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#217 - Coolant Dispensing Vs Oil? Grimsmo Ordering Two New Lathes. Cycle time speed increases!
187 Plays4 years ago
TOPICS:
- Saunders is settling in and working very hard on some updates to the shop this past year.
- Grimsmo dives into new coolant dispenser.
- Being a parent and teaching your kids cool stuff!
- Oil vs coolant.
- Grimsmo talks about ordering two new lathes!
- Cycle time speed increases across different machines.
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Transcript
Introduction to Business of Machining
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the Business of Machining, episode 217. My name is John Saunders. And my name is John Grimsmooth. This is the podcast where John and I talk each week about what it's like running our businesses, programming parts, and hopefully selling our products. Yeah. So what's new with you, man?
Transitioning Business: Overhaul and Equipment Needs
00:00:20
Speaker
I feel like it's been a 15 month process that we're transitioning. It's always a journey. We're trying to transitioning out of this overhaul stage and into the next stage. Thinking about if and how and where we want to relocate the machines, what equipment we need.
Vince's Shapeoko Pro and Its Impact
00:00:42
Speaker
We've got Vince working in his own Provencut office that has a lot of the machines that he focuses on.
00:00:49
Speaker
He just got a Shape-O-Co Pro, which is the new Shape-O-Co. I haven't even heard about that. Yeah, so they released the 4 and the Pro and they're, I think, a pretty big step up.
00:01:05
Speaker
The shape of the three was just like such a, such a focus like it's a big player in that space. And I think this is the now successor to them. So we're doing both fixturing stuff but then also, you know what Vince can do with those machines, and how he can get them to work to me is just, just absolutely awesome and if you ever need.
00:01:26
Speaker
When you think about mission statements or what makes you tick or happy or why you do what you do, seeing and having him on the team to help show what you can do, whether it's a relatively inexpensive or hobby lightweight machine like that or stepping up to end of the road, 20,000 pound accurate, that's super cool.
Innovation in Machining: Inspiration and Mission
00:01:50
Speaker
It's pushing the boundaries. I guess that's something you've always done from the beginning, whether it was like, you can't make parts, and you're like, yeah, I can. You start with a tag next to your pillow in your apartment, and then pushing the boundaries of what you're capable of and what the company becomes capable of. Vince is pushing the boundaries of what a shape Oco is capable of, et cetera.
00:02:16
Speaker
that feels like so long ago, like really does. And look, you know, you and I thought, I think, thought that that was an unusual path. And I think the more we look at the landscape, that is the path. I mean, more and more people are learning about the trades through YouTube or through entrepreneurs who are making products.
Learning Trades via Social Media
00:02:39
Speaker
And I mean, my sister just sent me an Instagram link to somebody who's making
00:02:44
Speaker
mechanical pencils and they're talking in the marketing tagline, it's not cheap to make a Swiss turned pencil in the US. I don't think she probably knows what that means, but it certainly caught my eye and you sort of think about, oh, that's how maybe you go down that rabbit hole and you learn about something you never knew about.
00:03:03
Speaker
And it's just keeping your eyes open and realizing we're not the only ones. And it's kind of the way to go. Not for everybody, but for us for sure. It's also funny because you think you're, I mean, we weren't different for the sake of being different, but you thought it was different or unique. And then you realize, no, this is what you do, which is awesome. Yeah. I mean, we're also purposely surrounding ourselves with other like-minded people. So it's becoming normal for us to be like, yeah, everybody kind of
00:03:32
Speaker
It's your job to think outside the box. And it's your job to try new things and buy machinery and blah, blah, blah.
Arduino Automation Instagram Project
00:03:42
Speaker
That's fun. Your Instagram coolant, sensor, timer, valve, solenoid, which I want to hear about, but that is everything I love. It's Arduino probably, or automation, or PLCs, or solenoids, and 3D printed boxes, and interfacing with logic, and fail safes, and intelligent, yes. Yes, absolutely. I've had so much fun.
00:04:06
Speaker
If anybody's been following my Instagram over the past few days, it's, I've been posting in my stories, but like, yeah, it's an auto coolant dispenser that I tell it, I want two seconds of coolant or five minutes of top up coolant or whatever.
Fulfillment from Personal Projects
00:04:20
Speaker
And I push the button and I walk away and it's, I just installed it last night. It's perfect. It's so, it's exactly what I wanted.
00:04:27
Speaker
And there's part of me over the past week or so that's had a little guilt about building it because I'm like, I got other stuff to do. But I'm like, no, this is my fun. Either I'm working hard on specific things for the business, like making knives or products or whatever. And then on the weekends, I usually play with things like this. And I need that. It's like my break from real work to do fun work. And my brain needs that kind of
00:04:55
Speaker
interesting excitement as a relief. It works really well for me. It's just such a fun project. I'm sitting there at the kitchen table and the kids are walking by and I'm like, here, push this button. It times down from two seconds and in milliseconds and then it clicks at zero. I'm like, isn't that awesome?
