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#439 Checklist for buying machines
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Topics:
- Latest obsessions
- - recycling used coolant
- - foam
- 2026 roadmap
- - what do people want?
- - execution.
- - collaborative planning
- - Complete each task in a way you're proud of
- Checklist for buying machines
- SMW Brother is installed!
- Grimsmo Speedio quest for ultra precision
- Embarassing Babmu moment
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Episode 439
00:00:00
johngrimsmo
Good morning and welcome to the Business of Machining episode 439. My name is John Grimsmouth.
00:00:07
John S
My name is John
Decade in Manufacturing: Reflections
00:00:08
John S
Saunders.
00:00:08
johngrimsmo
And this is your weekly dose of manufacturing where two friends and business owners who are on similar paths have been doing this for almost 10 years and just kind of having this intimate, private, nobody listening conversation about what's going on, what's good, what's bad, what we're frustrated with, what's great.
00:00:26
johngrimsmo
And it just kind of, it helps to talk it out, you know?
00:00:30
John S
So it's funny, you just said that, and that's not an untruth, but I think it's probably, and maybe the end of the year is a good time to take a moment to reflect.
Evolving Challenges in Business
00:00:39
John S
um You and I have both been in some very different, um tough frankly to be blunt, not that we don't have tough situations these days, but, um you know, when we six, seven years ago with like, you know, staring into the abyss, whether it's from a product standpoint or revenue standpoint, you know, staffing, like there's just different topics that are everybody faces.
00:01:01
John S
But nowadays i think it's more, don't work candid with each other, but a lot more of it is just, well da and but also trying to figure out where we're, you know, pushing yourself, John, you know, you're building your own spectrometry or, a but I got a sneeze here a second.
00:01:07
johngrimsmo
day to day.
00:01:10
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:01:16
John S
yeah You know, you talk.
00:01:17
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
Passion for Self-Education
00:01:18
johngrimsmo
um Building my own microscopes, white light interferometers and trying to solve advanced problems. and And I love teaching myself new skills and I love figuring out the next phase of my education and What can I bring to the table that's kind of next level? And i'm I'm fortunate that I get to spend a lot of my time doing that now. It's pretty special.
00:01:41
johngrimsmo
um But then i I get to do a lot of that at home and then I come into work and there's problems and challenges and all kinds of stuff.
Motivation and Personal Insights
00:01:50
John S
I stumbled on a Reddit post um that, you know, Reddit can be brutal. And this this kid got trashed. And it was like totally... I don't know whether it's AI. Actually, that's a whole nother topic is like the life we, the world we live in with, with what's to come with AI shenanigans, you know, content. But ah basically he was, um you know, not quite middle-aged had, had come into a inheritance and was looking for advice, but he sort of peppered through, like he hadn't finished a graduate degree and hadn't found identity in a job and, and, and,
00:02:25
John S
And the folks, I'm obviously paraphrasing, but like, they were kind of like, dude, you didn't have any motivation before. Like, don't delude delude yourself into thinking that you're all of a sudden going to, because he was like, I want to stay humble and blah, blah, blah. And it was probably an unfair attack. I don't know, ah in some respects, unless he was, assuming he was positioning this with genuine advice and not just wanting to flex that he got some inheritance. But it made me think about you and I have a lot of similarities in that we like playing with stuff and building stuff. And I'm in the middle of a couple of these projects, which I do need to like, I do need to like, what's that confessed whatever too. But, uh, I, I,
00:03:03
John S
Frankly, I'm not great. Like I listened to Tom Lipton and Robin Ranzetti on Spencer's podcast. And like, if you had a thousand dollars to give for somebody to do a product, you should give every penny to those guys over me any day of the week, even just period.
00:03:19
John S
um So I'm not great at it. Like I'm not great. whatever. And, and I don't want to put myself in an environment where like I go back to school or something and I'm like, i actually judged on it. So it's that kind of awkward middle land.
00:03:30
John S
You and I kind of touched on this and other themes of like, we don't really have bosses or committees or boards or whatever you want to say. So it gives us free reign, which is awesome, but also not having that constraint is bad.
00:03:41
John S
Sorry. I know I don't mean to ramble here, but, um, that makes sense.
00:03:42
johngrimsmo
No.
00:03:46
johngrimsmo
Yeah. I, I do have some constraint both with my wife, but also my brother and but both, both business partners.
00:03:50
John S
Sure.
00:03:52
johngrimsmo
Um, you know, to me. So while I do run my own, sometimes I, and my accountant and my Angelo, my director of operations, like I, I am accountable to these people.
00:04:02
johngrimsmo
So while I do get to run a little bit, it has to come home and it has to like be explainable in a way.
00:04:09
John S
Yeah, yes.
00:04:10
johngrimsmo
So I try to do things that are going to make a difference, you know, and if I can join that with me having the time of my life, then all better.
Current Projects and Innovations
00:04:19
John S
No, yeah, and i I was only making an observation, um but like if you, well, yeah, you know what I'm saying.
00:04:22
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:04:26
John S
um It is fun, like it's really fun.
00:04:29
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah. OK, so confessional time. What are your obsessions lately?
00:04:37
John S
I have, couple of things going on. The one that I think is is interesting and awesome and great and probably something I should pass on is a better way to recycle used coolant.
00:04:53
John S
And let me just let me just throw it all out there because I've actually iterated on this quite a few times, which in a good way. um We have a shop, 10 machines, call up 50 to 100 gallon, 200 gallon tanks. You know, easily have a thousand gallons of coolant. Every so often you need to clean out a tank, recycle the coolant, just over time goes bad. It's worth noting that separate from from skimmer content, which is mostly oil and truly stuff that just needs to be safely discarded or safety clean pick up. But, um,
00:05:26
John S
What drove this was our like safety clean pickups used to be 400 bucks. The last one was $1,500. Both the price doubled, but we're, we produce more.
00:05:31
johngrimsmo
I
00:05:34
John S
If you look at a 200 gallon or whatever IBC tote full of used quality chem, that is some high percent water. At one point that was 80% water, or something of the sorts. So if you and you will, we all joke that like, Oh, water evaporates off. You just add straight water back the same, achieve the same concentration. Is there,
00:05:55
John S
a efficient, a reasonable way from a product standpoint to instead of me paying safety clean $5 a gallon for 300 gallons, condense that back to 70 gallons of concentrate, if you will.
00:06:00
johngrimsmo
ah got you
00:06:08
John S
And then the water, there's a question too. I don't think the water will be clean enough to discharge down a your drain, but you could, you could actually just let it evaporate off in a tank outside.
00:06:13
johngrimsmo
yeah yeah isn't that what distilleries do they like i don't know they you want to boil it all off or something yeah
00:06:17
John S
Whatever. There's a question there. um
00:06:23
John S
Yes. So, you know, I just, I want to focus, I don't want to ramble. So boiling it too much work, too much energy costs and too much hassle. So the two ways I've learned about one is cracking it, or it would be cracking it, not reverse cracking it.
00:06:38
johngrimsmo
hmm
00:06:40
John S
There are chemicals used like for, for like waste treatment facilities and so forth that will, you can put in this chemical or assault and it will actually uncrack the or crack the synthetic back apart and then the water and oil will separate.
00:06:56
John S
And then in that case, yes.
