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#459 Hardening the automation system
1.4k Plays15 hours ago
Topics:
- Air filtration upgrades
- Horizontal is gone
- Hardening the automation system
- Low temp alloys tested!
- Challenge - elegant solution, want a way for compressors to shut off
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Business of Machining
00:00:00
johngrimsmo
Good morning and welcome to the Business of Machining episode 459. My name is John Grimsmo.
00:00:06
John Saunders
My name is John Saunders.
00:00:08
johngrimsmo
And this is the Manufacturing Podcast where We talk about our businesses. It's the business of machining.
00:00:14
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:00:15
johngrimsmo
um And there's a lot more to it. Like, I don't view myself as
Identity and Social Perception of a Manufacturer
00:00:19
johngrimsmo
a knife maker. I view myself as a manufacturer, as an entrepreneur, as ah you know, the knife making is the medium I get to play with. And I love knives, but it's it's not the only part of my life that matters. You know, it's, I like the process. I like making things.
00:00:32
John Saunders
Yeah, so like, i don't know, if you're at a wedding and you sit down and meet somebody and they ask, what do you do? What do you say?
00:00:36
johngrimsmo
a I don't say I'm a knife maker. I say either in manufacturing, own a manufacturing company is usually my, my easiest one. Most people can understand that. Most people don't know what a machinist is, you know, um but people surprise me, you know,
00:00:48
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:00:52
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:00:53
johngrimsmo
you kind of You avoid going too technical. like You don't want to i say I'm in manufacturing. And they're like, oh, cool. And then every now and then people are like, what kind? Like, oh, my husband's machinist and runs the CMM quality department at a big place.
00:01:06
johngrimsmo
And I'm like, whoa, this is some random teacher I was talking to. And it's like, okay, that's cool.
00:01:10
John Saunders
Yes, yes. Yeah.
00:01:12
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:01:13
John Saunders
Yeah. That's actually funny.
World Cup Experience and Networking
00:01:15
John Saunders
So my college roommate was is was from Austria. They ended up getting tickets to the Austria-Argentina World Cup game. So i ended up going, which is super awesome.
00:01:24
John Saunders
And we were sitting in a bar in Dallas.
00:01:25
johngrimsmo
Nice. Yeah, I saw some random picture of you like in somewhere. I didn't know if it was local or abroad. And I was like, nice. Looks like fun.
00:01:33
John Saunders
Actually, it was very strange being in Dallas surrounded by like 3,000 Austrians.
00:01:37
johngrimsmo
Are you would it in Dallas? Okay. I wasn't sure you went Austria.
00:01:39
John Saunders
yeah No, no, but it felt like that because they're all speaking German or ah the Austrian dialects of German.
00:01:42
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:01:46
John Saunders
And then there's a DJ like dropping Euro techno, like, you know, whatever. And, um it was just surreal because you're also in Texas. But I went up to the bar and ah a guy who was not part of the World Cup thing was like, are you from Vienna? And I'm like, no, I'm from Ohio.
Gear Manufacturing Insights
00:02:05
John Saunders
And he was like, oh, and he works for a transmission manufacturer, like a big auto transmission manufacturer.
00:02:14
John Saunders
and then was like oh awesome and then like quickly peeling back to any i'm like what do you do he's like oh we're in manufacturing i'm like yes what do you what do you do and so they um manufactured gears and out of hot four genes that they then they are metallurgists and one of them was a metallurgist the other one was a uh metrology engineer i think i like to speak in my language you're like
00:02:36
johngrimsmo
Yeah, like, I have so many questions.
Machining Techniques and Teaching
00:02:38
johngrimsmo
like
00:02:38
John Saunders
Yeah. And so they were like, we handle heat treat, night nitriding, material, specs. like And we were just, i mean, it was a five minute conversation, but it was like, okay, post-forging, like, do we broach or skive?
00:02:47
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:02:51
John Saunders
That changes the residual metal, build up stresses. Then what do we do? And then how do we, you know, slayers sorry, I'm off topic here, like, fuck.
00:02:57
johngrimsmo
and And, no, but they probably think they're boring you kind of thing.
00:03:00
John Saunders
I don't know. Yeah. I want to ask them so much more because it's like, they were talking about large,
00:03:02
johngrimsmo
Yeah. I know.
00:03:06
John Saunders
Large mean like four inch. um I think they said planetary gear. So I assume that that means there's an outer ring with the teeth pointed inward.
00:03:14
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:03:15
John Saunders
Don't quote me on that. And I'm assuming it's a finer pitch they're like, those are what give us a hard time. And I didn't have a chance to say like, you mean, cause they move or stresses or QC. Cause it's like, that seems like the perfect thing for your inter wait, white light thing. Like to measure the profile.
00:03:31
John Saunders
Is that not, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe that's more just so like a, um, what the,
00:03:37
johngrimsmo
Like vision system kind of thing.
00:03:37
John Saunders
Oh yeah. or what's the thing that you and I both own? I sold ours that you have that you put apart.
00:03:41
johngrimsmo
Optical comparator.
00:03:42
John Saunders
Thank you.
00:03:43
johngrimsmo
Yep, yep. If the gears are straight, if they're spiral gears, you won't see through them, right?
00:03:48
John Saunders
That's true.
00:03:50
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:03:50
John Saunders
Why do I feel like planetary years are never helical again?
00:03:50
johngrimsmo
and
00:03:53
johngrimsmo
I don't know.
00:03:54
John Saunders
Yeah. ignore me Yeah.
00:03:55
johngrimsmo
And the the more i learn about microscopes, the more I learn, i want one of every one that there's no one size fits all. It's like machine tools. You're like, I'm going to buy one VMC that's going to everything I need. And then 10 years later, you have 10 machines and you're like, that escalated. Yeah.
00:04:10
John Saunders
You don't need a mill if you buy a good, or you don't need a lathe if you buy a good mill.
00:04:13
johngrimsmo
Mm, disagree strong.
00:04:18
johngrimsmo
Random side fact on lathe, I did manual lathe machining the other day. um
00:04:24
John Saunders
How?
00:04:26
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I have these tiny little mini lathes. Tucker lent me one and I found one at a flea market. It's, I can't remember the brand, but it's like um it's like from the 70s or 80s. This kind of woodworking, kind of cheap garage shop kind of thing. But it's got all these attachments that can do all kinds of crazy stuff.
00:04:46
johngrimsmo
um Adam Laney Machine Tech got all excited about his...
00:04:50
John Saunders
Oh, cool.
00:04:50
johngrimsmo
I can't remember the brand of it. But anyway, Leif told me the other day, because I've been pushing him for years, i hold up a part and I go, is this a lathe part or a mill part?
00:05:02
johngrimsmo
And now he can know, which is kind of cool.
00:05:03
John Saunders
Yes.
00:05:04
johngrimsmo
And he's like, he's like, Dad, do you have a lathe?
00:05:04
John Saunders
Yeah, it's fine.
00:05:06
johngrimsmo
I was like, obviously. And then he goes, i want to make a top hat out of brass, but like small. you know, like a Abraham Lincoln kind of top hat.
00:05:14
John Saunders
That's a great mill partner. Mm-hmm.
00:05:17
johngrimsmo
And i was like, we could probably run that on this little lady that can't remember the name of. um So I kind of pulled it out and I set it up and I turned some brass down one inch. And I'm like, this is kind of cool. Like it's been a long time since I've turned a hand crank and like made a chip and you're like watching the chip, you feel it, you listen, you hear the feedback. It's quite interesting, um but it makes a such an absolute mess.
00:05:38
johngrimsmo
Even these are tiny chips, but I was sweeping for like way too many minutes trying to get the chips out of the carpet, out of the floor, out of the, out of the desk.
00:05:38
John Saunders
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
00:05:46
John Saunders
doing this in your house?
00:05:47
johngrimsmo
No, it was ah at work. We have a runner carpet, like a walkway entry thing.
