Transcript
John Saunders: Good morning. Welcome to the Business of Machining episode number 470. My name is John Saunders.
johngrimsmo: My name is John Grimsmo.
John Saunders: what we We've talked 470 times. Oh man.
johngrimsmo: It's a couple times.
John Saunders: I can remember the first time we started doing this pre -podcast and it was in my... old like our current house but before we did some renovations so like it was I just had that. ingrained in my head and like
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: My gosh, it was things were different back then.
johngrimsmo: This was 10 years ago. This was in our old house i had when I had an office and then life got big enough to...
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: take it as his bedroom. And then I lost my office and I've been officing at the kitchen table ever since.
John Saunders: This was your was this your house with the Tormach in the garage or was it the house?
johngrimsmo: ye
johngrimsmo: No, after that.
John Saunders: that
johngrimsmo: The one you visited.
John Saunders: i've been too Yeah, yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yep. Yep.
John Saunders: Okay, okay. Got it.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah, that's too funny.
johngrimsmo: And there's a bit ago.
John Saunders: Yeah. Crazy. Anyways, John and I talk each week as our... private therapy session that you guys all get to listen to.
johngrimsmo: yeah Exactly. yeah
John Saunders: Uh... I don't actually have a ton, even though we took last week off. but What's on your list?
johngrimsmo: Um... uh quick notes on my my trip that i took and some of the people that i saw and white light interferometer stuff and DLC stuff.
John Saunders: perfect
johngrimsmo: It's on my list.
John Saunders: I have an annoying amount of AI updates, but darn it. It's my life. So I'm not going to feel bad about sharing it.
johngrimsmo: yeah
John Saunders: Um, and then. some updates on our brothers and actually already starting to wind down the year in some respects so Wanted to catch up with that.
johngrimsmo: Interesting.
John Saunders: Yeah. Tell me about your trip.
johngrimsmo: Um, Yeah, we went out my son and I went out to see my mom. kind of a bit of a medical emergency but she's okay mostly um She's on the West Coast, we're on the East Coast, so it was just... nice last minute like yeah we're just gonna come see you So Leif and I took five days. We haven't like done a boys trip yet. So it was amazing. He's 13 now. It was amazing to like just have that time together and hotel and swimming pools and hikes and all this stuff, time with family.
johngrimsmo: Saw my mom saw my uncle all this stuff and then we went and saw Amish And I got to see his shop. I've never been there before. And, you know, Amish and I are pretty tight. We're usually roomies at all the events we go to.
johngrimsmo: And such a great guy. and Seeing his what's a d DMU -70 machine, whatever, in person.
John Saunders: 60, 65.
johngrimsmo: Is it 65?
John Saunders: Thank you. United 65.
johngrimsmo: The table is like large compared to my current, right? It's like. I don't know, 16 inches in diameter or something like that.
John Saunders: You could sit like two people full course meal on the table
johngrimsmo: it's Later. Yeah, exactly um Yeah, I've had restaurant tables that are smaller than that. And. He is making... Like. large parts, very large parts that are like 20 inches in diameter down to like these tiny little get lost in your thumbprint kind of parts. And I'm like,
johngrimsmo: Wow, it's like really impressive to see the vastness of work that he does in a kind of I don't want to call it prototype, but short run job shop kind of way. It was very, very impressive. you know and As close as we are, he doesn't get to share what he makes all the time.
johngrimsmo: and uh One thing I really got from it. was looking at his cabinet of parts and him showing me a lot of the stuff that he's made. Um, someone in that position gets to Learn.
johngrimsmo: Daily? gets to try a new product a new part a new strategy a new like they're always pushing the boundaries of their knowledge of ability to make a thing whereas what we do here is we're trying to focus and like just make the same thing over and over again we have a you know, we have four products and a bunch of parts in between, but we're not camming new parts.
johngrimsmo: Like ever. Um, and my team doesn't have to really one of the guys has to know cam but We're not programming parts every day. Whereas someone in Amish's position is literally programming parts every single day. And that just teaches you stuff a lot faster. and different and than than how we're learning in our shop and I'm learning personally. I just thought that was really interesting.
John Saunders: Yeah, I I think it's... Part of it's the grass is greener type of thing. But in a happy way, I'm envious of Amish.
johngrimsmo: Mm. oh
John Saunders: like he he clearly he makes great parts he takes a ton of pride in his work it's such a nice shop it's a one -man shop like I think we've had a lot of peers that we know have kind of vacillated on that. Man, it'd be great to have help, but as soon as you have one or two people.
John Saunders: everything changes you know to -do lists management expectations
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: grow like whatever. So I do. I think that a lot of us have, you know, CJ has certainly had it for a while. this idea of just like how far can I push. this.
John Saunders: you know, one man show. and
johngrimsmo: right
John Saunders: I think as an entrepreneur, you always want to. you always have this competitive drive to do things that are innovative or different or better. and i think What?
John Saunders: is top of mind for me in light of somebody like Amish is trying to have both so I go back to how Much I enjoyed about two months ago. I had those two or three weeks with Williams at camp and I Really?
John Saunders: really brought out the best in me of some ideas. And those are still paying dividends. Like we're still. um we're still cashing those checks today like i'm not i've not exhausted that work but i also have not
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: i told myself then i would do a better job between then and now of of recreating that even here you go go to a For ah just go somewhere for a day and like to try to do that total fail, like has not happened, so.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: um, But I think that's important. and you ah I could give a bunch of excuses but with everything that's going on, but yet...
johngrimsmo: e
johngrimsmo: It's good to keep it in mind.
John Saunders: you know
johngrimsmo: you know you're You're realizing now, three months later, two months later, that it is important and will continue to always be important for you to have that time. to yourself to just Focus on.
johngrimsmo: a project or like a category of projects where you're like if i can do these i know they will help and pay dividends Exactly.
John Saunders: Let's go. I'm glad you got to see Amish. I didn't realize you hadn't been to a shop
johngrimsmo: No, no exactly
John Saunders: That's awesome.
johngrimsmo: yep
John Saunders: Amish and Squamish.
johngrimsmo: Amish and Squamish. Yeah, I thought that was hilarious.
John Saunders: Ready?
johngrimsmo: We... um We got a nice ah nice hotel there. and the second we open the blinds from the hotel room there's a bear outside like far away but Yeah, it was awesome.
John Saunders: and Everywhere.
johngrimsmo: everywhere.
John Saunders: Right? Yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And yeah, went up the gondola, went for a nice hike. um his eight -year -old son Amish's eight -year -old son was a joy to be around and really good hang out with Leif.
John Saunders: Yeah. Avi. Oh, sorry.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: approaches name na yeah
johngrimsmo: yeah and uh we were going on this hike and they had just done a massive hike the day before so The the kid was totally cooked, but... was still literally chirping life and like come on come on bro come on you can make it you can be up the hill let's go let's go
John Saunders: but
johngrimsmo: Just run.
