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Machine Shop Operations, Entrepreneurship and Insecurity, Coolant Supply/Delivery Methods, Crash Detection, & Collaborative Machining Projects
249 Plays6 years ago
Saunders and Grimsmo delve into entrepreneurial insecurity, how it impacts them, and ways to keep it in check.
Now that the crazy month of January has passed, Grimsmo and his team are getting back into the swing of production. The Mori is up and running but there was a minor problem that caused them to scrap four knife handles. While it's not a huge deal, sometimes we forget about easy ways to isolate risk.
Speaking of scrapping parts, the guys discuss ways to proof code and machine operations including the Haas dead man's switch, and safe mode.
Coolant Plans Grimsmo and Saunders share plans and ideas for coolant to machine delivery. Since the majority of coolant mix is water, it makes the most sense to avoid having to transport it to each machine.
A Different Type of Sustainability - Simple Solutions That Last If you're a business owner, it's time to be ruthlessly honest about decisions and plans. Are these things going to work long term? Are these solutions able to be scaled?
I've a KERN-FESSION to make Grimsmo turns on the KERN for the first time and ends up with something he didn't expect...
Learning Curve With more training for the KERN and CAMplete on the docket, there's still another issue that training can't solve: deciding what to machine first! Should it be a test part, a part needed for knives, or should he revisit a part that brings his story full circle?
Did you say DATRON? Saunders announces some exiting news about a new partnership between Datron and ProvenCut!
They Must Have Heard Me! Have you ever wished something existed only for it to suddenly appear? Saunders is amused and happy that Maritool came through with ER Hex Collets.
NO TOOTHPICKS ALLOWED! A state-wide ban on toothpicks prompts Tom Lipton to create a machining challenge! So, uh, does this mean we're outlaws now?
Click Image For Tom Liptons IG Post
ChipRag Newsletter This monthly newsletter will contain a section with challenges and upcoming collaboration projects so you never have to miss out!
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Transcript
Introduction to Business of Machining Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the business of machining episode one five six. My name is John Grimsmo. My name is John Saunders. This is the podcast where John and I talk candidly about what it's like trying to be an entrepreneur and leading a company everything from honestly the mental health aspect to decisions on a daily basis and shop operations and of course CNC machining.
The Dual Meaning of 'Trying' and Its Impact
00:00:22
Speaker
He said trying and reminds me of a joke my wife and I have.
00:00:26
Speaker
Where my wife's like, I know you're trying very, very trying. Meaning effort or what do you mean? Like it's, it's a play on the word trying. Like it's, it's a lot of effort for her. I don't know how to explain the word.
00:00:45
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know either. I'm not following. When something is a trying event, it pressures you as the recipient. Oh, I see. These are trying times when you've lost a loved one. Exactly. Got it. Got it.
00:01:03
Speaker
So it's funny how the word can be used both ways. Yeah, sure. Anyway, I never thought of it. Yeah.
Balancing Positivity, Reality, and Learning in Business
00:01:11
Speaker
Well, there's always that balance of positivity and energy and enthusiasm with also that dose of reality, which is a theme I know we've tried to keep central to this. And I'll share a kind of rock-handed one, which is
00:01:24
Speaker
I think my own insecurities come out in the form of just that when I forget that I've had some, I don't know how to say this, but when you stop and you think, hey, it's okay, you've got a few things under your belt, you're not 28 years old anymore, you're not brand new to the machine.
Content Consumption vs. Application and Memory Retention
00:01:44
Speaker
to be blunt. It's the folks that are insecure and they don't have a lot of confidence, they try to say things that are compensated for that. Does that make sense? For sure. Absolutely. I think as I've been digesting some, one of my goals this year was getting back into some, not only some form of reading, but what I've been doing when I read something, an article or a book is
00:02:11
Speaker
I've been adding it to, I've kind of two different places. One is kind of my annual goals kind of thought process list and the other is more of a, uh, it's actually that list of folks that I, um, look up to. And what I've been doing is, is on a, on a for five minutes or 10 minutes every week is popping that open because it's not just the consumption of the content. It's the application of
Seeking Validation and Understanding Business Cycles
00:02:33
Speaker
it. Absolutely. And that's when I've actually been very, uh, happy with how that's going.
00:02:41
Speaker
That's really good because I'll read an amazing book and I'll underline stuff and then I finish it and then I put it away. And then sometimes it just never comes up again. I never think about it. Yet if I pull the book open and read the underlines, I'm like, oh yeah, that was a good thing. I was supposed to do that. So I like your application of just quick review every week, a few minutes.
00:03:04
Speaker
Yeah, and I also found my memories a lot, seems to be more difficult for me and I don't know if that's because I'm 36 and not 25 or whether it's because with more going on in our business and more going on in my two kids now, et cetera, there's just more going on and sometimes it's easier to not retain stuff.
00:03:27
Speaker
I love this little system of just, hey, revisit that stuff and dig into the why. That's the most powerful thing. Remember how you and I used to talk about not checking sales? Did you sell a knife? Did you sell a fixture plate today?
