, yeah. That's what I used to do with the Flux. I used to throw in like 24 of them, go to bed, come in the morning, take them out, load another batch, let it run through the day, like it was 16 hours I was tumbling them.
00:32:45
Curt
Totally. Yeah.
00:32:51
Curt
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It just, I'm getting to the point where like finishing is tedious and like blasting is great, but it's purely manual.
00:32:55
jamie peacock
No.
00:32:59
Curt
So I, I'm tumbling. I can get a beautiful finish with this. Like I bought some like just fine finish ceramic and it just, you get just like this shiny, but really matte finish and it doesn't take away a ton of tooling marks, but that's fine.
00:33:06
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:33:12
Curt
Cause I kind of put them in there as a pre-finished stage. Anyways. Um, I just want something that just gets me from like pre-finished to finish with less manual work.
00:33:15
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:33:20
jamie peacock
Yeah, gets gets all the sharp edges off. Like I tumble the mag bases, so that's one of my things, was tumbling versus scotch brite through Anno.
Anodizing and Finishing Techniques
00:33:27
jamie peacock
So the mag bases I make, they all get tumbled to deburr internal features, basically. And then they it also just rounds everything over nicely. But then I scotch brite them. And I hate scotch brining things. I did Anno yesterday, I did,
00:33:43
jamie peacock
when you have 30 ports, and you go and you scotchbrite each one, and getting the tooling marks off is a little bit of a problem, I need to change the inserts on my face model. But yeah, the black is blacker if I tumble and anodize, than if I scotchbrite and anodize, because the light reflects differently off the ports. So if I run the same port, one tumbled, one scotchbrite, I get a darker black on the tumbled ports.
00:34:11
jamie peacock
just the ref reflectivity of the changes or something, I don't know. I've got to do another 30 parts this week ah that needs to be anodized. Those are going to go straight from tumble into anodize. Give them a good etch and then then run them through.
00:34:22
Curt
Nice, yeah.
00:34:24
jamie peacock
But yeah, the ano is a hell of a thing. That topic was going to be, I hate anodizing, but it's really not that bad. I did like six runs on Sunday. I was done by two o'clock in the afternoon.
00:34:36
jamie peacock
It really wasn't wasn't too bad. Like I've got the process pretty dialed.
00:34:39
Curt
Yeah, well, that's my.
00:34:43
Curt
and that's my love hate with anodizing too is like for finishes like if the finish isn't like if you're like scotch writing it like just giving a nice brushed finish which I do for a lot of my products if you have a perfect brush finish across and you anodize it um you get a nice uniform reflectivity like it looks visually perfect but if you don't like
00:34:50
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:34:58
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:35:03
Curt
perfectly scotch brighted, or if you get a spot that's in maybe the scotch bright pad unloaded a bit better. So it cut a little harder than an other spot. So one part, you know, maybe has a slightly brighter finish than everywhere else. When you anodize it, it just accentuates it.
00:35:14
Curt
And now it's like, it's super, but and these, the parts I'm making are just like purely visual.
00:35:15
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:35:18
Curt
So like, if they look bad, they're bad.
00:35:19
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:35:20
Curt
Um, which is just crazy annoying.
00:35:21
jamie peacock
Not 100%.
00:35:22
Curt
And then when do you anodize titanium, the only way to undo it is you can etch it off, but then that changes the surface finish.
00:35:26
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:35:27
Curt
Then you got to go right back through the finishing. So it's crazy tedious if you mess up. So that's just trying to minimize that.
00:35:31
jamie peacock
Yeah, no, I don't. If I scrap an ano pot, it gets thrown in the bin. It's not worth stripping the ano off.
00:35:39
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:40
jamie peacock
Like now, so I was chatting to my wife about this today. We had to, it was yesterday, you know, we went to the shop to go buy some linen bins, sold some stuff out. And I was saying, I did ah did that batch of ano and it's like decent bucks.
00:35:54
jamie peacock
All the parts were machined because now with the LK, machining mag bases is not a big deal. Like ah when I do a material order, if I'm running low, I order 30 pieces and I'll just make 30 mag bases, put them on the shelf.
Inventory and Procurement Challenges
00:36:06
jamie peacock
And when I need them, I scotch about them and anodize them. And it's not, we don't make, on those I don't make to order anymore. I just, I sit with stock because it's not worth making to order.
00:36:16
jamie peacock
No, the the only one, I think I have stock of all the common ones at this point. Like about 10 or 20 of everything in stock. I'm in the process of trying to buy the same plastic tubs again. I bought six of them, can't buy them.
00:36:30
jamie peacock
They don't have frickin' stock. I wanna go buy like another 30 of the things and just move all my finished like machine stuff, label it, how many are in there. Then if I get an order, I can say, okay cool, I've only got 15 in stock, I need 20.
00:36:38
Curt
Hmm.
00:36:41
jamie peacock
I need to order material. Um, ah so I'm trying to get organized, but I can't buy the flippin' Tupperwares that I want anywhere.
00:36:43
Curt
Mm hmm.
00:36:48
jamie peacock
Like there's a second time this has happened now with things that I've built into my workflow. Now I can't just buy. It's a bit infuriating.
00:36:56
Curt
Yep. No, I feel the same whenever I find in like a nice container, like all these big orange ones behind me or yellow ones behind me that I put all my stuff in.
00:36:57
jamie peacock
i do Yeah.
00:37:03
Curt
I was like, I'm going to buy like 20 of them because I only need four right now. But if i like in six months' time, if I want the same one, it'll drive me crazy if I can't get the same one.
00:37:11
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:37:12
Curt
And so I was like, I'll just buy a bunch.
00:37:13
jamie peacock
Well, on Sunday, I went to Crazy Plastics, the the local plastic place, and I bought these tus these tubs maybe two weeks ago, went there, can't find them, go to the manager, hey, listen, here's the part number, because I took a picture of it before I left.
00:37:28
jamie peacock
He's like, oh no, they got 150 on order. They should be, yeah if you come Thursday, Friday, they should have come in. This was on the Sunday.
00:37:34
jamie peacock
I went back this Sunday, and they still don't have stock. I'm like, this is beginning to get very infuriating.
00:37:34
Curt
Yeah.
00:37:40
Curt
Yeah.
00:37:40
jamie peacock
I was using, there's new wear rack and stack little things. I made inserts for them, holds my parts nicely. I bought, I think I bought about 20 of them.
00:37:52
jamie peacock
Wanted to go by like another 50, because I use them for everything. Like in process, I've got dividers for certain jobs. Haven't been able to find them again.
00:38:01
Curt
yeah
00:38:02
jamie peacock
No, it's super infuriating. Now I'm actually gonna cut Kaizen foam trays for the diesel sensors we make.
00:38:10
jamie peacock
That I can just buy sheets of the stuff, it's freaking expensive, buy it, laser cut it, and all the parts just fit in, 30 in a tray, and I can make more if I need to.
00:38:10
Curt
Yeah.
00:38:21
Curt
Yeah. and that's I mean, that procurement stuff is annoying. I know even some of my items I get, like, yeah, I could order them off of like, or yeah like let's say for instance, ah ah one of my old jobs, we bought some parts and we could get them, look like here, you could just get them through Amazon. It was a very low quality, low cost kind of hardware component.
00:38:39
Curt
um But we never did because like two months later, you wouldn't get them there anymore. So we would rather go and buy them through McMaster where you know, you're getting a decent quality one. You pay, you know, five times as much, but if I got to order it ordered again in a year, it's still there or they'll have an exact replacement as opposed to like, Oh, the last one we got was whatever, you know, blue.
00:38:49
jamie peacock
yeah yeah
00:39:00
Curt
And this one is purple, but it still says it should be blue. It's like, what? It's just infuriating. So yeah.
00:39:05
jamie peacock
Yeah, no, that kind of stuff gets really annoying. like the so Back on the pallet systems, on the anchor points, i've just I went to board Lindbins to organize all the stuff for that because I had it all in like a...
00:39:08
Curt
yeah
00:39:18
jamie peacock
tray thing and it fell over, which was a little annoying. So now I've got Linbens dedicated to all the O-rings, all the screws, they've all got labels, well not yet, I've printed the labels, I just haven't put them on. um the The springs, the balls, like all the things I need to build those out are now, they have a dedicated space and screws, I bought the screws from Accu in the UK, but their shipping is like $50. So mom my one friend does stainless steel or he does hardware nuts and bolts and stuff so i'm just going to buy stainless stuff from him it's i think it might actually be a little bit better quality than the stuff from accu but i like buying from accu because then i can get torques because otherwise you cannot get torques in south africa no you can't buy torques hardware only place i can get it is either china or the uk and it is not cheap
00:39:52
Curt
Hmm. Nice. Yeah. Oh, really.
