Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Business of Machining - Episode 110
243 Plays7 years ago
Word of the day:
5-axis
In other words, Saunders has his 5-axis Haas machine, and he’s spending some time lately getting to know it and CAMplete. He talks about his 5-axis starter kit, and moving up to technology that seemed almost unreachable before.
AND it’s helping Grimsmo thaw to the idea of learning more about 5-axis machines himself.
Becoming Swissish ROUND 2!
Grimsmo talks about his trip to Elliott Matsuura to check out some Swiss Lathes (one of which might just be purchased by the next podcast episode)
It's all about design, baby
The Johns discuss which design programs they use for their machines, and which ones to use with Swiss Lathes.
Bonus at Matsuura:
THEY HAD A ROUGHNESS TESTER! While Grimsmo visits, he gets to check out the roughness of his blades and handles. In this episode he lets us know the EXACT measurements.
Grimsmo bought an Ultrasonic Cleaner, and Skye approves.
“I wash the parts with water afterwards, and they’re cleaner than I could have gotten them before [having the Ultrasonic]” - Skye
Want to learn more about different kinds of cleaners? Saunders mentions this Wikipedia article as a great resource:
The Johns finish off this episode with talk of other cleaning supplies, cleaning methods, and a couple more notes on Swiss Lathes. Stay tuned.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 5-Axis Machining
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the business of machining episode of 110. My name is John Grimsmough. My name is John Saunders. Good morning, buddy. Morning. How are you? I'm good. I'm really good. How are you? Good. Good. Yeah. The word of the day is the words of the day, five axis. OMG goodness.
00:00:21
Speaker
It's almost like I'm starting from scratch in a good way.
5-Axis Machining with Fusion 360
00:00:29
Speaker
Right. But I mean, everything. Like what I was doing this morning before we started the podcast was, what's the right workflow within Fusion? So when you hold a part, I'm assuming that we're going to be doing a lot of either tabbing or window machining.
00:00:47
Speaker
So if you hold onto a bar or a part, you're going to leave extra material down by where you're gripping it with the vice, but machine everything else away, right? So using containment sketches to control. So I'm like, the thought is like, I want to do adaptives on the top part of the part, do some finish work there, you know, while you still got the rigidity of the core. And then you're going to do fate. Like when you face the part, you're going to face it, but you can't just pick your normal stock because part of that stock section is too close to your vice.
00:01:16
Speaker
So we ordered the fifth axis has like a UMC starter kit. So we got the rock lock base and then I think it's a vice, two dovetails, a five C thing. I forget what else is in it, but that should come hopefully Monday.
00:01:33
Speaker
So I put in a fusion device program with the joint so that we can basically update our diameter, have it automatically correctly model the stock because the stock in the vice, which I normally don't care that much about, now it really matters because I don't want collet noses or tools to rub.
Streamlining Workflows with Fusion Templates
00:01:55
Speaker
And yeah, just like it's, when I said it feels like we're starting over, it's like that energy of figuring out something from, it's just so new. That's fantastic.
00:02:07
Speaker
Um, funny enough, I was just doing the same thing. I downloaded that same fifth axis vice model that lets you move the jaws side to side, just to like get a feel for the size of it. Um, next to some of the parts that I want to make. And it's like, that's really cool. Nice to be able to start putting it together and wrap your head around containment zones and tool boundaries and, and the workflow of kind of working most rigid stuff first and then delicate stuff at the end. And it is backwards.
00:02:37
Speaker
Yeah, it's just different. I want to be smart about it. So I want to create a fusion template so that I can have the saved tools, saved operations. And then I want to name something I don't normally do that often, which is name sketches. So I have a sketch that's the top half adaptive. I have a facing constraint sketch. And it's relative to the vice.
00:03:00
Speaker
And you almost want it to be relative to the vice with regard to the tool diameter that you're using. I wish fusion would let us do more interconnected variables between the cam and the CAD side. This will be okay for now. But I kind of want to dumb it down. I don't want to have it be daunting when you just want to whip up a part.
00:03:19
Speaker
Yeah, as far as naming sketches, that's something I do a lot. I probably name 75% of my sketches. Oh, wow. Because I could have 50 sketches in one document. Got it. Would you agree or would you support me if I banged on the Autodesk folks to when you are in CAM and you choose a sketch for whatever reason as a containment zone or a stock, something, instead of it just saying sketch,
00:03:46
Speaker
if it listed the name of what you picked? Well, when you name it, so if I name a sketch, if I name a sketch facing constraint, when I pick that under the facing stock, rather than it just say sketch, which is completely ambivalent, it doesn't help me to tell me. Oh, for sure.
00:04:10
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great idea. Sometimes you're not picking on the entire sketch. You're just picking on the line from that sketch, but I think it would still benefit completely. It would benefit there because it would help you know what to edit. But I'm trying to get into the workflows of creating discrete sketches where you just pick the sketch because then I don't have to worry about clicking into noisy, solid model stuff. I just click the tree sketch on the left side. Yeah, I think that would be great.
00:04:42
Speaker
Sweet. Yeah, it's fun.
Enhancing Confidence with CAMplete
00:04:45
Speaker
OK, so one more thing I got to share, which is CAMplete is amazing. So you're in. I'm in. I was on that plate.