00:03:43
Speaker
Well, when you have that desire to get your little fix of looking to see if you sold something today, if you log in or something, you got to ask yourself, why are you doing that? Sometimes it's just for fun or you need to know, but a lot of times to be blunt, it's tying into that insecurity of you're looking for that validation, but you know what you're doing. You have a plan.
Long-term Confidence vs. Short-term Outcomes
00:04:07
Speaker
Not every day is going to work out the same. There's cyclicality and so forth. So don't subject yourself to the whims of needing that fix to validate what you're doing. That's not what tells you what you're doing.
00:04:20
Speaker
Yeah, it's like when you're able to step away for a little bit, then you can deal with the cyclicality better. Because otherwise, if you don't sell for a day or two, you're watching it so closely that it's like, well, you have to explain to yourself why it's not working. And you have to make it OK verbally in your own head. And tell yourself, I'm still doing good. It's fine. Things are going OK. Whereas if you check in every few days, maybe it's a little bit easier to detach.
00:04:50
Speaker
And...
00:04:51
Speaker
I don't know, we still watch things pretty closely. But tell me you don't do that. For some reason, I'm going to pick on the only thing I can think of, which is let's say you either don't sell a knife or you have some people on the maker's choice who are like, I'm going to pass. If you had two or three of those in a row, which is way more than usual, or some scenario like that, do you, I don't know, my natural reaction to that would be, oh man, that hits at my ego a little or my whatever you would call it.
00:05:20
Speaker
that sucks. There's the initial initial hit of like, Oh, what the heck?
Decision Quality: Process Over Outcomes
00:05:25
Speaker
And then you have to convince yourself like you talk yourself down from it. You're like, it's fine. Like, it's probably nothing. Maybe, you know, they just don't have the money or blah, blah, blah, but three in a row. And right, you spend a lot of time rationalizing and you and you shouldn't because at this point, you shouldn't
00:05:42
Speaker
I'm talking metaphorically or you shouldn't think that any one or number of small isolated instances somehow invalidates the fact that what you've done is built a product line and an offering in a system to deliver this product and so forth. It's actually in a weird way, really similar to that. It was last week I mentioned that memo from that guy Howard Marks talking about how you don't judge how
00:06:07
Speaker
I can't think of how to articulate it perfectly now. You don't judge the quality of the decision from its outcome, which sounds super weird because of course it's the outcome that matters, but there's other factors you don't control in the outcome and the quality of the decision is based on the consistency and the thought process that goes into the input decisions. You have chosen to build up this platform for NISE. We've chosen to build this up for our products and
00:06:31
Speaker
and you don't judge it based on the daily outcomes of that make sense? Yeah, absolutely.
Machinery Setup Challenges and Lessons Learned
00:06:40
Speaker
Sorry, that was a, I feel like a deeper start off to it. I like that podcast. How's your week been? It's been good. Good. We're finally like after the move and everything, we're finally getting back into production and it feels so good.
00:06:57
Speaker
It seems like it just happened. Maybe it's because we're on the outside looking in, but it just seems like this whole thing went smooth. January was nuts. It was just so busy and so many contractors in and out and decisions and money spent.
00:07:13
Speaker
uh rushed work and not rushed work and production and then like two weeks of no production and uh yeah it went by fast but the mori's up and the knocker is up running the mori is up and running uh as of last friday today is wednesday um first pallet of parts had one problem um so we scrapped four handles from it which sucks but related to the move though or the machine moving kind of
00:07:43
Speaker
Yeah, after the move, we recalibrated the probe, but we did it wrong. So it was off by like 16 thou. Oh, that stinks. So that screwed up just one set of handles or four sets of handles really. Can I ask you a question? That's okay. Yep. Is the takeaway or lesson learned there that you should have just machined a scrap widget part in a vice and measured it?
00:08:07
Speaker
Maybe, but we just never do that. Yeah, no, I know. I hear you. But yeah, you're probably right. But it's sort of just like, I think we did a right full send. And I'm not saying that's the best way to do it. But right.
00:08:21
Speaker
Yeah, we were confident enough at the time to run it. I forget what the task was, but we were debating something here about reaming a hole or testing how a hole was going to look or work. And I was like, just make a scrap part of one hole. And everyone was like, oh, yeah. Not that it's my genius idea. It's more like, sometimes you forget that there's simple ways to isolate massive amounts of risk. Yep.
00:08:51
Speaker
Yeah, even just to double or triple check yourself. I find that especially on on the lids, like you said an offset, well, let me just turn a little diameter and make sure I'm at least close or something, you know, or eyeball it.
00:09:07
Speaker
whenever I'm proving out a program, I love starting it and then holding the rapid override. And when it gets too close to the parts, say half an inch, I'll stop it and I'll look, turn the coolant off and I'll look and be like, yeah, that looks like about half an inch. Okay, I'm not a mile off here. Yeah, that's a good smell test.
CNC Machine Features for Precision and Error Prevention
00:09:23
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Haas has that feature too that I think is, I just learned about it relatively recently where you can turn, it's like a parameter where you can turn the cycle start button into a dead man switch. Oh yeah, you can tell me about that. It basically is running the program so long as you're holding it in and then you let off, it stops. So it's kind of like, I guess it's like feet hold, but in a dead man switch form. Backwards. Yeah.
