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#444 Stuff I forget
3.1k Plays19 days ago
Topics:
- Shop renovations and office updates
- Grimsmo lathes are back up and running
- Shop phone systems
- Stop the bleed course
- Vibration sensors
- Best productivity tip: "Leave yourself an unbelievably easy spot to pick it up the project again"
- Stuff I forget
- Speedio automation cells
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Episode Overview
00:00:01
John Saunders
Good morning, welcome to the Business of Machining episode 444. My name is John Saunders.
00:00:07
johngrimsmo
And my name is John Grimsmo.
00:00:09
John Saunders
Everything from robots to shop renovations to magnets to, yeah, ah phone systems, new monitors, but a day in life and hopefully a little candid insight into what John and i go through each day running our manufacturing companies.
00:00:26
johngrimsmo
Amazing. I've got
Shop and Office Renovations
00:00:28
johngrimsmo
an update in the shop. I've got your favorite topic, lathes um and vibration detection.
00:00:34
John Saunders
Oh, I saw your Instagram clip with the Arduino and the USM switch or whatever the...
00:00:37
johngrimsmo
who Yeah, we'll get into that.
00:00:39
John Saunders
Okay. Okay. um I've got some like daily housekeeping stuff I wanted to share with you um of stuff I'm doing, improvements I found. I found my my personal single best...
00:00:55
John Saunders
it's not productivity tip, but like project tip that I've ever found. Now, now, ah you know, to each their own.
00:00:58
johngrimsmo
Ooh.
00:01:00
John Saunders
So this probably won't help everybody, but I'm excited to talk about that. And then some really good physical updates of stuff here at Saunders, which to be totally frank, we're inspired by you. But you, you, you run with it cause you, you led this effort.
00:01:15
johngrimsmo
Okay. In what, in what sense background?
00:01:17
John Saunders
Well, the, your background.
00:01:19
johngrimsmo
So yeah, in my office, the team got together and they said, uh, John, your office sucks. We're going to make it better. and And we need a place to just film, like film a product video, film top down film, a tear apart film, or whatever.
00:01:31
johngrimsmo
And, uh, yeah So the guys totally took it upon themselves. They cleared out the office and they threw away the stuff that was junk and they kept everything else for me to go through later. They painted the walls a very dark, like graphite kind of gray, kind of a flat color, which is going to make lighting more and more critical.
00:01:50
johngrimsmo
um But it it gives us super like rich atmosphere of just luxurious coolness. And yeah, so it looks good.
00:01:59
John Saunders
Looks, but what's funny, now this is a webcam, so whatever, but it looks actually like a really dark hunter green.
00:02:00
johngrimsmo
You like it?
00:02:04
johngrimsmo
Yes.
00:02:07
John Saunders
But now they now that you say
00:02:07
johngrimsmo
It might be. Yeah. i don't know.
Office Layout and Space Optimization
00:02:09
John Saunders
it's gray and like the Grimms of Sign is sick, the white trim looks nice.
00:02:13
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah. It's good. So we're we're having fun with it.
00:02:17
John Saunders
Good, that's awesome. And remind me that's on like a second floor mezzanine that overlooks or could, okay.
00:02:18
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:02:21
johngrimsmo
Second floor. Yeah. It, it, yeah, it doesn't overlook the shop. Um, there we have, One, two, we have three offices upstairs and a bathroom. So our accountant has an office and then, you know, sales and marketing and shipping and stuff has an office as well.
00:02:35
johngrimsmo
And then my office here, which I pretty much only use for podcasting and some some other stuff.
00:02:36
John Saunders
Okay.
00:02:38
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:02:39
johngrimsmo
But now we will get to use it much, much more. It'll be useful.
00:02:44
John Saunders
And does your um first floor, is it all industrial space, and machine space, or there are also offices down there?
00:02:51
johngrimsmo
Underneath this is a big lunchroom, two bathrooms, and a storage room. And that's about it.
00:02:57
John Saunders
Okay.
00:02:58
johngrimsmo
And then the shop is full 18-foot ceilings um clear to the to the roof.
00:02:58
John Saunders
Got it.
00:03:02
John Saunders
Oh, wow. Yeah, that's nice.
00:03:03
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:03:03
John Saunders
Yeah, sure, sure. Sweet. Um, yeah, so I had, I think i did I mentioned it publicly or was it when we were just chatting after the end of last week's episode, but, uh, I have a larger than needed office.
00:03:16
John Saunders
Um, and.
00:03:17
johngrimsmo
Yeah, you did mention. Yeah, yeah.
00:03:18
John Saunders
It was kind of the old classroom from when this building was built, coincidentally for the local machine shop tech school facility. Like literally it was a builder suit for what was called Muscain and Mary Technical College and their mold making and machining program.
00:03:33
John Saunders
We saw some of the flyers around here, which is fun.
00:03:35
johngrimsmo
No way.
00:03:36
John Saunders
And so when we built this out about eight years ago, we just basically re- did the walls as they had already been installed. i think there were some of the metal studs were left, but some we had to redo. But um basically my office is, I don't know the measurements, probably fifty probably almost by 20, whatever. So,
00:03:53
John Saunders
twenty by twenty whatever so We, Yvonne has been office in our conference room for over two years. And, um, that means she leaves when we do like, she leaves her area when we do, um, group lunches or other certain meetings, sometimes our guests.
00:04:09
John Saunders
And so the obvious answer was wait minute, just put up a wall in my office, make it into two offices, both of which are are fine. They're not huge, but they're not too small by any means.
00:04:17
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:04:18
John Saunders
Um, And so we had a friend contractor who was going to do that floor replacement in our utility closet. That was one of my like 2026, Hey, just fix this, like get the floor and fixed in there. And then i was like, Hey John, um would you, what do you think about putting a wall up here and that, and that, and he doesn't always want to do the work cause he's got plenty on his plate, but he was like, yeah, i might be able to that for you. But either way, we're just like, don't talk about it. Like just make it happen.
00:04:41
John Saunders
um So that'll be great.
Monitor and Setup Enhancements
00:04:43
John Saunders
And then, I want to use our conference room, not so much, won't be for videos and all that, but I want to have, um yeah, you can kind of see behind me. We have all of every single Saunders product.
00:04:54
John Saunders
Maybe there's some exception. Most our products we have 100% size 3D prints. We have 300% 3D prints.
00:05:00
johngrimsmo
Yes.
00:05:01
John Saunders
And then we have some, where it's appropriate, we have, what do you call my cutaways?
00:05:06
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:05:06
John Saunders
section views, cutaways, et cetera. And they're in my office, but if we move, we start moving our meetings into the conference room. Actually, you know, I'll probably keep this set here because i like playing with them, but I want another set because when we're in a meeting, we want to talk about a product. You just want to grab that product be like, this is where I'm seeing this and that.
00:05:22
johngrimsmo
Yeah, it's all, the more I learn about it, the more I'm like, you're removing the barrier to entry. Like, I don't want to have to go to another room to get the thing. I want the thing right there available to me.
00:05:32
John Saunders
Yep. Well, good. I love seeing the progress on that.
00:05:36
John Saunders
That was, that seems like it happened quick.
00:05:36
johngrimsmo
Yeah, it it feels it feels like we're making, yeah, within a week, less than a week.
00:05:42
johngrimsmo
Grayson came in on Sunday, put in some extra time and and got this done. And it just feels like we're doing things, you know, because we've got big plans for this year and this is a part of it, so.
00:05:49
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:05:51
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, ah Okay, I also, so I've had dual monitors my whole life. It's great, bla blah, blah, blah. Like, you know, email or or Windows folders on one side and Fusion or browsing the other, not nothing crazy there.
00:06:10
John Saunders
One of my monitors failed. I went up and looked at Amazon. Sure enough, it's nine years old, which, okay, great, whatever. Um, and, but then I was like, don't want to have disparate monitors.
