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Ep. 53: We Found the Problem (It Was Us)
183 Plays9 days ago
This week on The Lone Machinist, Jamie and Curt catch up after a chaotic end to the year that included sick days, machine crashes, voltage gremlins, and at least one deeply buried electrical landmine.
They break down how being a few volts out of spec can derail an entire shop, why automation math is often more depressing than helpful, and what happens when Fusion gives you just enough confidence to crash a machine. There’s also talk of tool changers, transformers, misprinted wiring diagrams, and why machines love to misbehave right before the holidays.
If you’ve ever trusted a setup because it “ran fine last time,” this episode is for you.
Links Discussed:
- Cheap lathe video (must watch): https://youtu.be/h-8BlX8pxAg?si=inSjol-Yo5pNf5Sm
- Train book link: https://craftsmanshipmuseum.com/artisan/kozo-hiraoka/
- BixAxe Lottery Miner: https://bitaxe.org/
The Lone Machinist:
- Website: https://thelonemachinists.com/
- Bonus Content: https://thelonemachinists.com/#bonus-content
- Merch: https://www.jspeceng.com/online-store
- Patreon: https://patreon.com/TheLoneMachinists
Need Work Done? Check out Subtract Manufacturing at: https://subtractmanufacturing.com/
Want to try out Toolpath? Give it a go and get 10% off by using the code TLM10 at checkout: https://toolpath.com/
Jamie:
Curt:
Recommended
Transcript
Catching Up After Vacation
00:00:00
jamie peacock
Welcome to the Loan Machinists. This episode, Kurt and I are going to be catching up after four weeks because Kurt decided to try a DA. I went on vacation and ah yeah, it's going to be a banger of episodes. I think this one might run long.
00:00:12
jamie peacock
Kurt, what you got to talk about this week?
00:00:15
Curt
ah This week i'm going to talk about the style dying in multiple different ways. um Apparently I don't know how electricity works and ah Bitcoin mining. How about you? What are you going to talk about?
Topics Overview: Style, Electricity, and Bitcoin
00:00:28
jamie peacock
uh crashing the lk courtesy of fusion uh the mechanical anchor point and my laser eight ship so yeah how are you doing this fun day kurt
00:00:39
Curt
much better now much better seems so it seems like all our machines are trying to kill us this last while but yeah I was I was deathly ill but apparently we're like professional enough that we had enough canned episodes to cover when I was not here so uh yeah thank you I was gonna say thank you folks for dealing with it but you still got episodes so it worked out for everybody but yeah that was yeah sorry about that folks oh what a lovely girl
00:00:45
jamie peacock
yeah
00:00:57
jamie peacock
Yeah, unfortunately, the Patreons didn't get aftershows, but yeah, Danica did send them a lovely email. um Yes, and we got a lovely response that i've forgot to share with you. I will send it to you after the podcast, yes. Yeah, they all got personalized emails. One of the perks of being a Patreon is you get an aftershow and you get personalized emails at Christmas.
00:01:16
Curt
Danica is way above our pay grade for her.
00:01:19
jamie peacock
a hundred 100%. No, cent no, no no she's she's a a wizard, wizard straight up, proper wizard.
00:01:20
Curt
but yeah
00:01:23
jamie peacock
But yeah, look yeah it was ah it was a busy last few weeks of ah of the year before everyone shut down and went on vacation.
Machining Parts and Efficiency
00:01:31
jamie peacock
But yeah, great great success.
00:01:32
Curt
Yeah.
00:01:33
jamie peacock
yeah So I don't know.
00:01:35
Curt
Pick up.
00:01:35
jamie peacock
Do you want to kick it off or do you want to kick it off?
00:01:37
Curt
you You kick it off because you have more topics and they're all they're all juicy.
00:01:40
jamie peacock
Fair enough.
00:01:41
Curt
So ah yeah, pick what you want.
00:01:42
jamie peacock
OK, so we're going to start at the top of the list, finishing off for the year. So we we ran out the end of the year. It's the first December in six years that I haven't really been super stressed, like about finances and things, which is an nice change.
00:01:56
jamie peacock
We did, I think, 2,600 parts for the Dutchman Squeezebox guys, got all those out, including 600 by long screws
00:02:03
Curt
Wow.
00:02:06
jamie peacock
that we were turning yeah
00:02:07
Curt
Oh.
00:02:08
jamie peacock
turning on the emco and then slip the heads on the on the lk like slitting all 600 took me a matter of an hour and a bit but turning them out took me multiple days of the machine running like 10 hours a day just load bar hit go load bar hit go and each bar was only yielding like 15 parts because they obviously quite long um and then the buttons which needed to be drilled flipped so i made some jigs instead of putting them on an anchor point pallets i just ended up doing them in the vast stock because
00:02:17
Curt
wow
00:02:37
jamie peacock
By the time I'd done all shenanigans, I would have been loading, like even that loading, I think I was doing, I want to say 14 at a time or 10 at a time, whatever it was. It was taking me longer to load them than it was to drill both sides.
00:02:49
jamie peacock
So I would drill, the ah I had two fixtures, I'd load the fixture in, drill the one side while I loosened the other fixture, knock the parts out and load the new ones in. Then I would turn the block over in the vase, hit go, and then I'd enough time to tighten the fixture and be ready to swap.
00:03:07
jamie peacock
It was rough for a thousand buttons and I've just got an order for another thousand buttons.
00:03:09
Curt
its That sounds right.
00:03:14
jamie peacock
Yeah. But it's easy money.
00:03:15
Curt
Oh, man.
00:03:16
jamie peacock
So it's like not not the most annoying thing in the world to run. Like you stand and you just suck the fuck up for a few hours and run it. It's one of those things where it's like the product cost is so low it's not worth automating.
00:03:29
jamie peacock
Like by the time I automated it I could have just stood there and run the parts.
00:03:30
Curt
Right.
00:03:32
jamie peacock
It's not really worth my time to automate.
00:03:35
Curt
Yeah, that's always that's always the most depressing math to do. And you're like, oh, I can make this. and
Automation vs Manual Labor
00:03:39
Curt
you're like, okay, it'll take me two hours to finish that.
00:03:39
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:03:40
Curt
Or it'll take me one hour to finish the actual work and just suck it up.
00:03:43
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:03:43
Curt
It's like, oh, okay.
00:03:45
jamie peacock
Unfortunately, if your numbers unless it's like, huh? How dollar value? It's not worth automating things like I've done this maths again and again and again. And unless you either doing 10,000 or something, or you're doing something that's really high dollar value, it's not worth it. Like you just, you can just suck it up and do the job finished before you've even finished the design for automation.
00:04:07
jamie peacock
So it is something I'm working on in the background, but yeah, we just suck it up and run things.
00:04:07
Curt
Yeah, no, totally.
00:04:11
jamie peacock
But yeah, Emco is a beast.
00:04:12
Curt
Yeah.
00:04:14
jamie peacock
It's been run, it ran a lot, and then yeah, ran another, what it, 150 parts. So it's 750 operations on those 150 parts because there's blanking, then there's op one, op two, grooving, grooving two, and then milling.
00:04:24
Curt
Wow.
00:04:31
jamie peacock
So six by 150.
00:04:34
Curt
Oh.
00:04:34
jamie peacock
And that was done in a day. I stood at the at the Emco and just shut out 316 stainless parts and just cranked them out quickly.
00:04:38
Curt
Oh,
00:04:42
jamie peacock
That needed to go out before i went away. That actually shipped while I was driving on vacation.
00:04:48
jamie peacock
and Like I left the box and they picked it up while I was away.
00:04:48
Curt
um nice.
00:04:49
Curt
That feels nice. Yeah.
00:04:51
jamie peacock
um But don't know, we had a lot of small bits and bobs that we're trying to push out for for you and as well as about like getting all the stuff in for Anchor Point because
00:04:59
Curt
Hmm.
Year-End Reflections and Challenges
00:05:00
jamie peacock
the next week or so I want to get through Anchor Point batch three and a bit more R&D on some other stuff. So yeah, it was a fun you end.
00:05:07
Curt
Nice. Yeah.
00:05:07
jamie peacock
I'm very curious about your style tool change issues.
00:05:12
Curt
Yeah.
00:05:13
jamie peacock
I know we did discuss it, I think, offline. But for the folks at home,
00:05:16
Curt
yeah Yeah, I had to check our past episodes to see if I even mentioned it yet.
00:05:20
jamie peacock
yeah.
00:05:21
Curt
But yeah, yeah I mean, my year end compared to yours, my year end has kind of been a cluster. Because like I lost essentially a week feeling sick, which is health is wealth, folks. Take care of your bodies. Because yeah a week down is a lot of dollars.
00:05:32
Curt
and And nothing feels better than realizing, being like, I feel sick.
00:05:33
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:05:36
Curt
And I should be working. And nothing makes you... It doesn't help your brain state to be like, oh, I should be working. And I'm sick. And I should... like That's not going to help you feel better. So anyways, I was... a
00:05:45
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:05:46
Curt
I wouldn't say I was stressed about it because I'm like, I'm not, I'm going to starve or anything, but was still annoying to lose a week. Cause then Christmas comes in the way it's stacked up this year. I lose like two, I shouldn't say lose. That's a bad way to say it.
00:05:56
Curt
I get to spend, I get to spend two weeks with my family, but I'm missing out on like two more weeks of work.
00:05:57
jamie peacock
In the South, well, yeah.
00:06:01
Curt
So it's like a, a forced three week vacation, which is what it
Resolving Machine Voltage Issues
00:06:05
Curt
is. Um, and on top of all that, yeah, the style decided to, uh, try to kill me in a few ways.
00:06:05
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:06:10
Curt
One of it being its problem. One of it, well, They might have actually both been my problem um that I just I basically buried like a landmine like a year ago and didn't even realize it. And then it just sprung on me this this winter.
00:06:24
Curt
So I went to do a tool change on it in the turret. The tool change is like a brother. So it's got like the big rotary turret on the front. Head comes up, spins around, comes back down. um When I did it would part, it only got to like three quarters of a tool change.
00:06:39
Curt
um So my turret was off alignment. And I was like, oh, ah That's not good. Like, I don't know how to recover from this. It's never happened before. And so I contacted Sile and they they gave me some things to try.
00:06:51
Curt
And I was like, it's not working. and they're like no, it is. It's just like there's a combination of buttons you can hit so you can just like manually rotate the turret. But it rotates so slowly that um I didn't know was rotating.
00:07:02
Curt
so then i was driving So I was running it from the drive in the back, which was the way to do it. So i'm like, I'm driving the drive manually to get past all the alarms.
00:07:06
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:07:10
Curt
But then I have to like run around to the front of the machine to see if it's moving. And when I checked it, it only moved into like a fraction of a degree. So I'm like, it's not working. Something is broken. It's like, no, it is. You're just being stupid. So then I put a camera in the front of the machine and then had it like casting to my computer screen so I could see it from the back and like press on the button. was this It was ah such an annoying.
00:07:30
Curt
But anyways, finally got it aligned. um And then i was like, OK, everything is happy. And then you can mag reference it and it like it figures out where it is. All good.
00:07:37
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yeah.
00:07:38
Curt
Tool changed again. i was like, perfect. Did about four or five tool changes. Happened again. I was like, son bitch. Because it takes like 10 minutes to realign the turret. It's like, fuck, okay, something's up. So then i I tried it again. I'm like, if it repeats three times, something is wrong.
00:07:49
Curt
So the same thing, rigmarole of cameras and trying to get it all squared up. Got it aligned perfectly. Three or four tool changes. Did it again. i was like, what in the crisis going on? So check the output of my phase converter just to see if the voltage was good. And the voltage was a little bit low, but it's winter. Like I said, everyone's running block heaters, probably electric heaters in their home, Christmas lights.
00:08:11
Curt
lights in general. So it sags the line voltage slightly. And it's all it took was... Boof. heard the dog.
00:08:19
jamie peacock
yeah that would be yeah that would be draxie being noisy yeah
00:08:19
Curt
um
00:08:22
Curt
The earlier warning system. um Anyways, all it took was like a couple volts and I was right at... When I wired up the machine, i was dumb. This is where I buried the landmine. ah So the sile runs on like 380 volts.
00:08:35
Curt
I can wire up my transformer. Excuse me, gotta to clear my throat.
00:08:39
jamie peacock
ah
00:08:40
Curt
There we go. Look at that.
00:08:41
jamie peacock
we we need a thing for that yeah
00:08:42
Curt
Cough button. um Yeah. Oh, sorry. Did I scream in your face? Hopefully not. I thought I hit mute.
00:08:47
jamie peacock
No, no, you didn't. No, no, you didn't. i need a cough button on my side.
00:08:49
Curt
Oh.
00:08:50
jamie peacock
So when you're coughing and muting, I can make a cough noise.
00:08:54
Curt
Oh. So you can fill it in. That'd be sick.
00:08:56
jamie peacock
Because I can fill in the empty space.
00:08:57
Curt
Um...
00:09:00
Curt
Anyways, I wired up the silo to the low end of the voltage.
00:09:00
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:09:02
Curt
I should have wired up to the high end of the voltage. i apparently don't know what I'm doing. I went to school for electronics. I know what I'm doing with electronics and electrical, but like apparently I don't. um So I asked chat. I'm like, what the fuck did I do wrong with this transformer?
00:09:12
Curt
And it's like, oh the way you're wiring it works, like but it's dumb. Wire it this way. i was like, really? And they're like, prove it to me. And so it sent me a bunch of, because don't trust chat. And then... It sent me a bunch of web pages. I'm like, oh, yeah, you're right. OK, I did it wrong.
00:09:23
Curt
And then anyways, just wired it up to the next voltage level, which outputs like 400 plus volts, which is still within its range. um It's just much closer to the medium or middle of the range than it is the bottom end.
00:09:34
Curt
And then lo and behold, everything is much happier when it's running at its proper voltage. So, yeah, it was my fault.