00:40:05
Curt
Wow. Yeah, that is. Yeah, that is the the superior fastener for sure.
00:40:10
jamie peacock
It is 100% but like for instance the pallet systems they go together once they're not really meant to be taken apart So as long as it goes together, it's fun So yeah, I'll just order a bunch I actually found I can get a little bit of discount on the locating pins because they are the single most expensive components on that pallet system Yeah, that was stupid expensive I went and bought the last ones I need to finish off these sample units
00:40:15
Curt
Yeah. fair Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense.
00:40:30
Curt
Oh, really. Huh.
00:40:38
jamie peacock
I was two sets short, I went and bought them today. And those those four little pins cost me $60.
00:40:41
Curt
Nice.
00:40:48
Curt
What makes them so special? are They diamond pins or they just dial.
00:40:50
jamie peacock
ah the ones that do and The one's a diamond pin and the other one is a round locating pin, but it's tapered and all fanciness.
00:40:52
Curt
Oh, okay.
00:40:57
jamie peacock
It's off the shelf components I can get.
00:40:57
Curt
Gotcha.
00:40:59
jamie peacock
I actually emailed the supplier and said, hey, like directly in Germany, I'm like, hey, can I get these directly? What is the price gonna be?
00:41:06
Curt
Yeah.
00:41:07
jamie peacock
but yeah the other guys like the lead time is potentially up to three weeks if I need to buy a bunch of them.
00:41:08
Curt
Nice.
00:41:12
Curt
Hmm.
00:41:13
jamie peacock
So yeah, we're trying to trying to build out the processes and pad out the processes for when we need to make lots of these anchor points.
00:41:15
Curt
Yeah.
00:41:21
Curt
Yeah. Well, that's a funny thing is like you, you hit these weird problems at scale. Like I know I hit that about six months ago with a pen ink, like for ink for my pens. Like I used to be able to buy them just through whatever little distributor here.
00:41:29
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:41:32
Curt
Cause I was ordering, you know, 20 at a time. And then I wanted to order a hundred at a time and then I wanted to order more.
00:41:34
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:41:38
Curt
And then, so eventually I went to. germany where they are made and contact the company directly. It's like, hey, I would like to order, like I'll order whatever you have to sell. me If you have to sell me, you know, 2,000, 5,000, whatever, they're not going to go bad.
00:41:45
jamie peacock
yeah yeah
00:41:48
Curt
I'll just keep them. Um, but they said, no, we won't deal with you. Like you have to go through a distributor. You already have one in your country. I was like, okay, fair enough. Um, and then like, I'm, I realized like I'm buying more than the distributors bringing in. So I'm like, well, can I be the distributor instead?
00:42:00
Curt
Like I'm, I'll like, I'm going to buy more than they're normally buying, but ended up working out. But yeah, just like things you don't encounter until you try to buy more.
00:42:07
jamie peacock
Yeah, my boss was renowned we'reowned for doing that shit where trial bar something and the distributor doesn't have stock. So he's like, cool, I'll just become the distributor. And then he would buy up a bunch of stock and put it in the store room and basically never sell it.
00:42:17
Curt
Totally. Yeah.
00:42:21
jamie peacock
um But then he was the distributor and he could control what was coming into the country.
00:42:22
Curt
yeah
00:42:25
jamie peacock
ah Yeah, it's weird.
00:42:26
Curt
Yeah.
International Shipping and Logistics
00:42:28
jamie peacock
Like now, yeah, those pins are going to be the
00:42:28
Curt
Yeah.
00:42:31
jamie peacock
one of the more entertaining parts of this whole system.
00:42:31
Curt
Yeah.
00:42:33
jamie peacock
Like if we were to make a bunch of them, that becomes a very large portion of the of the purchase price of those. Like cashflow wise, that is the expense of it.
00:42:41
Curt
yeah
00:42:43
jamie peacock
Everything else is relatively, either I'll make it or it's relatively cheap.
00:42:48
Curt
Yeah. Well, I suppose, I mean, it depends on how you, it depends on how you initially want to sell.
00:42:49
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:42:52
Curt
Like, I guess it's not really an item you want to, you don't really want to pre-sale or pre-sale in that.
00:42:53
jamie peacock
yeah
00:42:56
jamie peacock
No, so i was ah I was actually listening to the Lean Build podcast today, the new episode. And um Andrew from Henry Holsters was going into how they don't pre-sell at all.
00:42:56
Curt
Like it's.
00:43:08
Curt
Mm hmm.
00:43:08
jamie peacock
Because once you pre-sell, you beholden to the customer. like And I very much agree that the only way we would pre-sell would be getting stock to the distributor where they pay for the stock, we then manufacture it and send it.
00:43:12
Curt
Mm hmm.
00:43:20
jamie peacock
But then there's no end user involved until it's there in stock and ready to sell. So it's a bit of a different situation.
00:43:20
Curt
Yeah.
00:43:27
Curt
Yeah.
00:43:28
jamie peacock
Otherwise, I'm gonna just make 20 or 30 units and ah get them over where they need to be and then ship them from there.
00:43:36
Curt
No, I think that's the best. like i Same thing. People ask me all the time, too, they're like, can you do a presale?
00:43:40
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:43:40
Curt
Or you know we can just I'm like, no, because like it's A, it loads you it makes you beholden to them. or're being like even if you just Even if you don't charge a full amount, if anybody gives you some amount of money, they immediately are like, I have more control.
00:43:47
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:43:53
jamie peacock
yeah
00:43:54
Curt
And it's it's fair. like You have their money. I get it. I get you wanting to like have.
00:43:56
jamie peacock
100%.
00:43:57
jamie peacock
yeah that you don't need no yeah yeah
00:43:57
Curt
But just like it's an added layer of stress that it's like, this is not going to make me work.
00:44:02
Curt
And it's not going to make me work any faster. It's going to front load me a bunch of cash, which is nice initially until you get to the end. And then you're like, Oh, now I get less payment for finished product. So it's, I don't know.
00:44:13
Curt
I just, I go against it for that reason. I, I much would rather have all the product built and then send it and then get cash. And it's like, ah, now none of this cash has to like, it just, it's, it's free. Like there's, there's no more, right.
00:44:23
jamie peacock
it doesn't have to disappear. Yeah, yeah it's free money, basically, that when you've done all the work, you've bought all the material, it's, yeah.
00:44:25
Curt
Yeah.
00:44:28
Curt
Yeah, exactly.
00:44:30
jamie peacock
No, that's why I'm looking at it now. I'm in the fortunate position that most of the material that I use, I can get on account, which is also a bit annoying, but I can, yeah, I can get the material and manufacture a bunch of them, ship them out, and then only have to pay for the material.
00:44:37
Curt
Mm. That helps it.
00:44:45
jamie peacock
But there's still a lot of other bits and bobs that I've got to pay for through the, as it goes along.
00:44:46
Curt
Yeah.
00:44:51
jamie peacock
But yeah, we'll see.
00:44:51
jamie peacock
Once the once the sample units are out, we'll then deal with how we're going to progress from there.
00:44:51
Curt
Yeah.
00:44:59
Curt
I hope they sell well.
00:44:59
jamie peacock
ah yeah
00:45:00
Curt
Oh, like I said, I'll, I'll pimp it out as much as I can.
00:45:00
jamie peacock
I hope they sell well too.
00:45:02
Curt
I think it's a cool product.
00:45:04
jamie peacock
like I'm a little worried about the logistics of of selling them. So the US, we're going to have a distributor there and then Shipping from the US to the UK or Europe is kind of dumb.
00:45:15
jamie peacock
So I'm thinking of sending some to my mates who's in England who does my naff sales and just having him put them in his cupboard and instead of ruining his tax, um his daughter's my goddaughter.
00:45:22
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:45:28
Curt
Oh, nice.
00:45:28
jamie peacock
So for every sale, we just put a bit of money in an account for her. So he can build up a nest egg for her and we can kind of avoid paying tax because screw the government, they can all go da.