00:06:21
John Saunders
Like one's different brand size. I don't really want to replace both of them. And so I pulled the trigger on a $200 Spectre, uh, 34 inch curved monitor and I'm on day four of it.
00:06:31
johngrimsmo
OK.
00:06:34
John Saunders
Um, it's definitely different.
00:06:36
johngrimsmo
So single monitor, but huge.
00:06:36
John Saunders
Uh, Single monitor, but huge, yeah. um And what is nice is if you can get used to the Windows keyboard shortcuts with the Windows left, right up, down, you can have it automatically move apps left to right, half, full screen, small screen Because that was my concern was like, I want,
00:06:53
John Saunders
I want to have Fusion full screen, but sometimes I want that full screen to just be one half of my screen.
00:06:55
johngrimsmo
then
00:06:58
John Saunders
um It actually works pretty well. So some of this is probably betraying my, you know, slightly older age, a reluctance to adopt different things, but it's great.
00:07:00
johngrimsmo
Nice.
00:07:08
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:07:09
John Saunders
Love it.
00:07:10
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I've been on either a 15 inch or 17 inch laptop for several, like 10 years almost, a single monitor laptop kind of thing. And then here at podcast, I have, think, a 27 inch monitor and then my my laptop on the side, which works. And then at home, i have, I think, 27 28 inch single monitor.
00:07:28
johngrimsmo
And I didn't know about the keyboard shortcuts, but I know you can drag a window and hold it to the side and it'll like ask if you want to fill the score of the side.
00:07:33
John Saunders
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:07:35
johngrimsmo
So that works great at home. You know, I'll have like two Chrome tabs open or like Chrome and fusion or whatever I'm working on.
00:07:41
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:07:42
johngrimsmo
I like it.
00:07:43
John Saunders
Some of my friends that only own laptops have bought these like $100, they're USB second screens. They look like a little tablet and they kind of blew me away.
00:07:51
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:07:53
John Saunders
And like, we'll be skiing at their ski cabin and they'll just pull it out and like plug it into their laptop. And it gives them a second screen, which actually is really helpful if you're trying to write you know write emails and read a report or something.
00:08:03
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:08:05
John Saunders
So PSA on that.
00:08:06
johngrimsmo
Sweet.
Machine Maintenance Insights
00:08:08
John Saunders
Go ahead, you're up.
00:08:10
johngrimsmo
Um, lads. So talked about a few weeks ago, the Williman had a sensory issue, replaced it all good. The Tornos had an encoder issue on the live tool motor.
00:08:23
johngrimsmo
pretty sure i told you about that.
00:08:23
John Saunders
Yes, yes, the so the Swiss.
00:08:25
johngrimsmo
The Swiss, yeah. And then ah Jeff took it apart, cleaned it, put it back together. It worked for a day and then it stopped working again and then it failed. So thankfully we have, ah
00:08:35
John Saunders
Oh, this is the oil in the back of the fan, I can go to. Sorry, thank you.
00:08:37
johngrimsmo
exactly, yep. in In Toronto, there is, i think, Canada's FANUC world headquarters or Canada headquarters. So one of our guys lives near Toronto and was able to literally pop by on his way to work and pick up a new FANUC encoder for $800.
00:08:54
johngrimsmo
I already paid for it and just bring it back in.
00:08:55
John Saunders
No kidding.
00:08:57
johngrimsmo
And it was installed like next day. Easy.
00:08:59
John Saunders
Sweet.
00:09:00
johngrimsmo
Yeah, worked out.
00:09:00
John Saunders
Just the red cap butt end cap end.
00:09:02
johngrimsmo
Just the red cap.
00:09:03
John Saunders
Yeah, yeah, sweet.
00:09:03
johngrimsmo
Yep. Yep. And then we had a service guy come in to work on the Nakamura and the guys told him about that. And he's like, oh, we normally just replace the entire motor, not the encoder. And we're like, that seems dumb. The encoder was great.
00:09:16
johngrimsmo
Like easy to replace.
00:09:17
John Saunders
Yeah, yeah.
00:09:17
johngrimsmo
Doing a whole motor would be a lot more work, but whatever. So then the Nakamura, Elliot came in to fix the, um, live tool drive belt and shaft that spins all the live tools i filmed a quick video of that i just got to edit it and throw it up um and he was here for a day and a half and he's like he's like i know you guys are you're handy but it's good you called me because i had a tech from japan fly in to teach me how to do this like
00:09:48
John Saunders
Wow.
00:09:49
johngrimsmo
He's like, for a while I was the only tech that knew how to do this. And it's not you know impossible, but it's tricky and you'll miss things and it will all fall apart if you don't do it right and you don't hold the right thing kind of thing. So it's just like a timing belt, like what's on an old engine kind of thing, but it's bigger and $600.
00:10:06
johngrimsmo
And yeah,
00:10:07
John Saunders
Is it an actual belt?
00:10:09
johngrimsmo
yeah it's an actual like whatever carbon reinforced or fiberglass reinforced, like like Gates timing belts kind of thing.
00:10:09
John Saunders
No kidding. Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:15
johngrimsmo
But yeah,
00:10:15
John Saunders
Interesting.
00:10:17
johngrimsmo
And the old one, he's like, after nine years of use, you should have probably replaced it about a year ago, but it's good that it didn't break. um
00:10:25
John Saunders
Ooh.
00:10:26
johngrimsmo
Because if it breaks, then the turret tool change will break something else if it's not lining up properly.
00:10:31
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:33
johngrimsmo
So he's like, it's perfect timing. So we replaced the belt and a bearing pack and the shaft that literally grabs onto each live tool and starts turning it.
00:10:41
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:10:42
johngrimsmo
And... I haven't seen the final bill for that yet, but it's whatever it's maintenance.
00:10:48
John Saunders
Yeah. I'm impressed that it's done. i mean, I know when we were talking about last week, it sounded like it could be one of those, like, uh, you know, you know how that goes.
00:10:51
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:10:56
John Saunders
It's like, well, schedule it and wait for the parts to come in.
00:10:56
johngrimsmo
to
00:10:58
John Saunders
And then they get there the first afternoon, they just start taking sheet metal off.
00:10:59
johngrimsmo
yep
00:11:01
John Saunders
They started. You're just like, yeah.
00:11:02
johngrimsmo
yeah We did that for them. like we We prepped it as much as we could. Our guys tore it down to the sheet metal and saved the guy a lot of time. So we didn't have to like clean while he was working. We'd already have done that.
00:11:12
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:11:12
johngrimsmo
And yeah, it was going to be for next week. But they're like, oh, we've got an opening this coming Monday. Do you want that? Yes.
00:11:20
John Saunders
Sweet.
00:11:20
johngrimsmo
Done.
Phone System Upgrade Challenges
00:11:21
johngrimsmo
So fortunately, all lights are back up and running.
00:11:21
John Saunders
Wait, so unfortunately all lays are back up and running?
00:11:28
John Saunders
Awesome.
00:11:29
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:11:31
John Saunders
Good. um The other random thing I realized we need to do, it just like, it just hit me an hour ago when we were talking about the offices is we need a phone system, super lame, but we have a, we should probably get a phone call every hour or two split between, you know,
00:11:43
johngrimsmo
Mmm.
00:11:50
John Saunders
a third spam, a third vendor questions and a third real customers. But, um you know, we're real but like i i know i say this jokingly we're real business. Like we actually need a phone.
00:11:58
johngrimsmo
There.
00:11:59
John Saunders
So right now we literally have the same thing you would have in like a 1999 house where we have like four cordless VTech phones that we like walk around with. I have a wireless or i have a wired headset so I can type if I'm on the phone.