00:09:39
jamie peacock
So with regards to voltages, Carl's lathe to decided to pick up some issues.
00:09:41
Curt
Mm
00:09:44
Curt
hmm.
00:09:47
jamie peacock
So we tested it here and it ran perfectly.
00:09:47
Curt
Oh.
00:09:50
jamie peacock
But the power coming out of my wall is 220.
00:09:51
Curt
Okay.
00:09:54
jamie peacock
The power coming out of his wall is 240.
00:09:54
Curt
Okay.
00:09:57
Curt
a Mmm.
00:09:59
jamie peacock
And we then step it up and it goes to 450.
00:09:59
Curt
Yeah, like B issues.
00:10:03
jamie peacock
And then we step it back down on the back of the machine from allegedly 380 or 400 down to 220.
00:10:04
Curt
Ooh.
00:10:10
jamie peacock
And it comes out that transformer at 250. So he's been having issues where the drives are losing position.
00:10:14
Curt
Ooh. Yeah.
00:10:18
jamie peacock
And I went through there other the other evening.
00:10:18
Curt
Fair, yeah.
00:10:21
jamie peacock
Not a problem. Can't find the issue. Rewired the signal cables, thought maybe there was a dry joint, 100%, leave, go there get a call from them the next morning, can't hold position.
00:10:34
jamie peacock
So we checked the spec on the drives, and it's 220 volts, 10% tolerance. And we are out of that bar, 8 volts.
00:10:42
Curt
Yeah.
00:10:45
jamie peacock
So we're out of that. We're like 15% tolerance. So I'm going through tomorrow to go and wire it to a single-phase plug because then it's at 240 and it's within the spec on a single-phase plug because the drives fortunately can run on single-phase or three-phase.
00:10:58
jamie peacock
So we're just going to wire the two axis drives, which has another happy side effect. The controller and those drives will be on a plug on the wall and a spindle's only thing, spindle, coolant, and...
00:11:10
jamie peacock
something else runs through the phase converter so if he wants to stop working for lunch he can turn off his phase converter his machine stays where it is knows where it is and he can go have lunch come back turn it back on and carry on so happy side effect but yeah really annoying to try and figure out what the hell's going on
00:11:24
Curt
Yeah, it's nice.
00:11:30
Curt
Well, and that's that's actually exactly the problem I had. All the three-phase things in there, even though the three-phase voltage was low, they were happy.
00:11:33
jamie peacock
yeah yeah yes
00:11:36
Curt
Like, the servos were like, we can deal with this. The transformer that down or steps the or steps down the 380 back to 220, there's, like, one component, and i need it it needs to be, like, 220 at the minimum.
00:11:45
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:11:48
Curt
And normally, there's no issue, because, like, like our line is 240.
00:11:50
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:11:51
Curt
And it was at 219, and that was giving me issues. I was literally on the one-volt cusp, and it was just,
00:11:57
jamie peacock
And that's the thing that, yeah.
00:11:58
Curt
Yeah.
00:11:59
jamie peacock
So the thing is, we tested machine that was perfect because my phase converter outputs 400, which steps down to 235-ish through his setup, which was perfectly within range.
00:12:09
jamie peacock
And yeah, when we installed it there by him, didn't saw it, I was like, oh, it's a bit on the high end, but I'm sure it's fine. And then in troubleshooting this, we measured everything. I'm going go and measure tomorrow and see because when everyone gets home from work, then the machine runs fine.
00:12:24
jamie peacock
But during the day when no one's at home and everything everything everything's off, that's when he's having the higher line voltage and it's causing the issue.
00:12:25
Curt
Okay.
00:12:31
Curt
Sure.
00:12:32
jamie peacock
it's We're talking like a couple of volts that's causing the issue.
00:12:34
Curt
Totally. Yeah.
00:12:35
jamie peacock
and And the drives aren't picking up an error. So I don't know if something funny is happening on the drive because it is just step in direction refeeding it. So it could be jogging, browning out or freaking the fuck out, rebooting and then carrying on.
00:12:48
jamie peacock
So not entirely sure what the issue was, but I think we have a solve for it tomorrow. But yeah, like a couple volts. no
00:12:56
jamie peacock
And there's no multi-voltage taps on these things. Otherwise, I would have just tapped it at a lower voltage on the transformer.
00:12:56
Curt
Yep.
00:13:03
Curt
Right. Yeah, totally.
00:13:04
jamie peacock
But unfortunately, it's not one of those.
00:13:04
Curt
Yeah, yeah,
00:13:06
jamie peacock
So we can't do that, which is a little tiresome, but is what it is.
00:13:08
Curt
yeah. Yeah.
00:13:12
Curt
Yeah, well, that that helped me, but it also screwed me because, like, we have, like, 20 different taps, and so I was like, oh, I'll just run i'll run the low.
00:13:16
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:13:18
Curt
Like, i don't need to run that. but No, i I messed up. I should have run at higher voltage, but, yeah. Those couple volts, they make a difference.
00:13:22
jamie peacock
Yeah. No. You live and you learn. Try to figure out how to troubleshoot that shit. like Unless you know what you're looking at.
00:13:29
Curt
Yeah.
00:13:29
jamie peacock
The thing is, like now we know what we're looking at and it won't catch us up again.
00:13:31
Curt
Yeah.
00:13:34
jamie peacock
Hopefully, this will help some other people to not get caught up.
00:13:34
Curt
Absolutely.
00:13:36
jamie peacock
Because i listened to our Face Converter episode today. It was quite inst entertaining.
00:13:39
Curt
Yeah.
00:13:40
jamie peacock
Like...
00:13:41
Curt
I know when I listened to that, I was like, oh I have things to add because I was stupid when I was recording this and like I should have.
00:13:44
jamie peacock
Yep.
00:13:46
Curt
Yeah.
00:13:48
jamie peacock
No, it's you live and you learn.
00:13:49
Curt
Yeah.
00:13:49
jamie peacock
like Every day is a learning experience. Like... It is, like you learn something new every day.
00:13:53
Curt
Well, actually...
00:13:55
jamie peacock
like
00:13:56
Curt
The thing that extra fucked me up is when i got so I got the spec sheet from the manufacturer for this transformer and the wiring diagram that they have on the actual manufactured PDF is wrong.
00:14:09
Curt
If you wire it up that way, nothing's going to work.
00:14:09
jamie peacock
Nice. Yeah.
00:14:11
Curt
Like it's a bad way to wire it. They're like mixing high voltage taps and like it's not it's it's bad.
00:14:16
jamie peacock
Oh, they're mixing primary and secondary.
00:14:17
Curt
And I'm like, that's on the PDF. Someone copy pasted something across and just forgot to add it.
00:14:22
jamie peacock
Uh, yeah.
00:14:23
Curt
So like, cause you have high voltage taps and low voltage taps and they're like, they're cross pollinating them and pushing into inputs and like, no, like you can't wire it that way at all.
00:14:29
jamie peacock
Oh wow, okay.
00:14:31
Curt
You'll have horrible four phase and imbalances.
00:14:33
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:14:34
Curt
and Anyway. So I told the manufacturer, that's wrong. Like your wiring diagram is wrong. I'm like, really?
00:14:38
jamie peacock
Unbreak it, please.
00:14:39
Curt
It's like, yeah, yeah. Like if I run that, ah the yeah, it's not good things anyways.
00:14:43
jamie peacock
Yeah. But no, at least, so is your cell back trying to run or are you still having issues after that?
00:14:45
Curt
But
00:14:50
Curt
Oh no, it's happy as a clam now that I actually am giving it the voltage it wanted instead of trying to feed it what I thought it wanted.
00:14:52
jamie peacock
okay.
00:14:57
Curt
and Yes, that was, it was my fault, but I was just like, I didn't realize it was my fault until I realized it was my fault.
00:15:02
jamie peacock
yeah no that's uh yeah that happens there's one of those things you don't think is an issue but uh is actually a major freaking issue
00:15:03
Curt
Yeah.
Toolpath Software Benefits
00:15:10
jamie peacock
like yeah
00:15:10
Curt
Well, the problem is it ran for a year, right? So like, good luck's troubleshooting that when it's already ran for a year and just that it was just hovering on that one volt cusp and then just boop and then everything went south.
00:15:21
jamie peacock
yeah that's that is like the worst nightmare for troubleshooting something like the absolute worst nightmare oh i see i forgot to add a thing in here
00:15:22
Curt
Yeah.
00:15:26
Curt
Totally.
00:15:29
Curt
Yes. So what do you got here? Let's pick something fun. um ah Pick what you want. How about there's too many fun things.
00:15:36
jamie peacock
Well, let's discuss the LK crashing.
00:15:36
Curt
I, what,
00:15:37
jamie peacock
Let's get all the bad stuff out of the way.
00:15:39
Curt
Yeah, you got you got two more crashing things, so let's go.
00:15:40
jamie peacock
So, I have two more. Well, i have the laser-eating ship, but yeah, that's not la that's not crashing related.
00:15:46
Curt
Or, well...
00:15:49
Curt
Oh, okay.
00:15:49
jamie peacock
um Yeah. So I was machining a lovely heatsink for my mate Dave, for the drone he makes.
00:15:52
Curt
yeah
00:15:55
Curt
Okay.
00:15:55
jamie peacock
I machined up one on the vacuum truck, made a custom vacuum truck for up two, vacuumed it down, machined it. I'm like, oh, I want to ah skip to flat toolpath programmed through toolpath. um And for some reason, skipped one of the flat toolpaths. I generated a new toolpath.
00:16:10
jamie peacock
But I was having an issue uploading the file to toolpath. So what I did was i up i had the fixture, then I had the file pulled into the fixture, and it wouldn't let me send them together. So I sent just the file, and then pulled it in, and then linked the manufacturer, because you can now pull in linked, but you can insert the manufacturing data from the the linked file.
00:16:34
Curt
Right.
00:16:34
jamie peacock
It's a newish thing, yeah. Anyway, did that. ran it added this thing posted the code went to the machine hit go because it posted fine last time i'm literally just only posting one operation out of the list ucs was in the correct place like that or wcs was in the right place everything was in the right place hit go and the machine comes down now i've got like 45 minutes of machining into this heat sink comes down it goes to tries to go 26 millimeters deeper than it should have So I'm like, what the shit just happened. That was a brand new fucking animal first, which was a bit pissed about my fixtures, fuck my parts. fact
00:17:11
jamie peacock
So I go back to my computer. Well, lose first I look at the code on the controller. I'm like, ha, z one millimeter. And I'm like, that is wrong. That should be like 26 somewhere around there.
00:17:23
jamie peacock
So I go back to fusion. And I say post. So repost that exact code that I just posted z 26.
00:17:32
jamie peacock
So somewhere when i pulled it in, it regenerated the toolpath but didn't regenerate that one or some fucking retarded shit happened. And I didn't validate it when I hit go because I had run code that I posted.
00:17:44
jamie peacock
Bam.
00:17:44
Curt
right
00:17:45
jamie peacock
So I spent another 40 minutes remachining everything, remachine the fixture like a mill lower to get the ding out. Luckily, no damage to the machine. But yeah, very, very annoying.
00:17:55
jamie peacock
Ended up on like an hour and a half long call with Paul from toolpath to try and figure out what happened, why this error occurred and the gist of it is when we with the inserting stuff now generates here on one work on the system i pull it over here and and this one where i've got the assembly with fixture i've moved the ucs or the wcs the work coordinates because i want it on a different work coordinate set regenerate the tool parts and somewhere there fusion just shut the bed and i'll put the wrong code And if I had looked at it, I would have caught it, but I didn't look at it because I had run the rest of the operations. So my level of confidence in the fusion being able to do its job was pretty high.
00:18:34
jamie peacock
So I just load and hit, go and hit, 50% rapid, about tool, bit of stir welding.
00:18:40
Curt
what's all It's also not like it's 11 lines of code. Like, you're not going to read through it and find it.
00:18:44
jamie peacock
No, I wouldn't if I had actually looked it, and I would have picked it up because on like the third line of code that I would have seen the issue.
00:18:47
Curt
Yeah.
00:18:50
Curt
Oh, fair.
00:18:50
jamie peacock
But I didn't read it because it was late in the evening. um I just wanted to get it done. So load and go and ya assumed it was correct and made an ass of you and me. um
00:19:02
Curt
Oh.
00:19:02
jamie peacock
Yeah, so I'm a bit more hesitant with what fusions, especially when i do dodgy shit like linking stuff. um But yeah, it was rather, rather frustrating. And then I ran that job again.
00:19:12
jamie peacock
Dude, Toolpath, here comes the Toolpath plug. It's full of fucking magic. So there weren't modeled chamfers in the parts.
00:19:16
Curt
ah
00:19:21
jamie peacock
So Toolpath didn't generate chamfers.
00:19:21
Curt
Okay.
00:19:22
jamie peacock
Because if you model your chamfers, Toolpath will now add all the chamfering toolpaths for you. That's like a ah month or two ago.
00:19:29
Curt
Suck.
00:19:30
jamie peacock
No, dude, freaking wicked. I needed it to go and manually click all the things. There were 107... ah What they?
00:19:38
Curt
Yeah.
00:19:38
jamie peacock
Yeah, whatever thingies, we have to click lines.
00:19:41
Curt
Yeah.
00:19:43
jamie peacock
107 selections to do the chamfers. If I had to program the thing by hand, I would have shot myself. Like it was ridiculous. And sent to a bot that came back and it ran. Like I had to intervene maybe, maybe 20%, if that, of just dialing, start tweaking things I wanted it.
00:19:53
Curt
Nice.
00:19:59
jamie peacock
It pretty much just did the thing and it did it perfectly.
00:20:03
Curt
Nice. nice
00:20:03
jamie peacock
So yeah, it you and that's why it's not a simple part. There's like a lot of stupid involved because it's ah a lot of fins and a lot of like funny geometry going on.