00:06:56
johngrimsmo
Really?
00:06:58
John S
So in that case, you just open up a drain, just like you drain water out of a gas tank, right?
00:06:59
johngrimsmo
po that
00:07:03
John S
You just let it drain until you hit gas. oh That would be by far the best, assuming, um, assuming the the chemicals are reasonably affordable and safe to use.
00:07:15
John S
You don't and create a whole bunch of new safety requirements around the use of these chemicals.
00:07:18
johngrimsmo
And that you're not ruining the recyclable or the safe, whatever safety clean is going to get that they can still dispose of it. However, you know what i mean
00:07:26
John S
I don't think that would be, it's a good point. It's a great point. I don't, that shouldn't be an issue.
00:07:29
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:07:30
John S
Safety clean will take anything like, um but yeah, touche.
00:07:31
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly.
00:07:36
John S
The idea that I, and credit to Spencer Webb, he had that idea. The idea I have, which you can call this stupid, but give me 50 seconds to spiel my pitch. you have your IBC tote with 300 gallons of used quality chem. You have a small pump that pumps out the equivalent of like half a gallon every hour or two, like a small amount. And it does so in some sort of like an aerosol bursting, like atomizing it, like a blast furnace with coal works. That,
00:08:04
John S
that used quality chem is being splattered or aerosolized against a 45 degree plate that is outside in the hot summer sun. So you can only do two, three months a year. And that is going to, that aerosolized-ish coolant is going to hit this hot plate at a 45 degree angle and the water's going to evaporate off.
00:08:21
John S
The rest of the quality chem is going to slide down off into a return tube.
00:08:24
johngrimsmo
Hmm. Here.
00:08:26
John S
That whole thing is under a glass top cover so that it rain doesn't fill the thing up. Um, So tons of like, this is janky. I hope people are listening to this. What are you talking about Saunders? On the flip side, William here, like I actually think it would work. um We don't need to get rid of that much coolant. So it could work under the summer months. You have and you have a fan blowing across the plate as well, but you don't need to pay, fans are cheap run. Heating sources, burners boiling or space heaters or a dehumidifier. Those are all very energy expensive to run. um
00:09:02
John S
But the, to bring this home from my standpoint, the problem with all this is that even if our coolant uses or their prices go up, this is still a $2,000 a year for them to literally drive the problem away from me.
00:09:15
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.
00:09:16
John S
Like back up a truck and literally just take this off of my plate.
00:09:19
johngrimsmo
No, and it's I'm in the same boat. i I like to solve these problems. I like it's like me making my own phone from scratch.
00:09:27
John S
Yeah.
00:09:27
johngrimsmo
It's like this is a problem that costs us not a ton of money per year, but it does bring a lot of headaches. um
00:09:33
John S
Yeah.
00:09:33
johngrimsmo
And are we reinventing the wheel? and and You don't have to listen to me, but one counter question
Coolant Recycling Focus
00:09:39
johngrimsmo
I have to you is what business are you in?
00:09:40
John S
Hmm.
00:09:42
johngrimsmo
Are you in the business of of stripping your own coolant back to concentrate so that you can ship it back?
00:09:46
John S
The hundred percent.
00:09:48
johngrimsmo
I love the idea. I think the cracking idea is fantastic.
00:09:49
John S
Yeah.
00:09:51
johngrimsmo
um So yeah, just there's no right answer, but.
00:09:53
John S
Yeah. Some of it is my own. i I think we're gonna continue to live in an inflationary world and company companies like Safety Clean, I don't begrudge them per se, but they can just double their price and I'm not gonna go through the hassle of finding a new company, a new certification process, so forth. And I care, that's real money.
00:10:13
John S
that's bit real money um um but Similarly, there's lots of guys that are running hobby shops where, um, I don't, I don't want people to just pour down the drain or, or pour it in their backyard.
00:10:24
John S
I'm not saying that people do either one, but people do either, either one of those options. And it's like, man, if you could just have a little quick, you know, three print this thing up and use a $5 pump and have this thing working and no kind, it's kind of an interesting idea.
00:10:37
johngrimsmo
who The evaporative style.
00:10:38
John S
Um, yes. Yeah.
00:10:40
johngrimsmo
Yeah. I wonder if I know when you yeah like say you boiled it, whether you evaporate or boil it or whatever, is bad fumes going up into the sky or is just water going up in the sky?
00:10:55
John S
Precursory research with the chat GPT caveat, you cannot environmentally like contaminate with evaporative stuff.
00:11:03
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:11:03
John S
Now, I don't know if this would be, um I don't know if what I'm talking about would be, but i'm I'm theorizing that you're only evaporating the water. That may not be true.
00:11:12
johngrimsmo
OK.
00:11:13
John S
I don't know what the, there is, there's an aspect of this that's also just like, no, like, no.
00:11:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah, further the research. yeahp
00:11:19
John S
um Yeah.
00:11:21
johngrimsmo
Cool.
00:11:22
John S
Yeah. I have a call in too, cause I have a couple other questions for quality chem and I'm hoping to get, um, in the past I've been able to get like one of their lab engineer sale, uh, guys on the phone. I want to ask them a couple other questions.
00:11:33
John S
So I will follow back up with what I learned, um, about that.
00:11:35
johngrimsmo
Cool.
00:11:38
John S
Yeah.
00:11:41
John S
Well, so it was on my list.
Project Challenges and Team Dynamics
00:11:42
John S
How, how is your, uh, making your own phone for cases going or is that, do you, okay.
00:11:47
johngrimsmo
That project is currently stalled. um We've gotten some foam in from our supplier. We're machining it like normal. It's still time consuming.
00:11:54
John S
Okay.
00:11:55
johngrimsmo
It's still problematic. um they We keep going back and forth with the supplier and they keep loosening the tolerances. At first, they're trying to go all AS whatever certified.
00:12:08
johngrimsmo
So they now required drawings to be made.
00:12:08
John S
Interesting.
00:12:12
johngrimsmo
So they they made drawings for us and they're horrible.
00:12:12
John S
Oh, gosh.
00:12:14
johngrimsmo
And then we made drawings for them and they came back to, and there was all this back and forth and they were toleranced a certain way. We agreed to those tolerances. shipped them back and they understood their own tolerances wrong.
00:12:28
johngrimsmo
and And so they shipped us a whole bunch of bad foam and like bad machine foam. And um then they sent a foam company that has a machine.
00:12:38
John S
This is is a machine shop or a foam company?
00:12:44
John S
Yeah, cause it's like, you didn't ask my opinion, John, but like my foam company wants to get ASN 100 certified. That's a great sign that it's time to find a new foam company because I'm not paying for foam that's been through, like, sorry, maybe I'm wrong here, but.
00:12:53
johngrimsmo
Yeah, like theoretically, the price doesn't go up, but um yeah, exactly.
00:12:58
John S
Theoretically you're wrong.
00:12:59
johngrimsmo
But anyway, my point is they they came back to us with revised drawings that have a plus or minus 1 16th tolerance. And they're like, this this is all we can do.
00:13:07
John S
Sounds like John.
00:13:10
johngrimsmo
And that doesn't work for us. Like we can, we can do plus or minus 10 thou, not 62 thou easily on this foam.
00:13:12
John S
Yeah, okay.
