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#416 Johnny Five AI audio
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TOPICS:
- Coolant maintenance
- Kern is fixed! We realigned B axis ourselves
- Johnny Five AI audio
- Setup sheets
- Automating bevel grinding
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Transcript
Introduction and Coolant Issues
00:00:01
John Saunders
Welcome to the business of machining episode 416. My name is John Saunders.
00:00:05
johngrimsmo
And my name is John Grimsmo.
00:00:07
John Saunders
CNC machines ends up, uh, you got to repair them and maintain them. Um, I've been through actually have a kind of conclusion, which I'm, am really happy about. Like it just feels right on the coolant side.
00:00:21
John Saunders
Um, as I feel like it's a pretty boring topic. So I'll, I'll share, I keep it short. And I know you've been through some, you've been through some stuff this week too. Okay.
00:00:28
johngrimsmo
ah had a week, yeah.
00:00:29
John Saunders
correct
00:00:29
johngrimsmo
But I'm feeling good now, so we can get into that in a bit. But let's ah let's dig into your coolant situation.
00:00:35
John Saunders
So again, the windshield is bigger than the rear view mirror. Here's what I think is kind of funny now that I've had some time to digest it. Here's the honest answer. We've used, really only ever used QualiChem. We tried Blazer once, didn't love the stuff we had, but we really only used QualiChem. So for better worse, it's all we can use.
00:00:53
John Saunders
And to be honest, we haven't really ever changed the coolant. Like the one coolant machine I remember changing was a machine we don't even own anymore. And so, um yes, our coolant went bad. Yes, I think we could have avoided that going bad. On the flip side, it was way overdue for first full swap out.
00:01:12
John Saunders
um And so being able to remove a tank from the whole machine would make it way easier to clean it, access it, power wash it, whatever. Didn't have that luxury on the first one. So I was on
Coolant Maintenance Solutions
00:01:23
John Saunders
my hands and knees scrubbing a bit, which again, get it done, no big deal.
00:01:26
John Saunders
um Ended up buying a Freddy. This hasn't come yet. And I'm actually going to use the Eco, the thing we already have, EcoVac or whatever, um to probably get through the machines this summer because they're probably all pretty disgusting.
00:01:42
John Saunders
We have at least a quarter inch or more of sludge built up on the tanks, just sticking my hand in there and testing it out.
00:01:45
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah,
00:01:48
John Saunders
um So, but... I kind of took that step back and was like, okay, what do we need to do for tools, both for this summer overhaul, but also ongoing maintenance. So we've got a nice aluminum scoop that we can use to scoop stuff out more regularly or even during the clean out.
00:02:03
johngrimsmo
Like a kitty litter scoop.
00:02:04
John Saunders
Exactly, but it's aluminum and or steel actually bought the cheap Amazon airbags.
00:02:06
johngrimsmo
Nice. What is
00:02:10
John Saunders
That way for coolant tanks, whether they're in place or or you can wheel them out, you put the airbag under it, you squeeze it and it will lift up one side of the coolant tank to drain, to drain.
00:02:11
johngrimsmo
that?
00:02:19
johngrimsmo
No way.
00:02:21
John Saunders
These will lift for 300 pounds or 500 pounds and they're 20 bucks.
00:02:23
johngrimsmo
Holy cow.
00:02:24
John Saunders
um
00:02:25
johngrimsmo
It looks like a blood pressure cuff.
00:02:25
John Saunders
so Yeah, there's just little um lifting pads. I'd had them before for like furniture.
00:02:32
johngrimsmo
That's kind of cool. I've never seen that before.
00:02:34
John Saunders
It's like the perfect, I don't know what to get my father-in-law type gift, you know? um
New Monitoring System with Google Sheets
00:02:38
johngrimsmo
Okay, I got to snip this and and Instagram that because that was kind of a cool little... Nice. That looks awesome.
00:02:44
John Saunders
Yeah, because it was like, okay, I don't want to sit here and have the eighth of an inch of coolant across a whole tank. So tip it up on the side. That makes it easier to vac it out or whatever you got do to get it out.
00:02:53
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm.
00:02:54
John Saunders
um Bought some eco clean, cool cleaner from... uh, quality chem that hasn't come yet either. VF3 got re redone though. Um, started it off with the, it's a hundred gallon tank approximately.
00:03:09
John Saunders
So little more than half tap water. Um, and they call it 40% RO water. We have fairly hard water. So i didn't want to go all hard or tap water, but, um, you need some of the minerals.
00:03:22
John Saunders
when you start and then we always tap ah top off top off ro and then mix it up bricks wise and then have a pond aerator on a timer to pump oxygen in and then have a um i think i said this last week but a relatively low gallon per hour aquarium pump by amazon they they come with the clear hose tubing um
00:03:43
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:03:44
John Saunders
The problem with that was I wanted a simple and easy way to make sure that it was at least blowing or discharging the liquid away from the pump intake so that we are creating some amount of flow.
00:03:56
John Saunders
The idea here was somewhat to avoid stagnation, but really more to help um the skimmer be able to skim because otherwise just skims, you know, a six square inch area around the skimmer belt.
00:03:56
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:04:06
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:04:07
John Saunders
And so what I did was I put the clear hose that it comes with in a $2 piece of PEX, just slid it through there.
00:04:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:04:16
John Saunders
This stuff can bend enough that you can get it in a cool
Routine Maintenance and Procedures
00:04:19
John Saunders
tank port. Then I don't have to deal with like magnets or suctioning and it'll discharge you know three feet away from the intake of the pump, which should be pretty good.
00:04:28
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:04:28
John Saunders
um And then we started a log. We're going to start a log each week of the BRICS. Daily, I could see a justification for changing the interval, but let's just start easy.
00:04:37
johngrimsmo
sure
00:04:38
John Saunders
BRICS daily versus, you know, ever excuse me, BRICS weekly versus what I could see some shops doing, which is every day or every shift doing both BRICS, pH, and the current level.
00:04:50
John Saunders
And so this summer I got to go through every tank though.
00:04:51
johngrimsmo
So that log, is that going to be like one notebook that's in one location for every machine or what's the digital?
00:04:59
John Saunders
It is starting off Google Sheets because that's easy. um While Alex will add it to Lex, Lex will let us and analyze the data. Well, so would Google Sheets, but Lex will let us probably better keep it over time, but also um create some sort of a check system where if a value is not entered by a person, they can say, hey, XYZ, you didn't enter the DD2 call this week.
00:05:23
johngrimsmo
So on a practical level, the person that is measuring the coolant, do they have their phone, tablet, Google Sheets open, computer nearby? like How is that actually getting entered?
00:05:34
John Saunders
That's a good question.
00:05:35
johngrimsmo
Because that's where I like paper in that scenario.
00:05:36
John Saunders
i
00:05:38
johngrimsmo
like
00:05:39
John Saunders
Yeah, I assume they'll just walk around with notepad.
00:05:41
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:05:41
John Saunders
What we've done in QC is we've laminated papers that are pre-printed with the with like the fields you need, and then they just use a dry erase marker on the laminate.
00:05:50
johngrimsmo
That works. That's good. Yeah.
00:05:51
John Saunders
And you can just erase it when you're done for the that week or that day.
00:05:54
johngrimsmo
But then you're, you're in some canaries, importing that into Google Sheets. like That's your temporary data, and then it gets logged in the Sheet.
00:06:01
John Saunders
Yeah, you walk back and put it in.
00:06:03
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:06:03
John Saunders
Yeah, well look we have, uh, I think 10 tanks right at this point. So you could do all this with a digital bricks. If you had to rush, you could probably do it in 15 minutes.
00:06:13
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:06:14
John Saunders
Um, it's not a huge undertaking.
00:06:16
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm.