00:04:57
Speaker
I was on the fence and then two people that are fans have UMC 750s and they both just spent five figures fixing minor bumps. I think I mentioned one of them last week. I heard about another one.
00:05:12
Speaker
And you know what? To me, it's not so much an if, it's a when. And here's the thing, the model of what we do here is not me, it's us. And I want Alex or Josh or anyone, Jared or Ed to be able to use it.
00:05:33
Speaker
I modeled up the first Johnny Five part that I want to make, and it has a three-inch diameter cutout for a bearing, and I wanted to put a little backside chamfer on it. Now, you could flip the part over and just chamfer it. It's easy, but I wanted to see, is this where Camplete could shine? So I did a swarf toolpath.
00:05:54
Speaker
using the side of the tool, sticking the tool through that and just doing a gentle edge break, which is good because it's going to tip the past 90 and we pulled it into camp plate. And sure enough, the top of the platter would have been like an inch collision into the side of the sheet metal of the spindle housing. And you just don't like you'll never get that out of it. It was just
00:06:18
Speaker
I was like in cam, you won't see that because you're just looking at the part and the vice of the tool. Right. And you can sit there at the machine and single block it or try to walk it through or something. I just now have after seeing it and seeing that workflow and the confidence and the quality of the part and the kind of the idea that, you know, we're almost more of a technology company than we are a machining company. You know, so much of what we do is front loaded on this computer side. I just.
Training and Ease of Use of CAMplete
00:06:45
Speaker
Yeah, it's not, it's not cheap. But as soon as you get over that, you realize, oh my God, I will never go back. And then the other thing that for me that I love is what we saw when we visited, which is the ability to look at the axis graphs, because the swarf tool path on that sample file was putting out the C axis jitters. And you instead want this really nice smooth sine wave. So I programmed it, and I saw that it looked good. And so now it's just front loading all of that.
00:07:12
Speaker
I'm just, um, it is, it just made me smile. Yes. I love it. And then you, you have confidence to just send it, you know, just, just make parts. And especially as you said, when you have, you know, two, three, four, five people using the same machine, you don't have kind of the one expert. Like if it was your machine and you're the only one that uses it, you could maybe, you know, baby it and be careful and, and slowly make parts. But, um,
00:07:38
Speaker
Yeah, this makes perfect sense. Assuming everybody becomes proficient at using Camplete and everything posts through that. It's just the way to do it. So that's what I was nervous about. And I did my training session yesterday. And here's the thing, John, it's not hard.
00:07:54
Speaker
There's a lot of rabbit holes you can go down, but the basic workflow of pulling stuff in and simulating it to check for that kind of stuff is actually going to, I have no worry now about training the folks in our shop on how to do that. The only thing that's a pain in the butt is if you, you can post updated
00:08:15
Speaker
Like if you just want to replace a 2D contour operation because you tweaked it, you can push that tool path into Camplete without starting over. But if you say change the gauge length or tool stick out length of a tool, the tools are part of the project file and you kind of just have to like close your Camplete thing and start over from scratch, which isn't bad, but it has that feeling of like, I don't know if you ever used software where CAD was separate than CAM.
00:08:44
Speaker
If you change a fillet, you have to start over on your cam. Yeah, I can see that. It's not that bad, but it's something I'm... Well, it is what it is. It's still awesome. I'm excited for it. Fantastic. That's super cool. Yeah. Yeah. And there's just... These people are geniuses. You can take a... Let's say you have a...
00:09:09
Speaker
a long slender part in your fifth axis and you're chamfering it, right? So to chamfer that part, you would be B zero. So the parts just normal, like it's a three axis part. And you would just use X and Y, right? To walk around that part to chamfer it.
00:09:24
Speaker
That code, you could post that code from Fusion in the Camplete on an XY chamfer along a part, say it's five inches by one inch thick. You can then go into the Camplete settings and just say, you know what, I, for whatever reason, want to force that to polar interpolation, lock the X axis, and it will do that whole toolpath via C and Y.
00:09:53
Speaker
Right. Whoa. So it'll three writing it basically. Yes. Totally rewriting it.
Fusion and CAMplete Synergy
00:10:00
Speaker
Right. No, that's it. I just am like, Oh my gosh. So the thought there is what if you've got a part that's longer than your ex travel, your machine, you probably should be able to force complete to hold it at a 45 degree angle and make use of the hypotenuse of your machine travel to do a facing op or something without having to, you can actually do that in fusion, but it'd be kind of a pain in the butt.
00:10:23
Speaker
Or like on my lathe, I do this a lot and it would be the same on a five axis. So say you want to make a feature that is concentric to rotation. A feature that is concentric to rotation. You know, like if your top chamfer is on a round part.
00:10:39
Speaker
And that round part's supposed to be dead center on the platter. If you XY Jamfer it, it might be off center. But if you polar it and you spin the C, spin the table, then it'll, it's guaranteed concentric to the, to the workpiece. So on my lathe, I do some XY and some C axis features, depending on how concentric I need that thing to be. That's cool. Right. It's like a boring bar or, you know, yeah. That's awesome.
00:11:05
Speaker
So I am excited. Like literally last night I was like posting sample files out, pushing them through. And you can get better at it because if you're just concerned about the five axis clearances, you can just post that toolpath, quickly look at it. It saves your machine simulation. You can kind of get it tweaked to where it's a really quick workflow.
