Transcript
johngrimsmo: Good morning and welcome to the business of machining episode 447. My name is John Grimsmo.
John Saunders: My name is John Sonners.
johngrimsmo: And this is your weekly dose of John and John talking about manufacturing and business and tools and tips and tricks and just things we're struggling with and things we're winning at in our manufacturing businesses.
John Saunders: What's on your list?
johngrimsmo: On my list today, progress on the white light interferometer,
John Saunders: Yes, awesome.
johngrimsmo: um vibration sensing,
johngrimsmo: still struggling with field bevels, although I think I got hard milling the critical features down. So we'll talk about that. And then i want to ask you about sheet metal.
John Saunders: Okay.
John Saunders: Okay, sure.
johngrimsmo: What's on your list?
John Saunders: That's like, like barely one step above lathes, but I'll allow it.
johngrimsmo: ah don't get know. the Same, but
John Saunders: I have a bunch of stuff. Some of it's pretty quick. um Customs and tariffs, Stimptworks, full Grimsmo. You're going love that one. um Some more activity on our side around buying and selling machines, air gauging, ai with Claude, and three d printing, our whole shop layout, and some questions about best practices and comments on what we're doing.
johngrimsmo: a
johngrimsmo: Amazing. I just had a friend ah show me his 3D printed layout or his, he had an infusion of design.
John Saunders: Yeah, right? This is a good
John Saunders: who
johngrimsmo: He's like, new big machine coming in. Like it was so good that I designed the whole shop infusion. It was great.
John Saunders: In CAD.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Interesting. i
johngrimsmo: I have my shop in CAD.
John Saunders: um
John Saunders: In two d or three
johngrimsmo: 3D with like rectangles representing a machine, but but i yeah, like i embossed the name, the Kern on the top of the thing.
John Saunders: in Yeah, sure. Well, but that's what's funny is...
johngrimsmo: So when I'm looking top view in CAD, I can see like which one's which, but.
John Saunders: So I have the opposite problem, which is I will download a brother or Doosan or current, doesn't matter. And i don't want even the dumbed to down sheet metal body that you can find on from the OEM or from make a GrabCAD still has like 72 bodies or 372 bodies.
johngrimsmo: Sure. Yep.
John Saunders: So um What I tend to do, because this this is not this is not the time to go full Grimso, we need to come back to that, is I will create a new component.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: I will use the project command. On the project command, you can switch from lines to the whole body.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: That didn't exist ten five years ago, infusion or 10 years ago, but now it does.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. yeah
John Saunders: So I project basically the outermost shape and then I extrude it up to the height of the machine, which gives me a pretty crappy looking rectangular-ish or prismatic blob, which, go ahead.
johngrimsmo: ye Which is all you care about. you know Maybe chip conveyor sticking out. Yeah.
John Saunders: But no, in this sense, i I do want more because there's an emotional response when you see...
johngrimsmo: Yeah,
John Saunders: a rectangle versus, it's not sorry, I'm failing my like fourth grade geometry. What's the, it's like a, it's not a rectangle, but it's a faceted, like basic dumb shape. It's extruded up in one.
johngrimsmo: don't know. Yeah, yeah.
John Saunders: So what I then do, in fact, i'll here I'll grab a part. So, um,
John Saunders: This is a Doosan DNM 6700. I did that this morning. I probably did it about 15 minutes, which is about 10 minutes longer than I wish it took. But I had the conveyor on it, extruded the bottom shape, extruded it up.
John Saunders: Then I went to a side view and projected the door windows. And by doing that, giving just giving you the angle of the door window really helps you relate to the...
John Saunders: machine more than it just being a straight. if This has nothing to do with clearances.
johngrimsmo: i got but yeah that's beautiful.
John Saunders: um And then we label them on the top that way.
johngrimsmo: Two color print.
John Saunders: You just want to look at it and not think what it is.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And you have the conveyor designed in that and the conveyor is only half the height of the whole thing. Cause that represents kind of reality.
John Saunders: Right, right.
johngrimsmo: And that does matter because imagine if you had, you know, maybe you want two machines conveying into the same bucket or maybe you don't, or maybe it's a wall or maybe it's something, you know?
John Saunders: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah, this doesn't account for door swings like maintenance door swings. and It doesn't account for getting a coolant tank out, which ah not surprisingly we've been been bitten by both of those, but.
johngrimsmo: It's the thing.
johngrimsmo: For sure. Like the current coolant tank is so long. It's like, i don't know, 20 feet long. It's just a long rectangle. And thankfully we've positioned it so we can open the bay door and pull it outside to remove it.
johngrimsmo: But if the current backs up against a wall, you got to move the machine to get the coolant tank out, which is dumb.
John Saunders: Oh, that's genius.
John Saunders: Oh yeah, stupid.
johngrimsmo: it's just It's just unfortunate. So that does affect our machine placement for sure.
John Saunders: That's a. Shin, what way?
John Saunders: Um, I'm going to bounce around a bunch, but I started this wiki list internal of like all the things we're going to ask machine tool vendors when we buy our next machine.
johngrimsmo: Nice.
John Saunders: And the list is not fun. Like I'll be honest, it's a very, like, it starts to feel like you're now turning into one of those companies and it's nothing. There isn't a single normal question on it. Um, but it's stuff that I, we've been burned by or bit by or not.
John Saunders: Like I just wanted answered.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. yeah On topic, is it like, which way does the coolant tank come out?
John Saunders: Um,
John Saunders: Well, that's what I just added. Like, how do you get the coolant hangout?
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Cause it's like, why on a current, why can't you pull it out sideways or front?
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: You know?
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Cause there's three feet in the way.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: So do you have ah a trick or a way if you get current CAD model and it has a hundred bodies and you want to three d print it, how would you do that?
johngrimsmo: I do what you do. i just Either I'll just draw like a representative top-down rectangle, just quick and dirty, and then just extrude up and don't care.
John Saunders: Okay.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: i I do have various, like i have a full speedio model, but you're right, it slows down the whole assembly when you have too many things going on. um You can go in, you can delete a bunch of stuff, like it I don't know, as simple as possible because it's just representative. You're just trying to like, does it fit here?
johngrimsmo: What does two beside beside look like? like I don't know.
John Saunders: I want, this is funny. i I love it because you're always better at this than me, John. You're always, you have the eye and the vision and the care and I'm more cut the corner, get it done.
John Saunders: But like here, I like want, so like take a brother.
johngrimsmo: Sure.
John Saunders: I don't need the internal cavity. I don't need the doors to move open and close, but like I want the doors to look like the doors and the,
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: I want like, and i don't know what I'm exactly I'm looking for. Sometimes infusion, you can do a bunch of combines and get a lot of things combined, if you will.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: But I want something that like fills it up with water is a solid or stitches anything that's like one inch in the real world apart. We then, everything we do is on a one 30 second scale. But um before we scale it down, I do all this work. I just wish there was a, if it's so many nodes, I'd love to hear about it.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, well, I certainly, i do love having the Speedio model um for when I'm working for like, when I'm, is this part going to fit?