00:06:17
John Saunders
you know,
00:06:19
johngrimsmo
i I think I can assume the answer for this. So say a coolantank's been sitting for two months. Would it read different bricks than one that's flowing in in use? Probably the same.
00:06:30
John Saunders
If it's, so it's probably more question about how it evaporates in your shop with, in terms of like humidity, time of the year, right if it's runoff, um, obviously.
00:06:35
johngrimsmo
true
00:06:41
johngrimsmo
But that's, yeah, that's still an accurate measurement.
00:06:42
John Saunders
I
00:06:44
johngrimsmo
Like if it's evaporated to a tie as opposed to my wrong theory of like, is stagnant coolant going to read different than, you know, active coolant?
00:06:54
johngrimsmo
I don't know
00:06:55
John Saunders
think that's why people check pH.
00:06:58
johngrimsmo
know. Mm-hmm.
00:06:58
John Saunders
Um, I'm starting here with the stuff I just mentioned as my baseline, because I think that will set us up well, rather than go too far about like, okay, there's three machines that we know are idle. Let's create a second set of procedures for those machines.
00:07:15
John Saunders
Um, cause frankly, I need to sort of sell those or reevaluate that anyway. Um, one other thing I forgot I was going to say was air pump clean.
00:07:26
John Saunders
don't remember, but yeah.
00:07:27
johngrimsmo
I love that justification. We have some cooling going bad, so we should sell those machines.
00:07:32
John Saunders
ha
00:07:33
johngrimsmo
it's
00:07:33
John Saunders
Well, no, there is some truth to that.
00:07:35
johngrimsmo
Yeah, it's the proof.
00:07:35
John Saunders
It's like, yeah. Yeah.
00:07:36
johngrimsmo
It's like, oh yeah, it hasn't run in two months. Like, do we need it? Yeah.
00:07:39
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:07:42
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:07:43
John Saunders
yeah The cleaning was... um it was perfect timing because that machine was going to be idle with somebody on vacation anyways. so you could kind of let it dry out. But I mean, a man, like it builds up
00:07:53
johngrimsmo
yeah
Kern Machine DIY Repair
00:07:55
John Saunders
in the sheet metal exit shoot ramp.
00:07:57
John Saunders
Like it's, it's, um, it was easy to get in there with a flashlight every day and find a new area where like, Oh, I really need to get that cleaned out.
00:08:06
johngrimsmo
Like, it's been dry, like empty, and you're still looking and finding more.
00:08:06
John Saunders
Um,
00:08:09
John Saunders
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:08:10
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:08:13
johngrimsmo
Good. Progress.
00:08:17
John Saunders
Oh, that's what going We'll put laminated stickers or something on each machine that'll say after two years, we need to monitor like you're on warning.
00:08:22
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:08:26
John Saunders
And after three years is a hard tank needs drained and cleaned and cool and refreshed.
00:08:32
johngrimsmo
Yeah, that's good.
00:08:33
John Saunders
That's my thought, which is a pretty long time.
00:08:34
johngrimsmo
it's It's those visual cues. Like like we have painter's tape with Sharpie on the side of each machine that says cool and glass cleaned out.
00:08:42
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:08:43
johngrimsmo
at this date with no further warnings but at least when you do your walk arounds you'll be like oh that cool it's like two years old whoa maybe we should um but i like your idea to have actual action steps that have been premeditated so that when somebody sees it they're like i guess it's time i don't have to think about it it just is because it's so easy for any of us or our team to be like yeah it's fine it's still performing it's good you know
00:09:05
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:09:08
John Saunders
Well, we have so much top off and runoff that I'm sure it's all been cycled through. So that's, it's probably a point worth clarifying that it's, it's not like it's the same coolant for three years.
00:09:18
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:09:19
John Saunders
I mean, we're adding on a 50 gallon tank, we're adding five gallons every week or more probably. So you're getting turnover that way, but, um, still the clean out part was sobering.
00:09:26
johngrimsmo
yeah yeah exactly cool all right my turn i'm in a great mood because the current's fixed uh we were able to do the entire fix ourselves
00:09:32
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:09:35
John Saunders
Yeah, let's go.
00:09:41
John Saunders
Dude.
00:09:45
johngrimsmo
and it cost me couple hundred bucks in tool rental and a whole bunch of my time and some of the guys time too. um so There's a cost benefit ratio in there, but I'm pretty sure it is now Wednesday. It's done before Kern could have even been here.
00:10:00
John Saunders
Exactly, John. Like, dude, well done.
00:10:02
johngrimsmo
And that's, Yeah, it's it's pretty awesome. And I learned a lot more about machine alignment and kinematics. And we talked a couple weeks ago about the what is the calibration procedure?
00:10:13
johngrimsmo
Is it laser? Is it kinematics?
00:10:14
John Saunders
ah
00:10:15
johngrimsmo
Is it this? Is it probe? Is it that? um And so I continued to refine my procedure for that. And I gained a much deeper understanding and I went through the whole procedure a couple of times on this machine um just to like, okay, now I get it.
00:10:30
johngrimsmo
And now currently we are retouching off every single tool, which is annoying, but yeah,
00:10:35
John Saunders
Oh, dude, last week, if that was the place you'd be in, I would have, it would have been both.
00:10:38
johngrimsmo
yeah exactly. Exactly.
00:10:39
John Saunders
That's awesome.
00:10:41
johngrimsmo
So what happened is we had a Z crash and the entire trunnion Like, you know, in the current, this big white table, it moved down an eighth of an inch.
00:10:52
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:10:53
johngrimsmo
And with a stick, exactly.
00:10:55
John Saunders
On a sliding, like a sliding surface.
00:10:57
johngrimsmo
So imagine imagine a rectangle going back away from you you're standing in front of the machine. On the side, the right-hand side, there's four bolts that hold this rectangle in.
00:11:06
John Saunders
Okay.
00:11:07
johngrimsmo
That's the motor and the trunnion and the whole B-axis and everything. So there's four bolts holding it in a shear plane vertically. So it is kind of, it's not pinned in place. it's It's meant to move if it needs to, to a certain degree.
00:11:22
johngrimsmo
um And it also lets them align it. If it was pinned shear planes, they can't tweak it. So that's a good thing. And they're torqued 300 foot pounds, 400 Newton meters.
00:11:33
John Saunders
Yeah, that's crazy.
00:11:35
johngrimsmo
so I had to rent a torque wrench that big, because ours only goes up to 250, like all the automotive ones you buy. um
00:11:41
John Saunders
What size fasteners are these? M20?
00:11:43
johngrimsmo
It's a 17mm hex head.
00:11:46
John Saunders
Okay, yeah.
00:11:48
johngrimsmo
I don't know what thread it is actually, but yeah, it's probably 15, 20, something that.
00:11:48
John Saunders
Oh.
00:11:51
johngrimsmo
Yeah, like 140. Yeah, exactly.
00:11:53
John Saunders
Gosh.
00:11:53
johngrimsmo
And
00:11:53
John Saunders
Yeah, that's a ton. I mean, i've put I put wheels on lug nuts on before.
00:11:57
johngrimsmo
that's a lot.
00:11:57
John Saunders
Like half that.
00:11:59
johngrimsmo
yeah exactly and and that's a lot So it was a great experience. um Sweet that I could rent the tool. I'm kind of tempted to buy my own torque wrench that's that big so we can have it. Although the rental was fine. We're close enough.
00:12:13
johngrimsmo
um
00:12:13
John Saunders
Is that from Canada Tire?
00:12:15
johngrimsmo
The rental?
00:12:16
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:12:16
johngrimsmo
No, there's, since I happen to live in quite an industrial area, there's an industrial tool supply rental place
Aligning the Kern Machine
00:12:23
johngrimsmo
that
00:12:24
John Saunders
Oh, interesting.