00:11:24
Speaker
So I guess if you're building a bigger file, you could post out an operation, see if it works, and then in Fusion, you know it's good to go move on to the next. And then you do multiple operations. That would work. Well, and on that Johnny Five part, where the spindle housing was going to crash, all we did was, without going back into Fusion, we just said, well, let's assume the part is two inches taller off of your platter. So you could do that by using longer material or just a longer, bigger riser.
00:11:53
Speaker
Which is something that I actually want to go pull up the fifth axis catalog because I'm wondering if you can stack rock locks. Probably. Not ideal, but if you just need an extra inch and a half. Yeah, you should be able to. Yeah. And so we did that. We just moved it up two inches in complete hit rerun and that confirmed we're clear. So now I can backdrive my fusion process knowing I'm now good to go.
00:12:21
Speaker
And you know, okay, I'd need to buy a two inch riser or something like that because like, do you, what is the platter diameter? On my UNC? Yeah, like the working diameter of the... The machine travels are 30 inches in X, 20 inches of Y, I believe 20 in C. Okay. The platter diameter is I think five, I don't know, 27 inches. Sorry, John, I don't remember. But it's big. It is a very large. It's a big machine.
00:12:51
Speaker
Was it 750 millimeters? Is that what it is? Yeah. Yeah. 30 inches. Exactly. Like an MX 330 is 330 millimeters. Yes. This is a six millimeter. So it's 750. It's a big machine. Yes, that's correct. And that's the thing. If you're making a small part down at the center of the table, it's going to hit. It's going to crash when you rotate 90 and the spindles right there. Right. So you want to raise it up five inches or something. Right.
00:13:20
Speaker
Yeah. I've heard of people. In fact, we've joked about this a lot. It's not funny to me anymore because I've actually wanted to do it, which I've heard of people machining their, uh, platter size to a smaller diameter. Um, and I kind of thought, Oh yeah, I'll just do that. And then somebody, I don't remember who was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, dude, you got to be careful because there's stresses in that platter. It is you machine and it's going to warp and move on you. And it could actually, oh, it was on our WhatsApp chat. Um, one of the guys was mentioning that. So.
00:13:50
Speaker
I don't. I mean, it's not a problem today. But yes, I would be fine having a much smaller platter, where we could always use one of our fixture plates or something else to make it bigger temporarily. But we're not doing these big, you know, two foot arm, arm length parts, we're going to be doing a lot of the fist size parts. Yes, you're just gonna have to raise them up. Yeah, that's what we'll do for now. You
00:14:19
Speaker
So it's fun. It's exciting. Yeah, I can see that. I've been thinking a lot about five axis over the weekend and past few days to, um, you know, what, with the inspiration of you getting yours and playing with it and just thinking of what our future is going to look like. It's like very, very exciting. Um, especially when you, when you tie in automation and palletized and things like that. Yeah. I wonder if, uh,
00:14:45
Speaker
Yeah, that's going to be awesome. I was going to say, if you end up, I feel like you've been a longtime favor of, or friend of, sorry, Matsura, which would include Camplete, which I now, I'd heard that, I knew that before, now I get it. It's like one of those things where you don't, reminds me of like when I made my first five-axis part, it was so different than holding one. Like, it was just the process with Camplete was just like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, yes. Yeah.
00:15:16
Speaker
So yeah, it's that scenario. You're walking around IMTS and there's five axis parts and machines everywhere. And you're like, Oh, that's cool. That's cool. You almost get a little numb to it because you're still removed. You're like, I'm not, not invested yet. I haven't done it. I haven't done it myself. I haven't hit cycle start. But now that you're kind of at that point where you're like, okay, this is real now. This is big boy time, you know, um, it's fun and it's exciting. And wow, there's a lot I didn't know that I thought I knew.
00:15:42
Speaker
Yes, no, and it's awesome. I've been grabbing some different sample files I want to do, and it's mostly three-axis surfacing, but I'm using the tilt, the tool orientation infusion, and then I've basically been trying to get better at morph, parallel, scallop, and kind of like a flow blend combination, or trying to mess with both of those. But when you get a good morph, morph is a really cool toolpath.
00:16:08
Speaker
I don't know if you use it, but man. Not much, no. Yes, yes. Yeah, I mean, with only three axes, you can use them to an extent, but not to the five axes, like flowing around the part kind of thing. So I've played with, I mean, I certainly use like contour and parallel to do like pretty toolpaths and radial, but
00:16:31
Speaker
not some of the fancier ones. So like scallop, if I can explain this best, scallop takes what you start with and starts collapsing it in.
Choosing a Swiss Lathe
00:16:40
Speaker
So the problem is if you scallop with something that starts like a circle and condenses down to a square, you're going to start having cusp lines where it starts morphing or lofting, transforming between that circle and that square.
00:16:55
Speaker
because of the sort of little triangle looking shapes as it collapses on itself. Morph lets you kind of have more control over how you're picking the two rails that it moves between. I don't know if that explains it best, but it can kind of trim instead of having those larger cusps. So it's just really like it was once I made a few settings and got it nailed down, the toolpath looks. It's funny how like the toolpath itself looks really nice, which is good.
00:17:25
Speaker
Well, and then you put it through complete and you're like, oh, the loads are really good too. Yeah. I haven't done that yet. Let me think about that. Yeah. It does do that, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. That's really cool.