00:05:17
Speaker
And they're like, wow, that's kind of cool, dad. And I'm like, yeah, see, this is where the power goes through all the wires. And if you push the E-stop, it breaks the power. I'm trying to teach life like circuits and stuff. It's great. They kind of glaze over.
00:05:31
Speaker
I as a father need to expose them to that kind of stuff. Even if they don't really take an interest, they've at least heard about positive and negative and circuit flow and they've pushed a couple buttons and they've watched the LEDs turn on and they watch me fiddle with stuff and they think it's normal now.
Encouraging Hands-on Projects for Kids
00:05:50
Speaker
John, yes, 100 times over. As a parent, one of those moments I've had of realization is I remember the two robots as a kid I saw that just changed my life. They were cool at the time and I was jazzed up, but I didn't really realize how impactful they were until later. You just keep thinking about them and obsess with them. What blew me away, again, as a parent is
00:06:17
Speaker
My parents didn't know that those were the moments they probably did 100 things or 1000 things, you know, kids museums or TV shows or whatever catalogs like you don't know, you never will know. So it's your job to show them the 3d printing to show them how you even just like silly stuff like here's how you can't think right now. Here's how you trim the strip of wire like the leads off the end of a wire and screw turn screw terminals and Arduino's and USB interfaces and like, yes,
00:06:46
Speaker
Yep, even simple stuff like how to use pliers and whatever. I love it. Yeah. What are the build details on that coolant
Coolant Automation Project Details
00:06:55
Speaker
thing? So currently I'm using a
00:06:59
Speaker
A little board I found on Amazon for like 20 bucks. That's a timer circuit. It's got a bunch of settings. You can set it to go on or off for, you know, all kinds of stuff. And then it's like a push button normally open from Amazon and an e-stop normally closed and some orange LEDs that I had from another project and I just kind of wired it all together. Wait, so it's a normally closed solenoid?
00:07:27
Speaker
The solenoid is normally closed. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Right. So you have to fire, give it power juice to open it up and then it, so it's a dead man's. Yeah. The green activation switch is just a momentary, like you push it and let go. And that activates the circuit within the board.
00:07:46
Speaker
which holds for five minutes or whatever I set it to. Then that holds the solenoid, gives a power. If the power is cut, if there's a power outage, whatever the solenoid, it's normally closed solenoid, so it'll naturally close. It's relatively fail safe, I'd like to think. Totally. I'm already thinking of version two.
00:08:05
Speaker
I posted up the stories last night and our buddy Dennis is like, I'll take 20 of them right now. What is it? 12 or 24 volts DC or AC? 12 DC. Easy then, yeah. Super little cheap wall wart, plugs it in.
00:08:24
Speaker
And I'm pretty jazzed with it. I knew going into it, we were going to need three or four of them if they work for all of our machines. So I'm like, well, let me play with one. I'll put it on the current and see if I like it. And oh my gosh, I love it. I mean, it does require not only an extension cord to that area, but it requires pressurized water or coolant to that area as well, which we've already tackled in our shop. Right.
00:08:49
Speaker
So it's not just like anybody can dig it and plug it in. You have to have some stuff. But I was thinking you could also just bring a garden hose to it with a Dosatron or a Mixatron or Grose or whatever one of those little things is and do it just right there from city water pressure. That would be totally effective.
00:09:08
Speaker
It's interesting, though, because the few shops I've seen that had the whole like, oh, we'll have a hose reel. It'll be quite a quick reach to five machines within a radius. Most of them seem to later say, ah, I'd rather have hard drops or home runs and not. You know how garden hoses are. Oh, yes. They get wet, and they're sticky and yucky and pulling it, which it's funny. You see both sides of how that could work. But yeah.
00:09:35
Speaker
The only thing I think I've heard of on that system
Oil vs. Coolant: Risks and Considerations
00:09:38
Speaker
to increase the redundancy would be firing two solenoids, which just seems like stupid overkill, but it does give you that ... I mean, it's hard to think when it's a spring pressurized normally closed. You got to think the failure mode of it spring rusting out open is pretty low, but do this awesome. Yeah, at the source from City Water to our water system, I do have two solenoids that I'm firing.
00:10:05
Speaker
that fills up our IBC tank with our water. So there are two solenoids there and it's nice little double redundancy. Yeah, I could do two at each source. I also thought about integrating a flow valve into it so I could monitor flow and if it's flowing unnecessarily, then it can shut off power or signal something. Yeah. It's almost better to
00:10:33
Speaker
I'm trying to think about the big picture scaled up. Let's say you have 50 of these things in the shop or something, like have a maintenance program where once a year you test it, or even every two years, it just is a hard replace. Okay. Like the solenoid, I guess, or any electronics or something.
00:10:54
Speaker
That's good to think about. This is pushing it probably beyond where it needs to. But I always worry about the whole flow. Because that's what we did. We had the solenoids with the flow valves and talking back to the intelligence. And you go down these rabbit holes and complications that reduce but definitely do not eliminate risk. And ironically, some of the simplest risks is the scenario that will happen, which is that a solenoid will fail. And there's a chance if it fails with some form of corrosion to the spring, then that failing is bad, bad, bad.
