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#244 - Willemin, Okuma Genos M660, Automation, and More!
222 Plays4 years ago
Topics:
- Grimsmo shares exciting updates about the powered up Willemin as Saunders eagerly awaits word on his own Willemin!
- Loading Code Onto Machines (Sneakernet, Ethernet, and Floppy Disks)
- Deep Dive into Automation Cells, Robot Arms, & Erowa Pallet System
- Haberle automation cell for Fanuc Robodrills: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v53DmWinRWk -
- Okuma is arriving at SMW! Good thing they've got Northern Tool rigging skates
- Horizontal Milling Machines
- Podcast winner, "Stress is a choice."
- Starrett Optical Comparator strapped to the top of a Miada?
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Hosts
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the business of machining episode 244. My name is John Grimsmough. And my name is John Saunders. And this being the podcast where John and John talk every week about manufacturing and machines.
Wilhelmin Machine Troubleshooting Journey
00:00:15
Speaker
And I just got to jump right into my Wilhelmin works great.
00:00:19
Speaker
This is incredible. Coincidentally, right before you and I hopped on a video call with the BOM contest winner, I was just on Instagram on the couch and I saw your story. I was like, I wonder what John's up to. You got to share. Yeah.
00:00:36
Speaker
So we started it. I saw the notes from last week's podcast. I turned it on last week, which was great. Then we sort of let it sit for a couple of days. And then this week, Monday, Tuesday, I'm like, I got to get rid of these errors. There's x-axis fan alarm. There was hydraulic pressure error, air pressure error, some other stuff.
00:00:57
Speaker
And so I was on the phone with Alex from Willimon USA yesterday and he walked me through all of it. The X-axis fan error because it's an oil machine, oily environment, come from an oil shop, they just congeal over time.
00:01:14
Speaker
And he said, if the machine stays on and running and they're always spinning, they'll last forever. But the second you turn off for two weeks for Christmas vacation, or like for me, it shipped for six months before turning on again, they congealed and they just spin slower. And then the fan, it goes, oh, the fan's wrong. It's broken.
Exploring Basic Machine Functions
00:01:31
Speaker
So we ultrasonic cleaned the fans, just unplugged them, ultrasonic them, dried them off really, really well, put them back in. Everything's great.
00:01:38
Speaker
Is this like a computer case fan? Yeah, exactly. Hilarious. Yeah. Um, so that and a couple other things. And then, uh, all of a sudden there were no more errors and I'm on the phone with Alex. I'm like, what do I do? I don't even know. Uh, it works. So I'm like, let's do a tool change. How do I do a tool change? He just gently pushes you away as he hangs up the phone. He's like, go young one. Exactly. He's like, I'm, I like how excited you are. And I'm like, yes, this is crazy.
00:02:06
Speaker
Yes. Yes. We are like drug addicts though. It's like we need a bigger hit. Um, no, but like that's incredible. So what'd you do? You jogged it around. I jogged it around. Everything moves. Um, if you bump against a limit in, depends on which axis I think some of them stop and only let you go away. I think it's a parameter in FANUC that you can enable to like bump the limit, but then still not complain. You got to get reset
Tool Holders Setup and Machine Capacity
00:02:33
Speaker
otherwise. Anyway. Um,
00:02:35
Speaker
Yeah. I did a couple of tool changes. Um, that's about it. And I just, I was beside myself and it was already like six, seven o'clock at night. So I'm like, yeah, it's time to go. But I think I could literally make a part if I had a program right now. Oh my God. Wait, so do you, do you have two tools to two tool change? Uh, I do have holders. And so they're just blank holders. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So I'd have to set up tools and all that stuff. Um, I thought you only had one tool for some reason.
00:03:06
Speaker
No, the previous owner sent a turning holder and a slitting saw, not the actual saw, just the arbor and stuff. And then I bought a bunch of Regofix power grip holders for the Willeman. They got to be super stubby because your max gauge length is like 90 millimeters, which is short, short, short. Yeah, it's like three inches or something. Yeah, like from taper to tip of tool. Wow. Yeah. So the extra stubby holders.
00:03:36
Speaker
And yeah, and there's 48 tool holder
Programming and First Production Part
00:03:40
Speaker
spots. It's way too much. It's fantastic. You'd never, never say that. Yeah. Um, yeah. So first part I got to make is a, um, small fixture pin with some locating features on it, uh, diamond on one side and some tabs on the other side. So I'm like, this will be the perfect. Well, I'm a job. I'll just make it out of brass for now and like no coolant, no, whatever. Um, just play and watch.
00:04:05
Speaker
So I got to program that. I got to figure out how that all works. CJ gave me the post, so I should be able to post if I know what I'm doing. And then it came with Vice Jaws from their previous job. It was like this little square tab machined into the Vice Jaws. So I should be able to just use those, maybe, maybe not, or make new ones to be able to hold this, this fixture pin on the Op2. Yeah, right, right. And then it came with a Renishaw Probe, Spindle Probe.
