Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Business of Machining - Episode 136
227 Plays6 years ago
#INSTAMACHINIST WARM FUZZIES & GERMAN CHILL A simple, offhanded comment in episode 134 generates a heart-warming response from the machining community.
Click Image Below to Check Out Original Post from Ignite Digi
Operation StickerBomb = Success!
At first, Kern Microtechnik isn't about that sticker bomb life but when they realize that people aren't defacing property, they fully embrace it! Who doesn't love a high-precision company that can kick back while in the throws of a haughty, sophisticated event like EMO?? We ALL do. By engaging with the community, they're fast becoming the holy grail of machining no longer hidden!
With Great Machines Comes Great Responsibility
The final signature on Kern paperwork at the kitchen table brings about entrepreneurship topics that have no time for subtlety. Grimsmo and Saunders get deep into the cavernous issues surrounding determining a presence, focusing on value for the community, profitable companies getting the side eye, and a major caveat to leadership: no one is holding your nose to the grind stone.
"As difficult as this is, I've grown into it and I'm enjoying the challenge. " - Grimsmo
Stay tuned for the RETURN of Chip Break! Saunders has a video in queue about the top 10 business success tips that he swears by. The list might be old and crusty...but the points are things you may have never considered!
Leap into Automation Unfortunately, a local college doesn't quite have the infrastructure to cultivate a thriving robotics program, which means SMW ends up purchasing the first piece of their automation puzzle: a FANUC Robo Drill with a Robotic Arm & Vision System. Once Saunders is finished crying into his Space Mouse, the plan is to dive in head first and figure out how to implement the robotic arm into production for the new mod vise system!
How to Send a Machine Abroad Step 1. Call CSA Step 2. Insert Maple Syrup into Elelectonics Enclosure? Step 3. Hope that's enough to smooth things over...
Sounds like a legit plan!
You CAMplete me. Moving the body really gets the blood flowing--to your head, that is! During a morning workout routine, Grimsmo is struck by the realization that he might have miscalculated and purchased tooling that won't be able to reach! "I need CAMplete like....NOW."
ProvenCut to the Rescue 1/8" ball end mills are snapping at the collet nut, so CAMplete whips up some specialized tooling with a more rigid shank to save the day. While that's a good short-term solution, but is the issue REALLY shank rigidity? The Johns dive into deeper questions about tool pressure, number of flutes, axial doc, and coolant. The Johns turn to ProvenCut to double check a recipe and compare notes in Fusion 360 to get to the root cause.
If you don't already, consider following ProvenCut's Instagram!
Click Image Below
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Episode 136
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the business of machining episode 136. My name is John Grimsmough. My name is John Saunders. Good morning. Good morning. How are you?
Sticker Activity at Emo Trade Show
00:00:09
Speaker
Can I just say that the response from like instant machinists at the emo trade show to your like offhand comment last week about everybody needs to sticker bomb Grimms Moza Roa Palachanger, like it's been amazing. It's been so fun to watch sitting here from Canada, like watching people actually put stickers up. Right. It's awesome. I think it's cool because, um,
00:00:36
Speaker
because this is a real company. This is arguably one of the top.
00:00:41
Speaker
one, two, five, 10 machine tool builders in the world. And they're being a really good sports... I mean, yes, I think it is your aroa, but nevertheless, this is a real
Kern's Social Media Embrace
00:00:53
Speaker
trade show. This is where you're supposed to go with stuffy suits on to evaluate, purchase decisions and be a corporate type person and blah, blah, blah. And they are being troopers into the tune of where, I guess, originally some salespeople
00:01:10
Speaker
were removing a couple of the first stickers and I don't want to name names, but one person at Kern chimed in with a pretty hilarious comment. Oh, for or FFS, all the people who know what that means, figure it out. And the CEO has already approved this and everyone was supposed to have gotten the memo to let this happen. I'm like, this is awesome. Like on the, I don't know what the time zone difference is, but
00:01:39
Speaker
As I saw Instagram posts of people setting up, I sent an Instagram message to one of the people at Kern. And I was like, by the way, Saunders mentioned this last week and there might be some people stopping by. So, I mean, I didn't give them much notice, probably same day notice. I don't know if they listened to the podcast and heard it before, but yeah, so a little late notice on my end. But as it was getting real and they were setting up and I was like, oh, right, this is probably going to happen.
00:02:05
Speaker
And then I totally get it from that salesperson who took them down's perspective. Like you said, this is a big stuffy show. People are, air quote, defacing the machine, making it look cheaper. I get it. That all makes sense. But then you get the other perspective of this social community, this instant machinist, super passionate crowd of young, enthusiastic people that's banding together. It's amazing. I got goosebumps just talking about it right now.
00:02:33
Speaker
Yeah. No, and I'm happy for Kern. I mean, I hope it helps them because even though their machines are quite nichey for so many, they're not a bread and butter machine that they're looking to put into every job shop in the world or America. But nevertheless, what I think is cool about what they're doing is the social media stuff. They're showing how they do servicing on carbide and these materials and the tooling and the capabilities.
Impact of Social Media on Machining
00:02:56
Speaker
And so the world is a better place. I legitimately enjoy seeing that and appreciate their attitude. And that's fun.