00:20:15
jamie peacock
And it really did a bang up job. Also, speaking of toolpath, 90 days for $90. So anyone looking to get toolpath, now's your time. Like sign up, it's a dollar a day for 90 days.
00:20:27
jamie peacock
Then it goes to regular pricing. um Also, when you do go to regular pricing, use the Loan Machinist affiliate code, please. um
00:20:34
Curt
Ooh.
00:20:34
jamie peacock
Yes, we have filter code with fancy like that. But yeah, the 90 days will get you in the door enough that it's actually working for you. um Because it took me a good month to get it dialed in with my tool libraries and reliable enough that I can confidently just send it stuff.
00:20:48
jamie peacock
Like even with the stuff I was finishing out year end, all the fixtures for the Dutchman squeeze box parts, all the clamps, furniture send it to toolpath, it comes back, and then all I was doing was adding my slitting saws in because it wasn't doing that correctly.
00:21:03
jamie peacock
So that that and backside chamfers I was having to add in manually, but I must have made like 100 parts in December through Toolpath.
00:21:10
Curt
Sick.
00:21:11
jamie peacock
Now, know it's really wicked.
00:21:12
Curt
Wow, that's...
00:21:13
jamie peacock
Like once you get it dialed in like why am I going to do, why am I going click on 107 things?
00:21:19
Curt
No, totally.
00:21:19
jamie peacock
Five or six different times for the different tool parts.
00:21:19
Curt
Yeah, totally.
00:21:22
jamie peacock
So yeah, very, very useful.
00:21:26
Curt
I was going to tell everybody just to input the code JAMIESHILL just so that it's fun, but I didn't even know we had a promo code.
00:21:31
jamie peacock
No, I don't think that is actually, we actually have a legitimate promo code.
00:21:32
Curt
Look at us!
00:21:35
jamie peacock
I don't think it's Jamie Schill.
00:21:37
Curt
Don't look at that one. Yeah, there we'll we'll link it in the in the comments of this episode if you want it.
00:21:38
jamie peacock
Yeah. It's in all the old ones as well, but yeah, go check it on the comments if you're interested. Please give it a try. It's really good. Like, it's not just plug and play. It's going to take some effort on your part, but worth the effort.
00:21:51
jamie peacock
Like, I think I'd signed up before I had an onboarding call the following day.
00:21:53
Curt
awesome.
00:21:56
jamie peacock
I had already programmed a part when I did the onboarding call. Ben was like, oh, so you've actually done all this?
00:22:00
Curt
Nice, nice.
00:22:01
jamie peacock
right I'm like, yeah, dude, it's not complicated. All my libraries have run through pre-tool already, so the naming convention is correct. And then it was a case of, okay, I prefer roughing with this tool.
00:22:08
Curt
Sure. Yeah.
00:22:10
jamie peacock
I prefer finishing with this tool, prioritizing all my tools in their tool management because they one of their goals is to use them for tool management, not Fusion. Because Fusion's library is a little bit stupid.
00:22:23
jamie peacock
Whereas they've if you use them as your master library, It's got a bunch of interesting features like, oh, I need a key seat cutter for this job. You're like, oh, okay, well, let me get it to recommend a tool. Oh, no, it's in your library already.
00:22:34
jamie peacock
You used it on that other job back then and loaded it in here, so you have it. its It's recommendation stuff is really good as well.
00:22:38
Curt
Yeah. Fair. Yeah, yeah.
00:22:41
jamie peacock
I haven't really used it because all the libraries for recommendation are from suppliers I can't get tools from. But it dude yeah, it's brilliant.
00:22:47
Curt
fair yeah
00:22:50
jamie peacock
like It gets you 80%, 90% of the way there depending on what you're doing. to a part like it has probably saved me in December like 20 or 30 hours of me just farty arsing around because I don't want to actually click a bunch of times because I will procrastinate 60 hours for me 60 hours a year for the average American it's like 12 to 20 hours a year that is going to save you with average American shop rates it's like it makes perfect sense
00:23:04
Curt
And how many hours did we say we had to save you? I forgot how many we had to save you to make it work. So we forget we're getting there. Yeah.
00:23:17
Curt
Yeah, totally.
00:23:20
Curt
Yeah.
00:23:21
jamie peacock
So yeah, that's my shilling for them. We'll shill the Patreons later on in the podcast. But yeah.
00:23:26
Curt
I'd say my my giant neon sign will probably be in next week, so it can be going... Yeah.
00:23:30
jamie peacock
Nice. Yeah, there we go.
00:23:32
Curt
but
00:23:33
jamie peacock
Nice. So um let me see what can i oh
00:23:35
Curt
Nice, man.
00:23:38
Curt
Yeah, let's... We should... It doesn't matter.
00:23:42
jamie peacock
I want to know about the mechanism.
00:23:43
Curt
Let's go with... Okay, so the click mechanism doesn't work.
00:23:46
jamie peacock
What happened?
00:23:47
Curt
Actually, if I was smart, I would have brought it over here. I printed it before I machined it because I was smart. And I was like, I'm not going to waste all my time machining this when I can print it. So I printed it. ah And then actually, that was the worst part.
00:23:59
Curt
I printed it and then I got sick. So it sat on my printer for like a week where I just couldn't get to it.
00:24:02
jamie peacock
Ah, yeah.
00:24:03
Curt
and I was like, I just want to know if you work and I feel like death. But anyways, yeah. assembled it, put it together. And there's like a bunch of ramps without like trying to describe it on the podcast. It's a bunch of ramps and pins that are sliding and my ramps are not rampy enough.
00:24:18
Curt
um And the way I had, I have to keep one part from rotating and I thought I could get smart by making Instead of a hole, I made it a hex, um which is which I thought was cool. But it's not a, how do I say this?
00:24:30
Curt
With the tool, like when you cut a hex with an end mill, you'll have rounded corners, obviously.
00:24:33
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:24:34
Curt
um And there's just not enough of a flat face and flat face contact. So that soon as the hex part rotates slightly, it's basically a radius binding up against kind of like a ramping radius. If you think about it that way.
00:24:47
Curt
And it it bites. So it's biting in plastic. Will it bite in titanium? I don't know. um Will the ah titanium tolerances will be tighter? It might be okay. um I'm probably going to, I'm probably going to have machine one out of titanium just to see if it behaves, but the plastic one binds up and doesn't function.
00:25:03
Curt
If you, if you like forcibly like put torque on it as you're functioning, as you're trying to use it, it's way better, but like, that's not the point.
00:25:09
jamie peacock
then yeah, but you don't want to have to, you don't want to force people to do that.
00:25:12
Curt
No. Yeah. And I don't want to Well, and I'm going to make that part probably out of bronze and titanium so it slides
Designing New Mechanisms
00:25:19
Curt
better. But at the same time, if it's already if it's already biting in plastic, I know that's going to be a really high wear point.
00:25:24
Curt
So at what point will it fail?
00:25:24
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:25:26
Curt
I'm like, you're going click. It's not like like this is going to be clicked literally millions of times, probably tens of millions of times. So it's like you have to understand, like you have to play for that too. I tried to design everything to last like a hundred years. So if it's not going to last, you know, a few million cycles, it's pointless.
00:25:43
Curt
So I might.
00:25:43
jamie peacock
Sorry, I'm just making a note for the after show.
00:25:46
Curt
I might be slightly back to the drawing board with that, but ah not fully back to the drawing board. just I have another way to do it. It's just annoying. I didn't want to do it the other way because it's way fucking harder.
00:25:54
jamie peacock
Well, I have some suggestions that we can discuss in the after show that I have learned the somewhat hard way.
00:26:00
Curt
Sure, yeah.
00:26:02
jamie peacock
Okay, so it's not ah not coming out on the 1st of January then.
00:26:07
Curt
ah v No.
00:26:08
jamie peacock
yeah
00:26:09
Curt
And it's, I mean, I'll probably have some prototypes because i want I want to make it.
00:26:09
jamie peacock
Maybe next year.
00:26:13
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:26:13
Curt
The cool thing is I think I'm going to bring the new clip I designed. i think I'm going to bring that over to the bolt action pens anyways. Because some people have actually said they prefer bolt action just for the fidget factor.
00:26:22
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yeah.
00:26:23
Curt
um And the new clip is hot. I just have to figure out how the hell I'm going to machine it. I've been trying, ah setting up Fusion being like, okay, this is perfect. And now I have nothing to hang on to and i have to do op three or whatever. it's just like,
00:26:33
jamie peacock
yeah
00:26:34
Curt
but I got stupid with curves and nothing is ah yeah anyways yeah yeah right hot I saw that I saw the little picture of it that looks cute
00:26:37
jamie peacock
Designing workflows is always a challenge. I thoroughly enjoy it, but it it is always a challenge. Like, ah yeah, I spent a lot of time in the car, like 26 hours in a car.
00:26:48
jamie peacock
So I had a lot of time to think through some mechanical things that I'm working on um because I'm working on a mechanical version of the anchor point.
00:27:00
jamie peacock
Yes. Yeah. So ah on my drive back, I came up with three solutions for the problem. think I'm just going to go with one of the three. the I wouldn't say the easiest to execute on, but the simplest, getting something simple that functions is not always the easiest thing.
00:27:17
jamie peacock
And I think I have a solution.
00:27:18
Curt
Oh,
00:27:18
jamie peacock
I've got it all modeled up. I have two spare blocks of material from this batch of anchor points that i'm busy with. The OP2 machining on the anchor point bodies is identical between the mechanical and the pneumatic.
00:27:30
jamie peacock
The OP1 is different, and the OP3 is different.
00:27:31
Curt
ah cool.
00:27:34
Curt
Oh, interesting. Okay. Okay.
00:27:35
jamie peacock
So, external appearance, the only difference is the airport versus the M16 grub screw, and the bottoms are different, and obviously the mechanics are different.
00:27:44
Curt
is it Is it shorter or is it
00:27:45
jamie peacock
Exactly the same art. Nope.
00:27:47
Curt
Okay, it looks shorter in the video, but it probably is just his perspective.
00:27:50
jamie peacock
Yeah, no, no. It is exactly the same. You can bar one and swap in a different one kind of story. I don't actually have the space to make it any shorter.
00:28:00
Curt
because you have springs and all that stuff inside.
00:28:00
jamie peacock
Yeah. while Well, there is a single spring in the um in the mechanical, and that's to release it, to push the gripper up.
00:28:01
Curt
Yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah.
00:28:09
jamie peacock
Same gripper mechanism, just different shape, and then two inclined planes that ram each other.
00:28:10
Curt
Ah.
00:28:15
jamie peacock
So I ordered a load cell so that I can validate how much force an anchor point actually has as hold-down force, because I haven't actually validated that. so I'm going to make a jig to hold the load cell because I'm curious.
00:28:25
Curt
ah Okay.
00:28:27
jamie peacock
um And then also to calculate the torque settings. for the mechanical anchor point because I get the distinct feeling we're talking like six, seven Newton meters. It's not a lot of torque because it kind screws all yeah all the maths involved.
00:28:38
Curt
Right. Yeah, totally. Yeah.
00:28:42
jamie peacock
So I wanted to be able to say, cool, six Newton meters equals a a pneumatic.
00:28:43
Curt
Yeah.
00:28:49
jamie peacock
12 Newton meters equals 2000 pounds.
00:28:52
Curt
Cool.
00:28:52
jamie peacock
Do not go beyond that.
00:28:53
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
00:28:54
jamie peacock
And then i'm going to take an impact driver.
00:28:54
Curt
Yeah.
00:28:56
jamie peacock
And I'm going to go in and out a thousand times to check for wear. Because worst case, I can put a stainless steel helicoil in.
00:29:01
Curt
Yeah.
00:29:05
Curt
Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:29:05
jamie peacock
for the yeah for the way for the threads. I don't think it's necessary. I'm actually thinking of buying threaded rod and blanking it off on the lathe and then turning the custom shaped screw I need into it because the threads are rolled on those, so they're not sharp.
00:29:20
jamie peacock
They've got quite a nice rounded profile.
00:29:21
Curt
Sure. Yeah.
00:29:23
jamie peacock
So I'm thinking of doing that because I've done that with m twenty threaded rod in the past for some jobs that I've done.
00:29:28
Curt
Yeah, that's not a half bad idea.
00:29:28
jamie peacock
But yeah, it's a super straightforward design. ah Either that I'm going to buy grub screws, one of the two, because then have to mill a hex. um But yeah, that's going to get flushed out over the next black month or so. I'm busy with batch three of Anchor Point.
00:29:41
jamie peacock
So that's that is scheduled to be done, like ready to pack and ship. The goal is next week when we record. I don't know if we're going hit that goal, but yeah, I'm going to start setting up the LK to just run bodies now because bodies are the last big item that needs to be done.
00:29:49
Curt
Nice.
00:29:56
jamie peacock
I need to grind pads and I need to finish the grippers. And that's it.
00:29:59
Curt
nice Nice.
00:30:00
jamie peacock
Batch three is ready to
Anchor Point Production Updates
00:30:01
Curt
That's awesome.
00:30:01
jamie peacock
choose.
00:30:01
jamie peacock
And then we also, for batch three, going to be doing... mooring point kits and harbor kits where you get slightly better pricing because you're buying more units. And if you buy a mooring point kit, it only comes with one set of pneumatics.
00:30:15
jamie peacock
The idea is you build up the plans for the mooring base are out there. um You buy two anchor point bodies, one pneumatic kit and some pull studs, you don't buy the blank pallets.
00:30:26
jamie peacock
So trying to make it cost effective for guys because we had um Matt from Blackwell Engineering with his eight units. i don't know if you saw he measured all eight units.
00:30:37
Curt
um No, I saw him put him on the table, but I didn't see him measure him. What was the results for that?
00:30:40
jamie peacock
He measured them. what do you What do you think the variation is on thickness?
00:30:43
Curt
Oh, dude, knowing you, tight, tight. up Holy Christ.
00:30:47
jamie peacock
Five microns.
00:30:50
Curt
Good job, dude.