00:12:12
John Saunders
But we need just go get a VoIP system. i don't even know what I'm talking about. i'm just going to like chat GPT. what I should buy and how to do that. But like, we need to be able to transfer calls. i need to be able to mute mine so that like, it doesn't ring on this podcast.
00:12:24
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:12:24
John Saunders
Um, I'm sure you can like more easily call forward or there's a web interface to like, I would hope and think you could now like look at voicemails through a web browser and not, you know, the old school dial in whatever.
00:12:24
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:12:35
John Saunders
So that's my,
00:12:35
johngrimsmo
Yeah. One of those things that's like, we don't know the answer, but it's probably one of the most common business questions ever is like, how I solve my phone problems?
00:12:42
John Saunders
right. Right.
00:12:44
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:12:45
John Saunders
Yeah, I don't want pay. I'm still boot free. $200 a month to some company to be like, we can maintain your phone system. I'm like, no, i just need to buy some VoIP headsets and Align.
00:12:53
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:12:53
John Saunders
And maybe there's a fee for the VoIP itself or whatever. Actually, side note, embarrassingly, um I shocked myself pretty bad yesterday.
00:13:04
johngrimsmo
On what?
00:13:05
John Saunders
We had a whole... I mean a whole mess of phone cables in our utility closet. They've been there for eight years um but since we moved in. Our phone system is through our Spectrum um cable modem.
00:13:21
John Saunders
It's like we don't use the RJ45 stuff or like the RJ11, like the old phone phone. and But some of them are labeled um FedEx, which is our neighbor tenant. So I went over to FedEx and, because part of me leave em alone.
00:13:34
John Saunders
Like, just don't just leave it alone. But that was two, three years ago. They look like a mess. We're fixing the flooring in that room, that utility closet. So I went over to FedEx. I said, Hey, can you come someone? Come take a look at this. Cause we're going rip it out. And they're like, we don't even need to look at it. We're void. We don't need like, go ahead. So like hey they, I them their chance to speak up.
00:13:54
John Saunders
So I go, and cut through probably a hundred of those old phone cable pairs. of They're like alternating color patterns, maybe 50 pairs, a hundred total wires, a lot.
00:14:03
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:14:06
John Saunders
um And pull like these telephone network switches off, these the patch panels that you like stomp the panel and wire down through. And I took off four things off the wall from this. This whole thing was the size of, you know,
00:14:23
johngrimsmo
Like an oven.
00:14:23
John Saunders
whatever. What's that?
00:14:25
johngrimsmo
Like an oven.
00:14:25
John Saunders
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so I'm all done.
00:14:26
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:14:28
John Saunders
I'm going there to clean up and I step toward it and my right hand brushes the exposed 50 wire pairs that I had cut of these tiny, like 26 gauge wires.
00:14:41
John Saunders
And I shocked the out of myself. And I so scream like a little girl. Um, and so of course I get on chat GBT and yeah, sure enough, this is like classic.
00:14:52
John Saunders
Um, this is classic. Like, uh, telcos would just leave these things even hot. Um, and they are 48 volt DC or a hundred volt AC to fire the idle and the ringer.
00:15:02
johngrimsmo
Yeah,
00:15:05
John Saunders
And what I need to do is go find the telco D mark somewhere, which like the main end. So I'll either get an electrician or I've got another, source to get us some help with that. But ah I was just, whatever, there's
Workplace Health and Safety Programs
00:15:17
John Saunders
no point to this.
00:15:17
John Saunders
But like other than like, I was not thinking like, oh, this could be a hot 110, 15 amp outlet.
00:15:18
johngrimsmo
yeah. yeah
00:15:23
johngrimsmo
Right?
00:15:23
John Saunders
So yeah.
00:15:24
johngrimsmo
she Well, I'm glad you're okay, but PSA, you know, call before you cut kind of thing.
00:15:26
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:15:31
johngrimsmo
but the I know, I know.
00:15:31
John Saunders
Would you have, I don't know. Yeah. um So
00:15:34
johngrimsmo
So this is just like a pack of cables sticking out of the wall that you're like, eh, slice them all off.
00:15:39
John Saunders
yeah, gone.
00:15:40
johngrimsmo
And then what was the plan after that? Just leave it there?
00:15:42
John Saunders
Well, I took all that stuff off the wall and then we, that's where we have our switches and routers and net share computer servers. I'm going to like, just clean it all up.
00:15:51
johngrimsmo
Sweet.
00:15:52
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:15:53
johngrimsmo
Yeah, we've got that tiny closet room too under the stairs that has the the furnace and the air hot water heater and things like that.
00:16:01
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:16:02
johngrimsmo
And and one of those big computer but towers, whatever it is for all the server, exactly.
00:16:08
John Saunders
Yeah. know Server rack thing.
00:16:10
johngrimsmo
And a whole mess of cables and wires and stuff, but I'm just leaving it alone.
00:16:14
John Saunders
yeah Yeah.
00:16:15
johngrimsmo
It doesn't matter.
00:16:15
John Saunders
Right. Right. Um, the last thing I'll say ah from a health and safety standpoint was a friend had mentioned a program called stop the bleed. I don't know if you've heard of that or they have seven candidates.
00:16:25
johngrimsmo
I've heard of it. Yeah, for sure.
00:16:27
John Saunders
So,
00:16:27
johngrimsmo
like a training program, right?
00:16:29
John Saunders
Yeah, and so we, unfortunately we didn't have one here, but we have one in the next county over. I asked Yvonne if she called the woman, the woman's like, yep, 75 bucks, they're coming in April to do a, i don't know, hour to hour um first aid class for the whole shop.
00:16:45
johngrimsmo
Yeah. It's only going to cost you 75 bucks. Wow.
00:16:48
John Saunders
well What's funny is that our friends who recommended it are from Colorado and they were like, it's always free. Now it's not in our county. So I was happy to pay almost any amount and certainly $75, good grief.
00:16:57
johngrimsmo
Of course.
00:17:00
johngrimsmo
whom
00:17:00
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:17:02
johngrimsmo
That's really good. It's something that guys have brought up several times over the past few years and yeah, we should get to it. We should get to it. And it's one of those things like just put on the list and get it done, schedule it. And everybody is taking that hour.
00:17:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Okay. Thanks for the reminder. Cause that's really important.
00:17:16
John Saunders
I had looked, well, I looked Red Cross in the hospital system here before and neither were the answers.
00:17:19
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm.
00:17:21
John Saunders
So I needed somebody to tell me about stop the bleed. Um, cause I just didn't know who to who to come do that other than to pay a doctor or a nurse to like come up with a curriculum, which you could do, but I'm happy to find a framework that already exists for this.
00:17:34
johngrimsmo
Exactly. Yeah. And I know there are definitely workplace first aid training courses that guys will come in and like literally unpack the whole first aid kit with everybody on the team and like really show you how everything works.
00:17:45
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:17:46
johngrimsmo
And that's probably a good idea too.
00:17:53
johngrimsmo
Cool.
Vibration Detection with Raspberry Pi
00:17:54
johngrimsmo
All right, let's get into vibration detection. So it was like Friday night, um just finished a movie.
00:17:57
John Saunders
Okay.
00:18:01
johngrimsmo
You know, I got some takeout. i was like, still got a couple hours before bed. I could either do like real work stuff that I'm supposed to do, or I can take on one of my fun little projects. And there goes my whole weekend because...
00:18:14
johngrimsmo
Because that fun project turned into, you know, it was a busy family weekend, but the little bits of time that I had was all towards vibration sensing, which was super fun. So a few months ago, I bought accelerometers and I bought piezo sensors and I bought bunch of Raspberry Pis, like little Pico's.
00:18:31
John Saunders
Yes.
00:18:32
johngrimsmo
ESP devices. And I finally took the time with ChatGPT and cursor to like, all right, I'm just going to start plugging stuff in. I just want to see, i want to tap on the table and like watch the waveform kind of thing.