00:11:26
Speaker
But I need to stop talking because what you did is perfect. It's too theoretical. With this system, because you have to manually push the button and it's set for five or 50 minutes or whatever, you're there. You'll see if it's still running, I guess.
00:11:45
Speaker
Oh, yeah, right. I don't even know how the solenoids fail. If it fails when it was closed, it's not going to... Well, no, the spring keeps it closed. Right, so spring. Don't worry about it. 20 years of corrosion. Still things to think about, for sure.
00:12:02
Speaker
I love the whole middle ground too. You didn't go Arduino, start from scratch, build something up, but you can find these little electronic devices that... I looked hard. It was actually a lot harder than I thought to find a timer circuit that's just like, push a button and give me whatever minutes of thing. At the end of the day, I found it on Amazon. It exists, but took quite a bit of research to find the simple circuit that I was looking for. I was totally going to go Arduino.
00:12:32
Speaker
figure that out or have somebody help me figure that out. I'm glad I didn't have to originally. I might still to tweak it up and do version two or something, but for now, I'm stoked. It integrated well with an LCD? That's surprising. The circuit itself has an LCD on it.
00:12:53
Speaker
Oh, okay. That makes a lot more sense. Oh, that's awesome, dude. It's so easy. Yeah. But it's cool with our... Go ahead. It combines everything I've learned over the past 20 years. I've built all kinds of circuit boards and I've wired up all kinds of projects and I actually have a weird diverse skill set in this weird project wiring stuff. So it's really fun to be like,
00:13:20
Speaker
at my kitchen table. I already had a box of wiring and connectors at home. And I'm just putting this together. It's no big deal. And I kind of realized to myself, maybe most people don't have this 20 years of experience, like having rewired three cars from scratch kind of thing. Yeah. It's the stuff like, what is a crimp end connector or the Molex style, like the Mini Molex Junior's called? That to me is so tricky to figure out sometimes, but fun when you do.
00:13:51
Speaker
I was going to say, be careful with Arduinos. They're like legit non-industrial. The one that we have that does our automatic door, I mean, it has worked for two or three years, but probably once a quarter, every three or four months, it kind of bugs out and you have to do a power reset on it.
00:14:08
Speaker
which solves it and it's been otherwise okay, but it's one of those like when somebody smarter or wiser says, use a PLC not an Arduino because they're right. And on that note, on our Swiss lathe, we have the automatic carousel. Yeah. That's Arduino based and it does flake out every
00:14:27
Speaker
often enough and we just unplug it and plug it back in again and it seems to work again. It's a non-critical application, but you're right in that maybe Arduino is not the most. But there's a lot of other alternatives to Arduino. I don't know if they're any more reliable.
00:14:44
Speaker
I think one of the big problems and limitations with Arduino is it's just constantly looping. You can use interrupts, but it's trickier-ish. It's not meant to be a 24-7, certainly anything critical.
00:15:03
Speaker
It's fun though. It is fun. It is super fun. It was fun to dig back. I built the freaking Arduino system to do that delay off for our Royal Misfits so that they would run basically to debounce them. That way if we cycle, because I don't want you to turn them on and off every time the spindle turns on and off, because I guess it's hard on them. But I don't want it to run all the time. I want it to run when the machine's running. So we just debounced it by basically having to stay on for about five minutes after the cycle's done.
00:15:32
Speaker
And I built the whole Arduino code, which is actually trickier than you think because you have to look at the state condition. And it's like that fun programming logic you've got to figure out. And then Ed was like, oh, they make DIN compatible $20 delay on delay off rail things that are just super easy and art plague with the Arduino issue. And that was a win. Fantastic.
00:15:56
Speaker
But I don't feel bad about things like that because sometimes it takes a silly amount of work to learn about or to realize or to come to the conclusion that there's a better solution.
00:16:08
Speaker
And you can feel bad about like, oh, I just wasted the past four weeks of my life trying to figure this out when it turns out there's an easier solution. And sometimes I just go, so what? That's what it took. Move on. I enjoyed digging out the Arduino code. It was in no way a Saunders machine works better off for having done it, but John Saunders is. I love it. Yeah, yeah. 100%.
00:16:31
Speaker
And to your point on Purge, get over it. If it didn't work out, I just returned the Orbit Garden Waterflow mechanical timer, which I wanted to love. It's perfect. It's better than an Arduino or digital system, except they come with the lowest increment being 15 minutes all the way up to 120 minutes. And if you take a step back, you want to love it. But unless you could recalibrate it, I actually didn't think about rebuilding it.
00:16:59
Speaker
Why would you install a device that the default mode or the default rotation is almost certainly going to flood the shop? Yeah. I looked into them after we talked about it a week or two ago and reading some of the Amazon reviews, there were just enough reviews, like two or something that it leaked and failed immediately. I was like, okay, maybe I'll try a different solution.
00:17:25
Speaker
Speaking of liquids, did we talk about oil last week?
