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#445 SendCutSend machining
3.1k Plays17 days ago
Topics:
- Motorized ball valves and "Shelley plus one" and "switchbot"
- Diffraction Limited "Micro Manipulator Project"
- White light interferometer
- SendCutSend machining
- Scrapped 30 blades
- Put a moat in the calendar
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Longevity
00:00:00
johngrimsmo
Good morning and welcome to the Business of Machining episode 445. My name is John Grimsmo.
00:00:06
John Saunders
My name is John Sotters.
00:00:08
johngrimsmo
And this is the manufacturing podcast where John and John crunch out their business plans and ideas and problems and successes and just stuff that's on our mind running our manufacturing businesses that are now, like mine's like 15 years old now.
00:00:24
John Saunders
Isn't that crazy?
00:00:26
johngrimsmo
Yup.
00:00:27
John Saunders
Yeah. Well, that reminded me of a blurb I saw that I'm assuming the stat is real, but it said, uh, 50% of podcasts don't make it past eight episodes.
00:00:37
John Saunders
So congratulations. We're on episode 445.
00:00:40
johngrimsmo
Yeah, we've done whatever that is 20 times more than that.
00:00:44
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah. But I don't know. We'll see if this, we'll see if this thing lasts.
00:00:48
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah, we'll play it. it's been it It hasn't been eight episodes. It's been eight years. Ten, probably.
Podcast Format and Guest Considerations
00:00:54
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah.
00:00:54
johngrimsmo
But i i enjoy chatting with you.
00:00:55
John Saunders
But maybe the,
00:00:57
John Saunders
you know, it's funny because earlier on you and I both had the kind of urge to like figure out like, hey, how do we bring in our friends and guests and like people in the industry? We were so passionate about sharing and learning and you know, we clearly never did. And I think we're better off for it because it's the reason we've had eight years of talking is that like,
00:01:14
John Saunders
You and I put zero effort into this podcast. It's just me and you talking. And then you've got guys like Dylan and now like a plethora of others that have really stepped in and I couldn't, I give him a ton of credit.
00:01:18
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:01:25
John Saunders
I couldn't at this point begin to do what they do with that format.
00:01:27
johngrimsmo
Yeah, no. Like the interview style format and it's great and we've had guests ask to come on all the time and we just, that's not what we do.
00:01:29
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:01:35
johngrimsmo
That's not what this podcast is and I'm totally okay with that.
00:01:35
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah.
00:01:38
johngrimsmo
Just becomes an an intimate private conversation that nobody listens to between you and me.
00:01:38
John Saunders
Although
00:01:41
John Saunders
yes
00:01:43
John Saunders
What I would love to do, and you can say no to Like really, you can say no, is sometime this year, do something like we did years ago where it's like somebody, I don't even care if it was contest.
00:01:47
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:01:51
John Saunders
I think we did it as a Patreon thing before. But um if somebody wants to come on and have a quote unquote private conversation, and I always even hesitate to say, ask our advice, like we're qualified to give it.
00:01:53
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:02:01
John Saunders
But nevertheless, like have a conversation with us. But it is podcast. I'm not against, I think it could be interesting.
00:02:05
johngrimsmo
I'm not against that. It was really fun when we did it before. Didn't we not post it and record it? It was private with the one guy.
00:02:11
John Saunders
think that you're right. think was a reward, it was a private podcast.
00:02:13
johngrimsmo
Exactly.
Organizational Habits and Project Updates
00:02:14
johngrimsmo
Which I'm not against.
00:02:14
John Saunders
Can we do three ways on this?
00:02:16
johngrimsmo
I don't, I don't know. Probably.
00:02:18
John Saunders
Whatever. Okay.
00:02:19
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I will think about it. um But it is it is fun. And whenever I talk to other business owners and leaders and stuff, I'm like, either they're asking me questions or I'm asking them all kinds of questions and that's it's fun.
00:02:31
John Saunders
Yes, it really is um
00:02:32
johngrimsmo
So we'll see. but But the core ethos of this podcast is you and I just hashing it out.
00:02:37
John Saunders
Yes.
00:02:38
johngrimsmo
so
00:02:38
John Saunders
Yep. Yep. Um, something I'd struggle with and I'm trying to do better job as it is like this conversation spurs thoughts in my head, but I also need to do a better job of being present and not, I don't, I worry that sometimes I come off as like i'm multitasking you and it's not, it's just me like, Oh, now I need to make a note about this to, um, yeah.
00:02:47
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:02:57
johngrimsmo
ah Sure. Well, and that's that's why i write things down. I write everything down um because otherwise I'll forget about it.
00:03:02
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:03:06
John Saunders
Well, that's what I started doing. I keep that credit to you. i keep a what do you call your notebooks? Saga notebooks?
00:03:11
johngrimsmo
Pocket book.
00:03:12
John Saunders
Pocketbook.
00:03:12
johngrimsmo
but Yeah.
00:03:13
John Saunders
I've now EDC'd one in my back pocket for for months now.
00:03:15
johngrimsmo
Yes.
00:03:17
John Saunders
Like it's got a really good, uh, that's the John Saunders tush right there.
00:03:17
johngrimsmo
Look at that butt shape. Yes.
00:03:21
johngrimsmo
Got some good wear.
00:03:21
John Saunders
Um, but then I also bought a really trashy, um, visor for my car. So, ah so I have a a pen, a pencil and, um, and another Grimsoe notebook up there.
00:03:28
johngrimsmo
Okay. yeah
00:03:36
John Saunders
And cause I don't want to be on my phone like, aside from the legality of texting drive. I just don't want to on it. So now I can, um, pull that out and jot down notes in that. And it works great.
00:03:46
johngrimsmo
Yep, I have absolutely done the lean, pulled out my notebook and like quickly written some down to the stoplight or something like that.
Servo Control and Robotics Applications
00:03:52
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah.
00:03:54
johngrimsmo
Cool. Okay, on my list today, update on speedio bevels. Quick question on send cut send machining.
00:04:03
John Saunders
Oh yeah.
00:04:03
johngrimsmo
um
00:04:04
John Saunders
That's too funny. had that as a note as well.
00:04:05
johngrimsmo
No way. Field detent issue, which is kind of a big issue. ah Our detent dropper, which we've talked about many years ago, but I can update you on that.
00:04:13
John Saunders
Oh.
00:04:15
johngrimsmo
And then ah Tucker says hi.
00:04:18
John Saunders
Hey, Tuck. Awesome.
00:04:19
johngrimsmo
Tuck and his wife and their new baby Benjamin, two month old, just popped by the shop an hour ago on their way by and said hi.
00:04:24
John Saunders
Oh, fun.
00:04:28
John Saunders
Awesome.
00:04:28
johngrimsmo
So I got to take ah a baby picture and show it to my wife because she always loves seeing baby pictures.
00:04:28
John Saunders
Awesome.
00:04:33
johngrimsmo
She's jealous when I get to hold a baby and she doesn't.
00:04:36
John Saunders
Well, he had DMed me because he saw a of something. So about the Johnny Five build, which I'm assuming would tie into what he's trying to do with his phenomenal Iron Man suit.
00:04:49
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:04:50
John Saunders
So we're using Maestros, which is a product from Polulu, which has somewhere between eight and 24 servo connections, depending on which size you buy.
00:05:00
John Saunders
And then you can write these little sequences or scripts, which is sort of like, it's just like, it's like stop animation.
00:05:00
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:05:06
John Saunders
Like you're like, okay, move all the servers to this position, save that scene. Now move them all to this position, save that scene. And then you can play that back and you can add delay delays and accelerations. And so um it's a very simple way.
00:05:19
John Saunders
So for Johnny five, we'll record a scene that'll have him say, move his arms up, move them together, roll his head, twist his torso, look at you and say, your mama was a snowblower. Um, the maestros are how you can pre-record that.
00:05:31
John Saunders
That way you don't have to try to like manipulate joystick controls to replicate that every time from scratch.
00:05:36
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:05:37
John Saunders
And so I don't know, sorry, he stopped Mike cause he was asking me like, I hadn't heard of these and it sounds like he hadn't either.
00:05:41
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:05:43
John Saunders
They're not expensive and it's fun.