00:18:44
John Saunders
Yep.
00:18:45
johngrimsmo
And learned a lot, ended up making a Python program, a UI that displays all the, ah all the waveforms. um The one I showed on Instagram was like version one, and now I'm on much, much cooler, like cleaner version. um And I learned a bunch of stuff. So I bought a really cheap accelerometer that's like one of the most common ones, ADX335 or something like that.
00:19:09
johngrimsmo
um And they're like $4 each. But it measures XYZ in G-force. So in change in acceleration, your rate of acceleration.
00:19:20
johngrimsmo
So when you when you shake it it, it just knows you made this much G.
00:19:20
John Saunders
OK.
00:19:25
johngrimsmo
um in in the X or the Y or the Z direction.
00:19:26
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:19:28
johngrimsmo
And it does tilt as well because of those things. So depending on like your your phone has a accelerometer in it that knows if it's vertical or whatever. not as sensitive as i thought it would be like if you tap on the table it doesn't really show a spike it's like interesting okay maybe i just got to turn it up or like amplify the signal or something like that and then i bought have you ever seen the little piezo discs it looks like a tiny little like a thin thin quarter with two wires sticking out of it and if you apply voltage to it it's a speaker so like the buzzer in our computers make a little And you can play music through it, although it's not very good, I think.
00:19:53
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:19:56
John Saunders
Yep. Sure.
00:20:01
John Saunders
Yep.
00:20:06
johngrimsmo
But if you squeeze it or tap it or compress it in any way or twist it, it makes a voltage.
00:20:13
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:20:13
johngrimsmo
And you can read that voltage. So from whatever zero to 10 volts or something like that. and And it only notices a change in voltage. So if you squeeze and hold, there's a spike. And then it goes back to zero because there's no change in voltage. um And then when you let go, it makes a negative voltage because it And just that's how it works.
00:20:33
johngrimsmo
So I had to put that through a analog to digital converter and then into the Raspberry Pi Pico. And that little device, which is like almost free, they're so cheap, is like so sensitive.
00:20:47
johngrimsmo
And it's it's really, really cool.
00:20:48
John Saunders
oh Oh.
00:20:50
johngrimsmo
So it's just this little flat disk. Sitting on the table, it senses some stuff. If I weight it down with either my i um iPod case, my AirPods or whatever, or with a water bottle or something like that, where I'm putting some weight to it, and that weight...
00:21:06
johngrimsmo
senses more vibration around it because it interacts with the sensor and it kind of pushes weight on it, right?
00:21:10
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:21:11
johngrimsmo
So even just my water cup, the corner of the cup on the on the thing, now you start to like tap your foot on the ground, you start to see vibrations. Now I can tell when somebody's walking upstairs.
00:21:21
John Saunders
Yes.
00:21:22
johngrimsmo
It's so cool. So I'm all showing the family and the kids and stuff. And I'm like, okay, go as far away as you can and still see the screen and like, just tap on the floor or like clap your hands or something. And you see the spike and the ripple.
00:21:33
johngrimsmo
So it's been super fun. And, uh, you can tell frequency vibration. So like a motor that's spinning at 3000 RPM, you can tell which vibrational frequency is most, you know, it's like imbalanced at kind of thing, like 40, 40 Hertz.
00:21:48
John Saunders
Okay.
00:21:50
johngrimsmo
um And the one of the main goals is to put it on the spindle and balance in-assembly grinding wheels on the Speedio.
00:22:00
John Saunders
Oh, okay.
00:22:01
johngrimsmo
So like the RegoFix tool holder is balanced, but the shaft that I machined and the nut that I machined and the wheel that I had custom made put on there have various imbalance.
00:22:01
John Saunders
Interesting.
00:22:10
johngrimsmo
And maybe the spindle itself has some imbalance in it. All I really care about is that the final in-situation spindle has as little vibration as possible.
00:22:14
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:22:19
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah.
00:22:20
johngrimsmo
because I'm seeing and I can count the streaks of the grinding pattern where it's clearly grinding deeper every rotation and then it swings out and and we're talking almost nothing.
00:22:33
johngrimsmo
Once I finish my interferometer, I'll tell you exactly how deep it is.
00:22:36
John Saunders
yeah
00:22:37
johngrimsmo
But, uh, I do feel like making that as close to perfectly vibration as possible will totally increase the quality of the grind, and will reduce significantly reduce the amount of hand finishing the guys are putting into each blade.
00:22:53
John Saunders
how are you going balance, how are you going add weights or just...
00:22:59
johngrimsmo
excuse me a Good question. The nut that I machined to put on the grinding wheel...
00:23:04
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:23:05
johngrimsmo
I can just grind it. I can just like take take a Dremel to it and take weight off the heavy side.
00:23:07
John Saunders
Okay, yeah.
00:23:10
John Saunders
Okay. Right. Because you've seen like...
00:23:12
johngrimsmo
So that should work.
00:23:14
John Saunders
Heimer and Sprony make like, they make balancers that then the holder or, you think it would be the holder have a little threaded holes or you add just different weighted inserts.
00:23:24
johngrimsmo
Yep. Yep. I've seen a collar that you can like loosen and rotate around and tighten back.
00:23:27
John Saunders
Yeah. who
00:23:28
johngrimsmo
I could do that if I had to. There's a lot of options, but the the key is... Outputting, ah you know, ideally you have an RPM signal or at a single point tachometer of the spindle.
00:23:41
johngrimsmo
So you know where your orient is, your zero degrees kind of thing.
00:23:43
John Saunders
OK.
00:23:45
johngrimsmo
So that way you can tell the high spot, the weight is at 270 degrees.
00:23:45
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:23:49
John Saunders
Yeah, right.
00:23:50
johngrimsmo
Grind from there. So you kind of need that. So either you're adding that with a little IR like sensor that you put a little reflective thingy on the thing or a black so piece of tape or something and it notices once per rev or I'm 90% sure I can output an RPM signal from the speedio to the Raspberry Pi.
00:24:07
John Saunders
and Can you go at a high enough refresh rate or processor rate?
00:24:10
johngrimsmo
It can. Yeah. Although all I really need is a single once per rev.
00:24:12
John Saunders
It's crazy.
00:24:15
johngrimsmo
I don't, I don't need like a servo motor output kind of thing.
00:24:15
John Saunders
per Yeah, right.
00:24:20
John Saunders
Interesting.
00:24:21
johngrimsmo
So yeah. So that's, that's the game there. And that'll be fun.
00:24:25
John Saunders
um Awesome.
00:24:27
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:24:28
John Saunders
Have you played with load cells?
00:24:30
johngrimsmo
No, but I've wanted to, I've looked into it and I haven't yet.
00:24:32
John Saunders
Okay. I'm not sure I can articulate the difference between the two-pin kind of piezo squishy thingy
00:24:41
johngrimsmo
mean, they're kind of similar, aren't they?
00:24:44
John Saunders
Yeah, I wonder if load cell is more dynamic, like a bigger range.
00:24:47
johngrimsmo
Well, it must be because because you load a load cell and it knows that's 100 pounds and holds 100 pounds. If you do that with a piezo sensor, it'll say, oh, 100 pounds spike and then go down to zero when the load is steady.
00:24:55
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:24:58
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:24:59
johngrimsmo
But no, I watched a video. Do you know the YouTube channel Alpha Phoenix?
00:25:04
John Saunders
Not off top of head.
00:25:06
johngrimsmo
Killer videos, like a super nerd, very technical, has really cool, amazing videos.
00:25:07
John Saunders
Okay.
00:25:12
johngrimsmo
He filmed the light at 2 billion frames per second and you can see the laser beam travel through the air. That's one of my favorite videos of his.
00:25:19
John Saunders
Wait, didn't Veritasium just do this?
00:25:21
johngrimsmo
Yes, but after, and I haven't seen that one yet, but I need need to watch that.