Challenges of Using Cutting Oil
00:17:30
Speaker
I don't think so. How different is oil than coolant in the tornos in terms of
00:17:39
Speaker
I think of oil as being a lot heavier, like a car oil, engine oil. But is cutting oil that you used in a tortoise a lot more runny? It's kind of like olive oil, like a cooking oil. OK. It's still heavier. Vegetable oil, definitely heavier than a water. But it's not like a goopy engine oil at all. It's probably halfway in between. As far as running it in the machine, it's
00:18:08
Speaker
It's fine. It just kind of gets everywhere. And if it gets on the floor, you think coolant is bad. Oil is just slick, especially on epoxy floors. So we literally like Windex and paper towel all the floors around the Swiss daily. I mean, Windex is the magic ingredient. It cleans the oil right off the floor. It makes it squeaky clean instantly. Yeah, so we go through gallons of Windex.
00:18:36
Speaker
Interesting. But like I've said before, on the Swiss, it's fine because the parts coming off are teeny tiny. Using oil in a mill is just not something I'm interested in because it gets everywhere. And fixtures are big and have threaded holes deep inside them. And that oil would just travel through your shop, basically, onto your workbench, into your tools.
00:19:01
Speaker
I just feel like it would be annoying in a mill. I know people do it and it's great and there are some benefits, but also the fire hazard risk. We have a fire extinguisher built into the tornos, the fire trace.
00:19:14
Speaker
And it's kind of cool how it works. It's like a red plastic line that goes through the enclosure that melts at whatever, 150 degrees. And it's pressurized with the fire extinguisher pressure. So when that melts, so say that hose melts and leaks, then the fire extinguisher knows, time to dump. And it dumps everything in the machine. So the machine has to get to a certain temperature to break that line.
00:19:44
Speaker
But usually, that happens very quickly. And I think a hot smoke can do it, too. Well, you've not tripped yours. No, I haven't, thank goodness. I know a few guys who have, and they're like, thankfully, the machine was fine. Like, I replaced one rubber hose, and I was back in business. I mean, that's why you install it. I just got a quote for one. It's like $10,000 or $8,000 to have it installed. So it's not cheap. What do you mean? You already have it. I already have it on this machine.
00:20:13
Speaker
Uh, we'll come back to that. Um, yeah. What you said there might be the, might push me in the other way, because I feel like the finishes and tool life are, are major wins. They're not like, especially finishes. Cause.
00:20:30
Speaker
Tool life is just, okay, we don't get as much dollars out of an insert, so be it just a financial decision. But the finishes could be truly something you can't otherwise get. I mean, I've never seen it in a mill, so I can't compare side to side. But I mean, it's still very possible to get gross finishes out of the tornos.
00:20:52
Speaker
Oh, that's interesting. That's funny. Even a new insert, if you go wrong speeds and feeds or whatever, you're like, I can do better. It's not magic. Well, the messy part is strike one. It's just going to be a messy stuff. But then the fire risk is strikes two and three.
00:21:17
Speaker
I know they say it for sure when you're running titaniums and, you know, stainless and zirconiums and weird metals that will combust, that like can spark increase. Maybe if you're just running aluminum and steel, I don't know, like anything that will create a spark, but I think we've all buried an end mill and, you know, that can cause a spark.
00:21:39
Speaker
Oh, you can get a lot of heat too. Yeah, a lot of heat. And so the risk of fire is actually real. And it's not something I'm excited about. When you run through spindle, does it mist like a cutting fluid can?
00:21:55
Speaker
Yeah, I guess it does. We've got a big miscollector on that machine now on the Tornos, and it sucks a lot of oil out of the air. It's like a jungle fog in there.
00:22:14
Speaker
But I guess it's like amber colored. It's not white like a coolant mist. So it looks like the glass is made of gross plexiglass that's already discolored and turned to amber. But no, it's just the oil inside. Got it. OK, so back to that topic. Yeah, so since our conversation last week, I think I just bought two lathes.
Deciding on Acquiring New Machines
00:22:41
Speaker
Wait, what?
00:22:43
Speaker
No, no, I thought it was a different conversation. Well, we can talk about this one. I'm not sure which one you're referring to. CJ. Yeah, same. Okay. Those aren't lays. Those are mills. Well, yeah, so really looking hard. I just got a quote yesterday for the big brother to our GT13, the Toronto's GT26.
00:23:08
Speaker
Um, got the quote and now it's just when to pull the trigger. Like I've known since I got the GT 13, I'm like, yeah, I'm probably going to get another one. And I think we're at that time where now it's just a pure decision. It's like, I know I want it. I know what I want. I just got the quote. So I know all the specs. I know the price. Um, the decision now is just like, do we do it like today or do we do it in a couple of weeks or in a couple of months or, you know, what is that decision? So. Yeah.
00:23:36
Speaker
We're figuring it out. I'm thinking sooner rather than later for sure. That's exciting. Do they have inventory in the US? They didn't answer that in the quote. I don't know. I think they might. Either way, it's not like I need it tomorrow, but I would use it if I had it tomorrow kind of thing.