00:12:25
johngrimsmo
I once rented a huge croissant wrench from them and I had it in my mind and I was like, oh yeah, they probably have it. I called them up and they're like, yeah, no problem. $24 a day or $14 a day or whatever it is. And I'm like, yes, I'll be right there.
00:12:40
John Saunders
but this is the place where you could also rent an air compressor or an excavator type whatever
00:12:44
johngrimsmo
he Yeah, I don't know about big equipment, but um all kinds of tire balancing machines and like weird stuff.
00:12:51
John Saunders
okay interesting oh yeah love them yeah yeah
00:12:51
johngrimsmo
Very in industry have a like heavy, like downtown Hamilton sort of stuff. um And then, you know, those Nipex pliers, like the croissant wrench ones, but that, you know, close in better.
00:13:04
johngrimsmo
um I've never had my own personal set, but some of the guys have bought their own. And here at this rental place, they had a wall full of them. And I'm like... Well, while I'm here paying you only $24 a day for this, like I'm going to self justify this preparatory purchase.
00:13:19
johngrimsmo
So I bought two, I bought the, the smooth jaw ones and the grippy jaw ones. And then when I returned the tools, I bought two more for home.
00:13:26
John Saunders
Yeah, right.
00:13:28
johngrimsmo
Cause I'm, and we use them in the job in, in doing the spindle. And then I, the second they got home, I used them immediately. And I'm like, these are the greatest things that I've ever lived. I'm showing lay phones. Like you want to see the world's greatest pliers? Like check this out.
00:13:41
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:13:41
johngrimsmo
Um,
00:13:42
John Saunders
I wish they made them in crescent wrench style form because there's been some times where I've actually wanted to grip onto something with that crescent style clamp like just to keep it in place.
00:13:49
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Which ones do you have? You were going to reach for them.
00:13:51
John Saunders
I was going to grab them. There must be
00:13:54
johngrimsmo
They have flat-jaw ones that are just like a Crescent Ranch.
00:13:56
John Saunders
Yes, sorry, but but those are pliers that where the clamping force is contingent on you holding this them squeeze in versus a crescent style where you, exactly, you adjust the thing and then it clicks, it cam overs and clicks on.
00:14:03
johngrimsmo
Yeah. You can tighten it down and... Yeah. Yeah.
00:14:12
John Saunders
These are the only ones i have my desk, but but I got the smooth ones out of the shop, which they're,
00:14:14
johngrimsmo
Okay. Yeah, so I got one of those and a smooth set. um Those are the Cobra ones. um Okay, so what happened? so
00:14:24
John Saunders
but So we hung up the podcast and you, we didn't even know what had happened.
00:14:27
johngrimsmo
Right. um So the whole trend moved down. And then I'm like, it's the spindle toast because the spindle was not spinning when the tool holder smashed into the fixture. that's kind of worst case scenario.
00:14:37
John Saunders
Uh...
00:14:37
johngrimsmo
You know, you think, imagine, I don't know, 20 ball bearings around the outside of a spindle that are now dented into the race. And they're probably ceramic ball bearings because high RPM spindle. They could be cracked. They could be whatever.
00:14:50
johngrimsmo
So one of my first tests was to run the spindle at, do do the warmup pretty much, the automatic warmup routine. Right. And watch the temperature log because the current shows you that in degrees Celsius.
00:15:00
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:15:00
johngrimsmo
And since the current is so thermally controlled, it should be at 20 degrees Celsius, like constantly. Cranked on the spindle, went higher and higher, and it held 20. And I was like, whoa, we've actually had issues with previous spindles that they would run away.
00:15:16
johngrimsmo
Anything over 30,000 RPM, they would start climbing up to, you know, not 20 degrees, but 30, 40, 50 degrees Celsius. And I think there's a... it's the current turns off at 48 degrees Celsius or whatever. Like if this is that high, it says, Nope, Nope, not happening. and And we've had that in the past, but this spindle reads fine.
00:15:36
johngrimsmo
And we put a test bar in the spindle. We checked for run out, we checked for squareness and it's great. And we're like, I think the spindle is good. And with the test bar, we checked Z um both squareness and,
00:15:48
johngrimsmo
and and run out and then current has the oscilloscope built into the control that as i jog the z-axis up and down or the x or y side to side it can tell any vibration in a weird spot in the travel so say you dented the ball screw because of this crash or whatever it would absolutely show up in the oscilloscope nothing smooth as a rock and i'm like sick okay the spindle and the z-axis seem fine
00:16:02
John Saunders
Yep.
00:16:16
johngrimsmo
Uh, the tool changer is changing tools. So it's not like the Z axis moved ah significantly, maybe it moved a little bit. Um, the pallet changer was not happy because the, the whole pallet is at an eighth of an inch down.
00:16:30
John Saunders
yep
00:16:30
johngrimsmo
So we tried to remove the pallet by pallet changing and the pallet changers just bumped into the wrong spot. And it just said, Nope. Like there's your proof right there. it is an eighth of an inch.
00:16:38
John Saunders
Yeah, yeah, right, right, right.
00:16:40
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Um, And then talking to current and talking to service and they're like, we should really come out because we have this, they have this fancy granite rectangle. That's like a four by four rectangle. That's tall, 10 inches tall or whatever on a pallet changing base.
00:16:56
johngrimsmo
So they put in this calibration tool like a spindle test bar, but upside down.
00:17:00
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:17:01
johngrimsmo
um and then they have two lvdt sensors on this fancy bracket that measure the squareness of this tool as you move your z up and down and feedback the machine and competent all that stuff sure it's better i get it um it's like a digital distance sensor like an indicator nope no it's just a measuring sensor but they work work a certain way i don't know what lvdt means so um
00:17:08
John Saunders
oh
00:17:15
John Saunders
What is LVDT?
00:17:21
John Saunders
Like interferometer? Okay. Okay.
00:17:30
johngrimsmo
But they're like a plunger style indicator, like a dial indicator, but all digital.
00:17:35
John Saunders
Okay.
00:17:39
johngrimsmo
So they feed back to the machine. um And they're like, you know, if you want the machine to read perfectly, we should come out and do that. And I'm like, well, I think I can get it good enough.
00:17:50
johngrimsmo
And when you take the palette out, you have the Auroa base and you have the pads basically where everything sits. And that should sweep super square within less than 10th. And it does. So I wrote a probing routine that probes um this kind of plus shape on the pallet base where the the feet sit.
00:18:06
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:18:09
johngrimsmo
And I probed you know at the extreme front, the middle front, the other side middle front, and the extreme rear. And then same for left and right. So I've got these kind of eight points that I'm probing. And on Heidenhain, you can have a table file like an Excel spreadsheet that you can spit all this data to if you set it up properly.
00:18:26
johngrimsmo
um So every time I run this routine, it writes a new line with date and deviation front to rear.
00:18:32
John Saunders
Oh, that's awesome. Yeah.
00:18:33
johngrimsmo
So the tip, the tilt front to rear from furthest front to furthest rear was measuring 20 thou at this distance from wherever the pivot point is.
00:18:46
johngrimsmo
But 20 thou difference in the front to rear of this palette, that's not good.
00:18:52
John Saunders
Is the shear plane, um the mating surfaces, is that parallel to X?
00:18:59
johngrimsmo
parallel to y.
00:19:02
John Saunders
Okay, which would make sense as to why it could tip because
00:19:04
johngrimsmo
Yeah, and it can only tip down. It can't tip sideways. It can't tip.
00:19:07
John Saunders
yeah right, right, right.
00:19:08
johngrimsmo
Yeah. yeah
00:19:08
John Saunders
Interesting.
00:19:09
johngrimsmo
So whether it rotates down or shifts down, who knows?
00:19:09
John Saunders
Huh.
00:19:14
John Saunders
Okay.
