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Ep. 10: The Man, The Legend, Justin Gray!
58 Plays2 days ago
Join Curt and Jamie as they interrogate Justin Gray from Tool Path.
Links Discussed:
- Link within tolerance with Justin: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Ep2X0g0Rvm9XEiomNcAnR?si=dc78446372434191
The Lone Machinist:
- Website: https://thelonemachinists.com/
- Merch: https://www.jspeceng.com/online-store
- Patreon: https://patreon.com/TheLoneMachinists
Jamie:
Curt:
Justin:
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Toolpath and Tumbling Media
00:00:47
jamie peacock
Welcome to the Tumbling Podcast, where we dive into tumbling media every week, because apparently that's all Kurt and I can talk about. Yeah, how's it, Kurt? How's it, Justin? We got Justin Gray from Toolpath on the podcast with us today.
00:00:58
Justin Gray
Hi. I quite enjoyed your guys' discussion on tumbling.
00:01:01
Curt
im
00:01:03
Justin Gray
I've never messed with tumbling before, so it's I feel like I'm getting an education.
00:01:07
jamie peacock
it Yeah, it's a very interesting process, very useful and very interesting. ah Small things make big differences.
00:01:16
Curt
We will try to move
00:01:16
Justin Gray
Didn't you machine your own tumbling media at one point?
00:01:17
Curt
move on
00:01:20
jamie peacock
I made a mold and cost my own tumbling media.
00:01:22
Justin Gray
Oh, okay.
00:01:22
jamie peacock
Then I discovered I could buy it way cheaper than I could buy the raw materials.
00:01:26
Justin Gray
Okay.
00:01:26
jamie peacock
It just entailed me having to actually phone someone and speak to them on the phone instead of just emailing them because they don't know to respond to emails. so
00:01:34
Justin Gray
Got it.
00:01:35
jamie peacock
Yeah. but
00:01:37
jamie peacock
But yeah, I managed to buy. tumbling's the best. I actually have a tumbling topic and it's not a long one today. So ah mentioned that the the new Tumblr is really, really violent.
00:01:37
Justin Gray
But apparently we should move on from tupling.
00:01:49
jamie peacock
last time and uh doesn't work super well on the knives turns out it's uh brilliant for the mag uh the plus two shoes i make i ran stuff through there for an hour and when i went to scotch bright it i didn't even have to dip the parts in water because it didn't get hot that's how quickly i was scotch brouting them because the surface was super uniform under the tumbled finish and just super quickly cleaned up so i guess it has a it has a benefit to being super super violent and
00:02:17
jamie peacock
But yeah, we're not on not on yet to talk about tumbling today.
Chatter Integration and Role Transition
00:02:20
jamie peacock
We're here to arrest Justin.
00:02:23
Curt
Yeah, so...
00:02:24
Justin Gray
I'm super thrilled to be here.
00:02:26
Curt
and awesome No, awesome. Thanks for coming on. i've been I listened to your latest podcast, or not latest. I listened to the podcast with Dylan, just kind of make sure we don't ask the same questions, because that's a fantastic one.
00:02:37
Curt
We'll link it in the show notes for sure. And yeah, I don't know.
00:02:39
jamie peacock
Let me...
00:02:41
Curt
Curious to see, curious to hear what yeah what's been going on in your world for the last... few months because ah things have made wild changes as it seems.
00:02:50
Justin Gray
Yeah, come to be honest with you, I'll probably forget all the things that have changed. The big headline one is that we acquired Chatter, I think. um And that was that was fairly recently.
00:03:01
Justin Gray
And so that's actually been my big focus for the last couple of weeks is trying to get my mind wrapped around Chatter. just before Just before the podcast, actually, I was doing some testing on the brother behind me.
00:03:13
Justin Gray
um So, you know, trying starting to integrate Chatter into our flow and figure out how to roll that out, support the existing Chatter customers.
00:03:21
Curt
Oh, interesting.
00:03:22
Justin Gray
um And then, go ahead.
00:03:22
Curt
I was wondering. Sorry, God.
00:03:24
Justin Gray
No, no.
00:03:25
Curt
No, I said i was I was interesting if you guys just kind of maintain like separate roles or if you all just kind of now just pile on and and work together with with both companies.
00:03:34
Justin Gray
No, it's it's a pretty big it's a pretty big change. um Pete did a great job building chatter um up to where it is and really defining what I think is a pretty unique version of machine monitoring for the space.
00:03:48
Justin Gray
um But, and and i I say this with absolutely no disrespect intended, but he's not a software developer. And so um the big thing for us is actually stabilizing that platform a little bit, putting some tests in there, fixing bugs and getting it ready to roll out to a wider group of users.
Evolving Roles and Shop Transformation
00:04:07
Justin Gray
um And so what we're actually trying to do is trade jobs. So I was doing a lot of the product development and design along with the software development. um But I actually am the absolute wrong person to do product design. Like I couldn't care less what color things are.
00:04:24
Justin Gray
I care a lot how many clicks I have to do, but like other than that, you know, where things are, anyway, I'm not a designer. And that's what Pete's real passion is. It's one of the things that makes Chatter really nice to use is that he put a lot of thought into that design.
00:04:36
Justin Gray
um So he's taking over a lot of that from me, formalizing that and putting in the same way that, that, that he's not a software developer, I'm not a designer. And so when he was like, oh show me your design documents for toolpath and like, what's your design language and how do you think about building features? And I was like, I don't have it. I don't, I don't have answers to any of these questions.
00:04:56
Curt
Nice.
00:04:57
Justin Gray
um
00:04:57
Curt
Oh, what's?
00:04:57
Justin Gray
So he's, he's working on formalizing that for us and putting together a process And that's been very effective at helping our development team go faster. um And while he's doing that, I'm working to get my mind wrapped around his code base and figure out how to migrate it over to r our systems and stuff, like our hosting and everything, and how to support it.
00:05:17
Justin Gray
So we're really, really fully integrating and sort of handing off roles to each other.
00:05:23
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:05:23
Curt
ah
00:05:23
jamie peacock
your your
00:05:24
Justin Gray
It's been good.
00:05:25
jamie peacock
Your role at Toolbot, that's ah CTO, Chief Technical Officer.
00:05:29
Justin Gray
Yeah.
00:05:30
jamie peacock
That's what it's meant to be.
00:05:32
Justin Gray
Yeah, yeah. So i'm I'm one of the co-founders at Toolpath.
00:05:33
jamie peacock
Okay. Yeah.
00:05:35
Justin Gray
me and Me and Andy founded it.
00:05:35
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:05:36
Justin Gray
um My actual role is to do anything and everything that's getting in the way of us rolling out a product. um
00:05:45
Justin Gray
So along the history of Toolpath, I started out as running our shop, um did a little bit of xometry work. It used to be in my garage. It's one of the reasons I'm jealous of your heating system, Kurt.
00:05:57
Justin Gray
um
00:05:58
Curt
I
00:05:58
Justin Gray
the The X7 was in my garage for a while, and I did a little bit of job shop work. And I really like it wasn't because I thought we would make a ton of money doing job shop work. Certainly, I never scaled to the point where that would have been anywhere near profitable.