John Saunders: I think I saw that by... And ah Avi is quite young, like right like not even 10.
johngrimsmo: He ate. Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah, there you go. And I believe it was an 11 -hour hike.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Like they came home and had lamps. Like it was. It was a crazy hike. um and then next day all the energy in the world like nothing happened
John Saunders: It's hilarious.
John Saunders: awesome Great.
johngrimsmo: So that was great.
John Saunders: i'm glad it's you What you said there, like having that one -on -one trip is is the best, right?
johngrimsmo: It's magic. Like I've had a bunch of those with Clara, but it didn't really start until she was 13.
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: And now that Leif is hitting that age, I finally this trip. you know, push them over the the edge and. It was great.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So we have a lot of...
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: ah a lot of future time together. It's great.
John Saunders: What's funny you you say that but then Coincidentally, I just started listening to the probably like almost a year old, but the. Ethan Perrins. episode on.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: with intolerance and
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: He talks about his kind of formative years in in grade school, high school, and then, you know.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, and MIT, and yeah.
John Saunders: in you know college and you're just like man you start to realize like Like there's Williams in seventh grade. He's already starting to think about. what high school looks like and then you just realize like wow this
johngrimsmo: It's going to fly.
John Saunders: It's going to go back quickly.
johngrimsmo: Yep. Exactly. Yeah, Claire is in grade 11. And it's...
John Saunders: Yeah, try them.
johngrimsmo: flying by like she's talking university already and we're like what meg's starting to really feel it she's like I'm going to lose my baby. I need to like squeeze as much time in this next year or two as I can.
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: And make sure that we, you know, make good solid. um parent -child relationship for future so that they don't ignore us. and like
John Saunders: ah
johngrimsmo: can You know?
John Saunders: I know, I know, right?
johngrimsmo: Yes.
John Saunders: uh Yeah. Oh, good. Glad you didn't get tripped and glad to hear your bumps. Okay.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. tim She's good.
John Saunders: Good.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Thank you. got
John Saunders: um Okay, so. just like loving AI. Um, installed an MCP connection on Home Assistant. So MC.
johngrimsmo: oh
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: Explain.
John Saunders: be cut.
johngrimsmo: All I know is MCP for Fusion.
John Saunders: So...
johngrimsmo: and I've played with it, but I... you know I'm new.
John Saunders: Yeah. and frankly well me too but clearly i think we're doing more stuff than some people so um whatever, it's in no means a pissing contest of who's who who knows more in AI. But MCP servers let...
John Saunders: LLMs take over and control software. And so. The... you know I loved what I could get done with programming in quad, say on its own. It would be like, hey, here's a Python script. well when you switch into like agentic mode where Claude has access to a folder and you're like, hey Claude, right? So I use this for that home project I called Memory Rail that created the photo slider on the wall.
John Saunders: I was actually still doing that in the normal chat mode where it would update code i'd copy it over
johngrimsmo: yeah Yep, yep.
John Saunders: And there were a couple of things that I was stumped on and then we switched it to. I made two big switches. the The big switch is probably just switching to. the Claude code. So Claude just took over everything. But then I also used the Vibe code. kids from Justin Gray that give kind of best practices and force a lot alike.
John Saunders: iterative processes and somebody the beauty is you don't need to know it's just like
johngrimsmo: It just works great and you're like, sweet.
John Saunders: Here's. but
johngrimsmo: yeah
John Saunders: It works better. Right.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: And so it took it over and it. like went through the whole code base and it fixed a bunch of stuff, especially as it related to some. permissions and security with Mac OS that was giving the. the software we wrote or i couldn't some issues.
johngrimsmo: Mm hmm.
John Saunders: solved everything so similar example with home assistant i would have it write yaml scripts to do things but you know it doesn't know your entity and device names ids and other little things well Now I have the MCP server on.
John Saunders: I just go into Claude and say, I want... a email and text message alert when this camera sees this alarm state And. and and like also turn the light on in the bathroom.
johngrimsmo: Great.
John Saunders: and it And then you hit enter and it's like.
johngrimsmo: And you just say... Have fun.
John Saunders: Done. Next.
johngrimsmo: Enter. Like...
John Saunders: yeah And it just does it all.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: it like looks through and interrogates whatever word you want to use verb it does everything it's just like knows all your control some assistance so
johngrimsmo: Right.
John Saunders: um Freaking awesome.
johngrimsmo: Yep, within the parameters given. Do you have Hmm. So Home Assistant is all cloud -based, I guess, or is it local? No, it's local on a PC.
John Saunders: Yep, so we have a computer over here next to me and it's a
johngrimsmo: Okay.
johngrimsmo: So the MCP server gives access to that computer.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: as much or as little of it as you want kind of thing.
John Saunders: Great question. I did not go out of my way to... pursue any security stuff, if you will, like. it's locally hosted so
johngrimsmo: Right. Because like when you do either cursor or I assume clouds the same way and you give it access to a folder, a specific folder.
John Saunders: Mm -hmm.
johngrimsmo: It sees the whole code base on that folder, but it can also like look at your system and be like, oh, you don't have Python. 19 point whatever installed. So I'm just going to install that for you. and that kind of stuff.
John Saunders: Yeah, that's a good... Point or question. I think the MCP server Um, It's on, if you will, but it I don't think it does anything until you query it from an LLM.
johngrimsmo: Mm.
John Saunders: Um... So yeah, I don't know. Yeah. But it's just like. It's great. um There's plenty of examples on YouTube these days of of people that are not using it with Fusion, with Blender. I think Google's coming out with MCP servers, so what we're now looking into is...
John Saunders: creating what we couldn't really get working well enough to say it works which was and l a private LLM that looks through our own internal Stuff. like Google Drive and our wiki and maybe even fresh desks Sort of, okay.
John Saunders: put a pin in that like where i started using muse personally.
johngrimsmo: Mm.
John Saunders: which is meta's new
johngrimsmo: Muses the meta, yeah.
John Saunders: And. I don't really have, I'm not here to like. Save. Whether I love it or not, I just wanted to try it because... I mean, frankly, guys like Lockwood. Food. tend to hold their opinion in pretty high regard. We're like, hey, this is worth it. It's interesting. So as an example, here's what I love about Muse.
John Saunders: I don't know about you, but I get probably one email a day from a PR person with a quote unquote real. email trying to have somebody come on the bomb or Let's go on their podcast.
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
John Saunders: You get these or not. And they're not spam.
johngrimsmo: Sometimes.
John Saunders: It's not like, you know, trying to sell me vitamins, but it's. I don't want this stuff. It's junk.
johngrimsmo: Right. Yep.
John Saunders: it seems like it should be easy to Recognize hey, this is clearly an email from a PR person or podcast asking me to be a guest or host or whatever And so I was just like, hey, Muse, can you? Um,
John Saunders: Every time those emails come in please archive them. immediately because I'm a zero inboxer. I don't want to see them. um but every two weeks give me a summary.