00:30:51
jamie peacock
Turns out when you design your process...
00:30:51
Curt
That's way better than I would have thought.
00:30:53
jamie peacock
Dude, I told Al, I quoted him like half a vowel. um When you design your process to be as...
00:30:57
Curt
Yeah.
00:30:59
jamie peacock
like Yeah, that process is designed to give me the most accurate output with the equipment I have. And it shows like I was stoked that it was that because I don't have way to measure it.
00:31:06
Curt
That's awesome. That's awesome.
00:31:10
jamie peacock
Like I have no way to actually measure that.
00:31:11
Curt
Sure.
00:31:12
jamie peacock
Yeah. So when I saw those results, I was really, really like happy with with the results.
00:31:18
Curt
Oh, that's awesome, man. That's wicked.
00:31:21
jamie peacock
Yeah, no, dude. Yeah, way, way better than than I expected. Don't worry, red black on purpose.
00:31:27
Curt
Oh, OK. Ooh.
00:31:28
jamie peacock
I want to dox my lovely wife. She's bringing me more coffee. um Yeah, no, dude.
00:31:31
Curt
Oh, yeah, fair enough.
00:31:32
jamie peacock
I was like super ecstatic about that. And then with the mooring and... Oh, nice. With the mooring harbor kits, obviously the pricing is better. We're shipping them in bulk so we know what the duties are with the shipping costs, all that kind of stuff.
00:31:47
jamie peacock
It's less up in the air.
00:31:48
Curt
Yeah.
00:31:48
jamie peacock
It's more, okay, cool. This is what it costs to buy four units. Okay. um because yeah hopefully the goal for next year is to move a bunch of them but we'll discuss it in next week's episode because next week is going to be our probably our year in review and our um plans for 2026 episode
00:31:53
Curt
Sick.
00:32:06
Curt
Yeah, I think we're, yeah, that's going to be a good one.
00:32:08
jamie peacock
yeah i think yeah i think we do and yeah uh don't if you saw that i've got a new tufnel workflow
00:32:09
Curt
I think we both have some pretty lofty plans for
00:32:19
Curt
don't know. I know you were, I saw you cursing the the filter.
00:32:20
jamie peacock
So when when did we speak? Did we speak um after I finished the Tafnel last time? I don't think so. i think I was still working on it.
00:32:29
Curt
It's hard to tell because I watch your stories and I kind of forget where we talk and where your stories end.
00:32:31
jamie peacock
Yeah. Okay. Well, let's assume that I hadn't finished it.
Efficient Machining Workflows
00:32:36
jamie peacock
So that is a, generally speaking, four-day job.
00:32:40
jamie peacock
I did it in two. By one o'clock in the afternoon, the day I finished, my machine had run for 11 hours already.
00:32:40
Curt
OK, yeah, yeah.
00:32:42
Curt
How?
00:32:47
Curt
Holy Christ, that's lot.
00:32:48
jamie peacock
I went to bed at 1am, the machine ran till 3, shut down, I woke up at 5 and loaded the next plate.
00:32:49
Curt
Nice.
00:32:55
Curt
yes
00:32:55
jamie peacock
Like, ah yeah, I cranked that shit out.
00:32:56
Curt
hu
00:32:58
jamie peacock
um they are They are saying six use six sets next year is what they want to do.
00:33:04
Curt
Wow, OK.
00:33:05
jamie peacock
I have a workflow for dealing with shavings now. It's called phone the skip guy and say, put a skip in my driveway, bro. And I'm just throwing the shavings straight in the skip because I i make more shavings than I can put in my two wheelie bins when I run the full job.
00:33:20
Curt
Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fair, fair, fair.
00:33:21
jamie peacock
Yeah, we make a shitload shavings. But yeah, that went actually pretty uneventfully running that job.
00:33:23
Curt
And then you just...
00:33:27
Curt
And then just swap coolant at the end?
00:33:29
jamie peacock
Yeah, so then ah my coolant goes from 7% when I start to 1.5% by the time I'm done in two days.
00:33:30
Curt
Yeah.
00:33:36
Curt
Yikes. Yikes.
00:33:37
jamie peacock
And then it gets, as soon as the job's done, filters out, pump everything out, wash the machine down, fresh coolant. It's part of the cost of the job now. Like, is what it is.
00:33:46
Curt
Makes sense. Yeah.
00:33:47
jamie peacock
And then I get fresh coolant every, I think it's going to be every, like, two months next year.
00:33:48
Curt
Yeah.
00:33:52
jamie peacock
I might actually just buy buy some plastic drums, pump my good coolant out, pump the old coolant in, run the duct, bring it up to seven, run it, pump it out again. i don't know. I'll see how I feel win it when it comes around.
00:34:05
Curt
I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:34:05
jamie peacock
But yeah, that's so now the vacuum chuck is anchor point compatible.
00:34:06
Curt
I get that.
00:34:09
jamie peacock
So just I'll put a riser on one end of the table, and it drops into the harbor, and that's it. It's in and done, ready to go. it Yeah, it's beautiful.
00:34:16
Curt
Cool.
00:34:16
jamie peacock
like ah so the first set of parts i made for them because last year we did batch we did the rears then we did the fronts then we did the mids and when we went to the second batch we tweaked some stuff and i never went back and updated the models or updated the programs so they went out and they were tight fit they're like oh can you loosen them like yeah no way send them back figured out where they went on my fixture remachined the ends quickly took me all of an hour to set up run and break down again and those ah they are they're sitting in my house at the moment when they open on the fit they'll go back to them
00:34:32
Curt
Mm.
00:34:43
Curt
Nice.
00:34:47
Curt
Nice. Nice.
00:34:48
jamie peacock
But yeah, that that's going to be an ongoing thing. They want material certificates, all sorts of fun stuff. Because the material for these was two different colors, which is a little concerning. It also machined very differently. So now they want a traceable from next year. So then I'm going to be being like hey, guys, material material certificates, please. I need to know that they same material.
00:35:08
jamie peacock
um But yeah, that the triple redundant sister tools works like a bomb.
00:35:08
Curt
Right, yeah.
00:35:13
Curt
Sick. Cool. Cool.
00:35:15
jamie peacock
Yeah, because ah my tool set is off the machine.
00:35:15
Curt
if had
00:35:17
jamie peacock
So I touch off three of every tool. So it's, what it? 80, 82, 182, 282, and then 402, 412, and 422 are the sets of tools.
00:35:31
jamie peacock
And then if I fuck it up, I just go renumber the tool and repost.
00:35:35
jamie peacock
And I just, yeah, so I pre-touch everything off and then go.
00:35:35
Curt
Nice.
00:35:35
Curt
Nice.
00:35:37
jamie peacock
Like, it it works really well. And then I just put the fourth back the machine because, yay, fourth axis.
00:35:40
Curt
That's awesome.
00:35:42
jamie peacock
Because that has to come out for the tough novel.
00:35:45
Curt
Yeah.
00:35:45
jamie peacock
But yeah, the fourth is actually getting integrated in the process of integrating the fourth with the controller.
00:35:46
Curt
Yeah.
Engineering Support for CNC Machines
00:35:54
jamie peacock
So I wrote the i wrote some programs called Index and I made some park programs because when the like ki off when I want to Index, I want to know the machine is out of the way.
00:36:09
jamie peacock
So i wrote i wrote three programs.
00:36:10
Curt
Right.
00:36:11
jamie peacock
I've got Z Park, where just all the way home, then it'll rotate, or X. So what was I doing? was doing something, oh, the Dutchman squeeze box buttons.
00:36:24
jamie peacock
I wrote another one that is just called park that brings the machine up and forward that I can then turn i turn spindle off, turn coolant off up to a park position. Turn the part around, hit go, and it carries on.
00:36:36
jamie peacock
And then I made the index one. The index one will bring the Z up, trigger the index pulse, wait three seconds, and then continue machining.
00:36:43
jamie peacock
And the index pulse is just just my chip conveyor output because that's the one I know how to get access to.
00:36:43
Curt
Nice, nice, nice, nice.
00:36:44
Curt
Yeah, yeah.
00:36:49
jamie peacock
So that will get yeah that'll get integrated. I was looking at buying a single-axis controller from the China lands, which you can program to say first rotation is... 30 degrees, then 60 degrees, then 12 degrees, like whatever you want. And then every time it triggers, it indexes through your program.
00:36:49
Curt
Yeah, no, it works.
00:37:06
jamie peacock
But generally speaking, I don't need that because the way I wrote the index program, if I need, so like I was doing a job, the first, it starts at zero, goes to 180, then goes to 270. So I can do all that with a 90 degree increment. So the way I wrote the program is just say index, index.
00:37:22
jamie peacock
It'll go up, index 90 degrees, index 90 degrees, and then carry on the program.
00:37:28
Curt
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:28
jamie peacock
So yeah, a bit bodgy, but it will work.
00:37:32
Curt
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
00:37:33
jamie peacock
It would be nice to just say A180, but it is what it is.
00:37:38
Curt
Yeah. We'll run it until you run into the limitations where it doesn't work anymore or like where you have to get better.
00:37:42
jamie peacock
Exactly.
00:37:44
jamie peacock
Where i have to go the proper route. But yeah, speaking of ah tool orientation, um again, try to remember when last we spoke.
00:37:44
Curt
Yeah.
00:37:47
Curt
totally Yeah.
00:37:53
jamie peacock
I've been doing apps engineering. I spent two full days in Hearty's.
00:37:57
Curt
Okay.
00:37:58
jamie peacock
Hearty's is a one a half hour drive from me. So they got billed for six hours of driving and 24 hours on site.
00:38:04
Curt
Ugh.
00:38:05
jamie peacock
So 12 hours on site.
00:38:05
Curt
Ugh.
00:38:06
jamie peacock
No, sorry, eight hours on site, 16 hours. Eight hours on site trying to get this stupid SCM machine to run properly, helping their programmer get up to speed with programming 5-axis. Because I'm an expert, having never programmed 5-axis before.
00:38:21
jamie peacock
Literally, know I'm like, yeah, sure, it'll be fine. Pitched up and learned how to program 5-axis. um Yeah, getting a 5-axis tool part really easy. Getting a good one is not.
00:38:21
Curt
ah
00:38:32
jamie peacock
So there was a smoothing setting on the machine.
00:38:33
Curt
Okay, fair.
00:38:33
Curt
Yeah, sounds was right.
00:38:36
jamie peacock
So I spent a full day there, getting the one process dialed. We're running wood, so it's burning end mills if it goes slowly. Like it wants to go 12 meters a minute, and we're doing like 100 mils a minute because it's trying to hit every freaking point.
00:38:49
Curt
Right, yeah.
00:38:49
jamie peacock
So on day two, eventually, there should be some smoothing setting. I can't find any settings for it in the in the post process because custom post. So i was poking around in there. Ended up getting on a call with the guys like, oh, no, it's this setting. Yes, I click on the screen, touch screen, change the setting.
00:39:04
jamie peacock
when The part went from taking an hour and a half to run to taking 30 minutes to run just because the smoothing was allowing it to actually move.
00:39:09
Curt
Nice.
00:39:11
jamie peacock
And doing swarfs and all sorts of fun shit.
00:39:11
Curt
Right.
00:39:13
jamie peacock
um Yeah, they they were stressing. They bought this machine. they hat They weren't running production a month into having it. their guy who programs, it's the only time I've sat down next to someone running Fusion and not wanted to pull my hair out.
00:39:19
Curt
oh
00:39:26
jamie peacock
He's that good.
00:39:27
Curt
Oh, yeah. Nice. That's awesome.
00:39:28
jamie peacock
He's a fucking wizard. He's almost as good as me.
00:39:32
Curt
ah
00:39:32
jamie peacock
No, like, it is I actually picked up a bunch of tricks from him. It's the first time I've sat down next to someone using Fusion and not wanted to rip my bloody hair out. yeah Just as quick as I am, like, it was freaking great.
00:39:43
jamie peacock
And then it was just a case of figuring out what the machine wants, tool orientation was, which way the axes need to point when you do the little modified work coordinates. And that had one like there was a whole bunch of just stupid things that we had to figure out to make the machine happy.
00:39:56
jamie peacock
Once the machine was happy, not a problem But yeah, figuring all that shit out, not super easy.
00:40:00
Curt
Sick.
00:40:02
jamie peacock
But very cool machine, like tilty head machine. um Clearance is an issue because, well, there's fucking head tilting. So we rammed a piece of wood at one stage because of the way they had parts. And then it's like a relay. lucky It's not going to break anything. like It knocks it off the vacuum chuck.
00:40:17
jamie peacock
um So like you hear it starting to hit the tool holders. I'm like okay, you need to update your tool holders so we can get proper stimulation. So got them to update everything to give us correct simulations. And it's all these small things. And then I was bored while i was there waiting for a piece of wood because they hadn't laminated the wood together for us yet.
00:40:33
jamie peacock
So I fixed the other CNC machine because i was bored.
00:40:36
Curt
Nice.
00:40:36
jamie peacock
They're having communication issues. So I can go there, ignore this thing they'll run for like two minutes and then it'll just throw a communication error. So I go look at the error. I'm like, okay, it's CAN bus error, not a problem. Let me go vocal all the cables.
00:40:48
jamie peacock
The machine runs CAN bus, PROFIBUS and what's it? Motion link. Three different protocols. Oh, and Ethernet for shits and giggles on one machine.
00:40:58
jamie peacock
So I opened the cabinet and I wiggled all the cables. Problem went away. Literally had a dry joint on one of the communication cables on the CAN bus side. Wiggled it loose, that got a good connection again, and the machine's been running since.
00:41:13
Curt
that's That's the best error.
00:41:14
jamie peacock
Bad job.
00:41:15
Curt
It's just mechanical.
00:41:16
jamie peacock
Oh, no, that that is the worst kind of thing to try and troubleshoot. um
00:41:20
Curt
Yeah.