00:25:24
John Saunders
OK, OK. Yeah, that's good.
00:25:24
johngrimsmo
But anyway, this guy, Alpha Phoenix has a video where he measures the weight of a plane while it's flying above him by feeling the downforce of the air.
00:25:31
John Saunders
Yeah, what?
00:25:33
johngrimsmo
And so he made this big load cell thing and he explains how a load cell works. And I believe it's like a flat disc that measures strain on individual wires inside.
00:25:42
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:25:44
johngrimsmo
So similar, probably different than a piezo sensor somehow.
00:25:44
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:25:48
John Saunders
Yeah, they look like a flexure and my layman's understanding is that many digital scales that you buy for $10 include a load cell. So the load cells are effectively free. Like you can get them for $3 and they're insanely accurate and reliable.
00:25:56
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:26:00
John Saunders
They don't move. I remember thinking this this is like the way I think a lot of our brains work. Like I'm watching a truck weigh scale at ah on a highway and I'm like, how do they weigh a 100,000 pound truck without the truck deflecting down into the on the scale?
00:26:14
John Saunders
Like the scale effectively doesn't move. actually I don't even I think I researched it at the time I think it's load cells it may not be or certainly the bigger load cells than you and I are going to use but it's really cool right
00:26:24
johngrimsmo
you Yeah, super cool. And I've always been um like, I've looked into buying them, but then i'm like, oh, but then you need to like interpret the signal and you need to like feed it into a thing. And that's where I've always been stuck, but not anymore, baby.
00:26:36
John Saunders
dude AI YouTube all that I know
00:26:37
johngrimsmo
i'm I'm so empowered with with programming now. And it's like, I don't want to be a programmer for my job, but I just want to mess around and have fun and like interpret signals and show me a cool graph and like give me valuable data that I can use to make myself or my job better.
00:26:55
John Saunders
Yep.
00:26:56
johngrimsmo
So cool.
00:26:56
John Saunders
Don't tell Meg.
00:26:57
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:26:58
John Saunders
ah
00:27:00
johngrimsmo
I'm still showing our vibration.
00:27:00
John Saunders
that's...
00:27:01
johngrimsmo
I'm like, check this out. Look, tap, tap, tap.
00:27:03
John Saunders
Yeah. I mean, I guess I don't know. Like I, you and I both live in somewhat of a bubble world of like, you we, we know this podcast has actually a pretty legit following and so forth, but like we don't, and we hear from folks, especially when we ask and thank you to everybody.
00:27:13
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm.
00:27:16
John Saunders
We really do enjoy it. But like, are there people out there that are still like, Oh, I've heard about this chat GBT, but like, ah, just, you know like, I don't know. Like I just assume at this point, everybody has realized like it's insane.
00:27:27
johngrimsmo
I know a lot of people around me that have never touched it. Either they're scared of it or they're like just not interested or something like that.
00:27:31
John Saunders
Really? Yeah.
00:27:34
johngrimsmo
But but you and I are so hungry for knowledge and answers that it is just such a resource to feed us good or bad information, but at a faster faster rate, you know?
00:27:39
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:27:48
John Saunders
You know
Productivity and Organizational Hacks
00:27:49
John Saunders
how Dylan does the very awesome, like, what are the last thing you searched up unrelated?
00:27:54
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:27:56
John Saunders
i'll I'll volunteer this. You don't have to match match me because I know this could be pretty whatever. But here are my... I mean, I'm using ChatGPT every 10 minutes now. And here are my most recent...
00:28:04
johngrimsmo
That's crazy. Nice.
00:28:07
John Saunders
I have two pinned chats, um one on Home Assist Automation, one on... taking care of my back and pickleball it. But so my other ones are, uh, designing a speaker enclosure for Johnny five, 0.9 millimeter carbide end mills, HP printer issue, uh, checking POE like power over ethernet cable diagnosis.
00:28:27
John Saunders
Um, shocking yourself with the telephone line used watches. Williams really getting into watches.
00:28:31
johngrimsmo
nice
00:28:32
John Saunders
Uh, can I use my AirPods Bluetooth the AirPods on a windows PC, uh, AI note taking spy thriller recommendation books. Um, increasing the strength of the 3d print gluing paper printer paper to PLA um, stopping spam calls on iPhone. Like it's just insane. And like, I don't ever, i've I haven't gone to Google in months at this point.
00:28:54
johngrimsmo
Wow, that's crazy. So you use it a little bit differently than I use it. I tend to use it for deep dive. So I've created projects. I have a folder called Optomechanics.
00:29:03
John Saunders
Okay.
00:29:05
johngrimsmo
I have a CNC machining folder, a grinding and lapping folder, a junk folder, work folder, watchmaking folder, computer programming folder.
00:29:10
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:29:13
johngrimsmo
um things like that. So I, in my Optomechanics, I've got like eight things, uh, like categories that are, that I'll go deep on. There'll be like hundreds of chats back and forth, you know, one all about the interferometer, one about electronics and motion control, one about a vision system where I just use that as my single place to like ask all the questions and then I can easily search and find, I don't really use it for like ask one question and then ignore it after that.
00:29:22
John Saunders
yeah yeah
00:29:40
johngrimsmo
I guess I still use Google for that sometimes.
00:29:42
John Saunders
interesting
00:29:43
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:29:44
John Saunders
I appreciate your nudge because I have found myself searching for chats more and I need to now create those projects because I mean, I just jotted down. There's clearly some easy demarcations there for three printing, Johnny five work, health, whatever.
00:29:58
johngrimsmo
Especially because like I find myself searching and wanting to know what we talked about um now that I'm doing the thing.
00:29:59
John Saunders
ones
00:30:07
johngrimsmo
like There's the research phase where it's like, okay, tell me all about a Raspberry Pi Pico and how that's going to work.
00:30:08
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:30:11
johngrimsmo
And then three weeks later, I have one.
00:30:12
John Saunders
Right.
00:30:13
johngrimsmo
I'm like, okay, now it's time to go. so I'll continue the chat. and be like, now I have it. Okay, all the things we talked about, they're they're both searchable but also referenced in the chat.
00:30:19
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:30:22
johngrimsmo
Now let's start doing the thing.
00:30:24
John Saunders
Yeah. It's insane.
00:30:26
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:30:27
John Saunders
Well, good segue to my like Eureka moment that I had, that I was sort of teasing with with good intention is probably the best productivity or like project tip I've ever occurred for myself.
00:30:38
John Saunders
When you're finishing a project, not because you're completed, but because you ran out of time, like if you're if you're working on something for hour or whatever, leave yourself an unbelievably easy spot to pick it back up.
00:30:54
John Saunders
So,
00:30:55
johngrimsmo
Explain, okay.
00:30:56
John Saunders
On Johnny 5, I'm shortening all of the head servo cables right now because um he's really coming together. And so now I'm at the point of like tying up loose ends and his um the head is very, very space constrained. And so a 10 inch servo cable needs to be shortened down to four inches so that there isn't extra cabling in the head.
00:31:17
John Saunders
and I'm doing this, you know, it's mindless, but it's sort of work. What I've realized is you're better off leaving yourself. So like you cut the cable, you strip the wires, you get the new JST crimp ends, you get the crimpers, you put the new crimps in, then you put, re-put a three connector Molex style or JST style thing on the end of it.
00:31:36
John Saunders
I found myself for just for me, for John Saunders, the best thing I can do is leave
00:31:38
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:31:42
John Saunders
the three crimped ends on, but don't put the little white plastic piece on because when I walk up to it in an hour or the next morning, if I see, ooh, the next thing to do is just really simple, slide those three things in there and and put that thing on there. I just have like broken down that barrier of getting started.
00:31:59
johngrimsmo
Oh my gosh.