00:06:12
Justin Gray
um But it was to really understand like what it was to be a machinist and to like stand in front of my machine on a Sunday afternoon, knowing I have one end mill left and I can't break it or I don't get to deliver my parts on time.
00:06:20
jamie peacock
Thank you.
00:06:25
Justin Gray
Right. And to like. I don't know, it sounds corny, but to have that emotional connection to to what it means to run a machine, I felt like that was really important for us to build into the automation product.
00:06:36
Curt
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:06:37
Justin Gray
Because that's the kind of stuff where if the automation product can't understand, isn't the right word, but if it can't be tailored to treat your tools and your parts the way you treat them, then it won't work in your shop.
Machining Controllers and Probing Systems
00:06:50
Justin Gray
And I kind of abstractly guessed that that was going to be the case, that every machinist is different and every shop is a snowflake. But um you know really, actually running machines was a whole new experience.
00:07:01
Justin Gray
And like the I don't know how, maybe it's been long enough for you guys that you don't feel it anymore, but like there's a moment of panic right before I hit the green button on a new program.
00:07:12
jamie peacock
No, that's still there. You mean the crash start button?
00:07:14
Justin Gray
yeah
00:07:14
Curt
ah hundred percent
00:07:16
Justin Gray
yeah um And i you know I felt like if I was gonna be rebuilding cam automation platform that I needed to have that that moment of panic was like, not that I knew it was there, but I have this very visceral memory of like, they dropped the X7 off in my garage and I'd never run a ah real CNC machine before.
00:07:36
Justin Gray
I'd done a little bit in college, but I'd always had somebody like helping. me And I'm staring at it and there's like a million buttons on the control and I'm like, what what do I do now? How do I load a tool?
00:07:47
Justin Gray
What do I do? and if I screw it up, this thing will kill me. And how do I deactivate the door lock? Cause I don't want that thing on there anymore. It's annoying me.
00:07:57
jamie peacock
ah We're not allowed to say that. We do everything that OSHA asks of us.
00:08:03
Curt
ah It's been disbanded.
00:08:04
Justin Gray
The door lock is, yeah, the door lock is back on.
00:08:04
Curt
Now you don't got to worry about that.
00:08:07
Justin Gray
Oh yeah, yeah. That's true. It doesn't exist anymore.
00:08:09
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yeah, the door locks. The local agency has one of the first things actually do when machines come in is disable the door lock, the winter lock.
00:08:18
Justin Gray
Oh yeah.
00:08:19
jamie peacock
Because no one here wants it. Like, no one's interested in that in South Africa. But yeah, we... We have our own set of rules here.
00:08:30
Justin Gray
um
00:08:30
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:08:30
jamie peacock
So, so you did job shop stuff and then that led to you wanting to develop a tool path to make life a bit easier as far as i understand it.
00:08:30
Justin Gray
Yeah.
00:08:31
Justin Gray
So,
00:08:35
Justin Gray
No, no, the other way around.
00:08:37
jamie peacock
Other way around.
00:08:37
Justin Gray
No, no, the other way around.
00:08:38
jamie peacock
okay.
00:08:38
Justin Gray
Yeah. So we started Toolpath and I did a bunch of sort of foundational research on what it would take to do cam automation.
00:08:41
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:08:46
Justin Gray
um
00:08:46
jamie peacock
ah Okay.
00:08:46
Justin Gray
And then I was like, this is a like, it's it's too much of a science project. It's too academic. I need to cut some parts. I need to like make some parts.
00:08:54
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:08:55
Justin Gray
And so, you know, part of what helped me, honestly, part of what motivated me to jump to Toolpath was that we agreed to buy a machine and put it in my garage so I could you know, make parts, mess around and be a job shop again, not to make money, but just to know what that's like.
00:09:05
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:09:10
Justin Gray
Um, and so while we were developing toolpath for the first year, i was also making parts, you know, and like my, my side job for toolpath was to make parts for toolpaths like job shop. Right.
00:09:22
jamie peacock
Yeah. Okay. Let's get on to get that hands on experience.
00:09:24
Justin Gray
Um,
00:09:26
Justin Gray
Right. And then, i don't know, a year and a half in, um we got to the point where we felt like we had made enough progress that we wanted to start growing out to like a true industrial level CNC machine.
00:09:37
Justin Gray
um I love my X7. It's a great machine. It's a single phase one. think you have a three phase one. So yours has a little more guts. Kurt, but um we felt like running on a real machine with like ah a control that's more industry standard was necessary.
00:09:53
Justin Gray
So we had to grow out of my my garage. um And so the shop that you guys can see in the background background here is only a couple of miles from the house, but we rented that space and brought the brother in and have plenty of room to grow for other machines as we grow our R&D profile. But Um, so I set this up, I ran the air, we paid an electrician to do the wiring, which was crazy expensive.
00:10:15
Justin Gray
Um, and we got a good deal so I can understand why people do their own electrical, but, uh, I didn't want to touch four 83 phase.
00:10:20
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:10:22
Justin Gray
So, um, uh, and then, yeah,
00:10:25
jamie peacock
Yeah, that'll set you up fire very quickly. ah What controllers on your on your cell?
00:10:32
Justin Gray
the LNC controller, which is like the Chinese FANUC clone, um,
00:10:34
jamie peacock
Okay. Yeah. Yes.
00:10:38
jamie peacock
I have seen them.
00:10:38
Justin Gray
And I like it, I love it, and I hate it.
00:10:41
Justin Gray
I mean, like it's actually a pretty decent control to play with. um
00:10:45
jamie peacock
it does the thing. But yeah, the man I assume the manuals are lackluster.
00:10:51
Justin Gray
They're not so bad. i did have i did it did take me two days to find out that in the manual they use parentheses around all their function calls, but you
00:10:53
Curt
I it.
Automation in Machining and Programming Focus
00:11:01
Justin Gray
actually need to use square brackets.
00:11:03
jamie peacock
Oh, yeah.
00:11:04
Justin Gray
I was like, why are none of my calls working? I don't understand.
00:11:09
jamie peacock
Yeah, it's just the other small things can really stuff you around for a long time.
00:11:14
Justin Gray
But I've only had one real problem with it. I was running, it was like one of the last job shop jobs I was running and the machine just started randomly shutting down on me.
00:11:25
Justin Gray
It was very, very unpredictable.
00:11:25
jamie peacock
Ooh.
00:11:27
Justin Gray
um And I called them and was like, you guys just need to send me a new control. This is BS, I'm not dealing with this. And they were like, OK, well, we'll send you a new control. But first, turn the voltage regulator up on the like inside the box.
00:11:39
Justin Gray
And sure enough, like I put a multimeter on it. And it was at like 4.85 volts or something, right? And like had been for a while. And I don't know whether it worked its way down or whether it just finally. you know but anyway, I turned it up to like 5.1 volts. And I've never had a problem since.
00:11:55
jamie peacock
interesting yeah that's easy fix
00:11:56
Curt
That's a nice fix.
00:11:56
Justin Gray
So yeah.
00:11:56
Curt
Yeah.