John Saunders: of of who they were from and what they were for and that i'll review and if you see ever see one that looks more legitimate or interesting, please feel free to let me know. fit in its stomach.
johngrimsmo: So it becomes like um like a schedule. or
John Saunders: Close whatever you want.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: I was like, hey, remind me before I leave this. my haircut to grip pick up oil at the... Actually, that was funny. I pulled into the parts store in my Tesla. but to get by a quart of oil for a generator and the guy's like is that your test i'm like yeah He's like, oh, those are real nice cars. I'm like, yep, she just needs a little oil.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: What else I use Muse for? A lot of calendar scheduling life stuff.
johngrimsmo: Interesting.
John Saunders: Like it knew. it saw that I was going somewhere. and on its own was like, hey, heads up. the weather changed you might want to bring an umbrella like i didn't talk to it i never told it it seemed so you're giving access to a lot of stuff counter email.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, exactly.
John Saunders: Um. But so far, I'm i'm liking it.
johngrimsmo: Interesting. So you give it access to whatever you choose to give it access to, email, calendar, your life almost.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um And then I assume it's like an app on your phone. to Does it give you notifications? Does it? Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And I know Grok has Grokbot. um that comes with cursor so i like have access to it already i haven't tried it yet though um a little hesitant to just give it too much access to too much stuff like it's one thing when you're programming a code base and you're like yes you have full access to the code base go nuts
John Saunders: okay
johngrimsmo: Um, Emails. dicier but i don't know I know some people that that are just going nuts on it.
John Saunders: I hear you, right?
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: I think the the parallel would be when you look at what you and I have built with with GERP and Our wiki and our ERP and Shopify and Freshdesk, it's like, okay, giving a private LLM read -only access to this means I can...
John Saunders: hop on to Saunders LM, whatever, and just sort of say, Hey, remind me how we're handling brother fourth axis stuff.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: It will give you. i think i think that's going to be a win i think we're Not there but very close.
johngrimsmo: Are you guys doing that? Putting your own little Saunders LM? um I've thought about that for GURP, but not needed yet.
John Saunders: Yeah, so we have it. It's just it's a pain in the but to use right. this second because you have to like re -establish a Gemini connection to the wiki every time where you can't like
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
John Saunders: for some reason it didn't work. And so it was like, okay. give us some Give us some time, like wait a few months and come back to it.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Very cool.
John Saunders: um Oh, one more thing and then I'll shut up. Sorry. I used, I don't remember if I mentioned it, but I... in our shop update video, which has felt so great to.
johngrimsmo: yeah
John Saunders: Film that, publish it. I mentioned another great MCP use, which is I downloaded a... oil skimmer off of the maker world and i wanted to make modifications it was only an stl
johngrimsmo: a
John Saunders: I put those STLs in diffusion. and told Claude please remodel these parametrically with user dimensions and just like You got it, boss. Done.
johngrimsmo: oh Yeah, because dealing with STLs has always been painful. It's gotten less painful, and there's converters out there that make it into B -Rep, and Fusion has their various converters, but it's always been painful.
johngrimsmo: Sick.
John Saunders: ah We have a video coming out of that, by the way. so
johngrimsmo: Nice.
John Saunders: um everyone If anyone's interested, we'll... share our successes. and where we're at on it soon.
johngrimsmo: Random question for you. um We both go on. multiple YouTube deep dives right on various things we love love youtube it's great um I've...
johngrimsmo: I like long videos. I like consuming long videos, but I also really enjoy consuming three -minute videos. No, I'm not like... clickbait kind of like junk stuff but Like, I was on a... um PVD coding website.
johngrimsmo: or or YouTube channel.
John Saunders: mm -hmm
johngrimsmo: and they had just a ton of three minute videos and i'm like these are fantastic Whereas you know the 25 -minute ones, when you're just looking to... digest some information.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I'm like skipping through it all the time, bu up up up upp forward, forward, forward, trying to find interesting sections. I, when I film for Instagram, I do like short videos, but for YouTube, my brain says, oh, you got to do like a meaty video. You got to like.
johngrimsmo: Have a big update. you know our big big topic or you know 10 plus minutes kind of thing but Spencer Webb put up a three minute. thing on YouTube. about his light box thingy with the trays and stuff and i was like this is great Just a little update.
John Saunders: Yeah, yeah
John Saunders: Yes
johngrimsmo: a little like
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I don't have a point but yeah
John Saunders: What's your question? Oh yeah. No, well. I agree with you. like
johngrimsmo: Right. Well, like your your shop update video was probably.
John Saunders: and that's what
johngrimsmo: 15, 20 minutes. like It was a big deal. You get got through a lot. um If you doled that out in three -minute updates, like... everybody would enjoy it. More maybe, you know, I don't know. That's what I'm trying to get at.
John Saunders: That's not gonna happen there because the shop updates are for me a thing of just like walking through the shop I have a list they always tend to be that format. It it seemed to got it seems to have good reception i don't i just don't care it's just like it's happening not looking for, I mean.
johngrimsmo: It was great. Yeah.
John Saunders: Always happy to hear feedback. for Like, that's that's what you get.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Now, to your point, the the video we filmed on the STL conversion. Using Fusion MCP Server. um and the conversion. In the first 17 seconds of that video.
John Saunders: were in the meat of it. There's no discussion. I'm like in the links below you can go find other videos on how to set this stuff up I'm not here to bore you like we're getting into this right away and the video right now it's edited to about nine minutes but the first four minutes cover that whole thing And then I show two other use case examples that you don't have to watch, but I think most people will because.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: we did a pretty good job showing There's no point where you're like, okay. I'm repeating myself. I'm rambling.
johngrimsmo: right right
John Saunders: like It's a lot of meat in nine minutes. And really, it really should be a four minute video.
johngrimsmo: love it
John Saunders: I just couldn't help not showing.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: two different, one more CAD and one CAM use case of the. of the MCP.
johngrimsmo: Can't wait.
John Saunders: Yeah.
John Saunders: Thank you. what's What's your next video we can see on YouTube?
johngrimsmo: um Coming up, what's today, Wednesday, my post this week.
John Saunders: Oh, hey.
johngrimsmo: um just got to do a review of it it's a fiel field detail video.
John Saunders: cool
johngrimsmo: Probably be about 10 minutes long.
John Saunders: Was that the Insta screenshot of the current?
johngrimsmo: some
John Saunders: That I just saw.
johngrimsmo: ah Maybe
John Saunders: No. Do you not do your Instagram anymore?
johngrimsmo: I don't do the Grimmsome official one. I do mine.
John Saunders: Oh, that's funny, I'm not even sure I like.
johngrimsmo: Didn't know which one to actually...
John Saunders: Well, i in this case, I just saw your knife, and I don't know if I should pay attention to this one.
johngrimsmo: Yep, yep.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: Yes, that'll be good. And then. We've got a bunch of stuff in the pipeline. video wise, which is great.
John Saunders: was awesome.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: looking forward to it
johngrimsmo: Very excited for that.