00:03:03
Speaker
It's so fun having them engage because they're becoming the holy grail that now everybody knows about. There's fancy machines out there that nobody's heard about that Lawrence mentions every now and then. I'm like, never heard of that. They're supposed to be the best, the best, the best. But when you have a company like Kern that's stepping out into the spotlight and showing what's so amazing about what they do and just having fun with it, every guy that follows from his garage,
00:03:33
Speaker
sees it as the holy grail. It's like, yep, maybe one day I'll aspire to do that to get one of those or even just to touch one one day.
Purchasing a Kern Machine
00:03:41
Speaker
Absolutely. It's the long tail game. Many of these folks are going to go work at companies and they're going to start to get involved in decision purchases and equipment. Or they're going to want to go work for the company that has the current.
00:03:57
Speaker
I absolutely there's a there's a I remain skeptical about the value of social media and where does good and where it's a, you know, there's that kind of one upmanship or some negative sides of social media for sure. But but there's absolutely some areas where we're all better off for it. And then that makes it cool. Yeah, well, like you were just saying, like,
00:04:19
Speaker
Everybody could be an influencer, even though I don't love that term because it just gets so abused. But like you said, somebody goes to work for a company that is thinking about buying a current, that person might be able to influence the decision, no matter how low on the totem pole they are. You bring things to the table, and then that table gets analyzed. And it's really cool. I mean, geez, 10 years ago, you and I were in a garage with little tags and mini mills.
00:04:47
Speaker
a couple thousand dollar machines, and here I am 10 years
Leadership Challenges in Machining
00:04:50
Speaker
later. I have purchased a current. I signed the financing paperwork last night. I sent it in. Oh, really? This is actually happening. Congrats. Wow. Yep. Wow. Yeah. Pinch yourself there. Yep. Super crazy. Well, my wife just said, don't screw this up. Yeah. As we're signing the paperwork. Yeah. It's like dinner table.
00:05:11
Speaker
That is what you were just alluding to there is important and not to be nuanced. We just filmed the first relaunch chip break video talking about this kind of business entrepreneurship. It makes me really happy because I have to think about who are we as a YouTube channel or as a presence. I'm never going to apologize for not being the best machinist in the world, but I have this passion. I love it.
00:05:38
Speaker
What can you offer value to folks that can hopefully be inspirational, educational, and why is it worth your time to pay attention to what we're doing? I think I plan to show topics that can help everybody learn a little bit about this intersection of business and machining and operations in a wholesome sense. I refuse to talk about things that we aren't.
00:06:03
Speaker
able to share good knowledge on, which is great. One of the things that we talked about in that first episode is leadership. I know that when you haven't led a company or been a leader, I think when you hear the word leader, your mind jumps to certain predisposed notions about it from an outside perspective.
00:06:26
Speaker
What's difficult about being a leader is simple. Nobody else makes the decisions for you. I actually very much miss that as I very much many days would rather be told by somebody else, John, you need to go make this part and here's a print or you need to go for Provencut. I wish I could be the Provencut employee. Here are six end mills or this machine or this material I need you to learn.
00:06:51
Speaker
We need to figure out how to drill without through spindle coolant, deep holes on this material and this machine, and then we need to get a recipe up. I don't get that luxury. I have to be the one that decides how are we triaging recipes or how are we triaging work or what machines are we buying? You're taking some risk with that current.
00:07:14
Speaker
you have to make that decision. And it's fun to say, yeah, clap your hands together, you've got to occur and yeah, but no, this is real. And that is, I enjoy a part of that. And I will be honest to say I don't enjoy all of it. True. I 100% agree. And that's a really good way to put it.
00:07:31
Speaker
When every decision lands on your feet, you have advice from everybody around you and you bounce ideas off of people. But at the end of the day, not only do you have to make that call, but you have to stand by that call or you have to redact that call and make a different one.
00:07:48
Speaker
I have no problem making mistakes and being wrong and things like that, but it's still not easy because there's consequences to everything that you do. As the leader, as the chief decision maker, they can be big, they can be small, they can affect people, they can affect money or product or customers. If you say the wrong thing to a customer and they interpret it wrong, even though you had good intention,
00:08:13
Speaker
They might interpret so many things. I don't think about it often, but I guess I missed the simplicity of five to ten years ago, but I wouldn't trade it.
Profit and Business Sustainability
00:08:27
Speaker
As difficult as this is, I've grown into it.
00:08:32
Speaker
and I'm enjoying the challenge of this scale of business and as we continue to grow. It's getting harder, but I'm getting stronger at it.
00:08:50
Speaker
I think you end up talking a lot about things that affected you. This is something that I want to emphasize to folks that are listening, which is when somebody you look up to, when a mentor or somebody who's been through business and has a chance to share some advice with you and they tell you the sort of cliched example of moving from a one or two man job shop to a five or 10 person shop and how much it changes. It's not just HR paperwork. It's not just
00:09:19
Speaker
that sort of a thing. It really does change the work you do and your responsibilities. There's no pity parties. I'm not in any way looking for any sympathy here. Well, I'll stop there.