00:11:59
Justin Gray
Yeah. So overall, I'd say, you know and to be frank, like the support I get from them, even though it's like through a WhatsApp chat to a Chinese engineer, is pretty top notch.
00:12:11
Justin Gray
like i've I've never been upset about it.
00:12:14
jamie peacock
is yours one of the epoxy ground art ones okay so 2021 uh 21 22.
00:12:18
Justin Gray
Yeah.
00:12:19
jamie peacock
yeah 21 when they release the epoxies twenty two
00:12:22
Justin Gray
Yeah, I think so, 21. Yeah, 21, yep. Yeah,
00:12:23
jamie peacock
yeah twenty one s when they release thepoxies
00:12:26
Justin Gray
yeah we were thinking about getting a Haas.
00:12:26
jamie peacock
Yeah, Kurt's got the... Okay.
00:12:29
Justin Gray
Oh yeah. He's got, I think your casting is the same as my casting. They're just the sheet.
00:12:33
Curt
I don't imagine they've changed too much.
00:12:33
Justin Gray
Um,
00:12:34
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
00:12:35
jamie peacock
Yeah. What's interesting is Kurt's controller, the model number, I can't find a manual for it. The only manual I can find is in Chinese. It's Siemens 828, but the actual, ah the number on it, it's, yeah, the it's not the same as my one.
00:12:51
jamie peacock
And yeah, it just, the only manual I could find was Chinese. It was quite, quite interesting.
00:12:55
Justin Gray
So Sile does this. So the castings on our machines are labeled as Schneeberger castings, which is this Swedish company that makes great castings.
00:13:01
jamie peacock
Ah,
00:13:03
Justin Gray
But they're actually made in China under license from Schneeberger.
00:13:08
jamie peacock
ah okay.
00:13:08
Curt
Oh, interesting.
00:13:09
Justin Gray
It would not surprise me to find out that your Siemens control is actually
00:13:09
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:13:14
jamie peacock
Yeah. I'm fairly certain that's what's happening because a lot of machines out of China have Siemens controllers and they are from China because they're is considerably cheaper than buying from German Siemens.
00:13:27
jamie peacock
Like i was chatting to the the guy, the technician who came to visit me and he was saying, uh, buy, if I buy a Sino machine with LNC or one of those controllers, it's, uh, Matt's is hard, $5,000 cheaper on the machine than if I put a seam, if I optioned for a Siemens controller, like straight up just adds $5,000 to the price.
00:13:27
Justin Gray
Yeah.
00:13:27
Curt
I'll have to...
00:13:46
jamie peacock
If I want to Siemens set up on it.
00:13:50
Curt
I'll have to send you something after the podcast, Jamie, because I talked to Siemens directly when I was having all these crazy issues.
00:13:53
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:13:54
Curt
So like, F this. I'm just going to reach out with them and just deal with their tech support and be like, give me like on, not like ah over the phone or like whatever um support, which is heinously expensive.
00:14:05
Curt
But, um,
00:14:06
jamie peacock
yeah
00:14:07
Curt
They linked me to like, i just had plethora of documents and I'm pretty sure I have an exact one of probably any control that's out there.
00:14:10
jamie peacock
oh okay oh okay
00:14:13
Curt
Cause they just have like a huge database. And they said like, yeah, these ones are like cross compatible. it's just different model numbers from I'm assuming origin of manufacturer.
00:14:21
jamie peacock
I think, yeah, I think that's all it is. Because I want to find out how to add M codes. I have the hardware. I want the software unlock. Well, I want this what I need to do. Apparently, it's not difficult. I've just got to pay the guy to come out and I don't want to.
00:14:33
jamie peacock
So I was asking them if they've got an s SOP they can give me. Because I'm friends with the, I went to high school with the guy who works at the the agent. So I'm trying to get him to get me the s SOP so I can just follow it and enable the M codes for myself.
00:14:47
jamie peacock
But yeah, so you wrote, did you write custom macros for your style?
00:14:52
Justin Gray
I did ah So the story there is that when we ordered this machine, we knew that I didn't know what I was doing. And so we didn't pay the $5,000 for the probing package. um Also, the paying $5,000 for the Chinese clone of the Renishaw package seems silly when the Renishaw package is around five k
00:15:07
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:15:10
Justin Gray
um But rather than break a $5,000 probe, we just bought like cheap internet probes and toolsetters. And I've broken plenty of those, unfortunately.
00:15:18
Curt
Ha ha.
00:15:18
Justin Gray
i shouldn't i shouldn't be proud of that, but I have. um But when I did that, I knew nothing. And they were like, well, you can use whatever probe you want, but our macros only work with our probe, which is BS. That's not how macros work.
00:15:29
jamie peacock
It's a load of cock, but Yeah.
00:15:30
Justin Gray
Yeah. and i And I know that now.
00:15:31
jamie peacock
you know
00:15:32
Justin Gray
ah um But I didn't know that then. And so I opened up their macros and I was like, well, i'm not scared of macro programming. So I'll just edit whatever doesn't work to work with my probe. um But it's like all in Chinese.
00:15:47
Justin Gray
All the comments are in Chinese and it just was like really hard to read. and I was like, you know what, i I'm just going to write my own. Also, people had been saying that they didn't work completely well, like the factory ones weren't very bulletproof.
00:16:00
Justin Gray
And so I just wrote my own. They're hosted on GitHub.
00:16:05
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:16:06
Justin Gray
You know, say what you say what you want about the LNC control, but they actually support like a full programming language with like correct if statements and while loops and logic. When I went to write some macros for the brother, I found out that the way that they do if statements requires the use of go-tos.
00:16:14
jamie peacock
Oh, wow.
00:16:20
Justin Gray
And I threw a tantrum for five minutes.
00:16:21
Curt
Ugh.
00:16:24
Justin Gray
but
00:16:26
jamie peacock
Yeah, the Siemens controllers, they're probing macros.
00:16:26
Justin Gray
So...
00:16:29
jamie peacock
So I've got all the Renishaw macros on my machine because it got optioned with the measurement two package from Siemens, which includes that, but it's got all its own um integrated probing stuff.
00:16:41
jamie peacock
That's yeah. I made a one for setting my tool lengths, which also weird things are happening there. It's the first touch.
00:16:48
Justin Gray
Your tool links?
00:16:50
jamie peacock
ah Yeah. So when I boot the machine up, the first touch, second touch is about 30 microns difference. And then it's two or three microns every time. um So that first touch of the day, ah just, I think the probe just needs to settle in because some oak was in there with soldering iron
00:17:05
Justin Gray
Yeah.
00:17:07
jamie peacock
and a small hammer and a Dremel.
00:17:10
Justin Gray
i've been there I've been there, man. I just ended up buying a new tool setter.
00:17:11
jamie peacock
Yeah. Uh, Well, I got given this TS-27 arc because it was broken. um And I put it through the ultrasonic cleaner. The one seal was damaged. They wouldn't sell us a seal. So I made a mold and made my own seal.
00:17:24
jamie peacock
And it's been working. And then
Toolpath's Automation Features
00:17:26
jamie peacock
i'll put 24 volts through it and ground. And it evaporated one of the pogo pins. So I got in there and I unevaporated said pogo pin. And it works. I just don't want to spend.