00:19:15
johngrimsmo
So there's four bolts that mount this thing, and depending on which one you leave tight to jack it up will depend on where the pivot point is and how tilty it gets. um So I bought a Sterrett Machinist jack, which I've never bought before.
00:19:30
johngrimsmo
And I looked at like the cheap ones on Amazon and they're like $20 and the stare at one with the full kit was close to $200 or 150 or something. And i'm like, I'm going to get that one because I trust it. um I got the fine pitch version, which has 40 TPI instead of 20 TPI.
00:19:46
johngrimsmo
I got it. This thing's beautiful. It's, it's a really nice piece of kit. And that was one of the biggest expenses of this whole job was buying a machinist vice like, yes, please.
00:19:54
John Saunders
No. Okay.
00:19:57
johngrimsmo
ah Not vice, Jack.
00:19:59
John Saunders
okay Would you need that to lift the toilet bowl up?
00:19:59
johngrimsmo
And, Exactly.
00:20:02
John Saunders
Okay. Okay.
00:20:03
johngrimsmo
um In the back of the ah turntable motor, there are two jacking screws, one on the top, one on the bottom, that you can pivot from the rear, but they're kind of awkward to get at.
00:20:10
John Saunders
what you say?
00:20:14
johngrimsmo
i'm like ah At the bottom of the coolant tank, there's this rectangle cutout, so we cut this three-quarter inch thick piece of aluminum that fits in it perfectly. And that became our tabletop, um, for right underneath the trunnion that's on the granite base, super stable.
00:20:30
johngrimsmo
We put our machines Jack on there. We jacked up the toilet bowl and I was able to put an indicator on the top and see even without loosening anything, just move the jacking screw up and I could, okay, I am preloading it.
00:20:43
johngrimsmo
like I moved it.
00:20:44
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:20:45
johngrimsmo
Now, as we start loosening the bolts, we have the indicator on top. Um, And it worked so fantastically well. So we figured out which which bolt we want to leave.
00:20:55
John Saunders
So awesome.
00:20:56
johngrimsmo
We've cracked three of them. We left the fourth one tight, hoping that that's the pivot point.
00:21:00
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:21:02
johngrimsmo
And then the indicator i used is a Mitutoyo electronic indicator that's like a dial indicator and it's got one inch of travel and it's a super accurate one that has 20 million digital graduations.
00:21:10
John Saunders
who
00:21:15
johngrimsmo
And so having that on the spindle gave me like super confidence, like I just moved to 20 million with my fingers.
00:21:18
John Saunders
yeah
00:21:22
johngrimsmo
I'm like, yes, this is amazing. And I knew from various probing that it was down an eighth of an inch, give or take one, two, four. So I needed to jack it up one, two, four, lock it down, and then run my four point probing routine to see how flat the table is.
00:21:38
johngrimsmo
like how level the table is, um front to back, side to side.
00:21:40
John Saunders
the
00:21:43
johngrimsmo
And it got super close. We went from 20,000 deviation front to rear to like 1,000 deviation front to rear. And we're like, okay, we're on the right way. Now, how much do we need to overload this so that when we torque it and everything settles and torquing it moves it?
00:21:53
John Saunders
Right.
00:21:56
johngrimsmo
So I wrote down, okay I'm jacking it to here, to this much movement. When we torque it down, it moves to here. And then when we take off the the jack, jacking screw, it moves to here.
00:22:07
John Saunders
ah Sure, sure, sure.
00:22:09
johngrimsmo
and then with that data we were able to guess guesstimate okay that was a three thou move this time let's do one and a half thou and yes so within probably five tightening sequences we got it front to rear accurate within uh 20 millions of an inch like i'm super happy with that and then side to side i'm able to comp with a b-axis tool tool work offset shift
00:22:27
John Saunders
John. it's Yeah.
00:22:38
John Saunders
Oh, sure. Oh, of course. It's actual access.
00:22:40
johngrimsmo
Which just works.
00:22:42
John Saunders
Yeah, you don't even have to be.
00:22:42
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:22:43
John Saunders
It's really the front to head nod or the so toilet bowl nod.
00:22:45
johngrimsmo
The table. Yeah. That is the mechanical alignment.
00:22:50
John Saunders
Sure.
00:22:50
johngrimsmo
And then I have 0.038 degree rotational shift in my in my work offset table.
00:22:51
John Saunders
Oh, my gosh.
00:22:56
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:22:58
johngrimsmo
i'm like And that got me down to 20 millionths or less of sideways you know accuracy. And I'm like, bro, this table is now square to the X and Y axis to within 20 millionths of an inch, less than one micron, half a micron.
00:23:12
johngrimsmo
happy with that.
Tool Calibration and Data Logging
00:23:13
johngrimsmo
Um, now Kearns way, I think does it to the Z axis. It aligns your C axis to the Z axis, which might be better.
00:23:18
John Saunders
Okay.
00:23:22
johngrimsmo
I don't know. I'm kind of assuming squareness of Z to X and Y right now.
00:23:26
John Saunders
Okay.
00:23:26
johngrimsmo
I don't care. I'm i'm good enough. Like it works. And then after all this is said and done, um, The table is still, ah let's call it 2,000 lower than where it used to be because everything moved.
00:23:39
John Saunders
Okay.
00:23:41
johngrimsmo
Like I got it level, but it's still down.
00:23:43
John Saunders
Yeah, right, right.
00:23:44
johngrimsmo
And then you got to recalibrate the laser. You got to recalibrate the kinematics. And then it's still touching off tools, 1,000 four tenths wrong. which I didn't think it should have.
00:23:55
johngrimsmo
I thought everything should have realigned and like just worked.
00:23:57
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:23:59
johngrimsmo
So I battled with it for a day or two and I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna retouch all the tools and and then move on and it'll be good. I've done a very accurate calibration of this whole machine, retouch all the tools.
00:24:07
John Saunders
Okay.
00:24:11
johngrimsmo
I'm i'm confident with that solution.
00:24:14
John Saunders
if i I think I've followed everything along. You did a very nice job explaining that.
00:24:18
johngrimsmo
thank you
00:24:18
John Saunders
if you What you're saying you're not sure of is if you purchase an HSK 63 gauge length master tool, like a calibration bar, not for TIR, but just gauge length.
00:24:28
johngrimsmo
Which I did.
00:24:31
John Saunders
So let's say like, we usually use we usually see these as ah monolithic holder that's got a three inch ground gauge length.
00:24:37
johngrimsmo
Yeah, i have one of those.
00:24:39
John Saunders
and you put that in a preset or a Sprony, it'll tell you it's three inches. Now, obviously there are could be deviations, which then becomes the question of well, what's your master?
00:24:42
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:24:46
John Saunders
But that's more of a, ah what how do you want to run processes in your shop about what's the master reference tool?
00:24:51
johngrimsmo
Yeah, and that's
00:24:52
John Saunders
You're saying that the three inches is going to show up 1.4 thousand different, but again, you don't care as long as you're consistent across everything.
00:24:59
johngrimsmo
Well, that's a good question. um Well, on that point, something Rob said to us a couple weeks ago, he said that calibration tool holder is your ultimate reference.
00:25:10
johngrimsmo
That is, you just trust that.
00:25:10
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:25:12
johngrimsmo
You base everything off of that because that is the one fixed thing that is not adjustable and it comes with a certificate.
00:25:14
John Saunders
Right.
00:25:18
johngrimsmo
So however accurate that certificate is, who cares? That that is your basis.
00:25:22
John Saunders
it doesn't It doesn't matter. It's just your nominal reference.
00:25:23
johngrimsmo
That's your basis for everything. Yeah.
00:25:25
John Saunders
yep
00:25:25
johngrimsmo
um And so I didn't...
00:25:30
johngrimsmo
I never like touch that tool off because you just run the calibration and it does it for you. like So I don't know if that tool would have read differently necessarily, but yeah, probably.