00:23:58
Speaker
like staffing, real estate, rigging, financial considerations. It's like, am I getting this machine in April or in November? Exactly. Yeah, they usually keep some stock in the US anyway. Got it. But yeah, I'll find that out soon.
00:24:17
Speaker
It's like, congratulations, but like, yes, I don't know. Like not surprised, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's great. It's awesome. And you know, Pierre has been on for, um, four months now. Man, that's flight flown by. Um, and he's becoming quite the Swiss expert now. It's fantastic. So, I mean, I, I only consult with him. He's setting up jobs. He's running programs. Um, I just ordered a PC for him cause he's been running off a raspberry pie as his like desktop.
00:24:47
Speaker
What? Good grief. Which is fine for internet browsing and stuff, but even using Visual Studio Code and you can't open Fusion and you can't use Google Drive and things like that, it's handicapping him. I bought him $1,000 computer and it'll be here this week. I guess I didn't even think about the fact that he's not really using ... I mean, it's mostly the wizards or hand coding, right?
00:25:11
Speaker
Yeah, even it's mostly hand coding because I've created all the programs, but even for him to go in and tweak something and keep machine codes and like Google Drive codes synced, he's handicapped on that pie. So I'm like, that's enough. Buy my computer. I've known I've needed to. It's happening today. So I'm happy about that.
00:25:33
Speaker
That's good. A couple of awesome folks have reached out, one of whom is a citizen owner and really cool story. Started out of nowhere, followed the channel, got into it, and was happy to pay it forward in so much appreciation. He sent me two or three videos programming basically fake versions of our parts close to what he thought they looked like.
00:25:56
Speaker
and just showed me in the citizen side how there are these wizards that seem great. I mean, you and I joke about not being conversational folks from like a mill cam standpoint. And when I think about a rask tombstone or the parts we make, I feel like that's still right. But in the spirit of being open-minded and recognizing what are good workflows, that citizen wizard for OD turning and grooving and part off and hand off and sub and all that looks great.
00:26:23
Speaker
Amazing yeah, I mean turning can be very simple if if you if you just need I mean most of it is simple turning and simple part off and simple transfer and You know sub facing and things like that
00:26:38
Speaker
But I'd rather react to G-code, like I'd rather it tell me this is a G87, I've got to go look that up or dig a little deeper than have to think, oh boy, what was the, or G76, what is the threading cycle and what parameter do I need to add to do a lead in? I'm happy to let a wizard take over. Yeah, right. Yeah, you need it to do it for you and then you can look at it and understand it and dissect it and then be like, okay, if I tweak this over here or whatever.
00:27:06
Speaker
Anything you'll do markedly different, whether it's tooling or machine spec or options, et cetera, on the new one? For the second tornos. I've thought a lot about it, and it's almost carbon copy. We need almost the same stuff over again. Need to get our guy to make a custom drip tray again, because the one we got made was necessary.
00:27:28
Speaker
There is constantly a small pool of oil, whether it be just from an overflow or a mistake on our part or a drip from the front or something. Yeah, I wouldn't want to be reaching under there every day wiping it up. So the tray is great. But yeah, high pressure coolant. I quoted a chip conveyor, and we're kind of on the fence if we want a chip conveyor or not. Because it doesn't make oodles of chips, and it's not that hard to scrape them out.
00:27:58
Speaker
Haven't I heard you talk about, oh man, someone's got to go clean it out. Yeah, right? That's what that would solve. Yeah. Oh, John, chip converter. Then we'd have to manage those chips better because it would carry out a ton of oil. Some guys get a chip spinner so that they spin the oil out, like a salad spinner basically. Then you can return that oil back to the tank because the oil is expensive and it doesn't evaporate. You want to actually reuse it as much as you can.
00:28:26
Speaker
The system that we've seen, which I also think is a CJA inspired, Ed was showing me a different, there may be another one that we're looking at, but you just get two totes from Home Depot or similar hardware store that are the same size, and then you put a spacer so that the top one is nested inside the other one, but a spacer that holds it say four inches up, and then you can let it drain continuously all day, et cetera, and some good portion of the oil
00:28:56
Speaker
Drip into the bottom one and CJ said he just think he was saying that one time. He just puts it right back in Yeah, yeah, you can because there's a cleaner machine. Yeah, okay Yeah, I was actually thinking about that for all of our chip ins for the coolant ones too Because you know we carry out a bit of coolant And it just be nice if it could drip-dry back and then return it right back to the machine
00:29:20
Speaker
With the oil, I think because it's thicker, it sticks to the chips better. So something like a giant salad spinner would really get a lot more of it out. But even currently, we don't have that. We scrape the chips out into a bucket and recycle them. But yeah, so just little considerations. It gets $10,000 for an L&S chip conveyor for the tornos.
00:29:45
Speaker
Is it field upgradeable? I think so, yeah. Addable? You just plug it in. So I asked them to quote for both my old Sorenos and the new one. And they said it's the same part. It's the same machine. So that's cool. Got it. That makes it.