00:09:40
Speaker
It's like when you have kids and everybody's like, oh, your life's going to be different. And at the time you're like, so, yeah, of course. And it's, it's the same and you, you grow into it and you learn and you figure
Traditional vs. Tech Manufacturing
00:09:52
Speaker
it out and hopefully have a little bit of help. And yeah, kids have been great.
00:09:56
Speaker
Yeah. I will say this. The chip break we did was on the only top 10 list that I love. I've talked about it. Yeah. We've talked about it. I actually mentioned it in an earlier chip break, but it's absolutely worth revisiting it. Part of it has to do with a weird phenomena in 21st century, certainly in America, and I can't speak for the rest of the world, where
00:10:18
Speaker
where profit is somehow viewed with a skeptical eye as if anybody who earns a profit becomes this bad person or a corporate raider or a greedy person and there's nothing wrong with
00:10:36
Speaker
profit that especially when it turns into building your company into a better place, enriching the experience of those around you, delivering value to customer and giving back and just also it's how business works. It's a good thing.
00:10:53
Speaker
Yeah, and I was that person. I was not afraid of profit, but I thought it might be a bad thing, kind of thing that leads to whatever. But now I totally realize that a business is literally impossible to sustain without profit. Yeah. Like literally.
00:11:12
Speaker
Interesting side note. Unless. Yeah. This is a tangent that I'll keep short, but it makes me proud of what we have done, what you've done, what some of our friends have done, which is to build traditional brick and mortar style manufacturing businesses that sell a product for profit and have created jobs and opportunities in the inmate.
00:11:34
Speaker
to some extent, made the world a better place. There are so many companies out there. For me, it was hilarious to read the WeWork prospectus or an IPO about how much money they're losing and other startups in the technology space. Heck, there's some in the manufacturing space where they've never made a profit. It's a totally different business model. For me to disparage it would be
00:11:59
Speaker
wrong, yet I am critical of it because it's this idea of, hey, let's go raise $2 million or heck, $200 million and let's lose money, but hope we build something that ultimately has enough brand or influence or maybe later can turn a profit. Folks cite the Amazon example, but that's a bit of a unicorn. I'm like, hey, Grimms with Knives or Saunders Machine Works, we need more money than some of these companies.
00:12:25
Speaker
Yeah, always for sure. As far as profit percentage and things like that, it's crazy to think. And like you said, they're completely different business models and I don't want to poo-poo on them or anything, but it's just different and I'm glad I'm not going that route. I'm glad we're building an actual physical.
00:12:43
Speaker
make a product, sell a product, make a customer happy, make some profit, move on, grow, make the next, hire great people, pay them really well, buy great machines. I'm glad we're doing it the way that we're doing it. Yeah.
00:12:58
Speaker
Yeah. Speaking of sharing in social media, I've got to share the news of our winner. Yes. This is exciting to me because it's exactly what I love of folks being able to share it on their own medium and share how it's helped them. Literally just at the end of the day,
00:13:18
Speaker
the quote of it's about the outcome, not the income is actually phenomenal because this will all come to an end. At some point, you will stop writing grandson knives
Acquiring and Automating with FANUC
00:13:26
Speaker
and you got to look back on what makes you smile, what makes you happy. I love what I do. I actually try to make sure
00:13:33
Speaker
I'm grateful for it. To see folks chime in and share this, honestly, thank you to everybody. It warms my heart. It really does. We hit two weeks ago and asked everybody to share the bomb on their own platform of whatever makes sense for them. LinkedIn, Instagram, commenting on the
00:13:54
Speaker
reviews on iTunes or Spotify or et cetera. And last night, Grimson and I ran a random number generator, looked at the list and are excited to announce that Tobias F, you are the winner. We will shoot you an email and we'd be happy to, or honored to do whatever you'd like in terms of a half an hour conversation, video call, if there's advice that we can share or give to you, we'd love to. Sometimes I feel like it's a little bit
00:14:20
Speaker
hubristic to say that we can do that, but just have a talk, have a conversation. Looking forward to just having a chat. Yeah. So that's that. I think that was, I think we should do that again at some point. Absolutely. And it was so fun the last time we did it. I'm really looking forward to this one because you never know what's going to come up. It's whatever, like the winner, the person will lead the conversation and it's neat to see what they want to talk about. Yeah.
00:14:46
Speaker
cashier story. This whole thing evokes just trying to be a good person, both individually and a good corporate citizen. One of the things that we've tried to do is help folks locally. Long story short,
00:15:02
Speaker
You ready for this? We bought a machine. It's an interesting story. A local college received money prior to my involvement that somehow was specified or earmarked for
00:15:19
Speaker
a FANUC robo drill with a robotic arm and a vision system. And this was, I believe, for their robotics program. So even though it was a machine tool, the idea was more for robotics. For reasons I'm not really aware of, that robotics program never really took off. So the machine has basically sat unused for five years.