00:05:45
johngrimsmo
That sounds amazing. And in his suit, he's got, I don't know how many servos in his arm, arm flaps and wing flaps and helmet up and down and all this stuff. That's cool.
00:05:55
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah. Well, on that note, I'll steal the thunder real quick and share that on Sunday, Johnny Five had his kind of like private, what I'm going to call his first ever debut.
00:06:07
John Saunders
We had friends over for the Super Bowl.
00:06:08
johngrimsmo
Oh,
00:06:10
John Saunders
I got everybody around. And Johnny Five is I'm not going to say he's done, but every single thing now functions on him.
00:06:20
johngrimsmo
that's incredible.
00:06:21
John Saunders
Yes. Like every arm, every joint, torso, head, motion, twist, sound, audio.
00:06:23
johngrimsmo
oh
00:06:27
John Saunders
um I need to tweak stuff. I need to fix stuff. I need to change parameters. I need to get some covers, like a few last covers on him. But like at this point, he's there.
00:06:38
John Saunders
And it feels really good to say that.
00:06:38
johngrimsmo
Oh my goodness. Good for you, man.
00:06:40
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:06:41
johngrimsmo
I can imagine him rolling out with a plate of nachos. like
00:06:44
John Saunders
So it's actually all, uh, I'll, I'll, what's I'll put, I should put up on Institute, or I'll DM you a video after we hang up of showing him.
00:06:49
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Okay.
00:06:51
John Saunders
It's pretty fun.
00:06:52
johngrimsmo
Good for you, man.
00:06:52
John Saunders
I'm, I'm yeah. To take a step back and like watch him do that stuff on his own. um i mean, I could have
Home Automation Projects
00:07:00
John Saunders
cried. Like I'm being serious. Like it was very awesome. And and to see everybody like yes.
00:07:02
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:07:04
John Saunders
Cause he's not a buckle to bolts anymore. He's this thing.
00:07:06
johngrimsmo
Right, right.
00:07:09
johngrimsmo
That's exciting.
00:07:13
John Saunders
what you got?
00:07:14
johngrimsmo
Oh, I already said my list. What's your list?
00:07:16
John Saunders
Oh, oh, oh, dude, freaking huge win that I'm going to blow your mind with Shelly devices. We'll come back to them. um
00:07:24
johngrimsmo
OK. I don't know what that is.
00:07:26
John Saunders
Greasing pull studs, brother tool life, Mitsutoyu and QC gauges and processes around that, send send machining. and then And then I need to get scratch this one off my list, which is just fiber laser stuff. And then um kind of an open conversation about AI agents.
00:07:43
johngrimsmo
Okay, perfect. Well, jump in with your first one then.
00:07:45
John Saunders
Yep.
00:07:46
johngrimsmo
What's a Shelly thing?
00:07:47
John Saunders
Okay, we the new Haas UMC 400 that we have does not have a coolant shutoff valve near the spindle like every other Haas machine we own has.
00:07:58
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:07:59
John Saunders
And we used to rotate those to physically close them. That way, if you want to do a hose washdown, you're not getting blasted with the spindle ring coolant.
00:08:07
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:08:07
John Saunders
um I don't know why this doesn't have it. um Frankly, I didn't ever love them because you always run the risk of leaving it shut off and then you will tend to damage parts and tooling, all that.
00:08:18
John Saunders
And so Grant had the ask of, um can we, build a smart solution for this. So, um, side note, we've done this with solenoids before where when the Z is all the way up, which is of course when it's all the way up, it's not machining.
00:08:30
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:08:35
John Saunders
When the Z is all the way up, we just automatically shut those lines off of the solenoid. Solenoids suck longterm. They like can overheat and break. I just don't, I don't like them. And you're not going
Precision Projects in Microscopy
00:08:44
John Saunders
to convince me otherwise. And in this situation, but what we have had a lot of muck luck with are these motorized ball valves.
00:08:46
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:08:50
johngrimsmo
OK.
00:08:51
John Saunders
And so when you,
00:08:51
johngrimsmo
Where the the ball itself actually rotates with a motor.
00:08:55
John Saunders
Correct. And in these instances in particular, it's normally open.
00:08:56
johngrimsmo
OK.
00:08:58
John Saunders
So you default or fail with the coolant on. When you apply voltage, it rotates and closes the valve. But what's cool is there's a capacitor inside. So if you kill power to it or something happens, the capacitor will reopen the valve out.
00:09:14
johngrimsmo
Really
00:09:15
John Saunders
So it still fails.
00:09:17
johngrimsmo
safe or NC or NO depending on whatever you're buying.
00:09:17
John Saunders
The device fails in ah in a safe operating mode, which I love.
00:09:22
John Saunders
yeah Well, you can actually buy NC versions as well, but this is an NO version.
00:09:25
johngrimsmo
That's I mean, yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:09:25
John Saunders
Yeah. So what we wanted was a button and I want to push this button and want it to close for 30 seconds or 60 seconds. Now I am on a automation kick right now with UR robots and clicks and home assistant, but I also,
00:09:34
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:09:36
johngrimsmo
Yeah, totally.
00:09:42
John Saunders
want to keep things simple. And so this is the Holy grail. This is a 25 device, $25 device called a Shelly plus one. They make a, to their fault, they make too many variants.
00:09:53
John Saunders
Um, but you buy it, you plug it in, you download the app. It syncs to your phone with the app, um, which you only need to set it up once.
00:10:03
John Saunders
you don't need to keep your phone there.
00:10:04
johngrimsmo
You're creating a routine.
00:10:06
John Saunders
Bingo.
00:10:06
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:10:07
John Saunders
Um, and in this instance, I just went to a menu. It's like super user friendly and intuitive. And I just said timer. And I said, when the device is powered on automatically turn it off after 60 seconds.
00:10:18
John Saunders
And now when this is powered on and I hit this button, it turns, shuts the cooling off for 60 seconds and then the defaults to open. My next step that I want to do is also to then add a LCD display of the timer so that the user knows where it's at.
00:10:30
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:10:32
John Saunders
Um,
00:10:32
johngrimsmo
Can you drive that from that device?
00:10:35
John Saunders
I believe so.
00:10:36
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:10:36
John Saunders
um I believe so. And it's just a huge, it's just a huge win.
00:10:39
johngrimsmo
Sick.
00:10:41
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:10:41
johngrimsmo
That's...
00:10:42
John Saunders
And now put this in a printer box and there's no more IOT. There's no cloud. There's no subscription. Done. Yeah.
00:10:47
johngrimsmo
No, that is a direct solution. You don't need anything more complicated. So is it a relay? Is it a solid the state relay?
00:10:53
John Saunders
It's a, it's it's a relay with an E, what is it?
00:10:54
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:10:57
John Saunders
The ES32 or ESP32 stuff with the, which is frigging cool.
00:10:58
johngrimsmo
okay Yeah. yeah Which I'm starting to worry more about. Yeah. um Wow. I wonder, yeah, everything's got a voltage cap rating, all that stuff, current rating.
00:11:07
John Saunders
So
00:11:12
johngrimsmo
um
00:11:12
John Saunders
yeah, this is way inside that.
00:11:13
johngrimsmo
Yeah. yep Cool.
00:11:16
John Saunders
Well, so total... relevant tangent is I, my wife's garage door opener has never worked well. I get, you have to be super close to it. I don't want to buy a new garage door opener when it works otherwise.
00:11:26
John Saunders
And so I found these things called switch bots, which is a separate company. I believe it's a Shelly device. It looks like one and it, um, we have old garage door openers. So all you have to do is short, like when you push the button on the wall, it just, the, but Literally the button is just shorting two things together and it opens. I believe newer ones have some not rolling codes, but something that makes that more annoyingly complicated to do.
00:11:51
John Saunders
and And the new garage door openers, those people are being turds about like wanting you in their ecosystem to sign up to monthly subscriptions for IoT, which screw that. So SwitchBot,
00:12:00
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:12:02
John Saunders
um will tie in Siri parallel to be able to open your garage door with your phone. And then it also has a little read switch that you can detect when the door's down or not.
00:12:13
John Saunders
um That's great. I installed it. It worked easy in one night, but here's where it's awesome now. Now, tie you can tie the
Project Prioritization and Resource Management
00:12:22
John Saunders
SwitchBots into Home Assistant.