00:17:38
Speaker
And then will it actually alter the tool path to even out the load somehow? There's some pretty amazing stuff. You can actually have it update feed rates, update loads. It can't adjust like step overs. It's more just, it can take, but it can redistribute points. And that's big.
00:17:58
Speaker
Yeah. And there was something else that you can do that's kind of mind blowing, where again, it was kind of like taking an XY chamfer and turn it into an AC chamfer, like where it can truly transform how the toolpath is being handled. Really cool. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah.
00:18:19
Speaker
So yeah, so that got they finished installing it yesterday waiting on some the all the hardware to show up for our work holding and I'm just programming parts right now. Nice. What do you have to
00:18:39
Speaker
Yesterday, I had a fun little trip up to Elliot Matsura to talk about Swiss Laids and basically just to finalize pricing and options. He gave me the full options list and I went through it with my saga pen.
00:18:54
Speaker
and checked like, yes, yes, no, no, no, yes, yes, yes. Two of these, yes, no, no, yes. Okay, now give me a revised price of what this is going to be. Not quite as easy as the Haas website where you're just like, it's like an Amazon shopping cart, like yes, yes, no, check out.
00:19:12
Speaker
But yeah, so they're going to come back with a price on that. And then hopefully within the next few days, we're a solid. What? Make it happen. What brand would that then be? Are you sure? Tornos. Tornos. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. The Swiss, Swiss lathe. Oh yeah. I guess Citizen is Japanese, huh? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Most of them are Japanese. Star would be Japanese. Yep. And Tsugami and... Right.
00:19:36
Speaker
Yeah. A lot of them are Japanese, but there's a few Swiss, Swiss ones too. And I think Tornos has been making Swiss layers for like a hundred years. That's cool. Yeah. So what diameter did you go with?
00:19:49
Speaker
I went with a 13 mil, which is half inch. Um, the smaller of every, you were thinking, yeah, the smaller of the two, every single part I make is half inch or under except for the pocket clip of the pen, which is much better suited to the Nakamura anyway. So I'm like, why would I buy a bigger machine? That's just over capable and slightly more expensive. And you know, I hear from other Swiss guys and they're like, if you're making small parts by the small machine, because it'll be more accurate, it'll be better suited.
00:20:18
Speaker
And as long as you're not limited on tooling, like the bigger machine has a few extra tools, but nothing that's really going to benefit us. So I, you know, I went back and forth and I weighed about this and even things like the bar feeder, a six foot bar feeder versus a 12 foot bar feeder, they're the same price, which is kind of ridiculous. But, um, there are benefits using a six foot bar feeder that it's just less annoying than having these giant 12 foot bars kicking around.
00:20:46
Speaker
That's funny. I thought you meant that the bar feeders are the same price, whether you get the half inch or the three quarters, you're meaning the six foot versus the 12 foot bar feeder. Yes. It seems ridiculous. It is ridiculous. Apparently they sell more 12 foot bar feeders like the big production shops. So they stock less of the six footers, which means like a different production line kind of thing. And basically they have the same components except for some more sheet metal. So they were right.
00:21:13
Speaker
LNS was trying to argue that we need to charge basically the same price for both and whatever. But yeah, I think I'll go with the six footer because there's no way at 12 foot it's going to fit in this shop. Can you run it without a bar feeder?
00:21:29
Speaker
Apparently you can hand load bars, like short things and make parts. So the other thing we're trying to figure out is lead times for everything. Like the machine I'm getting is in stock on the showroom in Chicago, but things like the bar feeder, things like the 60,000 RPM electric spindle that I'm getting, tool holders and blocks and things like that, who knows what the supply and availability and timeline of all that stuff is.
Logistics of Acquiring a Swiss Lathe
00:21:56
Speaker
That's what they're working on now, trying to get me that detail. Got it. Priced lead time. Yeah. And I basically said, so what's going to take to get it on my floor tomorrow? Like not literally, but figuratively. Okay, we'll work on it. Don't worry. Well, so, but it's going to then be weeks, if not a few months by the time they get, because you don't want the machine, you don't want to be paying for the machine if you're waiting on key parts, right?
00:22:20
Speaker
So I don't know. I don't know what the lead times are going to be. Hopefully we can get it in and plugged in and like poking away at stuff and building programs and even making test parts like before the bar feeder or before, you know, finalizing everything. Um, so I got to weigh the balance of that. Yeah, sure. Hopefully I'm, I don't know, making parts in a few weeks. That'd be great, but who knows? That seems, this seems crazy.
00:22:46
Speaker
Well, that's what you did with your Haas, right? It came and... Well, so it's funny. We kind of made a, we kind of dropped the ball and I'll chalk some of it up to the stuff going on in my personal life. But, you know, our coolant
Bolting Machines to Concrete
00:22:59
Speaker
hasn't arrived yet. And I waited to order the fifth axis stuff, not really realizing the Haas came a little quicker than I thought.
00:23:08
Speaker
And then they just got everything done really quickly. So which is great. It's not a problem per se, but I should have been, you know, if I guess it would just really be and can't really happen quick. I mean, I really thought that was going to be a big learning hurdle and right. And just a daunting process. And it just it just doesn't seem that way. So honestly, if we had if we had the coolant and the work holding stuff here, I would go make a part after I hang up. But it's going to be another week or so.