John Saunders: What's next on your list?
johngrimsmo: Um... So I mentioned PVD and... and dlc coding um we've had various success and annoyances with our or current vendor.
johngrimsmo: They're mostly great, but every now and then there's... weird problems. and uh in my quest to learn more about like how it works and where these problems come from and is there anything we can do to reduce the problems like you've dealt with it with anodizing over the years and you know you want to know um So I had a great phone call yesterday with a local company called Angstrom Engineering, and they make PVD coding machines.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: But like smaller ones for laboratories and for universities and for silicon wafer R and &D kind of stuff. um Hacksmith actually put me in touch with them because they're like two minutes away from each other.
johngrimsmo: And I was like. Okay, I need to talk to these guys. um super hungry team. like all a bunch of nerdy engineers that are just go go go go go try something new make a product they ship it all over the world um oh we've never made a machine like that yeah let's go for it we'll have it done in a year.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um
John Saunders: Love it.
johngrimsmo: very cool, so they've invited us up for a shop tour and Eric, Angelo and myself will go up and get a tour there. So I had the phone call.
johngrimsmo: I sent him like. My initial. basically Hacksmith put us together. And then... My first email to him was basically a fairly detailed. Like this is what we do.
John Saunders: Mm -hmm
johngrimsmo: This is, here's pictures of our DLC coded parts. Here's some of the issues we're having. I want you to have all the context. I literally made a prompt for this human. that said, here's all the stuff I'm about to tell you.
johngrimsmo: So that you're not going in cold. Like, you know, you can shut me down right away. And so that's not our business. like whatever but here's what I want and then he's like yeah let's have a phone call so we had a phone call and Um, They basically said their current line of machines.
johngrimsmo: are not ideal for what we're trying to do. But he did. point me in the direction of another canadian machine manufacturer if we are ever to buy a machine and do this coding process our he ourselves or find other vendors to like send parts to.
John Saunders: Mm -hmm
johngrimsmo: I just want to... see all my options so I can put them on the table and kind of lay them out. and learn more. But yeah, he told me a a lot of really interesting things some of the little issues we have with DLC He knew about and he goes. Yeah, we call that What was the word he used? Spitting.
John Saunders: Mm -hmm.
johngrimsmo: So sometimes with the DLC coding, Black DLC will have this little shiny glob of something. Very small. like you can barely see it with your eye under the microscope you see it and it's so shiny that We were convinced it was a valley, not a hill.
johngrimsmo: And just the way it reflected the light. We're like, that's a dent. Like who dented our part? How dare they? What happened? And then under the microscope, I go and I scrape it. and this Chunk falls off.
John Saunders: Please.
johngrimsmo: Chunk of DLC. flakes off and there's a tiny little silver spot underneath it. And it's... ah It's called spitting or it's a globule. of basically carbon that during the sputtering process of dlc they're shooting whatever electron atoms or whatever at the target And that can sputter.
johngrimsmo: like carbon. like you want it to atomize the carbon and make it stick to your part but it can also sputter and spit and you know. make little problems. He goes, yeah, that's one of the downsides of that method of PUD coding.
John Saunders: Yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: We avoid that by doing it this way or by... all these various things. So it was just a fascinating conversation. Um,
John Saunders: i I know very little about DLC or even PVD, but I didn't realize there would be machines that like are suitable for one thing, but not for what you're doing.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Absolutely.
John Saunders: I kind of just assume it's like an oven, like it cooks stuff. like You can put an end mill in it or you can put a...
johngrimsmo: Right.
John Saunders: whatever in it
johngrimsmo: but like a cnc machine is a cnc machine right like we know that now that's not the case
John Saunders: Interesting.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: What are they is there any chance that these smaller like laboratory machines would be remotely affordable?
johngrimsmo: Um, the So the big ones that coat end mills are $750 ,000 and fifty thousand then up.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: probably close to a million by the time you have all the gas and all the evacuation and all that.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: It's like crazy.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: We don't. We don't spend that much money in outsourcing in 10 years. to justify buying one.
John Saunders: I know. yeah
johngrimsmo: However, you know, at what price point would it start to make sense? Half a million, quarter million, something like that. um And he said there is a... gap in the market for a small error.
johngrimsmo: capable machine that doesn't do you know a thousand end mills a day or whatever like the big ones do but you don't need that you don't want that And then some of their machines are more lab grade stuff. Like you'll put one silicon wafer in it.
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: and you'll code it with whatever codings you want for whatever properties. He was also saying you can sputter. almost anything. as a target material So we think of titanium, aluminum, nitride coating.
John Saunders: No way. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: if titanium, aluminum, and then nitrogen from the gas. uh he's like you can sputter almost anything there's some we don't do almost anything there's some we don't do almost anything there's some we don't do like tin and lead because of danger like tin and lead because of danger like tin and lead because of danger and stuff but like Literally, we do gold, 99 % gold all day long.
johngrimsmo: um using that.
John Saunders: That would be sick.
johngrimsmo: They have one machine that literally... the method is instead of having a solid target they have a little crucible that they electron melt all the gold and it evaporates up sticks to the part and i'm like How does it know to go up?
johngrimsmo: How is it not sticking to the walls of your machine and stuff? And he goes, oh, it totally is. The walls get covered in gold.
John Saunders: ah
johngrimsmo: And then eventually like once a year, we send the walls away. to get reclaimed. And then we get. like 100 grand of gold back.
John Saunders: Hilarious.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Hilarious.
johngrimsmo: So that was really fascinating. um So there's all these different methods of doing it and even DLC in and of itself has possibly nine different ways of doing it. um And there you can have more graphite, you can have more diamond, you can have harder, darker, more brittle, more.
John Saunders: Crazy.
johngrimsmo: eggshell like texture, all this stuff. um So it's a... deep rabbit hole of of interestingness. But in our case, because we we do outsource quite a bit of DLC and we get really good performance results from it, we also have our black anode, black anodizing coating.
johngrimsmo: which is not nearly as durable. and does kind of wear and change color and like it looks sick in the pictures.
John Saunders: Mhm.
johngrimsmo: um
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: but it changes over time as you use it. hypothetically if we could Stop doing that. and have a more accessible, cheaper DLC or doable DLC instead.
johngrimsmo: um While getting the same like matte black
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Blackness. you know, so. Lots to think about. but It was good. It was really good to have those. like nerdy engineer conversation with with a professional business that you know is is happy to talk to me.
John Saunders: No, that's awesome It feels good to always know you're.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: speak the language language i mean it reminds me of starting with strike mark when i'm like i go on a machine shop i can't answer tolerance questions like a carpenter.
johngrimsmo: right
John Saunders: like if you call up your dlc shop and you're like we have a we have a threshold on sputtering like make sure you need to make sure you're able to conform to that.
johngrimsmo: Exactly.
John Saunders: Meh. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: Okay, these guys are legit.
johngrimsmo: Mm -hmm.