00:04:35
Speaker
but not, like Wilhelmin sent me that one. So I got to figure out how to make those two talk to each other, like the machine and this new probe. That shouldn't be hard. And then post and go. I don't know. Do you have Chuck with Collet? Like you can- Collet's came in. Yep. You can hold material and put tool in there. So I mean, that's amazing. You can hand jog. Yeah. I could literally like,
00:05:01
Speaker
make chips, hand jogging, like today, maybe I will. How do you, as a, as a, we had that robo drill for a while, but like as effectively a total noob to FANUC, how are you posting code to it? How am I, how am I putting code onto the machine? Correct. I have no idea. Oh, is it like a PCMCIA or? Yeah. It's a 2004 machine. I did not see a USB hole in the front.
00:05:31
Speaker
Okay. So, but I did see like the big card slot. Yeah. So it's, and I do have a card adapter that adapts to a CF card or something. So I should be able to do it that way for now. And then there is ethernet in the back. So I'm sure I can figure out a way to, um, something eventually DNC or yeah. And the Wilman guys are happy to help me, you know, maximize the capabilities of that machine. Yeah.
00:05:59
Speaker
So yeah, I haven't even thought about transferring the code yet, but there's options. Okay. Got it. When you do that, do you run any other machines like the you mocks or that hide and hide off of cards like that? Uh, I've done it on the Nakamura a couple of times because the, the memory is so limited, um,
Networking and Code Transfer Strategies
00:06:17
Speaker
that I couldn't fit. Like I had, I don't know, 10 turning programs on there with the saga clip being a huge program. Cause there's so much milling and there was a time when I couldn't fit them all on the control. Um,
00:06:28
Speaker
So I had the clip code running off of the CF card, but I think we stripped the control and there's only like three programs on there now. So there's plenty of room for everything we need. The Maury, yeah, just USB stick. The UMAX are networked in. So I use a hide and hides program called TNC Remo, which is just a drag and drop file transfer program, exactly what I use on the current. So, yeah. You're not using ethernet on the Maury?
00:06:58
Speaker
I finally got it hooked up the other day, um, for monitoring software, but, uh, every program you've ever posted has been sneaker net has been USB. Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. You're, you're taxing our friendship. Thousands of programs. Oh my God. Wow. That's awesome. So, um, that's really cool.
00:07:25
Speaker
That's really cool. Can you cut the soft jaws? I'm trying to think if you could cut them when the B is down and up in both orientations, then I guess you could even potentially make soft jaws in the machine. Yeah. If you had the, the way they're mounted to the, to the vice. Yeah. Like it's a top bolt and, uh, like locating slots or something. So you can either buy blanks from Wilhelmin or I could make them on my gurn or I could, you know, whatever.
00:07:51
Speaker
Um, but yeah, you could absolutely machine the top part in place and maybe you should, you know, spacer in there if you have to preload it. Right. Right. And then it's aligned. Um, right. Yeah.
Considering Machine Purchases and Capabilities
00:08:02
Speaker
That's, that's probably the way to do it. And then, I mean, you could have five tools in that carousel dedicated to fixture making like, yeah, go nuts. Um, when, when we hold the saga clip in the jaws, I might have to machine the pockets that actually grip onto the clip, like on the current, cause you need weird angles and stuff.
00:08:21
Speaker
I don't think the Willyman could have reached all of those corners, but whatever. Fair enough. Yeah, yeah. And I want to say CJ talked about making some support tooling on his VF2 or his Willyman. So I guess I'll share this now because I'm super duper excited, although it's very tentative.
00:08:39
Speaker
A year ago, we started looking at a Swiss. I loved a lot of aspects of it, except we didn't like all the things that draw back to Swiss. It's a little bit different program. We're not the right Swiss customer from high volume. We do more milling than turning, so they can do that. But you can extrapolate out why. I was just kind of like, ah, I love it, but I'm not there yet. I thought about buying used Swiss for cheap, just to kind of, we would use it.
00:09:03
Speaker
Getting to see CJ over the last year move along with his Willam in is super exciting except, you know, none of us, I certainly can't justify a new Willam in for what we're doing here at Saunders, but it's the machine. I was like, that's it. It's a milling. It's a proper automated bar fed milling machine that does turning well. And instead of a sub spindle has a second op chuck. I was like, that's it. And then when you bought yours, you opened the door to this idea of like,
00:09:31
Speaker
It's okay, like my use, figure out what it is, understand the machine, rock and roll. And so when Wilhelmin USA posted that they had taken a couple of machines in on a trade, I just DM them and I said, hey, I'd love to be on the list. And I think, knock on wood, I'm number one on the list.
00:09:53
Speaker
Um, so they're using the machines as internal training and rebuild reconditioning. So it's going to be a while, uh, and they're going to keep one of them. Um, and this is not like a total slam dunk. You know, these are, I think it's a slightly older version than your machine, like maybe months old. It's mine is number one 28 years, number one 18.