00:23:39
Speaker
It's okay. I'm sorry. Yeah, exactly. We haven't really bought, I bought a couple of new Mari tool holders that are longer, but I haven't done too much else in terms of ordering specific tools because I kind of just want to wait and see. It takes a couple of days to get stuff. Yeah, exactly. I bought my first hydraulic order.
00:24:05
Speaker
I bought a shunk three-quarter inch and I'm actually gonna use it today. Hopefully our Spironi is getting installed, the Presetter. So we need a way. Was it Spironi? I thought it was a different brand.
00:24:20
Speaker
Uh, so I say big Kaiser because that's the distributor of them, I guess, but it's a Spironi. Yeah. Okay. Good to know. Um, you're going to laugh. We need a way to measure TCS tools and run out. And the easiest way is to just have a cat 43 quarter inch holder.
00:24:36
Speaker
And I think a hydraulic, because it collapses along the cylinder, so the other hole should be better than a set screw. Yeah, I agree. I mean, on a Tormach, the 20 millionths of run out in a side lock isn't that big of a deal. But nevertheless, I thought, I want to have a hydraulic anyways.
00:24:54
Speaker
I played with one at a, actually at that Matsura demo, I was playing with the Shunk one. They had a cutaway, which was really cool. So just picked one up from MSC. Nice. Yeah. So you bought, you bought your first hydraulic holder to measure run out on TTS holders. That's correct. Yeah.
00:25:13
Speaker
Well, we could still use it in a machine too. I don't think we're going to be measuring TTS tools every 10 minutes, but I'll tell you, I think we're going to measure cat 40 tools multiple times a day. Oh yeah.
00:25:25
Speaker
Yeah. The microscope on it too is super exciting because it, um, the way it orients the tool and holds the tool makes it. Um, I mean, you know, this for having a microscope, if you're not supporting the tool, it's a lot more difficult to have the, to hold the tool with the look you want and the lighting and all that. Um, especially on insert tooling where you usually can't like rotate it because it's not a perfect, uh, it's not round bumps in it from the inserts or whatnot.
00:25:55
Speaker
Yeah. One of the most useful things we have is this ancient, um, Tormach V block vice jaw attachment thing that it's, it lives on my microscope now because it's got all these V channels and stuff. You just put an end mill or a part or whatever in there and you can roll it around and see every flute. Um, it's super handy. I was laughing. I watched your video about the, the kind of error in his left us video. And, uh, uh, what was it? The 3d printed things that convert your microscope?
00:26:26
Speaker
They're machined, but they're little adapters to attach your cell phone to the eyepiece of the microscope, kind of rigidly, so that you can just leave your phone and take good pictures. Yeah, that's awesome. All focused and everything. Yeah, so I'm excited to get that going. So you had some, but they're the wrong adapter thread? Yeah, so this guy makes them for fun, basically. And he's like, oh, I want to send you one for sure. And the one he sent doesn't fit my microscope, so he just made some more adapters.
00:26:53
Speaker
figured it out. They're supposed to slip on, I think. You take the little rubber eye pieces off, and then slip it on, and then everything just kind of clips together. Got it. Yeah, it should be really cool. Yeah, that's awesome. That's cool. Yep. So yeah, things are exciting. You got your five axes. I'm getting my Swiss soon. And what are you going to program it in? Fusions. Yeah? OK. And then build the program's kind of notepad kind of thing. Yeah, so why do people say that?
00:27:23
Speaker
This programming is so difficult. Is it just because you don't have simulation? Well, yeah. And also the way I'm going to do it requires hand editing, which luckily I'm very used to on the Nakamura to do it. It's two channels of code, right? Because the sub spindle and the main spindle can run at the same time. Oh my God. Are you serious? At the same time. So you have two, there's literally two display panels with code reading on each side.
00:27:49
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. The nightmare. So I'm excited for that. So I believe it's one line of code, like one, maybe it's two files. Is it a program? It's one file and two files. Because they have to, like, they have to just cross over and... Yeah. Okay. Maybe it's two different programs and there are wait files, like wait codes between each. So when the main spindle gets to a certain point, it says wait for the sub-spindle to catch up to that, you know, wait one, and then the other one's got to wait one.
00:28:17
Speaker
And then they go again and then wait and then wait. And then you can balance the operations main and sub. So like, oh, let's put the threading on the sub so that they run for one minute each, you know, and then everything's timed and balanced really nicely.
00:28:33
Speaker
But at the end of the day, it's operation by operation should post out a fusion, no problem. Like turning toolpaths, grooving, threading, drilling. And then you just kind of mess around with the stuff in between.
00:28:50
Speaker
the wait codes and all the beginning files that the tornos needs and the and files and everything and I'm not too worried about that because thankfully I make like 14 lathe parts right now and I know how to make every single one yeah and it's FANUC and it should
00:29:05
Speaker
It's a transfer over without an insane amount. Right. I wonder if it's worth hiring an upward guy to write like a little script or something that could basically, if you think about what you're doing, you kind of have a master program, and then you might want to tweak your sub paths, and then you want to overlay in hand edits, but it
00:29:25
Speaker
If that's a process, that is a process. Go ahead. Stopping out. The Toronos comes with their Tysys software that does this. Okay. So you bring your code in and you can move operations around and it puts all the, you know, spindle on cool. Yeah. Like weird, weird Toronos specific codes. Um, it puts them where they need to be. And it, I think it error checks your code too, to make it good. Um,
00:29:49
Speaker
And it does time studies of your code and says, okay, you've got one minute here and 30 seconds here. What can we, you know, got it. It looks pretty cool. I just would do, I would go out of my way to avoid. Copy and pasting. Cause it's just, it's, you're going to fat finger something at some point, whereas I'd rather, it's like gambling. I'd rather post out an NC file and they have my little script, grab it.