00:25:39
John Saunders
But if you put a three inch calibration length tool back in there, it's gonna read three inches. And cause you calibrated it that way.
00:25:45
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:25:45
John Saunders
Like you, so it doesn't, like you just told it that way. So if you put a a really accurate drill in there that's 2.966 gauge length, it's gonna read 2.966, right?
00:25:52
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm.
00:25:54
John Saunders
Like it's, yeah, yeah, yeah, great.
00:25:55
johngrimsmo
ye Yep, yep. yep But all of my previous tool offsets, if I retouch them again, were off by 1.4 thou.
00:26:02
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:26:02
johngrimsmo
um And I'm like, okay, well, that's wrong. So I got to touch them off again.
00:26:06
John Saunders
Great.
00:26:07
johngrimsmo
So I created a pretty awesome auto touch off routine that touches all of them without overwriting some of the critical information that we want.
00:26:16
John Saunders
Oh, interesting.
00:26:17
johngrimsmo
um And so you go in the tool table and everyone every tool that you want to touch off, you can type either 997, 998, or 999 in this one field, which does three different things.
00:26:29
johngrimsmo
um And it'll touch them all off and it'll write the results to a new table file telling me the old gauge length, the new gauge length, and the difference.
00:26:39
John Saunders
I love it.
00:26:39
johngrimsmo
So now I have a spreadsheet that literally, it's probably done running, but it was running when we started this, um touching off 150 tools.
00:26:42
John Saunders
Right.
00:26:48
johngrimsmo
graphing me the difference, or not graphing, but ah putting it in a spreadsheet for me um so that we can go through the whole spreadsheet.
00:26:53
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:26:54
johngrimsmo
Because my theory is every tool is going to read 1.4 thou off. If they vary much more than that, that's weird.
00:27:03
John Saunders
Agree.
00:27:04
johngrimsmo
But this will tell me.
00:27:06
John Saunders
love it. I love that you can capture that data as just you know, look, I mean, I may be the bigger wimp than some shop owners or operators out there, but like, yeah, I would, I would want to know, I would want to know that I don't hit cycle start and do something catastrophic where you end up back.
00:27:17
johngrimsmo
Exactly.
00:27:21
John Saunders
where you were last week or worse off, right? That's awesome.
00:27:23
johngrimsmo
yeahp Yep. Yep. Now making these table files and sending data to it is, is not easy enough for the faint of heart. I've just gotten really good at it over the five years of current ownership. And I still spent the better part of a day and a half just doing that, just getting it to touch off all the tools properly and write all the data.
00:27:42
johngrimsmo
But now we have a tool that we can use in the future, um, to auto touch off multiple tools at once.
00:27:45
John Saunders
yeah
00:27:49
johngrimsmo
Um,
00:27:52
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:27:52
johngrimsmo
Now, if I weren't here and if Angelo had to do this himself, he had a great suggestion. He's like, we already have this 999 system in place where any tool you you type 999 into the tool table, it will touch off when it is needed.
00:28:05
johngrimsmo
So the next time you call that tool, it'll just touch it off then. um And that's what he would have done. And there's nothing wrong with that. And then as the tools are needed, they'll get touched off, but doesn't tell you anything.
00:28:17
johngrimsmo
It doesn't show you. It's very trusty.
00:28:18
John Saunders
It feels so good to know too that like you give it three hours and you you you are just setting things right.
00:28:20
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:28:25
John Saunders
ah
00:28:26
johngrimsmo
exactly so not everybody's going to be willing to go as deep as i do full grim smote but i'm i'm glad that i am who i am and i can do this kind of stuff
00:28:36
John Saunders
What talked to me about the AROA and ToolChanger, both working, were working fine or had to be readjusted?
00:28:42
johngrimsmo
um because we lifted the table back up to within about a thou of where it was before row doesn't care it probably has a you know 40 thou wiggle room of not caring but not 120 thou it bumped
00:28:48
John Saunders
Great.
00:28:52
John Saunders
Ah, OK.
00:28:54
johngrimsmo
it bombed
00:28:54
John Saunders
Got it.
00:28:56
johngrimsmo
um yeah, so that's good. Tool changer is good. And everything, the machine's done. it's It might even be running right now, um like making parts.
00:29:06
johngrimsmo
So that's good. It's been a week. And we didn't, we actually took the weekend off. We're like, we could come in on Saturday and mess around with this, but let's just not.
00:29:16
John Saunders
Yep.
00:29:17
johngrimsmo
And that's okay.
00:29:17
John Saunders
You have to reprobe ah do you use, do you program off zero points? So like you, for the whole machine.
00:29:23
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I have one offset. It's the Yep, the face of the Auroa on the center.
00:29:26
John Saunders
Oh, right. That's great.
00:29:28
johngrimsmo
um And that's so nice, so nice.
00:29:29
John Saunders
That's so nice.
00:29:31
johngrimsmo
I i will sometimes on Heidenhain, you can do a datum shift where you take your zero and you add 5,000 because you probe the whole 5,000 off or something like that, which is cool.
00:29:35
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:29:41
johngrimsmo
But yeah, it's this whole zero point concept is kind of the greatest thing that I never really knew existed and until I did.
00:29:47
John Saunders
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Dude, that is phenomenal. I'm really glad to hear that.
00:29:53
johngrimsmo
Yeah, me too. I'm really happy with how it all turned out. Last week, you know I was in that depths of despair. I was like, oh, you know this is the worst. And it's going to cost so much. going take so much.
00:30:06
johngrimsmo
And at the end of it, as you said, the windshield's bigger than the rear view. um The future is bright for I intend to create it. And i'm like I'm like, what problem?
00:30:14
John Saunders
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:30:16
johngrimsmo
that wasn't That wasn't so bad.
00:30:17
John Saunders
Oh,
00:30:18
johngrimsmo
Whereas on Friday, I was like, no.
00:30:21
John Saunders
there's probably like a nugget. i don't know if it's like a teachable moment for people listening that would consider a Kern, but, um and I'm not sure to be fair, like I commend you for being able to do this.
00:30:33
John Saunders
I could see why a machine tool builder wouldn't necessarily want to like help everybody because it just takes up time and there's risk.
00:30:36
johngrimsmo
ah Sure.
00:30:39
John Saunders
But what I do know is that a lot of machine tool builders, if you call them or their distributor or the support, they just don't, they they just won't help you. Like they won't, they're not going to give you the information that I think you probably like, um, we're grateful that our local HFO has always given us Haas service keys when we needed them to do this kind of, never this extensive, but like, you know, we messed the lay through it up years ago and you got to realign it.
00:31:01
John Saunders
You need the service key to get at that level of data, or you need somebody to explain to you some basic processes or send a PDF.
00:31:03
johngrimsmo
he
00:31:08
John Saunders
And I, I love having that relationship with a smaller company that you clearly have where that could happen, I guess.
00:31:11
johngrimsmo
Yep. Yep. Mm-hmm. yep
00:31:17
johngrimsmo
Yeah, and they don't want to give out willy nilly that access. Like on Heidenhine, there are passwords basically that allow various levels of this password grants you access to the PLC in the background.
00:31:23
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:31:27
johngrimsmo
This does this.
00:31:28
John Saunders
Right.
00:31:28
johngrimsmo
And every time they told it to me, I would Sharpie it on the side of the machine.
00:31:33
John Saunders
Right. Right.
00:31:33
johngrimsmo
And then and the next time the service, like when Tina came by, she was like, i I want to erase these because you're not supposed to have all these. And I'm like, i I'm careful.
00:31:41
John Saunders
so
00:31:42
johngrimsmo
It's fine.
00:31:43
John Saunders
Yeah. Right. Right.
00:31:47
John Saunders
Awesome. Glad to hear.