00:05:50
John Saunders
Ah, OK.
00:05:51
johngrimsmo
But I was like, man, I'm so spoiled with enclosures and like flood coolant. Anyway, it was fun. We haven't made the top hat for him yet, but I do want to get him into the shop and get him to turn these hand cranks and see chips come off.
00:06:05
johngrimsmo
It's a very tactile experience.
00:06:06
John Saunders
so You say it's woodlady, but you're not using hand, like you're using like this wooden gavel.
00:06:07
johngrimsmo
Yeah. No, no, it's, yep.
00:06:09
John Saunders
It's got an instant post.
00:06:11
johngrimsmo
Yep, exactly. it's It's like a tiny little metal lathe.
00:06:12
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah.
00:06:15
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:06:15
John Saunders
Interesting. That's fun. Having your kid do that is that's awesome for sure.
00:06:18
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
DIY Projects and Learning Opportunities
00:06:21
John Saunders
Well, that was my off topic summer project with my daughter. Um, I don't know if this is affecting or afflicting your world, but Neato's these, I know it's a family friendly podcast, but these, uh,
00:06:28
johngrimsmo
No. What is it?
00:06:32
John Saunders
explicit squishy toys that are like insanely popular.
00:06:36
johngrimsmo
oh yeah.
00:06:36
John Saunders
This is going to be like a three week fad to be clear.
00:06:38
johngrimsmo
Yeah. yeah
00:06:39
John Saunders
But you just like cannot get enough of these neatos. there's some other like squishy, like RMS, like acronym or RSM. I don't know. The kids are going nuts over that. but I'm like, okay, Jay, no, we're not spending $40 on a 13 cent stick of butter squishy toy.
00:06:54
John Saunders
But what we can do is turn this into a hashtag Mark Rober teaching moment and buy Smooth-On and 3D print our own molds and we can make our own squishies.
00:07:04
johngrimsmo
Yes.
00:07:05
John Saunders
And so we did it.
00:07:06
johngrimsmo
Cool.
00:07:07
John Saunders
Yeah, we started off, it's kind of like the whole fail fast, fail cheap or phase into it lessons that I'm reminding myself are good things, especially when you're working with a young student. And so I said, like, let's not shoot for the moon at first. We don't need to go, you know, with crazy custom high hurdle, high production mold of your school mascot. Let's go to Maker World, download an existing mold that happened to be a dog um and then we bought the smooth we didn't over analyze it like there were a couple of different ones to choose from like just buy the one actually fun fact smooth on is on amazon now so i feel like when i was doing this 10 years ago one of the hassles was like i don't want to pay 13 to ship it every time i want to test one out 40 bucks had it the next day and then printed the mold didn't have any mold release spray yet so just used some lip balm like chapstick
00:07:39
johngrimsmo
Nice.
00:07:47
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:07:53
johngrimsmo
It's perfect.
00:07:54
John Saunders
Yeah. um Poured the mold. She's like over the moon. Super exciting. you know, you treat like with a kid, like part A, part B, stir it, pour it is fun.
00:07:59
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:08:03
johngrimsmo
Yeah, it's so tactile and so new to them. Like we've either done it or seen it around and it's like not that exciting anymore. But it's like i have to remind myself that my kids have never done this before, even if they've watched seven YouTube videos, like doing it as I continue to learn in my life.
00:08:19
johngrimsmo
Watching it is one thing doing it is a completely different thing.
00:08:21
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:08:22
johngrimsmo
um Yeah. Cool. Good for you.
00:08:26
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:08:27
johngrimsmo
Yeah. But like any excuse, Leif doesn't really like to come to work. So any excuse that he does ask to come to work, I'm like triple down on it. I'm like all in, I'll do whatever it takes.
00:08:36
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah. I just, i can't get this i idea out my head of you now, like surfacing in like a legit curved top hat on the Kern doing it the right way.
00:08:46
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah, the right way, obviously.
00:08:47
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:08:49
johngrimsmo
Yeah, machine in the usual way.
00:08:53
John Saunders
Uh, what's on your list?
00:08:54
johngrimsmo
um Update on low temp alloys.
00:08:58
John Saunders
Okay.
00:08:59
johngrimsmo
Speedio bloom laser update problems and a quick white light interferometer progress thoughts.
00:09:02
John Saunders
Okay.
00:09:09
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:09:09
John Saunders
Sweet. I found my phrase, which I really, i think it fits perfectly for where we're at.
00:09:14
johngrimsmo
Ooh. Ooh.
00:09:17
John Saunders
um Hardening the automation system.
00:09:21
johngrimsmo
the title the episode.
00:09:21
John Saunders
which I'm sure that word exists in like some other version of like tech hardening, right?
Company Sales Announcement and Troubleshooting
00:09:26
John Saunders
That's where i'm thinking of it getting it from, but talk a little bit about that.
00:09:27
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah,
00:09:29
John Saunders
Hard gauging, brother tool limits is probably my number one thing right now. Oh, my wife asked if we would please announce that we, Saunders is having a surplus, like aged, not surplus, aged inventory and BLEMS sale.
00:09:46
John Saunders
So we've had some BLEMS over the years. We've had some older inventory, but this time we they huddled, the team sales team huddled up and i was like, we're getting rid of this. So the stuff, my understanding, haven't even looked, is that it's priced to be gone, like gone.
00:09:58
johngrimsmo
Cool.
00:09:58
John Saunders
So if anyone's interested, I believe, sorry, I meant to do this before we hit record. um I believe if you just go to our website, there's a banner. Yeah, there's a banner at the top that kind of takes you directly there.
00:10:09
John Saunders
But like we're to the point of like, even if you just want to fix your plates to like use for drill press or set up like stuff.
00:10:14
johngrimsmo
It's like cheap enough to do that.
00:10:16
John Saunders
Yeah. um Horizontal's gone. Custom serial numbers got working by Grant. um Process bins. thats I mean, that some other little stuff.
00:10:27
John Saunders
Yeah. But I want to hear about your, I want to hear about the speed of bloom laser, but your deal is good.
00:10:34
johngrimsmo
Yeah, let's start there. um So the Speedio does pretty much all of our, well, a lot of our hard milling right now. So the blades get heat rated and then they go back on the Speedio for either hard milling critical features or doing the bevels, roughing out the bevels, grinding the bevels, chop grinding, um things like that.
00:10:54
johngrimsmo
And we have the laser on there because we touch off the grinding wheel and I need a laser, not a contact tool setter. that's why we installed the laser.
00:11:01
John Saunders
Okay.
00:11:02
johngrimsmo
And we're hard milling these critical features on the blades, on our fjall blade, and they started turning out weird. Like normally we pin check one of the bores and all of a sudden it started getting far bigger than it should be.
00:11:16
johngrimsmo
And so we kind of flagged it and we're like, our machinist, he kind of, you know, operator flagged it and said, something's weird. And we're like, well, okay, nothing, everything checks out so far, maybe run a couple more and continues to be weird. And by the time we caught it, and by the time we stopped it, we'd made 16 bad blades, which a lot of work already goes into a blade. And at that point, we're like, okay, hard stop, but we've got to Something is very, very wrong.
00:11:45
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:11:45
johngrimsmo
Turns out the tools were measuring four thou smaller than they are, which is a mile.
00:11:51
John Saunders
Sure.
00:11:53
johngrimsmo
And then, ah its
00:11:56
John Saunders
Oh, you're copying?
00:11:57
johngrimsmo
yeah, using cutter comp for these.
00:11:59
John Saunders
Yeah, sure.
00:12:00
johngrimsmo
So using the cutter comp to like move it over and it just made the feature way too big. um And the operator doesn't always really know what each tool is doing or why it's doing it or how it's measured, like what it affects.
00:12:14
johngrimsmo
um And we need to continue to beef up our kind of um process documentation and prints and tool lists and things like that so that the operator has some paperwork right in front of them to be like, oh, tool 12, that does these features.