00:15:41
Speaker
Wow. We actually went over and helped them at one point, show them how to... Yeah, I remember. Yeah, and I got some help from folks here. We actually did a little video on it. Because it's an exciting thing and you want to think, how do you help? This is such a complex question of how do you help young people both in the framework of life advice, but then also curriculums in school and education. It's a good example I've seen elsewhere as well where
00:16:05
Speaker
There sometimes is good intent and even there's money provided, but there isn't the framework of curriculum or resources or a plan or teachers or students even to back that sort of thing up. Long story short, they wanted to sell the machine. They preferred that it go stay local, especially in a place where it could help their community.
00:16:29
Speaker
given that it was originally donated by somebody, and they did a sealed bid thing. We threw a bid in and we won. Incredible. We now- Seemed out of panic. This has been a tough... I'm going to have to go cry into my space mouse here.
00:16:47
Speaker
Yeah. And so I'm actually, I'm not nervous because we'll figure it out. And in fact, I had to go over, Ed and Jared and I went over, we had to turn it on. Before we even won the bid, we replaced all these batteries because we knew that that was a thing that could be an issue on those machines and the robots. So we just told the school, we've told the school like, look, if we don't end up winning it, we will help you
00:17:10
Speaker
help you however we can. We've got some notes on running the machine, not setting it up on all that stuff. This is just to be a good person here. So we got the batteries changed. Was the machine on when you changed the batteries? Yes. Okay. Because the machine has to be on when you were changed the batteries. Yes. It's been a blur. Okay. Yes. I hope so. Well, it's too late now if it wasn't, but I'm pretty sure it was.
00:17:36
Speaker
We had to figure out how to do a tool change, which is mind-blowingly strange. Anyways, I am very excited. It's also cool because this is going to be automation for us. We have a tweak design for our modified soft jaws, so it should be a part that's quite similar to how that vision system was already being used. My understanding is that
00:17:58
Speaker
The machine tool will figure out, the robot arm will figure out the vision system can be tricky, but starting with an aluminum part that's approximately the same shape as how it was previously set up may help that be easier. It already has a shunk hydraulic vice on it. I have this mixed attitude. Part of me is positive, excited. I know we'll figure this out. Part of me is a little bit humble because this is going to be tricky, but I am freaking excited. We own a robot.
00:18:25
Speaker
Like a FANUC one, a really good one. Yeah, a real robot. Yep, that's so cool. So it's set up as a three-axis machine, right? That's correct, yeah. Which is fine. Yeah. So it's got a hydraulic vice, hydraulic vice, so you can put, you can load material in there and the vice will close.
00:18:42
Speaker
Yeah, so that's the thing, you know, I'm going to leave it as is, but when we were at 5th Access Touring, they have the same robotic arm with this new, you put a little pad on the side of their vices and then the shunk gripper is able to grip this pad because I would much rather load fixturing, I would load material. I mean, I'm new to this, but
00:19:04
Speaker
At some point, I could see us either retrofitting it or I don't know, maybe we end up selling that whole machine and set up if it's just not the right fit long-term.
Integrating New Machines
00:19:12
Speaker
But if we can load material and it works, rock on. Awesome. Yeah. Unofficial, but I want the first bid and I'll pay 10% more than what you paid. Oh, for the robo.
00:19:25
Speaker
If you if you ever sell it just to offer it this way first I'm not ready at this point, but did you move I wonder what it's like to move a machine to another country Yeah, it's very fine. It's got important. There's CSA Canada safety blah blah blah that has to be has to go over it make sure LA electronics are right on it Whatever like when our tornos came in it was currently set up in Chicago. So they built it for the US market and
00:19:51
Speaker
And then it came to Canada. They had to pull out every single relay and replace them with Canadian relays or something stupid like that. The guy had literally a handful of electronic components that came out and had to be replaced with CSA approved ones. It was silly. Did you think about just putting a little quart of maple syrup inside the electronics enclosure when the customs guy opens it? It would have totally worked. Yeah, that would have solved the amateur move.
00:20:17
Speaker
Joking aside, this sounds cool and rah, rah, rah, but I had to do some thinking on this because it wasn't necessarily in my business plan to go buy a drill mill machine, let alone a different control. Yes, the real world is the fact that it was local, that we knew the machine, it was a win-win, all that. The school was like, look, the last thing I really want to do is pay a 25% broker commission to sell it to somebody in Texas or whatever.
00:20:41
Speaker
But what made sense was, number one, we have a product that we can run on it. So we've got to execute that. That's a focused task. And then where it really started to make sense was with ProvenCut, I had been looking for the opportunity to run a 30-taper machine in-house.
00:20:59
Speaker
Yeah. And so now having the ability to do the Tormach line, some of the Haas line, we've got some folks helping do his recipes on higher end machines, DMG mores, that kind of stuff. But now we've got the ability to do a pretty common, you know, there's a lot of speedios, Robo drills,
00:21:14
Speaker
For sure. DTs, DMs from Haas. So that is awesome. And so I always think about the downside. My downside is that. My downside is after a year, we've done some proven cut recipes on it. Maybe we've struggled to have it make sense for the Modvise stuff. And in that situation, then we do sell it. And that's okay. Yeah, it's okay. You live and learn, right? Right. I'm pretty sure we would get our money back out of it.
00:21:38
Speaker
Nice. What RPM is the spindle? That's the other sort of ringers. It's not the machine I would expect. Well, it's a 10K spindle, 14 tool ATC, no through spindle. Unsubscribe. Oh, yeah. I suppose- No, it's solid machine.