00:31:47
johngrimsmo
I'm feeling good. Good. And i I have a kind of um renewed sense of appreciation is not the right word, but like, I know the machines calibrated now, like, at least in this regard, there's ball bar test results kind of things that it's kind of fails at currently, because it's not as square as it could be XY.
00:32:09
John Saunders
Got it. Interesting.
00:32:10
johngrimsmo
and don't care about that right now. um But
00:32:14
John Saunders
But that's pre last week's stuff.
00:32:15
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly.
00:32:15
John Saunders
Yeah. Well, I'm proud of you. Make your first part and check it first. Then we can, then we can celebrate with the, uh, go out for scoop ice cream, but you know?
00:32:22
johngrimsmo
For sure. Exactly. Yep. And I kind of justified it too, because we're making very small things. We're not making, i don't need the, whatever the enclosure, the the build volume is called 12 by 12 by 12.
00:32:35
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:32:35
johngrimsmo
We're not making parts that big that have to be one micron corner to corner. Um, If we were, i'd be like, yeah, Kern, come on in. Let's get this thing back up and, you know, perfect, better than factory.
00:32:47
johngrimsmo
um We're not. We're making little parts that don't see the error of as much, you know? It's fine.
00:32:55
John Saunders
Yeah. Awesome. Well, that's great.
00:32:57
johngrimsmo
So, it's good.
Side Project: Voice Cloning and AI
00:33:00
John Saunders
It's got to feel like a relief.
00:33:02
johngrimsmo
Yeah, it does. i'm it It just happened like an hour ago, I'm not quite there yet, but
00:33:06
John Saunders
Yeah. Oh, is that why you were like, hey, i might be, yeah.
00:33:09
johngrimsmo
That's part of it. Yeah.
00:33:10
John Saunders
Yeah, happen yeah, That's awesome.
00:33:10
johngrimsmo
have to run out. So yeah.
00:33:15
John Saunders
um The other thing I wanted to mention but also ask is we're adding, already ordered some from SendCutSend, clear, I think Lexan or acrylic, I don't recall.
00:33:27
John Saunders
um Hopefully I ordered Lexan. I think it'd be better. um Viewing ports for our coolant tanks. So many of these coolant tanks, not a lid, doesn't open, it screws on ah just a window, viewport.
00:33:32
johngrimsmo
feel like lids.
00:33:36
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah. But on top. Yeah. Yep.
00:33:40
John Saunders
So many of these cool tanks you don't see into the tank. And again, on that VF3, the thing I'm disappointed in was for weeks, maybe months, it was just like, just the darkest, richest brown color on the top.
00:33:53
johngrimsmo
Yeah, that's weird.
00:33:53
John Saunders
And you should just be able to walk by a tank and look in and see what the color is.
00:33:55
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:33:56
John Saunders
It's like the Akuma's have a bunch of sheet metal cutouts for accessories. So I just measured one of those, ordered Sink-A-Send, it's gonna pop on there.
00:34:03
johngrimsmo
Nice.
00:34:04
John Saunders
The Haas tanks have, they have removable sheet metal lids, but Um, I don't, I don't own a laser that will cut steel and I'm trying to think, I don't know how thick they are, but it's like eighth of an inch.
00:34:18
John Saunders
No, probably not that probably 60 thou thickness, like six engaged.
00:34:20
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:34:23
John Saunders
Um, how would I'm trying to think how to be bootstrapping here. Whole saws not like the, I want this to be like a six inch or a bigger port window. So i don't want use a whole saw scare the crap out of me.
00:34:34
John Saunders
Um, Now, I'm thinking would be that just a 3D print and then sharp. but I'm trying to think of like a way I can use a 3D print with a jigsaw.
00:34:47
John Saunders
And then that's not going perfect, but then I can do a 3D. I can do a 3D printer bushing inside that helps get rid of that view, that sharp edge view. Is there, can't think of a good way to cut an eight inch hole in sheet metal. That's what I'm sort of trying to say.
00:34:58
johngrimsmo
Yeah, don't know. I'm not your guy there.
00:35:02
John Saunders
I know, right?
00:35:03
johngrimsmo
Yep. There are no panels that can come off.
00:35:05
John Saunders
Must
00:35:07
johngrimsmo
like
00:35:07
John Saunders
No, there are many panels that come off. In fact, the one I would probably cut it in is no bigger than, um, two feet by two feet or something. So I could, I guess I could even ship it to somebody, um, ship it out.
00:35:19
johngrimsmo
Can't you just cut a piece of acrylic that big?
00:35:23
John Saunders
Oh, uh, probably not because it's, it's got, um, like lips to hang over it and it's, it's a complicated sheet metal. It's got ridges for rib, uh, ribs for stiffening, um,
00:35:30
johngrimsmo
OK, I see what you mean. Yeah.
00:35:35
John Saunders
So ah it would be easier to look at you. I'm probably overthinking it. A jigsaw, um, I actually even print it 3d print and and use that as a jigsaw guide.
00:35:47
John Saunders
As long as I don't, I'm not just like cut into the 3d print if I'm not careful, but, um, that'll be okay.
00:35:50
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:35:52
John Saunders
Sand it and then put a little, we've done that before where we just 3d print a little grommet inside of it. And then the acrylic can go on top of that. It'll look nice. doesn't have sharp edges, et cetera.
00:36:02
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:36:03
John Saunders
Okay.
00:36:03
johngrimsmo
Sweet.
00:36:04
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:36:04
johngrimsmo
Yeah, on the Mori we have 6x6 sheet metal cover where a motor could go. Four bolts that attach it, we just leave three of the bolts out, one of the bolts in, and we can just rotate it out of the way.
00:36:15
John Saunders
There you go.
00:36:15
johngrimsmo
and like
00:36:16
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:36:16
johngrimsmo
So we leave it rotated out, and we can see inside the tank, and like, who cares?
00:36:21
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:36:22
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:36:22
John Saunders
Not perfect. um Sweet. The only last thing I have on my list, which I just gotta share is freaking cool, is I may or may not have scraped the audio of a certain robot named Johnny Five from the video, from the feature film.
00:36:31
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:36:41
johngrimsmo
From the movie? Yeah.
00:36:43
John Saunders
and upload. So I did that, edited it, edited it like further down to make sure it was only scenarios where it was that particular voice I was looking for. And then for $5, I bought a one month subscription to a, like this good thing was called like 11 labs, AI voice cloning.
00:37:00
John Saunders
John.
00:37:01
johngrimsmo
Wait.
00:37:02
John Saunders
Yep.
00:37:03
johngrimsmo
Okay. You extrapolated a few clips of voice into a ah language.
00:37:07
John Saunders
So like, Case in point, I've got plenty of your audio. I could take i could start mimicking John Grimson. Like this stuff is scary.
00:37:12
johngrimsmo
no way
00:37:15
John Saunders
um I wasn't sure how it would work given that this is a particularly quirky voice, right? like the But it worked. I mean, I can hear the difference. also didn't spend any time tweaking the parameters of which there are many.
00:37:26
johngrimsmo
sure yeah totally
00:37:27
John Saunders
And also your average person, if they see the robot and meet it and they hear the voice, they're not gonna sit here and think, that's a little off. Now the problem is that this is a paid service that is, takes process compute time up down the cloud.
00:37:42
John Saunders
so I wanna do, as I found on Reddit, there's a like offline open source version of this software. I don't think it's, sorry, I just hate real time. I don't think it's actually real time, but that's my goal and this is like total like side project stuff, but I would like to integrate the voice cloning algorithm with an LMM because then I can feed it information
Reflections and Continuous Improvement
00:38:05
John Saunders
about the, and
00:38:05
johngrimsmo
What's LMM.
00:38:06
John Saunders
a large language model, which IGBT.