00:32:00
John Saunders
And it's so tempting to do that when you're done because you're like, oh, I can get i can get one more thing done.
00:32:02
johngrimsmo
Of course.
00:32:04
John Saunders
I can get one more thing done.
00:32:04
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:32:05
John Saunders
But then you it's the the momentum to start the next time you sit down is so much harder. So leave yourself that little hanging fruit.
00:32:13
johngrimsmo
that is so backwards i love it it's like you you want to kind of finish you want to feel like oh i've i've accomplished this cable or this project or i got the light working or whatever i'm not going to go to bed until this is like finished to leave yourself an easy entry point is could be hugely powerful holy cow
00:32:16
John Saunders
I'm thinking.
00:32:34
John Saunders
I'm glad that you get it.
00:32:35
johngrimsmo
that i'm and I need to try it.
00:32:37
John Saunders
Right.
00:32:38
johngrimsmo
I'll report back next week, but that's so unintuitive.
00:32:43
John Saunders
Right. And that was part of what I love is like, what are we doing?
00:32:45
johngrimsmo
hopefully
00:32:46
John Saunders
It's, you know, cause you always have that urge, you know, Yvonne's like, Hey, dinner's ready. And you're like, Oh, I want to finish this one last night. No, actually great spots to leave yourself.
00:32:53
johngrimsmo
Because the problem is you want to do that one thing before dinner, but you're starting a new like big thing.
00:32:59
John Saunders
Bingo.
00:32:59
johngrimsmo
And you don't actually have time to do that. And I find myself getting stuck in that all the time. Like I got 30 minutes to start a two hour job. like
00:33:07
John Saunders
exactly yes yes so i'll keep you posted and i'm here to see how you you find about it
00:33:12
johngrimsmo
Okay, that's really cool. So I wrote down, leave yourself an unbelievably easy spot to pick it up again.
00:33:18
John Saunders
yep it resists the temptation to just check the box to it's it is counter because i am very much a like finish your work go do as much as you can do everything like no it's it is counterintuitive
00:33:18
johngrimsmo
Something like that.
00:33:30
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm. I remember trying to remember back. Pearson was talking about something like that. You know, a lot of places will clean at the end of the day before they go home. And he said they clean in the morning.
00:33:39
John Saunders
no
00:33:41
johngrimsmo
They leave it dirty and they clean in the morning. i don't know if he still does it, but um so that you have something easy to do in the morning that kind of gets you in the zone, kind of changes your state, kind of gets you like feeling like you're 3Sing in the morning.
00:33:53
johngrimsmo
And there's there's power to that, you know, in a way.
00:33:56
John Saunders
Yes, agree.
00:33:57
johngrimsmo
Like nobody wants to leave a mess, but... It's strategy, you know?
00:34:03
John Saunders
It is. Nuance... I think they're different-ish.
00:34:06
johngrimsmo
Yeah, probably.
00:34:06
John Saunders
Well, no, they're not different. It doesn't matter. I think for me, I know I'm predisposed overthinking things. And sometimes you're just like, it goes back to that book. um Don't read it. Read the Clip Notes if you want.
00:34:17
John Saunders
The Michael Grover book on training, Michael Jordan. It's like one of those, I think I've mentioned it. I know I've mentioned it.
00:34:24
johngrimsmo
Oh, the relentless one or winning?
00:34:24
John Saunders
of Yes, Relentless.
00:34:26
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:34:26
John Saunders
Yes.
00:34:27
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:34:27
John Saunders
But like...
00:34:27
johngrimsmo
they're They are pretty good.
00:34:28
John Saunders
yeah Yeah, but I think you can also get the CliffsNotes version of it pretty, would pull the point across.
00:34:32
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:34:34
John Saunders
but like, if you want to go to the gym, do not think about going to the gym. Get in your car, put it in drive, drive to the gym, stop thinking about it. And if I want to like troubleshoot something on Johnny Five, don't think about it. Don't worry about what problems is going to cause you.
00:34:47
John Saunders
Just hook, like once it's the figurative or literal one step in front of the other, like just do it.
00:34:52
johngrimsmo
Yep. Yep.
00:34:54
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:34:55
johngrimsmo
It's the, uh, have you eaten elephant one bite at a time, you know?
00:34:58
John Saunders
Yeah, exactly.
00:34:59
johngrimsmo
And like, we're trying to navigate that at home too, because, you know, kids' attention spans are all over the place. And we're trying to figure out where i was actually starting to read the book Atomic Habits with Leif.
00:35:10
John Saunders
Okay.
00:35:11
johngrimsmo
just kind of pick it up and like read a couple chapters.
00:35:12
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:35:12
johngrimsmo
And he's like, Oh, that makes sense. And it's all about like reducing the barrier to entry for all the things that you have to do. So that as, as you said, when you, you know, you have to pick it up again, but you left yourself at an easy spot.
00:35:19
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:35:23
johngrimsmo
So the entry is like so easy. That's what I'm doing with this office here. I want it to be so easy and so effortless to just come in and do the work that I have to do to film.
00:35:29
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:35:32
johngrimsmo
And, not have to like pull out the lights and find the recorder and plug everything in. no I want like a remote with 10 buttons on it that just go, I want that light and that light and that light and that camera to start recording and then easy.
00:35:45
John Saunders
Yep. going love it.
00:35:47
johngrimsmo
Okay. Leave yourself an easy space. I like that. All right. I'm going play with that this week.
00:35:53
John Saunders
My other quality of life is stop me if I said it. I have a stuff I forget sheet. talk about this.
00:35:58
johngrimsmo
Okay. No.
00:36:00
John Saunders
Okay, I just leave it in my Excel file that and every month I just browse through it. And it's right now it's got 70 rows of things, but like bunch of spaces in there too. So it's probably got 20 different bullet points in there.
00:36:14
John Saunders
Some of them are work related, some of them are home related, but like, It's everything from like jumpstarting a car, which is probably not should be there, should not be there on there anymore. But like if I can't, if I have trouble sleeping, here's some tips and reminders.
00:36:26
John Saunders
Here's things when travel. Here's just anything I like want out of my head, but it doesn't deserve to be on a to-do list.
00:36:32
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:36:33
John Saunders
And it goes on a, basically it's a list that I just review once a month. um i I like this. I've been doing it for about three months now. Now I think what I'm going to do is further separate this into a list of, uh,
00:36:47
John Saunders
one ah one version of this list that I only review twice a year because some stuff I don't need to look at every month. um But it's been really helpful to find a place for some of those things I want.
00:36:59
johngrimsmo
I like it. I like it a lot. it's It's getting it out of your head, but still putting it somewhere important that gets reviewed and can be useful. um
00:37:07
John Saunders
Got it.
00:37:08
johngrimsmo
I wondered, i was trying to figure out where you were going with that stuff. I forget. An interesting way to use that might be like tracking the things that you always tend to forget and finding the systems you need to put in place to not forget those things.
00:37:21
johngrimsmo
We probably already do it with calendar reminders and stuff, but you know what i mean? Like,
00:37:25
John Saunders
but my My not humble response is I don't forget things. Like like i'm so I'm systematic enough that like everything happens for me on time.
00:37:29
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:37:32
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:37:35
John Saunders
Like, sorry, it sounds ah this is how I'm built.
00:37:35
johngrimsmo
Which is good. which That's good. Yeah. Yeah. You've already built that through. I could see some people that tend to be very forgetful or very, ah you know, I always forget to get found flowers on Valentine's day or on the birthday, or I always forget so-and-so's birthday or something like that. It's just maybe, maybe it's not necessary, but a way to track what you're forgetting so that you can observe it and you can be like, well, that's dumb. Like put systems in place.
00:37:57
johngrimsmo
it's too many steps, but.
00:37:59
John Saunders
Well, this is this is now gonna take a few street cred points away, but, um because my wife listens to this podcast, but you know, today is February fourth ten Valentine's Day is 10 days away.