00:13:17
johngrimsmo
Anyway. So the problem is not solved, but we're just barreling through like normal. My personal foam, make your own foam kind of mold the the foam cases.
00:13:29
John S
no
00:13:30
johngrimsmo
It's currently stalled. It's percolating in the back of my mind, but I haven't worked on it in the past month or two. um And it might,
00:13:36
John S
Can I be no good?
00:13:37
johngrimsmo
Yeah, good it might come back. i don't know yet.
00:13:40
John S
What goingnna say? I'm being nosy. Is it just because frankly, you're super fascinated with the interferometry type stuff or is it because you hit like technical roadblocks that mean the foam thing is maybe harder to to execute on.
00:13:52
johngrimsmo
A bit of both for sure. bit of both.
00:13:53
John S
Okay.
00:13:53
johngrimsmo
Yeah. And those technical roadblocks make it, well, easier to move on to the microscope stuff and be like, well, that's fun and exciting now. And that can solve other problems. The foam stuff is currently being handled by everybody else on the team.
00:14:05
johngrimsmo
So I, I'm not hearing complaints. So like out of sight, out of mind, um, I do have other problems to solve, but, uh, it does need to be a constant discussion with Angelo and my team to be like,
00:14:10
John S
Sure. Sure.
00:14:20
johngrimsmo
like Angela even told me, he goes, I love the idea. It just, some of the chemicals are really nasty and how we environmentally work this into our process, like safely, whatever.
00:14:26
John S
Yeah.
00:14:31
johngrimsmo
And is it scalable or is it just going to be somebody working just as hard? um But I do feel it will take, I'm guesstimating 10 times less man hours and 10 times less dollars to make these foams.
00:14:47
johngrimsmo
than what we're doing now, which is massive.
00:14:50
John S
Crazy, yeah.
00:14:51
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:14:52
John S
That sometimes goes unnoticed, like all of the, you know, we're so driven, whether it's through academic type courses, learning about business or whatnot, but you're like, oh, this is what I pay for the phone. But you don't always think about like, well, no, I got to receive it. I got to unpack it. I got to QC it. I got to fix it. And um there's a ton. It's kind of like the whole joke about, you know, shipping seven orders a day is easy. Shipping 700 orders, oh and so shipping 70 orders a day means you're now spending five, six figures a year you know,
00:15:21
John S
equipment staffing etc around your shipping department
00:15:25
johngrimsmo
Yep. And it becomes a whole, an actual department, not just a part-time guy, you know, or not just an afterthought like it was for Eric and I in the early days.
00:15:30
John S
yeah exactly yeah right yeah but that's even more
00:15:33
johngrimsmo
Like the last 20 minutes of the day, we're boxing up knives and driving them to the post office on the way home.
00:15:41
John S
like that's what you have to be good at because you're so, you are so good at vertically integrating so many of your processes and products and it's who you are and, and people mean good love you for it, but it also means you've got to be really good at, cause you the ultimate lean thing just delete it.
00:15:57
John S
Like just have it arrive on your door.
00:15:57
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly.
00:16:00
John S
you know,
00:16:05
johngrimsmo
Yep.
Product Development Strategies
00:16:07
John S
Well, that segues into my business tip of the day, which was we're debating as we start looking at our 2026 roadmap about some products that we want to bring to market.
00:16:17
johngrimsmo
Mm.
00:16:19
John S
And for sure, the puck chuck gets kind of rounded out. And the excuse that we haven't done that sooner was the puck light, which I actually really think will be the most popular version.
00:16:30
John S
We, we,
00:16:31
johngrimsmo
The mechanical or the aluminum.
00:16:32
John S
um The small, it'll be steel, but the hockey puck size one, if you will, that's like a round numbers under $300.
00:16:38
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:16:40
John S
Whereas the, there's two different variants of the call $1,000 big boy puck chucks, one's automatic, one's mechanical there as well. But um we needed to, we had to fix it on puck light.
00:16:51
John S
it got It got done. And then we started this process of kind of moving these machines in and so forth. So um excuses, excuses, but that is happening, which is great. But after that, it's kind of like, okay what else do we want to bring to market and so forth? And it reminds me of of sort of two separate things. Number one is like, what do people want?
00:17:13
John S
Like what, you know, the the green ocean or the blue ocean, red ocean, like it's it's very complicated and expensive to to bring to market a new product that people don't necessarily know that they need. But like to be totally blunt, we're thinking about bringing some very, very basic fixturing components to market that I think we can execute on quite well.
00:17:32
John S
They're quite simple versus a puck chuck that has numerous high tolerance, inter-inter-functioning mechanical assemblies that requires assembly.
00:17:39
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm.
00:17:40
John S
These are simple products. And I think we do the really do them really well. um And I think people will want them. So number point is what do people want? Number two point is also just the whole execution thing.
00:17:51
John S
um and I've always, to the extent I can say I've done well, it's partly because i've I learned early on with StrikeMark, like, hey, we got our butts kicked building this target because it's complicated.
00:18:02
John S
And by the way, you know what kept the lights on? Selling GoPro mounts. It's like, bring these simple products out. That's going to help give us some free cash flow that's above and beyond our current run rate.
00:18:13
John S
And you reinvest that into some risky bets that might not pan out on new stuff, new equipment, et cetera.
00:18:19
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:18:22
johngrimsmo
I like it. Yep. I like to say ideas are worthless without execution.
00:18:30
johngrimsmo
So can I ask you, if you're willing to share, You talk about this roadmap, you talk about these ideas.
Team Meetings and Project Planning
00:18:36
johngrimsmo
i'm I've been thinking a ah lot about this. We've been talking about it a bit with our team. I'm not very good forward-looking plan like concrete, like we're going to do this, let's go.
00:18:46
johngrimsmo
i have all these ideas and I execute on some of them. So I want to know if you're willing to share what that looks like for you. Is this all in your head? do you sit down with one key member? Do you sit down with the whole team?
00:18:56
johngrimsmo
what what What did this year's look like for you?
00:19:00
John S
No, happy to share a lot of that. um On Tuesday, there's a manager's meeting. Right now, that's just me, um Yvonne, and Alex. um On Wednesday, we have a manufacturing meeting that's everybody in the manufacturing, which is basically everybody except...
00:19:17
John S
Serena who runs shipping and Yvonne who's operations HR. And then we have a Tuesday all hands lunch. Those are our regular scheduled meetings. So this list will probably live in similar forms across those three three meetings as well.
00:19:31
johngrimsmo
but relatively public amongst those people involved.
00:19:31
John S
And
00:19:34
johngrimsmo
Like.
00:19:35
John S
Well, so actually I've populated some of the things, but it's the classic, like you want buy-in, have other people come up with the ideas and populate them.
00:19:41
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:19:44
John S
In fact, it's actually like I get to be the one that
00:19:44
johngrimsmo
Mm hmm.
00:19:49
John S
Ultimately, well, everyone else decides, but ultimately, i guess, for better or worse, probably for worse, I'll have to say of like, no, too much money or or can't do it.
00:19:56
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:19:57
John S
But um we have it right now. Broke. i've I've looked at it last night, but I haven't looked at it yet. We told everybody the due dates today, Friday. um There is major projects and non-major projects.