00:12:26
johngrimsmo
and has
00:12:26
John Saunders
Yeah.
Air Filtration Challenges and Solutions
00:12:27
johngrimsmo
these effects and these are the things to watch out for and these are the problems that tend to happen.
00:12:31
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:12:31
johngrimsmo
So it was just another you know ah red flag that we need to wrap that up. um So then I got involved and i was like, well, something's something is the matter.
00:12:44
johngrimsmo
And we quickly found out that the tool diameters or radius was like way weird. And on a finishing, actually on a roughing tool, but it was roughing so much bigger than it should have that the finishing tool was just air cutting.
00:12:57
John Saunders
Yeah, interesting.
00:12:58
johngrimsmo
So we looked at the finishing tool.
00:12:59
John Saunders
Oh, yeah.
00:13:00
johngrimsmo
We're like, finishing tool's fine. Diameter's good, right? And then we look at the roughing tool, which does use cutter comp in this example. And yeah, it was weird. So start digging in more, digging in more.
00:13:11
johngrimsmo
Okay, what is it? What is it? Eventually, we took out the calibration tool and we ran the calibration cycle, like calibration check. find out the laser was running super weird. On our Blum LC50, the lens covers, they have this bayonet, like 45 degree rotate, and they just pull right off. So you don't have to unscrew anything.
00:13:32
johngrimsmo
It's pretty sweet system. um Took the lens covers off, found some drops of oil inside, found some quite noticeable smears on the lenses themselves, which are supposed to be very clean always.
00:13:40
John Saunders
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:13:47
johngrimsmo
And then that led to the big question, are the smudges on the lenses oil from the air or are they coolant ingress from the machining? And then how do you really define that like scientifically and objectively or non-objectively, like conclusively?
00:14:07
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:14:07
johngrimsmo
So... That led me down quite a little rabbit hole on not only air filtration to the machine, like like shop air filtration and what the filters do and what there's all different kinds of filters and there's condensate filters and there's carbon filters and there's pre-filters and there's 40 micron, five micron, all this stuff. like Plus the regulators, plus does the regulator go after the filter, before the filter, or like all this stuff.
00:14:30
johngrimsmo
So I was actually having a lot of fun digging into that. But what really pushed me over the edge was um I brought home a microscope slide, a glass microscope slide.
00:14:41
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:14:41
johngrimsmo
You put your, you know, um pond water on or whatever.
00:14:44
John Saunders
Specimen in the AF. yeah.
00:14:45
johngrimsmo
Exactly. And we've got a little cheap microscope at home. So I brought a glass slide to work. And with that, I was able to literally press it up against the lenses on the laser and transfer the goo that was on the laser.
00:14:59
John Saunders
oh yeah
00:15:01
johngrimsmo
And then I could take that little smudge under the microscope and I could add a drop of water to it. And what does coolant do when you add water to it? Like coolant residue, dry oil, whatever. It turns white.
00:15:11
John Saunders
Mulsifies, yeah, sure.
00:15:12
johngrimsmo
Yeah. And what does oil do? It just kind of stays beaded and it <unk> it's a vast difference between... air compressor oil in your lines and emulsified coolant or concentrate, whatever.
00:15:23
John Saunders
I got it.
00:15:24
johngrimsmo
So with that in mind and under the microscope and adding water and spreading around with a little plastic Q-tip or a pointer, I could really, really narrow down what was happening.
00:15:37
johngrimsmo
Turns out the goo that was on the lenses was, I'm guessing around 90% actual coolant, but a little bit of oil vapor um because there were some sections in there that were not emulsifying.
00:15:43
John Saunders
Okay.
00:15:45
John Saunders
Okay.
00:15:49
johngrimsmo
And it's like, that's interesting. And then I go look at the air filter and it's definitely due for filter replacement. It's been about four years for that filter.
00:15:58
John Saunders
Okay. Thank you for being honest.
00:16:00
johngrimsmo
But there there is a sticker on it that says replace in 2026. So their service schedule is like now, not the end world.
00:16:05
John Saunders
Oh.
00:16:07
John Saunders
This is Kaser.
00:16:08
johngrimsmo
This is Bloom.
00:16:11
John Saunders
Oh, boom okay.
00:16:12
johngrimsmo
So Bloom installed an air filter on the back of the machine for the laser, right?
00:16:12
John Saunders
They're filmed. Hmm. Interesting. Yep.
00:16:17
johngrimsmo
<unk> We're feeding Kaser air directly to it.
00:16:19
John Saunders
Yep.
00:16:19
johngrimsmo
No pre-filters or whatever.
00:16:22
John Saunders
You don't filter on the output of your compressor?
00:16:25
johngrimsmo
We do have one on the output of the compressor, but there's 100 feet of line between there and there and whatever.
00:16:26
John Saunders
Okay. Sure.
00:16:31
johngrimsmo
Things happen, whether it's moisture in the line or oil vapor that gets past the Kaser stuff and like gets to the thing. i don't know. and really care. um I unplug the hose, the push to connect hose after the bloom air filter, which is a fancy carbon filter, like really expensive, nice filter unit.
00:16:51
johngrimsmo
Unplugged the push to connect, swabbed a Q-tip on the inside.
00:16:54
John Saunders
good
00:16:54
johngrimsmo
Q-tip looks great.
00:16:56
John Saunders
Oh.
00:16:57
johngrimsmo
But then I swabbed that on the clean glass slide and you can tell an oil smear just a little bit. Does that make sense?
00:17:04
John Saunders
from So the Q-tip did trace for oil from the...
00:17:06
johngrimsmo
Exactly. Which if you just look at the Q-tip, you won't tell anything, but if you put it on clean glass, all of a sudden you see a smudge.
00:17:10
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:17:13
johngrimsmo
And then I turn the Q-tip over to the clean side and I rub the clean part of the glass just to like make sure the Q-tip's not dirty.
00:17:18
John Saunders
Yeah, yeah.
00:17:20
johngrimsmo
And that was totally clean. So I clearly swapped just a little bit of oil between the filter and the laser. which tells me there is oil in the line, even ever so slight, whatever.
00:17:31
John Saunders
This is like CSI Grimsmoke.
00:17:32
johngrimsmo
It is, it is. And I went, I went hard on it. um it It was quite interesting.
00:17:36
John Saunders
That's what she said.
00:17:37
johngrimsmo
And then ah underneath the laser, they have what's called the smart dock, which has, it's a brilliant, brilliant little system, has these little pneumatic pistons inside that are electronically operated that say, okay, route air to the purge to blow the tip of the tool off or route air to the shutters when the laser is on.
00:17:53
John Saunders
Oh, should see it.
00:17:57
johngrimsmo
And those are little valves that have to move. And my theory is that over the past four years, enough oil contamination got to those plungers that they are sticky and they're being kind of weird right now.
00:18:10
johngrimsmo
Causing sometimes the the laser output has what they call shutters. So it's a little plunger that blocks all airflow, laser flow, coolant, ingress, whatever.
00:18:17
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:18:20
johngrimsmo
So when it works, it should work perfectly. Clearly we're getting oil or coolant. into the laser cavity through those holes. And that's not a good thing at all because now I'm contaminating my laser.
00:18:33
johngrimsmo
And it had been only two weeks since we cleaned the laser lenses last.
00:18:36
John Saunders
Oh, okay. Got it.
00:18:37
johngrimsmo
Like you should be able to go for a year or like it shouldn't be a problem really.
00:18:37
John Saunders
Interesting.
00:18:42
johngrimsmo
So anyway, this whole CSI thing turned into a nice email that I sent to Bloom. And then my guy, the president of Bloom Canada called me yesterday. And so we had a good chat about it. And he said, so I ran your email by our technical director.
00:18:55
johngrimsmo
And he basically agreed with everything you said. and And he said, ah
00:19:02
John Saunders
Okay. Mm-hmm.