00:45:33
Curt
Yeah.
00:45:36
Curt
That's cool, yeah.
00:45:40
jamie peacock
I hate all governments.
00:45:43
jamie peacock
They're all a bunch of thieves. butja So yeah, that we looking we're looking seriously into options to be able to sell the thing, because we live in Africa.
00:45:43
Curt
Yeah.
00:45:45
Curt
Yeah.
00:45:51
jamie peacock
like The unit may be, well, the unit we're aiming at $499, but the shipping out of, ah I actually looked up to ship it with FedEx from my house to Australia was about 20, $390.
00:45:53
Curt
yeah
00:45:57
Curt
Yeah.
00:46:08
Curt
Yeah, that's nuts. That's nuts.
00:46:10
jamie peacock
That's insane. ah To do it from from the yeah UK with Royal Mail, tracked and signed, was 40 pounds.
00:46:11
Curt
Yeah.
00:46:18
jamie peacock
which is reasonable. Like, we're going to probably we probably gonna just say, okay, cool. If it's ah in Europe, it's this price for shipping. If it's in Australia, it's this price for shipping.
00:46:18
Curt
Yeah.
00:46:30
jamie peacock
If it's in China, it's this price for shipping. And we just divide it up like that. And it's a fixed shipping rate. And we go we if we get it wrong, we eat the difference.
00:46:36
Curt
Yep.
00:46:39
jamie peacock
It's what it is.
00:46:40
Curt
Yep, now let's.
00:46:41
jamie peacock
But I think it's only really the US guys who expect things to be shipped for free.
00:46:45
Curt
Yeah, that's, I mean, it's kind of been my experience too.
00:46:46
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:46:48
Curt
I mean, they, fair enough.
00:46:48
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:46:49
Curt
They get a ton of their product is like, they'd tell me what they pay for shipping for blank. And it's like, that is insane. Like every other country in the world, you're used to like paying your brokerage fees.
00:46:54
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:46:57
Curt
You're paying your import tax.
00:46:57
jamie peacock
Yeah, exactly.
00:46:58
Curt
You're paying like, yeah, if I order something, like even if I order from McMaster, which is like a very quick, like I will get it next. I ordered some on Friday. I will get it today, but I pay, I don't know, 50, 60 like us dollars to get that shipped to me.
00:47:05
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:47:10
Curt
And it's not a big package. Like I could send something there equivalently for like $10, but like
00:47:11
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:47:15
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:47:16
Curt
After you pay, you know, they all that stuff just adds up.
00:47:16
jamie peacock
Now it's, yeah. It's, yeah, like we expect to pay the import duties and all that stuff. Like it's just part of life. Whereas I don't think they, they the Americans are very exposed to that.
00:47:27
Curt
Yeah.
00:47:30
jamie peacock
But I mean, that's why we're going to send it straight to the US and have it distributed in the US because that takes care of the largest market.
00:47:30
Curt
No.
00:47:37
Curt
Yeah, no, that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense.
00:47:38
jamie peacock
Yeah. So, you know, I must actually have a chat.
00:47:40
Curt
Yeah, no, I'm so i'm lucky that our our postal system and the US Post
00:47:44
jamie peacock
Yeah, they work well.
00:47:45
Curt
Oh, good.
00:47:45
jamie peacock
I must have a chat to the distributor.
00:47:46
Curt
Yeah.
00:47:47
jamie peacock
I need to message him.
00:47:48
Curt
Yeah.
00:47:48
jamie peacock
If you're listening, you know who you are.
00:47:52
jamie peacock
Let's see if he listens to our podcast.
00:47:52
Curt
Yeah.
00:47:52
Curt
No, our postal systems play nice together. So that works.
00:47:55
jamie peacock
Yeah, you're lucky. Even the Royal Mail and the US Post play pretty well together.
00:48:00
Curt
For now.
00:48:01
jamie peacock
Yeah, yeah, for now. The whole, geez, the world's on fire. It's great.
00:48:07
Curt
Exactly. It's all right.
00:48:09
jamie peacock
Yeah, no, that was actually quite a stressor going into this whole pallet system that, are we actually be able to get them over there at a reasonable price? But I think we can.
00:48:16
Curt
No, I think I think everyone's feeling the same way. And you know what? If the apocalypse comes, we have machines to re rebuild society. Like we're going to be popular and I can build
00:48:23
jamie peacock
Exactly. Yeah.
Ethically Questionable Job Offer Discussion
00:48:26
jamie peacock
So, yeah, no, that's it.
00:48:26
Curt
engines here.
00:48:26
Curt
I can do whatever I want.
00:48:28
jamie peacock
like I'll become a warmonger. I don't mind. I'll build weapons. like It's just another day in the business. like yeah and ah mom My one friend Dave, actually, as he came out of university, he was an aeronautical engineer.
00:48:41
Curt
Hmm.
00:48:42
jamie peacock
engineer who're studying engineering. Came out of uni, got offered a job. More money than he's ever earned since. like It was stupid money they were offering.
00:48:53
jamie peacock
Designing landmines. That's why the money was so stupid.
00:48:53
Curt
Hmm.
00:48:55
Curt
Yeah. Rough.
00:48:56
jamie peacock
He's like, nope, not interested.
00:48:57
Curt
Yeah.
00:48:58
jamie peacock
Like, no, thank you.
00:48:59
Curt
Yeah.
00:48:59
jamie peacock
I'm not, I don't want that on my conscience. I'm like, no, fair enough.
00:49:02
jamie peacock
I reckon it was absolutely stupid amounts of money.
00:49:03
Curt
Yeah.
00:49:06
Curt
You've seen all those shirts. Like I sold my soul to Lockheed Martin for 150,000 a year or whatever. It's just like, yeah.
00:49:11
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty much what it, what it is.
00:49:14
Curt
Yeah.
00:49:17
jamie peacock
There, so lost not.
00:49:17
Curt
Yep.
00:49:19
jamie peacock
So I'm building a tumbler. So back to the, back to the tumbling topic.
00:49:22
jamie peacock
All this stuff is not sitting here.
00:49:23
Curt
Hey, you're big.
00:49:23
Curt
ah Oh, you're big.
00:49:24
jamie peacock
I turned the motor on. If I stand on it, yeah, if I stand on it, I can't keep it on the floor.
00:49:32
Curt
That's way more than 300 Watts and not like 300 Watts isn't a ton of tumbling power.
00:49:35
jamie peacock
No, it it is, I've got it. So I figured out, I figured out what happened. So I have another 750 watt VFD and I turned it on and went to the parameters and said, freewheel to stop.
00:49:43
Curt
Yeah.
00:49:47
jamie peacock
Don't try and slow down.
00:49:47
Curt
Okay. Right.
00:49:49
jamie peacock
Not a problem.
00:49:49
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
00:49:50
jamie peacock
Because the eccentric weight, the other one, it would have been fine if I changed that setting. It was trying to control this eccentric weight slowing down. And that's what blew it.
00:49:58
Curt
Right. Okay. That makes sense.
00:49:58
jamie peacock
So yeah, this one, literally I stand on it, turn it on, it starts hopping me across the floor.
00:49:59
Curt
Yeah.
00:50:03
Curt
Oh, nice.
00:50:04
jamie peacock
But I was watching a video last night from ah the Laser Bros. They've got a Tumblr, the plans are free. ah They sell a tub kit as well and a welded tub kit, I think. um
00:50:14
Curt
I was looking at that actually.
00:50:16
jamie peacock
Oh, were you? Okay. So my motor's like that, but bigger.
00:50:17
Curt
Yeah.
00:50:19
jamie peacock
But I was watching the video and you can adjust the counterweights.
00:50:19
Curt
Oh, nice.
00:50:22
jamie peacock
So I need to open my motor and just see, maybe tone it down a bit.
00:50:26
Curt
Hmm. Yeah.
00:50:26
jamie peacock
Because right now it's in full stupid mode from vibrating concrete.
00:50:26
Curt
Yeah.
00:50:31
Curt
Nice day.
00:50:32
jamie peacock
It's insane. I'm waiting for my mate to be available so we can go weld the tumbler. Like I'm literally just waiting for him to say, hey, I'm available. And then I'll shoot through there. We'll weld up the frame, weld up the tub. I'm not sure if I want to powder coat it or just spray paint it with a rattle cam.
00:50:46
jamie peacock
I think I might just rattle can it because the the tub is actually stainless, so I'm not too worried about it rusting.