00:30:01
Speaker
for sure easier. Otherwise, like on the Haas, it's a kind of a factory set option because it changes the sheet metal for, uh, you know, no, it's like some, I don't know all the details. I think it depends on what size machine, but nothing or Justin auger or the quad augers that include an actual lifting conveyor. And, um, yeah, obviously every situation is user dependent and so forth. But I mean, at your stage shot, I would think everything you should, everything you can to do to promote.
00:30:31
Speaker
reliable, sustainable, scalable workflows, period. Yep, and that's what we're working on. I said we might be getting too late. The second one, our buddy CJ, linked me on to this used Willimon, which has been my dream saga making clip machine forever, but it's 700,000 brand new.
Offer on Used Willemin Machining Center
00:30:54
Speaker
I just can't. It just doesn't make sense.
00:31:00
Speaker
But when he showed me the used one from 2004 that still looks in fantastic condition for a very tasty price, I jumped on it. And I made an offer last Friday. Really? And I'm waiting to hear back. No kidding. I offered a little bit under asking, just to see. And it's been, I offered on Friday. And five days later, I still haven't heard back. So I'm going to reach out today. Oh, nothing at all back. A little bit back and forth. I was asking for details. But I haven't heard if they accepted my offer yet.
00:31:30
Speaker
But I got things like the serial number, and I asked. CJ hooked me up with a Willimon guy, one of their chief sales guys, talked with him for an hour about this machine and about others in general, and gave him the serial number. He gave me the specs, the service history, yada, yada. It got a new spindle like six months ago for a minor run-out issue after running for 17 years. So I'm like, OK, this is cool. Wow.
00:31:57
Speaker
Interesting that they put a new spindle in it and are now selling it, unless they did that to sell it. I don't know. But yeah, I'm super eagerly waiting to hear back because if they accept that or barter a little bit, then we might be good to go here.
00:32:15
Speaker
Is it, I don't know that much about the Willy's other than Willem, as I should probably call them now that you're in the family here, but aren't they super specific about what you get on the, it's not the sub spindle, but the kind of secondary grip or chuck or swing arm or whatever? It's a face, basically. Okay, but they're mostly the same. I guess I didn't know if you'd had to be custom ordering one.
00:32:42
Speaker
No, it's just a hydraulic vice and you make custom soft jaws for it and that's it.
00:32:49
Speaker
Let me ask a question a different way. Is it true that then that so long as it's the right size, Willamond, it's most likely the case that you could make it work? Yeah, absolutely. It's a 408 MT and it can run one and three-eighths bar size, which is bigger than all my other layouts. That's pretty nice, yeah. It's the exact same machine that CJ has, except he has a brand new one and this one's 2004.
00:33:17
Speaker
Got it. But you look at pictures of both of them and they're like, it's the same. What's different 17 years later? A different version of FANUC and new stuff. But yeah, it's a used machine and there's concerns and worries about that. But I think the risk is worth taking from what I've seen and from the research I've done.
00:33:42
Speaker
Talking to CJ and he's like, I would buy it if, but my shop is 600 square feet and I've already got like three machines in it. Right. Is it a dealer or this actual seller? It's a used machinery dealer. Okay. I think it's still under power at the factory where it's at. Would you go see it there? No.
00:34:05
Speaker
So I'm willing to just roll the dice and be like, yeah, I'll take it. And I'll just deal with anything that pops up. But it's running. It's under power right now. It seems good. Is there any other support in Canada? I haven't answered that question yet.
00:34:24
Speaker
as far as Wilhelmin technical support. Certainly, I can talk with the US guys over the phone, and they can answer anything and guide me through certain things. Currently, with COVID, getting US service guys across the border is tricky, if not possible. It's ridiculous. Yeah. So that makes it difficult. But as long as the machine is not a complete paperweight, I think I'll be pretty happy.
00:34:51
Speaker
Dude. Dude, that's crazy. I love, I mean, Swiss, I have started to understand it and I do get it. Well, no, I don't get it because there's still like, how would you two up the horn and like what sort of driven and static and caught? Like there's still so many other questions with the Willamette. Oh, dude, rock and roll, like a bunch of HSK, whatever. Yeah, it just gave 40.
00:35:14
Speaker
to those who don't know what it is. Imagine a lathe, but it has a full five-axis milling head on top, and any turning tools go in the spindle in the milling head. And the milling head can rotate sideways, 90 degrees, so you can mill like crazy five-axis parts. But you make it from around bar stock, so you can rotate the c-axis.
00:35:39
Speaker
CJ is making all kinds of square parts that are like, oh, you made that on a mill, right? It's like, no, I will eat it. Yes, yes. Yeah, no turret, just a B-axis head. On a pen clip, you would machine enough to then bring in the soft jaws to come stabilize it.
00:35:56
Speaker
while it's still connected on the spindle side. And then you can still do a bunch of work while it's viced underneath. And then you get the rigidity, you get the stability, you get the amazing surface finishes of a 30,000 RPM HSK spindle and milling spindle. And then you part it off either with a slitting saw or with an end mill.