00:41:20
jamie peacock
But, yeah, got that sorted for them, and now they want to kind of have me there on a semi-permanent contact contracting basis.
00:41:27
jamie peacock
Yeah. It's just a little bit too far. I don't want to drive an hour and a half there, like, once a week or once every two weeks. Because ya that can't, although it's for the money, i'm going it's fine.
00:41:36
Curt
I get that. I get that.
00:41:40
jamie peacock
I don't mind. Like i was billing them reasonably well.
00:41:42
Curt
Yeah.
00:41:43
jamie peacock
The problem is if I'm running two machines back here, I'm effectively losing my hourly rate every hour that I'm there because I could be running multiple machines here.
00:41:50
Curt
Right, yeah.
00:41:51
jamie peacock
So it's a bit of a tricky one to deal with, but yeah, I'm an apps engineer apparently.
00:41:57
Curt
Tough guy. Tough guy.
00:41:58
jamie peacock
no
00:41:59
Curt
Well, if you're...
00:42:00
jamie peacock
I went in Zapatini style.
00:42:01
Curt
Yeah.
00:42:01
jamie peacock
White guy's confidence until you know what you're doing.
00:42:05
Curt
Actually, I was...
00:42:06
jamie peacock
And that's a compliment in case he's wondering.
00:42:09
Curt
I was that podcast. I, they mentioned something, uh, like, is your customer, uh, brokers, your customer cheap. I thought that was really cool. I was like, Oh, that's a good, it's a good way to put it.
00:42:17
jamie peacock
And is that there their newest episode? Okay, I haven't, I'm actually behind on podcasts for the first time in a while.
00:42:19
Curt
I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was with him and zap.
00:42:24
jamie peacock
I didn't listen to anything while I was away.
00:42:24
Curt
Oh, tsk, tsk.
00:42:26
jamie peacock
So that is on my queue for tomorrow.
00:42:27
Curt
Yeah. It was, yeah, it was a cool breakdown of like, is your customer cheap or is your customer broke? And I was like, ooh, oh yeah, that makes sense.
00:42:32
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:42:33
Curt
Because yeah, like, are they just being cheap about it or are they just, do they not have the cash for Because that's two wildly different things.
00:42:34
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:42:38
Curt
i thought that was, thought that was a cool, yeah.
00:42:39
jamie peacock
Two very, like that's something I've worked on over the last year is figuring out what my customers will tolerate as the price and charging exactly the most I can because, sorry, I'm not leaving money on the table.
00:42:46
Curt
Yeah.
00:42:49
Curt
Yeah.
00:42:50
jamie peacock
Like, yeah, if you're poor and you're starting out, going to get a much better rate from me. But if you're a big conglomerate of the fancy office, you best bend over, sir, and bring your own lube.
00:42:58
Curt
Yeah.
00:43:01
jamie peacock
Because and I'm not going to be gentle. Like, yeah. I mean, like, Carl, Carl's machine. that I didn't charge him for that retrofit.
00:43:07
Curt
Yeah.
00:43:08
jamie peacock
He's my fucking can cousin's fiancé. Like, I don't mind helping him out. He's trying to get his shit together. um But, yeah, you want me to come to Saate?
00:43:13
Curt
Yeah.
00:43:16
jamie peacock
I get in my truck and the clock starts running.
00:43:19
Curt
Yeah, that makes sense.
Value of Engineering Time
00:43:20
jamie peacock
And, sorry, my time has value. And over the last year, especially, like, a lot more than in the past.
00:43:20
Curt
mean, you wouldn't expect like, yeah.
00:43:24
Curt
Yep. Yep.
00:43:28
jamie peacock
Because that's the thing, when you're starting out, you have more, more time than money.
00:43:29
Curt
No, totally.
00:43:32
jamie peacock
And as time goes on, you have less time and hopefully more money. If you're doing it right.
00:43:39
Curt
Exactly. That's the goal.
00:43:40
jamie peacock
We're working on that.
00:43:41
Curt
Yeah, exactly.
00:43:41
jamie peacock
But still, that is the goal.
00:43:42
Curt
us That's, that's the sticky part. Yeah. Yeah.
00:43:45
jamie peacock
Yeah, that's the Yeah.
00:43:45
Curt
i was Speaking of, speaking of cash and whatever.
YouTube Content Creation
00:43:50
Curt
So yeah, I'm a, I'm a sellout now, a YouTube sellout.
00:43:53
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:43:53
Curt
So I, I finally got, well, I contract contractually. um I had to shoot a video for the little laser scanner that I got i actually have to shoot a few more short videos for it.
00:44:04
Curt
ah But that's a, Kind of fun because I want one anyways. um I mean, when you average it out now, I've probably spent more time and hours on that thing than I would have just spent cash-wise.
00:44:08
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:44:14
Curt
But besides the point, um I've also already signed another contract with another company because... Uh-oh! Why did my camera die?
00:44:22
jamie peacock
Oh, because you froze. So I turned it off. Turn it back on.
00:44:25
Curt
Oh, okay.
00:44:26
jamie peacock
Technical issues. Yeah, you've been frozen for a while. I thought i could turn it back on, but I can't.
00:44:29
Curt
Oh, okay.
00:44:29
jamie peacock
There we go.
00:44:30
jamie peacock
Fixed.
00:44:30
Curt
Can you see me now?
00:44:30
Curt
Are we back?
00:44:31
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:44:31
Curt
Okay.
00:44:31
jamie peacock
Yes, you're back.
00:44:32
Curt
Sorry, folks.
00:44:32
jamie peacock
This is a banger episode.
00:44:32
Curt
That... that
00:44:33
jamie peacock
Yeah,
00:44:34
Curt
99% of people that are listening don't care. They're like, carry on.
00:44:37
jamie peacock
yeah exactly.
00:44:37
Curt
Anyways, so yeah, I'm a sellout. um ah But that's been that's been a lot of fun. pissing on that thing Now I actually have uses for it, so it is a nice thing to have.
00:44:45
jamie peacock
Dude, that video was really interesting. We scanned your machine and compared the two.
00:44:50
Curt
Oh, thanks, man. Yeah, it's on YouTube if you've folks want watch.
00:44:51
jamie peacock
Having just done that, it's really, really interesting because I just did that to get the position of the anchor points in my machine to be accurate and cap.
00:44:59
Curt
Yeah.
00:45:00
jamie peacock
I just had to go through that process of trying to figure out how to do it.
00:45:02
Curt
Yeah, like I... when I was trying to find an application for the scanner, that's what thought. like, why don't I scan my machine and see how to compare some my simulation? Cause I have no real way aside of probing every single point on my machine, but like, like, let's just try this to see.
00:45:10
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:45:15
Curt
And I was dead on, like, which is kind of nice knowing that my machines sim is like perfect to the real world, which is kind of cool, which is going to come in handy in the 2026, but we'll talk about that next plans for 2026.
00:45:17
jamie peacock
Yeah, it was nuts. Yeah.
00:45:22
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:45:27
jamie peacock
Next episode.
00:45:27
Curt
Yeah. yeah Where things will be more important and things are going to get cozy on my machine. I think, um, But yeah, so ah yeah, that was that was fun being a captain influencer. And one thing it did lead me to but ah remember is shooting video is just so much goddamn fun. Like I forgot how fun it is just to shoot YouTube videos. I haven't done a YouTube video in like seven months.
00:45:46
Curt
ah
00:45:47
jamie peacock
Oh, geez, okay.
00:45:47
Curt
And i I legitimately like it. Like, that's part of why I was doing so many is because, like, I love shooting. Even if nobody watched it, just the the fact of, like, building a story, editing it, and then, like, putting it out in the world, to me, that, like, it scratches itches.
00:46:03
Curt
So, yeah, I got a def...
00:46:03
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:46:05
Curt
Oh, fuck. I spilled water. Hold on, folks. Technical issues.
00:46:08
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:46:08
Curt
i got one I got paper towel right here.
00:46:09
jamie peacock
This is quite ins insane.
00:46:10
Curt
We're good. It's
00:46:10
jamie peacock
I'm going to pause while he fixes his mess.
00:46:14
Curt
just...
00:46:14
jamie peacock
Again, that Kurt's all moist because we're talking about ah machines. a
00:46:18
Curt
Moisture than an oyster.
00:46:20
jamie peacock
You're moister than oyster. So yeah you say you've got plans to get your a machine very ah very full next year.
00:46:22
Curt
the
00:46:27
Curt
Yeah, i was ah I'm playing around with your anchor points because I'm so...
00:46:30
jamie peacock
Ooh.
00:46:31
Curt
and Which, this topic ties into a million things. even if I'll time for it, but like I need to... With the new pocket clips be making, I'm going to be using way more machine time with some of the pen projects I have coming up. I'm using way more machine time. I need faster ways to swap it, which all points in one big direction, which is to anchor point or to a zero point. But I'm probably going to go with Jamie's system because it'd be pretty dickish if I didn't. um yeah no we're not going to do that um so anyways just yeah the machine is going to get cozy i think i'm going to build a big riser for the fourth so i can like squeak it off because i can gain a few inches and in my land well in every aspect of life a few inches makes a huge difference uh so being able to move the fourth just a couple inches over will give me so much more room and we'll see how many anchor points i can squeeze in there
00:46:58
jamie peacock
It would be hilarious, but yeah.
00:47:09
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yes.
00:47:21
jamie peacock
That's what I did. I shifted mine over a bit.
00:47:24
Curt
Yeah, i can I can hang it a little bit off the edge. Not a ton, but enough where it's not running into the enclosure. So give me a little more real estate to machine and see how many.
00:47:30
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:47:32
Curt
See, I know I can fit two anchor points for sure. um Just debating if like if I can go up to four.
00:47:37
jamie peacock
I'll have a look at your model. We'll see. I think we can fit four.
00:47:40
Curt
We can go up to four because kind of have this weird plan of what... I mean, A, to be able to swap more pallets, get way more production speed out of it.
00:47:45
jamie peacock
Ooh.
00:47:48
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:47:50
Curt
Four would be a six swap. Four would also be nice for a big plate so I can do just flat work.
00:47:54
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:47:55
Curt
Be nice to have the added power of two more.
00:47:55
jamie peacock
That's...
00:47:58
jamie peacock
That's what I've got. I've got a vacuum chuck for mine that spans all four. That's great.
00:47:58
Curt
That's kind of why I'm thinking it.
00:48:03
Curt
even if i like Even if the last two were kind of just right the limit of the machine envelope, at least it would let me gain a bit more rigidity as opposed to trying to machine on kind of a single point, teeter-totter kind of deal.
00:48:08
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:48:12
jamie peacock
Yeah. No, 100%. Yeah. yeah No, no, 100%.
00:48:15
Curt
So anyways, pissed around with that.
00:48:17
jamie peacock
Hmm, we will have to have a look at your CAD model, model maybe in the after show, for our fancy Patreons. So, all the Patreons get access to the after show, where Kurtz and I discuss super-secret things, like putting harbors on a machine that was never intended to have harbors on it.
00:48:32
jamie peacock
Um...
00:48:33
Curt
Ooh.
00:48:33
jamie peacock
Yeah, so we discussed that on off show and all Patreons get that on all the different tiers, all the paid tiers. They also get exclusive voting rights to name machines when I buy new machines because ah apparently I don't like myself. um But there's the top tier of Patreons and they get a special shout out every episode for being at the well top tier. That's part of their perks. And those guys consist of Jade from Benchmark 20, Luke from Fabtastic, AJ from Subtract Manufacturing and 28 other companies, EJ from Nocturnal Welding, Jason S, the Aussie Machinist,
00:49:03
jamie peacock
Christian Olsen, Charles Watt, Kyle from Cursed Machine, Matt from Offworld Gear, and Alex B. And you guys are making it so that we can afford to kidnap Kurt and bring him to IMTS next year, and also not stay on the street while we're at IMTS next year, which...
00:49:15
jamie peacock
would be a great because the Airbnb I stayed in last time, eh, a little bit in sketchful, but mean, from South Africa, meh, I wasn't two-faced, but we're going to stay somewhere nice this time that we can either steal a ride from one of the hotel buses or just get on the three bus and drive straight to IMTS.
00:49:34
jamie peacock
And if anyone's going to IMTS, don't rent a car. The parking's ridiculous. Just use the buses. It's like $20 for the week for a Vetro Pass. It's the way to go. Anyway, thank you, Patreons. Link in the doobly-doo if you want to join our Patreon and help make the wheels on the bus go round and round.
00:49:49
jamie peacock
was listening to our canned episode, and we were a bus and then a train, and yeah.
00:49:50
Curt
Yeah.
00:49:53
jamie peacock
It was great fun.
00:49:53
Curt
Well, thanks for all the page. We have like a lot of Patreons now. know That's kind of cool.
00:49:56
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:49:56
Curt
That's kind of freaky at the same time that people are, people are paying us to do this, which is trippy.
00:49:57
jamie peacock
Got a bunch. Yeah.
00:50:00
Curt
So I thank you. Thank you all. And Merry Christmas.
00:50:01
jamie peacock
Yes, thank you all.
00:50:02
Curt
Happy new year. All that jazz.
Train Museum Visit: Engineering Marvels
00:50:04
jamie peacock
Speaking of trains, Kurt, did you see our own train?
00:50:06
Curt
isn You own a train.
00:50:10
jamie peacock
Well, did you see the peacock on the side of a train?
00:50:13
jamie peacock
So yes, dude, went to the train museum.
00:50:13
Curt
I did see that.
00:50:14
Curt
Yes. I forgot to mention that. Yes.
00:50:17
jamie peacock
was super like, dude, as a nerd, enjoy trains. um
00:50:23
Curt
who
00:50:23
jamie peacock
No, like really, really interesting. They got plaques on what models are. on The one train was decommissioned in 1909. It had run its lifespan by 1909. Like the mind boggles.