00:20:11
John S
A major project is multiple people or multiple days, like some execution risks, some disruption to it. Non-major projects, you know, go through some ah plates that need reworked, put the Gemini front end on the wiki, creating a configuration file for the UMC 400 so that you can switch out the work holding, like stuff that one person can do or a couple of people could do pretty quickly.
00:20:35
John S
Like it's basically
00:20:36
johngrimsmo
kind of big to do's.
00:20:39
John S
Yeah, bingo. And then there's capital or like request items. So small items that people want that are under $3,000, big items um are big items.
00:20:50
John S
Unfortunately, I'm very rarely disappointed to see that there the word lathe now exists twice on the big item request list. um
00:21:00
johngrimsmo
And do you find, I guess I answered my own question. Do you find your staff is requesting over $3,000 items?
00:21:09
John S
Yeah. So one person wants to prototyping CNC lathe. One person is asking to discuss a, uh, a lathe to move turning parts off the Willamon. That's something that we've already publicly discussed.
00:21:22
John S
Um, and I've asked Grant and Alex to sort of take a mathematical approach to like, Hey, let's, our goal should be to have bottlenecks at the Willamon. Like that's what that machine was bought for. So as we hit production bottlenecks on it, um, we should not be producing two axis, late parts on it anymore.
00:21:38
johngrimsmo
Yeah, not sure.
00:21:38
John S
Those, those need to come off.
00:21:39
johngrimsmo
Yeah. But until then, if it's easier and better, then go nuts.
00:21:43
John S
Bingo, yeah.
00:21:44
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:21:52
johngrimsmo
That's good. That's good. Is it working for you, that system of the collaborative ideas, track it, deadlines?
00:21:59
John S
Worked great last year, the first year we did it. In looking through this now, um I think it will work really well. I think it, I want people to feel a sense of um bringing together, you know, what do we want to see? you How do we want to,
00:22:15
John S
take care of each other. It's what just, it's just what should happen and in my view of a company that you would want to work work at. um It's a way, i like no joke, it's a way to show I care. Like what do people want? um I, we also try to kind of like half joke, half serious. don't think i've ever like really said no to anything anybody's ever asked for. Like I need a new pair of gloves or I need this thing or whatever. It's just like, yep, yep, ye yep.
00:22:41
John S
Yeah. So I think it's great.
00:22:45
johngrimsmo
Fantastic.
00:22:48
John S
Um, there's a couple that are persistent and suck. Like, what do we want to do long-term for our shop water? Um, I don't, I got a really crappy answer from a professional water company, like just such a crappy answer.
00:23:03
John S
So how do we want to get long-term water to fill up our machines?
00:23:07
johngrimsmo
Well, all that water you're going to suck out of the coolant.
00:23:08
John S
Um,
00:23:09
johngrimsmo
to Just, you know, put it right back.
00:23:10
John S
Yeah. Yeah. ah Yeah. Um, we still don't have a great thing with recycling. We're still using those gay Lords. Um, we'll figure out.
00:23:19
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:23:21
John S
Are you thinking about this? Well, what what makes you ask?
00:23:26
johngrimsmo
ah We were talking about it. Some of our team asked like point blank in front of the whole team, what is the plan for 2026? And I don't have a clean answer. so I kind of ah stumbled.
00:23:36
John S
Sure.
00:23:37
johngrimsmo
I have some things I would like to do, some products I would like to introduce. It's a big deal, as you know, to introduce new products. So I don't want to make a claim that I can't back up.
00:23:44
John S
For sure.
00:23:47
johngrimsmo
um But... I probably to my detriment, spent too much time or I take on too much of that myself, like as as the plan and the ideas and the next product and all that.
00:24:02
johngrimsmo
And then I announced to the team and I don't always get the buy-in that I wish I had.
00:24:06
John S
Yeah.
00:24:06
johngrimsmo
So I'm i'm i'm learning through experience, the whole the whole buy-in thing over the past few years. And we're doing a lot of things that is showing that it obviously works very well when it works well.
00:24:18
johngrimsmo
And I'm constantly finding new ways that I'm failing at that and could be doing better. at you know announcing things to the team or getting their opinion or um or just announcing, like this is what we're to do.
00:24:31
johngrimsmo
Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails.
00:24:31
John S
Yeah.
00:24:33
johngrimsmo
so
00:24:35
John S
Don't overthink it, John. Like it's not, none of this is rocket science or or really sophisticated strategy stuff. This is you just, you know, very, I think simple stuff.
00:24:46
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:24:47
John S
though I'm glad you said that what you said, though, because it reminded me of something I said, I think just one of our meetings, but I need to reiterate to the team right now, where there's probably 30 plus things on this, whenever we kind of sit down to evaluate it, divvy it up, et cetera.
00:25:02
John S
I want to have everybody just pick one, maybe two things. And the goal would be come out of pick a day end of February, end of March, everyone has complete completed those in a way that they're proud of not just like check the box but like really like if you want to have put on this list do it so it's just like absolutely awesome um and if we get to march 31st everybody can go around the room and say yep done done done great let's all pick the next thing much much better to execute that way and you and i are both guilty of this of like yeah next year i want to bring in three new products and it's like well you know we're halfway through the first product and have some concerns like that doesn't do you any good
00:25:17
johngrimsmo
Yeah,
00:25:30
johngrimsmo
yeah.
Machine Acquisition and Setup
00:25:42
johngrimsmo
Yeah. like that a lot. That's really good.
00:25:53
johngrimsmo
Anything else on roadmap-y stuff?
00:25:57
John S
um
00:25:58
johngrimsmo
Move on?
00:25:58
John S
The closest thing would be relevant is I, did I talk to you about my list of of my list of things to do when buying a new machine tool?
00:26:09
johngrimsmo
and don't think so.
00:26:11
John S
So I have bought enough machines at this point to know all the little gotchas and frustrations and all that.
00:26:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:26:18
John S
And I realized this is exactly what our wiki is for. So I now have... um I don't have it numbered. I have it bulleted, but there's probably 25 or 30 points of things.
00:26:29
johngrimsmo
Yes.
00:26:30
John S
um ah Frankly, they look in in isolation. They are somewhat obnoxious questions, but they're not. It's things like, does the conveyor have an M code or is it shipping together?
00:26:40
John S
Or are you, do you include a solid model of the machine?
00:26:41
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:26:44
John S
Does the net payment terms, the net payment for the machine start when it is dropped off or when you guys install it? Do you have an, and how many, how much lead time do you speak? Sorry.
00:27:00
John S
um, are you guaranteeing a window to be for the machine or tech to be here to start the installation after it's delivered? All this kind of stuff. Um, and it feels great to have a spot to, to dump it just to ask.
00:27:11
johngrimsmo
Yes.
00:27:12
John S
Cause look, the, I'll be kind about that or I'll be more firm as just like, but only time to negotiate this stuff is before you sign. Cause that's when you'll get, then that's when you get, yeah, yeah.
00:27:20
johngrimsmo
Yeah. The most power. Yeah. I love that.
00:27:24
John S
Um,
00:27:24
johngrimsmo
And the only time you're really good at creating that list is during the process of actually buying a machine. You know, a year later, you know, I haven't bought a machine in a while.
00:27:31
John S
but Yeah.