00:12:23
John Saunders
And now, when I, i'm sorry, I've not done this yet, but I'm going to be doing this tonight. And I know you can do it. When I'm in my car, which means my phone is currently paired to my car, and I'm moving more than five miles an hour, and I'm approaching my house and I get within 400 feet, my garage door automatically opens.
00:12:41
johngrimsmo
Sick. And why not?
00:12:42
John Saunders
Right?
00:12:43
johngrimsmo
It's one of those things like like not going to a gas station.
00:12:43
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:12:46
johngrimsmo
Like why would you with an electric car, you know?
00:12:47
John Saunders
Yeah, exactly. Yep. So it's just fine.
00:12:51
johngrimsmo
of Of course you want your garage door to open up before you even get there.
00:12:54
John Saunders
Yes. Are
00:12:55
johngrimsmo
I love it.
00:12:58
johngrimsmo
That's cool.
00:12:58
John Saunders
you speedy?
00:12:58
johngrimsmo
i'm gonna I'm going to look up those those Shelly devices. And my version of ESP32, whatever it's called, is Raspberry Pi Pico.
00:13:08
John Saunders
Okay.
00:13:08
johngrimsmo
It's Raspberry Pi's version of that. um So I got one both for vibration sensing, which I've been playing a lot with, learning how to send code to it, all that stuff, and it's been going great.
00:13:16
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:13:19
johngrimsmo
And then I also have one, it's part of that um that YouTube channel, Diffraction Limited, and their micromanipulator project.
00:13:29
John Saunders
Okay.
00:13:29
johngrimsmo
with ah that the microscope stage, right?
00:13:30
John Saunders
Oh yes! Sick.
00:13:32
johngrimsmo
I bought all this stuff for that, either to make one of those or theoretically to apply that logic to my white light interferometer, because I need one or more motorized accesses.
00:13:32
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:13:41
John Saunders
Okay. Yeah.
00:13:43
johngrimsmo
So I'm going to use the Raspberry Pi Pico to drive the stepper motors, as well as all the lights and all that stuff that I need. So that's what I've been playing with for that. And it's opening my eyes to those kinds of devices.
00:13:57
John Saunders
Can you, okay. Can you remind me and the audience, number one, that what to search for to find that video, but also like this guy, when you watch the video, you realize this guy's like the Robin Renzetti of this world.
00:14:08
John Saunders
Like he's not making this stuff up and what the tolerances or res, the movement repeat,
00:14:13
johngrimsmo
Yeah. So basically, the channel is diffraction limited, and the project is called the micromanipulator project. And basically what he did is he created a very tiny little, probably less than six by six cubed inch device, which can move a tiny little stage.
00:14:32
johngrimsmo
i I forget the distance, 50 millimeters side to side.
00:14:35
John Saunders
Two inches or so, yeah.
00:14:36
johngrimsmo
Yeah. um With 10 nanometer precision, something like that.
00:14:41
John Saunders
yeah
00:14:42
johngrimsmo
um
00:14:43
John Saunders
Wait, ne in a current is like one or two microns.
00:14:43
johngrimsmo
Repeatable, no backlash.
00:14:47
johngrimsmo
Exactly. This is a thousand times less than that.
00:14:48
John Saunders
What's the difference between... Wait, a thousand?
00:14:52
johngrimsmo
A nanometer is a thousandth of one micron.
00:14:56
John Saunders
Are you serious?
00:14:56
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:14:57
John Saunders
Oh my God.
00:14:58
johngrimsmo
yeah And so he's he's proving in this video feed that he's moving the stage, maybe it's 50 nanometers. And he's drawing and tracing, like he wrote a program to trace his movements on the screen and leave the path as it moves.
00:15:12
johngrimsmo
And he's tracing a benchy.
00:15:12
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:15:14
johngrimsmo
that is like 100 nanometers tall. And it's proving that the the his little manipulator can move the device.
00:15:17
John Saunders
Oh.
00:15:20
johngrimsmo
So it's utilized or could be utilized for a lot of different industries, including microscopy, where you like you put this under a microscope and now you can move your biological sample or whatever to like stupid, and insane precision at full zoom.
00:15:20
John Saunders
Oh, my God.
00:15:33
johngrimsmo
And like there's no backlash, there's no shaking, there's no whatever.
00:15:33
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:15:37
johngrimsmo
And once I saw that, I was like, I don't know how, but I have to use this, what he's learned into my own project.
00:15:42
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:15:43
johngrimsmo
Whether I build his thing directly, which I kind of want to, but I don't need to, or i want to use some of that logic on the interferometer that i'm building to get my fringe sweep movements and things like that.
00:15:45
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:15:53
John Saunders
Dude. I remember why I need to rewatch it, but I enjoyed his sort of humility and and self-deprecation when he was even like, think he did something like, Oh, originally I was going to do ball joints here, but then there's, I'm making this like hysteresis and there's fraction resistance to here.
00:16:08
John Saunders
So you want to change it to this and you're like, Oh my gosh, like I can actually follow it. I could never come up with it. It was very well done.
00:16:13
johngrimsmo
Yeah. yeah Yeah. And he's got a great way of explaining that. um
00:16:18
John Saunders
That's cool.
00:16:18
johngrimsmo
Super enjoyable. I love those super nerdy videos that act, especially when they can kind of apply to something I want to do or like, it's fun to watch something cool, but I'm watching it going, oh my goodness, this is my future.
00:16:25
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:16:30
johngrimsmo
Like something in here is, yeah, it's really opened my eyes.
00:16:32
John Saunders
Yep. Yeah, yeah, 100%.
00:16:34
johngrimsmo
Um, Yeah, which takes me to like on both the interferometer project and the vision system microscope, which might end up being the same thing eventually. um I want an X, Y gantry table underneath to be able to move a sample side to side and stitch images.
00:16:49
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:16:52
johngrimsmo
Take a snapshot, move over half an inch, take a snapshot, move over half an inch and stitch the whole file together so that I have a map.
00:16:54
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:16:58
johngrimsmo
Because the problem with both of those styles of microscope is your your field of view is like less than a a coin you know you can only see a tiny little area.
00:17:05
John Saunders
who
00:17:07
johngrimsmo
And the more you zoom in, the more resolution you get, but the tinier it is.
00:17:07
John Saunders
Oh
00:17:10
johngrimsmo
So at the max zoom of one of my microscopes or one of my lenses, I get like um sixty thousand viewing area
00:17:18
John Saunders
my god.
00:17:19
johngrimsmo
You know like one and a half millimeters squared.
00:17:21
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:17:22
johngrimsmo
i don't get to see much, but if you have a stitching table, you can move, scan, move, scan, move, scan, and then automatically compile with OpenCV, automatically compile all the frames, um and then have a full map of a handle or a blade or whatever it is I'm scanning.
00:17:26
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:17:37
johngrimsmo
So, you're really cool.
00:17:38
John Saunders
Really cool.
00:17:39
johngrimsmo
So, I'm picking away at that still, having a lot of fun with it. But yeah, I've been on a couple couple of deep dives lately of, do I buy an XY, like microscope slide table kind of thing? Do I retrofit one? Do I buy something on eBay and add steppers to it? Do I just make one from scratch? There's a lot of options and all have their upsides and downsides.
00:17:59
johngrimsmo
The like proper ones are thousands of dollars. And I'm like, er part of me just wants to solve the problem, but...
00:18:03
John Saunders
Why not? Why not buy a 30, the Harbor Freight version of this, get it working, knowing that you're, the accuracy is unacceptable, but then you can just, ah like if you break down all these barriers, then you go back and say, okay, now I need to add the.
00:18:17
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I have thought about that. Yeah. I've looked at everything on AliExpress. I've looked at everything on Amazon and everything I can find. And just, um I don't know where I want to go with this. So I'm collecting data.
00:18:27
John Saunders
Yeah, fair enough.
00:18:30
johngrimsmo
I might end up just building a little XY slide table myself with a ball screw and stepper motor.
00:18:38
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:18:39
johngrimsmo
And it doesn't need to be like nanometer accurate, but it'd be super sick if it was.
00:18:46
John Saunders
What'll be sick is when you get this working.
00:18:48
johngrimsmo
Exactly. and that's And then what happens is, you know in the evenings, I go so deep down that rabbit hole, I'm like, I will need XY movement maybe 10% of the time that I actually want to use this this machine.