00:09:47
Speaker
Yeah, interesting. One thing I've, I don't know how exactly useful it is, but it seems cool. I think Citizen Laids have it where you can actually use the jog wheel to jog forward and backwards through a program. Oh, like single blocking at a click line rate? Exactly, at a rotation.
00:10:08
Speaker
It seems cool, but I don't know if it's totally useful. You can go backward too, though? Yeah. I've never heard of a CNC program, G-code running backward.
00:10:19
Speaker
That's a good point. That does sound kind of weird. I thought I saw that. Maybe it's only forward. I don't know. Could be in. Well, we just found, remember IMTS in 18? The Haas had that crash safe mode where you could jog a tap straight into the park. I've heard that that's coming as they're locking down some version of the next gen software and there's going to be updates.
Coolant and Water Management Systems
00:10:40
Speaker
I haven't really paid that close attention. And we had an update on our VF2.
00:10:45
Speaker
for another reason, and Ed was saying that we now have a safe mode in it, but it's not quite the same. It's something like
00:10:53
Speaker
Something like you can choose to enable it when you're running a program and it will change how it monitors your motor loads or something. I got to look into it more, but I think that's worth a PSA to figure out for folks what that is. Because again, you think about technology advancements that could come in the machine tool world. I think a lot of it has to do with
00:11:15
Speaker
You know the work envelope. You know what these motors are supposed to do, especially when they're cutting. So why are you letting it crash into something? I guess it's teaching it the baseline, like your min and your max load so that it knows what to expect, basically. Right. Actually, on that note, you'd still use a controlled crash to check your 20,000 end mill when it goes to machine the Torx hex pocket, correct? What do you mean?
00:11:45
Speaker
I thought you used a macro or custom kind of checking process. Let's see if it's broken. Yeah. What I did do on the Nakamura lathe is I would take an actual Torx driver bit.
00:12:03
Speaker
mounted on the turret, and I would shove it into the machine torque's hole. And if it goes in with zero resistance, it's good. If it crashes, if it stops, slowly uncontrolled, then it knows that the tool had broken and it alarms out. So it's, I forget what it's called, but some sort of safety, something, something, FANUC thing. But it worked really well.
00:12:27
Speaker
It's beautiful. It's literally a go-no-go gauge that's digitally hooked up your machine tool. That's awesome. Exactly, yeah. You say it in the past tense because those are now on the Swiss? Yes, those parts are all now on the Swiss. I don't know if the Swiss has that capability. I don't know. On the Swiss, I bought these
00:12:48
Speaker
uh, micro detect or something, these little flappy arms that goes down and touches, um, if, if the tool is still there or not. And honestly, I haven't hooked them up yet. Got it. You know, I bought two of them and I was like, this seems awesome. Yeah, I need breakage detection and I just, I just haven't. Okay. Yeah. I wonder where they live because you don't really like, I've seen those in ATCs before, which is, you know, obviously outside of the work area.
00:13:18
Speaker
They're on these sort of weak Noga Arm type extension things that just kind of tighten down and you can aim them basically wherever you need.
00:13:31
Speaker
But it seems like it would not necessarily get in the way, but certainly be a little clumsy. Yeah, in a Swiss, it seems like everything in there is actually in a flooded oil laden chaos. So on the Nakamura, what you were doing was able to measure the turrets or the Z-axis load.
00:13:49
Speaker
Yes. Okay. That's awesome. I love that. It's the special G-code where it goes into super sensing mode and it just feels for anything and it'll stop at resistance.
Challenges in Coolant Delivery and Maintenance
00:13:59
Speaker
Oh, okay. That's interesting. I don't know if you've been on WhatsApp yesterday, but that's what Ken was asking about with checking a center drill. Checking to see if a hole was center drilled before the tail stock automatically comes in and stabilizes the part in the turning center.
00:14:16
Speaker
he, I guess they probably can't justify a forward or implement an actual probe in the machine, which is certainly not an uncommon problem for a variety of reasons. And so that was my thought. And I thought of you here was just, can you come bring the center drill up against a hard surface? It sounds kind of bad, but, um, the tip of the center drill is actually decently robust. It's not an engraving type tool. It's going to just start fracturing. Uh, and if you could probably just dent your part a little bit and that's it.
00:14:46
Speaker
Well, yeah, whether you come up against a work piece or even come up against like a part of the I know it sounds crazy because you're literally intentionally crashing the machine but you would do it at you know point you bring it up to Half an inch or a quarter inch beyond from it and then just do a very slow movement as long as you have a sense What you said is awesome that kind of a mode where you're in that detect thing would be perfect. Yeah Apparently the Nakamura guys were telling me that all well
00:15:13
Speaker
The FANUC technology is on most machines. It's the software behind it to sense it very well that Nakamura has spent so much time developing and creating their own little G-code for it. Got it. I think that sends that, makes its best. Manual book number 47, appendix C, page 743 covers that parameter. Yeah. Yeah, basically. Sweet. So the Nakamura is not yet up.
00:15:42
Speaker
Yeah. So both the lathes, we haven't really touched them. Um, although today, tomorrow, next day, uh, we should get them both leveled and, uh, coolanted and aligned and set up. Awesome. Oh, how was, can I ask how was, um, what'd you learn? I think you said the coolant guys came in last week. I'm curious if, and what you learned on water and how you're going to run your system.