John Saunders: I just love this idea. I really hope There continues to be the trend. of I hate the word microfactory. I don't know. It just like kind of sounds weird.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: But. but Bringing more stuff in -house to mainstream. diy vertical integrated like i love the thought of like yeah You're not doing 1 ,000 end mills a day, but if you had a you if you had a process flow where you could make this pen cap.
John Saunders: have it automatically cleaned and then have it passed five at a time into a DLC. i Actually, I was going to ask you, do you know how long they have to be in the DLC machine?
johngrimsmo: I asked him. Most of them. have to pump down to a super high vacuum.
John Saunders: Uh huh.
johngrimsmo: And he said it's similar to the vacuum outside the International Space Station. So whatever number that is, but like vacuum.
John Saunders: Meaning space.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, like literally space.
John Saunders: Okay. Okay.
johngrimsmo: um at so it takes about 20 minutes to pump it down for their machines which are smaller i guess and then about an hour in the chamber depending on what you're trying to do And then I guess we'd take it out. afterwards.
John Saunders: Okay. but I mean I don't know how big this chamber is, but it sounds like...
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: if you if there was a way to automate it and it could run.
johngrimsmo: there There are. They have a bunch of videos um on you know robot loads in and out.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: You pump down the whole like robot assembly so that you don't have to cycle the vacuum every time.
John Saunders: Oh interesting.
johngrimsmo: Like like the enclosure for the robot.
John Saunders: That's cool. Crazy.
johngrimsmo: Where your palettes are stored is also pumped down and then he's like then palette changes very super fast So they have a great YouTube channel great filming and the guy i was chatting with he's like I'm actually the videographer and I was like Yeah, I watched every single video on your YouTube channel and he's like, Really?
John Saunders: Yeah.
John Saunders: ah
johngrimsmo: I was like, yeah.
John Saunders: It's awesome.
johngrimsmo: everyone. Um, cause it was just so fascinating and like really well filmed. And he's like, Oh, did you see the one with this? This explains what I'm trying to say. And I'm like, I did see that one. Yeah, that was cool.
John Saunders: It's awesome. That's cool. We just like. you don't have You know, if this machine was $100 ,000 and you could run it. and you could make 15, 20.
johngrimsmo: Totally.
John Saunders: 30 a day.
johngrimsmo: I would buy it.
John Saunders: and you could Yeah.
johngrimsmo: like I would buy that. today almost because we're we're spending ah money to outsource.
John Saunders: I know, right? Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Good money.
John Saunders: Well, and it's all it's all the other stuff that everyone who's listening to this knows, but it's not not just outsourcing. It's the inconsistency sometimes. it's it's very difficult to build a
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: commercially sustainable I would love to know when you're... when your procurement or supply chain at Apple. or HP. And you're working with you know the the Foxconn type companies that we hear about as laymen and consumers. like you know there are I've never heard of like an iPad showing up or a MacBook with like that crappy anodizing.
John Saunders: How are they doing that?
johngrimsmo: right
John Saunders: Now that's a whole different scale of relationship I know, but. um are they Are they having defects?
johngrimsmo: and There's a whole scrap factor that we don't even know about.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: right?
John Saunders: Yeah. Well, and for sure, and we've talked about this before, like for me and Saunders, I think. There. We either Truly scrap. which is like let's scrap as soon as we can in the process so that we're not investing. This sounds very like.
John Saunders: and be textbooks but or let Let it remain a commercially viable product that doesn't
johngrimsmo: Mmm.
John Saunders: cannibalize the main product but i don't like on these dlcs maybe they end up getting some artistic series. that have Weird. making this so You know what I mean?
johngrimsmo: Yep, we have these conversations all the time to like do we
John Saunders: like Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Because we're choosing the more performance coding, the the caveat is some variation in in color and shading and. thickness of the coating throughout kind of thing but it's still super durable but it Might look.
johngrimsmo: you know, not. what you expect it to look like and so do do you just educate the customer though with that and like explain that this is the nature of this. we're choosing performance over aesthetics or do we choose aesthetics over performance instead and like get a different type of dlc coding and i don't know yet And.
John Saunders: Thank you.
johngrimsmo: I just. arrogantly feel like if we had a machine here we could control those variables
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: very tightly and get the result we want. every time.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I know we could do that. Yep.
John Saunders: We are we have a lot of balls in the air today at Saunders, but in some respects everything's about to come together in a really cool way.
johngrimsmo: Nice.
John Saunders: Our second brother, 700B. ran its first robot. production yesterday.
johngrimsmo: Nice.
John Saunders: And I'm really proud of that because Grant and Courtney and the team, we did that all ourselves. Like we bought the components. We learned a lot from A. But A was kind of shipped to us by Lights Out where...
johngrimsmo: Mm -hmm.
John Saunders: I don't know what this ratio was. It was 50 -50, but like... This one. we wired it all up we like programmed it like just ah it was awesome. and really really happy to see that and The next sort of phasing is.
John Saunders: We now have the Mitutoyo Linear Gauge Pinch Measurement System working.
johngrimsmo: Oh nice.
John Saunders: And so this is two Mitsu Toyo linear gauges that are each. they're not cheap they're each eight or nine hundred dollars but I believe normally Mitsutori wants to also sell you their company hardware which is actually more expensive usually.
John Saunders: and we vibe coded this thing i've talked about i know but um It's working. We now have an RO. touch screen. Raspberry Pi and we QC'd. Actually, it was really funny. I came in.
John Saunders: And. the 700A had made 82 top jaws. And we just sat there and slid them. through the gauging system and it was awesome now that's still being done by me or an operator but now that you know I like that because it's like, okay, let's see how this works, the behavior, what do we need do to modify, change, and then and then we'll transition it to where the robot does that.
johngrimsmo: Mm -hmm.
johngrimsmo: Love it.
johngrimsmo: Any update on your vision system?
John Saunders: No. That's probably kind of what I was alluding to when I said... Between... that summer break and today i really failed to carve out time but on the flip side
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: um My excuse would be. as we look at as we look through what we wanted to accomplish in... 2026. you know, four months, five months ago, we still had a horizontal here.
John Saunders: We now have those three brothers. um We've made a lot of progress on the 700C machine which will be the bar fed mill. a lot of progress on it. And.
John Saunders: um a has been running b came online yesterday. um And we brought two so new verticals online for fixture plates. The one or more, the Okuma and the Doosan.
John Saunders: I forget forget what else was on that kind of like annual to -do list per se, but when we had our meeting. We had a management yesterday.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Manager USA Manufacturing today. And it's just like, yeah. were Like these were the kind of lofty ambition. Well, it wasn't that they were lofty. It just felt. daunting. like There's a lot of stuff that needs to happen.
johngrimsmo: Mm hmm.
John Saunders: Um, and We're not there. which feels, or sorry, we're going to be there. like
johngrimsmo: yeah Yep yep.
John Saunders: That makes sense.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: But it's it's you know, we're now manufacturing products for what we normally see as a pickup in sales around black friday and the end of the year and We're crushing through. He's been doing a great job of through our...