00:18:48
John Saunders
Like, don't, don't this, don't be wrong way, but like.
00:19:01
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:19:02
johngrimsmo
There's no point putting tons of my effort into that 10% now, when that 90% of value from it is having just scanning one image and having that done.
00:19:05
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:19:11
johngrimsmo
So let's get that working first.
00:19:13
John Saunders
Thank Yes. Yes. Like Johnny five, his, his eyes don't have full left to right range of motion. And it bothers me because I know they could.
00:19:20
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:19:20
John Saunders
I'm like, John, no, number one, no one's going even notice. And number two, like it's there, no one else, like one other person the U S has built this thing. No, one's going to be like, Oh, that thing looks like you really cut the corner on that.
00:19:33
John Saunders
And you just realize like, and I, but I had to tell myself it's okay. I write it down on my longterm, like things I could come back to list and then move on, get the damn thing finished.
00:19:37
johngrimsmo
yeah but that could that could put you back two months if you really cared if you did that first right
00:19:43
John Saunders
100%. Yeah. yeah
00:19:46
johngrimsmo
both with thee the confusion delay of like, I don't i don't know how to solve it yet, so I'm not done yet, but also the the time actually doing it.
00:19:55
John Saunders
Well, and there's also, you don't know what battles you're going to face. Like, i don't know what the details are of this project, but clearly that's like, it's a pretty complicated project because you've got software, hardware, coding, um, analysis and like, sure.
00:20:06
johngrimsmo
It's like all new to me.
00:20:07
John Saunders
If, if everything else went great, then in like three days of working on the project, you might come back and fix the X, Y table. But the reality is you might realize actually what I need to be spending my time on is this open CV code that I need to hire an Upwork CS guy to help me, whatever, you know what i mean?
00:20:21
johngrimsmo
Well, not anymore, but yeah.
00:20:24
John Saunders
Touche.
00:20:25
johngrimsmo
um But but the the caveat is as I'm building the whole system, I can build like all the mechanical device for an X, Y table.
00:20:26
John Saunders
That actually is funny.
00:20:35
johngrimsmo
So part of my lizard brain just goes, yeah, but if you plan for it now, you don't have to like finish it, but at least the design is capable of having an X, Y table like like mechanically fit and all that stuff.
00:20:48
johngrimsmo
Or I just build it however I can quickly do it to have results, and then I'll have to rebuild it later, which is probably fine, but i don't know
00:20:56
John Saunders
Dude, I'm, I'm, you and I are different and that's a good thing. Like, and I love you cause you will do your own way and you're stubborn in that way, but like get it working, knowing that you're going to get it working.
00:21:05
johngrimsmo
know. Yeah.
00:21:10
John Saunders
You're going to realize how freaking awesome this is. And then you're going to still tweak it. So, you know, you're going to tweak anyways, just get working. Who cares?
00:21:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:21:17
John Saunders
Like do the Harbor freight table. Um, that's a metaphor.
00:21:18
johngrimsmo
yes totally but there is lots of stuff on Amazon that can do various things or AliExpress or whatever yeah and we talked about several weeks ago I did do like a static fringe test and I saw fringes and I was able to scan and I was able to like sweep fringes across the park by letting the putty like ooze down and that was like a huge huge win and I needed that I needed that yeah
00:21:20
John Saunders
Do not use Harbor freight table, but you know what i mean
00:21:44
John Saunders
Yes, you needed this. Yeah, for sure.
00:21:48
johngrimsmo
And now it's like, okay, now I know I can do it.
00:21:51
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:21:51
johngrimsmo
And that actually taught me a lot of the precision required to like properly do this. So it's it's like, oh, this needs to be more accurate than i than a slapdash thing. Like if I actually want this easy, it needs to be very accurate. So
00:22:04
John Saunders
Yeah. Makes sense. but I love it. and Like you will, it's kind this is going to sound silly, but like, this is one of those projects you you have to believe in yourself. like you will do this, John.
00:22:12
johngrimsmo
Yeah, totally. And I have to continue to allow myself to do it because there's a million things pulling me in a million directions and deep in my core. I'm telling you, yeah, almost almost every day at work, I wish I had it.
Business Scaling and Manufacturing Strategies
00:22:27
johngrimsmo
I wish I had i wait i had the interferometer.
00:22:27
John Saunders
Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:22:30
johngrimsmo
It would answer questions. It would solve problems. um It's like our microscope on a million times steroids. It will just tell us what's happening on these features. It'll let me zoom in and see features that are too shiny or too ah small or something like that that are causing us problems.
00:22:46
John Saunders
Well, let's talk through that. If you took a week a week sabbatical from work, locked yourself in a room.
00:22:48
johngrimsmo
then
00:22:53
johngrimsmo
There's some stuff I gotta buy, which I could preparatory purchase. I'm itchy trigger finger to get that done. um
00:22:59
John Saunders
Thanks for pulling that phrase back out of storage.
00:23:01
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah. ah Yeah, I'm close.
00:23:07
John Saunders
But could you think you could do it in a week?
00:23:09
johngrimsmo
I think so. If I had all the components, there's not a lot left. In the past few nights I have been, finalizing that list of you know the minimum. like Either I make this whole Z-axis myself from scratch, or I just buy one on Amazon for 300 bucks, and it actually looks really, really nice.
00:23:26
johngrimsmo
I'm like, I can just, it is.
00:23:27
John Saunders
The Z axis is separate from the XY grid table. Okay.
00:23:31
johngrimsmo
And there's a lot of reasons.
00:23:31
John Saunders
What do you need a Z for?
00:23:32
johngrimsmo
ah
00:23:33
John Saunders
Focus?
00:23:33
johngrimsmo
ah Focus.
00:23:33
John Saunders
Right.
00:23:34
johngrimsmo
So the, one of the lenses that I have has zoom built in, which is really cool. And when you zoom in, like when you're fully zoomed out, you have to be 0.8 inches away from the object. When you're fully zoomed in, you have to be five inches away from the object.
00:23:44
John Saunders
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Right.
00:23:47
johngrimsmo
So I do need a Z to be able to do that and different height objects, things like that. I just need the room.
00:23:53
John Saunders
PSA, the like insane, insane high-power rifle shooters have said, and this is beyond my expertise in shooting, but variable power scopes change their reticle accuracy as you zoom in and out.
00:24:07
John Saunders
Even like end of the road, $4,000 or $5,000 scope. So um knowing that you're like numerous time factors, higher accuracy requirements, just something to think about.
00:24:19
johngrimsmo
Absolutely. And I will be able to calibrate at different zoom levels.
00:24:24
John Saunders
Okay, there you go.
00:24:25
johngrimsmo
but But you're right, I'll probably get different accuracy or different values. without tweaking at different zoom levels, but I have a calibration thing that is, yeah, exactly.
00:24:31
John Saunders
Okay.
00:24:35
John Saunders
That's right. Okay, that's cool.
00:24:37
johngrimsmo
Oh yeah.
00:24:37
John Saunders
So the really, really crude, let's just say you have a 3D printer XY base table that moves your part around. and You have a telescope on top of it looking at the part. The telescope has a digital output that goes to a computer of some sort.
00:24:46
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:24:49
John Saunders
And then that goes to software which analyzes it.
00:24:50
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:24:51
John Saunders
Is it quote unquote that simple?
00:24:53
johngrimsmo
And the parts you're missing are the beam splitter, the a white light LED light source, and a reference mirror.
00:25:01
John Saunders
Why do you use have to split and being split in mirror?
00:25:03
johngrimsmo
That's the whole point that's the whole point of a white light interferometer is to do those things.
00:25:07
John Saunders
Oh, cause the white light of photographer is measuring. You're not just measuring based on reading a picture.
00:25:12
johngrimsmo
No, your that's vision system.
00:25:15
John Saunders
Sorry, I'm confused. I'm conflating your two projects again.
00:25:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I know, I know. I know.
00:25:17
John Saunders
Okay.
00:25:18
johngrimsmo
So vision system is with the white background, the light, and you just see a profile outline profile, right?
00:25:18
John Saunders
Okay.
00:25:21
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:25:23
johngrimsmo
Like a watch gear or something like that.
00:25:24
John Saunders
Yes.