00:16:08
Speaker
Yeah, it was it was really helpful. We didn't film hardly anything, to be honest. And a lot of what we talked about is stuff we had talked about before, you know, on the phone and things like that. But yeah, it sounds like DIY water is the way I'm going to go for top ups for the initial fill. We just use a tap water.
00:16:28
Speaker
because you want you want those minerals in there to begin with. What else? Yes, we're going with quality chem eco pure 450, which is very similar to the 250, 250 ones just more vegetable based, I think, still a semi synthetic pretty sure. Really? I thought it was a full
00:16:50
Speaker
Maybe it is a full. Yeah. I really can't say right now. It's really difficult to keep track of all of these things. We've been learning a little bit more about it ourselves because I think we are going to switch one machine to our key. We're going to keep our VM3 as a full synthetic, which means we're going to run two separate coolants, which is not ideal. But you're going to run the same 450 in all machines. Yeah, that was my plan. And then the current guys are like,
00:17:20
Speaker
half jokingly, half serious, make sure it's on our approved list of coolants. Oh, really? Or else it might void your warranty. And I'm like, wait, what?
Implementing Efficient and Sustainable Coolant Systems
00:17:30
Speaker
Because they have had problems in the past, not necessarily on the micro, but on other machines where certain coolants will actually eat some of the hoses and rubber lines.
00:17:41
Speaker
And I mean, you see like most CNC machines have that warning sticker on the front, like do not run full synthetics or else it's going to eat all the rubber. My Nakamura has that sticker. Really? Or he had that sticker. Yeah. Maybe Haas doesn't. We have the do not use oil or you will burn the whole neighborhood down sticker. Yeah, basically. My tornos should have come with that sticker on it. You haven't had a fire. I've seen a flame, but I know I haven't had a fire.
00:18:07
Speaker
Oh man. Oh, I can't even know. Just know. Yeah, exactly. No, that's, that's what happens when you, when you want to do a little quick, little dry cut manually on titanium, just to, you know, cut the burr off or something. And the tool's a little dull and it just gets hot real fast and there's a flame. I'm like, no, no, no. But it gets worse when there's mist atomized and all that stuff. Right.
00:18:38
Speaker
Sorry. So you, so are you going to do, I forget about, I missed it. You cut out for a second. You're going to do PEX lines with just water or you're going to push coolant everywhere. I think I'm going to push premix coolant everywhere through the line. I haven't finalized the setup of that system, but I did run a line over the ceiling. So now we have kind of access to both walls. If we put the tank on one side, um,
00:19:06
Speaker
Yeah, my goal is to basically have all the machines tied to one system, to one drum, where I can feed premix automatically to the machine that needs it. But my concern, I think we talked about last week, is sending 3% to every machine while the Nakamura actually wants four or five. And the current actually just wants two or one, or whatever it is. So Mixture is getting out of control based on that.
00:19:35
Speaker
So I'm still playing with that idea. But here's what I'm thinking because we're literally doing the same idea task is I'm thinking about having a, when I say rigid line like PEX line, like maybe it's slightly flexible, but dedicated lines to each, right now we have six kind of machining centers.
00:19:57
Speaker
And those lines would normally carry or would carry deionized or purified water, and they would basically go into the sump. And then back at the IBC tote, so you would have to walk some distance, you would have
00:20:14
Speaker
a little display and you could say the VF2 put in seven gallons or something like that. So it's not just a hose that you open and close, but rather a digital system that you can control the volume amount you want to send out. So that's going to push straight water into yourself, not necessarily ideal, but
00:20:30
Speaker
we live in a world of compromises. But what you can also do is the end of that rigid line would also have a quick disconnect for a hose. So what you could then do is wheel the barrel over, which is quite easy to do, not really one of those, oh, that's a pain in the butt thing. And the barrel would have its own proportional mixer, mixtron thing, whatever on it.
00:20:54
Speaker
So what you could then do is instead of pumping the straight water in there is you could then dial whatever ratio or concentration you want. You can adjust that right there and then you're not pumping straight water in it, you're pumping the actual mix in.
00:21:09
Speaker
And what I like about this is that sometimes I'm in the middle of like working out like yesterday, I was running a program on the UMC. And I was like, man, I really want like five or 10 more gallons of coolant in here right now because I can even hear the pumps starting to sound different because it's gotten a little bit low. I just want to add some water. I'll deal with the bricks later or whatever, you know? That's what I like about that. I see that because I've certainly run low on coolant and I'm like,
00:21:35
Speaker
It's I'd rather have a lower percentage but enough volume right rather than sucking the pumps dry and I've certainly been there I wonder how high like you so so you you're gonna add
00:21:49
Speaker
The problem with adding straight water is you need to make sure it gets correctly mixed, which is somewhat coolant dependent, but then also you do need to come back and adjust, measure your bricks, and then add, I guess you could just add straight, like neat coolant, straight coolant, whatever, or concentrate rather, to raise it if you need to. I wonder how high, can you mix in like 40% concentrate? I guess you could, right? Oh, to make up. If you had to really increase it and you didn't want to just add straight.