00:19:03
johngrimsmo
the other thing I forgot to mention is the fancy bloom air filter that they supplied, like I said, has shop air going to it. um Their documentation, how do I say this? The air filter manufacturer recommends a pre-filter immediately before their filter. Because it's a carbon filter, it's fancy, it's like easily foulable.
00:19:26
johngrimsmo
Blum, it was their procedure to just put shop air to that thing up until about three years ago when they changed it.
00:19:30
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:19:33
johngrimsmo
And now they put, you know the filters that are on the back of every machine, they pull air after that so that it is pre-filtered.
00:19:37
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:19:41
johngrimsmo
um So just a bunch of things s went together. But basically, I'm going to have to replace the smart dock, add filters before the pre-filter so that I'm getting like proper pre-filtered air.
00:19:48
John Saunders
Oh, really?
00:19:57
johngrimsmo
And then probably replace replace the little lens covers that have the plunger inside and just I'll be a total stage zero at that point. Like it'll all be like good. And if I can keep clean air going to it, it should last forever, like do maintenance, but it should be good from there on. um And then...
00:20:19
johngrimsmo
because their filter housing is so fancy and so expensive, the filters are like four or $500 to replace one filter. I'm like, that's dumb. I can go to McMaster by literally the same brand, literally the same air quality filtration, carbon, all that stuff, but in multiple stacks for about $400 for four different units with $60 filter replacements and like be in a much better place.
00:20:32
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:20:44
johngrimsmo
So I'm going to build a McMaster air filter setup And yeah, um'm I'm pretty happy with how this all resolved.
00:20:55
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:20:58
John Saunders
Yeah, I do i do know.
00:20:59
johngrimsmo
i
00:21:00
John Saunders
i It's funny because this is exactly a corollary to our phasing in our automation where we're now at the point where we're starting to think about hardening it
00:21:10
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:21:11
John Saunders
so like Ed had mentioned, hey, we really should clean the current vices out every two weeks. You have all these problems that come up when a system runs by itself.
00:21:18
johngrimsmo
When you don't, yeah.
00:21:20
John Saunders
Like the vices actually, they were new vices and whether they had um a little bit of um backlash in the screw, you know, you can adjust some of the vise tensions and screw settings and the angle lock, all that.
00:21:20
johngrimsmo
i
00:21:31
John Saunders
I don't actually know which screw or setting it was per se, but... um they either were loose or got loose and that caused things to change and then um chips building up in the vice.
00:21:42
John Saunders
We're pretty t happy with our chip control. If you look at our, the system or like the photos that we've put on Instagram, it kind of looks like a tank. Like it has these like side armor and top angles.
00:21:52
johngrimsmo
Oh, yeah.
00:21:53
John Saunders
It's all like send, cut, send stuff, which is great too, because like we just added the second machine. So you just click rebuy on the send, cut, send stuff comes in. But chips will still get in the vice and it's only, know, it's just, it's not a question of If, but rather when. So it's like, okay, now we need to create a PM schedule where you check for chips that have built up in the enclosure, even though there's wash down. You check for chips in the thing. And it occurred to me, like, we're not using lasers per se, but like probably a six month type PM on checking something around that front.
Importance of Air Quality in Machining
00:22:24
johngrimsmo
But some things, how do you know when it's good? Like any filter on any at the back of any machine or your air compressor filters, like you can't just look at them and say, yeah, it's still good or it's it's clogged.
00:22:36
John Saunders
So a tip of the hat to Dylan over at Proteum and the wonderful within tolerance. He sent me a link to a um a unit.
00:22:46
John Saunders
It looks kind of like a bamboo printer or bigger, maybe like the old Harbor Freight dryers, if anybody remembers those, but it's just a filtering thing that's designed to go after your compressor and just kind of serve as your main filter platform for the whole shop.
00:22:58
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:23:03
johngrimsmo
Interesting.
00:23:04
John Saunders
And I saw it and I was like, I was kind of in love with this system that I've come up with, which I think we will still keep and use where I have a coalescer, bypass valves, regulator, et cetera.
00:23:13
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:23:14
John Saunders
But I looked at that thing from Dylan and i was like, oh man, this thing is like a small filing cabinet. like And then I saw the price tag.
00:23:20
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:23:23
John Saunders
And it was like 2,300 bucks. And I'm like, oh, that's ah that's a no brainer, yes.
00:23:27
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:23:30
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:23:31
John Saunders
Because I think the point was like, let's just take every filter you have in your shop, John. The Kern, the Swiss, like all these different filters and so forth. Like the better you can treat them um by having one thing that has, it takes the brunt of the mess.
00:23:47
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:23:49
John Saunders
And my understanding of the compressors that we all use are rotary screws that are that use oil on the screws. you will have oil come out of your compressed air every day, 100% of the time.
00:24:03
John Saunders
Maybe your casers have a filter that then separates it, but how well that works exactly, I don't know.
00:24:07
johngrimsmo
They're supposed to for sure, but how much? Yeah, yeah.
00:24:11
John Saunders
But I'm... my layman's understanding is that if you have an air compressor in like a medical situation or like you know asml for chip stuff they use a different technology that there was never oil to be separated out of yeah exactly like a diaphragm or something that's just not introducing oil into the stream ever
00:24:19
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly.
00:24:23
johngrimsmo
Oh, even from the compressor. Yeah. Interesting.
00:24:28
johngrimsmo
Right. Yeah. Hmm.
00:24:34
johngrimsmo
Yeah, it's it's interesting. And then that doesn't say there won't be like condensation in your lines between that filter and your machine 200 feet away or something like that.
00:24:45
johngrimsmo
um But then the machine filter is like does a better job because it has cleaner air to begin with kind of thing.
00:24:50
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:24:50
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:24:51
John Saunders
Yeah. And moisture and water, I think is pretty easy to deal with, with combination dryer filters, the lime sloping, draining them every once a while.
00:24:58
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:24:59
John Saunders
That doesn't scare me as much as oil that will stick around forever.
00:25:03
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:25:03
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:25:04
johngrimsmo
Yeah. And the screw compressors, like, as far as I understand, the, the air that is getting compressed is under bath. Like it is bathed in oil while getting compressed, I think. And then the screw compressor has various different thingies to like separate the air from the oil. And then your filter at the end of the machine in the airline is supposed to like further clean it.
00:25:28
johngrimsmo
But at what level, does each shop need?
00:25:30
John Saunders
Yeah, exactly.
00:25:32
johngrimsmo
And the more I looked at and thought about these bloom lasers, it's like, dude, that is a, that is an optical grade lab equipment that we're expecting to put into the harshest environment with like
00:25:39
John Saunders
Exactly.
Machine Rigging and Space Optimization
00:25:43
johngrimsmo
coolant chips.
00:25:43
johngrimsmo
And, and if we're not feeding it the best quality air possible, a hundred percent of the time, then that's, we're just asking for trouble. And I'm i'm in that trouble right now.
00:25:55
John Saunders
Yeah, I would take it a step further though, to think like the quality of machines that you have and the work that you do, there's nothing where you're like, it's okay if it gets mediocre air.
00:26:04
johngrimsmo
right yeah yeah yeah
00:26:04
John Saunders
So that's where I'm like, okay, just just buy that system that I like because, so it's weird because yes, like you'll still need to replace every filter in your shop at some point over the next 10 years or whatever, but still you're stacking the deck in your favor knowing that every six months I'm going to spend the 200 bucks replace the main I don't It's just there's something I like about it being third party and not tied to, you know, the quote unquote case or we use or there's be intermean.
00:26:29
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:26:30
johngrimsmo
do you have the name of that 2300 unit
00:26:33
John Saunders
I'll look it up while we're talking here.
00:26:34
johngrimsmo
Yeah, sounds good. And then we can just add it to the notes or whatever.
00:26:36
John Saunders
You talk about it. Yeah. But again, shout out to the, so like, I feel like I really enjoy the community and people sharing on that stuff.