John Saunders: But what we have for now is a,
johngrimsmo: Is how much spindle clearance do I have?
John Saunders: Sure.
johngrimsmo: Like having a full CAD model is fantastic for that kind of stuff. And I have my, my fixtures and my vices and my shunk pallets and my bloom laser and everything like modeled in every file because it's in the table file of the Speedio.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So it's great.
John Saunders: Yeah. Maybe that's the me that's the inspiration I need is I like playing called dollhouse with the printed model because it has the four joints expansion joints on it and we've used it for years now.
johngrimsmo: Nice.
johngrimsmo: Of your shop.
John Saunders: But yeah, I think you're right though because we have catmails everything.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yeah.
John Saunders: I think I should then dump this into fusion and create a, create a render that would allow, me I think now in VR, this is like a great Phil or Rob question. I think somebody said you can walk through it or if somebody is listening the podcast and wants to get paid to do this work, to help out as a collab or whatever, let me know. Cause I'm happy to like get the answer.
John Saunders: Have somebody else handle this.
johngrimsmo: i've been a I've been ignoring any link between VR and Fusion, but I guess there is. like You can VR Fusion stuff. I don't know.
John Saunders: That's what i want to do. I want to put on my son's Oculus set. Well, you just bought an Oculus and walk, walk through my new shop.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. I just bought an Oculus 3S and gave it... Life got it this morning. um Yeah, that would be crazy.
John Saunders: It's not John.
johngrimsmo: Now that I think about it. No, but it would be insane.
John Saunders: It's not. we're We're living in the future.
johngrimsmo: It would wonderful. It would be wonderful. Wow, that'd be cool. Okay, let me know how that goes. Okay.
John Saunders: Yeah. Okay. On the list. Okay. Back to you. What's going on
johngrimsmo: Okay, I'll start with the sheet metal question. So I don't, you might know the answer. Somebody listening might know the answer. So I bought a sheet of 6 by 12 inch thin bronze to make inlays from.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: And I bought it from McMaster and it was not cheap, it was like 100 bucks, but it's kind of warpy.
John Saunders: Yeah.
John Saunders: Oh.
johngrimsmo: And i want to glue it or attach it down to the fixture, but I don't want to constrain it. i I want it to be flat, like unconstrained flat. It's kind of a new obsession of mine is unconstrained flatness.
johngrimsmo: And I learned of a sheet metal tool called the slip roll that has three rollers and you roll the one and it kind of puts it through and you can make arcs and circles and things like that.
John Saunders: so Sure. Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: But I don't see why you couldn't use it to flatten an object and make it like flatter by just adjusting it properly. i just I've never touched one. If you or anybody listening like can answer, if i can I think it's like 90 thou thick bronze. so It's a little thicker than 20 gauge sheet metal, which is only 40 thou thick or something like that.
John Saunders: Yeah. It's 90 thou you said?
johngrimsmo: But I'm not trying to, yeah, I'm not, and it's bronze, but it's like copper kind of mostly material.
John Saunders: Yeah. that's That's not nothing. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So it's not steel. um I just want it flat or as flat as possible. And is it worth investing, you know, two to $500 on a slip roll, cheap good, um to accomplish this?
John Saunders: Sure.
johngrimsmo: And will it accomplish this or will it still not be flat? So that's my question.
John Saunders: I will happily yield to anybody who wants to lob in an emailed answer to John, but the answer is yes, that's how you do it. It's the same thing as when you look at stamping machines, how they process the infeed or whether it's flat flat stock or wire.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: It ends up, it's not so much rolled as it is like it's moved over and below humps and valleys and it just caused it to undulate up and down.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: um
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah.
John Saunders: I used to have like a little Harbor Freight slip roll back in New York. Um, I, you'd have to have, so you'd have, you'd have it such a gentle angle from one side and then another side. I think you're going to get it quite parallel, but I think you're going to struggle on, especially, I think you're going to struggle to get it unconstrained flat.
johngrimsmo: Right.
John Saunders: Um, Now, what you might be able to, you might be able to, and it might be acceptable. You also though, could pretty easily print or machine um one mold and flip it over a few times in that and, and potentially get there.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, we wondered about that too.
John Saunders: And then, go
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I don't know
John Saunders: ahead. 90,000, if it was like half that, I would also say you could take the the tool that comes with the foil bags, the heat seat, the heat bags, the like roller and roll over it over um up on a surface plate or something that could back bend it a little bit and you'd get it really close.
johngrimsmo: know.
johngrimsmo: OK.
johngrimsmo: OK.
John Saunders: That's all i got.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, to be fair, I haven't actually tried to research this exact question yet. um But I have looked into slip rolls. I watched a bunch of videos. I'm like, I think it would do it. But the corners is where I'm wondering, because you have to be securely within the three rolls to like do anything.
John Saunders: Yeah, won't.
johngrimsmo: and
John Saunders: You'll lose the ends.
johngrimsmo: Will the ends still be up or down?
John Saunders: You'll lose it. Actually, Google or chat, look up.
johngrimsmo: It's interesting.
John Saunders: I mean, you got a plethora of heat treat ovens. I think your better answer is to actually put it at whatever temp it needs to be, 483 degrees or something, pull it out and and put it between your quench plates, John.
johngrimsmo: That's not a bad idea at all.
John Saunders: because you've got those in a press already. And when it's heated, you won't need to, what do you call it, backbend it or overflex it to correct it.
johngrimsmo: Interesting.
John Saunders: That's going to be good.
johngrimsmo: i will The sheet is six by 12. I think our heat treat plates are like six by six. But if I cut the sheet in half, I don't need it to be full size. I could just do that twice.
John Saunders: Also tell McMaster you want a better piece. They'll send it to you. Seriously.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yeah.
John Saunders: No, seriously.
johngrimsmo: Interesting.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um Yeah, it's not terrible, but it's probably got, if I had to say, maybe an eighth of an inch warp or more to it. Like, it's not going to just glue flat. You'd have to bend it to sit to to tape flat or to glue flat or something like that.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And I just don't want that.
John Saunders: ah The other unsolicited advice would be next time buy one inch rolls of this material. Cause then you can slip roll it or fix it. You could even three d print rollers.
John Saunders: Like this is not hard. It's one inch wide.
johngrimsmo: Yeah,
John Saunders: So you don't have the near pressure requirement. And then you're going to lose an inch on each end, but who cares if it's a 50 foot roll, you just roll it into strips that are one inch wide and then put those down in your fixture or tape and you're good.
johngrimsmo: Interesting. Yeah, that's how um Swiss Army Knife makes their blades out of a huge roll of material. It's like really cool to see. And it goes through the three roller thing or five or whatever.
johngrimsmo: And then it just gets punched. And then, yeah, fun, fun fact, I might have mentioned it.
John Saunders: Yeah. Cool. Right.
johngrimsmo: But, um you know, we make, you know, five to eight knives a day, give or take. um Do you know how many knives a day Swiss Army Knife makes Victorinox?