00:30:10
Speaker
and do the finder place or whatever in that section. So that's the thing that people complain with, Swiss, is that a program like Esprit, I think, is really good at posting Swiss, because it will make all your toolpaths and post it, and it runs on the machine. It's ready to rock. Got it. You know what I mean? But Fusion is not there yet. Right, right, right. Then maybe they will eventually. But it might be more of a post thing, post processor.
00:30:36
Speaker
than anything else. I know Lawrence was, it was kind of over my head or I wasn't paying super close attention, but Lawrence has that Akuma mill turn, whatever, turn mill, B-axis thing. And he did some post edits to handle, I believe to handle master, sub, simultaneous stuff, right? I wonder if that's similar to this. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, it might be. Right? I wonder how it is probably then have two channels of code as well.
00:31:07
Speaker
Now that you say that, I remember seeing, I think it was, I think it was at Mari tool and I think it was, they've got a Miano, which is the same like dual, if not triple spindle or a turret, rather. Oh my God. The video you, and then the guys freaking hand code them. Yeah, but like lay stuff isn't, I mean, whatever. Yeah, we can change the subject. Yeah. I get it. That's cool. It's impressive.
00:31:36
Speaker
Seeing that Niano video that you found where it's rigid tapping an ID hole while it's OD threading the same area of the part.
00:31:51
Speaker
So it's like the sub was going. It's just everything's happening at once. So like the sub is moving away, but the, but the, because it has to be moving away because the turret is fixed. So that's how it handles the OD single point threading. But then the master is chasing the sub faster to handle the pitch diameter of the tap. And then, but then it's also going backward because it's multiple multi-passing a single point threading. It's just, Oh my God. Yeah. Oh my God. It was amazing.
00:32:21
Speaker
It's cool. It's fun. Technology is awesome. Isn't it? I love it. Good for you. So you're just waiting on pricing and terms and so forth? Elite time. Elite time, yep. Yup. And terms. Yup. Got it. Sweet. And how much did they weigh again? Like 4,000 or 5,000 pounds. Got it.
00:32:41
Speaker
So apparently the lathe does not have to be bolted down, but the bar feeder does have to be bolted to the grill. So you should just like bolt it in or something. Yeah. Do you know how that works? Yeah, we've done it. How does, how does the bolt actually go into the concrete? Does it like self tap into the concrete or do you thread the concrete or how does this work?
00:32:59
Speaker
There are different types, this sort of self tap, well, they're not self tappers, they're self thread or you drill a hole. Those are, I've only seen for little stuff, like they make Home Depot sells these blue screws. I forget what they're called, make on or something. That's not what you're talking about. Tapcon. Thank you. No, the stuff we did here for our radial arm drill, which is a really easy tip over risk type of machine.
00:33:20
Speaker
and since has been sold. But we bought some McMaster versions. There are lots of different versions. This was a, you drill out a hole, you set the stud in and then it has a little epoxy kit. Okay. So you sort of set the stud in there. There's ones that expand out to grab the concrete alongside. There's some that go all the way through and come up, I think from the bottom.
00:33:41
Speaker
But the ones that we bought for the radio alarm they were like one or two thousand pounds per screw and they were like seven bucks or something interesting You gotta have a hammer drill Yeah, borrow one or rent one like I wondered how you know when you bolt a machine down whether it's in an automotive vehicle hoist or a
00:34:08
Speaker
you know, or a super five-axis machine that has to be bolted to the ground or a bar feeder for a switch. Like, okay, so you drill a hole, but then what? Like what is, how does the screw interact with the concrete? I have to, do you tap it with an HSS? I don't know. Well, so I think, I think when you, if you poured a footer for the machine, you would probably actually just set the studs in the wet concrete. That's probably the least common, but you'd be surprised.
00:34:37
Speaker
Yeah, but if you're just moving a machine into your shop and you're like, I want to put it here. And then you just need to drill holes and bolt it in somehow. I agree with you, but it's also sometimes because this isn't the world we live in, we think it's hard. And the reality is there's, it's not that big a deal to cut a 12 inch square, go get some bags of quick read and pour a little mini footer yourself with a stud in it.
00:35:01
Speaker
It's like not a big deal. Oh, like a small, small hole, like a small pad, 12 by 12. You know, just right. Your bar feeder doesn't need, it just needs to not bounce around. It's not that, yeah, exactly. It needs to not fly down with, you know, three eighth inch bolts.
00:35:19
Speaker
Yep. Can't twist clamps or something. Angelo, stand on it. It's feeding. Yeah. Yeah, that's funny. Maybe you could put like a brace, like something under the door vertical over to just clamp it down. Yeah. That's cool. That's exciting. So while I was there, I filmed a little video. I'll try to throw it up today. Another Aaron's not here video.
00:35:43
Speaker
But while I was at Elliott, um, they have a CMM room with a bunch of Zeiss CMM machines, except they're currently moving and expanding.