00:22:20
Speaker
Right.
Automating Coolant Delivery with Customizable Systems
00:22:22
Speaker
On the Mixtron unit, I think it only goes zero to 10. Got it. Zero to 10%, which by the way, it's fantastic. Yeah.
00:22:31
Speaker
Yeah, the Italian mix Tron unit. Um, it's really good. I think it was like $800. So it's certainly not cheap, but it's, it's great. Um, it was, it was weird at first because we had to Jerry rig the setup and the threads are BSPT, not MPT. So they're British, which is weird. So like, uh, garden hose didn't fit NTP leaked, uh, et cetera, et cetera. But eventually we went to the store and got BSPT adapters and, uh,
00:23:03
Speaker
And then we had three guys, one's holding it, one's holding it in the bucket, one's holding it in the thing just to get it to work. And apparently you have to have it on full 10% adjustment in order to do the initial suction. So it'll actually suck more out of the barrel, like the oil, because we had it at low percent, like 2% or something just to test it. But that didn't create enough suction to suck all the air out of the line and actually bring coolant in.
00:23:30
Speaker
So anyway, started at 10% and then eventually worked great. And then it sounds like a clacking, like it's a piston that moves up and down. So it goes clack, clack, clack, clack. And once we got it adjusted, and then one of our guys, Steven, made a wooden stand for it real quick, but did an awesome job. And now it's more autonomous, and it just works. It just works so well. So one thought I had to fix my problem
00:23:58
Speaker
It's the more expensive route, but if you needed different concentrations at every machine, you could put a mixture on at every machine. Yeah. I had the same thought. I just need water to do it. I was sketching this out yesterday. I had that thought as well, and then I was like, well, that's too expensive. But then I was like, well, hold on. You could still do a hybrid. Yeah, like problem solved. You could do a mix-o-tron at your two or three most
00:24:17
Speaker
like high volume machines and then you could still have, and you could always add mixed trons as you go. That's what I like about my ideas, it gives you that flexibility. But then it's like, why are you having a cool barrel at each machine or are you taking a barrel and moving it into five gallon buckets? That's the other thing. Or who's refilling the five gallon buckets? Yeah. And then you've got to manage the five gallon buckets because you don't want to run that dry, especially in a more automated system. Yeah.
00:24:42
Speaker
The better solution now that we're talking this through might be to leave the mixatron back at the tote pump premix through but then if there's a way to digitally because like it just just adjust it and then hit what machine you want it to go to Oh
00:25:01
Speaker
The thing I guess I didn't like is I didn't like the idea of leaving. We've got a potentially 50, 60 foot run, so you've got that volume of whatever concentrate left in there, which will be different than maybe what you want. But also, I guess I didn't like the thought that it's just sitting there, but maybe that's not a problem. Yeah, the quality game guy said sitting there should not be a problem. If it eventually flows every week or something, as long as it doesn't
00:25:29
Speaker
Yeah, like sitting in the line, even sitting in a tote as a premix, as long as it's not sitting there for months, um, shouldn't be that bad of a, of an idea. And he wasn't too worried about it. Um, as long as it does flush through, you know, and you get new stuff, like don't leave 200 gallons in there, but leave, you know, 50 gallons and then it uses it and then fills more and then uses it again. Um, yeah, as long as it's flowing, it seems to work well, but.
Learning from Other Shops' Coolant Practices
00:25:59
Speaker
But yeah, so I'm working closer to the eventual plan of hands off autofill, but it's getting there. The focus on my mentality on this and anything we're doing is sustainability. That's become a big word for me. Not at all in the environmental sense. Sustainability meaning be ruthlessly honest with yourself about what you're trying to
00:26:26
Speaker
do or build or create or contemplate? Is it going to work by everybody involved? So when you think about these cooling systems, what is not sustainable? Are you just being unrealistic about the maintenance or effort involved for this to actually work? Because that's the beauty of the simplicity in its sustainability as a good system for the shop.
00:26:50
Speaker
Yeah, I like that. Well, I think most people's ours included like default way of filling coolant with a garden hose and a bucket and a cordless drill with the mixing attachment on the end. And like that's how we've been doing it for years and it sucks. I mean, it's fine. It's maintenance, whatever.
00:27:08
Speaker
It's not good. We always forget. Nobody wants to do it. That's not as sustainable as it could be. So I'm trying to eliminate variables just to keep people engaged and keep the process on point, keep it happening. The biggest problem I'm solving right now is
00:27:26
Speaker
Why, when water is 90% of your coolant mix, why are you moving water around the shop manually? You have the whole bucket thing. I'm not a huge fan of dragging hoses around the whole shop. Maybe you have a ... The other version is you could have one or two or three hex drops with real hoses and then just wheel a shorter hose over to the machine as needed. That could be an acceptable
00:27:52
Speaker
solution, but then I'm just thinking back to yesterday, I'm like, when I'm sitting at the UMC, I just want to hit a button and have some more water in the sump. I don't want to have to pull a hose reel out and sit there and aim it.