00:25:25
johngrimsmo
And honestly, I'm not really, I have that. I'm not really using it much. I don't need that.
00:25:30
John Saunders
So nothing you said on this podcast today had to do with the vision system?
00:25:32
johngrimsmo
Correct. All interferometer.
00:25:33
John Saunders
Oh my God. Okay. Okay.
00:25:34
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:25:35
John Saunders
Thank you.
00:25:36
johngrimsmo
um So it's complicated, but
00:25:39
John Saunders
But aren't the vision, the vision system has the seen the fringes, isn't it?
00:25:44
johngrimsmo
no.
00:25:45
John Saunders
Oh, it is the white light.
00:25:45
johngrimsmo
The vision system is just seeing the black and white profile outline of a watch gear and being able to measure features, things like that.
00:25:49
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:25:52
John Saunders
yeah Yeah. Okay.
00:25:53
johngrimsmo
Yeah, the vision system is scanning fringes across the part and making a topographical height map.
00:25:59
John Saunders
Hold on, you said vision system is doing that.
00:26:00
johngrimsmo
Dang it, you're right, the interferometer.
00:26:02
John Saunders
Thank you. Okay.
00:26:03
johngrimsmo
Thank you. I didn't even catch that. Is scanning fridges across the part, creating a topographical hype map, which you bring into a software and can zoom in and get get literal nanometer level Z precision and micron XY position, depending on your zoom level.
00:26:12
John Saunders
okay
00:26:16
John Saunders
Okay.
00:26:19
John Saunders
Okay. That's just insanely cool.
00:26:21
johngrimsmo
Yep. And I can do both in the same setup if I build it right. Vision and um it's like really, really cool.
00:26:29
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah.
00:26:31
johngrimsmo
I've actually had quite a few people me and email me about the vision system and they're like, please tell me how you do that because I could use that, especially watch guys use it all the time or want it.
00:26:43
John Saunders
Yeah. i I will agree with all that. I tried to tell you that before, like what you're on to something here, John, i don't know if it's what something going want to productize, but you're onto something.
00:26:46
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:26:51
johngrimsmo
Probably not, but but it is cool.
00:26:51
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:26:53
johngrimsmo
But I'm happy to show people how I do it and if anybody wants to take it on,
00:26:53
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:26:57
johngrimsmo
They can do it too.
00:26:57
John Saunders
Yep.
00:26:58
johngrimsmo
Because I'm only learning from the shoulders of giants before me kind of thing, but.
00:26:58
John Saunders
Fair enough.
00:27:02
John Saunders
Yeah. We are going to do a five minute YouTube video on the Shelly device for Haas as well. So we, the same thing, like to each their own, but like, I want to make sure people just see exactly the bill materials, how to do it.
00:27:08
johngrimsmo
Sick. That'll be good.
00:27:14
John Saunders
And for sure, like quote unquote open source, that type of the thing.
00:27:18
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:27:19
John Saunders
We're also going to do it for our brother auto door, which actually lights out,
Maintenance Practices and Quality Control
00:27:22
John Saunders
asks us if we'd be willing to do it as a favor to them. but I want to show how we do the brother door.
00:27:27
johngrimsmo
Great. All right, your turn.
00:27:30
John Saunders
No, dude, we haven't even gotten to your, you have four things on your list.
00:27:32
johngrimsmo
Yeah, that wasn't even my list yet.
00:27:32
John Saunders
We haven't even started them. It's fine. Speedio Bevels, all you.
00:27:35
johngrimsmo
Speedio pedals. We've been talking about that for weeks and weeks, seeing good progress. um The i was telling you about in the WhatsApp chat, the, um, our laser, our bloom laser was given weird results.
00:27:49
johngrimsmo
I maybe it was airing out or something. I missed it, but my operator, Steve said, so they took the shutters off. They cleaned the glass lenses where the laser beams come out and is red and stuff. You clean that with isopropyl and little wipes and stuff, put it back together and got significantly different diameter measurements on our grinding wheel, like, like three thousands.
00:27:59
John Saunders
Okay.
00:28:05
John Saunders
Hmm.
00:28:09
johngrimsmo
And I'm like, no.
00:28:09
John Saunders
Okay.
00:28:11
johngrimsmo
And That concerns me because the way I did my calibration routine, I calibrated the laser first, then I probed G54, then I probed and then I did thermal comp and all that stuff.
00:28:21
John Saunders
Uh,
00:28:23
johngrimsmo
And now I'm not trusting it as much.
00:28:27
johngrimsmo
I
00:28:27
John Saunders
dude, was it as simple as the mirrors? Like they moved the mirrors though when they cleaned them?
00:28:33
johngrimsmo
don't know. I don't know. But after cleaning, we did not recalibrate, which we probably should. um
00:28:41
johngrimsmo
So point is for a day there, it made our bevels weird and it kicked the laser wheel diameter outside of my limits of like, was greater than 4,000 or 2,000. Uh, ignore it, ignore the change.
00:28:58
johngrimsmo
And now I don't know what to trust. So I need to go in there with calipers and literally met like with a mic and measure the actual physical wheel diameter. I need to clean and recalibrate the laser properly.
00:29:09
johngrimsmo
um
00:29:10
John Saunders
Do you have a, um, 30 taper, gauge length tool that has a known diameter?
00:29:15
johngrimsmo
Yes, yeah we do.
00:29:16
John Saunders
So you'd put that in, put it, that in and see what the laser measures that are at.
00:29:18
johngrimsmo
Yep. Exactly. And I haven't done that yet, but I need to do that.
00:29:21
John Saunders
Okay. Sorry. Yeah.
00:29:21
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:29:21
John Saunders
Do that. Maybe you might be overthinking it. Maybe just
00:29:24
johngrimsmo
I'm definitely overthinking it, but it we made some bad parts. And it's because of something, and I'm trying to nail down exactly what that is and build a process around avoiding it, um which is very important.
00:29:35
John Saunders
totally.
00:29:36
johngrimsmo
And because i i can't expect or assume that the operator will understand all my complicated like reasons for why it's doing the thing. He just goes, I just don't know.
00:29:47
johngrimsmo
I know it's not doing the thing.
00:29:49
John Saunders
Well, but even having a a shop culture and a shop like actual process or understanding of like, at the end of the day, what is a quarter inch? Like, where do we get a quarter inch from?
00:30:02
John Saunders
um And we're not perfect at this. We're we're we're good, we're not perfect. Cause it's like, wait a we have a Speroni. Every machine has a tool setter. Like what's the what's the length of a tool?
00:30:12
John Saunders
If they're off, it's off by seven tenths, which one are we treating as sacred and
00:30:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah. what's What's the master? Yep.
00:30:18
John Saunders
um That was ironically kind of on my list today of like, we don't we don't send out hand tools to be calibrated.
00:30:21
johngrimsmo
Yeah. It's a deep, deep question.
00:30:26
John Saunders
I'm not defending that, we just don't.
00:30:26
johngrimsmo
Yeah. We don't either.
00:30:27
John Saunders
but um Should we, should we even, even internally, should we go take a couple of master gauges that are not ever used except for twice a year to check these? And I'm, I think that's a better, so there's some hubris in like self-checking your tools, I know, but like, um, if you're not doing anything, that's probably better.
00:30:48
John Saunders
um it would be pretty catastrophic if we had a set of mics that was eight tenths off at a certain diameter, which could happen from where or whatever, like that wouldn't be good.
00:30:56
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:30:56
John Saunders
So know.
00:30:57
johngrimsmo
Yeah. yeah It's, it's building a level of trust around whatever the numbers they're giving you. And as we've heard from our friends, we've seen it ourselves. Even a CMM will give you the numbers you want if you do it that way.
00:31:09
John Saunders
Yeah, that's funny.
00:31:11
johngrimsmo
And it's dangerous, you know?
00:31:14
John Saunders
Yeah. What was your send cut send machining question or comment?
00:31:19
johngrimsmo
um So I've heard about Senkatsen. I've never actually used Senkatsen for sheet metal, but I want to one day.