00:38:08
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:38:10
John Saunders
LLM, I say that right? LMM, whatever. Um, so I don't think what I'm saying is actually frankly, all even all that hard, but it's one thing to talk about So I'm going to do it, but you feed an information about a person or give it access to chat GPT, tie that output into a voice and have it be able to have a conversation close enough to real time in his voice offline without what would need the cloud.
00:38:25
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:38:33
John Saunders
It would need internet for chat ebt That's okay. I just don't want it to have to compute. Even if it's five seconds, that doesn't, that's no good for the voice stuff, but it's,
00:38:40
johngrimsmo
Yeah, so you just you don't just want to give it like 10 phrases that it can say on a push of a button. You want to talk to it, basically.
00:38:47
John Saunders
Those that's actually, that's a fair point. I will do that with a ton of phrases because then you program sequences through the Kyber control with the, what are called Pololu maestros that like all these sequences, if he can like walk into a room or do a spin move and say, you know, neat, neat input, or um wouldn't you like to be a pepper too?
00:39:02
johngrimsmo
OK.
00:39:04
johngrimsmo
isn't
00:39:07
John Saunders
That'll be all done ahead of time, but I would also like it to have a conversation.
00:39:10
johngrimsmo
Yeah, that is so sick.
00:39:11
John Saunders
Right. If anybody's listening that has done this stuff and wants to help out, whether it's on the house or you weren't paid, I don't really care.
00:39:19
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:39:19
John Saunders
Like I would, I would happily piggyback off of some folks have been on this road because it's, it's pretty, it's pretty cool what's out there.
00:39:27
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm.
00:39:29
johngrimsmo
That's cool, man.
00:39:29
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:39:34
johngrimsmo
Well, let's see, let's see. I was watching a video last night and I saw young John Saunders.
00:39:39
John Saunders
Oh,
00:39:41
johngrimsmo
I was ah skipping through one of the um Keith Rucker videos on the scraping class. And I saw, you know, 10 years ago, eight years ago, ah John Saunders get interviewed in the scraping class.
00:39:47
John Saunders
Isn't that crazy?
00:39:53
johngrimsmo
I was like, Hey, I know that guy.
00:39:55
John Saunders
Hilarious. Yeah.
00:39:58
johngrimsmo
And that's it. That that was cool.
00:40:00
John Saunders
Yeah. That was a good, that was, I don't know. i don't know how to say that. Like very hard to think of how long ago that was, but also how fresh it feels.
00:40:03
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:40:09
John Saunders
if That makes sense.
00:40:09
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:40:10
John Saunders
Yeah. I mean, you,
00:40:11
johngrimsmo
Cool. And it was like multi-day. You you went to California, maybe.
00:40:15
John Saunders
three days That one was in Georgia, I believe.
00:40:16
johngrimsmo
yep really Okay. Okay.
00:40:18
John Saunders
yeah like I think it was at Keith's shop.
00:40:20
johngrimsmo
Cool. cool
00:40:22
John Saunders
Yep. The last thing I have, it's actually been on my list to bring up for quite a few weeks and it's not that great of a point, but I'll say anyways, we need to do a better job at our shop on these. Sonder style setup sheets, um for especially for oddball parts that we don't run all the time.
00:40:40
John Saunders
Shimptworks products are a good example.
00:40:42
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:40:43
John Saunders
We make alignment jigs for our multi-fixture plate sets that we only run once a quarter. And so it's not and it's not a Fusion setup sheet, it's really a handmade a template or something.
00:40:55
John Saunders
um But it's gonna have the material, because a lot of times we're able to use some of these parts we share part families or material families.
00:41:07
John Saunders
have the part number. It has a photo of the torque wrench and the torque values that we use because we have lots of different styles of torque wrenches, but um it either needs to be one that's in a process bin, but then there's still a photo of it. So you know that not grabbing the one that's at the machine and you adjust it, a photo or description of like how you set up um the fasteners and extra supplies that we can. It's basically like a cheat sheet. You're like, oh, okay, great.
00:41:31
John Saunders
They have extra M5 Torx Plus screws for this. Here's the Fusion setup and like a screen grab of what the cam looks like. Here's the, where you torque the bolts. Kind of here are the gotchas.
00:41:43
John Saunders
It makes sense.
00:41:43
johngrimsmo
Yeah, definitely.
00:41:45
John Saunders
Just great ideas.
00:41:45
johngrimsmo
ye mi
00:41:46
John Saunders
Just need to do it.
00:41:47
johngrimsmo
Make it obvious. I don't love the term idiot-proof, but it's what it is.
00:41:50
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:41:51
johngrimsmo
like
00:41:51
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah.
00:41:54
johngrimsmo
Yeah, and half the time, you're the idiot reading it again, going, oh, yeah, thanks. Thanks, Setup Sheet. I appreciate that.
00:42:00
John Saunders
Well, it just feels, um, feels like you're winning, winning when you're like, oh, I gotta do this. And you're like, oh wow.
00:42:07
johngrimsmo
Yeah, this makes it easy.
00:42:08
John Saunders
I remind,
Future Plans and Efficiency Improvements
00:42:09
John Saunders
I reminded myself how to do this.
00:42:10
johngrimsmo
Yeah, this takes zero brain power. Like I have the skill and experience to do it, but it takes no thinking to remember.
00:42:16
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:42:16
johngrimsmo
What's the Torque spec again? Where's that tool? I can't find it. Yeah.
00:42:20
John Saunders
You would laugh. i think you'd laugh if you saw some of my maintenance notes to myself that are either in Lex or some of them are in my calendar and in the line will read like, John, this is actually super easy. When every time you finish this, you're like, that wasn't hard.
00:42:33
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:42:33
John Saunders
And you, you know, like replacing a furnace filter, you're like, it always sticks on the bottom. Just tip it up a little when You put it in. Here's the Amazon link for a new one.
00:42:41
johngrimsmo
and Nice.
00:42:41
John Saunders
Like it just, it always feels nice to read that and be like, Oh, I was really thinking of, of myself.
00:42:45
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:42:46
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:42:46
johngrimsmo
it My future self. Like, yeah.
00:42:47
John Saunders
yeah
00:42:48
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:42:50
John Saunders
Um, yeah.
00:42:50
johngrimsmo
I like that. Yeah. Set yourself up to win. That's what it's all about.
00:42:54
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:42:56
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:42:57
John Saunders
Well, so what's on tap for you today?
00:42:59
johngrimsmo
So verify that the current works, make some parts, confirm that they they're good, um look through that that new spreadsheet of results um and and see what kind of variation there is.
00:43:08
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah.
00:43:11
johngrimsmo
Do that. It's three o'clock, so the guys are going head out soon.
00:43:14
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:43:15
johngrimsmo
um And then now that this is done, my next tackle is we've talked about many times over the over the past year is speedio bevel grinding um i have a new theory i want to try of literally rotating the palette 90 degrees which brings me into a whole different type of thermal growth on the machine because right now i'm growing
00:43:25
John Saunders
Okay.
00:43:35
John Saunders
Oh, sure.
00:43:38
johngrimsmo
in the y direction and i'm grinding in the y direction or i'm grinding in the x direction um so any head nod of thermal growth is is making my problem worse um if i rotate the ballot 90 degrees the machine doesn't grow in x in thermal growth it it's stable so i'm gonna maximize my grind angles to help that
00:43:47
John Saunders
Is angry.
00:43:58
John Saunders
Yes.
00:44:02
John Saunders
You want the blade. Actually, gonna be fun i have it yeah this If I'm grinding this type of a blade, you want it in line with the Y, like you're throwing the knife at the the column.
00:44:11
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly.
00:44:15
johngrimsmo
Correct. So, yeah.
00:44:20
johngrimsmo
Yeah, it's it's pointing at, like, the tip pointing at you kind of thing, or away from you.
00:44:23
John Saunders
Okay.