00:50:47
Curt
Yeah.
00:50:53
jamie peacock
It's just the frame is mild steel, so I'll just hit that with a bright orange rattle can or something.
00:50:55
Curt
Yeah.
00:50:58
jamie peacock
um' in a pro it I designed it to actually fit in a plywood box, so I can close it and have it be quiet because everything's gonna be stupid loud.
00:51:04
Curt
Yeah, that's, that's the only thing that's pushing me away from like, yeah, I would look at it, that exact laser broke tumbler. Cause they have like a, I think it's a kit for all the laser cut, uh, stainless, um, for like 800 bucks or something, or maybe I'll steal.
00:51:11
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yeah, you can buy the, yeah. Or it's mild, I think it's mild steel, yeah.
00:51:17
Curt
Yeah.
00:51:18
jamie peacock
Yeah, but you can buy the laser cut kit.
00:51:19
Curt
But I was like, Oh, that's going to be, it's going to be so damn annoying. So the centrifugal ones I'm looking at are nice because they're significantly quieter.
00:51:23
jamie peacock
Yeah, look, they're quiet, yeah.
00:51:26
Curt
And for my work, it's, it's fine. But if you got big work, it's yeah.
00:51:28
jamie peacock
No, exactly. So in mind, I'm planning to put it in a box. Like I designed it to fit inside a box that I can reasonably make out of the cheapest piece of plywood I can find, and then potentially insulate the inside as well, just to shut it up because it's gonna be brutally loud.
00:51:42
jamie peacock
Like even the the water recirculation fits under the tumbler so that I can close the front up and have it be quiet.
00:51:43
Curt
Yeah.
00:51:50
Curt
Nice. Yeah.
00:51:51
jamie peacock
Because right now my stupid laboratory tumbler is also, it's really, really annoying when it runs all day. Brrrr in the background. It's louder than my machines.
00:51:58
Curt
Yeah. It's constant. It's constant and just, yeah, it's just, ah yeah, exactly.
00:52:00
jamie peacock
Like, yeah.
00:52:03
Curt
Air compressors, tumblers, they all suck for sound anyways.
00:52:03
jamie peacock
It's tedious. Yeah. My compressor's not too bad. I've got one of the silent ones, which I need to buy another one of, because this one is on its lost legs.
Workshop Environment Management
00:52:13
jamie peacock
ah thing runs If I'm running um running the LK, if I run just the LK, it switches off maybe 10 times a day.
00:52:21
jamie peacock
If I'm running the EMCO and the LK, that thing runs all day. to keep up with demand.
00:52:26
Curt
Yeah.
00:52:27
jamie peacock
So it's not long for this world, but it's also, it's like $250 for a new one. So it's not the end of the world. Like if it breaks, I get in my buggy and I drive down and buy a new one and come back. Like it's not not, yeah, not the end of the world.
00:52:37
Curt
Yeah, that's. That's what I did with mine too. Cause I have like just a 30 gallon like piston. I don't know. It was like seven or eight CFM.
00:52:43
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:52:44
Curt
Um, but the hard hinge like pulls like nine CFM just cause it leaks air everywhere. It's just their, their method of like keeping oil out of anything was just like, let's just push air through every single possible.
00:52:50
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:52:55
Curt
So it just sucks air. So instead of buying us, I'm like, you know what?
00:52:57
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:52:58
Curt
I'm going to buy a really big compressor. I'm like, Nope, I'm just going to keep buying the exact same compressor and as gang them together. So now I have two of the exact same compressor and it's just, yeah, it's like one goes down.
00:53:04
jamie peacock
that's it I've got yeah I've got two but my one my one is dead it had a piece go through the pistons and ruin the pistons I then replaced the pistons and the ah the sleeves but I couldn't get new valves so I just like rolled them with a rolling pin and it worked but it doesn't get to full pressure so I can buy a new head for a hundred and fifty dollars
00:53:07
Curt
It's fine.
00:53:11
Curt
Yeah, that's not good. Yeah. Weird.
00:53:28
jamie peacock
um So if they bring compressors in and the tank has a ding in it, they pull the head off, scrap the tank, and then they sell the head as spares.
00:53:36
Curt
Oh, that's a nice one.
00:53:36
jamie peacock
So yeah, I can just go buy a new head and then I'm just gonna spend 20 or 30 minutes putting the new head onto the tank, because the tank's still fine, and then I'll be back running.
00:53:43
Curt
Yeah.
00:53:46
jamie peacock
But I bought a new valve to vent my tanks, the drains on my tanks and my condenser.
00:53:55
Curt
Oh, nice automated valves. Yeah, those are those are the way to go.
00:53:58
jamie peacock
They're fucking expensive. I went to go buy the all the pneumatics to finish off the the sample pallet units. And then I'm like, what valve do you have that can handle rocks?
00:54:09
jamie peacock
Like, what literally just rocks need to go through this fucking thing? Because I've got two valves, and they've both been jammed up now by rocks or corrosion or whatever.
00:54:16
Curt
but the Yeah.
00:54:17
jamie peacock
I want rocks to go through it. So the ladies are like, no, no, they got this one. It's got a filter. And then they tell me the price, $75. And I'm like, uh, let me not tell my wife. um So I opened the box and it's got a little mesh strainer, like really nice valve.
00:54:32
jamie peacock
And then it was another like $20 for the fitting on the top. It came with the auto timer. So you just put 220 volts and you set the increments and it just, it handles it itself. No fancy Jamie boxes.
00:54:43
jamie peacock
It just works. So I installed that and it's now draining my two, cause you, you in your basement, you've got that condenser line, the copper condenser.
00:54:52
Curt
You bet. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
00:54:53
jamie peacock
Yeah, I built one of those. So I've got two two up and downs.
00:54:57
jamie peacock
And those auto drain now, and my tanks also auto drain, cause I mean, my tanks were getting full of water.
00:54:57
Curt
Nice.
00:55:03
Curt
Yeah.
00:55:03
jamie peacock
It was a bit it was a bit silly.
00:55:04
Curt
Yeah. and but They work so well.
00:55:05
jamie peacock
So yeah, my auto drain stopped working cause the valves got full of rocks.
00:55:11
Curt
Yeah, that's the advantage of it being so cold here is like, it's like minus right now it's, I don't know, minus 30 here.
00:55:11
jamie peacock
The condenser.
00:55:14
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:55:16
Curt
So the humidity is zero. So like I can run my compressors all day now and there's just, there's no moisture because there's no, but there's no moisture in my house.
00:55:19
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:55:23
Curt
Like we struggle to keep moisture in our homes at this temperature. Just just goes outside and freezes.
00:55:26
jamie peacock
Yeah, no, that that's, um yeah, it's a benefit.
00:55:27
Curt
So it's a benefit. It's like, it's like Arizona, but it's the opposite.
00:55:32
jamie peacock
Yeah. No, I mean, right now I think today it would have been like 60% humidity in the workshop. I'll check in the morning what it is.
00:55:39
Curt
Yeah. That's.
00:55:41
jamie peacock
Like by the afternoon I was running the lathe all day. You open the lathe and it's hot and swampy and like 100% humidity in there. It's basically raining.
00:55:49
Curt
Yeah, my, my, uh, my little gauge here says it's like less than 20% humidity right now. So it's decently dry in here and it's moist.
00:55:55
jamie peacock
Okay, yeah that's pleasant.
00:55:56
Curt
It's moist in here.
00:55:57
jamie peacock
yeah um So i've got I've got temperature and humidity measurers around the workshop.
00:55:57
Curt
There's coolant tanks and everything, but yeah, it's.
00:56:07
jamie peacock
Now I'm curious to see what it looks like in our winter because our winter gets brutally dry here. So I'm very curious to actually see what those numbers look like.
00:56:11
Curt
Yeah.
00:56:14
jamie peacock
Because I mean also I ran Anno on Sunday and then I'm boiling water in the workshop for seven or eight hours.
00:56:14
Curt
yeah
00:56:19
Curt
Right. Yeah.
00:56:20
jamie peacock
i could not Not the best.
00:56:21
Curt
Yeah.
00:56:23
jamie peacock
I actually was thinking about putting an extractor up above the anode setup that just goes through my ceiling and out the roof just to move the air out of the corner because it's in the corner of the workshop and I'm a little worried about stagnant air and breathing a lot of hydrogen.