00:10:15
Speaker
Okay, 10-0, but I think they call it a 2003. Not a huge deal, but. Right, yeah. And the, you know, like one of, I was talking with Wilhelmin about them and like one of the little things is, I got a two on is we had already started, we've already started programming parts for it. Like this is, like the light bulbs are going off. Right, right. And the, if you go on the website right now, a 408 MT can go up to, I believe 36 millimeter, which is like an inch
00:10:45
Speaker
400 1.4 inches bar, but you would need a different F 48 Chuck, which is not inexpensive, but nevertheless. Okay. That's what it is. Well, it ends up these machines have a slightly different spindle build design and
00:11:01
Speaker
I think it was that they could probably accept that chuck, but there's still a choking point on the throughboard, the spindle. We still have a bunch of parts we'd want to run on them. I'm going to wait and see how they get through the rebuild and talk details, but I did the same thing you did. I started programming parts in building out a fusion tool library, and it's incredible because
00:11:29
Speaker
Almost every lathe part we have, we would move over to it, unless we can't fit them, which is, I love. In like a three-eighth inch end mill or a quarter inch end mill that we have to have in our turret right now, live drilling, live tooling is limited in RPMs, it's limited in... Yeah. And now that same tool can not only do radial cuts, it can do axial cuts, it can do five axis interpolation, it can do five axis chamfering. So I literally programmed every part I could think of and I got to 17 tools.
00:11:58
Speaker
Wow. See, I'm not nearly that far in the list, but that's good to know. I mean, it depends on how many like size taps versus 48. Like, yeah. Yeah. We put a couple of thread mills in there, put a couple of standard drills in there. Um, you're limited on drill length and, you know, gauge length of tools anyway. So you don't need like four different kinds of drill. Like, I don't know.
00:12:25
Speaker
Well, you're not going to run a half inch or 12 millimeter drill in that kind of a machine. Maybe you'll poke through it with a quarter inch drill and then open it up. And you can open it up with an interpolated end mill. You can open up with a boring bar. That same boring bar can switch over and do different, like it's just so cool. That's awesome. I didn't know that about the, I knew you needed the F48 Chuck to go over one inch, which CJ told us a couple of weeks ago. Uh,
00:12:53
Speaker
So when I bought the bar loader, I bought the, the one that can go up to inch and three eighths from LNS. Um, but the spindle has the F 38 Chuck, the small one that can only go up to one inch. Okay. So I could absolutely buy the F 48 Chuck. Um, but I think CJ said a new one's like eight grand or something, which if you need it, you need it. Um, I don't know that I need it.
00:13:20
Speaker
But maybe I over-purchased on the bar feeder or maybe I did the right choice. I don't know. Is it easy to look at your spindle bore? I guess Chuck may be a clip. If you look at it or ask, talk to them, I'd be curious to see if yours is the same. I don't know if ours were different because of the vintage or different because of the way the customer respect them.
00:13:45
Speaker
I mean, it's got the juices flowing. Yeah. Oh, just seeing it move, man, my heart skipped a beat. It was like, oh my gosh, everything works. Like everything works. It's a used machine. I knew it was in a production environment before, so obviously it functioned, but it's been sitting on my floor for months now and yeah, I turned it on, but I couldn't even move it last week.
00:14:06
Speaker
I mean, within the same hour I'm jogging it and I'm doing a tool change and I'm realizing that everything works and I could actually run a program right now if I had it. And that just blew my mind. I was like, Oh my goodness. I filmed a video of it and I got, you know, into it as well. And I'm like, the investment we put into it, uh, and the six months I've been waiting, like it finally it's here. It works. Oh my goodness. It's all been a gamble until this very specific moment. Yeah. Good for you. That's going to feel great. Yeah.
00:14:37
Speaker
I just love to like, you look at the, there's not that much content on them on YouTube, but in most of it, um, let's fix that. Yeah. Most of the decent stuff is from Will and then, but some of it's dated and one of them is like a peak, like that plastic medical grade, peak plastic stuff. Um, and it's so cool because it's doing this surgical tour or something. And, um, and.
00:14:59
Speaker
I love it when it pulls out the nylon bristle brush pipe cleaner tool and it goes in and jig bores with a nylon brush just to clean out and deburr and pull those little things out. Oh, that is so, so cool. That is so over the top, but also necessary because you can.
00:15:18
Speaker
Yeah, well, look, we're trying to, we're trying to think more about I hate saying this kind of sound like, you know, the industry, but we're trying to think more about automation. And I still think the best form of automation is barfed lays. And that's what I think of as this machine or barfed mill, I guess, really, but yeah, that's the best of both. I mean, it's
00:15:37
Speaker
At this point, I could never live without a Swiss for the parts that we make because our screws, our pivots, our stop pins, like all the knife parts, even most of the pen parts, perfect Swiss part. I wouldn't want them on the Wilhelmin. They'd be slower, but there are a couple pen parts I would put on the Wilhelmin for sure, at least one, maybe two, that would go great on the Wilhelmin that would free up the Swiss. They're kind of complicated. There's a lot of tools.
00:16:02
Speaker
Like you know, on the saga pen, there's the three ball bearings. So there's a piece that in this, in this lighting mechanism, the ball lock couplers, um, there's a piece that has those three cross holes and they have to be cross hold. They have to be deburred with the lollipop on both sides. And that's it. It's very possible on the Swiss, but it's finicky and it's tricky and it's a set up. And, um, if we didn't have to make that part on the Swiss, like the Swiss could run harder on other parts and that could be a perfect part on the Willaman.
00:16:27
Speaker
because it's like short, right? It's like short slight turning, threading, some milling ops. And then, yeah, makes sense. Do
Automation and Efficiency Exploration
00:16:36
Speaker
you do a lot of C, like on the Swiss, you do want to see axis kind of simultaneous fourth deburring or milling?