00:26:45
johngrimsmo
Yeah, absolutely. Okay.
00:26:46
John Saunders
ah We'll add it in the notes. I don't see it. I thought I put it somewhere that we don't have.
00:26:50
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I'll make a note here.
00:26:54
johngrimsmo
Sweet. little
00:26:56
John Saunders
Okay, so I'm flying back from Dallas the day the horizontal is being rigged out.
00:27:03
johngrimsmo
Nice.
00:27:03
John Saunders
And, you know, no big deal. The guys had been decommissioned already, so it was all in pizza and parts and ready to go. And I told the guys, like, hey, you know, the riggers will be here at 6 a.m. Like, whatever.
00:27:15
John Saunders
Holler if you need to. And so I... log into the one of the webcams to sort of look and just see if they even showed up. I sure enough, I see them. um I see them driving the it's a Versa lift.
00:27:27
John Saunders
So it's the like big boy, 100,000 pound capable type forklift, but it's remote controlled.
00:27:31
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:27:32
John Saunders
So the guy's just next to it, driving it in the parking lot.
00:27:32
johngrimsmo
What?
00:27:34
John Saunders
And like, great, they're there, like, wasn't worried about it. And so then i don't know, like 30 minutes later, I like just check one more time before I, before I hop on the plane. the machines on the the machines, that's they're done.
00:27:48
johngrimsmo
It's gone.
00:27:49
John Saunders
Yeah. They rigged that whole thing out in like 20 minutes. It was, they had remote controlled skates and then they had remote controlled forklift.
00:27:52
johngrimsmo
my gosh.
00:27:59
John Saunders
And Grant, we, it's like it's just a smooth straight shot out. Like they're pretty close to the door.
00:28:02
johngrimsmo
Yeah, and you were ready.
00:28:03
John Saunders
It was already, but it was like, they, They showed up at six to like start unloading the truck and they probably could have rolled out at seven 50. Um, but I think they had a few more things, just little things that they wanted to like tidy up.
00:28:17
John Saunders
So was, they were gone by eight 30.
00:28:17
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:28:18
John Saunders
So yeah, I was like wow, that's a great job.
00:28:19
johngrimsmo
It's incredible. Efficiency.
00:28:24
John Saunders
So yeah, horizontal's gone. We have this very awkward, large space. And it's funny because the floor was, mean, the floor was a mess underneath it because that horizontal had 11,000 hours in the cut.
00:28:39
johngrimsmo
wow wow
00:28:40
John Saunders
So if you have to think about 2,000 hours a year of working hours, that's like five or six years of work. full-time production, which on a vertical mill at 30%, that means that was equivalent of like 15 years on a regular VMC.
00:28:56
John Saunders
So the floor below it was a mess from just little things that had fallen over the years, chips, oil, all that.
00:28:59
johngrimsmo
the
00:29:00
John Saunders
But then um Courtney and Yvonne were cleaning it all up. And now the floor is like for scene, because it hasn't actually had any wear and tear other than some like some surface oil. So it's actually really fun to see it.
00:29:11
johngrimsmo
It's been protected. Oh
00:29:13
John Saunders
And the two brothers get delivered next Thursday.
00:29:16
johngrimsmo
man. And they're already like allocated.
00:29:17
John Saunders
So it's all,
00:29:18
johngrimsmo
They're going right there. You you had a plan for that.
00:29:21
John Saunders
yep,
Automation and Quality Control Enhancements
00:29:22
johngrimsmo
Nice.
00:29:23
John Saunders
yep.
00:29:24
John Saunders
My other plan was, and i i might I probably should just hold this for next week because I haven't done any brainstorming. And obviously this is the stuff that that Chad is so great to brainstorm with.
00:29:37
John Saunders
But we are starting to phase through this automation stuff. We're starting like hardening stuff with sensors and so forth.
00:29:43
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:29:46
John Saunders
We're adding the cameras to have... interrogation live views. Grant has figured out how to remote into the UR robot so he can even control it remotely from his house if needed, um which is like part of me doesn't love that because it's like number one, you don't work from home.
00:29:56
johngrimsmo
see
00:30:01
John Saunders
Number two, a little bit scary, but then no, it's like sometimes there's just like a quick thing you want to do and that's awesome. But then the next idea that I have is kind of a combination of the ideas we've seen from shipping department folks like Henry Holsters of taking a photo of every order they ship.
00:30:17
John Saunders
And what occurred to me is we have every part that comes off already being held by a robot. We're gonna have a webcam, not webcam, like some sort of a camera system, cheap camera mounted near the machine. And the robot is going to present the part in somewhere between two and five orientations to that camera. And it'll just snap a shot.
00:30:36
John Saunders
And you assume we make a part of like for now, it's it says it' every 15 minutes. Great. So there's four parts an hour. You just log them with a file name, timestamp the name or whatever. and then those just go into a directory and now you have 100 reference photos if needed to go back through and look at things um whether we do ai but what i hate the overused word you know like you could easily do image process looking at those say hey is the logo correct or streaking um it's like what you're doing with your interferometer software of like looking at the the picture
00:31:02
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:31:09
johngrimsmo
Yeah. If you put it back on the rack, like finished part goes back on the rack in spot number seven. i don't know if you have them numbered. If you have a visual of tracking of that,
00:31:21
John Saunders
he
00:31:22
johngrimsmo
I don't know if you could corroborate like the numbers and the times and the pictures. don't if that would help.
00:31:26
John Saunders
Oh.
00:31:27
johngrimsmo
So when you pick up a part off the shelf from spot number seven and it's wrong, you would then be able to have those photos.
00:31:31
John Saunders
Yes.
00:31:34
johngrimsmo
i don't know if that helps, but.
00:31:36
John Saunders
We produce more than that may support right now, but I still, what I like about it is if you, you know, it's not if you are gonna have a problem, we're gonna have something we wanna improve. It may not be catastrophic, but hey, a chamfer or a streaking of a tool or an engraver.
00:31:46
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm.
00:31:49
John Saunders
Now, with no additional effort and frankly, no real cost, you know, the cost of a $100 camera and then storing these files is zero. um You can now go back in time and look at every part in order production and sort of see the behavior type trends over time.
00:32:07
johngrimsmo
Yeah, and it's you always think back to where's the value. And and do you are you tracking enough information? like Say we have five different palettes that all make the same part, but maybe one of those palettes is kind of weird, kind of machined wrong.
00:32:22
John Saunders
We don't, that's for us, yeah, okay.
00:32:23
johngrimsmo
I know, but in in this case, what i'm what I'm saying is I have all kinds of probe data, I have all kinds of machine data, I have timestamps, I have things, but I don't really store the palette number sometimes.
00:32:34
johngrimsmo
So if I'm holding a part, I don't know what palette number I came off of, unless that's something we track.
00:32:35
John Saunders
Interesting.
00:32:40
johngrimsmo
So the point I'm trying to make is like to over time, learn the things you need to track in order to get the valuable information.
00:32:41
John Saunders
Understood.
00:32:49
John Saunders
Yeah, I think that's one of the reasons I'm in love with One Piece Flow is it actually just eliminates, it's like the ultimate lean. It just eliminates those variables that you would otherwise need to track.
00:32:58
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:32:58
John Saunders
um You know, we, yeah, you could change cam and speeds and feeds. You could potentially change cutting tools. But like by and large, it's the same material, the same vice.
00:33:09
John Saunders
It's one at a time and you can just look, like it'll be really cool. You could probably build a drop them into video editing software and look at 600 parts every, you know, showing a part in 100 milliseconds and just see the evolution.
00:33:24
John Saunders
It occurred to me I'll probably want to put it in like a mini light box to keep the lighting relatively consistent.
00:33:28
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm. Good point.