John Saunders: Oh, you mean blades or like ship knives?
johngrimsmo: Apparently it's like all products, including scissors, stuff like that.
John Saunders: Oh, 8,000 a day.
johngrimsmo: It's a rough number, but a hundred thousand.
John Saunders: but
johngrimsmo: A hundred thousand products a day.
John Saunders: Yes. It's crazy.
johngrimsmo: It's, I can't even comprehend that amount of, and that number is probably old.
John Saunders: It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Right. wait um Even Haas um just celebrated that they've just shipped their 300,000 CNC machine.
John Saunders: John, like CNC machine, like 300,000 of anything is insane.
johngrimsmo: That's insane.
John Saunders: When you fetch it and you can figure it out, it's a pretty large electromechanical thing.
johngrimsmo: mar us Yep. Well, we've sold close to 10,000 pens and maybe I'm guessing 15,000 knives.
John Saunders: No kidding.
John Saunders: Interesting. yeah um Other random suggestion, do you ever order from sendkets Send, Cut, Send?
johngrimsmo: I have not yet, but I'm getting there.
John Saunders: If they have your material, I would also consider asking them about the condition they'll arrive in, but because I bet you, I've never been disappointed what I've received.
John Saunders: And like the two or three times I got something for Johnny five that I, one time they did it wrong.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Oh no. One time it was actually ironically bent. um
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: And the bending was a by-product of a process I don't recall. And they were like, yep, that shouldn't be bent. We'll fix it like immediately. The other time I just picked the edges bent the wrong way.
John Saunders: it was my fault. and they're like, yeah, but the fact that it was your fault tells us we need to do a better job with our renderings and proofs and like super solid.
johngrimsmo: It's incredible.
John Saunders: But like,
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah.
John Saunders: but literally ordering that way
johngrimsmo: Cool. Yeah. the The whole concept, obviously I have this piece of bronze I want to use, but I want to get into making more inlays, more intricate inlays, whether they're titanium inlays or things like that. And I want to be able to buy a thinner sheet stock and I want to use these unconstrained methods to hold it down. And I just, I need to establish a process that it allows me to control it. I like the heat treat idea. I didn't consider that. That's really good idea. um You know,
John Saunders: yeah ah totally
John Saunders: Totally. Okay. um Somebody emailed, I don't know whether whether it was our business of machining Gmail or just me, but they're like, could you please have somebody explain, especially for the new folks, what full Grimsmoke means?
johngrimsmo: um Should I do the actual explanation?
John Saunders: I don't know. Well, I thought I knew, but maybe I don't.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah. Well, the the joke, I feel like this happened on the podcast. The joke is from Tropic Thunder.
John Saunders: I'm all the years, because clearly I'm not, I've never seen Tropic Thunder, so maybe that's why I'm not in the know.
johngrimsmo: if You haven't seen the Tropic Thunder movie?
John Saunders: I've not.
johngrimsmo: 2004 or 2008 or whatever it is. ah Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr.,
John Saunders: Okay. It's like the parody action movie, right?
johngrimsmo: Exactly. It's a parody action movie.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: And ah it's it's funny.
John Saunders: put on the list.
johngrimsmo: Anyway, one of the characters does a bunch of movies where he goes full um mentally disabled, but the other word.
John Saunders: Ah, I see.
johngrimsmo: and And the joke in the movie is you never you never go full R word.
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: um And somebody you somebody said full Grimmsmo.
John Saunders: Things.
johngrimsmo: And was like, it just stuck.
John Saunders: Hilarious.
johngrimsmo: Because we go full Grimmsmo.
John Saunders: You, it's one of those things like to me now, the movie so is subservient to your definition. Cause it's like, it's you like, it's just like, I'm going to do this.
johngrimsmo: Sure. Yeah. Yeah, that was just silly. But now it's like, I'm going to lean into everything, everything to the nines when it matters.
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah. Right.
johngrimsmo: It doesn't always matter. and We definitely have standards and we definitely i don't want to say cut corners, but, you know, we know when to when to not care when necessary.
John Saunders: Right.
John Saunders: Yeah, yeah,
johngrimsmo: But but when it does matter, me especially, I'm leading that charge of like, i don't care how long it takes i don't care i mean within a reason how much it costs like i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do it my way i'm gonna get it right um and that's what i think of as full grims most like it's just going full nerd on it and be like i have a vision i have an idea i have a theory it's going to work and i'm going to make it work and i'm not going to be happy until it does and when it does i'm like happy for five seconds and then i move on to the next project but
John Saunders: yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: In my case, I'm establishing processes that the team can run with, and now the whole team is producing full-grams, more quality parts because they helped me make the process to like do that. And now we all have standards and we all... like It's ah kind of unexpectedly bled through the entire company of like this is just how we operate now. And it's honestly not a term that we use in our company. like much at all sometimes but it's not like we're you know pumping our fists up in the air be like vulgar although maybe we should um yeah so does that answer the the asker's question think so
John Saunders: Yeah.
John Saunders: Sure.
John Saunders: i like it.
John Saunders: Yeah. There's a funny tie in to something that I've. still love, which is the idea of like sort of be a surgeon of like, just if you need to do something, set ah you can set a timer if you need to, an hour, I'm gonna do this to the best of my ability. Like I'm gonna, we joke, like even if it's clean the s sink or I'm cleaning the Freddy right now or or design this part. And it's just like, instead of feeling the,
John Saunders: There's a lot of words, overwhelmed, anxiety, overloaded sense of like, I just need to get this off my plate. It's like, Nope, do this.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Even if it's the last thing you do before you retire and like, I'm going to do this so freaking well. Now, of course, to your point, you can't spend 17 days designing a five minute fixture, but like, yeah, like go full Grinzor.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. and
johngrimsmo: Exactly. Yep.
John Saunders: Don't compromise, make it good. Be smart about it. Be proud about it. Do it well.
johngrimsmo: Yep. Yeah. A lot of people will say, you know, how you do one thing is how you do everything. And that works to a point.
John Saunders: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: It doesn't work for everything. But um I was talking with a very famous knife maker at Blade Show one year, and he said, literally, it comes down to how well do you clean the dishes?
John Saunders: Yeah, right.
johngrimsmo: And I'm talking to him.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I'm like, you know, when I clean the dishes, they're freaking clean. Like I do a good job. I don't, I don't, you know, i don't do a bad job.
John Saunders: You're totally right. You're totally right. Yep.
johngrimsmo: And that that's why our floors are so clean in this shop. And that's why, you know, things matter and and precision requires cleanliness and all this stuff.
John Saunders: Yeah. really
johngrimsmo: And that's how it comes down to.
John Saunders: I like that. What was that quote you said but second ago? Like, not just do the dishes.
johngrimsmo: It was how how you do one thing is how you do everything.
John Saunders: Yeah, I like that.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: writing that down.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, it's great. Yeah, fairly common quote in the in the success field.