00:16:42
Speaker
some, um, I don't know if, I mean, there's, you can choose to have the C rotate with your thingy, or you can choose to have the C fixed and X, Y like jump around it. Um, yeah, I do both depending on what needs to be done. So it depends on the part. There's only a couple of parts that actually need it, but yeah, I'm happy to do it if I need to. Okay.
00:17:04
Speaker
Fair enough. I think I have two posts. One does C and one does XY, depending on how I want to do that operation. XY where you'd be using a Z. XYZ kind of three Xs. Right. Right. I'm thinking more of like if you had a pocket wrapped or halfway around a part, you'd need to see it to deeper that edge. Okay. Put your machine, the Swiss can do that.
00:17:30
Speaker
the Wilhelmin can do it with a quarter inch end mill. Yeah, it could do anything with a quarter inch end mill. It's probably going to be the biggest end mill in there. Yeah, that is awesome. Yeah, cool. Yeah. So speaking about automation, we mentioned last week, we're going to get into it. So two weeks ago, you challenged me pretty hard on putting a robot on the Maury. And at the time I was like, I was really into that idea.
00:17:55
Speaker
So it's a little, offended's the wrong word, but I didn't want to have that argument because I was like, no, I want to do this. But it was good that you challenged me because it got me thinking, what do I really want from this? What is the end goal? That'd be a fun project, but is it worth my time and energy and money? And does it give me the result that I actually ultimately want? So that caused me to open my viewpoint a little bit, to look around, see what else is out there. There's a, I forget what it's called,
00:18:25
Speaker
You can get a Fannock Robo drill. You can add a five-axis table to it if you want, but what's really cool is you can add a, there's a company, I think they're in Germany or Switzerland called Harboule. I'm going to put a note in the description.
00:18:38
Speaker
that they make an automation cell specifically for a robot drill with a FANUC robot arm and a full pallet rack and a tool changing rack that is like a fully baked in solution. So the 21 tools on the robot drill, it can pull one out with the robot, put it on the shelf, grab another one. You can have another 60 tools and 48 pallets or whatever they configure it to.
00:18:59
Speaker
And that kind of cell is a money printer. If you have the work for it, it's like a mini-Kern that is cheaper and very, very small footprint. So I got pretty excited about that for under a week.
00:19:15
Speaker
And then the price of that is about, like the whole sell, like a Robo drill is about 125 grand, and then you add, add, add options, options, five axis table, everything. A five axis Robo drill with that sell is about 425,000 US. Yeah, it's crazy. So it's a lot of money, still much cheaper than a Kern, but it's still a lot of money. But there's a company a couple hours north of us that has four of those sells.
00:19:42
Speaker
Oh, really? Yeah. Wow. So our distributor was like, oh, we could absolutely get you in there if you just want to see them. And I'm like, whoa, they obviously like them if they have four of them. With the five axis or just three? I don't know, actually. I didn't ask that question. Because I'd be curious how much of that 425 is adding the trunnion and the stock order. The trunnion is $77,000.
00:20:05
Speaker
Um, yeah, software. I don't know, but yeah, because I feel like under 300 starts to get a lot more interesting about, because if you, it's a video you sent me, right? And I had the robot, the robot can change the robo drills tools, not in the spindle, but rather from that, like open pocket. Yep. Yep. I'm going to link that in the description. So yeah, you guys can watch that video.
00:20:30
Speaker
At 300, I want to say you're, well, it's north of 300 to get a horizontal with like a pallet cell automation, like five pallets or eight pallets, but it's not super far off, which is a four axis. Cause when you are talking about this, you're like, I like five, but it's really more.
00:20:49
Speaker
for orientation type stuff. It's positional five. Yeah. If I just had a four axis, it'd be okay. I don't want a horizontal. I have zero interest. Everybody's telling me, oh, it's just, it's so productive and all your parts would be fine on a three axis horizontal. And I'm like, eh, it's just not, it doesn't fit me. You know, I don't want it.
00:21:13
Speaker
But a horizontal is also the size of a house, whereas a robot drill is very small footprint. So anyway, I got thinking about that. And I pitched the idea to my brother, Eric, and to Barry, our CFO. And Eric's like, and both of them were like, that sounds cool. That sounds really cool. If money were no object, what do you actually want? What's actually on your thing? And I was like, well, of course, I just want another kern, because I've already put all the effort into that. I would just rinse and repeat. And they're like, yeah, why don't we just do that?
00:21:43
Speaker
I'm like, Oh, you guys suck, but I love you. And that's, and that's how the second current, no, but I looked, I think, I think I said to you, can you share
00:21:57
Speaker
your aroa, which you already own. Right. Compact 80, can you share it with a robo drill on the other side? Now, it wouldn't have additional tools, which is what the Haberle system does. It's so cool. But you already own this cell. And then you were like, well, I really want multi-axis. And then you were just like, you came to that concurrent idea. It escalated quickly.
00:22:19
Speaker
That's the thing is the hard below, whatever it's called, sell is getting close to $200,000 just for the automation sell. I'm like, I already have the Aroa. I'm barely utilizing half of its capabilities. I don't need to spend that money again on another automation sell. You can put another Kern on the second side of that. When you say use either half of it, you literally mean the number of pallet stations? Yeah, I've got 80 pallets. I've got 25 big ones and 55 small ones, and I'm not using half of them.