00:38:11
John Saunders
I had a calendar reminder five days ago where in the detail of it, it reminds myself exactly what I need to do to do a good job at Valentine's Day. And it's like, do it now, don't wait eight days.
00:38:23
John Saunders
And I already it, it's all done.
00:38:26
johngrimsmo
Oh my gosh, good for you.
00:38:27
John Saunders
But like, I guess part of that feels unromantic. It's actually not. It's a very good framework to work to work on.
00:38:31
johngrimsmo
yep. See, I need to make that calendar reminder 10 days ahead of time. So it's weird for us because we met the day after Valentine's Day because me and Meg.
00:38:37
John Saunders
but i give you Good.
00:38:42
John Saunders
Who did? ah You and Oh, sorry.
00:38:44
johngrimsmo
Yeah. And ah it'll be 24 years ago we met this February 15th.
00:38:50
John Saunders
Wow.
00:38:52
johngrimsmo
So Valentine's Day has never really meant meant much to us, but the next day is like our meat-aversary or whatever.
00:38:55
John Saunders
Okay. yeah
00:38:57
johngrimsmo
But still, we don't usually do a lot of big, crazy things for it. But But yeah, that is good reminder that I have an anniversary coming up.
00:39:05
John Saunders
yeah there you john i just if you did you watch parks and rec
00:39:10
johngrimsmo
No, I never did. Yeah.
00:39:12
John Saunders
I love the show. I love Ron Swanson as a character character, but ah he goes gets back together with his ex and they sit him down in a conference room and they put in a VHS tape and it's Ron Swanson talking to himself.
00:39:15
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:39:25
John Saunders
He's like, Ron, if you're watching this, this is Ron reminding you what you're about to do. And it goes negative. Like, don't do this. But like. I have to type to myself and I actually do the same thing. It's kind of silly, but like in, i don't know, I think it's like October 30th November 5th.
00:39:39
John Saunders
I'm like, Hey John, come Christmas day, you're going to love being in the mood and in the spirit. It's hard to get myself and Christmas isn't just about the gifts, but I actually like type myself a little note about like, Hey, spend 10 minutes thinking about what gifts you'd want to get for your kids or for your spouse and all that, because come February 17th, you'll regret if you didn't, this is what I've learned.
00:40:00
John Saunders
Um, you have to like trick yourself into like, getting yourself in that mindset ahead of time. There you go.
00:40:04
johngrimsmo
Yep. Yep. Love it.
00:40:08
John Saunders
nothing to do Nothing to do with machining, apologies to everybody listening.
00:40:10
johngrimsmo
Hey, it's it's life, dude. This is navigating... navigating the the reality of life.
00:40:21
johngrimsmo
Got anything else?
00:40:23
John Saunders
I am, oh, actually if I can reach one, yeah. uh tip of the hat they are 12 for a four pack but these are the rubber magnets off amazon with the m4 hole um that you sent me you sent them to me thank you i found these on amazon that's what it was um and so um i love having a reliable ish source for these um
00:40:34
johngrimsmo
Okay. Really? i sent you the McMaster ones, but they're $18 each. Okay.
00:40:41
johngrimsmo
okay
00:40:51
johngrimsmo
Is it good? Like you happy with it?
00:40:53
John Saunders
It is good. It is not quite as strong as the ones we were buying from KJ, which were $7 each, but usually I don't actually need insanely strong.
00:40:57
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:41:03
John Saunders
And in fact, sometimes it's actually counterproductive to have like the power strip. I don't want it to be able to do pull off of it. Like I actually want to be able to take it off the machine if I want to.
00:41:10
johngrimsmo
Yep. yep
00:41:13
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm.
00:41:14
John Saunders
And so I bought that one of those um power strips that you recommended from Amazon
00:41:19
johngrimsmo
The Trond one's nice.
00:41:20
John Saunders
Yes. And so I'm going to take some time to clean up the 110 volt and skimmer wiring and ethernet around the machine tools we have.
00:41:31
John Saunders
um And then we're also, Grant is taking the lead on, we're buying and building what we need to duplicate our lights out, robot UR10 setup for the Haas UMC 400.
00:41:43
John Saunders
So have a second one already.
00:41:43
johngrimsmo
Oh, cool. Cool.
00:41:45
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:41:46
johngrimsmo
That's good, man.
00:41:47
John Saunders
Yeah. So getting that all going.
00:41:51
johngrimsmo
Nice.
00:41:52
John Saunders
How about
Performance and Environmental Challenges
00:41:53
John Saunders
you?
00:41:54
johngrimsmo
um 99 done with the uh speedio optimization it's going extremely well the bevel grinding and the hard milling is going just better than ever before um a couple last things i'm noticing a difference palette to palette of the width of the palette um
00:42:01
John Saunders
Awesome.
00:42:15
John Saunders
OK.
00:42:15
johngrimsmo
So it will make two different results ever so slightly because the pallets themselves are different. And so I got to probe and compensate for that. And it's a tapered wall that I have to probe.
00:42:26
johngrimsmo
So the little tiny ball has like overhang the tapered edge a little bit and it's, it's a little dicey, but I think I've got good results from that.
00:42:29
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:42:33
johngrimsmo
So that's the last thing I've already programmed it. I just need to like test it out. And then, and then I think we're fully palletized for Rask and Fjell blades, which will be,
00:42:43
John Saunders
Dude, huge.
00:42:45
johngrimsmo
It'll be bigger than the guys realize it will be. like they they're They're kind of nervous, but they're like, well, what if it makes bad parts?
00:42:47
John Saunders
Yeah, right, right, right.
00:42:52
johngrimsmo
I'm like well, that's automation. like You find the ways to not make bad parts and you got to learn.
00:42:55
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:42:57
johngrimsmo
But it's going to be massive for us. And it will not only increase output like significantly, but it will free up one or two of our guys' times like significantly. We have so much work to do that it'll be good.
00:43:09
John Saunders
because of downstream, uh, finishing.
00:43:11
johngrimsmo
That, but more just the guy operating, loading every single blade. um One by one, you can walk away, you can run five plus at night when you go home, you come in to finish blades.
00:43:16
John Saunders
Oh, I see what i mean. Sure. Yeah.
00:43:22
johngrimsmo
So your your time at the machine will be probably cut down by quite a bit because you're loading offline while the machine's running and yep, you can kind of do it in bulk.
00:43:29
John Saunders
Yeah. Sure. No, that's huge.
00:43:34
johngrimsmo
And it's how we've been running the current obviously for many years now. But when we first had the current, in the first year when we're learning palletizing and all this stuff, like we ran it manually for a while.
00:43:45
John Saunders
Sure.
00:43:45
johngrimsmo
Yeah. You just got to figure it out. But, and now we haven't looked back, you know?
00:43:49
John Saunders
Isn't it funny? Yeah. Yeah. Good for you. That's awesome.
00:43:53
johngrimsmo
So where you go, you finish.
00:43:53
John Saunders
Do you ever, go ahead. Do you ever open your giant garage door roll-up door that exposes your machine shop to the outside?
00:44:03
johngrimsmo
only to receive bigger deliveries and it's like once a month at most, once every two months
00:44:08
John Saunders
Right, bro right, right. I just curious, I would assume the brother would just go nuts when that happens. i Like your thermal copy and stuff.
00:44:14
johngrimsmo
for thermal? That's good question.
00:44:16
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:44:16
johngrimsmo
I don't know. Not anymore. Compensated for it.
00:44:20
John Saunders
Well, sure. I'd humbly say that you might be surprised at how extreme that is knowing how cold it gets where you are.
00:44:23
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:44:26
johngrimsmo
Yeah. And how quick? Yeah. No, sure.
00:44:28
John Saunders
But yeah.
00:44:29
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:44:29
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:44:30
johngrimsmo
That's good point.