John Saunders: of
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: But
John Saunders: No, I've heard other versions of it. Like, you know, how somebody treats the waitstaff is, tells you and like what kind of person they are going to be.
johngrimsmo: yeah yeah, totally.
John Saunders: And um it is true.
johngrimsmo: Yep, and that's true.
John Saunders: I mean, look, we've all had our, but yeah, agree. It is true. um
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: Okay.
John Saunders: Um, okay. This actually wasn't even on my list, but it's too good to not share. The UR robot with the brother is just the the the best thing we've ever done.
John Saunders: Full stop.
johngrimsmo: Oh, it's so good to hear.
John Saunders: Yes, like incredible. So we're switching from the same machine, the same like everything. There's a couple like minor changes, but from large rectangular, when I say large, mod vice parts that are longer than a plain card box, but like that thickness or size, six inches by four by whatever. We're switching to 5 8 round bar.
John Saunders: Now, the long-term goal will be to switch this over to a bar-fed mill, which we're in the process of designing. But for now, i want to prove this out with saw cuts. We ordered a saw cut. But we don't want to add steps. So the machine has all the same tools. it has the same work holding. We have ah Ed and Grant designed vise jaws where they have like a little modular insert. So we're just switching those out real quick into that, like more hassle.
John Saunders: And then I didn't want to change the infeed table on the robot. But one of the... things that we would have had to overcome that we didn't want to um this is all grant by the way, was we didn't want to do a pattern of patterns.
John Saunders: So the infeed table in the UR, so right now it picks up material in those L brackets.
johngrimsmo: in In fusion or in real life? Okay. Okay.
johngrimsmo: okay
John Saunders: So we would have like five high just stacked in a little angle bracket. Fine. We could have put like seven round parts in that one bracket, but then you would have to teach the UR to pick seven up to pi seven up, to pick seven pieces from one area. And then when you're done, move over and pick seven sequentially from that next area. So it's a pattern of a pattern.
John Saunders: And for whatever reason, that's more work. So Grant and Alex, and I don't, I'm not actually even sure if Ed was of all this, but ri regardless, came up with this idea, proof of concept. We laser cut some cardboard and nests over the existing l brackets.
John Saunders: So there's no changes, like nothing's removed. We just add it on there.
johngrimsmo: Okay. Okay.
John Saunders: And does it, is it making sense to hear?
johngrimsmo: ah Maybe. Hard to tell.
John Saunders: Oh, sorry.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: Yeah, I'm hoping the light bulb goes off.
johngrimsmo: So you have you have an L bracket fixture that can hold square stuff, but you're adding a strip of holes to hold round stuff.
John Saunders: Just on top of it. Yep.
johngrimsmo: Love it.
John Saunders: And that's like, i don't know, that's 20. We could stack up four more of those easy.
johngrimsmo: Right.
John Saunders: This will be either machined or printed or send it, but like cardboard works for now. And now you
johngrimsmo: So you're creating a modular stock holding solution because you you are the work holding solution people.
John Saunders: drop.
johngrimsmo: So you put your brains together, right?
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And that is good okay.
John Saunders: but you want to switch from rectangle it around. You drop one, two, three, four on there. Maybe it hand tighten a few thumb nuts, but were talking three minutes.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Then you load the part, you do lay the parts in.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: So that takes some time, like, but it's probably, i don't know, it's two seconds per piece.
johngrimsmo: Sure. You can't fake that. like Yeah. Yeah.
John Saunders: So you're going to do hundred pieces in three minutes. So it's whatever. And we're off to the races.
johngrimsmo: you're kind of taking the Willamette approach where you just have to, you know, it's got a lot of tools. So everything's in there and you just replace a college and some soft jaws and hit go theoretically.
John Saunders: A hundred percent.
johngrimsmo: um Yeah, that's cool, man.
John Saunders: I love it.
johngrimsmo: That's going full Saunders right there.
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. um Well, so on that note, that's led us to now we have have really have had the confidence to run. We run two different part families for the same machine. We know this will work. We're comfortable with a lot of this.
John Saunders: Confident, I should say, is like we do have some confidence now, which is great. So we're starting the process to look at the next set of machine tools around that. um So what that also led to was that we need more capacity to make steel plates. So we're going to sell our Haas VF6A.
John Saunders: We have two VF6s, we call them eight.
johngrimsmo: Two, right? theyre Yeah, they're two identical machines. have that You never talk about it. Has that worked well, like having two machines? Do you need two machines? who identify like How does this work?
John Saunders: Yeah, it works great. um
johngrimsmo: ah Actually, when I was there last and I only had like one minute to walk through your whole shop because the kids were there and everything. I saw the weirdest fixtures inside to hold your fixture plates. And I'm like, I know it's secret sauce, but why don't you talk about it?
John Saunders: o who
johngrimsmo: I don't know. I don't know what's going on here. So anyway, yeah you have two houses.
John Saunders: yeah Yeah, and that continues to evolve, but um we don't need to anymore.
johngrimsmo: Go.
John Saunders: Aluminum prices have have doubled or more and and aluminum costs a lot more for us because of the anodizing lead times and hassle. So more of our businesses pushing towards steel, which is a better for most aspects of better material anyway.
John Saunders: And we need another machine to do steel. And so we're going to look at a Doosan DNM 6700.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: um And the thought is if it works, it could potentially be a machine that we have more than one of. And I like that idea of it being standardized. um
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: But the simple answer is like, okay, sell the VF6, buy one of those, put it on the floor, have a chance to really learn and see, put it through its paces and see what it can do.
johngrimsmo: Same size.
John Saunders: So that's what's nice. It's slightly smaller travels than a VF6, which is perfectly acceptable for what we need. And it's it's like three feet.
johngrimsmo: VF6 is a big machine. Yeah.
John Saunders: It's a big machine. And this the Doosan's like three feet smaller. um
johngrimsmo: like footprint.
John Saunders: which is no joke. Correct.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: So, and that matters. Like we're, or we we are much, we quickly went from like not caring to like being really tight on space.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Um, and so now we're, so we're selling the VF6. We might sell our DT2, but we also might just keep it as a Op1, Op2 machine for hobby plates. Uh, and then we are still trying to sell the horizontal.
John Saunders: We had two real good bites, but hadn't come through. So, um, all yeah, the VF6 and the horizontal are up on our website with pricing and info if anyone's interested.
johngrimsmo: It'll happen.
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
John Saunders: Um, yeah, that's my big update there.
johngrimsmo: Interesting. Love to hear that this video is working for you.
John Saunders: Yeah, I will say it's a we knew it was a 30 taper kind of like real tap.
johngrimsmo: um
John Saunders: It's actually a little lighter duty than we thought to be fair.
johngrimsmo: Really?
John Saunders: Yeah. But we also fairly quickly learned how to make some pretty darn good parts on it. Like it's doing, I don't think there's a choice about is big plus has to be.
johngrimsmo: Did you get Big Plus?
johngrimsmo: think there is a choice. I don't know. Mine is Big Plus.