00:22:47
Speaker
Got it. And that doesn't, that's not going
Production Expansion and New Machine Setup
00:22:49
Speaker
to change. You're running these three day current runs as is. Exactly. Okay. Um, so that's, that's the answer. Other than the cost, it's almost a no brainer to at some point in the future, whenever I can, um, get a second current.
00:23:05
Speaker
I guess the challenged way to look at it to be unemotional would be to say, okay, I can accept that as solution A, I can sell that to myself as the business owner. And then the option B is the more modest, I can't afford the current. So really, what does it look like if you just
00:23:24
Speaker
I don't even know, like keep the Maury and Addis a robo drill or sell the Maury and get a $200,000. There are some automate like Trinity's one I've seen in the US that had these kinds of turnkey automations, integration things. Um, yeah, there's definitely options. And I, I was going at it from the aspect of getting the most bang for your buck, like saving money, not sell it, not, um, not spending too much money. You know, do we sell the Maury? Do we sell the Nakamura?
00:23:49
Speaker
do we, I actually stepped back and unemotionally kind of looked at the business and said, what does it need in the next five years? Where do we want to go? What do we want to invest in? How do we want to take this and, uh,
00:24:01
Speaker
And yeah, once Eric popped that curtain at the end to my head, I can't get it out. It's like, you know, the system, the platform, the software, the code. I've put an incredible amount of effort into not only programming my parts, but also how to run the thing, how to do tool life management, how to do palette management. And I love it. It's the way I want to run parts.
00:24:24
Speaker
And if I invested a whole bunch of money into a Fannock automated cell, that wasn't as me as the way the Heidenhein and the Kern are.
00:24:34
Speaker
It wouldn't be ideal. It'd be fine, but I'm picky and I'm spoiled, so I'm going to do what I want. Figure out how to make it happen, John. Exactly. I know. The other thing is, if there's 168 hours in a week, I'm running the current well over 100 of them right now. I'm not actually tracking it, but that number is probably going to be 130 just soon.
00:25:02
Speaker
There's no reason it's not. You know what I mean? And then that's kind of in my head. I was like, once I'm running that current 24 seven, it helps justify a second one. If you have the work and can, you know, can process all the parts. There's a lot of supplementary that has to go into that. Like everybody, if we were to double our production, everybody's job in the company would almost double. Like I got to think about that. Right.
00:25:28
Speaker
The only thing I don't like about I think you're right and I I think the only thing I would say is you're throwing a I'll make up a number you're throwing a North of a half a million dollars at what could potentially be not only a hundred thousand dollar problem, but really I
00:25:42
Speaker
If you need a one-year solid Band-Aid that could be in the form of, hey, let's just pick up another three-axis vertical. Let's use it over the next 12 months to make a bunch of money. We're going to take the $100,000 vertical. We're going to sell it for $80,000 after the first year. So it really costs me $20,000. And that gets us to the point where we're more comfortable financially to pull the current. Then don't discount that. But let me do it. Exactly. I've even thought about buying a Robo drill for $125,000, just three-axis bare bones.
00:26:10
Speaker
And then just having that and the Maury and making parts with that setup, it's very much an option. And even ordering a current is eighth month lead time at the minimum. Right. And also very expensive. My love of symmetry begs the question, will I sell you a current that's inverted where the tool changer is on the left so that it can share the aroa in the middle? Or does it have to go like? It goes 180.
00:26:39
Speaker
180, it's like a, it's a two pattern circular rotation pattern. Yes. Yes, exactly. So it's, it's a little gross because it's not two machines side by side. You got to walk all the way around to get to the other machine. We got to talk to, we got to talk to Mark about this. Yeah, I know. I know. I want to left and a right, please. Yes. The whole machine would have to be designed differently. Um, no, but like, this is where I would pay, I would pay like stupid money. I was like, Oh, 30 grand more. I always make that happen. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:10
Speaker
But it's exciting. Yeah. Oh my God, it would be amazing. We'd have to shift it more into the middle of the shop to be able to fit the second one on the other side. And I think I would actually rotate the current one, because like right now I've got my kind of working zone in the middle of the shop. And then the second one will be like shoved in a corner, like the working area, the operator panel and all that stuff. So I'd probably rotate the machines 180. I'd have the HD. Sorry, I didn't say that.
00:27:41
Speaker
Anyway, the new one fitting in the middle of the shop and the older one.
00:27:47
Speaker
you know, in the corner. It'd be so funny if you get the new one, you put it in and you've literally never stand in front of the operator panel because it just gets fed from the aroa and yeah, yeah, it's great. It's like, it's like those, uh, we actually were just editing the emo footage and those, um, twin spindle, uh, high production SW machines that have the giant dual rotisserie. So it's like a, it's a, a axis on a bigger history that can cycle in and out.