00:31:23
John Saunders
Oh,
00:31:24
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I know. um And I know they're building up their machining thing. I saw a couple of the YouTube videos that are fantastic of them just kind of shop talking about all the MAMs they're buying. and what they're building and what they're making and stuff. And I kind of like some of the constraints that they're putting on it. They're like, dude, we only make aluminum and our tolerances are plus or minus five thou. And we don't take a drawing and we'll just make you to print with that tolerance. And if it sucks, we'll make another one. like So that was kind of cool. So it got me thinking about some of the interferometer project and some of the other things that will take some machining. And I'm like, dude, I could do this, but like, honestly, my time is pretty scarce right now and also valuable.
00:32:03
johngrimsmo
And, this bracket that I need to make, it's not designed yet. So I just kind of threw a cube into Fusion and put some holes in it and like, you know, made a fake part and uploaded it to SendCutSendMachining just to see what it would cost.
00:32:16
johngrimsmo
i was kind of shocked at how expensive it was.
00:32:18
John Saunders
It was, yeah.
00:32:19
johngrimsmo
And that's probably because I don't buy parts from people. I make stuff myself and I don't, I don't properly value my own shopperate for making these things. I'm trying to, but, but yeah it was like hundreds of dollars and i was like, Oh, i don't know if I want to do that.
00:32:36
John Saunders
So they, um, that will get better with time because they'll become more competitive and as they learn.
00:32:39
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:32:43
John Saunders
And obviously if you're doing volume, it gets better, but I did the same thing.
00:32:45
johngrimsmo
Totally.
00:32:46
John Saunders
We had a QC gauge. i was like, see what Senk Sen would cost. was It was $450 for a part that I would have, I would have spent, I would have said yes at like 150, but not much more than that.
00:32:49
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Right.
00:32:57
johngrimsmo
Now that's, I realize their auto pricing simulator, like if you have a corner radius and not a chamfer or not, like everything matters and there's probably a game to play there, like how to de-feature your part to make it cheaper.
00:33:02
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:33:04
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah.
00:33:09
John Saunders
Right.
00:33:10
johngrimsmo
I gave up pretty quick, but interesting.
00:33:11
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:33:15
John Saunders
What, um, the, the numbers I want to share are less about manufacturing, more about just business respect. And they shared this in one of their YouTube videos. So somebody go look this up. Cause I, if I misquoted it, it wasn't my intent, but.
00:33:27
John Saunders
um Sencut Sen is a sheet metal company. Yes, they we'll come back to machining, but they have three facilities in the US with fiber lasers that are running 24 seven, sheet feeding, all these different sizes of material. I think they have water jet and tube lasers and other stuff too, but like they're primarily, you need your typical like shelf bracket made,
00:33:45
John Saunders
I can upload it from fusion with drilled holes, corner radius. Then they can anodize it. If it's aluminum, they can powder coat it. Like it's insane.
00:33:52
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:33:53
John Saunders
Um, they have now shipped and this is the quote. I don't remember. It was either 30 million or 50 million parts.
00:33:59
johngrimsmo
Oh my goodness.
00:34:00
John Saunders
Yes. um And their machining, which is like brand new, like they just got all these MAMs. They have a bunch of brother you have hundreds They have some Haas machines as well, but like MAMs are for sure a big part of it.
00:34:11
John Saunders
um They have already shipped 10,000 parts.
00:34:15
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I heard that.
00:34:16
John Saunders
Okay. you Now I don't think that's unique parts, but still.
00:34:17
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Sure, but whatever. I was like, okay, so they're not they're not brand new at this.
00:34:20
John Saunders
well
00:34:23
johngrimsmo
And clearly the guys they're hiring to run this like have done this before in other places.
00:34:28
John Saunders
Well, that yes, and they're just, they're playing for keeps. Like this is not some like, well, we're gonna dip our toe in carefully.
00:34:31
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:34:34
John Saunders
They're like, oh, but buckle up.
00:34:34
johngrimsmo
No, they basically said, we're going to be the best best price in America and import parts, we're coming for you.
00:34:41
John Saunders
Well, yeah, and like, they're gonna devastate some of the low hanging fruit job shop work.
00:34:45
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:34:46
John Saunders
um
00:34:46
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:34:47
John Saunders
But like, it's kind of like AI, like don't kill the messenger. Like I'm just here to say what I'm seeing.
00:34:51
johngrimsmo
yeah exactly
00:34:52
John Saunders
um Cause it's just like sheet metal. We have sheet metal shops in town. For me to walk in there and be like, hey, I want two of these brackets like even on a good day, a nice guy, they're like, what do they want to, what why do they want to talk to me for a $73 order?
00:35:05
johngrimsmo
yeah right yeah well I'm very much looking forward to meeting him at the mammoth summit and kind of here I've never talked to him so everybody has to say
00:35:05
John Saunders
plus they're probably not going to power code them and all that. So I give Jim Belosek and the team there a ton of credit for the vision they had. um right
00:35:18
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah, agreed. The blurb I wanted to share was I couldn't believe 10,000 parts because I don't know him. I've talked to a few times, but like and I know a couple of guys on the team there, and um they were taught asking about selling their scrap because they're now producing so much that they didn't want to sell it as recycled scrap. And so they've started a company called Banana Metals where they're selling all their chunks of 6061.
00:35:45
John Saunders
They're only machining 6061 at the moment, but now you can just buy all their scraps from them.
00:35:47
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:35:50
John Saunders
They're integrating that with toolpath. So if you have a part in toolpath and it has a banana parts metal, you can just click and buy it through that. Actually, that may not be public yet. So oops, but oh oh well, um, crazy, right?
00:36:02
John Saunders
Like super cool.
00:36:02
johngrimsmo
That's cool.
00:36:04
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:36:04
johngrimsmo
Yeah. It's awe inspiring to see and relatively in like the past five years is the entire, the entirety of Zen Cut Zen is six years old, I think. don't know.
00:36:14
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:36:15
johngrimsmo
It's it's wild.
00:36:18
John Saunders
I mean, good. It reminds me, like, I'm proud of our team. I'm proud of what we do I love, but like, I remember a friend needed help four five years ago in his company getting parts made. And I was like, oh, I think I have another shop that could maybe help you. And he, I think I've told his story. He came back to me and he oh no, we already ordered them 50,000 at a time.
00:36:37
johngrimsmo
Yeah, that's right.
00:36:37
John Saunders
and this was this was domestic predictive domestic production. And I was like, oh, oh I'm sorry. i'm so I kind of like just put my tail between my leg and and excuse myself from the conversation.
00:36:48
johngrimsmo
yeah That's a different world.
00:36:48
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:36:49
johngrimsmo
And yeah, I think about that with a company that went from zero to three locations selling tens of millions of dollars a year, or whatever, I have no idea. um In six years, it was built for keeps like from the start, like it's different than yours and my businesses.
00:37:05
johngrimsmo
You know, i i I do tend to think about how we could scale our business, you know, 10x kind of thing.
00:37:06
John Saunders
yeah
00:37:12
johngrimsmo
And it sounds nothing but painful. Like,
00:37:15
John Saunders
Just different. I mean, you and I are, i think entrepreneurial tradesmen and craftsmen. Like I said, we still want to have some proximity. I don't, I think I've asked you this on air and certainly privately, like you don't want to become a Spyderco.
00:37:27
John Saunders
You don't want to have 33,000 of the new Norseman or the new Grimmshaw product being sold at you know, sharper image.
00:37:27
johngrimsmo
no
00:37:35
johngrimsmo
No, no, definitely. And there's, there's levels of that future that I do want. I definitely want to scale. I definitely want to grow. I want to do more. I want to have a bigger impact. I want to do that, but I don't need to make a hundred thousand lives a year.
00:37:48
johngrimsmo
So where, why, why am I saying that? What is the limit? Like, what do I, you know, it's always quality or value to the customer.
00:37:54
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:37:56
johngrimsmo
Make what we want, all those things. And then what is the vision that keeps everybody happy that, you know, accomplishes all the goals.
00:38:05
John Saunders
The philosophical view that I think is worth both of us keeping, not on top of mind, but present as we're, you know, we're halfway through our working careers or something of the sorts, you know, in our mid 40s, young 40s, like,
00:38:21
John Saunders
that's a healthy hunger that can get flipped into a chase. Like you'll, at the end of the day, you don't want to look back and be like, wow, I should have been more, don't take this wrong.