00:36:18
Speaker
And then you rotate the vise 90 degrees because it flips over and then you can mill features on the end as if you were sub turning it. Oh, I didn't even think about that. Yeah. Because that's where CJ does the UR pick, right? The robot pickup? Yeah, yeah. So the pen clip would be pointing toward the sky then, right? Yeah. And I could run it in either direction.
00:36:44
Speaker
in one orientation or I could flip the model and run it the other way. I haven't decided which way is best yet. There's a couple options. I feel like you would have to do it with the ring part of the clip first. No, I'm actually planning on doing it the other way. I could do either, right? Either way would work. It's threaded. It's OD threaded. No. Oh, I'm just taking mine apart right now. Got it. Okay, I'm with you. How would you get into that?
00:37:13
Speaker
You'd mill it from the second up. You would? Do you think it's rigid enough? Oh, yeah. So it's cool. It's cool. And I mean, at the moment, if that machine for the price, I'm willing to pay for it, we're dedicated to pen clips, I'd be happy. If we can do other stuff, I'd be even happier. And it's great. I'd have to buy a bar loader for it.
00:37:37
Speaker
which is another 20 or $30,000. I don't have to. You can run it, but you need like 18 inch bars maximum. So you'd be loading tiny little bars at first. Can you move your six footer over from the current tornos and buy a 12 footer for the tornos? I don't have room for it in the shop. So I'd have to get another six footer for this. Keep an open mind. For room?
00:38:06
Speaker
Yeah. Maybe if I reorganize the layout completely. But yeah. That's cool. That's really cool. Exactly. That could work. Holy nuts. How many tool changers? Or ATC? It's like 48. That's amazing. Well, yeah. And you're doing clips on a 12-station turret right now, right? Yeah. And I'm only using three end mills. Right.
00:38:34
Speaker
There are limitations to the Wilhelmin, like max tool length, including holder and everything is 95 millimeters, just like crazy short. Oh, wow. It's like four inches, not even. Not even, like including holder and collet and end mill and everything. Yeah, 3.7.
00:38:51
Speaker
So even like all the holders that I have for the Kern, I could stick it to allowed half an inch from the face of the, of the PG call it max. Um, so CJ has got custom like micro holders, super stubbies, or the built-in ones with like the screw in and mill head or a face mill kind of head. There's, there's lots of options, but it's 10 millimeter face mill.
00:39:17
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. That's awesome. But yeah, if it works within the limitations of your application, then it's such a cool machine. I was watching all the demos on YouTube, and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is everything. It's a Kern plus a Tornos put together to make little pen parts.
00:39:36
Speaker
I mean, I would wager that you will be one of the best tooled shops in Canada. Yes. Like to have a Kern and, you know, Nakamura, to Taunuses, a Willeman, holy nuts. I know, right? Holy nuts. I was telling my wife that like, you know, you go to any premier watch shop, watchmaking facility in Europe or Switzerland, Germany, whatever, they all have those three machines.
00:40:02
Speaker
Oh, is that true? Like Tarno, Swiss Laid, a bunch of Kerns, a bunch of Willemins. Those are the watchmaking machines throughout Europe. And there's others, but... What country of origin is Willemins? Swiss. Okay. They're like 30 minutes away from Tarnos. Super cool.
00:40:20
Speaker
Yeah, I'm ready. I think everyone listening can probably honk their horn or pump their fists for us to be able, the world to be able to travel again and like service texts to enter Canada and normal stuff to happen. Holy cow. Yep. Well, speaking of high end machines, here's a mind blowing fact I wish I had known.
Efficiency and Cycle Time in Haas Machines
00:40:40
Speaker
Well, I wish I had known. ARRI 419.
00:40:45
Speaker
same exact G-code, so not reposted or tweaked like literally the same .nc file, moving it from a ... I'm 99% sure I'm going to be correct on this specifics. VF2SS, not a slow machine. What's VF2SS? VF2SS. Oh, VF2, yeah.
00:41:05
Speaker
It's like the most popular machine. From there to a Haas DT, I think it happens to be a one. I don't think that would change if it were a two because the two has a little bit more table mass, but 48 minute cycle time that went down to 32 minutes. Whoa.
00:41:26
Speaker
Now, obviously that's part specific and these happen to be parts on a fourth axis, just meaning a tombstone thing, so there's a bunch of parts on it.
00:41:36
Speaker
What John was explaining was the table motion, like just the movements are way faster. That's a known thing is if you tell it to go 100 inches a minute, it takes a certain amount of acceleration and deceleration, so it may not reach those, but the bigger one is the spindle. The ramp up and ramp down from zero to 15K is better on the DTs period, and it's a 30K per tool, so there's less mass to rotate and break.