00:28:14
Speaker
You know, those are probably most often never seen by anybody that cares about machines because they're like in big, you know, high volume plants where they just crank out parts. They're incredible to watch. And you know, it's not like you walk into a job shop or a tool and die room and see one. Which is totally understandable, but also a shame because they're not like all over YouTube because they're just not, they're dedicated. Yeah. It's even like,
00:28:38
Speaker
Grove is now becoming very popular just because they're great and their marketing is getting turned up and you're touring their factory and stuff But they've been huge and what is it automotive and like high production facilities for decades? I don't know So you're like, okay, they've they're they're established and you don't see them very much but now you're seeing you know friends of ours getting them and Yeah
00:29:01
Speaker
Yeah, they don't look small, but if you see the, in area four and nine two, where they had a really good shot of the video we did with them of their G350, where you're looking at it, and it's actually kind of a like bowling lane machine. Like it's only a certain amount wide. It's quite long, but everything is contained within that. Your chip filters, your coolant tanks, your electronic stuff,
00:29:27
Speaker
and the tool changer, of course. So it's pretty interesting. I mean, if you wanted to stack those things up kind of in the phone booth model, but with big boy machines, it works. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. The current is a little, it's a relatively small footprint, even with the Aroa, but there's extraneous stuff. The paper band filter and the coolant filtration and pumps and everything are this separate unit. The chip conveyor sticks out the back. There's a chiller off into the corner that's plumbed. So it's, it sprawls a little bit.
00:29:57
Speaker
So the groves are clever, very clever in that regard.
00:30:02
Speaker
Speaking of extra things not attached to the machine, we unloaded our MP systems. I don't even know what it is yet. I think it's the conveyor or the missed unit, but that stuff came last Friday, maybe. And then today's Wednesday. You're listening to this on Friday. So in between recording and this podcast episode airing knock on wood tomorrow, Thursday, yesterday for you, the Okuma should be here.
00:30:33
Speaker
I'm so excited. That's amazing. Yeah, I'm super excited. So it's apparently too wide load. So I talked to the guy in Charlotte and he's like, yeah, I'm looking at your machine right now. I'm like, Oh, I thought it would have left. He's like, yeah. Cause I guess there's permitting about when they're allowed to drive those on the road. Um, but it's supposed to be here tomorrow morning, 8 AM. So yeah, we're knock on wood. We're ready.
00:30:56
Speaker
Yeah, you got the spot all picked out and the room to get it in and. Yep, we move some machine rounds. I'll tell you if anyone's on the fence.
00:31:04
Speaker
For us, having the number of machines that we do in the shop we do, we bought the Northern Tool rigging skates. Yeah, I was wondering about those. The ones that look like spider fingers, so they have five casters, I believe, per skate, and they have been wonderful. They're about 280 per skate, so it's not cheap, but it's given us the ability to move a machine when we need to, which has been great. So you need four? I think we have, ooh.
00:31:33
Speaker
I don't remember that we have four or five. Okay. Yeah. So like, how do you jack up the corner of the machine to put the skate under? Uh, 10, 10 ton or five ton bottle Jack. Okay. So it's just a bottle Jack has a toe toe Jack rather. And so that's even on our 20,000 pound houses, no issue at all to tip one back, just enough to get a skate under there. Uh, we only own one, so it's a little bit, well, not a big deal, but you know, you kind of go around to the four corners and then, um, the skates are what, a couple of inches tall.
00:32:04
Speaker
Yeah, between two and three. Yeah. Okay. Maybe three. But the machines are on feet. Right. Anyway, so really, you just have to jack it up a quarter inch, pull the foot out, slide the skate in. You don't have to jack up three inches by any means. Okay. Yeah. It's always been safe. You take your time. We've got a good floor that's pretty level, which makes it relatively easy to push and move the machine. Yeah.
00:32:28
Speaker
Yeah. So it's good. So I'm excited. It's amazing. Yeah. That's a big boy. I mean, size of the VF six a little bit bigger, right?
00:32:39
Speaker
It should be a slightly smaller footprint, uh, much, much more of a square than a C frame.
Machine Reliability and Maintenance Experiences
00:32:46
Speaker
Um, so I don't really have a great sense until your size is such a funny thing because I mean, if you have six star big machines and the VF six is our 32 by 64, this is fifth from memory 59 by 20.
00:33:02
Speaker
to 24, no, 26, 26, not 32. It's shorter and why, but totally different kinematic design via dual color machine. Um, so yeah.
00:33:14
Speaker
pumped, happy for you. I'm excited. And I mean, you'll have a whole new ecosystem, not just control, but also a different miscollector than what you have on the other machines, different chip conveyor probably, and different stuff. I got to memorize these. That was one of the differences. I give Haas a lot of credit, man. Buying a Haas is just like, check, check, check. I want this, I want this.
00:33:36
Speaker
And look, we've got the Royal missed unit upgrades because the Haas missed units are not the best in the world. But by and large, Haas does a great job of letting you live in their ecosystem. And with Okuma, it's different. It's like, hey, do you want the May Fran or the LNS XYZ? Yeah. Who's this? Do you want? Who's that? Do you want? Half the time, you're like, I don't know.
00:33:56
Speaker
Yeah, no, really. But we did go with the higher end chip conveyor, which I'm super excited for. I keep it. I just said that I'm super excited for chip fair, but I am. Oh, don't be afraid. Like, please.