00:28:04
Speaker
Well, I watched the video of the Haas's autofill system. And from the control, don't you say I want seven gallons and it just dumps in seven gallons or something? Great point. So number one, that system apparently is, well, it's like, I don't know, $1,200. So it's more expensive than a Mixtron. We didn't have a great experience with it. We had it on one of our machines.
00:28:26
Speaker
The first one and it didn't really mix consistently in my opinion It's also needs to be fed consistently pressurized water In a perfect world. Yes, but I'm trying to do something that's a little bit more scalable and for frankly not that it's cheaper, but we didn't have a
00:28:45
Speaker
Whatever coat we were using, I think it was 250. I never remember the correct term for viscosity, but too thick, too much like a honey, I guess, for the proportional venturi thing to work well. We weren't getting the right proportion to it.
00:29:03
Speaker
But you're right, that's what you want.
Creative Challenges with New Machinery
00:29:04
Speaker
At the machine. Yeah, at the machine, you're like, oh, it's a little low. Yeah, another seven gallons would be fine, or five, or 20, or whatever. And that's more of a feel thing, and it certainly has to be manually managed in that scenario. But yeah, you're at the machine, you hit one button, and you keep working. Yeah. That's kind of a cool concept. What's what we saw at Metal Quest, which that video should be out in the next few weeks, that Nebraska shop with all the robots.
00:29:31
Speaker
Again, it comes back to what's sustainable and simple and meets the goals at hand and they wanted the kind of logging of the data points for their quality standards and so forth. I like the simplicity of it. It's a compromise, but it works. It makes it sustainable and they just pump straight water in to each machine, rigid lines, and then
00:29:52
Speaker
They measure the bricks before they add the waters, and then they say how much water it's going to add, and then the PLC software on the very user-friendly interface. You could do this, John, without any instruction. You could walk up and fix the coolant in their machine with no lessons.
00:30:08
Speaker
it then says, okay, you need to add 6.2 quarts or ounces or whatever of coolant. They just have a barrel wheels around with a farm agricultural style pump that lets you pump one way and it pulls coolant up into this meter and then the other way pushes it right out straight into the sump. The compromise there is you're not getting the forced agitation, but they've done it for years like that and
00:30:32
Speaker
with great results. It's kind of no different than how we used to do it manually. You'd fill a black 100 liter bucket, a rubber made tote with water and then you use a glass measuring cup, do a scoop of quality and then just pour it in. But then we'd agitate it with the drill.
00:30:49
Speaker
But like they do at Milterra, they put rigid water lines with RO water to every machine, and then they walk around with a five-gallon bucket and do the pre-mix at the machine as necessary. So that's preventing them from moving water around. So they take the water into a bucket, agitate it, and then just pour it in? Yeah, I didn't see that side of things, but that's the impression that I got. Got it. Well, hey, we've gone way too long in this podcast without using the K word.
00:31:18
Speaker
The K word. So I have a confession to make. And it's kind of a tongue in cheek funny one. You didn't crash. No, no, no. No, even worse.
First Project Decisions for Kern Machine
00:31:29
Speaker
I don't know what to make. What? Knives, John.
00:31:34
Speaker
Yeah, I know exactly. I know the end goal. I know like rasks are coming. I need to make rask parts, but like that first part, that first thing, like what is the very first thing I need to make? Um, it's not that I'm stuck on that, but I'm sort of like, I would do a chess pawn just because the whole goal of a current is to make parts that you could make on a lathe, but are now going to make on a mill.
00:31:56
Speaker
And the surface finish will be bad. Yeah, right. Did you see that watch face on Instagram? It's like, who are you guys? It's incredible. Yeah, exactly. Phil's launching a watch company. Yes, I'm kind of going back. I know. I'm kind of going back and forth between, do I make something like useless just to test like a square block or a round thing or contour or something? Or do I jump into something that I need, like either a
00:32:19
Speaker
I need to make fixtures for the racks. I've been designing that as well. I want to ask you a question. It's not a trick question or loaded question, but just answer, what's the first part you remember making on your grizzly in your garage? Oh.
00:32:35
Speaker
Once it was CNC, a cigar ashtray for my dad. Make another one. Well, that'd be sick now. Just something that it's like bookends your story. He must still have it. Well, or it could be play on that. But I think that's kind of fun. Like I have two parts that were very instrumental. One was a strike mark part. The other one was just a Delrin widget that had like a hex square circle on it. And that's my hello world. Hmm. I'll think about that. Yeah.
00:33:04
Speaker
So Kern's running, like you're a certified Kern operator now? I don't know about certified, but yes, I have the keys. So I turned it on on Monday, and I'm like there by myself, right? I'm like, OK, so Tony was here. He taught me how to do it. It wasn't necessarily training, because training starts next Monday. I've got four days. There's a guy coming from Germany from Kern to do four days of training. So that'll be awesome. It might actually be this Saturday.
00:33:33
Speaker
So he taught me how to turn it on and everything. So I go to turn it on. I'm like, OK, you got to hold this button for two seconds. And then you got to push CE to clear the air. And then you got to push this on button, because there's two separate on buttons. And then it turns on. And all the clicks and turns on, lights turn on. You can hear the air flowing. And then I'm like, OK, now what? So I take the jog wheel. And I jog around the B and the C. And I'm like, cool, this is cool. And then I go to the MDI. And I type in B0, C0, just to home everything.