John Saunders: steal. plate backlog. um And then there's a bunch more stuff that. will affect 2027 that probably have would love to talk about later but like Yeah. That's where we're at right now.
John Saunders: so
johngrimsmo: x
John Saunders: I need to carve time out. to work on the vision system and I haven't.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: is the answer.
johngrimsmo: Yep. Yeah, I've been... um As I get. deeper into the interferometer project, the vision system is adjacent.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: you know they both use cameras they both use lenses and um
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: you know, what I wish could be done with one machine should really be two machines to to like
John Saunders: Mm -hmm.
johngrimsmo: two different microscopes. um to better optimize each system. Um, Kind of goes back to the, you know, there's not one milling machine that does it all. like nothing um So.
johngrimsmo: In the concept of working on microscopes, probably 90 % of my effort has been towards the interferometer. And then every now and then I'd be like, I think about the vision system and I'm like, well, I'm. i learned this on the interferometer i can apply that to the vision system and the way i build the stage and i'm going to need motorized control for x y and z to be able to like.
johngrimsmo: properly image bigger things or do what i want get the resolution the accuracy what i want
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um Even the way the backlight. gets lit up um
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: all these things it's like like really interesting learning more about collimated light and how to create it and what lenses you need to like created which i learned through the interferometer um the backlight like that thing that you bought for the backlight on the vision system.
John Saunders: Mm -hmm Mhm.
johngrimsmo: I think is good. Really great. um what i'm wondering is would a truly collimated beam of light like that scatters and has some um Some dispersion and some diffuse nature right?
johngrimsmo: If the link...
John Saunders: The thing I bought.
johngrimsmo: the thing you bought.
John Saunders: Yeah, I remember reading about this. It's not... Hmm. it's you Go ahead.
johngrimsmo: Like Thorlob sells that same thing and they call it semi -collimated. Um,
John Saunders: Yes, I think that's correct.
johngrimsmo: Collimated would imply that every photon of light goes straight up.
John Saunders: Yeah. Great.
johngrimsmo: out of that thing. um and it doesn't because it scatters it's diffuse it's it works well but uh with the interferometer at least parts of it i need like literally laser beam straight.
johngrimsmo: parallel rays. And I wonder if doing that under the vision system. Would shine parallel rays past your part Telecentrically to your telecentric lens and it would give you like the crispest edge possible giving you basically a higher resolution without
John Saunders: Yeah. Sure.
johngrimsmo: um needing to zoom in more. or something like that.
John Saunders: Yes. better edge definition for sure.
johngrimsmo: Exactly. So I'll be playing with that.
John Saunders: What? what What I remember reading, again, disclaimer of of LLM hallucinations was that the light that I bought which is not cheap was still...
John Saunders: 80 or 90%. Better than a traditional LED of any sort you could buy like it's it's 80 or 90 percent of the way toward what you said Is a true collimated but a true collimated was like ten times more expensive
johngrimsmo: yeah Yep. And I remember being at the shows and seeing videos of
John Saunders: oh
johngrimsmo: um other vision systems the keyance one the mitutoya one they usually have a glass plate
John Saunders: whom
johngrimsmo: And then. Not this white light that not this diffuse like bright panel light underneath. It just kind of looks empty.
John Saunders: Yeah, agree.
johngrimsmo: And so I'm wondering if they have a side LED with a 45 degree mirror on the inside.
John Saunders: Oh.
johngrimsmo: that just shoots your collimated light upwards you as a user don't even really know it
John Saunders: Sure.
johngrimsmo: It's just all hitting the lens. So maybe that's like... how they get away with better accuracy. I don't know.
John Saunders: Ask Spencer Webb. Every time I...
johngrimsmo: All right.
John Saunders: I think he's been big on the... The... uh, what do you call it? Bean splitters and all that stuff too.
johngrimsmo: a Yeah, exactly.
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: yeah His plate beam splitter was pretty sweet.
John Saunders: Yeah. Right.
johngrimsmo: um Yeah, so with the interferometer, I I spent like... Friday. Uh... almost trying to convince myself to just buy. the uh sensofar interferometer
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: It's like a hundred grand almost. And I was like,
John Saunders: Oh.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I just. i want it i don't want it that bad all right not at this time i can't can't justify whatever But I was like on one hand it would it would give me the tool you know essentially tomorrow.
johngrimsmo: to do that and I wouldn't be spending my valuable time. building, figuring out reinventing the wheel. when I could just buy one. But then... Then I...
johngrimsmo: was weighing that with. to continue with the DIY build and finish it myself. and I decided. full stop, build my own. Um,
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: Which I was going to do anyway. But, you know, after going to the show and seeing it and being so impressed with how fantastically good that machine was. um It's very tempting. to try to convince myself to buy one. but Nope.
johngrimsmo: and So I made the... you know I get very wishy -washy with these bigger decisions, but I mentally committed. to just building my own. Um, And, um... Do it. So the past few days have been a lot of planning, a lot of research, a lot of now that I've learned so much, it's been a year that I've been.
John Saunders: Is that right?
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: Oh wow.
johngrimsmo: that i've been working on this interferometer so i've learned a lot and uh Marv built one. and he told me everything he learned. And it's been super helpful.
John Saunders: Good.
johngrimsmo: and Now it's basically like scrap my first design and. rebuild the new one with everything I've learned and it's going to be. It's gonna be so fantastic.
John Saunders: I think that's what. you already, you didn't ask my opinion. You already have your conclusion, but knowing that some other people, Marv, I think silos. if he hasn't done this exact thing, as so somewhere like it's not unachievable.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: It's not like you're trying to build your own.
johngrimsmo: That helps. Yep.
John Saunders: you know. a gaseous diffusion plant here to nurture uranium like it's not that um
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: And then it's also like, look, you know. the whole win the lottery scenario where money no longer becomes a factor. Sure, you could write the check, buy one, have it there. but I don't know. I don't really care about that. the money I care, like, I actually like.
John Saunders: sort of build the stuff.
johngrimsmo: Build things. Yeah, exactly.
John Saunders: yeah i mean just do like it's the brazilian fisherman story like it's
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I'm living my life.
John Saunders: It's just...
johngrimsmo: yep
John Saunders: Yeah, i want and like I mean sure there are times like the barfed milk.
johngrimsmo: um
John Saunders: We're not what we briefly looked at like should we consider building a bar feeder
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
John Saunders: um or even doing a gut retrofit of an old you know junked out one that we just put our own hardware on like motors and all that but oh No, buy one.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: But this I'm excited for you, and especially if you're actually finding the time to do it.
johngrimsmo: it's evenings and weekends, but it's um fun. Super fun.
John Saunders: You take you so you leave it at home. It's like a super silly Personal question, yeah.
johngrimsmo: It's at home. Yeah Yep. Because work at work is different.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um Unless I'm...
John Saunders: I know.
johngrimsmo: machining something. and i'll do that but um Yeah, there's too many things to do at work. And there's a lot of things to do at home too that I'm not getting done.