00:34:10
Speaker
Yeah, it's just a lot of new to learn. Yeah. So everyone that's, you know, I think the Genesis are really nice machine. It's the, I think it's kind of the Dura vertical of it of today of just being one of the absolute best high end three axis machines. Lots of guys that run the five sixties and say, say good things. Um, so we're excited to run with it. Well, we were chatting on what's up last night about, um,
00:34:37
Speaker
What is the maintenance and reliability of a machine? And like my door vertical in the six years I've had it, the door interlock switch broke once and that is literally the only thing that has failed on that entire machine. And same for the Nakamura, it has been rock solid. It's crazy. And those are just older established designs that are like just rock solid. It's crazy. They just sent me a picture of the machine on the truck.
00:35:06
Speaker
Literally two minutes ago. Describe it to me. Pretend I'm there. Picture rolling waves in the background in a beautiful scene. There's horses riding on the beach. It's a low boy with a big tarp over it. But I'm actually excited that it's a low boy because we've had machines come on the high deck of a trailer before. I'm like, oh my gosh, 20,000 pounds, six feet up in the air is. For sure. Yeah, I remember my Maury being six feet up in the air more. And I'm like, no, why? Put it down. Yeah.
00:35:35
Speaker
Um, yeah, I lost track cause I was kind of so excited. Oh, so yeah, we have a friend on this chat was talking about a machine, you know, solid brand machine, um, where it's now multiple weeks of either been down or fundamental problems. And John, I can't imagine that. Holy cow. Yeah. Especially in a production environment when you have worked for it and you're like, it's just not running. Um,
00:36:02
Speaker
Well, that's the thing like in the beginning or of the business, as we started to buy these machines, if they were down for a little bit, I was just like, whatever. But now pumping so hard and running everything so much that if there's a problem, it literally costs us money like to be down here.
00:36:21
Speaker
Yeah. So it's funny that I kind of share your disdain for horizontals. They just feel like old and clunky and not five axis and all that. There's no doubt they make money. Absolutely.
00:36:33
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's inevitable in a good way for us because we've got too many products where like all of a sudden, we've been down this rabbit hole like twice in the last four years of like, we should really think about a horizontal. Well, now it's really like, wait a minute here. If we had one that had six or eight tombstones, two of them, or two jobs could be set up as repeat tombstones and the others could be alternative products.
00:36:55
Speaker
That solves a lot of setup issues. It solves a lot of capacity, fourth axis, access to part geometry, automation, lights out. It's kind of like, wait a minute, this is really checking a lot of boxes. A hundred percent for you. Like your products are big. My products are tiny. Yeah.
00:37:13
Speaker
It may, like for doing fixture plates and bigger things like, um, orange vice has several horizontals and loves them. Yeah. Well, that's what's weird. It wouldn't be fixture plates. It would be things that like, frankly, our softjells, which look, we don't, we make money on our softjells, but not enough money on their own to come close to justifying a, you know, that level of a machine to a few hundred thousand dollars for a
00:37:35
Speaker
And you know, my grandpa would tell me that's the only way to look at it. But part of me is trying to think smart about like, hey, scale and intelligence and growing without needing to bring on more people per se and giving us the
Automation Strategies and Overnight Production
00:37:47
Speaker
right tools. And it's like, wait a year, having two tombstones with six sides that just were ran soft jaws. Yeah, we only make, you know, I don't know, not that much money per month or per year, but we need their key part to our product line.
00:38:00
Speaker
What you're really hot on right now is automation. It's a way to make more parts per cycle, which could absolutely be accomplished with a robot on a VF2 or something like that, just to keep in mind, right? You're right. Actually, the Haas automation cell, if you just look at that as a cash expense, I don't know how much it costs 100 grand or 150 or 50, I don't know.
00:38:26
Speaker
Yeah, the Haas robot, I should honestly look at it. It's 50 grand, a little RoboMate that bolts up to the front of the machine. Dude. Yeah, I know, right? Yeah. I mean, weight capacity being considered. But your goal that you're trying to accomplish right now is the fastest, easiest way to make more products, hands off. That's why you would buy a horizontal cell.
00:38:54
Speaker
Yes. Just think about it. This is one reason why I enjoy this part of our friendship. The thing I like about a horizontal is it lets us do, I mean, it's classic horizontal. It lets an operator use their own skill to take the time to correctly load a fixture offline. Good news is all that I just said, the bad news is it does still require a person. Whereas a robot in theory could take a stack of material
00:39:20
Speaker
and with no operator time set right there and just go to town. But there isn't like the Haas robot I don't think has force sensing feedback. So it doesn't know as much. You could build probing and do it all that. I like the horizontal better right now. But you're right. Let me take a look at it. Well, don't forget you can load fixtures as well, not just load material onto the machine.
00:39:41
Speaker
That's actually a good point because I only think about loading fixtures. I, I, loading material is not in my mindset because I don't have that kind of part. Um, so like if you were making mod vices and you made a small fixture six by six or 10 by 10 or something, you could load, you could robot load into the machine, um, and have four mod vices on each pallet. Then like you just make a rack that has 10 pallets and it's running until morning. Like I want to see you running machines at night.
00:40:10
Speaker
I hear you. Hey, our second compressor just arrived. That's one key part of it. The Wilhelmin, I tell you, if that Wilhelmin were sitting here tonight, it would be running parts, not 24 seven, but all the time. I mean, holy cow. That's actually a key part of the automation. I'm like super into that. Yeah. Yeah.
Entrepreneurial Reflections and Stress Management
00:40:29
Speaker
So.