00:42:02
Speaker
And so we've got some parts and pallets and stuff where I'm like, oh my gosh, we don't need the bigger travels of these bigger VF2 and larger machines. I do care about cycle time and similar things. So holy cow, the ability to poke a bunch of holes in or tap a bunch, you can tap
00:42:22
Speaker
way faster, got me pretty fired up. Mm-hmm. It's like watching the Brother Spedio demo videos. And it's like chip to chip times a second or something. Yeah. It's ridiculous. Like I watched one the other day of the new Spedio X2 or something. And I'm watching it. I'm just going, holy cow, it's already cutting again. And the coolant turns on immediately, and there's no delays anywhere.
00:42:51
Speaker
I guess that's interesting, because I'd always remember seeing S700X1. So there's a new X2 out now? Yeah, yep. Any idea what the- I don't know what the differences are, but it's more better. Yeah, more better, faster, less. But I've always heard about these G-forces and chip-to-chip times, but why has nobody ever done that? Like AB comparison of a good, fast,
00:43:16
Speaker
traditional mill on a cycle. I mean, I guess I probably wouldn't believe it because I would assume it's like marketing exaggerations. But holy cow, that's because if you think about, okay, I have 25 tool changes and I'm dropping from four seconds to two and a half seconds. I mean, that's real, but it's only half a minute. Dropping 15 minutes off or 30% because of the spindle up down time, that's real.
00:43:41
Speaker
Yeah, and also table size, a bigger machine. I guess a VF2 is not that big. But like on our Moria, if we have to wrap it from one end to the other, every tool change or whatever.
00:43:54
Speaker
or to reach the Renaissance probe to touch off the tool or breakage check or whatever. All these things add up. And the speedios and the brother or the Haas DTs, they're small and fast, and everything is optimized for speed. And it's fantastic.
00:44:15
Speaker
Well, it totally makes sense about how they've tuned the servos because we've seen it with fixture plates where there's a much lower maximum table weight on those machines. I'm sure that's why they don't want you to throw too much on there because it's going to mess up how the servos are tuned. Well, and a lot of the machines have to be bolted to the ground because they will walk. They will rock themselves across the floor. Yep. It's crazy.
00:44:40
Speaker
I was talking with somebody who has some really nice GF microns, and he said the rapids on his machines are 90 meters per minute, which on my current they're 30 meters per minute, and on the current HD they're 60 meters per minute.
00:44:58
Speaker
It's got to be linear motors. Yeah, it is linear motors. Got it. 90 meters per minute. So he's thinking about getting a current HD, and he's like, I don't know, it'll be slower than my microns. Oh my god. And I'm like, dude. Yeah. Is the micro HD from current linear motors? Yes. OK. Yeah, it's got hydrostatic waves and linear motors, and that's pretty much it.
00:45:22
Speaker
I thought I remembered them saying something about their linear motors were quirky about the thermalness of them. Yeah, they throw off a lot of heat. Okay. If it's consistent, you can deal with it, right? Yeah. In a current, everything's thermally managed. Same for a GF, I'm sure.
Advanced Machining Technologies
00:45:42
Speaker
That's awesome. Is Hakko getting that one?
00:45:46
Speaker
Yeah, he's getting the HD. Yeah, it's nuts. I remember when I bought my curtain and I was there, and I remember Marv showed me behind this black curtain, I can't even show you what's back here, but it was the HD. And then as I was going through the buying process, I was like, how much is the HD? Oh, it's 30% more expensive. Do I need it? No? Okay, yeah, I don't need it. I can barely afford this, so I'm going to stick with this.
00:46:13
Speaker
Truly, what is that for? I guess true simultaneous impeller stuff where you're just constantly moving in multi-axes? Yeah, if you want to rock faster and more accurate,
00:46:26
Speaker
It's better. I don't know. And the hydrostatic ways, I don't know if they're more rigid. I don't know if that's an argument, but there's no wear and they just... Yeah. Like that kind of machine, you might have to replace a spindle in 20 years due to wear, but the ways will be brand new. Right. I guess I didn't realize that hydrostatics, yours is not. Right. John, is it like...
00:46:50
Speaker
Yeah, do I care? You did not. Yeah, you did not compromise. Your product didn't compromise. No. No. It's amazing. I guess, I remember Marv saying that the HD is going to be easier to deal with in a pyramid, because the pyramid was like, you got to learn to run this machine like how you work it out. Yeah.
00:47:13
Speaker
Yeah, probably. Yeah, it's like my micro. As long as you leave it on, then it's thermally managed. Everything's 20 degrees Celsius always, and you just turn it on and make parts. Yeah, I get the sense. If I came to work at your shop, you give me a day primer, and then I would just go. It's not
00:47:30
Speaker
Porky and difficult, right? There's a lot of little things to know for sure, like how to call the programs and how to check tools and blah, blah, blah, just operating the machine. Yeah. All can be done with proper user documentation if I took the time to do that, which I should. Is everything good after last week's crash? Yeah. Yeah, it was fine. It was not a big deal, so thank goodness. Awesome. Yeah, that's great.
00:47:57
Speaker
Yeah, sweet. I'll see you next week. Yeah, sounds good. All right. Have a good day. Hey, take care. Take care. Bye