00:17:37
jamie peacock
I mean, I can buy a Chinese one for like $400. I just don't want to spend the $400 on a probe.
00:17:42
Justin Gray
You know, the the probe that I have, the tool setter that I have on the style is a $30 Amazon one. um And it is, i've I've had more of these things apart than I should admit.
00:17:52
Justin Gray
And it is ah surprisingly accurate, like within a couple tenths every time.
00:17:55
jamie peacock
Yeah. I had one. So I had one of those on my machine for a while and i had a bit of coolant ingress. I had a spare one on the shelf. So i'll put that in and also works flawlessly, but then I got a TS 27 R.
00:18:07
jamie peacock
So I figured time to upgrade and put that in.
00:18:08
Justin Gray
Yeah. Yeah. And I've, I've thought about putting one of those in the style too. Um, it'd be nice, but I just don't have the time to.
00:18:15
jamie peacock
You can pick one up.
00:18:16
Justin Gray
Yeah.
00:18:16
jamie peacock
You can pick one up for $400 off AliExpress.
00:18:17
Justin Gray
Yeah.
00:18:20
Justin Gray
Yeah.
00:18:21
jamie peacock
Like they're super cheap now.
00:18:23
Justin Gray
Oh yeah.
00:18:23
jamie peacock
Because they used to be prohibitively expensive.
00:18:26
Justin Gray
yeah
00:18:27
jamie peacock
Even wireless tool probes. You can pick one up for... think was also like $400 or $500. They're not expensive.
00:18:34
Justin Gray
oh yeah
00:18:35
jamie peacock
Like they've really, really come down in price, which is a bit terrifying because you don't know what quality you're getting, but it's the risk you take with China.
00:18:40
Justin Gray
Right. Yeah. Did you get probing on your style, Kurt?
00:18:47
Curt
I didn't for the same reason. I just couldn't justify. i didn't hear a good thing about probing for the price. And I was like, you know what? If I'm going to get program, I'm going to go like Renish on just eat a little bit cash. But I mean, with all the issues I have, I think I'm getting a Renish shop package for free. So I'll have updates on that in the next few weeks, hopefully. So that'd be kind of cool.
00:19:04
Justin Gray
Okay. Yeah.
00:19:05
jamie peacock
yeah because those initial probes are not exactly cheap items
00:19:05
Curt
Yeah.
00:19:09
Curt
No, no.
00:19:11
jamie peacock
yeah my TS 27 was so yeah carry on
00:19:13
Curt
So Justin, how much, how much of your day is like um sorry How much your day is based up between like like moving bits around, like playing with code, and like playing with the machines?
00:19:24
Curt
And what do you enjoy more?
00:19:26
Justin Gray
the the Silicon Valley ah terminology you're looking for is how much of my day is moving bits and how much is moving atoms?
00:19:32
Curt
Fair enough, yeah.
00:19:34
Justin Gray
So bits versus atoms and which, which startups you invest in. um well
00:19:40
Justin Gray
On any given day, um
00:19:46
Justin Gray
I usually work at least 12 hours a day. Right now, sometimes more like 14 to 17. um I'm hoping that can come down sometime in the in the not too distant future.
00:19:57
Justin Gray
um So when I give you percentages, you have to take them out of like a 2x and like a 40-hour work week. um
00:20:09
Justin Gray
It's about 70% moving bits and 30% moving atoms. I would like it to be more moving atoms. And actually that's going to be a big focus for us in the next next couple of months is starting to run more parts.
00:20:21
Justin Gray
um Getting the the product to the point where it was really stable enough. So like one of the reasons we started with quoting is that it's, it's okay to be a little bit wrong on a quote. And when I say a little bit wrong, I'm not talking about like a time estimate or something, but like a geometry selection or, or like the way you set up a tool path with a lead in or a lead out.
00:20:41
Justin Gray
um Like on an estimate, those kinds of computational geometry issues don't, really kill the estimate, but they sure kill the program. So um we've been putting a ton of effort into sort of like very foundational computational geometry stuff underneath the quote in the last few months.
00:20:59
Justin Gray
And we're getting to the, we finally gotten to the point now where it's really sturdy enough. And so honestly, I want to be cutting parts like once or twice a week using our software.
00:21:10
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:21:10
Justin Gray
Um, and that's not to say that like, I expect other people to be doing that. I think we need to be pushing the envelope there. Um, I'd love for to be there for people to play with, but I just don't want to oversell the the cutting part of it and be like, Oh yeah, we can auto program your parts.
00:21:23
Justin Gray
Um, one of the places I hope to spend a lot more time with is like really getting it dialed in for fixture work. Um, I think there's just a lot of people who would love to never program a fixture again.
00:21:35
Justin Gray
um And it's one of those things that I think the activation energy is high enough that we tend not to improve our fixtures as often as we should.
Challenges in Scaling Machining Processes
00:21:44
Justin Gray
Cause like, nah, it just, you know, it works and I don't want to make a new fixture. I don't want to program a new fixture.
00:21:48
Justin Gray
But if programming a new fixture was like trivially easy, then we could do it. And when you don't care as much about surface finish and like if every edge isn't perfectly deburred off the machine, that's a nice target for us for auto-programming to start with. So soft jaws and fixture plates and things like that I think are a good place for us to work.
00:22:09
Justin Gray
But yeah, I spend about 70% of my time programming right now.
00:22:10
jamie peacock
no
00:22:13
Justin Gray
um We have a pretty big bottleneck on the user interface side of things. Early in days in the toolpath, I was very focused on the AI engine. um The broader engineering team has that pretty solidly in hand now.
00:22:25
Justin Gray
And so I don't get to work on the AI as much. And I'm working a lot more on the user interface for the last three, four months. So that's been interesting because I am not a web developer by training.
00:22:36
Justin Gray
So I basically had to come up that learning curve pretty quickly.
00:22:40
Curt
Nice.
00:22:41
Justin Gray
yeah
00:22:43
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:22:44
Justin Gray
But i try to I try to touch the machines at least once a week. Each machine gets something run on it at least once a week is is my goal.
00:22:53
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:22:53
Curt
Hold on.
00:22:53
jamie peacock
No, it's interesting to hear how your weak your week breaks up there because programming, not my favorite thing in the world. But yeah, other the programming of softwares, that's...
00:23:05
jamie peacock
that could be really, really convenient and fixture plates. Because that, like you say, it's more effort than you want to put in to just quickly sort out something because it's working. So if it ain't broke, fix it till it is.
00:23:18
jamie peacock
But yeah, I could see where that could be really, really valuable.
00:23:22
Justin Gray
yeah
00:23:24
Curt
Yeah, no, like I run production like all day. Like I build a fixture and it's going to run for years. And even then just like, I don't want to make fixtures. Like there' they're still boring and I barely have to do them. Like if i if I can hand anything off to automation, that'd be like one of them for certain.
00:23:38
Curt
be like Or even just like like, I should set up a proper like container method in Fusion so I just...
00:23:39
Justin Gray
Right.