John Saunders: Interesting.
johngrimsmo: Pretty sure it's a choice.
John Saunders: Yeah, for absolutely we do.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: And like we're using a lot of Rego holders for the critical stuff.
johngrimsmo: Good.
John Saunders: And we're doing this, we did the hardest part first where, you know, we're facing a two inch 4140 seal part and we're getting just phenomenal finishes off of it.
johngrimsmo: Good.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Great, man. Well, can segue that into my speedio adventures the past few weeks. um still fine-tuning the bevel grinding process on the speedio um focusing on fjells rasks work but kind of slowly um focusing on the fjells i got palletizing working very well i've run you know all five pallets uh several nights in a row now and getting almost perfect results with like two outliers every now and then that's like oh those are way wrong
John Saunders: Mm-hmm.
John Saunders: Oh. Hmm.
johngrimsmo: where's my math going wrong? So I've got this complicated subroutine that, um, you know, probe stuff and measure stuff and comps the wheel size and comps the wheel by the deviation from the probe results and all that stuff. And I, I trust the probe results. I don't trust the laser results and I have data to back that up, but, um,
johngrimsmo: Either I'm missing something or something in my math is invariably causing erratic behavior because it's not working perfectly every time the full Grimmsmo way that I envision it to work.
johngrimsmo: And it's frustrating. um and Now the grinding wheel wears down after cutting one blade, but... After a day's worth, it probably gets smaller by less than a thou.
johngrimsmo: So that's not that much to really care um after making a whole bunch of blades.
John Saunders: Oh, wow, not much.
johngrimsmo: So what I just tried now is I'm going to continue to probe, continue to log. I'm deprinting everything. continue to log the results, but not update the wheel size and just let the wheel naturally wear.
John Saunders: Yeah, sure.
johngrimsmo: And that way we can, I can monitor what the programming thinks it needs to comp, but not actually let it comp. And then I can see those comps.
John Saunders: Yeah, that's a good idea.
johngrimsmo: So I should be making good parts. And then literally once a day, we just comp the wheel a little bit smaller based on actual results, which will work.
John Saunders: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: I'm pretty confident that will work and get us good parts like now. Because I've had a couple scrap parts and a couple like where the bevel grinds too much, and or there's a mismatch and things like that.
johngrimsmo: and I'm trying to match the depth of the grinding on side one versus the depth of the grinding on side two when we move the blade to the other side of the fixture.
John Saunders: Right.
johngrimsmo: And it's complex. And it's...
John Saunders: Matching it to what tolerance?
johngrimsmo: um
johngrimsmo: How do I... I mean, bevel width to about a thou...
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I'm trying to match a thou on each side, which the speedy is super accurate and the grinding is super fairly accurate.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: It's my math and the comps and different fixtures are different thicknesses depending. And is there repeatability issue in the EROA putting it in There isn't, but there's all these questions and the thermal growth of the machine definitely plays a role, but that's all compensated for now with my artifacts that I'm probing, which has been amazing.
John Saunders: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: um
John Saunders: When you deep print, does it log the what fixtures it's doing at the time?
johngrimsmo: Every single day.
johngrimsmo: It does. Yeah, it does now.
John Saunders: Okay, so you know which one even which one.
johngrimsmo: Yep. Yep. And I, I'm probing the side of the fixture in two places because it can rotate a little bit, not really, but a little bit. So I'm probing the two corners and I'm averaging to find the center point of that plane.
John Saunders: Here.
John Saunders: Oh, you can't do a G60, like a coordinate plane rotation.
johngrimsmo: Um,
johngrimsmo: You can, but i don't I don't want to, I don't really care, but I don't want to probe the tip and have it be a little bit tilted.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So I want to probe both sides, average it, because that's kind of the center of rotation of the fixture of the Auroa. And that's where the critical feature needs to be measured from. So that's like a good place, but I can't fit the probe in there to probe the fixture at that spot.
John Saunders: It's funny.
johngrimsmo: So anyway, that's working good. And I can see with my results that, you know, palette 59 and 61 are about the same, but palette 63 and 67 are bigger um by 2000 or something like that, which as long as I'm comping for it, doesn't matter.
John Saunders: who
johngrimsmo: Let them do what they're going to do ah
John Saunders: Yeah, right, right, right.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: You don't dress the wheel?
johngrimsmo: We don't anymore because it's self-wares very, very nicely.
John Saunders: Okay. Right, let's just he
johngrimsmo: Because i'm I'm grinding, like this is vertical chop grinding, jig grinding.
John Saunders: gro
johngrimsmo: So little tiny, looks like a machine washer, like a like a screw washer, right?
John Saunders: just say... Yeah, like a Dremel cutoff wheel.
johngrimsmo: Like a Dremel cutoff wheel, exactly. So imagine you're holding your Dremel vertically, like pointing down at the ground, and your cutoff wheel is spinning horizontally around, and I'm going up and down and up and down and chop grinding the blade.
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: It works fantastic. And since I'm grinding below the blade and then above the blade and moving over and then below, and i'm I'm constantly dressing. If you think of the wheel, I'm dressing from left to right or I'm grinding from left to right and then from right to left.
johngrimsmo: So I'm constantly sweeping both sides of the wheel.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: So the wheel doesn't develop a taper at all, which is fantastic. And just wears super consistently and super evenly.
John Saunders: What this wheel starts at like one inch diameter.
johngrimsmo: One inch and we we kill it at 0.8 inch.
John Saunders: Oh yeah. Because that's answered question. You, you literally use 200,000 of this wheel.
johngrimsmo: Yep. Yep.
John Saunders: That's crazy.
johngrimsmo: And the rest of it's held up by Arbor, by a three quarter inch Arbor.
John Saunders: john
johngrimsmo: um
John Saunders: Okay. Interesting.
johngrimsmo: And the the weird thing is because as the wheel gets smaller, I can't i can't do cutter comp with this program. It doesn't work.
John Saunders: On geodesic or.
johngrimsmo: um I'm not doing a geodesic program. I'm doing my own
John Saunders: Ooh, I thought, oh, this is the chat. but That's right.
johngrimsmo: my own JetGPT Python program.
John Saunders: Oh yeah, it's sick.
johngrimsmo: So I have to know the wheel size, I have to know the fixture deviation, and I have to compensate the G54.1P9 or whatever I'm using, fixture offset to shift based on actual wheel diameter.
johngrimsmo: And as the wheel gets smaller, my G54, 59, whatever, moves to compensate that every single time, every single blade.
John Saunders: Okay.
John Saunders: Got Interesting.
johngrimsmo: So there's like a lot of math going on and it's i've made it very complicated like this is where i went full grimsmo to get a result and i'm still not getting the results and it's very frustrating
John Saunders: Can you dump the whole thing into Claude and be like, could you find problems in my math or say anything?
johngrimsmo: agree
johngrimsmo: maybe that's a good question um i haven't tried that i have done some successful macro programming with um who did i use cursor or chat, I can't remember, but I got some pretty cool arc tangent calculations
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: with pure macro, like FANUC macro logic.