00:22:01
Speaker
Yeah. Well, it's interesting. Not that this is an option, but would you have traded 14K spindle for 10 tool ATC? No, you'd rather have the 14 ATC. The other option is 21 or 24, which would be way better. ATC? Yeah.
00:22:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, 14 is kind of limiting, but depends on what you put on it. I mean, if you have kind of a relatively simple part that's robot fed, you don't need more than 14 tools. I don't know. Agree. Well, for the mod vices, we will figure it out. But yeah, it's totally different. There's no probe.
00:22:40
Speaker
No, fourth axis. I'll be curious to see you with some stuff you can add. I've already had some folks reach out, which is awesome. So we'll learn more. It gets rigged in next Tuesday. We picked up the robot and all the other stuff last week or earlier this week. I can't, you want to know one of those like, I'm an idiot moments. I assumed, and it's actually completely irrational to assume this, that those fan of robot arms were insanely heavy.
00:23:06
Speaker
I was just thinking about the picture you put up where you're cradling it like a baby. It didn't occur to me at the time until just now. I'm like, how heavy is that thing? The big ones are heavy, but the smaller ones, they have a very limited payload. I think ours is seven kilograms, so 15 pounds. Of course, this machine isn't going to have especially the last few joints. Those aren't going to weigh hundreds of pounds because the freaking payload's only
00:23:31
Speaker
15 pounds. So the whole robot is 50, 52 pounds or something. Wow. It's like a toy almost, but not. So that's my story. Yeah. So you're not going to load like a Pearson palette. I mean, maybe, but barely. Correct. Well, I don't know what this way.
00:23:49
Speaker
I mean, Pearson's got his UR10, which is a 10 kilogram payload. Interesting. I'll be curious to see what happens. Is the robot alarm out? Does it know how much you're lifting or does it reduce its speed or accuracy? Because every servo would have a servo load.
00:24:05
Speaker
That's what I liked about we put it on Instagram the fifth axis system because you could use these smaller vices Got much better work holding security and it would involve redoing the robots Interface like instead of it basically picking parts out of a tray as it's built right now You could build a mini aroa style system. We could do this ourselves where you just had like
00:24:28
Speaker
three rows of 10 fifth axis vices, the little ones, and the robot would just come and pick up a new vice, move it in because the thing is we need this to be, the idea with the automation is to have it actually run. And right now it's got like, I think it's 12 or 15 material spots, which it'll go through those in an hour. So it's not set up right now to help us say run overnight. Doesn't fifth axis have like a pneumatic rock lock base?
00:24:55
Speaker
That is part of that thing that we saw, which I think is not yet for sale, but it's designed, I think. That's the idea. I'll look at the Pearson thing and thought about that. It'll be fun. That's for sure. Absolutely. Makes me jealous of your aroa.
00:25:17
Speaker
80 pallets. It's crazy. I'm so excited. So this morning I was doing my exercise and it hit me that I am all of a sudden unsure if the tooling I ordered will actually reach. I was convinced like I spent the whole weekend. Okay. What gauge length, what blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. Let's get all of these ones. It should clear.
00:25:38
Speaker
I thought about the aroa palette. I did not think about what goes below that, like the whole knuckle, the B axis. Like if that's a B 90 and the whole spindle housing comes down, Oh, will it, will it reach? And I'm like, I need complete like now, like model that and spin fusion though too.
00:25:59
Speaker
Yeah, I'm sure I could ask for the model from Kurt. I don't have the CAD model of the table yet, but yeah, it just hit me. I'm like, there's more clearance to think about than just the tool holder and the vice and the pallet. I got to rethink this. You're thinking about the diameter of the spindle relative to your platter?
00:26:20
Speaker
The spindle and the spindle housing, the big square thing of it. Yeah, exactly. Relative to the platter, yeah. And the arm and everything. Right. And it just, it hit me that I hadn't fully considered that yet. Yeah. And I was like, oh my, cause I'm buying the short gauge length tools, like stubs. Oh really? Yeah. Cause I thought they'd be fine. But, so I just need like a quick double check, make sure everything clears. Might have to add the next size up.
00:26:47
Speaker
Got it. The biggest issue for there will be when you're truly at B90 and you're working all the way at the bottom of your fixture, right? Which will be all the time, the way I've got it. Also at B90? Because when you're at B70, it's not quite as bad. No, because the tombstones I'm going to make are going to run. They're going to live at B90. Got it. Another way of thinking about it is you're kind of using this as a vertical horizontal.
Optimizing Machining Processes
00:27:14
Speaker
Yes. Yes. Right.
00:27:16
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Well, you just got to look at the... Yeah, I got to look into it. So I send an email to Camplete. I'm getting Camplete eventually. I send an email this morning and I'm like, I need to look at that now, please. And then Jeff is at emo right now, so he's busy, but he's available. So I actually thought about driving up to Camplete today because I've got some other things. They're making me some more end mills.