00:50:34
Curt
so yeah yeah yeah that's it
00:50:34
jamie peacock
And you look at the manufacturing on these things and you're like, how is this machined? Like, that was a hundred and some years ago, and they were machining these pieces. Also, the size of a steam piston is really small for the amount of power it puts out. um And there was a company, something in Peacock, that brought in, ah i think, 12 or 16 logos.
00:50:52
jamie peacock
So they had Peacock on the side of them, which was kind of cool. And for those who don't know, my surname's Peacock.
00:50:55
Curt
was a it was ah It was a pretty train, too. That was a cool-looking. I was like, ooh, I like that area, that era, like steam engines.
00:51:00
jamie peacock
Hmm. Bloody hell. that They had a whole bunch of steam engines with like that. wouldn't say one of every model, but a lot of different models. And then a little write up when they were bought and how many were bought and what their local numbers were, where they were used in South Africa, because some of them were landed in Cape Town and taken up to Kharteng, where I am in the middle of bloody country on ox wagons and then assembled here and run on the railways here.
00:51:10
Curt
Yeah.
00:51:26
Curt
Holy man.
00:51:26
jamie peacock
There was also some that some of the diesels that had special bogeys made to run on our 610 millimeter rail gauge, because everyone else uses one meter rail gauge.
00:51:27
Curt
That's nuts.
00:51:38
jamie peacock
So like really interesting.
00:51:39
Curt
Oh,
00:51:40
jamie peacock
And then they had cross sections of all the rails, which was mind blowing, all the different sizes, different shapes, some were hoops, like that shape, not like, yeah, for running over bridges.
00:51:48
Curt
ah really? How?
00:51:52
jamie peacock
So yeah, I do, I nerded out properly.
00:51:55
Curt
Oh, I could, I could, yeah, I could fall deep down that rabbit hole. That sounds cool.
00:51:58
jamie peacock
It was a lot of fun. So yeah, we had gone to a strawberry farm and was raining. And then um we were going to tea at my grandparents. But they're like, no, come around three. And it was like two o'clock. So we're like, it's go the Transport Museum quickly because it's cool. So we went there. And yeah, it was free because it's December. So they had free entry there.
00:52:14
jamie peacock
And yeah, walked around there for like an hour and a half and then went to have tea with my grandparents.
00:52:19
Curt
Oh, that's cool. That's cool. Yeah, I like i like trains.
00:52:20
jamie peacock
Hmm. dude, it was your trains are awesome.
00:52:22
Curt
Everyone likes trains. but
00:52:24
jamie peacock
I do just the engineering that we've sent to those is just insane.
00:52:25
Curt
Trains are awesome.
00:52:27
jamie peacock
Like the manufacturing is just it's nuts.
00:52:28
Curt
Absolutely.
00:52:29
jamie peacock
And that's 120 years ago. it is insane.
00:52:33
Curt
I have a a guilty pleasure of, oh, I should find the author. He writes all these books. I think it's a Japanese guy, and he does steam engines, like LiveSteam, and they're books.
00:52:43
jamie peacock
Yes, models.
00:52:45
Curt
ah Yeah, they're like, and you machine all the parts. Oh my, they're so pretty.
00:52:48
jamie peacock
BlondieHacks follows the one.
00:52:48
Curt
The books are rather, it's yes, yes.
00:52:50
jamie peacock
Yeah. I know the guy you're talking about. Yes.
00:52:53
Curt
I have two two of his books on my wish list. of just I would just literally buy them and read them. um and I mean, it makes me really much fun to build one, but oh, they're so cool.
00:52:57
jamie peacock
And read them. Yeah. Also, the techniques, dude.
00:53:02
Curt
I'll link in the show. I'll i'll find it in a link in the show notes for all the trained dorks because it's 90% of you, so.
00:53:06
jamie peacock
Yeah. Well, even for the machining dorks, the techniques he talks about in there are really interesting. So like Blondie is following the book and some of the technique techniques these guys come up with for milling parts, but you don't have a mill, so you're doing it on your lathe.
00:53:12
Curt
Absolutely.
00:53:21
jamie peacock
And like really clever workarounds, like instead of cutting the part out, use round instead of
00:53:21
Curt
Yes.
00:53:26
jamie peacock
plate or use plate and hold it like this then like this then like this and then cut the piece out like just as workflow is insane like yeah really really uh interesting
00:53:33
Curt
Yeah.
00:53:36
Curt
I, yeah I think the gentleman's name is, uh, forgive me if I mispronounce it Kozo Hira, Hiraoka, Hiraoka.
00:53:43
jamie peacock
yes yeah that that is the dude yeah yeah he's got a bunch of books
00:53:46
Curt
ah Anyways, if you Google that, KOZO train, you'll probably pull him up. And he has just insane. but And the drawing the drawings are beautiful. like And his photograph, like his he describes all the ways you machine it.
00:54:01
Curt
just And the the models he have are just, they're beautiful. And they're all like manually machined and like high accuracy parts.
00:54:04
jamie peacock
They're inside.
00:54:09
Curt
Really, really nice looking stuff. um Yeah, he's got a ton ton of books.
00:54:11
jamie peacock
Yeah, that is.
00:54:13
Curt
i want the I think Building the New Shea is the one I want.
00:54:17
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:54:17
Curt
Anyways, there's a...
00:54:18
jamie peacock
Because yeah I follow Blondie Hacks.
00:54:18
Curt
Yeah, anyways, I'm...
00:54:19
jamie peacock
I don't watch when she makes the steam engines that much. um I prefer when she like makes tools and things. But that used to be part of my Saturday night ritual was Blondie Hacks.
00:54:25
Curt
Sure.
00:54:29
jamie peacock
A bunch of people used to drop videos on a Saturday night. And Danica even used to watch them with me, the machining videos.
00:54:33
Curt
Yeah.
00:54:35
jamie peacock
Because it's it's kind of interesting to watch people machine things.
00:54:39
Curt
Totally. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
00:54:40
jamie peacock
Yeah, so ah yeah I thoroughly enjoy Blondie Hacks. The stuff she does with the tools she has is quite impressive.
00:54:44
Curt
Yeah.
00:54:46
Curt
Mm-hmm. Totally, yeah, I love that stuff.
00:54:49
jamie peacock
So, ooh, ooh, okay, you've added things since we started.
00:54:50
Curt
Let's see. Ooh.
00:54:54
jamie peacock
But yeah, tell us about your Bitcoin lotto.
00:54:55
Curt
Yeah. So that was a gift my wife got.
00:54:59
jamie peacock
ah saw your story.
00:55:00
Curt
Oh, it's fun. So I've always been i've been into Bitcoin mining for like ever. I had an old ant miner way back in the Dizze, which doesn't do anything nowadays. um But I didn't want to buy ah brand new miner because they're a lot of cash and a lot of power.
00:55:14
Curt
So my wife got me something called a Bitaxe, which is just one of the little ACE or like AASIC application specific chips for mining Bitcoin.
00:55:22
jamie peacock
ah six Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
00:55:23
Curt
Yeah. um So they have like one of them on a little like breakout PCB and little screen. And all it does is it just, you can, you can put it into like a pool to mine Bitcoin and make like a fraction of a penny a day on this because it's just it's like 18 watts but what i have it set up to do is it sits on my desk and it looks kind of cool and uh i have it set up for solo mining so it's just it's trying to mine its own bitcoin and it's like it's woefully underpowered but like you have basically a lottery chance of mining your own bitcoin block which is right now 3.125 or whatever uh bitcoin if you if you crack the block and
Bitcoin Mining Hobby
00:55:58
Curt
oh lost connection reconnected okay we're this episode is full of technical issues um
00:56:02
jamie peacock
It's gonna be a banger.
00:56:04
Curt
and Anyway, so yeah, now just I have this cool little piece of tech that just sits on my deck my desk and just mines that whatever 1.4 tera hashes, ah slowly trying to work his way into a block. And maybe one day I'll come in here and I'll look at it and he'll say block found and I will be whatever $400,000 richer.
00:56:18
jamie peacock
Very happy.
00:56:19
Curt
ah Yeah, so it's ah it's my lottery ticket.
00:56:20
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:56:22
Curt
And they're literally called Lotto Miners if you want to look them up. So yeah, I'm I thought it was a dumb, super nerdy gift and I'm super, jet and I'm already, I've already modded it.
00:56:28
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:56:30
Curt
i've already put heat sinks on it and like do an overclock. And yeah, it's just like, ah it's just, I could get so deep into that little land of just, I'd have a fleet of them, but like, what's the point?
00:56:33
jamie peacock
As one does.
00:56:40
Curt
There's no point in doing that. It's just for funsies.
00:56:41
jamie peacock
Yeah, it's for fun, yeah.
00:56:41
Curt
Yeah. Yeah. Actually,
Solar Power for Workshop
00:56:44
Curt
I did. I did try because my processor on my PC is decently quick for and now with Bitcoin being so ah expensive again, um it's profitable to mine, but it's like ah it produces like a dollar a day because ASICs have just taken over.
00:56:52
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:56:57
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:56:57
Curt
um But yeah, for fun for funsies, I just ran my ran my PC for like it was like minus 30 here.
00:57:02
Curt
So I'm like, I'll use the extra heat. So I ran the GPU and the CPU just mining coin just for fun.
00:57:07
jamie peacock
Nice.
00:57:08
Curt
But yeah, so just Bitcoin stuff.
00:57:09
jamie peacock
Yeah, speaking of ah heating and cooling, I've come up with a stupid plan.
00:57:14
Curt
OK.
00:57:15
jamie peacock
So I have a three kilowatts inverter in my in my workshop that powers my lights and my PCs. So when our government decides such to switch the power off, that powers the house, like just the essentials.
00:57:28
jamie peacock
I want to put mini splits into the workshop, but I don't want to pay to run them.
00:57:32
Curt
okay
00:57:34
jamie peacock
So my thought was to buy these solar ones, which are about double the price. Then you've got to buy panels and a battery. It's got a built-in little MPPT it.
00:57:47
jamie peacock
And then i was like, hang on, I have an inverter.
00:57:47
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:57:49
jamie peacock
Why don't I just throw three or four panels on the roof just enough to power the... the aircon during the peak of the day. And then I can run the aircon in there for free effectively charge the battery up run it for run the battery down up and down every day like 50% and have free aircon.
00:58:06
jamie peacock
So i think I'm gonna go down that route for next year, because it gets but brutally hot in my workshop.
00:58:14
Curt
I'd be decent amount of solar because those things probably draw a few kilowatts at least.
00:58:17
jamie peacock
600 watts. 6 to 700 watts.
00:58:19
Curt
Oh, okay.
00:58:19
jamie peacock
Yeah, they're not they're not that much power.
00:58:20
Curt
Oh, tiny. Okay. okay
00:58:21
jamie peacock
yeah No, they're not that much power.
00:58:22
Curt
Okay.
00:58:23
jamie peacock
It's so it's a refrigerator with a fan. That's all it is.
00:58:26
Curt
Okay. Fair enough.
00:58:26
jamie peacock
It comes a lot over the month.
00:58:27
Curt
Yeah.
00:58:28
jamie peacock
It comes in, so the old maths put it at about a thousand rand a month to run an aircon, um which would put it at about $55 month in power.
00:58:35
Curt
Sure.
00:58:39
jamie peacock
um which in all reality, I have to be productive five minutes a day more than i am currently to offset that.
00:58:46
Curt
Right, right.
00:58:46
jamie peacock
Like it's negligible.
00:58:47
Curt
Right. Mm.
00:58:48
jamie peacock
um But yeah, I think I'm going to go the solar route because then also the power's off for prolonged periods of time, my inverter's getting charged up from the sun. And we have sun most days here. So I'm thinking of just just enough panels, just s like 1.2 kilowatts a panel somewhere around there, just four panels on the, four five panels on the roof and wire them in and then be sorted.
00:59:09
jamie peacock
So yeah, that's something for the new year. But yeah, I kind of want my workshop to be climate controlled. also had a thought because I was listening to our podcast and say, listen to myself say that I can't get furnace filters.
00:59:21
jamie peacock
And then I realized I've got a filter cloth that I buy. And I can just sew a sock of that and put a fan on the front that pulls air into it and the sock catches all the crap out of the air.
00:59:33
Curt
Yeah, get the big stuff for sure. Yeah. hey Yeah,
00:59:35
jamie peacock
Yeah, so I'm thinking of maybe, dode it'll catch the oil as well, that stuff does a freaking banger job of sucking up oil. So I'm thinking of maybe building one of those as a prototype and just seeing how it how it works as an air cleaner thing, because air cleanliness is kind of important.
00:59:46
Curt
yeah.
00:59:50
Curt
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'll happily send you a box of furnace filters, but I don't think shipping is going to be gentle.
00:59:56
jamie peacock
There's a place that makes them...
00:59:56
Curt
Oh,
00:59:57
jamie peacock
i I need to chat to my one friend who bought some for his laser to build a little filter unit. But they used to clog so quickly because of the resin and the MDF that it wasn't really feasible.
01:00:03
Curt
okay. Yeah.
CO2 Laser Issues and Upgrades
01:00:10
Curt
Yeah.
01:00:10
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:00:11
Curt
Yeah.
01:00:11
jamie peacock
Also, my laser-aged ship the day before I went away.
01:00:12
Curt
I know. i Oh, yeah. Tell me about that. how did What happened?
01:00:16
jamie peacock
So, as we've been... So, okay. Back in my day, a washer fell into the power supply because it's me. So, it had a short... and ah shook it and got the washer out and it was fine but over the last year or so i've had to creep the power level up it's only a 50 watt power sub supply and a 60 watt tube so in theory i should never have overrun the tube my tube may be dead i don't know but i was running a job it cut the first part cut the second part went to the third one and no power nothing put it to 100 you can see the tube trying to come to life
01:00:27
Curt
Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. I carry on. yeah
01:00:47
Curt
Yeah. Okay.
01:00:52
jamie peacock
So I'm like, okay, I think it's power supply because just reasons. So I ordered power supply before I left. it arrived today. i'm going to put it in tomorrow and then we will know whether I need to go buy another tube because I can't actually be without the CO2 laser.