00:23:43
Curt
you know, can get through these easier. Cause same thing, like it works and I'm like, it could be better if I did this. It's like, or I could just not do it and keep doing what I'm doing and basically be totally fine. So yeah, it's just like you said that, that, uh, that barrier to doing it is high.
00:23:57
Justin Gray
the The container method is another good one. um So that's where my bits and my atoms kind of cross over. So one of the things that Toolpath does right now, like when we push programs down into Fusion, you just get a bare part in space.
00:24:09
Justin Gray
um And I hate it. I hate that. i like but I know that a lot of three axis machinists don't model their work holding. I get it. I understand that it's like only sort of necessary. um But like I just need to simulate everything, man.
00:24:23
Justin Gray
I've crashed into my jaws a couple of times. One time, actually, I had the whole toolpath team out here. um You know what's really hard is to find good computer programmers who like have CNC machining experience.
00:24:35
Curt
Oh, weird.
00:24:36
Justin Gray
That's really hard to find. um
00:24:38
Curt
By bed.
00:24:39
Justin Gray
So we we had the whole team out here and I was like, I'm going to give them a part to make. And I was really dumb and it was like an actual customer part. And I thought it was an easy part. um But it turns out like when you have a bunch of people who've never run a machine before and like,
00:24:53
Justin Gray
five or six people juggling that's really really complicated. And so somebody like made like the program was fine, but we made some small tweak to the program. And I don't remember the exact details, but what ended up happening was like Fusion decided to move the lead in.
00:25:06
Justin Gray
And so the lead in was fine before, but where it moved it, it crashed into the JAWS.
Bridging Innovation Gaps in Machining
00:25:11
Justin Gray
um
00:25:12
Curt
Cool.
00:25:12
Justin Gray
And I had just like that day installed like the brand new orange vice on the machine. And then like all of a sudden now there's like a big apprentice mark in the JAWS. And so like from that moment on, I was like, you know what? I just simulate everything. like like There's no reason not to for us.
00:25:27
Justin Gray
um And so instead of pushing just a bare part down now, we're looking to actually push like a really nicely designed but still pretty simple container method um down that'll have Phil Mestenhauser's work holding stuff. So you can like swap, like right click, replace the work holding and everything.
00:25:44
Justin Gray
um And my working theory is I have no idea if this is true or not. But my working theory is that if I just give everybody a really nice template that's already pre made, then everybody will use a really nice templates and start building off of them.
00:25:56
Justin Gray
um
00:25:56
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:25:56
Justin Gray
But like, even for me, the act of like building a really nicely organized template infusion is like a lot of effort. More than I'm sort of willing to spend, except that I know that that effort will go into something greater. And so I understand why so many people just don't use it.
00:26:12
Justin Gray
And I'm hopeful that like toolpath will just encourage people to use better container methods soon.
00:26:19
Justin Gray
So that's where my bits and my atoms are starting to cross over because like a lot of the coding that we're doing now is about getting more better better processes down into fusion with the programs that we generate.
00:26:31
jamie peacock
and Okay. Yeah. Only time I simulate my work holdings when it's on a pallet, because then I've had to machine the pallet anyway. So the model's there. Like otherwise I don't do any of them. I'm super lazy.
00:26:42
jamie peacock
I look at how much, because the nice thing with fusion, it spits out the lowest point of your, um the lowest point your tool is going to go to. So that's a really quick check to see the tool sticking out enough, or you can measure to your vast jaw and know, okay, cool. I should have like a millimeter of clearance or,
00:27:00
jamie peacock
Like, yeah, it's good, but not perfect.
00:27:04
Justin Gray
For us, the thing that really drove us toward it more than anything other than simulation is obviously a big one, but was zero point work holding.
00:27:11
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:27:11
Justin Gray
um So like once you have a zero point on your table and you just want everything referenced off that zero point, I'll even drive probing for infusion off that zero point. And so like basically I have to have it all modeled anyway just to do the probing.
00:27:23
jamie peacock
Yeah. 100%.
00:27:25
jamie peacock
hundred per cent
00:27:25
Justin Gray
And so once it's there, then it's easy, right?
00:27:28
Justin Gray
but
00:27:30
Curt
That was the same thing when I set up like for this machine. I was like, I am never like I'm modeling every single thing that's on that table so that I like i the same thing. I can simulate it and like, I don't have a lot of room to begin with. So everything is already tight. So I'm like, there's just going to be one time when it's late at night and I'm forgetting something. I'm like, oh, I just got to face this really quick and then just slam into the fourth axis by like, you know, maybe only an eighth of an inch, but like big chunks of metal hitting each other. It's not happy. So it's just,
00:27:55
Curt
And if I didn't do at the jump, I'm not going to do it. So yeah, I'm, I'm a big fan. I simulate everything, but again, i don't, I don't run like multiple, like new programs a day. I like, you know, I get everything set up and then it's going to run for weeks and weeks, if not months.
00:28:07
Curt
So it's, it's a, it's a lower but concern for me or I can put more time into playing with it.
00:28:11
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:28:12
Curt
I should say.
00:28:15
Justin Gray
um One of the things that's neat about toolpath that I really like from our tech stack perspective is when we do tool matching, ah we match the tool plus the holder. um So it's not just like, oh, you have a quarter inch end mill and it'll fit in this pocket.
00:28:24
Curt
Hmm.
00:28:27
Justin Gray
It's like it has a quarter inch end mill and it'll fit in this pocket without hitting any other geometry on your part. And I want to graduate that to including work holding so that we can start doing three plus one and three plus two stuff.
00:28:40
Justin Gray
So yeah, like that's,
00:28:40
jamie peacock
Yeah, because that gets really complex really quickly when you start moving vases and swinging them around like, yeah, you then you're gonna have to have work holding integrated.
00:28:44
Justin Gray
yeah.
00:28:47
Justin Gray
Yeah.
00:28:50
Justin Gray
Yeah. So that's a lot of what I think about here. And in some ways, i like to imagine that I'm on like the edge of what standard practice is for a lot of machinists. I know like there's folks out there at large companies and with five axis machines that have really dialed processes, they simulate everything.
00:29:08
Justin Gray
But I also know that like most shops don't do that because it's too much work. And so I hope that toolpath can make it not too much work.
00:29:13
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:29:18
Justin Gray
It's just like what I want.
00:29:18
Curt
Well, and I mean, the crazy thing is the era we're living in with the technology of these tools and the expense of them. And your product is like one of the few that's of it. Like you would think there'd be 10,000 different variants of like proper machine. So like, it just, it seems like machine s SIM, machine monitoring, all that stuff is lagging behind so hard. Like in every other aspect of technology and like even the consumer world, like you can monitor, you could monitor your sleep pattern from your bed nowadays.
Automation and Efficiency in Machining
00:29:50
Curt
but you can't monitor your million dollar machine to see if it's functioning right. Like it's crazy that that's like a massive gap.
00:29:58
Justin Gray
So I think I've actually given this a lot of thought. And I think here on the Lone Machinist podcast, we can and like deeply understand why that is more than anything else. um Machining and manufacturing is this process that for the most part just doesn't scale.