John Saunders: yeah
johngrimsmo: And it worked. It took a couple of tweaks, but it worked.
John Saunders: yeah
johngrimsmo: It's like probe three points on a radius and tell me how big the radius is.
John Saunders: Yeah, incredible.
johngrimsmo: And that's like fairly complicated math to like hand write in macro programming, but it works, it works great.
John Saunders: Mm-hmm.
John Saunders: Ed was, we are cutting dovetails into those round parts in the brother and we use a dovetail tool, inserted dovetail tool and it started to wear and Ed wanted add break detect and the brother, backers that we have from just the tool that didn't have face mill break detect. i I'm like out of the loop a little bit. And so he literally fed what we had in some other stuff into Claude and it was like,
John Saunders: perfect. It's insane. John, I know we keep saying that, but it's just great.
johngrimsmo: Yep, yep.
John Saunders: Wrote this like UI for go, no go gauging on pins and like this whole interface and web app thing. It's just like unbelievable.
johngrimsmo: No way.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: That's so powerful. Yep.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Both of those two guys and yourself and me are nerdy enough to really wrap our heads around it. The more I think about it, the more I'm like, oh, everybody's going to be doing this custom programming stuff. They're not.
johngrimsmo: I think a lot of, even in in our industry, machine shops, they just want to machine parts.
John Saunders: It's true.
johngrimsmo: they They don't want to be a computer programmer nerd, want to be pretending to know what they're doing.
John Saunders: Yeah, it's her.
johngrimsmo: Like like we do. like I love all this stuff. But I think most manufacturers won't care to spend the time that we're spending to do these cool things.
johngrimsmo: Anyway, that's just a thought I had the other day, but they just want to make parts.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: or They just have to make parts.
John Saunders: You're not wrong, but I think more people will come in
johngrimsmo: 100%. Hmm. Hmm.
John Saunders: And like the, what was it? This whole drama that would happened over the past month, which with what is now called Open Claw, I think. um It started as Open Claw, and then they went to something stupid and they ai sued them. Anthropik did now it's Open Claw. But it's like an agent thing that you can install and it becomes like your personal hosted thing with no subscription. But the video I watched on it, which is like five minutes, talked about how like,
John Saunders: You can now, in layman's terms, ask it to build a piece of software and it will build the software and then it will actually build its own test users and it'll start using its own software, finding the flaws and the bugs and the things that needs to improve and it'll iterate itself. And it, like they gave two two different examples where it handed over a fully baked, fully functional so piece of software.
John Saunders: Like, which just tells me, i don't know what I don't know about how capable it already is.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, absolutely.
John Saunders: Um, interferometer spill.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, so evenings and weekends, I've been absolutely enjoying that. I'm finally making my first flashlight for for the interferometer.
John Saunders: ah
johngrimsmo: I need a light source. I bought another order from Thor Labs where I have a precision pinhole. I might have talked about this couple weeks ago.
John Saunders: Yeah, you did.
johngrimsmo: um So I have that. So it's basically going to be an inch and a half aluminum tube. um
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: that is gonna glue the lens at the end. It's an acromatic lens, acromat. So it's like curved curved on the front, flat on the back. That gets put in the front and then the pinhole goes at an exact length from the lens. And then an LED, um like a good flashlight LED,
johngrimsmo: goes right behind the pinhole. And then that's going to be bolted to a piece of aluminum that I can slide for length so I can focus the light pretty much. So it's basically heat sink, LED, pinhole, space, and then lens.
johngrimsmo: And then you adjust the length of this to create what's called a collimated light beam.
John Saunders: Uh-huh.
johngrimsmo: Like if it's a one inch lens, you should have a one inch circle of light at any distance, more or less.
John Saunders: Yeah.
John Saunders: Crazy cool.
johngrimsmo: And one inch or 10 inches or a hundred inches or whatever.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So you adjust the length of the lens to led d pinhole combo, um, to get this perfect. And I've kind of played with this on my desk at home with just a piece of aluminum foil and a pinprick and I can get it to work, but this is going to be really nice.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So I machine the housing. I just need to machine the the pill that will hold the led, um, next. And then my flashlight is pretty much done.
John Saunders: Sweet.
johngrimsmo: And I've always wanted to make a flashlight. So it's kind of funny that I get to like make one for the interferometer.
John Saunders: you have to buy a board to control the create the LED?
johngrimsmo: I bought a tiny little constant current voltage driver from Amazon for like dollars.
John Saunders: Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And the Raspberry Pi will control that so that in my program I can adjust brightness and keep the constant current to the light.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: Because um sometimes I'll want brighter, sometimes I'll want dimmer.
John Saunders: Got it.
John Saunders: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: um And apparently the a reflected light off one of my mirrors needs to be similar intensity to the reflectivity of the part that I'm scanning. So if you're scanning a mirror, it's a mirror, and you can use a mirror as a reflector.
John Saunders: Interesting.
johngrimsmo: Now they match. If you're scanning a piece of felt, i don't know if you can, but exactly, it yeah, yeah.
John Saunders: ah DLC knife, coded black.
johngrimsmo: It will be a lot duller than your shiny mirror, so you're going to overpower with the mirror arm of the interferometer. So you need... um ah you need to dull the light signal without interfering with your perfectly collimated light beams and all that stuff.
John Saunders: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: So I bought a pack of ND filters, neutral density filters, which is like a camera thing. One inch pieces of glass that are green in different darknesses pretty much.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And that will go on the reference side before that mirror. Um, and I can, I want to design this so that I can just pop in like, Oh, the 90% will match my thing or oo the 10% for this one. So the ND filter, i bought a 10 pack or something like that. And, uh, waiting for that to come in from Ali express this week, I hope.
johngrimsmo: And so that'll be cool. That will let me, measure vastly different shiny things. Um, from a mirror to like a penny to, uh, I want to see how dull I can scan.
johngrimsmo: That's, it's a big question.
John Saunders: Is this, does this require your sort of like operator or tribal skill to adjust it or can it auto read it in comp?
johngrimsmo: ryan
johngrimsmo: That's a good question. I don't know. Well, cause I'm, I found designing it. I have 10 different ND filters. I will be putting in the one that matches the best, but I'm sure the software could probably know like,
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: I don't know. don't have an answer for you, but I'm building in enough tune ability that I can mess with it. And then maybe over time you can make it like good or, um,
John Saunders: Yeah, sure.
johngrimsmo: So that and then the reference mirror needs to be on a motorized slider. So a step promoter with ideally an encoder so I can know the exact distance that it's moving and the speed that it's moving and all that stuff.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: So that that will give me very precise actual nanometer height readings in the software. And if I don't have an encoder, I'm mostly just guessing and hoping that it's right. But with an encoder that is tuned properly, I'll have like literal nanometer, like height accuracy in my part.
John Saunders: Is it Diffraction Unlimited, the guy who made the micromanipulator?