01:01:03
Curt
Nice.
01:01:07
Curt
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
01:01:07
jamie peacock
I've got some engraving that needs to be done. I've got boxes I need to make. So it needs to be up and running. But I think it's the power splash. Just judging by the noises it's making, I think the power splash at the bed. So I should be able to just loosen like three screws.
01:01:19
jamie peacock
And I think I bought the same one. So I should be able to just plug it in. And then we'll we will know whether that's the problem or whether my tube died. I mean, the laser is six years old.
01:01:29
jamie peacock
Like they these things have a fine-out lifespan.
01:01:31
Curt
yeah
01:01:32
jamie peacock
So... we shall see but yeah hopefully it's not the tube because getting the tube out is going to be a freaking nightmare with where the machine is currently so we will know tomorrow yeah because we back at it started working today again after my vacation yeah but yeah thought about it because ah the laser episode obviously comes out and then my laser does it's how it works yeah
01:01:34
Curt
Yeah.
01:01:43
Curt
yeah Yeah. Fair. but
01:01:50
Curt
Nice. Nice. Nice.
01:01:58
Curt
Of course. Well, and the the laser episode came out and then a laser company reached out to me. It's like, Hey, do you want our product? And I was like, and they were going to give me a gantry laser.
01:02:04
jamie peacock
Nice.
01:02:06
Curt
Um, but it was, it was diode based.
01:02:08
jamie peacock
Ah.
01:02:08
Curt
So i was like, I don't want a diode laser.
01:02:10
jamie peacock
Ah, no.
01:02:10
Curt
Like, even though it's like 60 Watts, I was like, it's CO2 is still going to walk on it.
01:02:15
jamie peacock
Yeah, 60 watts of heat is all that thing is.
01:02:16
Curt
Uh, yeah. So i was like, no, I'm not interested.
01:02:19
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:02:20
Curt
And they're like, how about a fiber? I was like,
01:02:22
jamie peacock
Ooh.
01:02:22
Curt
okay oh tell me more and i was like so i've i at this point i already told them to kind of pound sand like it's not worth my time so and then i just i asked for their most expensive fiber and like dust collector and fourth axis and enclosure and like everything and they're like deal i was like oh shit ah ah okay so i just signed a contract for that so i should have a fiber coming now so that'd be fun
01:02:25
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:02:43
jamie peacock
i will ask you about that after the after show because i assume you can't disclose too much
01:02:48
Curt
we'll see
01:02:50
Curt
I would probably scroll this over the hell I want, but well ah I don't also don't want to talk about it if it's a piece of shit, so we'll see.
01:02:53
jamie peacock
yeah but let's yeah 100 we'll we'll chat about that and maybe it'll be in the after but probably not
01:02:57
Curt
ah
01:03:01
Curt
Mayhap. We'll see. But
01:03:01
jamie peacock
may
PC Hardware Upgrades
01:03:02
jamie peacock
have yeah we will see um so what did you new pc hardware what did you do
01:03:02
Curt
yeah, that's too much fun.
01:03:07
Curt
Okay, so ah A, I'm super thankful I have a boatload of RAM nowadays. just i was like I was like, I should go and sell my RAM and retire. like It is this insane how expensive RAM
01:03:18
jamie peacock
the ram process are silly at the moment geez yeah
01:03:21
Curt
I bought my RAM for like 300 bucks. Now it's $900 for the same RAM sticks I have in my PC right now. It's like, holy he smokes. Anyways, besides the point, i was I posted all that video into it and it's like, it's 1080p video, but I upscale it to like 2K so I can fill the screens on phones, whatever. just by i
01:03:38
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:03:38
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:03:38
Curt
And normally it takes me like 45 minutes to post out about a 10 minute video to like render it and get it all ready for YouTube.
01:03:44
Curt
i hit I hit render after I posted all that or did all the edits on it. It took a minute and like a minute and 32 seconds or something like that. that was like, holy these smokes. And like, I'm not using proxy media. I'm like, I'm editing the raw video. So just like, it's just things you don't realize until you're like, oh yeah. Okay.
01:04:02
Curt
PC hardware can save you a shit ton of time, which made video editing more fun because I'm not waiting on anything.
01:04:08
jamie peacock
Yes.
01:04:09
Curt
Like I put an effect in and it's instant. This is like, okay, this is nice. I should have done this forever ago.
01:04:13
jamie peacock
that's Someone said that to me about internet. He's like, no, he's got like a 300 meg line because it saves him minutes a day where you're waiting for a webpage load or you're trying to download something and are you're sitting waiting for it because he works in IT.
01:04:24
Curt
Yeah.
01:04:25
jamie peacock
I'm like, that's a valid point. mark It really makes a huge difference.
01:04:29
Curt
Yeah.
01:04:29
jamie peacock
Coming back my brother's farm... If you get 10 megs, it's you're lucky. Like, it was slow as hell.
01:04:35
Curt
Ooh.
01:04:35
jamie peacock
Yeah. And then Danica went into town to edit podcast, and she sat at a cafe there that had 300 megs, so she could quickly do an edit and download and upload and do all that shit.
01:04:36
Curt
Yeah.
01:04:44
jamie peacock
um But yeah, his farm's internet. Like, you can stream video on it, but yeah, it's potato as hell. Like, you start watching a YouTube video, and then buffers for a bit.
01:04:52
Curt
Yeah, it's...
01:04:55
jamie peacock
I'm like, this is unacceptable.
01:04:55
Curt
Oh,
01:04:57
jamie peacock
I'm used to my high-speed internet it now.
01:04:59
Curt
totally.
Off-Grid Living Experience
01:05:00
Curt
Yeah.
01:05:00
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:05:01
Curt
Oh,
01:05:01
jamie peacock
but job Their whole farm setup is very interesting. they are They've got a bunch of solar panels, two inverters, a shitload of batteries. They're off the grid. like Their water comes from the river. Their power comes from the sun or the generator if it's been cloudy.
01:05:10
Curt
that's cool.
01:05:13
jamie peacock
um Yeah, very interesting setup. And it works for them. like They manage their power usage and it works really well.
01:05:21
Curt
That's cool. That's cool.
01:05:22
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:05:23
Curt
i'd I'd sacrifice a bit of internet speed for that kind of reliance on or non non-reliance, I should say.
01:05:23
jamie peacock
It's a...
01:05:26
jamie peacock
100%. Yeah.
01:05:28
Curt
Yeah, I get it.
01:05:28
jamie peacock
Not 100%. Like, it's... That's a really sweet setup they got there. um
01:05:34
Curt
Six.
01:05:35
jamie peacock
Yeah, I think...
01:05:35
Curt
So, do you want...
01:05:37
jamie peacock
Okay, we have some questions. I think let's hit...
01:05:39
Curt
Oh, shit. Yeah, we should...
Finding Value Under $10
01:05:41
Curt
Let's save some of these.
01:05:41
jamie peacock
Well, I think, yeah, i think we're going to save some of them.
01:05:42
Curt
Yeah.
01:05:45
jamie peacock
um There's one that I have a... It would have been cool if it was a few weeks ago, but yeah, okay. um There's one I want to cover now. What's your favorite purchase under $10? $10.
01:05:58
Curt
You go, because I feel like you have something queued up in your head, and I have to think for a second.
01:06:01
jamie peacock
I don't.
01:06:02
Curt
Oh, shit. Okay.
01:06:04
jamie peacock
I would say, wait, no, those more than $10 now. Shit. Hmm. This is a really challenging one, actually.
01:06:11
jamie peacock
Because $10 is not not a lot of money.
01:06:11
Curt
Under 10 boxes.
01:06:14
Curt
no Oh.
01:06:15
jamie peacock
Like, I'm having to convert into Randellas. Yeah, that's weird. We may have to come back to this.
01:06:25
Curt
ah
01:06:25
jamie peacock
Or this is going to
Tool Efficiency on 30-Taper Machines
01:06:26
jamie peacock
be a very boring podcast. Yeah, we're going have to think about this.
01:06:26
Curt
We'll incubate on it.
01:06:28
Curt
Or we just...
01:06:28
jamie peacock
Sorry, I thought it would be easy, but it's not.
01:06:30
Curt
ah
01:06:30
jamie peacock
Because now that i've translated into Randellas, it's not a lot of money. um
01:06:34
Curt
That's a good question, though. Yeah, that's good question.
01:06:35
jamie peacock
It's a very good question. I think for all the listeners and people on Instagram who did send us questions, we're going to cover them next week in our Year in Review episode slash Plans for 26 episode because there's some really interesting ones there. The only other one that we might want to tackle now is the second one in the list, Kurt.
01:06:55
Curt
Yes. ah That...
01:06:56
jamie peacock
Because that's quite of interesting.
01:06:59
Curt
Should, OK, so that is from, do you want announce her?
01:07:00
jamie peacock
Okay. you what I mean? I'll do the read. Okay. That's from, from, okay, I'm going to butcher your surname, I'm just going skip it, from Kyle on Instagram.
01:07:04
Curt
Yeah, go nuts.
01:07:10
jamie peacock
The gist of it is some guys won't run half-inch tools on a 30-taper machine. Can we elaborate a little bit? Because I run a two-inch face mill. I won't run bigger than that on a 30-taper machine because it's asking for shit.
01:07:24
jamie peacock
um I do regularly run a 20-millimeter insert mill on there, and I do run 12-millimeter tools, which are basically half-inch. But yeah, they you run into rigidity issues. like Everything is rubber.
01:07:35
jamie peacock
Your machine's a 30 taper machine. The 30 taper interface is only so rigid. But having said that, generally speaking, your 30 taper machines are higher RPM and higher feed machines.
01:07:46
jamie peacock
So you can run a smaller cutter at a higher RPM and get a very similar material removal rate. um The case I have to make for this was going from a 12mm tool for roughing to a 10mm tool.
01:08:00
jamie peacock
My feed rate nearly doubled and my stepover did double at the same depth of cut. And I was running at 90% spindle load instead of 100% spindle load.
01:08:11
jamie peacock
So yeah, the right tools and not being a total lunatic and realizing that it is a 30 taper machine, not a 40 taper machine. I know Saunders had something to say about this on... one of the episodes where they try to run a tool, same feeds and speeds that run on a 40 taper, on a 30 taper, and the machine was really not super happy.
01:08:29
jamie peacock
But you tweak your approach a little bit, and you can get the same material removal rate. So yeah, it just comes down to the rigidity of the tapers. What are your thoughts, Kurt?
01:08:38
Curt
Well, and like, I mean, A, I don't own a half-inch tool so or a half-inch holder. to it and So i don't I just don't run those kind of tools.
01:08:46
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:08:46
Curt
But at the same time, it like you said, facing with, like let's say if you're motoring with ah whatever, three-eighths quarter-inch, facing with a quarter-inch versus facing with a two-inch, you're just going to get a more parallel part, assuming you don't have a jank-ass tool that's just streaking finish.
01:09:04
Curt
like you just You're going to get a flatter part because you don't have to worry about tram and all kinds of other weird things. So I don't know. i'm I'm camp of small tool, fast feeds.
01:09:14
jamie peacock
We, you it took me a few weeks to convince EJ of this when he was making the fishing lures on the anchor point.
01:09:14
Curt
Just let it go.
01:09:20
jamie peacock
He was trying to run that with a half-inch tool.
01:09:21
Curt
Yeah.
01:09:21
jamie peacock
I'm like, dude, go to a six-millimeter tool. Your MRR is going to be very similar, but your tool pressure is going to be a shitload lower because your tool is smaller diameter. The torques involved are way lower, like going from ah going from a half-inch down to a 10-millimeter, so a half-inch to three-eighths.
01:09:38
jamie peacock
your effective diameter is significantly smaller, which means your torque load is way lower on that tool because you're closer to the center line. And yeah, you've sacrificed a little bit of rigidity, but save your big tools for long finishes. Like I will rough in multiple steps with a smaller tool and then come back and use a long tool to just finish at full depth to get a nice finish.
01:10:01
jamie peacock
i don't I tend not to rough with giant tools on a 30 taper machine because you end up getting... fretting corrosion going on in your taper where your tool holders get like that brown smudgy shit on it because it's at the limit of what it can actually hold because it's only retaining worth i want to say about a thousand pounds of force so it's about 500 kilos it's all that's holding that that tool holder in to the taper whereas when you go to cat 40 or bt40 it's close on double that so
01:10:32
Curt
Yeah. And I, like you said, I think the only time I would ever use a half inch tool is just to get reach for finishing. That's it. Like I would never tax the tool.
01:10:38
jamie peacock
You're going to need one when you make your your anchor point bases because you're not going be able to get close enough to your table without a super long tool.
01:10:45
Curt
Oh, i already, i already figured that one out. Yeah.
01:10:48
jamie peacock
I did you.
01:10:48
Curt
I already played that game.
01:10:49
jamie peacock
Okay, yeah.
01:10:49
Curt
Oh yeah. Yeah. yeah But yeah, same name game.
01:10:50
jamie peacock
Yeah. I played that game with my hydraulic.
01:10:51
Curt
Same game.
01:10:52
jamie peacock
I had to stick the tool out an extra four millimeters to be able to reach the the top of my fixtures or my risers.
01:10:59
Curt
Yeah. And unless...
01:10:59
jamie peacock
So...
01:11:00
Curt
i i think the point is moot unless you're... If you're at 24 hours of running or let's say 23 and a half hours of running and you just physically don't have more time in a day, yeah, then you have to consider it. But like 99% of people run the machine probably less than eight hours a day.
01:11:14
Curt
It's like, yeah, just run it into the night and use a small tool and just let it do its thing comfortably.
01:11:14
jamie peacock
yeah
01:11:19
jamie peacock
well that's it it's less it's less load on your spindle side load on your spindle bearings less load on everything slightly to smaller tool you don't always need to be running a one inch freaking animal unless your name's clockwise
01:11:19
Curt
Like...