Measuring Surface Roughness with a Profilometer
00:35:50
Speaker
So there's really nothing in there except for a surface roughness tester. Awesome. Like a profilometer, but a big fancy one with a computer and like big granite base and everything. So I'm like, Hey, can I bring some handles and blades and just a little roughness test them? Yeah, of course. Let's do it.
00:36:04
Speaker
So a double disc finishes 13 RA, which is good in industry. And then our lapped handles, which are lapped at nine, uh, 15 micron are 2.3 RA. That's insane. And then our blades hardened stainless lapped at nine micron are 0.6 RA. That's so that's less than 1 millionth of an inch roughness average. That's impressive. That's why they look so shiny. That's awesome.
00:36:33
Speaker
Yeah. So which is great, because now we have actual numbers of, oh, this is what we're getting. This is, you know, I've wanted to buy a rough, like a profilometer, um, after using yours and, you know, like the fancy mid to toy ones, 2900 bucks Canadian. And I'm just like, Oh, I don't, I don't need to spend three grand to get a number, you know, but one day I'd like to have one for sure. Throw up in anyway, we're search.
00:36:58
Speaker
I have. There are some out there, but at least $1,000 and up. Got it. I don't know. Yeah. But what we're contemplating doing right now with the lapping machine is finding a good supplier and outsourcing the handles and the clip lapping. OK. Because they take us an insane amount of time. But even on the new big one. Even on the new big one. This guy is doing it full time. He has basically no time for anything else. Wow.
00:37:28
Speaker
which is not really my intention for his skills and capabilities. So if we send out the handles and the clips to get laughed, and then we continue to lap the blades because they're kind of a mid process, like after he treat kind of thing, and then we get the quality of that, then I think that could work out really well. So we're trying to figure out the balance of that. Well, that's easy to test, right? I mean, you don't have to go all or nothing on it.
00:37:53
Speaker
No, we just sent a bunch of handles to a guy in Cincinnati, I think. Oh, really? That's funny. He's been grinding for 50 years. Right. And he thinks he can hit our number. But now that we have the provolometer results saying the handles need to be 2.3 RA plus or minus whatever.
00:38:12
Speaker
And then, you know, hit that and we sent parts. They got to be this good. So yeah. So that's, we're just guessing like make it shiny, which is not a spec, you know?
00:38:24
Speaker
Right. No, I get that. I mean, this goes back to Business 101 and the whole joke about growth eats cash for breakfast. But my thought is kind of process has kind of changed. And look, there's a lot to be said for the thing we've talked about before, which is triage capital. Put a list of the things that you want. Make sure you don't buy 50 different profilometer type devices that then stop you from buying the Swiss lathe. That's all really good. On the flip side,
00:38:54
Speaker
Presetter was the first tool that I've ever kind of like really said this year. I'm advocating money to buy it like kind of a plan to head researched purchase where in the past it was more reactive or when I need it and The thing with the profilometer John is it's not that much money and if you're gonna buy it in the next year or two But you're just being
Cost-Benefit Analysis of Machining Tools
00:39:22
Speaker
Um, I want to call it emotional, but you're just being like, you're being judicious, which I give you respect for. Like don't spend the money if you don't need it. But if you do need it and you're going to buy it later, well, don't, don't make a process worse or harder now because you're just delaying purchasing a thousand dollars, especially if you can get a use over a thousand bucks.
00:39:42
Speaker
Yeah, because there comes a point with decisions like that where you're leaving money on the table by not having it. Like the Swiss, basically, is what I came to. If we save for another six months or a year and get it later, well, think of how many sagas we could have made in that time. Yeah. And it becomes silly. Right. The time to buy Camplete is not after the $13,000 repair bill. Yeah. And look, if you can't afford it by no means, but
00:40:09
Speaker
It's interesting. It just gets to the point where, man, there's a lot of cool stuff to buy. Yes. There's a lot of cool one to $20,000 items that just be like, man, that'd be nice to have. Oh yeah, we could totally use that. Right. And they really add up. Yes. Make your list though.
00:40:28
Speaker
Well, I haven't. Yeah. No, but I don't want to just go, I am still affected by my mood, right? Some days I'm like, hey, let's go buy a hydraulic holder because to happen, that was a good purchase. And sometimes you're feeling the pinch. So I try to avoid that by sticking to a plan on that stuff. Yeah. But I mean, you've talked about profileometers a lot.
00:40:55
Speaker
Yeah. Well, cause we, we use them. I mean, we would use it. Right. Like we got the ultrasonic cleaner a couple of weeks ago, 400 bucks Canadian. I've been putting it off forever and ever and ever. I'm like, man, it'd be nice to have one day. It'd be nice to have. Eventually it was just like, screw it. Let's do it. Yeah. And I got it. And it is amazing. Yeah. It's just everything I expected it to be in more, which is rare to say from a tool. What are you using it for?
00:41:24
Speaker
for now it's mostly cleaning lapping machine parts. Oh, the slur is like nasty and brown and you know, it's like diamond dust plus titanium plus lubricant plus gross, right? It looks like mud. And you know, sky's been hunched over the sink scrubbing with a toothbrush, trying to get them washed off and it takes might take him an hour to wash parts. Now he can put them in the ultrasonic hands off, it vibrates away and just cavitates all the dirt off of the part and he says I
00:41:55
Speaker
You know, I rinse them with water and they're perfect. They're cleaner than I could have gone before. Have you ever read the Wikipedia article on ultrasonic cavitation cleaning?