00:27:34
johngrimsmo
I could write down a list of 10 or 20 things, but your list will be better because you're fresh. You're doing it right now. And, uh, I like that a lot.
00:27:42
John S
Yeah. And I'll segue that to, uh, Some more discussion, certainly no closure of the rant last week of the, of the Haas relocation sensor.
00:27:51
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:27:54
John S
Um, I will again, double or triple down that I think if you'd flip that around and it was a feature beneficial to the user. The sales team would have been all over sharing it. And the fact that it wasn't like, hey, John, you know, really awesome to see you asking to buy your 13th Haas machine. Just want let you know the first 12 didn't have this thing that's a pretty big difference. This one does. We know you may not love it, but it's our duty is to, you know, just they should have shared it feel full stop. um But there's there's I've learned a lot in the last week.
00:28:26
johngrimsmo
OK.
00:28:26
John S
There's a lot of misinformation out there. You continue to hear people say and everybody like appreciate everybody has chimed in. A lot of people are like, oh, it's a it's a law.
00:28:37
John S
No, no. Where's the law? Like people are saying, well, if if a machine is this accurate, if a machine can make this part or whatever, I'm like, I'm I keep hearing this. I'm not aware of an actual United States law around this or regulation. The two builders that seem to have this across many or most of their lines are Mazak and now Haas.
00:29:01
John S
And both are, I believe, related to sanctions, I believe, by the government or more specifically, I believe, by the DOJ that relate to unfortunate things having had happened in the past. doesn't know No secret that there was a bunch hubbub a couple of years ago with Haas in Russia.
00:29:18
John S
and I don't like, I don't, I'm not here to weigh in on that. but Well, actually no, I will. As a personal opinion, it sounds like it sticks. I don't know exactly what happened, but if a couple of machines were bought, I mean, John, this is like, if somebody bought a Grimstone knife and then smuggled it into Iran,
00:29:34
John S
It's like, what what are you going to do to stop that? And like, your your product is a weapon. One weapon from you made by you ended up in Iran. Okay. Like not cool, but like what? Like people are going to break the laws and do stuff. It sounds like stuff may have gotten moved around and ended up in a place it shouldn't have.
00:29:52
John S
I think that's a tragedy to what manufacturing in the United States to think that the largest machine tool builder now has to have this neutering, frustrating, expensive to maintain device. And when I say expensive to maintain, whether the HFO covers the cost or whether it's complimentary, you still have to have somebody drive minutes or hours to but take a picture, log the machine status and unlock it.
00:30:17
John S
And so i'm so I'm quite sympathetic with Haas on that front. On the flip side, I'm quite frustrated and disappointed.
00:30:23
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:30:23
John S
Mordecom, I'll let you know, but it's not on, it's not on Hercos. It's not on DoSants. It's not on Brothers. It's not on um many other machines. So if you're out there in the market, I love our Haas machines, but do not let a sales guy tell you every machine now has this in the world or whatever.
00:30:42
johngrimsmo
OK. Right, right.
00:30:45
johngrimsmo
So speaking of new machines, how what's what's up
00:30:49
John S
Dude, brother is, they just pulled out of the parking lot this morning, getting the conveyor finally installed. um So the machine is now, I believe, really ours. And we made a first couple of test cuts on it, got the FTP set up, gonna start tooling up stuff on it.
00:31:11
John S
And then Courtney and Grant are gonna start looking at the next steps to get the robot on it. think I said this before, but i actually like how it's come together. Grant and Courtney are handling the robot. I'm handling some of the part cam. Ed is handling the kind of machine itself and the work holding on it.
00:31:27
John S
and And now it's go time.
00:31:29
johngrimsmo
Yes, that's cool.
00:31:31
John S
Yeah.
00:31:31
johngrimsmo
And the the integration is pretty much all handled by LightsOut.
00:31:32
John S
Yeah.
00:31:35
johngrimsmo
Like they tell you what to change. They give you the files. They tell you what to plug into where, all that stuff.
00:31:42
John S
They give us instructions. We are in this case formally acting as our own integrator.
00:31:47
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:31:47
John S
So they are not, this is not a turnkey where they will quote unquote fully support it, if you will.
00:31:47
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:31:53
John S
Now they've been awesome and great and I commend them and want to support this idea of this kind of piecemeal a la carte stuff for folks that are more competent and capable. um And not that's not to say that we are, because I'm quite humble when it comes to how much we have to learn.
00:32:09
John S
On the flip side, you know, we've run the, you are on the Willamon, albeit that's different.
00:32:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah. your your Your whole shop is not afraid to jump in and
00:32:14
John S
And they've, yeah. Yeah.
00:32:17
johngrimsmo
do it.
00:32:18
John S
And we're gonna informally help Lights Out. They were like, hey, will, if we share the build materials on the Brother, i mean, so I don't guess I should clarify these days, like we don't do any partnerships, let alone like, this is, where we bought this stuff from Lights Out.
00:32:31
John S
But they're like, hey would you mind helping us do a video on how you're installing the auto door on the Brother? i'm like, yeah, will you just help me tell me? It's pretty cool. John, like it's like, Hey, here's a, the part from McMaster car, which I love because McMaster's a reliable vendor.
00:32:45
John S
So in four months, the Ali express or Amazon link hasn't changed for this pneumatic part.
00:32:48
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah. Yep.
00:32:49
John S
Like McMaster is a little more expensive, but I think there's a lot to be said for giving folks a certainty option here. And if you want to hack it your own way, go for it. And then you need two brackets. Well, guess what? We can put those on the send cut, send marketplace and you can just buy them directly
Machining Optimization Techniques
00:33:02
John S
yourself.
00:33:02
John S
I freaking love that. Um, and yeah.
00:33:08
johngrimsmo
Sweet. I did some some Googling and some, what did I use? I used um Notebook LM actually to, I think I did, to learn about the speedio's ladder logic and how to get an an output out of the speedio to a Raspberry Pi.
00:33:22
John S
Okay.
00:33:26
johngrimsmo
What I want is an RPM or as a spindle-oriented signal. Like when the spindle's running at 10,000 RPM, I want 10,000 pulses per minute coming to a Raspberry Pi.
00:33:37
johngrimsmo
so that I have an an orientation. And the the major goal is for vibration monitoring on the spindle.
00:33:40
John S
Okay.
00:33:43
John S
ah
00:33:44
johngrimsmo
So I can put an accelerometer on the spindle, but you need an index.
00:33:44
John S
Okay.
00:33:47
johngrimsmo
And I'm like, can I just get that from the speedo? Cause it's already got it. And a very easy, small ladder change, theoretically, I haven't done it yet. Should be able to have one of the available output pins, output that signal um as an on-off 24 volt voltage.
00:34:04
johngrimsmo
And yeah, yeah, absolutely.
00:34:04
John S
Can it do it that free that frequency? c Sorry, thought the right term.
00:34:07
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:34:09
John S
And can our RPI handle that much?
00:34:10
johngrimsmo
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So it's, I haven't done it yet, but I've done, you know, maybe an hour's worth of research and I'm like, okay. ah Otherwise I'm mounting a photo diode to the outside of the spindle with a piece of black tape on the spindle, which might add some imbalance.
00:34:27
johngrimsmo
And then I'm, I'm myself having a spindle.