John Saunders: I just said...
johngrimsmo: But...
John Saunders: i feel I feel an urge to defend. myself about what i said over the last two months with everything that we've got going on because It has not been. goofing off and online and like we had some hiccups like we had the coolant tank went bad and i really that led me to want to overhaul some of our coolant process.
John Saunders: um We're going to try to bring somebody else on board to help out with a lot of that sort of stuff too. which would but It's all just an excuse. I also have helped. get the linear gauge system working because in terms of what makes the beer taste better, that was more important. And that is.
John Saunders: that is happening so
johngrimsmo: love it
John Saunders: Perhaps I'm being too hard on myself. but I guess it bothers me because... For most of this year, I was taking Thursdays off and I'm not going to take tomorrow off. Um, but i could take tomorrow off and just work on the vision system and to be honest there's a good chance I could just finish it tomorrow.
John Saunders: Like really, it's that close.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: um And even. From what I'm seeing and then what? you're hearing like Phil and Rob and other guys on the chat say, like the visions. Sorry. Clicked.
John Saunders: The LLMs have come so far, even in the last two, three months. then I'll probably give... um one of them agents the current software and then be like nope i want you to like
johngrimsmo: Make it better.
John Saunders: This is a rough Yeah, start over.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: And so. Amen.
johngrimsmo: Start here and fix it without any bugs.
John Saunders: Well, yeah, the software had a lot of room to improve I just didn't care about that because it had to make good measurements first
johngrimsmo: Totally. Well, it's same for me. like my white light interferometer software i last updated, I don't know, nine months ago.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Um, And what I've learned since then and how I have have improved since then. it like a total rewrite is not out of the question and it'd be better and i saw what marv was able to write with claude to do his interferometer and i'm looking at his screenshots i'm like
John Saunders: you
johngrimsmo: Okay, this is better. This is like way better.
John Saunders: Have you followed any of the hype over the last sort of 10 days about uh reverse engineer everything, REAs. So if if anybody cares, I'll keep this short, go look it up, but a guy...
John Saunders: um got sick of adobe's scummy cancellation policies and so he vibe coded photoshop There have since been a bunch of like derivative videos that sort of show it's not quite as fully baked as maybe we were led to believe. But regardless, there's now some.
John Saunders: some I'll paraphrase as best I think I know how to say this correctly. They're... AIs are now developing, or LLMs are developing the ability to read. like the executable and like the packaged files and reverse that into a form of source code.
johngrimsmo: two
John Saunders: Which is like... It's like going to a fancy restaurant, ordering an entree, and then the LLM figures out. the recipe card. like what ingredients and ordering, like it's insane. um And why did I bring all that up? I don't know. else much i thought but um Yeah.
John Saunders: Tip of the hat to Phil. Buttersworth, if you guys, if it doesn't follow, ooh, did I get that right? He's going to yell at me. Is it Butterworth? Or is it with an S?
johngrimsmo: Buttersworth.
John Saunders: now im alan saying that loud is making it even worse. um
johngrimsmo: Never say his last name.
John Saunders: Right? Dr. Phil is the safe answer.
johngrimsmo: Exactly.
John Saunders: because this is not a safe space. No, actually I do. i do feel bad because it's there's nothing like being disrespected with the incorrect last name Buttersworth. At least that's what it says in WhatsApp. Have you seen it?
John Saunders: You saw his.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Filtron, Datron.
johngrimsmo: yeah
John Saunders: You got to explain that to people though.
johngrimsmo: I mean, how the Daytron Neo was invented and works with the onboard camera and the probing system and the touchscreen. And you could just, you had one for a while. I've never actually touched one, but. you could touch the screen and drag the table the xy motion side to side.
johngrimsmo: you can drag a probe zone over a square and it just probes it for you and he's he's reverse engineering that in his shed in his garden shed or whatever.
John Saunders: yeah
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: uh on his DIY made. Filtron Neo. Um,
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: It's fantastic.
John Saunders: and It looks good. Like, yes.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. And if he doesn't like it, he'll tweak it and make it better. and like He's... Maybe he's hardware limited, but my my point in saying that is he's doing it on his personal money in his shed whereas the neo like had money put into it like real money to to get made so the quality of components, cameras, all that stuff.
John Saunders: Sure, for sure, sure
johngrimsmo: Phil's just dicking around and having fun. and And it's amazing. It's like fantastic.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: But the whole camera drag probing thing, like if anybody's actually listening to this, doesn't know, and is curious, go watch a video on Datron Neo probing. it's You'll see that and you'll be like, why has anybody ever?
johngrimsmo: Right.
John Saunders: anything else to be done differently.
johngrimsmo: So when I saw Phil do that.
John Saunders: like
johngrimsmo: I... It's like he reverse engineered a great idea that nobody else has really... tackled, and he just did it himself. And it got me thinking that Now technology has made that accessible, like doable, but you still need the great idea. like The LLMs aren't going to have all the great ideas. like they need Amen. Maybe they will. I don't know. But it's still like.
johngrimsmo: We still need to ask the right questions, solve the right problems. bring this into the real world and make Cool stuff, that is. valuable. Not just...
John Saunders: sure
johngrimsmo: ah ask the llms to come up with great ideas and make them for you because that loses its value real fast. Does that make sense?
John Saunders: Yeah. But like when I there was an article that was talking about how they it's unclear if LMs are actually offering productivity gains. And this is like economic research or like blah, blah, blah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: I don't really care. It's like off the charts for me what it's allowed us to do here. and i'm not It's just like I don't get that because it's. the decisions it's helping us do The number of times I've used it to look through. manuals again writing the software, thinking, like you have.
John Saunders: You and I both. will die with ideas we never got to. So like the ability for it to.
johngrimsmo: That's true.
John Saunders: to run with that, like.
johngrimsmo: it It has brought those ideas to light.
John Saunders: What? Let's.
johngrimsmo: 100 times faster.
John Saunders: Heck yeah!
johngrimsmo: All right. But again, those are our ideas. our problems that we need to solve, our questions we're trying to ask, that we are now enabled to accomplish as opposed to what would have taken us a year of never getting around to it.
John Saunders: Yeah.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: to like doing it in in an afternoon. Uh... it's it's still our stuff, I don't know.
John Saunders: Yeah. It's fair. I actually have two. comments or or fake of requests of of maybe the audience. One actually is, well, we probably should talk about Datron next week, but we're thinking about overhauling our hobby fixture plate.
John Saunders: line and that could involve using them on a datron let's see i'll save that topic for next week um
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Okay.
John Saunders: The other one is... um I am. reaching my limit. with spam phone calls to my cell phone number which
johngrimsmo: Mmmmm.
John Saunders: myself over 25 years so if anyone has been through this i'd love for any any advice or tips i've paid for paid apps through for my carrier verizon as well as third -party apps and um I am at the point where I'm considering just getting a new phone number and then I'll keep this other one for a couple of years as a backup because of all the two factors, bla blah, blah, blah. It's like I'm getting phone calls and they know who I am. Like it's not.