00:33:30
John Saunders
It's an early idea. um um i'm vehemently against tracking data for no reason, the wrong reason, but a picture of every part, um like this morning we had a good
00:33:36
johngrimsmo
Exactly.
00:33:39
johngrimsmo
Will you be able to see any difference between multiple parts? Like, like what are you looking for? A missing chamfer or...
00:33:45
John Saunders
Well, so for example, this this morning we had a situation on a, ironically not on this machine, um but it's probably the first time that I can think of, certainly in the last nine months where we actually had a QC issue that has caused more than one customer service interaction.
00:34:01
johngrimsmo
Interesting.
00:34:02
John Saunders
So luckily we're still talking about something that's, you know, hundreds of dollars to fix and make right with everybody, but still it's been pretty cool that we haven't had any sort of a issue like this um And coincidentally, there's some similarities to your roughing hiccup earlier. I think we had a roughing tool that got somehow goofed up and it was over roughing and stopping the finisher from being able to do what it needs to do. Um, uh, pictures, pictures wouldn't have stopped this per se, at least right now, but it it would ah absolutely give us a high degree of conviction to go back and look at what happened when, um,
00:34:37
John Saunders
And in the future, I do think there may be some of the abilities to use Friget to train the data set. Certainly we're going to use Friget to look at the engraving because that's one of the things that's really easy to lose the your engraving tool.
00:34:49
John Saunders
And maybe the probe doesn't even detect that, the touch off. But to say, hey, is there a logo here or not? That that we can do for sure.
00:34:55
johngrimsmo
Yeah, absolutely. I like that. Cool.
00:35:02
John Saunders
What's next on your
Experimenting with Low-Temp Alloys
00:35:04
John Saunders
look at? What do you pick? Okay.
00:35:05
johngrimsmo
Let's do low temp alloys. So I think I talked last week about getting the more non-toxic stuff. um
00:35:13
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:35:14
johngrimsmo
Got it in. McMaster has it. It's not the cheapest place on the internet, but it's McMaster and I had it the next day. um And this is a higher melting point stuff, so 281 degrees Fahrenheit. So hotter than boiling water, but still not crazy hot.
00:35:30
johngrimsmo
um And there are other ones that are a lot more expensive that are more like 150 degrees Fahrenheit, which is you could almost hold it at that temperature.
00:35:38
John Saunders
It's crazy.
00:35:38
johngrimsmo
That's like that was like warm water. um So anyway, I got the 281 stuff. And I bought a little like cast iron ladle thing to go on my hot plate.
00:35:50
johngrimsmo
And bought a blowtorch so that I can preheat it and just get it going kind of thing. And yeah, it was super fun to play with. And the whole bunch of research, it's relatively non-toxic.
00:36:00
johngrimsmo
No fumes coming off at this temperature. i say relatively because like everything's toxic when you think about it.
00:36:03
John Saunders
Sure. Yeah.
00:36:05
johngrimsmo
But um it's not like lead.
00:36:06
John Saunders
yeah
00:36:08
johngrimsmo
you know And we've all handled lead in all kinds of different forms. wash your hands after and you're fine kind of thing. It's even better than that. It's even safer than that. so um It's great.
00:36:19
johngrimsmo
And it's really cool to be able to melt let melt metal like quickly in a ladle or with a blowtorch.
00:36:24
John Saunders
Yeah, it's surreal.
00:36:26
johngrimsmo
You're holding one end of this stick, the six inch long rod, and you're melting the other end. It just drips off and then it hardens rock hard. um So then I was trying to figure out how do I like collect it back into different you know cubes?
00:36:40
John Saunders
Oh,
00:36:41
johngrimsmo
Silicone baking trays work great or
00:36:43
John Saunders
they can withstand that.
00:36:45
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Or a muffin trays, like little silicone things.
00:36:47
John Saunders
Okay.
00:36:48
johngrimsmo
Um, so I stole some of those from home and didn't tell my wife we have enough. And, uh, yeah, and I was able to, you know, exactly.
00:36:53
John Saunders
so Just don't take them back home.
00:36:55
johngrimsmo
They're, they're done now, but, um, they'll last for a long time, but that lets me remelt and restore little smaller chunks because smaller chunks will melt faster.
00:37:06
johngrimsmo
Um, And I haven't done a pour in place yet where I want the blade and the bevel to live. I need to do a little bit of machining to make some vent holes and some entry holes.
00:37:17
johngrimsmo
But that's going to be pretty easy. But I have done enough pours and enough testing to know that, oh, this is there's really something here. this is This is sweet stuff. And then the big question was, how do I um it Pours like water.
00:37:31
johngrimsmo
How do I keep it from not going everywhere right i might have talked about that last week, but um Using
00:37:32
John Saunders
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:37:37
johngrimsmo
ah I thought like Play-Doh, but will Play-Doh hold up to 281 degrees molten metal going up to it? So I did a bunch of research. Play-Doh is probably not going to work, but it might work. I haven't tested it. I bought this clay stick from McMaster that might hold up to the higher temperatures, but it's rock hard.
00:37:55
johngrimsmo
And even cutting it with a knife is like hard to do. You can warm it up and it gets tacky, but then you warm it up too much and it gets sticky. So that's like, ah, that clay is kind of annoying. i ended up with butyl tape.
00:38:06
johngrimsmo
a
00:38:07
John Saunders
Oh.
00:38:07
johngrimsmo
which is what they use in like cars to seal the gaps in the firewall and all kinds of stuff.
00:38:12
John Saunders
OK.
00:38:13
johngrimsmo
And it's the sticky feels like Play-Doh stickier than Play-Doh and doesn't harden it good to like 500 degrees, like win win, win, win, win.
00:38:24
johngrimsmo
And McMaster has this huge pack. That's probably like two pounds of it for 20 bucks.
00:38:29
John Saunders
Nice.
00:38:29
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:38:29
John Saunders
Oh, wow.
00:38:31
johngrimsmo
It's already in strip form. So you just rip off a little strip. They're like candy cane diameter kind of thing. It's great. And so I played with that and I rolled a little snake and I rolled it into ah a circle and I stuck it to an aluminum thing and I poured, you know, poured some molten bismuth into it.
00:38:43
John Saunders
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:38:47
johngrimsmo
And I like, I love great. I'm like, this is sweet.
00:38:50
John Saunders
Quick.
00:38:51
johngrimsmo
So then I put a blade on our fixture and I put some of this butyl tape, you know, around all the spots I would think it would be.
00:38:56
John Saunders
Yes.
00:38:57
johngrimsmo
And I'm like, this will be easy. This will be like total cakewalk. Like this is going to work. um
00:39:03
John Saunders
Well, that's what you're, the suspense is killing Like, no, pour the mold.
00:39:05
johngrimsmo
That's where I'm at.
00:39:06
John Saunders
Like, do you want some?
00:39:06
johngrimsmo
Exactly. So like I said, I have to machine the fixture a little bit before I pour the mold.
00:39:10
John Saunders
Okay.
00:39:10
johngrimsmo
So that involves some design, some cams and machining. I just haven't done that yet, but yeah.
00:39:15
John Saunders
Do you, are you going to like machine in anchor points for the bismuth, if you will?
00:39:19
johngrimsmo
Yes, even just little tiny undercuts with a thread mill or something will be enough to keep it in place um unless you want it removable and then you could just have it pull out.
00:39:20
John Saunders
Okay. Yeah.
00:39:25
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:39:27
johngrimsmo
But I don't, I want it to be you know relatively stuck in there.
00:39:31
John Saunders
It's always removable. It's just heated up, melt it out.
00:39:32
johngrimsmo
Exactly, hit it with a blowtorch.
00:39:35
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:39:35
johngrimsmo
ye So on a bigger steel fixture, blowtorch will heat up the bismuth and let it melt out, or you could slowly heat up the whole fixture on a hot plate and whatever you want.
00:39:42
John Saunders
Yeah. Right.