00:30:14
Justin Gray
And obviously there are some things like proto labs and some large scale production, obviously, you know, Foxconn is making a bazillion iPhones every 15 seconds. um But outside of like large scale manufacturing, a lot of main, a lot of prototyping and even small run shop stuff is done by like one guy in a shop or two guys in a shop.
00:30:34
Justin Gray
um And at that scale, you just keep it all in your head, right? um And because we keep it all in our head and because it's not like trivially simple to like automate a lot of this stuff because not that many machinists are comfortable writing macros or integrating, you know, machine monitoring stuff.
00:30:52
Justin Gray
Like i I'm just perpetually shocked at the stuff you do, Jamie. You're just like, yeah, I'll just code my own stuff to tie. Yeah, I tie my machine into home automation.
00:30:59
jamie peacock
That is literally it there.
00:31:01
Justin Gray
Yeah.
00:31:01
jamie peacock
Ties six machines, sorry, three machines into home automation with uptime tracking. ah
00:31:01
Curt
Yeah.
00:31:07
Justin Gray
But like but most people can't do that, right?
00:31:07
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:31:09
Justin Gray
Like homegrown, that's a thing.
00:31:10
jamie peacock
No, 100%.
00:31:12
jamie peacock
No, like a lot of the time, a machinist is a machinist. They know how to drive a machine. They don't know electronics. They know mechanical kind of things. And that, yeah.
00:31:12
Justin Gray
And so I...
00:31:19
Justin Gray
Yeah.
00:31:21
jamie peacock
I think I'm in a bit of a unique position there.
00:31:21
Justin Gray
So...
00:31:25
Justin Gray
I've thought about this a lot because there was a, there was a moment when we thought about like building toolpath automation and then buying a bunch of machines and trying to create the factory of the future. And there are other companies out there that are taking a swing at that. And and I hope they're successful.
00:31:38
Justin Gray
Um, but there are a lot of companies in the, in the, that have failed going down that path. Um, And I've tried to understand why. And my conclusion has become that if you try to treat anything other than production manufacturing, where you're truly making the same thing over and over and over, like ah like a car or an iPhone, um anything that's like mix, even like high mix, low volume is like one extent of it.
00:32:00
Justin Gray
But even like the kind of stuff you do, Jamie, where i i like it's high mix, but like medium to high volume still.
00:32:03
jamie peacock
and Yeah.
00:32:07
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:32:07
Justin Gray
um that needs to be treated more like medicine than like manufacturing if we want it to scale. And so like when I think about how hospitals work, at least here in the States, you have all these surgeons and they come into the OR and they, you know, every patient's a snowflake and they do their surgery and every person does it a little bit differently. Right.
00:32:26
Justin Gray
But the support systems and the port support structures around them are there to give them that flexibility, you know, but they, you know, they can get, the anesthesiologist and the nurse and the x-ray and the the equipment and the sterilization, it's all there, but every surgeon still does stuff a little bit differently.
00:32:41
Justin Gray
And I think manufacturing hasn't quite figured out how to scale that side of it, where you could imagine like coming in and being a ah highly skilled machinist inside the system. We haven't done that yet.
00:32:54
Justin Gray
And maybe we never will. Maybe there's just too much specialization of equipment um and skills to get there. But I think that's why, People have just made it work for so long.
00:33:05
Justin Gray
And when it's just you, the need to have it be more automated isn't... I don't like this. I think we have a need. Like, we would all be better off if it was more automated, but we can just power through.
00:33:18
Justin Gray
um
00:33:18
jamie peacock
Yeah, the that is exactly it.
00:33:19
Justin Gray
And so the market... to
00:33:23
jamie peacock
Being able to power through like, because um'm I'm in the process and now of automating a few things, but I've got to make 120 parts this month. Am I going to build a bar pusher? Probably because I like building things.
00:33:34
jamie peacock
The problem is that's 120 parts this month and it's a thousand next month. And the following month's going to be another thousand. I don't want to be pulling that bar by hand in the MCO. That's going to be boring. Well, I'm not going to do it.
00:33:44
jamie peacock
The bar loader is going to do it. But still, if she doesn't have to sit in the in the workshop, then don't force her to sit in the workshop. ah yeah I'm leaning heavy towards automating stuff and documenting stuff.
00:33:57
jamie peacock
Documenting stuff is critical because why reinvest the time every time the job comes around? like in all your setup. Rather just write it down or take a picture and next time it goes from a three-hour setup to a 10-minute setup.
00:34:09
Justin Gray
Yeah.
00:34:10
jamie peacock
Yeah, but a lot of people don't see it that way. Like a lot of people in the industry, in South Africa especially, don't see it that way because the wages are so low, they don't really care.
00:34:21
jamie peacock
We're discussing the the coolant vacuums today and the issue we've got here you'll pay a guy $10 for the entire day Like that's his wage for the day. And he'll sit with a cutoff Coke bottle and scoop 200 liters of coolant out into buckets before they'll go and buy a coolant vacuum. Like I see the value in coolant. I've got Monica. I see the value in it.
00:34:42
jamie peacock
Like every time I use it, it's great. But trying to sell that to a shop where they've got someone who's getting paid next to nothing to just be in the workshop and help when they need help. Like then they're never going to spend spend the money on a coolant vacuum.
00:34:57
jamie peacock
Like its ah it is a bit of an issue in South Africa.
00:35:01
Justin Gray
Huh, that's fascinating.
00:35:03
jamie peacock
Well, my dad, when I was in high school, he came to market with a product. He was in the garden industry, making fiberglass rocks and water features. And he was like, no, he came up with an idea using effectively two rake handles um to be able to pick up a whole pile of leaves at once because we did all our own gardening.
00:35:20
jamie peacock
So you rake up all the leaves and you can pick up this whole bunch of leaves at a time. Went to market in South Africa and couldn't sell them because why am I going to buy that? I'm paying the oak $10 for the day. he's going to i don't care if it takes half an hour to do it.
00:35:32
jamie peacock
I'm not doing it. And that's unfortunately the way South Africa tends to work on things like this is you're paying the guys so little that you don't really care. You just let them take their time to do it, which is – like i was at a shop last week and up they've got oak's –
00:35:42
Justin Gray
Thank you.
00:35:48
jamie peacock
they're getting paid next to nothing. They just have got their welder and the guy does the cutting and the guy runs the drill press and yeah, they've just got like 20 people on staff and it doesn't really cost them that much money. So they need to send someone somewhere, just send the guy.
00:36:02
jamie peacock
I mean, they brought a computer here today. They drove an hour to drop a computer off. So an hour here, an hour back. I put a new hard drive in it. They drove an hour here and an hour back so they can run production tomorrow.
00:36:14
jamie peacock
no um Like, that's what careers are for. It cost me 120 bucks, 120 Rand. So like $6 and it's there the next morning.
Precision and Probing in Machining
00:36:22
jamie peacock
Like it costs them more fuel to come and fetch the thing today.
00:36:27
jamie peacock
But yeah, that's those guys. They might want another one of those machines, which I can't say I'm excited to build.