00:40:30
Speaker
This has been fun. Yeah. Hey, I wanted to, we had a really good talk with a fellow that won the podcast contest last night. I really enjoyed it. I did too.
00:40:42
Speaker
It made me want to bring up two things. One is a comment that he made that I think is worth repeating. The other is two changes that I've kind of subconsciously gone through as an entrepreneur that is kind of in the sake of, it's okay to be wrong, but in my opinion, just share that experience of where you change your own philosophies.
00:41:00
Speaker
Um, the thing that he said that he really enjoyed from us is the idea that stress is a choice. It's like a super passive aggressive comment, like condescending me, like, Oh, you're the one that chooses to be stressed. But the reality is, um, more of that kind of thing is in your control than you want to admit. And if you want to accept that and go through it, then you, I've been wonderfully pleased with how that changes things. That makes sense. Yeah. Yep.
00:41:25
Speaker
Yeah, there's various things that we are in control of, and there's various things that we are not in control of. And I've learned to not stress about things I cannot control. Yeah, yeah. Actually, it's a third thing. The second one that I want to add here real quick is the cliched Nike phrase, just do it. It was a big theme of our talk. And it comes up in that Tim, who's the book on Roland Grover? Yeah, like stop thinking. Very similar phrases of stop thinking and just do it, which is,
00:41:55
Speaker
Analyzing, overanalyzing, delaying, planning, contemplating goals, expectations, shut up, go do it. It was the perfect storm of conversation last night because he outlined his life and his skills and his plan and you and I get to be outsiders looking in at it.
00:42:15
Speaker
I totally understand his mentality and his fear and his hesitation and everything, and to you and I as a no-brainer. So we were able to provide that value to him, kick in the pants and say, you clearly want this. Why are you still hesitating? Why are we still talking? Right. Don't think about
00:42:38
Speaker
starting this process four years down the road, which is a good segue to the two things I've changed my thoughts on. Borrowing money and then bootstrapping, in particular the element of bootstrapping being early on, I love this idea of hustling and doing what you need to do to bring in cash flow. So selling
00:43:01
Speaker
a couple of different products that maybe made a few bucks a month doing job shop work, just consulting, doing whatever you needed to do to put money on the table. And look, that was part of my story. It's how I got to where I am. My grandfather was very much like that and he was very much a personal hero to me. I'm not too good to do anything. He ran a steel fabrication company and did a lot of work for the power plant. Well, the power plant needed trees cleared from the river at these inland gates for water cooling and none of their guys wanted to do it.
00:43:26
Speaker
they paid him to do it. And he was the kind of guy where it's like, yeah, we'll do that. We'll go get underwater chainsaws or grains and rigging and trees out like you just you just darn it, you made things work that way. And where I changed my philosophy is
00:43:42
Speaker
Comparing to like to you you are focused on Grimms mode knives period everything else is noise And it I kind of had this thought reading good to great where he talks about the hedgehog concept which I'll save that for next week or something but Really a lot to be said for focusing on what you're trying to do and making that happen. Mm-hmm
00:44:02
Speaker
And some people don't have the laser focus, like a typical job shop is kind of, I mean, I guess they can be laser focused on job shopping, finding the best customers for themselves. So you have to analyze.
00:44:13
Speaker
where you're doing. If you now have a production parts company and you're making products, if you were to still look at job shopping, you'd be like, yeah, but I can make $1,000 a month doing this as well. But is it worth the time and the money and the effort and the brain power and focus? Yeah, right. Cool. I feel like we're at our time limit. I'll talk a little bit more about
00:44:39
Speaker
if folks want to hear on this idea of capital and borrowing money and how that relates to a business and personal life and getting an understanding. I'd love to talk about that. Yeah. Awesome. Excellent. To wrap up last week, I think we briefly talked about optical comparators.
00:44:55
Speaker
Oh, yeah. I forget if I said that I found one, but I did find one on the local buy cell locally. And I emailed the guy right away. And he's like, yeah, I still got it. You want it? I'm like, yeah, I do want it. So we purchased a Starrett HB350, I think, optical comparator with a beautiful DRO, like six digit resolution with most likely has high nine scales on it. I'm pumped. So we don't have it yet, but it's just waiting for
00:45:25
Speaker
our check to deliver in rigging company to pick it up or shipping company, whatever. Oh, you can't go pick it up. We don't have a truck. Nobody owns a truck in our family. We're just going to have a delivery company pick it up. I don't know how to compute.
00:45:41
Speaker
Yeah, I know, right? You've got a truck. You've always had a truck probably. Oh my gosh. Nobody grows when ice has a flatbed? Nobody on our staff. Nope. I want to see a Miata with an optical comparator on the roof coming down the Toronto highway. Yeah, I don't know how big or heavy it is. I mean, several of us have hatchbacks and can put stuff in the back or SUVs or something, but I don't know if I want to. This needs to happen, John. This really needs to happen. Which?
00:46:11
Speaker
an optical comparator haphazardly strapped to a CD. Yeah. But no, he's got it on a pallet, so we're just going to send a delivery truck and whatever. That's fair enough. I should have it within a week or so. I'm pumped. Awesome. It's exciting. Super exciting. Yeah, I'll be curious to see what you think of that. Yep, yep. Awesome. I'll see you next week. Okay. Later. Bye.