00:34:29
John S
You'll know.
00:34:30
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly. Um, So I was like, yeah, if I can just get it from the speedio without having to mount my own um light sensor, like tachometer, basically.
00:34:39
John S
Okay. Yes. Sure. Sure.
00:34:42
johngrimsmo
um
00:34:42
John S
Sure.
00:34:42
johngrimsmo
Great. And then i'll I'll put the accelerometer on a magnet and I can just stick it wherever I want, the side of the spindle, on the table, wherever. And then the pi I want a pie with a screen living right beside the machine that shows live vibration and can data log and things like that.
00:34:59
John S
What does RPM have to do with vibration?
00:35:02
johngrimsmo
So say your tool is out of balance.
00:35:04
John S
Oh,
00:35:08
johngrimsmo
This will tell me where it's out of balance.
00:35:10
John S
Yeah, sorry, I stopped, realized as a dumb question.
00:35:11
johngrimsmo
Yeah, that's good.
00:35:13
John S
It's you're wanting to see where bands are, you're you're not implying that, um you're not implying you're using RPMs to measure vibration. You just wanna see where you have frequency bands.
00:35:21
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly.
00:35:22
John S
Yeah, of course.
00:35:23
johngrimsmo
yep yep Because the grinding tool that we have on the machine um I don't know if it's in balance or out of balance. I think it's slightly out of balance.
00:35:30
John S
Okay.
00:35:30
johngrimsmo
And I think if I can get it perfectly balanced, I think I'd have a better grind. And not only that, we're getting some chatter doing hard milling on the Rask and Fjellblades.
00:35:38
John S
Okay.
00:35:40
johngrimsmo
And I'm like, man, if I could see the vibration of that cut, I'd be pretty happy right now. Like, because, ah you know, you take the RPM knob and you crack it down one tick and vibration goes away.
00:35:45
John S
who
00:35:51
johngrimsmo
And I'm like, The Kern has an oscilloscope built in. I won want one on the speedio.
00:35:55
John S
I know, right? Dude, love it.
00:35:59
johngrimsmo
So we'll get we'll get better tool day from the hard mill tools.
00:35:59
John S
That's cool.
00:36:02
johngrimsmo
We'll just get better cuts, things like that. Yeah, one of my side quests.
00:36:08
John S
Dude, the like... very much curious person in me just wants to know like, okay, when you're asking, just can't conceptualize machines doing many things simultaneously, including 10,000 times per minute, um, pulsing out signals and the, um, I, this is crazy to me.
00:36:21
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:36:25
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:36:30
John S
And it's like, well, at what point does it stop the machine from being able to do, other things it needs to do or is it just just is this just like oh no that is just like easy for that to handle that yeah
00:36:36
johngrimsmo
All right.
00:36:39
johngrimsmo
It's fine. yeah Yeah, and it's measured in Hertz, and there's limits to the Hertz ability of whatever sensors you put on there. And I need a optical voltage converter because it's going to feed out 24 volts of speedios voltage.
00:36:56
John S
oh sure treasure sure sure yeah
00:36:56
johngrimsmo
And then the pie needs to take whatever 3.3 volts, whatever it it runs on or five volts. So I need some interim like plug in thing that just a little relay, solid state relay.
00:37:05
John S
Yep.
00:37:08
johngrimsmo
um So that should work great.
00:37:11
John S
Dude, that's cool.
00:37:12
johngrimsmo
Yeah, that's pretty cool.
00:37:14
John S
the we clearly need to learn um the brother like we took a quick test cut in on any 40 taper machine yeah and we look we've had we have a 30 taper now anyways but like we're just used to running 40 tapers and we took a 20 normal adaptive you know tooth out for tooth 20 step over with a stubby-ish tool um and it was fine but
00:37:27
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:37:38
John S
As soon as I started running the part, I was like, what am I doing, John? This thing wants 10% or under step over with a faster feed. Like it wants, it's a use it the way it was designed to like true high speed machining.
00:37:49
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:37:51
johngrimsmo
And they like to run fast.
00:37:52
John S
Um, yeah.
00:37:53
johngrimsmo
Like you you can machine at a few hundred inches per minute, like on small features, even in, in circles and holes and things like that.
00:37:57
John S
Okay. Yeah.
00:38:01
johngrimsmo
And it's like, whoa, this thing's kind of keeping up. Yep.
00:38:04
John S
Well, I put you on the spot if you don't mind. Like, so again, we were just on 4140. So call it like normalish mild steel, whatever. We were doing our normal sort of four or 500 surface feet, 3-inch tool, 20% step over 70, 80 thou, 2 thou per tooth.
00:38:19
John S
It's not a particularly aggressive cut or crazy cut, but it just didn't sound as happy as it should have been.
00:38:23
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:38:25
John S
So I'm thinking like, okay, go down to like 7, 8% step over, 3 or 4 thou feet per tooth, three or four hour feet per tooth Service footage is probably okay, but do you agree with that direction?
00:38:33
johngrimsmo
Yeah. I think so.
00:38:36
John S
or or Okay.
00:38:36
johngrimsmo
And and that's that's probably harder than I tend to program anything because I don't run production um of 4140. We have our blades and our our handles and things like that that we run, but ah I don't run three-eighths tools either.
00:38:52
John S
That's big for you.
00:38:52
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I have a couple, but.
00:38:53
John S
What we could go to a quarter and we don't need, that that's nice thing. We will be doing production with this for sure. But the way I'm looking at current cycle times is we're not rush. If this, if this lights out system works like we think it will on the brother.
00:39:04
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:39:05
John S
um I don't like, if it's a part of, if it parts of 12 minutes and I get better tool life versus going to seven minutes, I'm just leave it at 12 minutes. It just doesn't matter.
00:39:14
johngrimsmo
Exactly. Nope. Steady.
00:39:16
John S
Yeah.
00:39:17
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm.
00:39:18
John S
Okay. I'll keep you posted.
00:39:20
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Well, I've got a couple more Speedio optimization things I've been working on. So last week I talked about I got the pallet changer working reliably. um
Thermal Growth Management
00:39:31
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:39:31
johngrimsmo
I tweaked the air purge sensing and that's been awesome.
00:39:34
John S
Yes. Yes.
00:39:36
johngrimsmo
and then I programmed or I i set up a 20 pallet change with ah an empty program.
00:39:42
John S
That's what you're going to do when we left.
00:39:43
johngrimsmo
yep And it worked.
00:39:43
John S
Okay.
00:39:43
johngrimsmo
It worked perfect. It was like completely no issue whatsoever.
00:39:48
John S
Good.
00:39:48
johngrimsmo
I'm like, heck yes.
00:39:48
John S
Great.
00:39:49
johngrimsmo
Now the issue is the consistency of our machine parts. And so these blades and and hard mill that we're doing is like, needs to be like really, really tight.
00:40:00
johngrimsmo
And the thermal growth of the machine is actually becoming a problem in the reliability of this.
00:40:04
John S
Interesting. Mm-hmm.
00:40:07
johngrimsmo
So I had a thought. And I was like, you know when you calibrate a probe tip on a spindle probe, you put in your your ring gauge into the machine, you magnet it down at whatever, and you calibrate on that ring gauge.