00:56:29
Curt
Yep.
00:56:38
jamie peacock
I assume it's not healthy.
00:56:38
Curt
Yes, we're not good.
00:56:40
Curt
Yeah.
00:56:41
jamie peacock
No, it results in a heart attack and then you die.
00:56:44
Curt
Yeah.
00:56:44
jamie peacock
And then the hydrogen leaves your body and no one knows why you died. So it's something like I'm very, I'm very aware of being in the corner. I've got a fan that runs there 24 seven, uh, just moving the air out of that corner of the workshop.
00:56:54
Curt
yeah
00:56:56
jamie peacock
And I mean, I've gotten last headed before where I've opened the Anno tank and breathed in deeply. And all of a sudden I'm getting a lack of hits of hydrogen. So yeah, it's the joys of Anno, which are that.
00:57:05
Curt
Yeah Yeah Yeah, I know I have a big air exchanger in here too and it's just like the only problem is I pay for it like you pay for in gas to heat it But at least it's air is clean.
00:57:14
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:57:16
Curt
So
00:57:17
jamie peacock
Yeah, I'm tempted to put it air conditioning units in my in my workshop, but then, yeah, there's solar options, but the solar option costs twice as much as the not solar option.
00:57:28
jamie peacock
Although you will, if you put the panels on and you pay for the units, within two years you'll have recouped that with our current electricity prices.
00:57:29
Curt
Hmm.
00:57:36
Curt
Oh, that's not bad. That's not bad at all.
00:57:38
jamie peacock
Yeah, I kind of want to put one in my bedroom as well so that I can sleep nicely. Cause it's like summer here, yeah, summer here is brutal.
00:57:44
Curt
That's insane. If you can get.
00:57:47
jamie peacock
Like my workshop was 33 degrees in science.
00:57:49
Curt
That's hot. Yeah, that's hot.
00:57:50
jamie peacock
Yeah, now it's fucking brutally hot and you walk in past the LK and it hits you like a ton of bricks.
00:57:53
Curt
Yeah.
00:57:56
Curt
Yeah.
00:57:56
jamie peacock
So I've got a couple temperature little measurers, the little thermometer units. I need to put some by the door. I'm curious to see what the temperature gradients is in the workshop. But yeah, it is very, very not pleasant.
00:58:12
Curt
Yeah. Yeah. No, that's no fun to work. It's hard to do. It's hard to do any kind of good work when you're uncomfortable, either too hot or too cold.
00:58:17
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:58:17
Curt
Just like, I don't, I see so many guys.
00:58:18
jamie peacock
Well, I put a fan in my office so that I can sit at my desk and not be melting. And that has made a huge difference in my productivity in my office because it's now not uncomfortable to be there.
00:58:25
Curt
Yeah.
00:58:29
jamie peacock
The machine's running and I can actually think and do usefills while the machine's doing its usefills.
00:58:37
Curt
Yep. No, it makes perfect sense.
00:58:37
jamie peacock
so No.
00:58:39
Curt
It makes perfect sense. so
00:58:40
jamie peacock
No.
Manufacturing Adjustments and Material Handling
00:58:42
jamie peacock
Oh yes, I got a phone call on Friday about the camera housing.
00:58:47
Curt
Oh, nice. Okay.
00:58:49
jamie peacock
Again.
00:58:49
Curt
That's the, those big aluminum parts you were working on.
00:58:51
jamie peacock
Yeah, the big, yeah, they went too hard, I know. And some of the pots, well, the standoffs don't fit together because I made threads nice and tight and the pots have now, both sides have swelled by 20 microns a side and the threads don't go together.
00:58:55
Curt
Okay.
00:59:07
Curt
Okay.
00:59:08
jamie peacock
So I'm like, eh, and it's an M13x1.
00:59:08
Curt
Nice.
00:59:11
jamie peacock
It's a stupid thread.
00:59:12
Curt
Yeah.
00:59:14
jamie peacock
Just because I could be difficult, I was difficult.
00:59:16
Curt
Oh,
00:59:16
jamie peacock
ah Because it was left to me when I want to make it. So I'm like, yeah, if I could make it something stupid.
00:59:20
jamie peacock
um So, yeah, not the end of the world. They're going to try to find an M13x1 tap, which is actually a standard. It's just hard to find. ah And then all the other threaded holes are now a little bit tight. So the Gaza, can you just open up the threaded holes on the next batch by 20 microns aside and that will comp for the anodizing. I'm like, sweet, no problem.
00:59:20
Curt
um no.
00:59:44
jamie peacock
um So yeah, I'll do that and that'll solve sort of that. And then when I make the standoffs, he's like, can you just make an extra set with the looser tolerances? When they send the the next three sets for Anno, they'll send four sets of the standoffs. so I was like, okay, yeah, no worries. so Not a problem. And then I got the PO this morning for three more sets of those.
01:00:04
Curt
Oh, nice. Okay. Well, that's good.
01:00:05
jamie peacock
Yeah, so that that's gonna be fun. Everything's programmed.
01:00:08
Curt
That's nice.
01:00:09
jamie peacock
It's all set up.
01:00:09
Curt
I'd say that's yeah.
01:00:09
jamie peacock
I just make a new fixture, slap the shit on it and hit go and basically a week's worth of machining and yeah, printing a bunch of money.
01:00:14
Curt
Yeah, now you recoup it. Yeah.
01:00:18
jamie peacock
It's fun.
01:00:18
Curt
That's that's awesome.
01:00:19
jamie peacock
I pushed very hard for a design freeze on that so that I wouldn't have to reprogram it because I'm very, very lazy with things like that.
01:00:27
Curt
Oh, that was a significant part. That wasn't just like a little widget. That's a quick like you got a big cost material.
01:00:30
jamie peacock
Yeah. No, I mean, that the I spent, I probably spent four or five days getting that all programmed.
01:00:38
jamie peacock
Some of it was while other parts were running, but to actually figure out my workflow and like it was a significant time investment. Like we didn't do the best rates on the first part, but the next three are at the same price.
01:00:38
Curt
Mm hmm.
01:00:51
jamie peacock
So it's fine.
01:00:52
Curt
Right. Yeah.
01:00:53
jamie peacock
And also now the materials are a bit cheaper because I ordered, so for every different plate size, I ordered one spare.
01:01:00
jamie peacock
which means I had twice as many of some of the plates that I needed, I still have them, so when I order now, I'm ordering just as many as I need and I still have a spare in case, just in case something happens.
01:01:00
Curt
Hmm.
01:01:08
Curt
Nice.
01:01:11
jamie peacock
um But I'm pretty confident nothing's gonna happen, like.
01:01:11
Curt
Yeah.
01:01:15
jamie peacock
he says as shit goes south um yeah hope for the best but i mean it's uh it's a thousand dollars worth of aluminium i've got to order it's a hell of a lot of material it's one of the it's one of the biggest single aluminium orders i've ever done yeah well it's starts off at eight kilograms and ends up at 500 grams on the one pot
01:01:16
Curt
Hasn't say it. Yeah. Not Yeah. Yeah. Now the big parts, like.
01:01:40
Curt
No, it's nuts. In my world anyways, that's nuts.
01:01:42
jamie peacock
And I think you the heaviest parts I think is not even a kilogram. So like every part we're taking at least seven kgs of material off. And there's and how many parts are there? Because there's two, three, four.
01:01:54
jamie peacock
So let's go seven times four equals times three. That's 84 kilograms of aluminium just on the the middle sections. There's still another two rings and a dovetail section.
01:02:04
Curt
right Right.
01:02:06
jamie peacock
Like it's it's probably going to be 100 kilograms that come off these parts in total. that's like,
01:02:12
Curt
Is it all and is that all chips or can you like, are you like just blocking out like the middle?
01:02:16
jamie peacock
nah, all chips, nah, all chips.
01:02:17
Curt
Oh wow. Okay. So yeah, a lot of volume.
01:02:19
jamie peacock
I drill a pole, I drop in, and nine minutes later, the inside is open.
01:02:24
Curt
Oh wow.
01:02:24
jamie peacock
Now it's not worth slotting, ah it takes longer to slot than to turn it into shavings.
01:02:25
Curt
Okay. so you Okay. So he's got to deal with the bins and bins and bins of chips.
01:02:31
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:02:33
jamie peacock
I've got a thousand liter totes in my front yard that I filled, last time I took it in, it was 200 kilograms of aluminium in there.