00:38:31
John Saunders
I may not have the best words here. should have been happier with what you had in the present, right? Like, i don't mean to say you're not happy, but like,
00:38:35
johngrimsmo
right yeah so
00:38:39
John Saunders
Like John, you are living the dream in so many other people's eyes. Like you are, like, look, you walk into your shop, get this team of people making these beautiful products, you're shipping them all over the world regularly with phenomenal sales numbers with a brand and you're going to mammoth to speak and be involved or be involved in these, like it's, this is the life.
00:38:57
John Saunders
Like sometimes you gotta stop and realize like, oh, this is it in a good way and in kind of an anticlimactic way, this is it.
00:38:57
johngrimsmo
the dream yeah
00:39:02
johngrimsmo
yes yeah but I'm not done yet i have more microscopes to build yeah exactly all what do you got next
00:39:05
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:39:09
John Saunders
Yeah, build them
00:39:14
John Saunders
them. Yep. Okay. I got to check this one off the list. I just, the note that I'd written down, um, that's been over few episodes was fiber laser plus the UR robots.
00:39:25
John Saunders
We've not done this yet. Um, there's nothing particularly complicated about it. The internal team discussion was let's stop engraving. Um, we can engrave and we have engraved tens of thousands of products for years.
00:39:39
johngrimsmo
machine like end mill engrave.
00:39:39
John Saunders
Um, Endmill engrave usually just our logo. um We do it with YG1 double zero carbide spot drills.
00:39:42
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:39:47
John Saunders
It looks great.
00:39:47
johngrimsmo
OK. Yeah.
00:39:49
John Saunders
it's They're very inexpensive and they work great and they tend to fail they tend to not dull, but rather fail in it, which is a good thing um in my opinion, but um engraving is still pain in the butt. It's slow, it's it's inconsistent. um And so the plan would be to have a fiber laser, which you can buy for or three grand, and the product would then be pulled out of the,
00:40:17
John Saunders
brother S700, which is obviously already happening. And then there's a smorgasbord of downstream processes that could happen, including ultrasonic, including the laser, including degreaser, rust preventative, and then stacked in the product bin, if not fully assembled by the by the thing.
00:40:36
johngrimsmo
Right. Sure. Mm-hmm.
00:40:38
John Saunders
And so with lasering, not only can we then I think do our our logo faster, not taking up spindle time and with a more consistent look, but there's a ton of other things I think are interesting, whether it's engraving QR codes or product instructions or Easter eggs.
00:40:52
John Saunders
like um So I don't know how you would actually like the cycle start on them. The robot could literally hit the green cycle start button, but there's probably a better way.
00:41:02
John Saunders
So I don't have i don't know why i wrote this down.
00:41:03
johngrimsmo
hu
00:41:03
John Saunders
don't have punchline other than that's the goal.
00:41:05
johngrimsmo
I remember Dave precise built something like that. Like ring comes out of the Willamon gets auto laser engraved and then done kind of thing.
00:41:11
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah.
00:41:14
johngrimsmo
So i maybe chat with him if you need some ideas, but it's clearly possible. I remember him saying, especially with the Willamon, it was not easy. Like a 20 year old Willamon integrating the Willamon to the UR to the laser, something about that.
00:41:27
johngrimsmo
He's like, it was, it was not fun, but he did it.
00:41:31
John Saunders
Yeah, I don't, I'll ask i'll talk to him.
00:41:32
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:41:34
John Saunders
i I have zero, like, I think I could have this working by in the next three hours if I wanted to. Like, it's not that, it's just not hard.
00:41:41
johngrimsmo
eight
00:41:42
John Saunders
um Well, okay. feel detent.
00:41:48
johngrimsmo
so scrapped 30 blades and it's all my fault. and i had to I had to break that to the team and I definitely saw some somber heads at that time because everybody put so much work into all these blades.
00:41:53
John Saunders
I'm sorry.
00:42:00
johngrimsmo
um
00:42:01
John Saunders
Oh, you scrapped them when they were like finished, finished.
00:42:02
johngrimsmo
in at the end, pretty much, like hard milling.
00:42:05
John Saunders
Oh, I'm sorry.
00:42:05
johngrimsmo
And then a lot of them weren't caught until they went to finishing and some of them were being sharpened or putting together. And they're like, why aren't these putting together properly? And it all stemmed down to updating an end mill.
00:42:17
johngrimsmo
That's all I did. um I changed, I was using a 1 16th DeBoer end mill for hard milling, this one little feature. It worked okay. But being in an ER collet, it had a little bit of run out.
00:42:29
johngrimsmo
And so of the two flutes, only one was doing most of the work. And it's not a proper hard milling end mill. And we're cutting like 62 Rockwell like steel. um So it worked. But I have these nice YG1 hard milling end mills that I really, really like now. And they're four flute. And I can put them in a RegalFix holder. And so I just...
00:42:48
johngrimsmo
and And their metrics, not inch, even though they're very close. So I like did it all right. I reprogrammed it properly. Got my speeds and feeds, you know what's working. Put it in the Regal holder. No run out. All better, all better, right?
00:43:00
johngrimsmo
And then I just sent it. And then i like I made one. I was like, sweet, it worked. The depth is right. Everything's good. um I didn't check the form because it's a little 3D taper wall that it's doing. I didn't check the form. And I didn't do a fit check of like in the knife, which is what this feature does.
00:43:17
johngrimsmo
And I was like, sweet. And then I moved on. And then 30 blades got made, sent up, tumbled, stonewashed, some sharpened, some finished, and they're not going together properly. And I'm like, oh my gosh. It took me a while to actually figure out what happened. And looking at the two end mills side by side under the microscope, the old one has a long neck.
00:43:36
johngrimsmo
So it's like long and vibratey and it's not a proper hard milling tool. So it's probably moving more than it's cutting. And the new one is stubbier, sharper, and it's a hard milling tool.
00:43:46
johngrimsmo
So it's overcutting comparatively.
00:43:48
John Saunders
Yeah, it's making a bigger feature.
00:43:49
johngrimsmo
Exactly. And we're talking less than a thou difference, probably a final result, maybe more. I don't know. I don't have a number for you, but looking at the two tools, you're like, oh, that one's wiggling.
00:44:01
johngrimsmo
This one's stubby and cutting properly. So that's why I'm over cutting now. So all they need to do is rechange geometry for the new tool and set the world straight.
00:44:11
johngrimsmo
But when you overcut, you can't put material back. So there's a bunch of ways that we have to like call and be like, no, this doesn't do what
Future Projects and Continuous Improvement
00:44:22
johngrimsmo
we need it to do.
00:44:22
johngrimsmo
And it's, it's failed this feature.
00:44:23
John Saunders
I'm sorry.
00:44:24
johngrimsmo
So I'm fine learning my lesson. I feel really bad, you know, putting everybody's hard work down the tube and puts us behind. And in order to catch up is like a lot of work for more of us.
00:44:34
John Saunders
Everybody.
00:44:35
johngrimsmo
and So I'm, I'm talking about this with the team and I'm obviously apologizing, but also like talking about the gravity of ah of a thing like this and lessons I'm learning and things like that. And I told them, I was like, guys, as much as I try to like balance my own checkbook here and like make sure I'm doing everything right, I i missed the one step where we take a step back and do a test fit and be like, the change I made made a geometrical difference.
00:44:58
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:45:02
johngrimsmo
And that's a problem.
00:45:04
John Saunders
I'm assuming that when you change it to, or you just weren't even thinking about it being an issue, right? Like,
00:45:08
johngrimsmo
I assumed, you know, going to infrometric, I knew that. I toolpathed it different infusion. It's now a metric tool, you know. I didn't think about really enough that a non-hard milling tool to a hard milling tool and a long tool to a stubby tool, those are the two variables I missed, you know?
00:45:20
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:45:25
John Saunders
This is the current.
00:45:26
johngrimsmo
So this is in this video.
00:45:29
John Saunders
Got it. I'm sorry. That sucks.
00:45:32
johngrimsmo
Yeah, it happens. i'm I'm sharing so that we can all learn from it.
00:45:34
John Saunders
No, I, yeah.
00:45:35
johngrimsmo
yeah. but Yeah,
00:45:36
John Saunders
Well, like, it doesn't feel good for me to like sit here and critique it. Cause first off, we're guilty of the same sort of thing.
00:45:39
johngrimsmo
yeah.