00:34:00
Speaker
And it gives this weird alarm. And I'm like, I don't know what this means.
Kern Machine Setup and Training
00:34:05
Speaker
And I keep trying other stuff and I'll clear the alarm and try it again. And I'm like, I'm missing something.
00:34:11
Speaker
So then eventually I talked to Tony at Kern and he's like, he's like, well, did you reference the machine? Did you home it? I'm like, no, I don't think so. I don't know. So after the boot up sequence, you're supposed to, you're supposed to hit cycle start as the very first key without anything else. Oh, like that feels strange.
00:34:33
Speaker
Cause it's like the machine opens up into, uh, MDI, I guess, or manual mode. Um, and then it just automatically opens this little warmup program that'll reference every access Z and then X and Y and then B and C. And then ask you if you want to do a spindle warmup.
00:34:52
Speaker
And then you click yes, and then it warms up the spindle and everything. So that's the step that I missed. And I was able to hand jog it, but not do anything else. But it was funny because I was there and I'm like, I almost have no idea what I'm doing right now because I, I'm just fresh and there's no instructor right beside me. And, uh, yeah, it was, it was funny, nerve wracking. So I thought that training was, I mean, I saw the Instagram stuff that they were there for so long that that was more just like set up, not training.
00:35:21
Speaker
Yeah. Interesting. I mean, we certainly went through every screen, pushed every button. I get the gist of stuff, but we didn't make any. Have you posted code out from Fusion even just to show the workflow? OK. No. Got it. Not to the current, but I did do that for Camplete playing. So I found some 5-axis stuff, and I just posted it through Camplete and eventually figured out you have to open the Proj file, not the PPE or whatever it is.
00:35:51
Speaker
And that confused me until I guessed that right. And yes, I think I've got a basic workflow there. So today, I'm going to go to the shop and make something on the current. And very much looking forward to that. Nothing crazy simultaneous five-axis. I just want to make a stupid three-axis part and get the workflow down.
00:36:13
Speaker
get used to things. And then on Friday, I'm going up to complete to do proper complete training with us and some other stuff. So that I'm looking forward to that.
Camplete Training and Machine Integration Plans
00:36:25
Speaker
Awesome.
00:36:27
Speaker
Do you have any bullet points that I should be asking about or? Camplete. Or need to dive in. For camplete. Yeah. I would say focus on your core workflow. We did some training, a training session where they showed us some really cool things like polar interpolation and adding points and smoothing and amazing capabilities. But I think it's overwhelming. I think it's software that has a little bit of a dated UI, which
00:36:56
Speaker
It's just different and focus on what you need to know and get that down before you take it to the next level. So like I know our process well about importing it, loading the machine profile, how to do the simulation, focus on the different ways you can simulate stuff like emphasis on time or collisions. Look at like when you find a tool
00:37:18
Speaker
Like I can show you collisions between the part and the tool, between the tool and the fixture, between the spindle and the machine, and then how to jump to that line of code. And then what's going to fix it? Is it a longer gauge length or a longer stick out or riser in your fixture? That kind of stuff.
00:37:35
Speaker
Nice. But you'll quickly get an idea of, like we still use Fusion a lot for a proxy of like, okay, I know with a five inch gauge length tolder, and if I stay a quarter inch off of the fifth axis fixture, I know my spindle is going to be clear of the B-axis platter, because you want to learn that stuff before you get to complete if possible. Yeah. Right. So you avoid it completely.
00:38:02
Speaker
Yeah. Cool. It's awesome. Cool. Cool. The other thing I have to do is machine some of the Aroa pallets to mount the fifth axis vices properly. Got it. So that's kind of an easy like drill and tap a hole or thread mill a hole.
00:38:16
Speaker
So, that's some work I got to do for sure. Awesome. Well, speaking of German machines, we have some exciting news. Okay. We've been in the talks for a few months now and this was a real... I'm proud of this because this is a real win. We are getting a Datron Neo for about six months.
00:38:38
Speaker
in a partnership with them. So it's on our machine. I want to be very upfront about that. But what they want is they want an unproven cut.
00:38:48
Speaker
And that was just an awesome validation of what we're doing.
Partnership with Datron Neo for Machining Techniques
00:38:52
Speaker
Provencut, focusing in on helping people learn how to run their machine speeds and feeds. And Datron is such a good example because it's a little bit of a different machine. The RPMs, the way it can move and adapt to tool paths, the coolant style, all that stuff. So we're going to be building out a whole workflow of recipes, both on aluminum and the easy stuff. But then it's pretty cool. You can actually cut steel and tool steels with a Datron, which is kind of crazy.
00:39:17
Speaker
Yes, I'm very excited for that because I'm a huge fan of App Machine. I think it's fantastic. And you and Ed are going to have a real hoot playing with that thing. So it's kind of like work meets pleasure. I was like, do you guys care if we make some Johnny Five parts? And they're like, of course not, more than happy.
00:39:34
Speaker
But there's also work to do, which is we wanted to be a win-win where I think about there's a couple of places I know that have Datrons that have people coming through that aren't machinists or need to make parts, not become experts on speeds and fees. And this should be a really good value for them.