00:40:15
John S
who
00:40:19
johngrimsmo
And you have to do that manually anytime you want to calibrate the probe. I know some people will install a sphere in the corner of their table or something like that. And while I could do that, I was like, you know what I could do?
00:40:31
johngrimsmo
i could install a ring gauge somewhere. so I'm like looking at the table. Where's kind of the easiest out of the way part where I could just permanently mount this? And then i was like, well, we make these blades with a very perfectly circular round pivot hole.
00:40:44
johngrimsmo
um And could I just bolt a blade somewhere? like flat, and the hole is you know facing the sky so that the probe can come in and calibrate on that.
00:40:54
johngrimsmo
And it turns out there's two screws that mount the Bloom tool setter, the laser setter, that I can like borrow and and bolt a blade on those two screws.
00:41:00
John S
Yeah.
00:41:04
John S
through Through them, yeah.
00:41:05
johngrimsmo
Yep. And I figure a thin blade is going to trap chips and coolant a lot less than a thick gauge ring or ring gauge. So I did it. I i machine i hard milled the blade with two holes in it and I cut it off so it's kind of stubby and short and I hung it off the back and then I precision machined hard milled the pivot bore.
00:41:23
johngrimsmo
I barrel lapped it as good as possibly can with diamond paste.
00:41:25
John S
OK.
00:41:27
johngrimsmo
And then Angelo is CMMing it right now, just to give me the final word. This hole is 0.312507, whatever. And then I'm yeah.
00:41:36
John S
Oh, they're that big. Okay.
00:41:38
johngrimsmo
And then I'm going to engrave that number on the blade and then I'm going to mount it on the speedio. And that is going to be my calibration ring, which I'm going to run as often as I want to, because now I can have sub routines that just calibrate the probe. Yeah.
00:41:53
johngrimsmo
it's It's like how you were saying the Renesha equator has a good part and your questionable part.
00:41:56
John S
Mm-hmm.
00:41:59
johngrimsmo
And it scans a good part and it scans your questionable part. And that's like your your constant reference surface. So because we use the probe so much, I know the probe tip, the calibration of it can drift over time. You don't know when. You don't know how often. You're just supposed to check it often enough, right? like It's supposed to stay on center, but it doesn't always. um And then the thermal comp of the machine changes literally by the hour, depending on how much you run it.
00:42:25
johngrimsmo
um Like the C frame style machine, the spindle gets hot, it grows in Y by about a thou. Z changes by about a thou, depending on what you're doing.
00:42:36
johngrimsmo
X changes by a little bit. And I have deprinted historical data where I'm probing a fixed feature on the table
00:42:41
John S
Mm-hmm.
00:42:44
johngrimsmo
multiple times throughout the day. And now I have enough data to be like, oh yeah, the machine grows a little bit. And it's actually screwing up our parts, our blade bevels, um causing the guys to chase their tail and comp it and comp it. And oh, it's been sitting for a little comp it back, comp back. And I think with this blade style a ring gauge mounted permanently to the machine, I can just have the probe come in and be like, oh, the probe needs to be calibrated by 2 tenths. Now it's perfect.
00:43:08
johngrimsmo
Probe it again. Yes, it's probing exactly what it should be because I know this blade is 3125. And now the probe knows that itself that it is calibrated because it's measuring the whole 3125.
00:43:20
johngrimsmo
And then also now hit the hole again and be like, it was here on a cold machine. And now it's one, you know.
00:43:29
John S
you're You're going to update like a G53 or something this way.
00:43:31
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Or a, not not the G53, one of the other G58 or something like that.
00:43:32
John S
little scary.
00:43:38
John S
Okay.
00:43:39
johngrimsmo
And that will apply to do g fifty nine which is what I'm using for all my major stuff.
00:43:45
John S
is Is it stable once it stays at temp?
00:43:49
johngrimsmo
Yes, um relatively, yeah.
00:43:53
John S
Man, that's the way to do it, John. i'm Sorry.
00:43:54
johngrimsmo
Just keep it hot.
00:43:54
John S
Yeah. yeah yeah
00:43:57
johngrimsmo
Yeah, but well, we'll see. i'm i'm adding dprint to pretty much everything, because why not? And then you have data for every comp it's going to make. It's going to track the data, and then I can review it.
00:44:09
johngrimsmo
And the way my guys are measuring the parts and comping manually right now,
00:44:14
John S
who
00:44:14
johngrimsmo
they know what's going on and if this makes them comp nothing then it's working yeah and i can always turn it off yeah
00:44:16
John S
Okay.
00:44:20
John S
Okay.
00:44:23
John S
Yeah. Yeah. It's scary, you know, the more we go through life, the more it's like, oh man, getting cute and adjusting things and bumping things and probing probes aren't perfect.
00:44:32
johngrimsmo
i don't know but i i'm thinking this way makes it perfect because it's self-calibrating as often as i want to you know what i mean
00:44:39
John S
But that's what everybody who does a probing thing thinks is going to perfect, perfect it.
00:44:42
johngrimsmo
Well, I know, but they're not calibrating the probe in mid cycle.
00:44:46
John S
No, it's more of a a mindset than it is a criticism.
00:44:47
johngrimsmo
And I'm with you too.
00:44:49
John S
Yeah.
00:44:50
johngrimsmo
I'm with you too. Like I've said myself, like ah probing too much is a bad thing.
00:44:55
John S
Yeah.
00:44:55
johngrimsmo
Comping too much is a bad thing. And I'm always going away from it and coming back to it and going away from it, coming back to it. and I'm like, now I'm in a phase in life where like, okay, if I do it this way, it might actually give me everything I want in the world and just do the thing.
00:45:10
John S
you have a coolant? Well, is your coolant getting hot enough to need a chiller or does it need a pond aquarium heater to stabilize it higher? And do you have a, you know, the grinding shops that use solar space blankets around the column of the grinders because it helps trap the heat and like, I, yeah.
00:45:16
johngrimsmo
good question. i don't have an answer for you.
00:45:23
johngrimsmo
Right?
00:45:27
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:45:28
John S
Hmm.
00:45:29
johngrimsmo
But the point is we are learning a lot more about the machine, trying to eke out literally less than one-tenth repeatability of machine features with hard mill tools.
00:45:39
johngrimsmo
I don't know. I just want to.
00:45:41
John S
Yeah.
00:45:42
johngrimsmo
And because I can't. And as the hard mill tools, like when we machine the pivot bore, I want the probe to come in and probe that feature and know to less than 1 10th certainty that it's right.
00:45:54
johngrimsmo
So that I can comp the tool and the next one's going to be more right.
00:45:55
John S
Yes.
00:46:00
johngrimsmo
And with the ring gauge calibration, I can constantly verify. This hole is exactly 3125. What does the probe say? Nope, it doesn't say that. That means the probe is wrong because the part is not wrong.
00:46:13
johngrimsmo
The calibration, you know?
00:46:14
John S
Cool. Yeah.
00:46:15
johngrimsmo
that's what that's where my head's at right now. I'm in, it's all programmed. It's all ready. just have to mount the the blade ring gauge right now and then suss out the program, make sure it's doing what I expect it to and then run it.
00:46:32
johngrimsmo
So we shall see. And I don't want to exaggerate, like the thermal growth of the speedio is bad. Every machine does it, even the Kern does it, but the Kern relatively comps it because it's chilled and has some um some stuff.