00:39:44
johngrimsmo
But yeah, it's it's got some some opportunities here for awesomeness. So I'm still learning, still playing, but pretty much got it to where I can test this.
00:39:56
John Saunders
Awesome. That's going to be cool.
00:39:57
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I think so.
00:39:57
John Saunders
um but um Now I'm excited to see how that works.
00:39:59
johngrimsmo
Yeah, and then I definitely had the thought of like, if our op 1 grinding consistency is, say it's not perfect, and the whole goal of the bismuth is to have it you know be perfect, um because now it's non-compliant.
00:40:07
John Saunders
Yep.
00:40:14
johngrimsmo
And for supporting op 2 of the bevel, Either it's perfect, it's clearance and not doing anything, or it's over-constrained and it's bending the part.
00:40:22
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:40:24
johngrimsmo
And if op 1 consistency is not perfect, the bismuth is not really gonna help as much as I think it's gonna help. So we have pretty good consistency of Op1.
00:40:35
johngrimsmo
I was looking through all our data and looking through a bunch of blades. I think it's good enough to to do. But I definitely thought about what would the workflow be like of pouring bismuth on every blade, just hypothetically.
00:40:46
John Saunders
Yes.
00:40:46
johngrimsmo
like It is more work, but it would be perfect every time. And what would that look like? And that led me down the roll of ah the road of rifle reloaders that like pour their own lead.
00:40:58
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:40:58
johngrimsmo
So this company, Lee, makes a lead pot.
00:40:59
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:41:02
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:41:02
johngrimsmo
You probably know all about this.
00:41:02
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:41:03
johngrimsmo
And I was watching a bunch of videos of these reloading guys or fishing lure guys like doing this.
00:41:04
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:41:08
johngrimsmo
And that is exactly the right tool for $150 whatever it is And it's just a lead pot. It heats it up. It's got a little spigot valve on the bottom that doesn't clog or whatever.
00:41:18
johngrimsmo
And if that workflow were set up, it would take very little time and very little effort to pour every blade if you wanted to, or if you had the application that like truly needed it And then in that case, you wouldn't want to lock the slug in the part.
00:41:32
johngrimsmo
You'd want it to just come out after you remove your part, right?
00:41:34
John Saunders
Yeah, it fell off, sure, sure.
00:41:35
johngrimsmo
And you throw it back in the tank and coolant burns off. It's probably not the best fumes, but um things to think about. so it was kind of cool.
00:41:43
John Saunders
My, one of my very fond memories of a good portion of my childhood was my grandfather would pour lead soldier, like replica, were calvaries and horses, and I still have numerous sets of these things.
00:41:56
johngrimsmo
Really?
00:41:56
John Saunders
And I would sit there with a Lee melting pot press, five of one gallon paint, empty jug filled with lead, never wore gloves.
00:41:59
johngrimsmo
nowhere
00:42:05
John Saunders
Sometimes I wore safety glasses, which I'm not bragging, but it was more just like maybe, this is like 1990.
00:42:10
johngrimsmo
it was the 90s yeah
00:42:10
John Saunders
And and you just flip that lever up and it would pour in the mold and you kind of figured out how to deal with the shrinkage. Like you just want to pour as much in the molds. They were like off iron molds.
00:42:20
John Saunders
It would split apart. But what I think where you would excel to is if this worked, you could have like a five or six station rotary system where somebody lays the knife bank in the next station closes it up against the fixture the third station pours it the fourth station water cools air cools if you even needed the six station it just comes off like and this is automated automated potting yeah i love that yeah yeah
00:42:44
johngrimsmo
Very true. It's pretty cool. Yeah.
00:42:50
johngrimsmo
So yeah, I think the lower temp alloy stuff, even though it's significantly more expensive, like 13 times more expensive or something like that, it basically lasts forever. um It would be easier to work with because it would just melt at a lower temperature, but this stuff's like awesome to test out.
00:43:05
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:43:06
johngrimsmo
And if anybody's thinking of trying it, like buy the stuff without cadmium or lead just because safety. It's a little bit more expensive than the lead cadmium
Tool Wear Prevention and Project Progress
00:43:15
johngrimsmo
stuff, but fine.
00:43:15
John Saunders
Yeah. Reminded me of a, what is that? No. There's a rule of thumb.
00:43:26
John Saunders
I was trying to look it up real quick while we're talking. 10 second rule, 110 degrees. Is it something if you can pull And it's obviously very subjective.
00:43:38
John Saunders
um No, I don' i don't want to miss spread information, but something like if you can hold your hand on something for 10 seconds, it's usually not more than X degrees, but whatever.
00:43:48
johngrimsmo
Yeah, okay, okay.
00:43:49
John Saunders
Clearly don't know it. Do you use... do you use load limits on your brother.
00:43:58
johngrimsmo
No.
00:43:59
John Saunders
Okay.
00:43:59
johngrimsmo
Like tool tool cutting load limits?
00:44:00
John Saunders
I need to figure that out. Yeah. And Grant um actually has a call with Matt Blackwell, I think tomorrow, who's Matt what matt has been working on it.
00:44:07
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:44:08
John Saunders
i'm It's kind of one of those things like I have zero, I've spent zero time working on it. We also, it came up in a meeting this morning, but I also have like 99 degree percent confidence we can figure it out.
00:44:14
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:44:20
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:44:21
John Saunders
um But I will want it to I would prefer for it to be a fusion based load limit where we can have a operation property on each specific operation. This is true production at this point because the same tool gets used in different instances and we will want a specific load limit for that operation. But let's say those are 20 30% limits.
00:44:41
John Saunders
um or 20% loads, we might set a 30% limit type of thing, but then I probably want a master limit as well on the control that would be 50% or something, almost like a backstop load limit, if that's if that's possible.
00:44:54
John Saunders
So I need to do some work. I'll i'll let you know learned.
00:44:57
johngrimsmo
And the goal is to catch a tool that's worn out?
00:44:57
John Saunders
100%, hundred percent yeah So what
00:45:00
johngrimsmo
But it would stop at mid-cut, wouldn't it?
00:45:03
John Saunders
So right now, if I'm being honest in the spirit of kind of this this podcast, um one of our guys is frustrated. He's, you know, like for instance, yesterday they were, they spent about two or three hours working on the brother conveyor. We've had a lot of problems with the conveyor on that machine.
00:45:20
John Saunders
And so they weren't cutting for about three hours, but then he knows the, one of the face mills we use, if the inserts blow up, it's really bad and they can blow up. So he's like, I replaced the inserts before i left, but it only had,
00:45:34
John Saunders
ah half a day at most on them so they probably were fine and I sort of said hey no like that's the right thing to do like I'm okay incurring a little bit of extra cost and going slow and but we we need to we need to be able to at least stop the machine if it starts wear out or blow up um or you know eventually we can choose to do sister tools or we can start to reevaluate to a life because we have the data we just need to have them in place
00:45:55
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:46:00
johngrimsmo
Exactly.
00:46:03
John Saunders
yep
00:46:03
johngrimsmo
Yeah, tracking that kind of data over time would be kind of cool.
00:46:08
johngrimsmo
Nice.
00:46:13
John Saunders
Interferometer?
00:46:14
johngrimsmo
um I'm getting scans, except the speed of scan is variable because I'm using a $20 stepper motor. um
00:46:25
John Saunders
Okay.
00:46:25
johngrimsmo
Except I'm ah but but like the encoder that the encoder that I built for it like works amazing.
00:46:29
John Saunders
I thought the...
00:46:32
johngrimsmo
But these, um' what was it? I'm commanding it to move. I think it was six tenths over a minute, which is like wild.
00:46:41
John Saunders
Yeah, it's nothing.
00:46:43
johngrimsmo
And basically the magnets inside the motor or the bearings or whatever, like too many things going on, cause it to go, you know, move, move, move, slow down, slow down, slow down, stop, move, move, move, move.
00:46:53
johngrimsmo
move Even though I'm commanding a closed loop steady move and the fridges just aren't liking that.