00:36:34
Justin Gray
How does setup work for you, Kurt? You're making small batch production. Is it all in your head?
00:36:41
Curt
ah Honestly, i do my best to try to like put anything I possibly can into the models or into the code, like literally just write in the code, like a giant paragraph at the start.
00:36:52
Curt
So I can read it be like, Hey, you do this, you do this, you do this, you do this, and then you can run the part. And if it's really complicated, I just take a video of it. And I have like, I have unlisted videos on my YouTube channel that I just watch because I'm like how the hell did I do that thing? Or like, I'll figure out something that works really well and be like, I'm never going to remember this. Like I'll write it down, but then I'll, I'll forget that I wrote it down. So I won't go to read what I wrote down.
00:37:12
Curt
But yeah, honestly, a ton of it still probably lives in my head, like way more lives in my head than it probably should. And I wouldn't notice it until you i have, like if I had someone sitting on my shoulder, just like all day and be like, Oh, you should, you should write that down. Oh, that just should be someplace else. Be like, Oh yeah, there's a ton of stuff that's just like,
00:37:27
Curt
Yeah, I don't know. it's It's a thing. It's just like one little thing and one little thing and then it snowballs. And before you know it, you're just like, oh, I don't have backups of any of this. and This is just in my head. I know that when I post this code, I have to delete this line because I haven't altered the post because why would I alter the post? Like it just, yeah, there's there's a ton of those, unfortunately.
00:37:45
Curt
Just so many fires to put out, but um i don't know.
00:37:47
Justin Gray
Wow.
00:37:48
Curt
I try not to screw myself. So thankfully, like said, I'm like i'm umm making i'm not making a ton of parts.
00:37:50
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:37:52
Curt
So or I'm not making a ton of variance in my parts. So once I work once, I don't really have to think about it for a while.
00:37:58
Justin Gray
Whoa. Hold on a sec. Speaking of videos.
00:38:06
jamie peacock
Yeah, I learned that lesson about backups earlier earlier this year in my NASDAQ.
00:38:11
Curt
Yeah.
00:38:12
Justin Gray
the The irony of talking about needing to video a process when a video that Pete made for me about chatter just started playing in the background. So I was, you guys couldn't hear it, but I had Pete like talking in my ear for a second there, like telling me something about chatter.
00:38:20
jamie peacock
right. yeah
00:38:23
jamie peacock
ah Lovely.
00:38:24
Curt
Yeah.
00:38:25
Justin Gray
I was very confused. Okay.
00:38:28
jamie peacock
Yeah, my NAS wiped itself earlier this year and I had a bunch of code on there for repeat production work. So now that's all been pulled onto the lathes, pull off the NAS. and So what I do now is I load the code in Linux CNC and then I duplicate it to my desktop and then any changes are on the desktop of the machine.
00:38:45
jamie peacock
That way I'm not, it's, yeah, and then I can push it back to the NAS, but I generally don't for production stuff. because I've now had to read reprogram all the bar pulls and all the dumb stuff that happens on a bunch of the products or the recurring work that I do.
00:38:52
Justin Gray
Nice. Nice.
00:39:00
jamie peacock
Like it's a bit of a but of a challenge.
00:39:05
jamie peacock
But luckily the LK is just straight from Fusion.
00:39:06
Curt
Yeah.
00:39:07
jamie peacock
It just runs. Like I've got that post dialed. It just, you send the code, you hit go and it works. The only thing I might want to add is a park in the front. But generally the first run, after the first run, I'll go and add that in.
00:39:20
jamie peacock
It's one line of code. I added it by hand and it's ya not the end of the world.
00:39:25
Justin Gray
i i I've messed up hand edits on programs enough times. I'm just never focused enough. Like whenever I need to hand edit something, I'm never focused on what I'm doing. So I just won't do it anymore.
00:39:36
Justin Gray
Like I just edit the post to get what I want.
00:39:38
jamie peacock
ah So, so with the, with the gang lathe at, okay, the, the M car could probably edit the post because all that is, is a couple of clearance plane things and some delays, but the, the gang lathe every single time it's different.
00:39:39
Curt
Yeah.
00:39:53
jamie peacock
It's because it depends on the order of tools running, how long they are. So that I hand edits on every single program. It outputs, I know, delete this line because Fusion also outputs on every different operation, a spindle RPM.
00:40:06
jamie peacock
And then the spindle and a tool, sometimes a tool number. So then it'll turn the spindle off, turn the spindle on, and then it's ramping down, ramping up. So I delete that crap and just let it stay at RPM. So like that there's a lot of hand editing, but it's a lathe program. If it's 200 lines, it's a hell of a lot. so
00:40:22
jamie peacock
no
00:40:23
Curt
Yeah, and if you if you crash it, lathes crashes are never scary or anything like that.
00:40:23
jamie peacock
yeah
00:40:26
Curt
It's not like there's a bajillion joules of kinetic energy flying around.
00:40:27
jamie peacock
No, not at all. You know, it's it's not a multiple hundred kilogram spindle during 2000 RPM.
00:40:30
Curt
Yeah.
00:40:34
Curt
ah
00:40:36
jamie peacock
Now Bertha's spindle is chunky.
00:40:37
Justin Gray
last
00:40:37
jamie peacock
Things like a couple hundred kilograms.
00:40:42
Justin Gray
The last big hand edits I did, I was modifying the brother post to include in-process probing from Fusion. And so I was trying to figure out what what the post needed to look like. um And I was playing with the bloom macros.
00:40:56
Justin Gray
And so I had hand edited a macro, and I crashed the probe and broke it.
00:41:00
Curt
Oh...
00:41:00
jamie peacock
Ooh.
00:41:00
Justin Gray
It sucked.
00:41:02
Justin Gray
It sucked, yeah.
00:41:02
jamie peacock
So, yeah, I haven't really messed with the probing at all. I don't have a probe, so I haven't really messed with the probing in Fusion. I mean, I've got i've got probing on mar on the sister Slowio because it's got a wired probe and it's really convenient when I use it. Like, you just go, cool, probe the thing, beep, and it goes boop, boop, boop, and does the thing.
00:41:19
jamie peacock
and Really, really nice, but I can't say miss it on the LK. Like, I plan around where my work coordinates are going to be, And I can't say that I really miss it. I've got a beeping edge finder thing and it does the job well enough.
00:41:36
jamie peacock
fuck yeah Even today I was running a part where skim and then I probe machine surface and then I run the second program.
00:41:38
Justin Gray
um free
00:41:43
jamie peacock
like Not the end of the world.
00:41:47
Justin Gray
I don't know. For me, just like, I look at that and I'm like, I don't need to be standing here for a minute hand wheeling this thing around.
00:41:54
jamie peacock
Fair enough.
00:41:54
Justin Gray
Like, I just don't need to be. And so I shouldn't be right.
00:41:56
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:41:57
Justin Gray
Like, and
00:41:59
jamie peacock
100%. But jar it it also comes down to like the quantities of things you're doing. like That's where, again, zero points, very useful.
00:42:04
Justin Gray
yeah, that's for sure.