00:39:53
Speaker
Yeah, I actually looked very hard into buying one about a year or two ago. And it just ended up the price to benefit ratio didn't end up matching with what I needed for us. So we bought two used UMAX instead. However,
00:40:09
Speaker
Um, it is a very cool machine and speeds and feeds are going to be totally different than what you, than what anybody is used to on a conventional mill. Yeah. Especially the, uh, feed part of it. Cause those things can cook. That's what's going to be cool in daytron because they're so light and heavy. Daytron makes a really good tool. I think you use, do you use their phone cutter?
00:40:32
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I use the three in three flute cutter for foam in both eighth inch and in quarter inch and fantastic. It's like sharp and amazing. I'm actually dulling it by cutting so much foam. Really? Wow. Yeah, it rounds the edge for sure.
Exploring New Hex Collets from Maritool
00:40:51
Speaker
Cool.
00:40:52
Speaker
The other super, super random thing I just saw on social somewhere is Maritool is now selling or offering ER hex collets. I only laughed because like six months ago, I had a problem and I was like, this would work if I could find a hex collet for an ER, whatever, 20 or 32. I could not for the life of me, you go to all the big players, find anybody making
00:41:16
Speaker
hex collets for ER platform. And I just chuckled when I saw that they like as of recently started offering them.
00:41:24
Speaker
That's cool. It'd be great for a workpiece holding. Yeah, that's what it was, a fixture of some kind. Yeah, yeah. Do you use, you have the fifth axis ER32 mount thing for your belt, right? It's ER40. We retrofitted an old bison lathe chuck onto a rock lock base, and we use that more because it has a T wrench, so it's actually a quicker
00:41:52
Speaker
to load and unload with a 5C there than it is to undo an ER thing. But if I was fortunate enough to own an 80-pallet Aroa system, I would probably go the ER route.
00:42:10
Speaker
Cool. But then you need a stock of ER collets, ER 40s, which I do not have. Yeah, 40 seems weird just because we have a lot of 32s, but that's still way cheaper than, I mean, the Bison 5C chuck is expensive.
00:42:26
Speaker
Are you going to do that kind of round part work on the, not really, but every now and then you just, you kind of wish you did, but, um, I'm learning that, uh, not only is sometimes around stock cheaper than square stock as Ken was telling us a while ago, um, like for making the tombstones for the, for the Aroa pallets, uh, turns out that four inch by four inch.
00:42:52
Speaker
is more expensive and harder to get than a five and a half inch round. What? That I can then slice down to four inch. You're talking about round? What kind of material is this? 41.40. You're buying five and a half inch round 41.40 material? Holy cow, that's some real steel. That's some holy cow. So I'll hog it out on the mori and get it down to size. Okay, interesting.
00:43:18
Speaker
Yeah. Speaking of round parts, of the opposite diameter, I finished up our little toothpick challenge yesterday. If you saw what Tom lived in this. I didn't see. Yeah. I've seen the challenge. I'm actually pretty happy on what machine. Obviously, the UMC 750.
00:43:40
Speaker
Although I'm basically using it in a way that we could have done it on a fourth axis Torvok or even the low lathe. I think our entry will be a little unique. We'll see.
Concluding Thoughts on Machining Challenges and Innovations
00:43:55
Speaker
The other thing I wanted to mention is what we're going to do for ChipRag. Our newsletter is at a collaboration section.
00:44:02
Speaker
This is going to be our way of keeping folks in the know on the collaboration stuff that we're doing, but then also when we see collaborations like Tom's, we'll throw it out there because sometimes when I'm scrolling through my Instagram feed, I don't always see or miss something and it'll be nice. Hopefully, if we can pull this off to have a way of keeping folks in the loop on pretty cool stuff like this, whether you want to participate or just see what other folks have done. Love it.
00:44:27
Speaker
But yeah, I'm holding this little toothpick in my hand, and it is sharp. It's pretty cool. Nice. Well, throw up whatever you make on Insta. I want to see on the current first chips. Yeah. So you have all your tools set up, and I programmed.
00:44:45
Speaker
Well, okay. Funny thing about that real quick is I bought a Rigofix PG collets, like the hydraulic press fit things. Except the pressing device, the big clamping unit is the European version. So it's 230 volt, 50 Hertz. No.
00:45:06
Speaker
not 240 volt, 60 Hertz. So we don't want to rewire it and run it here. So we've been talking with Rigo and Rigo US is going to send us an American version and I'm going to return this one to German. Oh, it came with the Kern. Is that why it's for Germany? Yeah. Cause they, it was purchased in Germany and, uh, and Kern bought it as part of the tooling package. And it's like, Oh, so it's a good thing. I bought 10 ER 16 holders. So I have 10 usable.
00:45:35
Speaker
ER holders, which is fine for plenty of testing. Yeah, just a bit of a surprise. So I should have that one, I don't know, within a week or so. What happens if you plug a 50 Hertz device into 60 Hertz power? I think you get something like 10% or 20% more power, so the clamping might be more and I don't know. We're probably not worth learning what happens. Exactly, right?
00:46:06
Speaker
Cool. Sounds good. See you next week. All right. Take care. Bye.