00:46:56
John Saunders
Sure. All
00:47:00
johngrimsmo
Um, So the true upgrade is what Cyrus originally told me to do was to use a piezo motion actuator.
00:47:09
John Saunders
right.
00:47:09
johngrimsmo
I just didn't want to like invest in that kind of time cost learning new stuff. But I did last night.
00:47:18
John Saunders
You bought them.
00:47:19
johngrimsmo
Yeah. I found one on eBay for 70 bucks and I was like, oh done.
00:47:20
John Saunders
Good.
00:47:22
johngrimsmo
Everything else is $800.
00:47:22
John Saunders
Oh.
00:47:23
johngrimsmo
I'm okay. okay
00:47:26
John Saunders
Why can't you just purchase the components that the gentleman whose YouTube name I can never remember,
00:47:33
johngrimsmo
um I did, and that's how I built this, based off of diffraction limited.
00:47:36
John Saunders
but he's moving it further. So the
00:47:39
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:47:39
John Saunders
Cause his were seemingly, in fact, I remember him speaking quite eloquently to some of the like limitations of the radial bearing accuracy of separate motors.
00:47:47
johngrimsmo
Exactly, right?
00:47:47
John Saunders
Like a speck I'd never heard anybody ever address.
00:47:49
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I'm just, I'm moving much slower and at a much smaller overall move and expecting um not just accuracy and distance, but accuracy and smoothness of speed over time.
00:47:49
John Saunders
He seemed to know it.
00:47:55
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:48:01
johngrimsmo
And ah ah so I basically built his system into my interferometer and it's just not performing for this task.
00:48:04
John Saunders
Yes.
00:48:09
johngrimsmo
Yeah. So yeah, I'll probably keep that and add a piezo on top of that to do the final move.
00:48:10
John Saunders
Could you not?
00:48:15
johngrimsmo
i'm So I can position with his, but then do the final move with the piezo.
00:48:16
John Saunders
Oh.
00:48:19
johngrimsmo
Because it's only got a 50 micron or 500 micron like total distance.
00:48:25
John Saunders
Total range.
00:48:25
johngrimsmo
like like Not much. um And the one I got, it's got a flexure built into it so you can amplify the distance. I think I get 500 micron total distance from the flexure, which is still not very much, but...
00:48:38
John Saunders
Well, can you do the opposite with your stepper motor? Can you have a hundred to one flexure that lets your stepper move or move a hundred units that it gets flexured down to one unit?
00:48:45
johngrimsmo
You could. Yeah. That could help. um
00:48:48
John Saunders
I would assume that smooths it as well.
00:48:50
johngrimsmo
Yeah. You just have more resolution per step. Whereas right now I'm, I'm basically asking every step to be perfect.
00:48:53
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:48:57
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:48:59
johngrimsmo
So, I mean, I do have a very fine pitch screw, so I have some quite a bit of mechanical leverage already, but if you added another 10 times mechanical leverage, it would probably be better. So lots of ways to solve the problem, but I think the piezo is just like better.
00:49:09
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:49:11
John Saunders
Cool.
00:49:14
johngrimsmo
And there's,
00:49:14
John Saunders
Is it hard to... ahead.
00:49:16
johngrimsmo
There's a lot of benefits to just going that way, I think. so
00:49:20
John Saunders
Is it hard to control the peso?
00:49:22
johngrimsmo
Apparently, you know you just feed it 0 to 10 volts for 0 to 100% movement and you tune it to whatever you need.
00:49:28
John Saunders
Oh, okay.
00:49:30
johngrimsmo
But there are definitely some.
00:49:31
John Saunders
Yeah, great.
00:49:32
johngrimsmo
You need a DIC, digital equityqui analog converter, whatever that means.
00:49:35
John Saunders
Mm-hmm.
00:49:38
johngrimsmo
um
00:49:38
John Saunders
Yeah, just running along.
00:49:39
johngrimsmo
Yeah, and then you need the piezo control box, the amplifier, and all this like stuff.
00:49:44
John Saunders
Okay.
00:49:45
johngrimsmo
But...
00:49:45
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:49:46
johngrimsmo
found a cheap kid on eBay of of like real precision stuff that got pulled off of some fancy machine. And yeah, it's going good. And then Cyrus came up with a new interferometer video the other day.
00:49:59
johngrimsmo
And not exactly this, but I was basically like, babe, babe, wake up.
00:50:01
John Saunders
Ooh.
00:50:03
johngrimsmo
Cyrus just came up with a new interferometry video.
00:50:06
John Saunders
She slams you with a pillow.
00:50:08
johngrimsmo
You know, like I did tell her, it wasn't quite that aggressive, but I did tell her for sure.
00:50:13
John Saunders
That's good to know. i yeah i will go watch that like now.
00:50:17
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:50:18
John Saunders
That's great. Okay.
00:50:20
johngrimsmo
yeah good
00:50:22
John Saunders
um Okay. Can I give you a challenge for next week?
00:50:26
johngrimsmo
Sure. Love it.
00:50:27
John Saunders
Okay. You don't have to do it, but it's ah it's an oddly thorny problem that I want an elegant solution to.
00:50:35
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:50:38
John Saunders
I want a way for our air compressors to shut off and by that I mean close a ball valve, which we already own the ball valve there. So we have, I want to wait to actuate a ball valve when the shop doesn't need compressed air, but can also accommodate ah
00:51:02
John Saunders
chaotic work schedules.
00:51:04
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:51:05
John Saunders
So in other words, it certainly can't be rigid um times because automation machines finish at certain times. But also if we have a person, which we now do coming in to work for three or four hours on Saturday,
00:51:19
John Saunders
having it accommodate and and certainly like with building the system with zero tolerance for ever accidentally shutting the air off. i have a couple ideas and a couple them I think are actually good and creative.
00:51:32
John Saunders
learned from out there And if you're listening, wants to lob in solutions, this will be done with, um be done with Home Assistant.
00:51:32
johngrimsmo
okay
00:51:39
John Saunders
So there are lots of ways you can interrogate the world around you. Right. But um that's the thought.
00:51:47
johngrimsmo
Interesting. All I'll roll that around my head for the next week and see if anything comes up.
00:51:51
John Saunders
Okay.
00:51:52
johngrimsmo
Sounds like a lot of area for failure.
00:51:56
John Saunders
Well, there won't be because ultimately there's no, we, we don't, we, if like, you're going to really get academic about this, we have zero tolerance for shutting the air off. And we also aren't going to penalize you for being conservative.
00:52:08
johngrimsmo
Totally.
00:52:08
John Saunders
um
00:52:09
johngrimsmo
yeah But any amount of further sensors or timers or things like that is just another layer of thing to go wrong or misread or have the air shut off when the speedo is actually running.
00:52:09
John Saunders
so So it's like not that.
00:52:20
johngrimsmo
like But zero tolerance for that is the goal.
00:52:23
John Saunders
Correct.
00:52:23
johngrimsmo
Yeah, Interesting.
00:52:24
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah. And I'm not too worried. I mean, look, yes, long-term, like if a sensor got crushed by a forklift, like that's not the situation I'm trying to solve for. I'm trying to solve for the like the guy with like, are you kidding me?
00:52:32
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:52:34
John Saunders
Like I didn't, I didn't turn the lights on.
00:52:35
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah. Like, like I'm right here. Why are you shut off?
00:52:39
John Saunders
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
00:52:41
johngrimsmo
Like you, like your, uh, office lights that shut off every 30 minutes.
00:52:44
John Saunders
Sorry, John. I need to adjust that. I'm sorry.
00:52:47
johngrimsmo
It's fine. It's fine.
00:52:48
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:52:49
johngrimsmo
Uh, cool.
00:52:50
John Saunders
Okay.
00:52:52
johngrimsmo
umvan I will see you next week.
00:52:52
John Saunders
I'll see you next week.