00:44:30
John Saunders
Actually the, the, the, the baller move there, especially that happened a lot would be positive pressure. So you don't have cold air rushing in, but you have your hot air slightly pushing out.
00:44:41
johngrimsmo
Like, like your AC that's pumping right into it or something for your heater.
00:44:41
John Saunders
Um,
00:44:45
John Saunders
I don't, actually to be honest, I don't know how you do, you know what positive pressure is in a room, right?
00:44:49
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:44:50
John Saunders
i don't know how you,
00:44:50
johngrimsmo
But where would the air come from?
00:44:54
John Saunders
well, I don't know how it works, but in like clean rooms or even cleaner spaces, they they somehow pull in air somewhere else and they create such that if you crack the window, it blows out and not comes in.
00:45:07
johngrimsmo
Yep, yep, that makes sense.
00:45:07
John Saunders
That's all, sorry, you know that.
00:45:09
johngrimsmo
Yep. And it would come from your your HVAC system, pretty much.
00:45:14
John Saunders
Yeah, I guess so, yeah.
00:45:15
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:45:15
John Saunders
i just know when we we can feel it and we could measure it in parts when we have doors open here it's also been negative seven here which is cold yeah
00:45:21
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah, it's a lot. It's a cold. Yeah, it's cold.
00:45:29
johngrimsmo
um I was going to ask, how how is your Speedio cell, like, your are integration going?
00:45:29
John Saunders
uh
00:45:36
John Saunders
it's It's great. um we
00:45:39
johngrimsmo
Are you producing parts?
00:45:41
John Saunders
So I say great. um No, the the short super, super short answer is no. We absolutely are not running it in production like it should be.
00:45:48
johngrimsmo
fine.
00:45:51
John Saunders
um I can competently and comfortably tell you that could have happened a month ago if we wanted to. But the where we started with the hardest part um and we already are proving out a tolerance that we want to be three tenths is currently at five or six tenths.
00:45:57
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:46:08
John Saunders
But we like for sure know couple different ways to tackle that.
00:46:11
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:46:12
John Saunders
It's mostly to do with the material and de-stressing it and cut face milling. So we actually had a meeting about that this morning. Um, we're also already improving the jaws.
00:46:23
John Saunders
We we like the way we work around iteration three of the work, holding and the jaws and we haven't even really, really run it yet. So, um, I'm fine. I also know, and I sort of told myself by the end of February is an arbitrary date.
00:46:37
John Saunders
We need to be running it. Like just because I don't, we can't let, uh, perfection get in the way of good.
00:46:42
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:46:43
John Saunders
Um, kind of, yeah.
00:46:43
johngrimsmo
It's good. You set those dates and tell everybody and like, here's here's, here's the goal. Like we gotta to get this done.
00:46:50
John Saunders
We also had a record, January was a record revenue month for Saunders history.
00:46:54
johngrimsmo
Wow. Good for you.
00:46:55
John Saunders
Thank you. And everyone's busy and everyone's making progress. So this is not, there's no reason to sort of crack the whip. Like this is not like it's happening, we're good.
00:47:03
johngrimsmo
Yeah. yeah
00:47:05
John Saunders
The future will be kind to us on this whole thing. so I'm not um worried. The way, and it has worked out great. The way Ed's doing the cam and in learning the brother, the way Grant is running the robot and integration with Courtney,
00:47:19
John Saunders
We're good. Like, this is going to freaking awesome.
00:47:21
johngrimsmo
That's amazing, man.
00:47:21
John Saunders
Um, yeah.
00:47:22
johngrimsmo
Good feel. you
00:47:23
John Saunders
Yeah. Um, but yeah, the lights out guys were like, Hey, have you, is your system running yet?
00:47:26
johngrimsmo
Sweet.
00:47:29
John Saunders
And I'm like, no, but like, that doesn't really explain why. Like we had a demo guy come up with a guy, a customer has come in and we had it like, we flipped one switch and started running parts in and out.
00:47:41
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:47:41
John Saunders
Um, we weren't cutting chips on them, but like we could have said to do something. That makes sense.
00:47:46
johngrimsmo
It's incredible.
00:47:47
John Saunders
Um, yeah.
00:47:48
johngrimsmo
Yep, these things take time. I mean, some people are magically able to just turn it on in the first day and it's like good enough, plenty good enough.
00:47:54
John Saunders
Oh,
00:47:54
johngrimsmo
And other people, like we had a guy come to our shop and we were showing him our automation cells and he makes automation cells with like the big fan of robots and stuff. And he integrates them into big production facilities. And he's like, we're we're happy with plus or minus 5,000.
00:48:10
John Saunders
yeah, yeah. Right.
00:48:11
johngrimsmo
and And here we're trying to hold like 10th.
00:48:11
John Saunders
It's funny. Right.
00:48:13
johngrimsmo
And he's like, I have a lot of respect for what you guys are doing and trying to do.
00:48:18
John Saunders
This is off topic, but I was watching a video with William this morning on how they make vinyl records.
00:48:23
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:48:23
John Saunders
And there's a major company in Czech Republic that is like the industry behemoth.
00:48:23
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:48:28
John Saunders
And they were showing all of these relatively simple machines. And that's not to take away from the elegance of the overall system, but like, you know, a two axis robot that would lift up, move it over, drop it off, or it would like turn the edge of the record to cut the flashing off.
00:48:44
John Saunders
And I'm like, who... I'm assuming that
Automation in Vinyl Production
00:48:47
John Saunders
there's just automation companies that just build these systems. It's not machining, there's machine parts in them, but it's not, it's a world I know very little about.
00:48:56
John Saunders
It was intriguing to me.
00:48:57
johngrimsmo
It's like watching how it's made and seeing all the factory things with all the bottle lines and all that.
00:48:57
John Saunders
Like the, yeah.
00:49:01
johngrimsmo
And you're like, man, lot of engineers and a lot of machinists and a lot of, you know, technical people like put that all together just to make soda bottles.
00:49:06
John Saunders
Right, right.
00:49:08
johngrimsmo
like
00:49:09
John Saunders
Well, but maybe that's the point. You just made me realize. But for bottling, there's enough bottling in the world that like there are companies that specialize in beverage equipment. There's not, there are not enough vinyl records made anymore that there are support companies dedicated around the processing and creation of vinyl records.
00:49:18
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:49:24
johngrimsmo
Mm hmm.
00:49:25
John Saunders
So it has to be something more generic.
00:49:27
johngrimsmo
Yep. Well, somebody is finding an off the shelf gantry motor or something and applying it with a suction cup or whatever to like the vinyl industry.
00:49:30
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:49:34
johngrimsmo
And that's, that's cool.
00:49:34
John Saunders
Right.
00:49:35
johngrimsmo
But there are automation specialists that will automate anything for you.
00:49:35
John Saunders
Yeah, it is cool.
00:49:39
John Saunders
Yeah, right?
00:49:40
John Saunders
Which I, yeah. Sweet. See you this week.
00:49:40
johngrimsmo
And maybe that's what it is, you know?
00:49:45
johngrimsmo
Cool, man. See you next week. All right.
00:49:48
John Saunders
Right? Take care.
00:49:49
johngrimsmo
Oh, Leif says when we're in Mammoth, we need to have a podcast in the hot tub. i don't know why. He just has this image of like ski chalet and like the two of us with Mike's hot tub having a podcast.
00:50:00
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:50:00
John Saunders
I don't think anybody wants see me in Grimso in a hot tub.
00:50:02
johngrimsmo
No, I know, but it's fun. Maybe listen, but that's funny. I just wanted to put that out there.
00:50:06
John Saunders
Yeah. Okay. Noted.
00:50:08
johngrimsmo
All right, buddy.
00:50:09
John Saunders
I'll see
00:50:11
johngrimsmo
Bye.