00:46:45
johngrimsmo
But even when I was at the Kern event, a lot of Kern owners, even Kern HD owners are like, the spindle still grows when it gets hot. And it just does. And like if we're making ultra critical parts that have to be Z accurate to within you know less than a 10th or microns or whatever, um they're like, we will, before the cut, we will run it at RPM for five minutes and then cut.
00:47:07
John S
Yeah, totally makes sense.
00:47:08
johngrimsmo
And I was like, that's crazy, but I'm starting to get it, you know?
00:47:11
John S
Yeah, yeah.
00:47:13
johngrimsmo
So it's just unlocking new levels. The speedo is amazing. Most people do not care about this. I have the high accuracy package. So I have five digits of resolution. Like I'm seeing this, I'm measuring it. I'm i'm going full Grimsmo at it, but
00:47:28
John S
I still haven't, we haven't really tooled it up with like four tools in it, but like I haven't actually seen it cut tool change and come back into the cut at full speed, which I'm i i' kind of like the nerd in me is kind of excited to see It's just, it's so fast.
00:47:41
johngrimsmo
yeah. You almost need to like, You need to make a fake part that's just like deck it, drill the hole, tap it, and then chamfer the hole and just have one program that takes eight seconds.
00:47:49
John S
Yes. Insane.
00:47:55
John S
Right, I know, I'm so, yeah.
00:47:55
johngrimsmo
Like have Ed do that because it'll be worth the giggles, you know?
00:47:59
John S
Yeah. Yeah. No, um I am really excited to, uh, to see where it goes. Yeah. And there were a couple, uh, there were a couple of hiccups that, you know, were, I don't say frustrating, but there were a couple hiccups between the delivery and today.
00:48:12
John S
And I got to give the office and some credit. They were pretty graceful and and certainly responsive and getting, getting them handled.
00:48:15
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:48:18
John S
And it was a good situation because we, um, you know this is the nicest way to bring a machine online. We're like, we've got a couple of different things happening with it. We're not really in a rush. Now we we are, we're moving, but like, it wasn't like, uh, know, this is my only machine and I'm waiting to get started with my business when it comes in and all that.
00:48:32
johngrimsmo
yeah sure so after having just gone through the experience contrast our buddy dennis who says he's making he's making production parts the same day it's arrives
00:48:45
John S
Oh yeah, no, I get totally crazy. Right? Yeah.
00:48:47
johngrimsmo
Isn't that wild?
00:48:49
John S
Well, that's the goal. I told my, was like, I yesterday, was like, Hey, you know, I'll be transparent with you. Um, the goal is to get this machine working, prove out it can do what we think it can do, both as a machine and with the automation. And then by at least two more, maybe three more in conjunction with selling the horizontal.
00:49:05
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:49:05
John S
Um, and I am excited for that.
00:49:08
johngrimsmo
Yeah, that's cool, man.
00:49:09
John S
See where it goes. Hey, I know we're running long, but can can you, can share any updates on the open CV stuff?
00:49:15
johngrimsmo
Yeah, the vision system is done almost.
00:49:16
John S
Measure it stuff?
Vision System and Holiday Plans
00:49:20
johngrimsmo
I'm printing, I'm 3D printing all the mounting brackets and everything to hold the lens and all that stuff together.
00:49:24
John S
Okay.
00:49:24
johngrimsmo
And like one print is like a 14 hour bamboo print and I keep having failures and like bed adhesion issues and spaghetti.
00:49:31
John S
Really?
00:49:32
johngrimsmo
And I didn't, i didn't I guess I knew, but I've never done it where you have a lot of parts on the table and some are problems and in the software you can skip parts.
00:49:40
John S
skip them. Mm-hmm.
00:49:41
johngrimsmo
I've never if've done that before. So I've done it like three times on this one print and now I'm reprinting the last parts.
00:49:42
John S
It's cool, right?
00:49:47
johngrimsmo
But the software is usable. I got got a couple more features. Once everything's mounted up, hopefully tonight or tomorrow probably, then then like the vision system will be functional.
00:49:58
John S
Yes.
00:49:58
johngrimsmo
It's going to be so cool. It's going to have a hand crank on the Z with a very fine pitch through that's going to let me focus. And it's it's just going to be super fun. And then...
00:50:09
johngrimsmo
once Now that this is almost complete, I'm super excited to get the interferometer set up because almost every day I'm like, man, it'd be really nice if I could scan this with the interferometer right now. I'd know a lot more data if I could scan this right now. And I cannot wait to have that done. That's probably going to be like end of Christmas season. That'll be up and running maybe a little bit later, but it's couple more weeks.
00:50:31
John S
Well, on that note, sorry to our lovely and loyal audience that we will not be with you for the next two weeks because we have between Christmas time off, et cetera, we're off. So we will we will be back with you guys on January 9th.
00:50:46
John S
But a very happy, well I say Merry Christmas, but happy holidays to everybody. Actually, before we wrap up, can I share an embarrassing bamboo moment?
00:50:55
johngrimsmo
Yes.
00:50:55
John S
We've made a lot of parts in the bamboos and you know, typical you put four parts or, or 26 parts on a build plate. I used to think that you could only choose supports or no supports for every single, all the parts at once.
00:51:09
johngrimsmo
Mm-mm.
00:51:10
John S
If you click on the objects tab and click on the object itself down below, you can adjust the, all these settings for individual parts. So certain parts can have supports or different settings than others.
00:51:23
johngrimsmo
Yeah, and I'm realizing that too now. I've had to do that a couple of times. because I'm like, I don't want supports on that part. It doesn't need it. like yeah it's It's pretty cool how how dialed the bamboo ecosystem is.
00:51:29
John S
Yes.
00:51:33
John S
Yes. Yes.
00:51:34
johngrimsmo
It's impressive.
00:51:35
John S
Same thing with auto supports. You can do auto supports and still paint on supports in additional places.
00:51:40
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yup.
00:51:42
John S
It's not manual, like, which is great. Cause sometimes like, no, I don't care. I want to reduce, I want to reduce the risk for this print. I just want to add supports there. It'd be fine.
00:51:48
johngrimsmo
Yup. It's fantastic. The world we live in, it's wonderful.
00:51:55
johngrimsmo
right. Well, I will see you. We're going skip two weeks, so I'll see you in three weeks.
00:51:59
John S
Merry Christmas to you and your family.
00:52:00
johngrimsmo
Merry Christmas and enjoy the time.
00:52:03
John S
Enjoy time with your family, but not so much so that you don't finish that intro ever because I really wanted to see how...
00:52:07
johngrimsmo
exactly
00:52:08
John S
Yeah.
00:52:08
johngrimsmo
Well, between between my son having my schedule booked, playing video games together, and maybe squeaking in some interferometer stuff over the over the holidays, and and some vibration sensors, Raspberry Pi stuff.
00:52:18
John S
Yes.
00:52:19
johngrimsmo
those are my Those are my side quests for the next few weeks.
00:52:19
John S
Yes.
00:52:21
johngrimsmo
So hopefully we come back with some some big results. All right, man.
00:52:26
John S
Take care. Bye.
00:52:27
johngrimsmo
Yeah, you too. Bye.