01:02:36
Curt
Okay, that'll help.
01:02:42
Curt
Oh, nice.
01:02:43
jamie peacock
Yeah, i got I got like a hundred dollars for it. It was great.
01:02:46
Curt
It's like, yeah, that works.
01:02:47
jamie peacock
Yeah, so like I keep the aluminum very separate from the the rest. The rest I don't like. Okay, brass I keep separate, aluminum I keep separate. Everything else gets murdered in the same bin.
01:02:57
jamie peacock
Stainless steel, I don't care. I get like, ah I think it's like 10 cents ah a kilogram. So it's just like, throw it in. So what I'll do is that I'll pack into little rubbish bins and little totes.
01:02:57
Curt
Yep.
01:03:08
jamie peacock
I'll go fetch another thousand liters of totes on my bucky, reverse into the driveway, empty all the bins into it, and then drive straight back to the guy who takes my scrap. because if it goes off the bucky, it doesn't go back on.
01:03:16
Curt
yeah yeah nice no no not at all
01:03:18
jamie peacock
Like last time it was 300 kilograms and we couldn't get it but onto the bucky. Like I've got a, I made a stand that is just a little bit higher than the tailgates of my bucky. So you just drag it off onto the onto the back of the bucky and then it's yeah easy enough to load, but still like 200 kilograms is not a small amount of weight.
01:03:37
jamie peacock
It's it's a significant amount to haul around but yeah, I mean I've got just so much I have a brass I've got a bucket full of brass from one day's production No making magbases out of brass they flippin heavy jeez
01:03:46
Curt
Yeah.
01:03:52
jamie peacock
for CZ Shadow 2.
01:03:52
Curt
And that's like.
01:03:55
jamie peacock
The mag base, it's four competition divisions, so they can only have 15 rounds per magazine. The magazine can take 17 stock, and then they come with a plus two shoe, so it can take 19.
01:04:07
jamie peacock
So we we basically shallowed up the shoe so that the but base pad would weigh more. These things are ridiculously heavy out of brass. Like stupid heavy.
01:04:16
Curt
Yeah, bra brass is ridiculous already.
01:04:18
jamie peacock
But yeah.
01:04:20
Curt
so yeah and don't like I think it's something people don't realize too.
01:04:21
jamie peacock
Yeah, no, it's fun.
01:04:24
Curt
like if you If you're starting a little like business like this in your garage, you got to figure out a way to deal with like all the scrap because like you'll produce more chips than you think. like I make tiny parts, and um'm like like I'm lucky I can store it for you know six months before I take it in, but like you still have to store it.
01:04:31
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:04:37
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:04:38
Curt
Not a lot of people have the luxury of you just being able to like put it in their front yard because their homeowner association or whatever would be like, hey, what are you doing?
01:04:43
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:04:44
Curt
so
01:04:46
jamie peacock
That's when you tell them politely where the bridge is and tell them to go get off of it violently.
01:04:50
Curt
Yeah.
01:04:51
jamie peacock
Um, no, I mean, I've got a total in the front yard of anyone complains until them go look at that Oaks house. He's got 15 cars there. Calm down. Like we also, we live in Africa so we can get away with.
01:04:59
Curt
Right, exactly.
01:05:01
jamie peacock
whatever we really want.
01:05:02
Curt
Yeah, totally.
01:05:03
jamie peacock
But no, like we I had a guy used to come fetch chips. I used to phone him, June Allen, I need you to come fetch.
01:05:07
Curt
Yeah.
01:05:08
jamie peacock
You'd be like, cool, I can be there this afternoon. He would come with a couple drums on the back of his truck and he would dump all my stuff in there. He would give me five cents per kg and it would go away.
01:05:17
Curt
Yeah.
01:05:20
jamie peacock
But now I'm getting, so he was giving me five cents a kg.
01:05:20
Curt
Yeah.
01:05:23
jamie peacock
I'm now getting like almost a dollar per kg. It's significantly it worth my time to load it on the Bucky and drive it through toma to my one customer.
01:05:27
Curt
Yeah.
01:05:33
jamie peacock
and They get really good rates because they're a press shop and they have a hell of a lot of scrap.
01:05:38
jamie peacock
They fill up a big skip on a two-weekly basis.
01:05:39
Curt
Yeah.
01:05:43
Curt
That's nuts.
01:05:44
jamie peacock
knock it It's insane the amount of scrap they make. They've got parts that they make washes. When they press the middle out the pot in the first stage they press a small they make like an M4 washer and then they make like a M12 washer or an M8 washer and then a M16 washer and then that's the finished ball Yeah, so they literally just make washers for shits and giggles out of their scrap because they they're punching a couple million of these a month So they may as well use the scraps No, yeah that business is insane
01:05:56
Curt
Oh, nice. Okay. From all the scrap. Yeah. yeah
01:06:09
Curt
Well, that's like,
01:06:16
Curt
all the, um, all the scrap from my pen, like at the end of a, uh, turning up, like I'll have a little remnant that I just can't use. So, um, but it's titanium.
01:06:23
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:06:23
Curt
So like, I don't want to bin it like as decently, like it's worth more. I think the volume of scrap for me to store, I'd rather have it so I can, so I've designed like a few little products around those that size so I can.
01:06:34
jamie peacock
I want to ask you about that after the podcast because I remember one of the products.
01:06:36
Curt
Yeah. And that's what I was using. Yeah. And some of them I just make as a goof. Like when I first bought the, um, heart and charge made a set of just really, really basic, uh, like a little magnetic kind of, um, fridge magnets or like key chains, um, just basically to dial in the machine and then to make a functional part.
01:06:42
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:06:49
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:06:52
Curt
And then as a side benefit, I was ah able to sell a bunch of them, which is
Resin Printing for Prototyping
01:06:56
Curt
kind of cool.
01:06:56
jamie peacock
yeah so okay so cheap they're like 200 dollars yeah i've got i bought one yeah i bought one for a job they're super amazing
01:06:57
Curt
Um, but I found another much more complicated part that I made and that's what I used, uh, my resin printer for this last week was to print the prototypes. You, if if someone listening to this product or this podcast makes anything go out and buy yourself a resin printer these days, they're so cheap and they are so amazing. Yeah. I like, I bought a.
01:07:22
Curt
I know, I bought my little, it was it the D2? So it's a, like I bought it because it has a DLP projector as opposed to like a shadowed LCD.
01:07:29
jamie peacock
Ooh, fancy.
01:07:31
Curt
So yeah, it's got insane, insane lifetime on it. um But like, and it was, I don't know, it cost me like 600 bucks or something like that.
01:07:34
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:07:39
Curt
and it's Amazing what you could, like I print the tolerance it can hold pretty accurately. It can hold about plus minus a foul, a foul and a half. So as long as I designed my parts to be close to that, I can basically descend my machine part right to it, get it printed and get a good feel for it.
01:07:58
Curt
And this anyways, this product I built, it's got a couple of like ball latches and a bunch of little complexity.
01:08:02
jamie peacock
Ooh.
01:08:03
Curt
And it all worked like I put it all together and it all fit. And I was like, that's insane. Like, that's crazy. Just popping this machine. An hour later, I come back, clean the parts off and they're functional. I'm holding it in my hand.
01:08:14
Curt
I'm like, this is way too small. Like I designed this way too tiny. So now I can bin it and, you know, iterate on it as opposed to having to machine it and spend, you know, hours and hours machining it to realize, Oh, this is, this is too small.
01:08:17
jamie peacock
Yeah. Move on. Yeah.
01:08:25
Curt
So yeah, anyways.
01:08:26
jamie peacock
yeah I actually need to design a thing this evening or tomorrow morning and put it on the printer to shim one of the mag base I made I forgot to put a chamfer on one batch of them so I need to make a shim because it's angled that it can go in my fixture and be somewhat at the correct angle so I need to just design that I'm going to put it to the resin printer and just
01:08:43
Curt
Right.
01:08:47
jamie peacock
print out a couple of them and be done with it. like Yeah, they are printed a bunch of stuff for making chocolates, chocolate molds, like all sorts of stupid things that, I mean, the the printer recoup the cost on it in no time.
01:08:50
Curt
Yeah.
01:08:56
Curt
Yeah.
01:08:59
jamie peacock
Like just printing stupid trinkets for people.
01:08:59
Curt
Oh, yeah.