00:27:39
Speaker
Oh, that's awesome. So that's what's cool about Camplete. We haven't had to use this because you kind of learn pretty quickly, but in Camplete, if you have a collision, like for instance, the tool is not long enough, you can lie to Camplete and you can either tell it your tool has a new gauge link or your fixture has a new offset from the table. So your fixture is taller and you can
00:28:03
Speaker
lie to it until you get an acceptable result. Then you go back into fusion and you say, okay, I need to change my fixture or I need to use a longer tool holder or more stick out on the tool. That way it's not iterative where you're having to just guess.
00:28:18
Speaker
back and forth, back and forth. Okay, so you can lie to it and say, well, what if I did have, you know, 50 millimeter longer gauge length tool holder? And then you find your answer quicker. Okay, cool. You still finding, is it getting easier? Like, continually easier? Or are you kind of at a stable point with Camplete where it's just like, do this and make parts?
00:28:40
Speaker
Oh, it's awesome. We primarily use it for collision detection period just to prove that out. But then Jeff, the same guy you just mentioned was here because he was in Ohio for the Grove open house and he swung by our shop to say hi. And so Ed actually sat down with him more than I did because Ed has been actually more involved in some of that nitty gritty stuff and learned some
00:29:03
Speaker
really good stuff. Like I was kicking myself because I had to do a pattern of a gear on the five axis and long story short, Fusion posted as a pattern. So it was like 2000 operations because it was seven ops per tooth around hundreds of teeth. And so it took forever in Camplete. And I was like, there must be some way to just do the patterning inside of Camplete. And Jeff's like, oh yeah, just do this. I'm like, oh my gosh, that would have been good.
00:29:31
Speaker
So the software has been great, but we haven't touched, needed to use it more than we have. Yeah. And there's so much more to it, right? Like there's the bare bones, like how to not crash your machine, which is super valuable. Yes. And then there's deeper, deeper levels, optimizing toolpaths and things like that. So that's actually awesome. I got to give a shout out to Lawrence who I would have never figured this out. We filmed the footage yesterday, but doing... Actually, if I say corner pick, do you know what I mean?
00:30:01
Speaker
Yeah, I get it. Okay. Explain it. It's a term I've started using and I realized I don't know if that's a term I think is more well known or not, but if you're trying to use a fifth axis toolpath to use a small bull nose or ball nose end mill to pick out a corner that's otherwise too small to reach, for instance, let's say you had a really inside pocket. Let's say you had a quarter inch fillet radius, but it's really deep, like two inches deep. So you can't use a
00:30:28
Speaker
a tool that's eight or 10 times diameter to just walk around a 2D contour that so you use a fifth axis tool path to or five axis tool path to come in there and and machine it away. So it's super easy to program infusion with a 3D contour. So that's awesome. I was getting really bad motion on the UMC 750, not on the cut on the linking move. So I'm like, wait a minute here.
00:30:56
Speaker
The Haas can do whatever you want to call it, the motion profile or the kinematics. It can handle a nice, smooth, I'm happy, except when it goes to link back to take the next pass. You have to watch the video to show that it's a CD answer, but a couple of settings that aren't settings you would have learned from 3-axis work. I'll put it that way. Infusion. Correct. In 3D contour.
00:31:26
Speaker
It's a good example of the learning hurdle of when you step into five axis stuff. The cut would have worked okay the other way. Again, it was more about, honestly, the answer is more about, number one, I wanted it to be better. Number two, when we put this up on YouTube, I know people are going to think, oh, the UMC can't
00:31:44
Speaker
can't do well. Actually, it can. It's the skill of the programmer. I'm very grateful that Lawrence was able to help show some of those settings. I played around with them here too. The result is awesome.
00:32:00
Speaker
Going back full circle to the beginning of this podcast episode, that's what makes me happy is being able to then turn that into a video, put it on the NYC CNC website as a resource
Sharing Knowledge in Machining
00:32:10
Speaker
That's like
00:32:10
Speaker
so that Lawrence doesn't have to answer because he's so active on the forums, but you got to create these things in a scalable manner. Hopefully, we can help folks. That's a good thing.
00:32:22
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. That's a good way to put it. I, I take for granted how much one-on-one time you and I get with really smart people and people just starting out or that haven't made the connections that we've spent 10 years to make, um, don't have access to that. So, you know, if, if you can go out and do a video on this, it'll help people that don't have the one-on-one Lawrence. Yeah. And I know, you know, those guys are awesome. Um, but I've, I've, I've always felt.
00:32:51
Speaker
like an outsider to them, to be honest. They're friends. I'm friendly with them. They're nice people, but I'm never going to be as smart or as knowledgeable as Lauren's or Rob, and I'm okay with that. I love learning, but I don't ever want to turn my back on the person who was John Saunders 10 years ago.
00:33:15
Speaker
Yeah, that's for sure. That's who I care about. And this came up, I thought, you know, sometimes people will say, why are you still punching around with tormach machines? Ah, it's because that's who I am. It's because that's who I want to see. I want to see somebody at that level learn and start something and prove it. And it's just like the Haas. It's not about what machine tool you can buy or borrow money to buy. It's about what you're able to do with it. That to me is awesome.
00:33:41
Speaker
Yeah, I love it. Yeah. That was a good conversation. I'm kind of exhausted. Yeah, sorry. That was good. That was great. What are you up to today? I am thinking about driving up to Camp Leite. They're only about an hour away.