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Did you see his newest video on the, oh, John, I'm like, this is insane.
johngrimsmo: Yep. I did. i did. isn
John Saunders: And he built that at the end. He's like, this isn't necessary, but to swage dimple the rods, I built this stage.
johngrimsmo: yep To the exact perfect length. Yep.
John Saunders: but i'm I'm like, this is screaming Grimmsmo here.
johngrimsmo: Well, i'm I'm copying him 100%.
John Saunders: Okay, yeah.
johngrimsmo: The circuit board that he designed and open sourced for the micromiploader project, I bought five of them from JLCPCB.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And I started soldering them together. So now I can, I plugged it all in the other day and I tried to control a stepper motor, you know, like the piece of flag tape that you put on it.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: You try to do that. And I couldn't get it to move because... He, Diffraction Limited, is controlling the step promoters with like two H-bridge drivers or something like that.
John Saunders: Dual H-bridges, I think, yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, which I don't really understand yet, but as opposed to the classic step and direction like we're all used to for most hoppy CNC setups. So I need to figure out what that actually means is and and get that.
johngrimsmo: But that gives you way higher resolution, way higher performance. torque maybe probably i don't know but then what's genius is his magnetic um encoder that he created which i have been playing with and it is actually insane i don't know if you've seen my stories the past week or so um have you oh you missed a good one that's okay
John Saunders: Encoder is insane. Yeah.
John Saunders: No, I need to forget. sir I know, no, it's I'm like, I need to, i don't even want to hear myself talk about it, but like, it's been a good thing to be off social media.
johngrimsmo: well then
John Saunders: I miss you though. Like I miss that stuff.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I'll explain it to you. So basically imagine a strip of magnets side by side. So they're all like elbow to elbow kind of thing, like circles.
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: So now you have north, south, north, south, or maybe it's north, north, south, south, whatever it is. um And I did this on my desk at home, strip of magnets stuck to an Allen key to keep them straight.
johngrimsmo: And then this magnetic sensor, MT6835, whatever sensor that diffraction limited suggested, measures the pole distance from one magnet to the next in every other magnet as 360 degrees, but like 21 bits resolution, which 2.1 million counts between two magnets.
John Saunders: Yes.
John Saunders: Insane.
johngrimsmo: to two point one million counts between two magnets And I'm playing with this and I wrote a software that shows me the resolution and the angular thing and the distance traveled.
johngrimsmo: So if each magnet is eight millimeters, then every 16 millimeters, two magnets, I get 360 degrees rotation. And I tell my software, I have a little bit that says each magnets eight millimeters.
johngrimsmo: So give me a distance measurement. And now I can literally slide these two things together and I'm seeing nanometer level distance movement.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: It's not calibrated. It's not perfect, but it could be one day. Um,
John Saunders: Is this a PID loop where it's actually using the encoder to not validate, but rather drive the motion?
johngrimsmo: It can be.
John Saunders: you know?
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yep.
John Saunders: Okay. Yeah. John, this is insane.
johngrimsmo: It's insane. And it's, it's literally put not, not only nanometer measurement into my hands, but nanometer movement into my hands.
John Saunders: Yeah. Right.
johngrimsmo: which is like less than one millionth of an inch of trackable. Now the real, my next stage after all this is done, although I'm trying hard not to do it now is okay. So now I can measure nanometers, but I don't trust it. It's not accurate.
johngrimsmo: Every magnet's different size. It's not like really true.
John Saunders: Oh my
johngrimsmo: So you need to build a laser interferometer in order to, in order to calibrate these magnetic encoders.
John Saunders: God.
John Saunders: In St. John.
johngrimsmo: And I've already got all that planned out basically based on diffraction limiteds, other videos, um, where he did that. And I'm just tweaking it to my own needs kind of thing. It's so fantastic. And the world of precision has just opened up to me in such weird ways. And it's like fun side projects at home that will benefit everything at work.
John Saunders: insane john
johngrimsmo: Yeah. So I'm, I'm having a lot of fun on this and
John Saunders: Until it is so cool. I'm speaking of precision. Okay.
johngrimsmo: last thing, just to make it clear why I'm building white light interferometer is because everything we do is surface finish. Everything we do is micro. And this lets me literally zoom in and see both of those things.
johngrimsmo: Like nobody else can see it's, it's not quite scanning electron microscope, like I see a microscope level stuff, but I don't need that.
John Saunders: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: And this is cooler anyway.
John Saunders: so Like this is one of those things where like every single person that runs a shop would use one of these if it was, if it was a hundred bucks.
johngrimsmo: If it was easy and cheap enough and yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah, exactly. There's like nobody that would ever be like, I don't need that. I don't want that.
johngrimsmo: No, but I'm probably going to you know, five to 10 grand into it and 200 hours of time, but it's, it's my Johnny five for the moment.
John Saunders: it's still freaking cool.
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Like my short-term Johnny five, I know you've been at it for 10 years, but, but it's my, it's my thing. Right.
John Saunders: Sure.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Sure. Um, air gauging. Have you ever done it? Any familiarity with it?
johngrimsmo: I I've looked into it a lot, uh, many years ago, but I've never done it.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: I never trusted it or it tested it. Sorry.
John Saunders: to Okay. Is it, am I crazy? Is it Sonnen that made those? I need to just look this up.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: i
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: Okay. um we I need to figure.
johngrimsmo: because they were big on honing machines.
John Saunders: Exactly. Which makes sense. But I was like, am I conflating the two? Okay. We just, we do so much precision measurement of um like half inch round parts. was like, we need to look at a non-contact way of doing it.
johngrimsmo: ID or OD?
John Saunders: week
johngrimsmo: Like, are you measuring a hole or a boss?
John Saunders: Boss.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: he Yeah, I seem to remember...
John Saunders: Not possible.
johngrimsmo: No, I think it's totally possible. I seem to remember it being finicky. Yeah. Like you gotta, you gotta angle it just right.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: You gotta, they'll often make fixtures where the part, you know, the washer sits flat. So it's got a contact face and now you're, you're square for sure. And your air gauge does the thing.
John Saunders: Mm-hmm.
John Saunders: That makes sense. The part that is particularly more difficult right now has threads in a but and a shoulder. So it's like, it's not the same thing as a round part where you can just lay on two traditional metrology best practices. This was a little bit quirkier.
John Saunders: And so now that we talk out loud about it, this is maybe another example where it's like, well, maybe we just need to look at the, uh, you know miss toyota or kientz style non-contact laser they're like 10 grand though i don't think i'm at that point but um it'd be nice to be able to measure it without having to necessarily rely on contact alignment of the part being say perpendicular to the instrument
johngrimsmo: Is this a pin or a machine feature on a square thing?
John Saunders: it is the part that in particular right now would be Measuring, this is a fixturing pin, this is a 3D printed version of it.
John Saunders: So it's actually this sense here. So you could mic this easily, but we have found that the threads either interfere or tip it down.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: And you just really want to stick this into an air gauge or something to have it just tell you where it's at.
johngrimsmo: OK.