01:09:00
Curt
yeah
01:09:02
jamie peacock
I use it for printing wheels for the combat robotics stuff as well, because I can print GT2 timing pulleys.
01:09:09
Curt
Right. Yeah.
01:09:10
jamie peacock
Yeah, that's like,
01:09:10
Curt
Yeah. Like that's something that blows me away is like,
01:09:13
jamie peacock
Yeah, as you put it, they are magic.
01:09:14
Curt
People don't realize it's insane.
01:09:16
jamie peacock
They are literally magic. Yeah.
01:09:18
Curt
It's an, the, the tolerances are insane that you can print to like the accuracies are bonkers.
01:09:18
jamie peacock
my one yeah i mean I needed some standoffs for an electrical cabinet for making a CNC controller. And I just designed a little standoff, three millimeter bore, six mil OD, and then I embossed my logo on the side of it, or my JSpec engineering.
01:09:37
jamie peacock
And it came out, it's like absolutely tiny.
01:09:38
Curt
Of course. Yep.
01:09:40
jamie peacock
The whole standoff is like six or eight millimeters long, and it's got JSpec engineering with the with the the big J. like It just worked.
01:09:48
Curt
Yep.
01:09:49
jamie peacock
it was yeah They are literally magic.
01:09:50
Curt
Yep.
01:09:53
Curt
I know I used to machine little Delrin spacers for all the pens. I just basically, all it was is a flat seat or a spring to sit against.
01:09:56
jamie peacock
Yeah I remember.
01:09:58
Curt
So I just, I was just cutting them out of Delrin and like, yeah, it's easy to machine a bunch of them, but like I print, I print them by like, I don't know, the few hundred now.
01:09:59
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:10:06
Curt
Like you said, I, all the corners are chamfered. They're the exact size I need them. There's text inside the ring just because I can like the text is like 30 thou high, like, you know,
01:10:14
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:10:17
Curt
whatever, half a millimeter, a millimeter, like it's insane.
01:10:19
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:10:20
Curt
And they come out, you know, I'll put 200 on and 198 of those will be perfect. And like, it's, it's ridiculous.
01:10:26
jamie peacock
Yeah. Oh, by the way, it's 0.76 of a millimeter.
01:10:29
Curt
It's ridiculous. 0.76. Thank you for the imperialized.
01:10:32
jamie peacock
Yes, I imperialized it. Yeah, those ports should be ah either later this week or early next week.
01:10:39
Curt
Nice. Nice.
01:10:40
jamie peacock
And then I need to order buttons for them and screens and stuff. But yeah, that's ah that's a next week problem.
01:10:44
Curt
Yeah. I so want to geek out on that and just, I want to build an over, like, I want to build a big like titanium enclosure with some stupid, but I like, I just want to overbuild this to the max just as a fun project.
01:10:53
jamie peacock
Yeah, make it super fancy.
01:10:56
Curt
Just stupid.
01:10:56
jamie peacock
Yeah, no, it's a stupid device, but it is somewhat useful.
01:10:57
Curt
Yeah.
01:11:01
jamie peacock
Oh, I also discovered today.
01:11:01
Curt
Absolutely.
01:11:02
jamie peacock
So I was updating the drawings, which are not on my website yet. um I was ah saw an old John Saunders video. I watched an old video of his where he was making a Pearson Pro palette.
01:11:14
jamie peacock
And he showed the drawing. And the drawing had both metric and imperial um dimensions. So I'm like, okay, fine.
01:11:15
Curt
Mm.
01:11:21
Curt
Yeah.
01:11:22
jamie peacock
I should probably do the same on the anchor point.
01:11:25
Curt
Boo.
01:11:25
jamie peacock
went through into Fusion, you go, you double click your dimension, and you say alternative units.
01:11:30
Curt
Yeah, yeah.
01:11:31
jamie peacock
That's it, fucking done.
01:11:33
Curt
Yep. Yep.
01:11:33
jamie peacock
I was like, that's amazing.
01:11:34
Curt
I know.
01:11:35
jamie peacock
I was like, oh shit, now I've gotta go calculate and type in all this stuff. Nope, drop down menu, it's just there.
01:11:39
Curt
Yep. Yep.
01:11:42
jamie peacock
All the Fusions been doing some weird stuff this week.
01:11:43
Curt
Yep.
01:11:45
jamie peacock
They forced me to move to Hubs and a bunch of other stuff.
01:11:48
Curt
Oh, yeah. Well, that's what you get when you
01:11:49
jamie peacock
No, they're being Fusion.
01:11:52
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
01:11:54
jamie peacock
ah
01:11:54
Curt
No, I'm they, I know some, I'm a little blasphemous on some of my designs where some of them are like, it's a metric value, but I just converted to Imperial.
01:11:54
jamie peacock
nice
01:12:00
Curt
Cause it just, just how it worked. Like I'm, I'm working with some German parts, so they're going to be metric.
01:12:03
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:12:05
Curt
So I'd like to bring it across. It's like, well, like I'll use an Imperial tool cause it's cheaper to get here, but it's technically works better with them.
01:12:07
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:12:12
Curt
metal Like all the holes on my pens are all metric. Um, just cause it's easier to get tooling in that specific size, but yeah, exactly.
01:12:15
jamie peacock
Yeah. That's the correct system. Well, that's, I was listening to, there was Adam Demith on some of, I think it was on the PFG live and he was saying he uses all metric, um, like fancy enmils, gets them from Japan.
01:12:33
Curt
Oh, yep,
01:12:34
jamie peacock
They're super accurate and they all got standard shank sizes. So it's either a four or six mil shank size. There's no funny in between things. It's neck down, it's a four or a six mil piece of carbide. And that's what I've got in my workshop.
01:12:46
jamie peacock
It's four or six unless it's a three mil enamel. Then I try and get them in a three mil shank because then I can reach deeper.
01:12:52
Curt
Yep.
01:12:52
jamie peacock
But my my one millimeter or my half millimeter ball nose, it's a four mil shank and it tapers down. Like all the all the stuff in my shop is metric.
01:13:02
Curt
Yep.
01:13:02
jamie peacock
Like, oh no, I do ah do have an imperial thing in my workshop.
01:13:02
Curt
Well, like I switched.
01:13:06
jamie peacock
An imperial treadmill, and it's got a formal shank.
01:13:10
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
01:13:11
jamie peacock
Because it's from...
01:13:12
Curt
Well, like a ton of tooling is just flipped over to Imperial. Like a ton of it is manufactured as metric and then flipped over just to be, just to be Imperial.
01:13:17
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:13:18
jamie peacock
Just to be compliance. Yeah, that's, I was chatting to the guys on the Taps and Patience Discord last night.
01:13:19
Curt
It's like, yeah.
01:13:22
Curt
Yeah.
01:13:26
jamie peacock
We had a long chat, it's like 11 o'clock at night. The one guy was doing a job where he was using a 20,000 mill machining a slot or something stupid.
01:13:35
Curt
Yeah.
01:13:36
jamie peacock
I'm like, geez, guys, or 22,000.
01:13:38
Curt
Yeah.
01:13:39
jamie peacock
I was trying to convert it to see if it was actually a metric number or just a stupid imperial size.
01:13:43
Curt
and Yeah.
01:13:45
jamie peacock
But yeah, I know, we had a long chat there last night. let tell
01:13:50
Curt
Well, we're, uh, we're nearing the end. So, uh, what else?
01:13:54
jamie peacock
Yes, we are. I think let's we'll leave that i think we leave that topic for for another another one.
01:13:59
Curt
Absolutely.
01:14:01
jamie peacock
yeah If anyone's got any questions, please hit curtain up with the questions. We'll add them to the documents and we'll have topics or questions going forward. ah We are planning on doing some guest episodes.
01:14:13
jamie peacock
My lovely wife Danica suggested maybe the last episode of every month we have a guest on.
01:14:18
Curt
That's a good idea.
01:14:19
jamie peacock
Yeah, that way it mixes it up a little bit. so We've already got the first two guests lined up. I'll chat to Kurt about that later. and Well, he can see the document.
01:14:27
Curt
Thanks.
01:14:28
jamie peacock
But yeah, we'll chat about that later.
01:14:28
Curt
Oh yeah. no
01:14:30
jamie peacock
But yeah, anyway, so ah what is in your Google search history?