01:11:30
jamie peacock
um like be you need You need to work within the constraints of the machine.
01:11:31
Curt
yeah Yeah.
01:11:36
jamie peacock
ah My machine's got a 3.7 kilowatt spindle. I use it to 99% of that spindle load continuously.
01:11:43
Curt
Yeah.
01:11:43
jamie peacock
I don't try and push it to 7.5 kilowatts because at... At 3.7 kilowatts, I'm already running a shitload faster than anyone else running what I'm running. Like, I know this because I've been to their shops and watched their machines run glacially.
01:11:57
jamie peacock
Like, you can optimize for the equipment you have.
01:11:58
Curt
Yeah.
01:12:00
jamie peacock
You don't have to pretend to slot everything. um Like, yo tooling has come a long way. You don't need a million horsepower and just slot through everything.
01:12:10
Curt
Exactly.
01:12:10
jamie peacock
But yeah, that's our take on 30 taper because 30 taper is fancy.
01:12:11
Curt
people
01:12:15
jamie peacock
So, Kurt, what is in your Google box?
01:12:15
Curt
Yeah.
01:12:20
jamie peacock
According to our document, nothing.
01:12:20
Curt
Uh, and ball.
01:12:22
Curt
And by the way, ah Molly now who asked us for the favors purchased under 10 bucks where you got a stew on that. Maybe we'll come back.
01:12:28
jamie peacock
Yeah, we're going to have to.
01:12:28
Curt
We'll come back to that next, next week. Cause I'm just going to throw it like a harebrained answer. Otherwise,
01:12:34
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:12:34
Curt
ah
01:12:34
jamie peacock
An ER collet.
01:12:37
Curt
Oh, you know what? My favorite purchase under 10 bucks, I could probably tell you right now, is Audible.
01:12:41
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:12:42
Curt
a The company itself, yeah, sure, say what you want. But like being able to like listen to audiobooks for like that kind of cash, that's for me, that's probably been the best purchase I've purchased in the last X amount of time.
01:12:45
jamie peacock
Sketchy, but yeah.
01:12:54
Curt
And if anybody knows an alternative to Audible that i don't have to feed that beast, I'm all for it. But I don't think anything anything exists. So Audible or Spotify, both those are fantastic.
01:13:01
jamie peacock
You're going love my answer in that case.
01:13:04
Curt
What's up, yours?
01:13:04
jamie peacock
YouTube premium.
01:13:05
Curt
Oh, well, yeah. ah Perfect. Yeah. If it was 10 bucks here, I'd buy two. Yeah.
01:13:10
jamie peacock
Yeah, I think it's actually it's now $12.
01:13:10
Curt
That's yeah.
01:13:12
jamie peacock
Yeah, it used to be less. For the family pan plan.
01:13:16
Curt
Revanced anyways, carrying on.
01:13:16
jamie peacock
They've... Yeah. yeah Oh, actually, one one moment. What was it? It was $1.59. Oh, no! $8.50. That's what it cost me.
01:13:25
Curt
Oh, that's so cheap. That's so cheap.
01:13:27
jamie peacock
Yep. Welcome to the third world. It's great. So, my Google box is very interesting.
01:13:30
Curt
I suppose. Yeah.
01:13:33
jamie peacock
Turns out our local our local Amazon competitor type thing sells TTS tuning now.
01:13:33
Curt
Shoot.
01:13:37
Curt
Yeah, yeah. Oh, really?
01:13:40
jamie peacock
I came across it by accident.
01:13:40
Curt
little Tormach stuff?
01:13:41
jamie peacock
was like, oh, you know, Tormach-compatible stuff.
01:13:42
Curt
Ah, nice.
01:13:43
jamie peacock
um Might actually should be worthwhile picking some up for in the lathes. because they're just a round shank. They're not the cheapest and only deliver, like, they I think they're dropshipping them in, if I look at the delivery dates.
01:13:56
jamie peacock
um
01:13:57
Curt
Mm-mm-mm.
01:13:57
jamie peacock
In looking at ball mills, thread mills, and reamers for the mechanical anchor point, because I need some odds and ends.
01:14:05
Curt
Mm-mm-mm.
01:14:06
jamie peacock
I was trying to find a download link for Jacob, because he wanted to download the version of Linux CNC that I have. And then reading manuals on Carl's drives, and looking into electro polishing aluminium
01:14:21
Curt
Oh, lots of fun stuff.
01:14:21
jamie peacock
yes i don't feel like playing with more acid so i decided to just build another tumbler yeah
01:14:27
Curt
Yeah, electric polishing is cool. I did that with titanium.
01:14:29
jamie peacock
It's really cool.
01:14:30
Curt
It's it's pretty sick.
01:14:31
jamie peacock
So I took stuff to anodize. like, I want see what happens. There was a piece of milk. One of the things that clean of milk scale. it does. So the guy's like, no, wait three minutes. I'll be back now. went quickly, electro polish, came back.
01:14:41
jamie peacock
And I'm like, this is magic. I need it in my life.
01:14:45
Curt
Yeah.
01:14:46
jamie peacock
But the acids and things involved, I'm not super keen to have more acid in my workshop.
01:14:52
Curt
Yeah, fair.
01:14:53
jamie peacock
I am thinking of maybe when I build my new workshop, converting this current workshop, half the workshop into like a sealed anodizing room.
01:14:53
Curt
Fair, fair.
01:15:02
Curt
Nice.
01:15:02
jamie peacock
That way it never goes to the new workshop.
01:15:03
Curt
I think...
01:15:04
jamie peacock
Like the chemicals shit stay in a different workshop.
01:15:08
Curt
Oh, yeah, I think we can we can elaborate. We'll elaborate on that next week because there's there's topics...
01:15:12
jamie peacock
That'll be the... That's a down the road thing.
01:15:14
Curt
That's down the road?
01:15:14
jamie peacock
But yeah, that's a down on the road thing.
01:15:15
Curt
Okay.
01:15:17
jamie peacock
Also Wordle five. Let's see if can get back to getting Wordle counts high again. I think, yeah, current streak is five.
01:15:22
Curt
Oh, oh, okay.
01:15:24
jamie peacock
um My mother keeps telling me how many she did it in, so I keep trying to one up her.
01:15:29
Curt
nice it's Nice, nice, nice, nice.
01:15:30
jamie peacock
Yeah. So what's in your Google box, Kurt?
01:15:33
Curt
ah I got a lot of actually cool stuff in my Google box. Some of it I will, I'm going to, I'll say it now and then I'll explain it in next week's episode just to
3D Printer Comparison: Prusa vs Bamboo
01:15:41
jamie peacock
Nice. Amazing people.
01:15:41
Curt
drag you along and give everybody a bait them.
01:15:44
Curt
Yeah, that's, ah so I have, A couple printers sitting in my Google box. The Prusa printers and the bamboo printers just kind of cross comparing them.
01:15:52
jamie peacock
Ooh. Ooh.
01:15:54
Curt
Yeah. So ah just it knowll it'll lead into next week's topic. So I will explain it better there.
01:15:58
jamie peacock
I have some inputs on on that as well. But that's for next week.
01:16:01
Curt
Yeah, I'm I'm pretty settled on which way I'm going go, but we'll figure that out next week.
01:16:02
jamie peacock
Ooh, I'd be very interested to hear your your take on that.
01:16:06
Curt
um
01:16:10
Curt
Oh, I can tell you immediately, but everyone else will have to wait. um the ah
01:16:14
jamie peacock
100%. No, that's fine. I can live with that.
01:16:15
Curt
ah
01:16:15
jamie peacock
i will I will accept those terms.
01:16:16
Curt
yeah
01:16:19
Curt
A bunch of stuff with a little bit Axe Minor because just been geeking out on that and just having too much fun with that kind of stuff. i have a tablet. So I was looking at a program called Concepts, like ah ah like a Wacom drawing tablet.
01:16:32
Curt
It's program called Concepts.
01:16:33
jamie peacock
like Yes, I saw your story.
01:16:35
Curt
And that was kind of want to do that forever. um But yeah, so just for sketching on screen and doing some... ah Actually, I'm using it a little bit for design elements. Just I need some kind of organic flows for some stickers. So I picked up one of those.
01:16:47
Curt
A bunch of printable model stuff. A bunch of tablet stuff. And that is pretty much the most interesting things. Everything else is just super dorky Bitcoin and dumb stuff like that. so Just in the ah in the liminal the liminal space week, which we were all in right now where time doesn't exist and like regular meals don't exist and just floating in the ether.
01:17:10
jamie peacock
I don't worry. We had a friend forget that it was Friendsmas today. Her mom asked when are you seeing Danica?
01:17:17
Curt
Oh.
01:17:18
jamie peacock
And she's like, um checks five. Oh, shit, in an hour. So then she quickly zoomed over because, yeah, she had forgotten that today was today.
01:17:27
Curt
ah Yeah. Yeah.
01:17:30
jamie peacock
Yeah, this time of the year is weird like that.
01:17:30
Curt
ah I dude yeah no doubt no doubt cool
01:17:33
jamie peacock
Yeah, it's very, very weird. um So what are you up to today since it's this weird time of the year?
01:17:40
Curt
ah basically this whole week I'm hanging out with my little rats because they don't have daycare and my wife is off so we're just going to float around do health stuff yeah I'm trying to do a few little kind of shop things that I've wanted to do I do very much want to get back to production but there'll be time for that like i said I'm not going to be laying on my deathbed one day and ah pining about the time where I could have worked an extra 4 or 5 days so just trying to trying to keep that in perspective there's more important things in life and
01:17:46
jamie peacock
Yeah. Family things.
01:18:09
Curt
and Yeah. How about you, though? What do you what are you up to? Oh,
01:18:12
jamie peacock
Well, I'm going to go snooze, but tomorrow going to carry on with Anchor Point Match 3 production and...
01:18:15
Curt
right. Yeah, sleep time.
01:18:19
jamie peacock
cleaning the workshop a bit and getting coolant pumped out of machines and yeah, just general ah cleaning and maintenance and stuff that like now once anchor point bodies are in the machine, like it'll take me an hour or two to get dialed in. And then that's like two days worth production that the machines can just run that I can load a part every 20 minutes or so for the op ones and just let it chooch and I can focus on doing other stuff.
01:18:35
Curt
Hmm.
01:18:40
jamie peacock
So that is my plan for the next couple days um going into until the next time we record basically.
01:18:44
Curt
Mm-hmm.
01:18:47
jamie peacock
But we've also got like, going to fix Cole's machine tomorrow. And I think there's some other family cut going on before year end. Also, year end.
01:18:55
Curt
Right.
01:18:55
jamie peacock
um New Year's and all that shit that happens in like two days time.
01:18:57
Curt
Fair. Yeah.
01:19:00
jamie peacock
Or if you're listening tomorrow, the next day. So yeah, we're gonna take it a bit easy, but yeah, also looking forward to just having a bit of downtime without people around, because we've had people around now for the last two weeks, where my mom's been visiting, we've been to my brother's, so it's been go, go, go.
01:19:04
Curt
Yeah.
01:19:15
jamie peacock
So looking forward to chilling a little bit after to tomorrow. But yeah, that is, yeah, take a bit of a breather.
01:19:19
Curt
Yeah, that sounds about... That sounds well-deserved. Yeah, no doubt.
01:19:23
jamie peacock
Yeah, i've got ah I've got a chop wire though, the wire chopper needs to run, I've got 45 kilos of wire to process.
01:19:23
Curt
No doubt.
01:19:29
jamie peacock
And maybe, maybe this time I'll actually put the electronics in an enclosure so they don't get the shit kicked out of them when I dismantle the setup. Because every time they get the shit kicked out of them, and yeah, then I've got rewire it. It's bit annoying.
01:19:40
Curt
I'll bet all the money in my pocket you won't do that. I think you'll just run it.
01:19:44
jamie peacock
I might just out of spot just do it.
01:19:46
Curt
ah ah
01:19:47
jamie peacock
Just to prove you're wrong, Kurt. No, it's something I've needed to do. I just need to neaten it up little bit. It's just not been the highest priority.
01:19:53
Curt
Yeah, fair. Fair, fair.
01:19:54
jamie peacock
And now if I've got a bit of time, I'm going to use that bit of time to... There's a bunch of things in the workshop. I'm trying to get a new shelf into the workshop. I'm trying to do that for two months. um Yeah, it's one of those things that's not the most urgent thing, so it just keeps getting kicked down the road.
01:20:10
Curt
I get that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:20:11
jamie peacock
So yeah, we'll hopefully get that done in the next week or so. But yeah, I think that, yeah.
01:20:15
Curt
Cool, my dude.
01:20:17
jamie peacock
Thank you, everybody, for listening. If you enjoyed the podcast and hopefully saw our faces, although cameras went on and off and Kurt's been paused for the last half half an hour on my side. If you saw our faces, thank you for watching our faces.
01:20:25
Curt
Oh, I'm not saying.
01:20:27
jamie peacock
If you didn't see our faces, you can see our faces on Spotify, Zencastro, if your name's AJ, and YouTube. I think at some point we might move the podcast onto its own YouTube channel, but for now it's just on my channel.
01:20:39
jamie peacock
um Also, congratulations on a year's worth of podcasts, Kurt.
01:20:45
Curt
Yeah, congratulations, my dude.
01:20:46
jamie peacock
Yeah, we've been pretty consistent.
01:20:46
Curt
It's been nice chatting.
01:20:48
jamie peacock
Like, we haven't skipped a beat.
01:20:50
Curt
Yeah.
01:20:51
jamie peacock
We've been late one day, and that's when Zencast had an issue. ah Otherwise, it's been the same time every week for a year. And hopefully for next year, too.
01:20:58
Curt
That's awesome.
01:21:00
jamie peacock
It's going to be great. But yeah, thank you everybody for listening, and Patreons will see you shortly.
01:21:05
Curt
Ooh, take care, all.