John Saunders: generic spam it's like they know who I'm a business owner, my name, et cetera. But it's getting to be like. one or two an hour Um... Which is just really it it's just annoying
johngrimsmo: totally
John Saunders: And I don't know how to deal with that.
johngrimsmo: I probably get. Less than one a day One every other day.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: and that's that's still annoying but my phone's on silent and i miss them anyway so it's perfect
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah, that's what I'm trying to figure out like it's cuz ironically I don't really The thing that stinks is that when you do you get a phone call it's like from the school or from a doctor and you actually like those are
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: situations where calling them back is a huge pain in the butt. Like I actually want those phone calls to come through. But don't know. I've tried to do some research. lms like et cetera, et cetera.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: iPhone screening it all sticks
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
johngrimsmo: Okay. All right.
John Saunders: What's uh... Anything before you.
johngrimsmo: It's on tap today.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: um Yeah, I've got more hard milling. programming to do. on the current
John Saunders: Oh yeah?
johngrimsmo: which is fun. Um... I'm sorry.
John Saunders: Hard milling, same stuff, yeah.
johngrimsmo: Norseman lock inserts. We currently machine them fully soft, heat treat the part.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: they warp and expand and grow and cause problems and I'm just going to mill the whole thing hard.
John Saunders: Love it.
johngrimsmo: Yep, so we'll see how that works out with time cycle time and effort and and malware and all that stuff. um
John Saunders: Mm -hmm
johngrimsmo: It should be worth the squeeze. It should be very worth the squeeze.
John Saunders: Oh, deleting the whole process though too? like
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah. Cool.
johngrimsmo: Mm. Not the lead. I don't know if we'll delete a process. We're still heat reading the blank
John Saunders: But you're not machining that heat train and machine again. Where are you?
johngrimsmo: We're not remachining it. we're not reachchining it We weren't.
John Saunders: Would I lose you?
johngrimsmo: we We would.
John Saunders: Oh, you're...
johngrimsmo: make the part soft fully.
John Saunders: He would heat treat.
johngrimsmo: And then we just heat treat the part.
John Saunders: And then try to use it.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Okay, got it. Yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: but it's tiny and webby and It definitely grows. And my vision system confirmed the growth.
John Saunders: but Right, right. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So yeah.
John Saunders: I hear you.
johngrimsmo: It's like... the The actual use case for the interferometer in the vision system is is real in our shop. we would. actually use it for parts like this. So my.
johngrimsmo: my constraints are like with the the program that i make and the way it's used and all that it needs to be usable by train staff like i need to be able to teach six of my team.
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: to be able to walk up to it and just get the answers they're looking for. It is an an answer finder. is what it is it's not going to make parts it's not going to make your parts better it's just going to give you answers That.
johngrimsmo: then enable you to go make the part better or fix it or change it or
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: scrap it or whatever.
John Saunders: On the vision system. are you Do you have a target? accuracy or tolerance sort of range in mind.
johngrimsmo: Better than what my current DIY one is I think I got 10 microns per pixel of... of resolution which for like uh
John Saunders: okay to four tenths.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. for an eighth -inch hole is like... plenty but Are you going to be able to measure a hole that's one tenth bigger or one tenth smaller?
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: That's where it starts to get. Um, So I kind of. Loosely wanted to match our realistic tolerances like if I can measure with a pin gauge tighter than the vision system then ah The vision isn't good enough yet.
John Saunders: Yeah, I hear you
johngrimsmo: But the more you zoom in, the smaller your field of view is. So you're only looking at an eighth inch circle or something like that. That gets kind of useless. for scanning apart. Like your resolution will be through the roof but That's when you need an XY table to be able to like stitch images together and like.
John Saunders: Mhm.
johngrimsmo: Like it might take a minute to scan a whole part. But you'll have. crazy resolution and So you're always balancing that. Zoom resolution. usability cycle time.
John Saunders: I need to work on mine because I want to get it out there for you and others to... to replicate it or or help us make it better because that's the beauty of the world we live in but
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: Ours has a... It can probably see a... just under a one, two, three block. and almost every
johngrimsmo: Insights, eh?
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: You can see three inches wide
John Saunders: Um. Call it inch and a half, two two inches maybe.
johngrimsmo: Sure. Yeah. Okay.
John Saunders: um but certainly bigger than what you're talking about where it's like a fingernail size view.
johngrimsmo: Mm -hmm.
John Saunders: and What I'm seeing is for sure no problem with like sub thousandth of an inch but like i really want a fat five or ten factor better than that and
johngrimsmo: Yeah. You need more Zoom.
John Saunders: It's... Well, I don't think I do. Well, let's talk about it later. I need to do some work.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: on it. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, it's straight offs, you know. Um,
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: But you want to be able to measure a pin that is... one or two tenths oversize. or undersized like That's your goal, I guess.
John Saunders: Sure.
johngrimsmo: You know, that's that's how you want to use it in production.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: to Trust it.
John Saunders: That's how I... and that's how i'm testing what we do now just because having a range of deltronics pins makes it easy to
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: to check it. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I like one of the pictures I think in your video where you literally had a deltronics pin in the frame next to the part. So it's like self -calibration.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: like That's a cool idea.
John Saunders: Yeah. yeah
johngrimsmo: That's really neat.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: But technically, once the optics are... um calibrated. As long as it doesn't move or get bumped or whatever, it should stay. relatively calibrated.
John Saunders: Yeah, that's where I last left off was I believe what I need to do is instead of applying one calibration offset across the all the pixel map of the telecenter. The cloud was going to write a Um, a custom map for each section of the screen of the lens to give it more accuracy and i actually might need to to spend money on a larger calibration because i have
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: the one the The calibration piece I have now, which looks like a checkerboard, is about the size of a postage stamp. and I have to move it. six times. to cover the whole field of view and it was stitching those together but For $200, I should probably just buy a bigger one.
John Saunders: calibration and then you have it in one shot.
johngrimsmo: Right.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I'd be curious to know actually results if the telecentric lens is even across the whole field of view or if you do need some calibration in the corners or like whatever Because it theoretically should be like.
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: flat mapped. Um, And with the interferometer, what's interesting is the fancy lenses that I'm going to be buying. are not telecentric. Because they don't.
John Saunders: Weird.
johngrimsmo: need to be.
John Saunders: Because you're moving the...
johngrimsmo: um
John Saunders: Sure.
johngrimsmo: You're moving the thing, but also you can correct for any... um bow weirdness in the image. like Once you have it. Once you software calibrate out any, I don't know what the words are, but.
johngrimsmo: any any boat your image. It's like. calibrated it's done
John Saunders: Okay. Interesting.
johngrimsmo: of so
John Saunders: Cool.
johngrimsmo: Cool. Amen.
John Saunders: All right, back to my real job.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Take care.
John Saunders: Good talking to you.
johngrimsmo: Bye.