Supplier Search and Packaging Solutions
01:14:38
Curt
So mine is mainly tumblers. Tumblers and Seamans. Looking at Seamans.
01:14:42
jamie peacock
Dammit, you stole my topics.
01:14:45
Curt
I'm sorry, I know we're both bashing our head against the same things. Mine is honestly mainly tumblers. I've been searching like just trying to find a, I'm honestly was trying to find a Canadian supplier for a tumbler just to cut down on freight and Well, there are other things, um, but no one, like no one, no one, if they do build it, it's like, Oh, this one, you know, uh, can handle 2000 pounds of parts.
01:15:07
Curt
Like, okay. Well, this is a little bit bigger than I need.
01:15:09
jamie peacock
Little big for your parts.
01:15:09
Curt
Uh, yeah, exactly.
01:15:11
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:15:12
Curt
600 volt three phase. I'm like, no, I don't, I just, I just need something a little smaller. Anyways. The only one I've found out so far is, yeah, I've been that Avalon one, which I think it's made in Poland, which is kind of cool.
01:15:20
jamie peacock
Okay. Yeah, yeah they they're apparently very, ah very quick at getting the job done.
01:15:21
Curt
I'm happy about that. Yeah.
01:15:26
jamie peacock
Because that media is really cruising around compared to vibratory.
01:15:27
Curt
Yeah.
01:15:30
Curt
Yeah, I was looking at a few, uh, like the breakdown between that and high energy and higher energy is great, but like I just once again, I don't, I don't have the throughput to necessarily necessitate that.
01:15:31
jamie peacock
But yeah. Yeah.
01:15:39
Curt
So anyways, that's been in my search history is mainly just finishing related jargon.
01:15:39
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:15:45
Curt
How about you? What do you, what do you, uh, what are you Googling that you can talk about?
01:15:45
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:15:48
jamie peacock
Uh, packaging mostly, trying to find boxes, um, trying to get that, that whole process finished now because, and also shipping, trying to figure out how the hell I'm going to get stuff out of South Africa because that is, or at a reasonable price.
01:15:52
Curt
Yeah.
01:15:58
Curt
Fair enough.
01:16:00
jamie peacock
Like I can do it, but it's not at a reasonable price.
01:16:01
Curt
Yeah, yeah.
01:16:03
jamie peacock
Um, the best option, like what I normally do to send stuff to the UK is send it with DHL from one of our, that's called PostNet. They offer a DHL box service. but the pallets weigh a bit much.
01:16:16
jamie peacock
So it's gonna be like a 12 or 13 kilogram box, and that's gonna get flippin' expensive very, very quickly.
01:16:24
jamie peacock
So I'm gonna, it might just be the easiest way to do this first sample batch and just get it out and over, it's there in like four or five days, um and then look into alternative options.
01:16:24
Curt
Yeah.
01:16:28
Curt
Mm.
01:16:33
jamie peacock
I used to use a service called courier, I need to sign up for an account with them because I was using my friends account back then. um to send knives and belts overseas. But yeah, that's, I did also consider bringing the belt back.
01:16:47
jamie peacock
But yeah, we'll we'll see about that.
01:16:48
Curt
Hmm.
01:16:49
jamie peacock
That might be something, it'll be a lot easier to manufacture now than it was back in the day.
01:16:53
Curt
Yeah, I bet. Yeah, I bet.
01:16:56
jamie peacock
Like significantly easier. So yeah, yeah, being Googling, Siemens, Tumblers and packaging.
01:16:58
Curt
Yeah.
01:17:03
Curt
Nice.
01:17:04
jamie peacock
yeah Stealing my topics here.
01:17:07
Curt
I'm sorry.
01:17:07
jamie peacock
So what are you, what are you going to be up to today?
01:17:07
Curt
I'm sorry.
01:17:11
Curt
Today, I'm going to finish a bunch of pen bodies so I can plop them in the big lathe. So it can do its most time consuming operation, which is just drilling everything out, threading the ends, chamfering, all that jazz. That's fairly unattended.
01:17:21
Curt
So I'll give it enough food to work all day.
01:17:22
jamie peacock
Okay.
01:17:24
Curt
And then I'm probably going to finish that tumbler because I really want to test it and see if it works because I would significantly help with this next batch. So how about you?
01:17:32
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:17:33
Curt
youre Your, your today's over. So what's your, what's your tomorrow?
01:17:35
jamie peacock
Well, I'm gonna go sleep for today. Tomorrow I've gotta make some handbrake pins for I think Porsche Speedster replicas.
01:17:38
Curt
Yeah.
01:17:45
jamie peacock
I'm not entirely sure. It's ah it's a stupid little job that i I'm doing for one of my mates.
01:17:46
Curt
cool.
01:17:49
jamie peacock
um It's gonna tie me up for like an hour tomorrow morning and then Bertha's back onto production run. And then I need to look at tolerancing on a bunch of drone parts for my mate Dave.
01:18:02
jamie peacock
I've got the material I need to actually just look he swam the mid-mile mile, which is a one mile open water swim over the weekend. So he was messaging me to down his way back from that. He's like, he's worried about tolerances on the carbon tubes. So I think we waiting for carbon tubes to make the mating components, but I can make the first set of components and the heat sink and all that. I can get that all done while I have a bit of time on the LK. Because as soon as our auto material, the clock is going to start ticking on getting the camera housing.
01:18:31
jamie peacock
out because I want that out by the end of the month and there's probably a good seven or eight days worth of machining there.
01:18:33
Curt
Oh, gotcha. Oh, yeah.
01:18:38
jamie peacock
Yeah it's going to be it's going to be long days but the last thing is it's long days with a reasonable amount of walk away time because the programs have run and once the first one's through I kind of know nothing's going to crash and I can just send it
01:18:48
Curt
Right, yeah.
01:18:54
Curt
Yeah, yeah.
01:18:54
jamie peacock
and just batch out all the parts. But yeah, that's the plan for tomorrow.
01:18:56
Curt
Nice.
01:18:59
jamie peacock
We'll see how it goes to plan or not. tell sweet And then now where can people find your your stuff?
01:19:03
Curt
Nice.
01:19:08
Curt
Find me at confoundedmachine dot.com. I have a batch dropping in probably about another two-ish weeks is what I'm shooting for. um So there's a lottery sign up. You can sign up to either the lottery. I pull names from that. I pull names basically chronologically to help host people, but I also pull us a percentage just randomly. So if you sign up, um you could potentially get pulled.
01:19:29
Curt
And then once all pens sell or once all pens go out for the lottery, 24 hours later, they go up for first come first serve. So I announced all that jazz and there's tons of details on my website to pop over there. If you're interested, how about you? how How can people get up to date on this new, uh, this new pallet system you're working on?
01:19:39
jamie peacock
Um...
01:19:43
jamie peacock
So, the you can head through to our website, link is in the description, it's jayspeckeng.com. There is a page dedicated to the Anchor Point palette system, and that's got, at the moment, some drawings, it's got a, well, there should be a YouTube video linked there shortly that runs you through how to make a palette.
Product Release and Quality Assurance
01:20:02
jamie peacock
I shot that last week, and that's actually done pretty well for my channel. But yeah, you can head over there and find information, there's also a Google form you can fill out, and then get notifications when we release the product. we are trying desperately to get the beta units out this month for testing that we can then start rolling into production and actually push the product to market.
01:20:21
jamie peacock
But yeah, hope hoping for a release in the next, well, beta test in this month and release in the next month or so.
01:20:22
Curt
Nice.
01:20:27
jamie peacock
We are just trying to get all our ducks in a row before we release.
01:20:31
Curt
That makes sense. That's the way to do it.
01:20:33
jamie peacock
Yeah, I don't want to, yeah, I don't want to release and then realize, oh oh no, there's a big, big issue. So we're just trying to make sure we're very thorough about it.
01:20:41
Curt
That's clever.
01:20:42
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:20:44
Curt
Cool.
01:20:44
jamie peacock
But yeah, I think that's gonna conclude it. Thank you everybody for listening. ah Please give us a thumbs up and a like on YouTube. Give us a rating on Spotify and we are now also on Apple podcasts.
01:20:58
jamie peacock
So you can pretty much get us everywhere.
01:20:58
Curt
Woo hoo.
01:21:00
jamie peacock
Yeah, that we did this week. People have been asking for it. So we made it happen. But yeah, thank you very much for listening and go be productive.
01:21:09
Curt
Take care, everyone.