00:33:55
Speaker
Because I need those tools all of a sudden we're breaking eighth inch ball mills like every day. I'm like what changed? I don't understand so they're making us quarter-inch shank neck down to eighth inch stub stub ball nose got it like just long enough with better flute geometry and Because we have to hang it out so long to clear the fixture clamps and stuff got it. Yeah, so that the neck will will help
00:34:21
Speaker
So I'm, I'm eager to get those. But is it really, is it really shank rigidity that's causing them to break? It's always breaking at the collet. Oh, interesting. Well, oh man, this is, this is deep. Let me know what you learn, please. Because I would argue or think that you could still have a tool pressure. What's your chip loop or tooth? Do you know? Stop your head. No. Is it a slot?
00:34:48
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. So we've been doing some proven cut testing on stainless steel slotting with 1.8 inch end mills, just 10,000 bullnose. And this was helical. I can tell you my chip load. It's helical. And the recipes that work
00:35:04
Speaker
even on 304 stainless are low feed per twos. This is on the Tormach, the last test I remember doing was seven or 800 surface feet, which is insane. No, no, I'm sorry, John. It was seven or 8,000 RPMs. I don't remember the surface footage, what that is, but three tenths or four tenths feed per tooth. Yep. Okay. A lot of my stuff is that low, but I'm looking it up right now. Give me a second.
00:35:33
Speaker
Um, there it is. Two, three, seven, 250, uh, the service fee per minute. Sorry. That's much more normally acceptable for three or four stainless, but, um, I would, yeah, that's exactly what I'm running. I'm running 250 surface feet. Um, three 10th seven, 3.7, 10th, um, chipper tooth.
00:36:01
Speaker
and it's an eighth-inch stool, it's taken out half-inch long. That's not a big deal, John. Yeah. It looks like a lot of stick out. I mean, that's what, four times D stick out. No, that's fine. That shouldn't be a problem. It is.
00:36:19
Speaker
Interesting. If you're on Provencut this morning, go look at literally some of the newest recipes. The last one I did, I think it was on the 770 Tormach and we got to see if Julie, they may not be published yet because they're in review, but I was shocked. We were looking at what was a reliable outcome and slotty when you go, how deep is your axial depth of cut? Eighth inch.
00:36:49
Speaker
One times. Yeah, that should be fine. And you're going flood coolant. It's well aimed. Yep. Yes. I see your test here. What recipe number is it? Uh, three, six, three. Oh yeah. There you go. Um, yeah. Take a look at that. Um, do you have your stick out? Yeah. Isn't that cool?
00:37:12
Speaker
Do you have stick out? Absolutely. Go to the full recipe info page. It'll be on the left-hand side. I think that was 0.509. Almost identical. Yep.
Provencut's Role and Challenges
00:37:22
Speaker
That's cool. It's cool that you have that.
00:37:24
Speaker
So we pushed them as far as we could, as hard as we could to, in this case, break the tool, and then we kind of learned, okay, so given that knowledge, backing it off here becomes the published recipe. So this is actually something we're struggling with to think about, which is if, if, how, and when do we share failed Prue and Cut recipes? Because sometimes people want to know, is this the limit? What happened next? And we're doing that, so we're chewing on that.
00:37:54
Speaker
Yeah, maybe a, I don't know, a secondary page that's like fail recipes or something for each recipe. Right. Um, and then you can have iterative settings and I don't know, it's a lot more work to say like wide failed and all that, but
00:38:09
Speaker
Well, so in this actually, ironically, this will, or coincidentally rather, in this one, there is a recipe comment. This recipe is pushing the limits of process reliability, increasing the axial depth of cut up to 200% caused the tool to break. This recipe was at 175%. Consider reducing the axial depth to improve process reliability, but you're only at 100%. Should be fine. Yep. And it's, I've run this recipe for two years. Same holder, you're cooling still.
00:38:39
Speaker
Yep. Okay. We had to replace the nut and the call it yesterday because they got chewed in one of the broken tool incidents. Um, it's a lake shore, but yeah. Yeah. For flute.
00:38:51
Speaker
Oh, there you go. I found stepping down to three flutes with one eighth inch massively helps. It comes at the sacrifice of rigidity because three flutes has a thinner core, but the difference is that chip recutting or lack of evacuation is almost an immediate
00:39:12
Speaker
tool failure or can immediately lead to chip flute problems or chipping, which leads to failure. Whereas a lack of rigidity just means you've got to have a different speed and speed that works. But I would highly encourage you try three flutes. I'm going to text you a picture right now that I took last night of the tool. The actual broken part.
00:39:34
Speaker
Yeah, so the broken piece, this was a brand new end mill, texted. There is a chip stuck to a flute. I mean, it's not stuck hard, but it's just ever so slightly stuck to the flute under the microscope. It shows you the chip formation and everything, and it could very well be chip loading that's causing it to... You mean the chip that wasn't evacuated?