00:44:24
johngrimsmo
Whereas right now, when you look at the machine, you see the whole blade.
00:44:25
John Saunders
Here.
00:44:27
johngrimsmo
You see it sideways.
00:44:28
John Saunders
Yes, sure.
00:44:29
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:44:29
John Saunders
So head nod means you're going to change the angle of the bevel.
00:44:33
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:44:33
John Saunders
Whereas head nod, if it's in Y, doesn't matter really.
00:44:34
johngrimsmo
what Yeah. And or the total engagement of the tool because of a few tenths of head nod and a lot of angles involved. um i don't want to calculate it. I just want to try.
00:44:46
johngrimsmo
um
00:44:46
John Saunders
Yeah, it seems easy.
00:44:47
johngrimsmo
Unfortunately, it's not as simple as just turning the palette and hitting go because I got to generate all new cam. And e it's not even that simple because my cam is now, remember, Python script chat GPT generated.
00:44:58
John Saunders
That's right. That's right.
00:44:59
johngrimsmo
um which won't be hard. It's just, I just need like a couple hours to focus and do it right. um
00:45:06
John Saunders
Brother doesn't have, or do you sub-complete?
00:45:08
johngrimsmo
No.
00:45:09
John Saunders
Okay. They have a, they have a polar, like a XY rotational thing.
00:45:12
johngrimsmo
but True. Yeah.
00:45:14
John Saunders
Interesting.
00:45:14
johngrimsmo
I mean, yeah, brother does. What's a G 68, whatever um that
00:45:20
John Saunders
Yeah, that's probably a bad idea.
00:45:20
johngrimsmo
might work, but yeah, don't
00:45:23
John Saunders
You could air cut and test it, but I mean, ignore me.
00:45:25
johngrimsmo
You could air cut and test it. Yeah, no, that's fair. I want to do it right. um And maybe that's a slow way to do it, but that makes me feel better.
00:45:33
John Saunders
This is where you're, you used to use the geodesic to like chop grind up down on it, but you did the point.
00:45:37
johngrimsmo
Correct. And then I wrote my own program to do it more accurately. um But it's still chop grinding.
00:45:43
John Saunders
Yeah, cool.
00:45:44
johngrimsmo
Yep. Which by itself works great. It's just consistency is... Seemingly unpredictable. We're getting somewhat erratic results and I can't really track it down to thermal and I can't put my finger on it and it's frustrating. So this is another thing to try.
00:46:01
johngrimsmo
And if we have the same results, that's an answer.
00:46:01
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:46:03
johngrimsmo
If we have better results, that's good.
00:46:07
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:46:08
johngrimsmo
And like we're pushing blades through, but it's, I still can't automate it because I don't trust it enough yet.
00:46:13
John Saunders
Yeah, no, that's totally fair.
00:46:14
johngrimsmo
So we're cutting one by one and it is, don't say it's the biggest bottleneck, but it's probably top three, top two bottlenecks in the shop.
00:46:20
John Saunders
Oh, really? Oh, interesting.
00:46:21
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah. Which is a big deal.
00:46:24
John Saunders
Sure.
00:46:24
johngrimsmo
Now that the current kn is fixed.
00:46:24
John Saunders
Just because it creates more finishing time.
00:46:27
johngrimsmo
No, well It's inaccurate, so we can't automate the bevel grinding, meaning we can only grind, you know say, a maximum of seven blades a day in any day that we're hustling.
00:46:40
johngrimsmo
um Whereas if it was automated, I could grind 20 blades at night.
00:46:45
John Saunders
God, it's...
00:46:47
johngrimsmo
you know And that that will unlock potential for us hugely because then some machine some days the machine doesn't run because the guy's busy doing something else or something like that. So this will help.
00:46:59
John Saunders
Probably not a solution or even relevant here, but the thing I hear about folks like Dennis, and I've heard it elsewhere do that, I don't and even think about this, is they will rough complicated parts in a cheap three axis and they'll get a bunch of material hogged off, even if it's not like you obviously don't have five axis axis, but you usually have to do a lot of roughing work and then they'll transfer it over to a more expensive five axis and let it finish.
00:47:15
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm.
00:47:25
John Saunders
So the thought was like, could you, rough grind overnight and finish grind during daytime, but I don't think that's, you don't you don't have to do two passes anyway, so it doesn't make sense.
00:47:33
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I mean, we we do rough the hard material with an end mill, and then we go in and finish grind it.
00:47:34
John Saunders
You just want to fix it.
00:47:38
johngrimsmo
We actually semi grind it, and then we finish grind it.
00:47:38
John Saunders
Okay.
00:47:41
johngrimsmo
um It's the grinding that takes a long time. Roughing takes like two minutes.
00:47:44
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:47:45
johngrimsmo
Grinding takes 20 minutes per side.
00:47:45
John Saunders
Yeah. Sure.
00:47:47
johngrimsmo
And that's the whole reason this is in the speedio, that it's not in the current eating up current time.
00:47:51
John Saunders
Yeah, right, right.
00:47:53
johngrimsmo
um However, this kind of rotation idea came to me because I thought i was like, wait, how was it running in the current? It was running rotated the other way. um Because being a five axis, you can tilt it to whatever.
00:48:05
John Saunders
Okay.
00:48:06
johngrimsmo
but And the current is obviously thermally stable.
00:48:07
John Saunders
Do everyone. Yeah.
00:48:11
johngrimsmo
But I was like, wait, it was pointed the other way in the current. But now I'm pointing at 90 degrees in the speedio because of the way it pallet loads. um The only downside to having it loaded like this, the 90 degrees from I'm currently doing it, is it eats up three spots in the pallet changer instead of one spot.
00:48:27
John Saunders
Oh, that does stink though.
00:48:28
johngrimsmo
It kind of sucks, but I'm absolutely willing to run the experiment and even eat the bullet if that is the solution.
00:48:32
John Saunders
Yeah. Right.
00:48:34
johngrimsmo
Because like, holy cow, we're we're not using up all 55 spots on the small side.
00:48:34
John Saunders
or Yeah, right, right, right.
00:48:39
johngrimsmo
So like, it's a win.
00:48:41
John Saunders
Could you... um So you want to basically... You want to orient the knife in Y, not X. It's currently in X.
00:48:47
johngrimsmo
Yes.
00:48:47
John Saunders
You want to move it to Y.
00:48:48
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly.
00:48:48
John Saunders
Can you not try in Y with the Fusion Geodesic Toolpath? Because you can generate that in three minutes and it'll tell you what you need to know before you invest the time.
00:48:57
johngrimsmo
You'd need to make multiple of them to see what the consistency is like throughout the day. um
00:49:02
John Saunders
got it. Okay.
00:49:03
johngrimsmo
And the only downside with the geodesic is it leaves a slightly crappier finish, which takes more time to finish out.
00:49:03
John Saunders
Okay.
00:49:08
John Saunders
That's fair.
00:49:10
johngrimsmo
So yeah, it's always balance.
00:49:10
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:49:12
johngrimsmo
You know, where do you want to spend your time kind of thing?
00:49:14
John Saunders
Fail fast. Yeah. I'm just thinking like fail fast, fail cheap.
00:49:16
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:49:16
John Saunders
like Isolate the problem before you invest in the solution.
00:49:19
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah, so...
00:49:21
John Saunders
Yeah. You're onto something and for sure. Like that idea of like.
00:49:24
johngrimsmo
I think so. I think it's another big variable. Like we've killed a lot of variables and this is another big one that I'm like, whoa, okay, hold on. You know, so I'll report back next week.
00:49:32
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:49:34
John Saunders
Yeah. Sweet. right. See you next week.
00:49:36
johngrimsmo
All right, later.
00:49:37
John Saunders
Take care.
00:49:37
johngrimsmo
Bye.
00:49:37
John Saunders
Bye.