John Saunders: quicken
johngrimsmo: And you don't want to just mic it, call it good?
John Saunders: I think we've done that for years and we want something better.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. You want something better?
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah. And potentially also able to be tied in with automation.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. I saw a, um ah there's a watchmaker out in California, Jay Shapiro um watch company.
John Saunders: Yeah, see the stuff.
johngrimsmo: um You know, their watches are like probably 20 to $50,000, just stunningly amazing stuff. I will actually be touring his shop when I'm in California.
John Saunders: Cool.
johngrimsmo: Super excited for that.
John Saunders: Oh, awesome.
johngrimsmo: So I was talking with one of his, um, one of his guys, one of his watchmakers, who's kind of electronics nerd on the side, I guess. And he showed me this gauging fixture that has a little flip lever.
johngrimsmo: And imagine it's like a big tabletop micrometer. So there's two blades that go together with a little cradle underneath that can hold your part.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And there's a little flip lever that opens the micrometer, the two blades flip lever, and then spring loaded goes back.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And he said the stock gauge really sucked on it. So he ah programmed his own, like readout gauge and he hacked the the readout sensors and made his own display with like way faster refresh numbers and way better
John Saunders: Oh. and Okay. Sick.
John Saunders: Sick.
johngrimsmo: you know He put a number pad on it because he's like, so many times I want to start at two millimeter and measure from there. So I type in two millimeter zero, or I want to switch from inch to metric or whatever.
johngrimsmo: And he's like, i even said, when i when I'm on inch, I want five digits. When I'm on metric, I want four digits. So he programmed that in and all this little stuff.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And he showed me a little video of it I'm like, oh my gosh, that is so sick. And that is exactly what I want to do as well. And the magnetic encoders, the diffraction limited ones that I'm building,
johngrimsmo: are so accurate. i i could I could confidently, if I can calibrate them, I could confidently make like insane height gauges, pin, out all this stuff.
John Saunders: Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So anyway, his his little machine is a watchmaker's tool. He said they sell for about eight grand, but he bought it eBay for cheap. It was unlist mislisted or something like that.
John Saunders: Interesting.
johngrimsmo: But it has this little cradle that sits underneath that holds your part.
John Saunders: he
johngrimsmo: And then to add to that, I saw Danny Rudolph picked up a used um laser mic.
John Saunders: Oh, is that right?
johngrimsmo: So similar thing, little cradle holds your part. And then there's a a laser curtain, I believe it is, that measures the part. I don't exactly know how it works, but it sounds awesome.
John Saunders: Well, that's what Mitsutoyo has. And one of them is two grand and one of them is 10 grand. And there's a difference in in accuracy, but um non-contact and it's like, maybe that is just the answer there.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: I do a two grand version.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. If it does the thing, you know.
John Saunders: who Yeah. Okay. Sweet.
John Saunders: Anything else?
johngrimsmo: what else I got. um Well, if you haven't seen my latest stories from the past few nights, I'll just tell you. ah the We have a turntable for filming.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: that's like a motorized, you know, you turn it on and it spins and you put your, put your thing on there and it spins around, looks cool.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um It's got different speeds. It's got a remote, but it jitters a little bit.
John Saunders: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: So if we put our knife on a little piece of foam as it's spinning, you can see the knife kind of like jittering because it's balancing on this little piece of foam and We don't like that. And especially like Ryan says, if he films in slow-mo so that he can really like get a cool angle shot, something like that, you can see the jitter, it makes it unusable.
johngrimsmo: And especially because a lot of our surfaces are so reflective and we have studio lights and everything, like you see the jitter of the reflection and it's just terrible.
John Saunders: Oh,
johngrimsmo: So it got me thinking, A, we were talking about it, either we need to just buy a really expensive one and call it good, or I've already have all this magnetic sensing stuff at home. I'm just going to bring this home and I'm going to play with it.
johngrimsmo: So the next time you are on Instagram, I posted these as like actual reels, not just stories. So you can check you can check out my latest posts.
John Saunders: OK. OK.
johngrimsmo: But it's ah I was able to, I couldn't get the magnetic sensor to read me much, but the um I put a piezo vibration sensor underneath one of the feet and I could measure the very, very accurate vibration.
John Saunders: Oh, yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: And I found speed settings that worked and speed settings that didn't work. I i found the smoothest speed setting.
John Saunders: oh interesting. works. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And it's like, okay, so now I gave it back to Ryan and i was like, here are my findings, film and see if I'm right. Like, give me the real world. Like my theory says this, but you know, tell me if you agree with me or not.
John Saunders: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: So that was super fun. And it was cool, like concurrent projects at the same time to bring it home be like, i can actually tell you the smoothest speed setting right now.
John Saunders: Yeah.
John Saunders: right that's awesome
johngrimsmo: So, I mean, vibration sensing is something I really want to incorporate into our company, whether it's tool balance or spindle vibration or machine dynamic accuracy, or like when I'm surfacing a surface, there's definitely ah an RPM and a feed rate that gives you the cleanest finish.
johngrimsmo: which is the least vibration usually. um Not necessarily chatter, but more like machine dynamics.
John Saunders: mm-hmm
johngrimsmo: Like on the current, you have the oscilloscope and you can see similar vibrations. um And I have tuned some of our finishes and some of our tools using that. And it's the greatest thing ever because I'm like, oh, that finish that used to be kind of chattery.
johngrimsmo: Now it's amazing. Every time, always.
John Saunders: Yeah, it's awesome.
johngrimsmo: So I want incorporate some of that into the speedio, into other stuff. And so this was like the perfect first quick and dirty, like application of that vibration sensing. And i was like, yeah, it's real. and This is amazing.
John Saunders: It's full grip though.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, exactly. to To answer your question, that's full group smoke.
John Saunders: Oh my God. Insane. That's awesome. that's a good reason. I will go, i will go check all that out. Thanks for making them real so I can rewatch them.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, i'm I'm getting more into that.
John Saunders: I appreciate that.
johngrimsmo: Like, and I get way more views on a reel than I do on a story. So I'm like, you know what?
John Saunders: um Humble brag that Johnny five video we did put up on Instagram, which I did it. It's not like I'm, I, cause I can't stand the thought of like we benefit from social media, but I've recused myself. Like that just feels, but I'm not on it often anymore.
John Saunders: But that Johnny five video, I think the most likes I've ever had before was like 2000. This has like 15,000 likes right now, which is just fun.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Oh, good for you, dude. It's such a good video. Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah. I don't want to get drunk off the social media like addiction, but like, it's pretty cool to see that how many people are like, Oh my God, it's amazing.
johngrimsmo: No.
johngrimsmo: Yep, yep. Yeah, it came ah up again.
John Saunders: So,
johngrimsmo: So I clicked on it and I was like, wow, that's a lot of views and likes and stuff. Like, holy, good for you, man. That's great.
John Saunders: Yeah, it's fun. Sweet. I'll see you next week. Take care.
johngrimsmo: Sounds good, dude. Okay, bye.