00:45:42
John Saunders
Like you you don't know what you don't know. Obviously if you were like, oh, this change will probably have a significant tolerance feature. Like I'm just too lazy to bother fit checking it. Like that's not you.
00:45:52
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:45:52
John Saunders
So I don't know what the lesson is like.
00:45:54
johngrimsmo
Yeah. I missed it. That's all it is. Yep.
00:45:58
John Saunders
How big, what's the feature look like? is so Is a pocket for a ball to fit into?
00:46:00
johngrimsmo
Did you, it's a pocket for the button. um and don't know if you saw the Instagram video I put up the other day. That was like a few minutes long where you should watch it.
00:46:10
John Saunders
Yeah, sorry.
00:46:10
johngrimsmo
It was really, I put a lot of work into it um where I have the little grind.
00:46:14
John Saunders
Is it a story?
00:46:16
johngrimsmo
It's a post. It's like a reel.
00:46:17
John Saunders
Oh, okay. I'll go check it out.
00:46:19
johngrimsmo
So I have this grinding wheel that I ground down a button, fjell button, so I can visually see a cool feature.
00:46:19
John Saunders
Okay.
00:46:23
John Saunders
Okay.
00:46:25
johngrimsmo
And there's a close-up of the knife um of this this pocket in the blade that the button interacts with. That's the feature I'm machining in this conversation.
00:46:32
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:46:35
John Saunders
Okay. Okay.
00:46:36
johngrimsmo
Basically, your detent pocket that keeps the knife closed and is accurate and, yeah.
00:46:42
John Saunders
You're probably going to like reach through the screen and punch me, but it's not worth making 30 buttons that have a seven tenths larger diameter. Not worth it.
00:46:49
johngrimsmo
Correct. And not worth it.
00:46:51
John Saunders
Yeah. Sorry. That really stinks.
00:46:52
johngrimsmo
I mean, it's it's an argument for sure, but I i dislike having weirdness out there.
00:46:57
John Saunders
I know. I know.
00:46:58
johngrimsmo
You know, there's like 30 weird ones out there.
00:46:58
John Saunders
I know. I know.
00:47:01
johngrimsmo
We got track that or not. or i like consistency. Like the button is the button. Everything else moves around the button.
00:47:10
John Saunders
I know.
00:47:10
johngrimsmo
So.
00:47:10
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah, it stinks. I'm sorry.
00:47:14
johngrimsmo
so Lesson learned, I think.
00:47:17
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:47:20
John Saunders
Hmm.
00:47:23
John Saunders
Hmm.
00:47:23
johngrimsmo
What else you got?
00:47:26
John Saunders
Uh... Kind of a funny one. um We have a Lex maintenance task to grease the pull stud draw bar section of Haas mills, I think all the machines.
00:47:37
John Saunders
And from memory over the years, this is a slightly controversial topic. And I believe there's a lot of guidance that says the draw bar systems are meant to run dry or not lubed. um And it's one of those things you hear from, you hear different opinions from different people and it's hard to know quote unquote who's right.
00:47:52
johngrimsmo
Sure, yeah.
00:47:53
John Saunders
But the thought that occurred to me is like, if they, there's definitely literature that sort of says this machine from a Haas standpoint is meant to run dry. And so adding grease doesn't always mean it's a good thing, not only because it's meant to run dry, but also the grease can can trap and um further spread a contamination and wear and so forth.
00:48:12
John Saunders
And so the fact that we, there was a discussion about like how to split up that maintenance task between users or one person and all that. And I said, guys, I'm seeing, i did a quick check through stuff. I'm like, I'm seeing comments to say not to do this.
00:48:25
John Saunders
And so we had a discussion about it. You want to kind of like make sure you're not steamrolling through it. I'm like, if anybody feels different, like I'm open to it. the
00:48:33
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:48:34
John Saunders
Some of the Haas machines before have made us sound like the tool is snapping out, but I think that has more to do with relatively minor Z height or tool changer arm calibration alignment issues.
00:48:44
John Saunders
And we know how to fix that now if it happens.
00:48:44
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:48:46
John Saunders
So the thought was, okay, let's take that. Let's delete that as a maintenance task. Let's put a moat in our calendar six months later to revisit it. And obviously if something happens in the meantime where we think we do need to start doing it, we'll come back to it.
00:48:58
John Saunders
But you know, the, the sort of joke, like the leanest thing to do is just get rid of the process.
00:49:02
johngrimsmo
Yeah. yeah That's a good phrase. Put a moat in the calendar. i've never heard that.
00:49:05
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah. We do that a lot.
00:49:08
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:49:10
John Saunders
Uh, what else you got
00:49:12
johngrimsmo
um ah I'll save Detentropper for next week.
00:49:16
John Saunders
got? Okay. Fair enough. Um, too, then I got one more thing that I'll save. Um, anything else?
00:49:21
johngrimsmo
Other than that, what are you up to today?
00:49:26
John Saunders
I am finishing. go to design a little three d box for the Shelly device. um And then I have a ah ton of little quality of life things.
00:49:40
John Saunders
but Sorry, nothing. i'm looking at my list. Nothing exciting.
00:49:42
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:49:43
John Saunders
Really. Sorry. um I wanted to talk to but Lights Out guys about what they want. Because they'd asked us to do a Brother Door video because I think they want to... If people want to do that, they want to just be like, go watch Saunders' video. So i want to, like, I put together a idea.
00:49:59
John Saunders
Normally we don't ever do this with these. We just do our own videos, but here I'm be like, okay, I'm going to show actually coincidentally the one bracket you need comes from send, cut, send.
00:50:06
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:50:07
John Saunders
And then there's a McMaster part for the actuator. And then Grant and I, ro sorry, not Grant, i Grant added a really cool click PLC open, close door panel thing, which you don't have to do, but is frigging awesome.
00:50:22
John Saunders
So yeah, we want to show that as well.
00:50:22
johngrimsmo
Yeah, icing on the cake, yeah.
00:50:26
johngrimsmo
Circle.
00:50:26
John Saunders
When I want to do that video, have them see it and be like, Oh, we actually wanted you to show whatever, something else. So, um, yeah. How about you?
00:50:35
johngrimsmo
Good. I've got to talk with my with Steve who runs the Speedio update. Remember I told you about my Python program that like lets me visualize all the deprint data?
00:50:44
John Saunders
Yes. Yeah.
00:50:46
johngrimsmo
Super sick. It's been absolutely amazing lately. Deprinting more and more data and being able to just sort it and sift it and graph it and like see so see charts and line graphs instantly and compare values. Oh, it's been so helpful to see what is happening because he told me yesterday, he's like, this video is being weird. I don't know what it is. And then, so last night at home, i was able to dig through all the data and like, Oh, clearly on February 5th, huge shift in diameter. And I have to go ask him now, like, is that the day we clean the the laser sensors? Cause I'm seeing like a huge shift in several pieces of data
00:51:21
John Saunders
Interesting.
00:51:21
johngrimsmo
And I'm like, okay, that's when it got weird. And then I can see you move this number to bring it back into line, this offset. And okay, so you compensated it for it while making a few scrap blades to fix whatever the problem was.
00:51:33
johngrimsmo
And then you it's holding now. And yeah, so gotta have that conversation. And then I gotta work on that hard milling of the 30 fail blades.
00:51:41
John Saunders
Oh, yeah.
00:51:41
johngrimsmo
I need to to figure out exactly how much to move that feature in CAD so that it is machining on size now.
00:51:48
John Saunders
Is it just a diameter or is it location?
00:51:50
johngrimsmo
It's both its diameter location and a 3d feature.
00:51:56
John Saunders
okay. So it's hard. It's not an obvious hard gauge deltronix pin type thing.
00:52:01
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Even CMMing it maybe with the tiniest little eight thou ball. Um, so fit checking, fit checking in the knife kind of tells a lot.
00:52:07
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:52:10
johngrimsmo
So yeah, that's okay.
00:52:10
John Saunders
we do yeah Yeah. I'm sorry. It sucks.
00:52:12
johngrimsmo
So move forward.
00:52:14
John Saunders
Cool.
00:52:16
johngrimsmo
right, man.
00:52:17
John Saunders
See you next week.
00:52:18
johngrimsmo
See you next week.
00:52:18
John Saunders
Take care.
00:52:19
johngrimsmo
Bye.