00:39:56
Speaker
Yeah. Rewind like 20 seconds. But that might be where it broke. I mean, that's the last chip. Yeah. Talk to the guys at Zadaro. I mean, they're, they're smart, but that's actually, you know, it's weird, John, something's wrong. That is not a three tenths chip load per tooth chip. That's a bigger chip. Interesting. Well, okay. Let me check my settings. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, 3.7.
00:40:24
Speaker
Well, it's always tough with a good microscope because it can make things seem... And stupid fusion. I don't know why, but it defaults to three flutes. There you go. So if I change that to four flutes... Well, that could be... It changes the chip for two, that's lower, 2.7. 2%. Right, right. I don't know. Better. Go back to Provencut. Look at the picture, though, of the chips
00:40:50
Speaker
Well, I could be wrong, John. Boy, it looks like a... No, I'm sorry. You know, I take back what I said. I could be wrong. Yeah, the chips you have look similar-ish.
00:41:02
Speaker
This is actually making you really happy right now. Yeah, it's really cool to be able to do this. This is exactly what we're, this is like, so I've got, what I've got to do is show the world, like why should you? Yeah, I was just going to say, how about for those people out there, probably many people listening who have never seen Provencut. I registered, it's, I don't know, a hundred bucks a year. I'm happy to pay it. So it's a website. He has
00:41:26
Speaker
done this toolpath, exactly the toolpath that I'm having tool breakage on. I'm looking at the website, there's a video of the cut on a tormac, the exact cut that I'm doing for the most part, fusion recipe, picture of the tool holder with the stick out, picture of the chips on a nice white background with a mittoyu ruler.
00:41:44
Speaker
inch and metric on the ruler and proven cut was built to be every unit can convert with a master toggle and hovering over any value gives you the alternate unit right away. I see that. I see that. So I hover over quarter inch and it says 6.35 millimeters. That's cool. That makes me happy. You don't have metric RPM values.
00:42:06
Speaker
Only for Lay's. Yeah. I'm excited about this. We've got a lot of work to do. Growing the recipes is obviously first and foremost because that's what we need to do to increase the value offering. But this is my chance to change the speeds and feeds world. I want to show people better ways to
00:42:24
Speaker
There's a lot of different things that offer value for the Provencut. It's stop not quit breaking tools. How can you run tools harder? What tools should you buy? What machines should you buy? The one click open that moves that toolpath right into Fusion 360, which is helping people program parts faster. And it's become my passion.
00:42:48
Speaker
It's interesting. What I consider us to be is practical experts. I'm not a tool engineer. I'm not a 30 year tool and die veteran, but we know how to work up recipes that work for everybody, not just worse recipes that work inside an R&D facility when conditions are different or controlled or perfect. So that's what we're doing.
00:43:11
Speaker
and the fact that you're sharing. I mean, you're doing it, you're sharing it, you're showing results, and people can just look that up and not have to do the time-consuming testing and breakage themselves. Yeah. Yeah, it's awesome.
00:43:24
Speaker
It's amazing. The feedback that we've already gotten, we've only been, we're kind of quietly growing it, but unsolicited feedback from folks that just makes me smile about, you've saved me so much time. I did realize I could do this. The folks at Carbide 3D just sent over some recipes for their machines that we're going to be adding actually today.
Podcast Wrap-Up
00:43:44
Speaker
So it's growing at the hobby level because that to me is just such an important thing is understanding what can you do with a pocket NC or a Bantam machine, but then also
00:43:53
Speaker
Hey, I want to look at that Okuma or that high-end DMG or a Haas, you know, how fast and how hard can you rough with a YG one five eighths inch? Shout out to Peter Belfonte for this record recipe chip breaker or rougher corn cob. It just, yes, so much fun.
00:44:14
Speaker
Adam the Machinist has been contributing recipes showing his 42,000 RPM DMG Maury. It's kind of like a current actually. It's very similar to a current machine and he's been doing some surfacing and titanium surfacing carbide showing the tools he's using. And then with Provencut we give you links so you can go click the link. The recipe that John and I were just talking about is a helical tool. There's a link to open up the website for that tool right there. The holder that's being used,
00:44:44
Speaker
coolant, all that stuff. It's really, really wonderful. Yeah, you should be excited. You did an awesome job. And it's going to continue to evolve and feedback from everybody is going to make it better. Yeah. We should wrap up. Excellent. Sounds good. Let us know. Let me know what you hear from Zadaro on that tool. I'm curious. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. I mean, they made it fast, which was nice. And it should be a foreflute, much stubbier. And I can't wait to try it out. But ask them.
00:45:13
Speaker
Oh, man. It's interesting. When we broke the tool to the 1.8 inch, it broke at the ER collet. I think that's probably a common thing for smaller diameter tools is that they don't break. That's just a stress riser point because the way in the ER collet holds onto it.
00:45:31
Speaker
So that's actually where moving to a hydraulic or shrink or other style can be better because it's not creating that pressure pinch point right there. And in fact, somebody was just mentioning this, they can rough the Frasier guys were mentioning that you can rough harder with a welding tool because it doesn't create that pressure point at the face like a collet does. And the fulcrum is further back and spread out more.
00:46:00
Speaker
Interesting. I think that kind of makes sense. Huh. Cool. Anyway. Okay. Take care. Have a great day. Bye.