00:42:04
Speaker
No, it is like, it is like science winning at life, like detergent. So I remember learning this a lot like a year or two ago that the difference between a detergent and a non detergent is that a detergent traps the dirt in a bubble that keeps it separated. Whereas non detergent don't. So that's really important when you look at like
00:42:25
Speaker
a detergent oil or a non-detergent changes the way at which it handles when it has a particle that it considers foreign. And then the way you like those cavitation, like it's like little mini explosions on the surface that disrupt it and then capture it and then pull it off the part. It's like, Oh my God, this is amazing.
00:42:45
Speaker
So it, I assume it's breaking up the water into H2O, into oxygen. No, I don't think so.
00:42:57
Speaker
I can't answer that. I'm not a scientist. We'll put a link in the podcast description, but it's the frequency creates the agitation, I think. My guess is that the bubbles are not breaking up the water particles or atoms, but rather introducing air somehow from that.
00:43:21
Speaker
Not from the surface. It stems from the part because the part is a foreign object in the tank.
Ultrasonic Cleaning Benefits
00:43:29
Speaker
And it says, I don't know. It's weird. That's a good point. It's pretty amazing. Bubbles come from the middle of the water and float up. And every bubble is a particle of dirt or whatever. It's like the champagne of cleaning solutions. Yeah, exactly, right? So what sort of cleaner do you put in it?
00:43:49
Speaker
We use Simple Green a lot. And then we got this cleaner called Micro 90, which is a specific cleaner that's meant to clean ceramics and some other stuff. And we got the recommendation from Angus, the lapping company. And that's what they use. And Sky's like, you know, there might be a gallon of water in there and I just do a little glug.
00:44:12
Speaker
a little 1% mixture of Micro 90 because it's pretty expensive, but it works so well. I don't know if it's soapy or bubbly or not, but it works. But you're using regular soaps. You're not using something that's specifically meant for ultrasonics, which is fine. Except for the Micro 90, I think that is meant for.
00:44:36
Speaker
Oh, okay. It reminds me of one of those really fun, like, things in life that you have been led to believe that simply aren't true, which is that, like, I love those little, like, gotcha lists. Like, this doesn't actually have to be that way. And it's like shampoo does not in any way have to make suds. It's just that people don't think it works if it doesn't. So that they continue to, Johnson and Johnson continues to put, you know, make it sort of sudsy so you think it's doing a better job. Whoa, I never heard of that.
00:45:05
Speaker
That's funny. Well, so what's up today? Today we are making saga tips on the lathe. We've been sort of setting it up slowly over the past two days.
00:45:20
Speaker
they're a little complicated to make just because there's some weird internal drills and spots and stuff where the spring seats on the part. Oh, and then the threads are a little annoying too. So I might see if I can figure out a Higbee thread like we talked about last week. And then I'll be making those today. Sounds like a good candidate for a flat bottom drill, which I know you don't like the present time.
00:45:45
Speaker
I'm using an end mill. I'm just like plowing an end to it. Titanium though? Yeah, but barely. It's a drilled hole, so there's the 135 degree, and then I'm just spotting it with an end mill to make it flat. Yeah, that works fine. But yeah, tips today should be good, and then we got to make tubes, and then we got to make pocket clips. Ooh, okay. Pocket clips are a bit of a big deal, but they should go pretty good.
00:46:11
Speaker
Uh, and then after that, we'll have our 50 ish batch first batch ready to go. Awesome. That's really cool. Yeah. So I'm excited. And then I just want it to happen now. Yes. But there's always stuff to do. There's always busyness, always distractions and machine dealers to go talk to and, you know, parts to make. That's exciting. That's really exciting. Yeah. Super exciting. Will the Swiss be easier or harder than the knock to change setups on to go from, you know, tips to tubes or something?
Optimizing Swiss Lathe Efficiency
00:46:42
Speaker
Ideally, I, the tornos has a lot of tools, which is really nice. I mean, so does the Nakamura for that matter, but I'm specifically setting up the Swiss to basically stay set up all the time for everything. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's phenomenal. Right. Right. So we're taking collets and maybe like a drill and a boring bar or something, but, uh, keep the changeovers less and less so that we, we are less scared to do it on a daily basis or weekly or whatever. Does it have a pre-setter?
00:47:12
Speaker
No, you touch off or adjust them that way. Yeah. Got it. And that's normal on a Swiss, like Swiss don't have probes or anything like that. So, um, yeah, basically you get it super close, like within, like people say you slide the stick tool in and you bump it up against the part and you lock it down. And then you make a part and you adjust tolerance. That's the method for adjusting tool offsets. That's hilarious. Yeah. I guess it's not that far off.
00:47:43
Speaker
Yeah, that's cool. Sweet. So, yeah. Cool. Awesome. Well, that's exciting, dude. Congrats or a preliminary premature preparatory purchase congrats on the Swiss. That's going to be really cool. That's going to be really cool. Yeah. Can't wait. Sweet. Cool. Well, have fun yourself with some five-axis camming today. Yeah. Awesome. I'll see you next Wednesday. Sounds good. Take care. Bye.