00:42:06
jamie peacock
like ah All my high production stuff goes onto the anchor point. it's all It's pre-programmed. It's all modeled. I just load and go. ah When it comes around, to you load code, hit go.
00:42:17
Justin Gray
The stuff that I really appreciate probing for, the two things I really appreciate it for, are one, comping in features. You can do that live program in Fusion. That's super nice.
00:42:26
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:42:27
Justin Gray
um It depends on what kind of tolerances you're trying to hit and how you know how dialed your probe is and the run out and all of that. But you know if you have a plus or minus a thou feature, you could probe that in all day. And just having to comp it and measure it, I don't want to deal with any of that.
00:42:41
Justin Gray
um And then also like sanity checking, like, oh, is the stock you loaded the right size stock? um Or, you know, adjusting the work coordinate system because I didn't get it centered in the in the vice or something.
00:42:56
Justin Gray
That kind of stuff, those kind of belt and suspender stuff just made me feel so much better.
00:43:00
jamie peacock
Well, that that is something I want to ah want to automate a process. And to do so, I'm going to need a probe. Because hoping it loaded in the right place works perfectly right up until it doesn't.
00:43:12
jamie peacock
Like, it works flawlessly right up until it doesn't. So you've got to build those redundancies into your process so that you can go sleep and leave your machine to run. Because that is the goal. Have the machine annoy my neighbors while I sleep.
00:43:24
jamie peacock
Like, yeah.
00:43:26
Curt
Well, and that would, that's literally the only reason I want a probe too, is just like you said, for the sanity checks and for the, the in process kind of stuff, be like, Hey, did this, this giant piece of metal get removed before this other tool comes in?
00:43:30
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:43:37
Curt
It's like, yeah, you're good. It's like, okay, cool. Like, yeah.
00:43:39
jamie peacock
yeah
00:43:39
Justin Gray
yeah
00:43:40
jamie peacock
That's like even tool break detection. I broke my tool changer. This was great. So I broke a tool, which then broke the next tool. So broke a three mil tool, a two mil tool, and then a backside chamfer tool.
00:43:53
jamie peacock
So I was like, okay, I don't have tool measurement. I'm just gonna tilt the thing, pause the program after that each tool. And then I'll look, is the tool there, hit go. And I did that and I hit go and it started tool changing and I walked around my hand, hit the e-stop, like hooked on the e-stop ax and I pressed it, mid tool change.
00:44:10
jamie peacock
So now the machine didn't know where the motor for the tool changer was because it's got a geared motor with a little cam. So it refused to do a tool change. Eventually, had to go to site, phoned my mates, had a chat to him.
00:44:23
jamie peacock
He's like, no, there's probably a sensor. Pull off the cover. Oh, look, a sensor. Shoved a shim in there and then it would change. Then it was drunk. So the whole carousel was, it thought it was at one when it was at number five.
00:44:34
jamie peacock
Pulled the appropriate tools out, loosened the big nuts in the middle, pulled it off, turned it, put it back on. So I did that. And then the next time the job came around, I had set up the TS-27R by then. And then tool brake detection. Oh, it's the best.
00:44:48
jamie peacock
You can walk away because it was an hour-long run making 20 parts. And in that, I did, I think I did 60, it would have been half the 30 tool brake detects in that time.
00:44:59
jamie peacock
And you know, if there's a problem, the machine's stopping. It's not going to... grind itself to pieces and break everything that's there to be broken. like Yeah, that peace of mind is huge.
00:45:11
Justin Gray
So here's ah here's a fun one for you. i i got to listen to a presentation by some Renishaw guys. And you know if you go on the internet, they'll flame you know flame the crap out of you for talking about using your probe to verify your measurements on your part.
00:45:25
jamie peacock
Mm-hmm.
00:45:27
Justin Gray
right So like comping in a bore, people seem to be okay with that, except at certain tolerances. But, you know, if if there's like a problem with your encoders or something, then your probe is going to be just as inaccurate as your part or as your, right?
00:45:39
jamie peacock
Well,
00:45:41
Justin Gray
And so there's all this internet ah drama about whether or not you can use a probe for in-process inspection or not. And so the Renishaw guys stand up and they talk about, oh yeah, well, what we do is we just like build a bunch of artifacts and then we qualify the machine, qualify the measurements of those artifacts using probes in the machines.
00:46:01
Justin Gray
And then all our parts are probed in the machine. And I was like, well, like the parts for their measurement equipment are probed in the machine while making it with their measurement equipment.
00:46:05
jamie peacock
well
00:46:09
Justin Gray
i was like, well, if it's good enough for Renishaw, it's good enough for me.
00:46:12
jamie peacock
my I have a question there regarding that. So, okay, assuming your encoders on your machine are not great, are we talking about not great linearly across the length of the travel or not great at a certain point of that travel?
00:46:26
jamie peacock
Because depending on which one, if you calibrate with a gauge ring of a known size and linearly you're out, doesn't know the difference if you're gauging something similar size to your gauge ring your error scales like yeah can you tell i built measuring equipment for 10 years or seven years now measuring stuff you watch people no measuring this i'm like dude you ain't measuring shit all there you're measuring parallel parallelism not flatness like the level of stupid i had to deal with guys running cmms at wheel factories was insane
00:47:00
jamie peacock
Like thinking they're measuring one thing, no, but you're measuring an entirely different feature. No, yeah, it was entertaining. But yeah, I mean, if it's a linear error on your encoders, it should be calibrated out to a certain degree.
00:47:15
Justin Gray
Yeah. So may
00:47:17
jamie peacock
But do our people have opinions and like to shout them on the internet.
00:47:23
Justin Gray
my opinion is that if you think tool bankers detection is great, wait till you
Balancing Manual and CNC Machining
00:47:27
Justin Gray
have a probe. You'll you'll never, then then you'll be like, me I don't want to stand here and hand wheel this thing. Like that's crazy. oh
00:47:33
jamie peacock
No, 100%. I get that.
00:47:35
Justin Gray
Yeah.
00:47:36
jamie peacock
I just think if it can drive itself, it's going to drive itself into shit.
00:47:36
Justin Gray
I hear good things about the, I hear good things about this.
00:47:42
Justin Gray
Well, the probe halos actually are very, very, so that was the other thing about writing my own macros is like, now I understand what's going on.
00:47:45
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:47:50
Justin Gray
And like, if you're in a protected move, the probe halos pretty much solve that problem.
00:47:52
jamie peacock
And then yeah.
00:47:55
Justin Gray
Um,
00:47:55
jamie peacock
No, 100%. If you're not in a protective move, then you're going to have a bad day.
00:48:00
Justin Gray
Right. um I've heard good things about the silver CNC probe. um I actually i have my fourth as a silver CNC fourth on my style. That one's fairly inexpensive.
00:48:09
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:48:11
Justin Gray
I think it's like $1,200 US. On style. um
00:48:13
jamie peacock
I'm trying to get Aliexpress to open because I want to see how much that wireless probe I saw was. This is the normal thing on the podcast.
00:48:21
Justin Gray
on our side
00:48:22
jamie peacock
Jamie's on Aliexpress during the podcast.
00:48:26
Justin Gray
on On our style, I actually have a Tormach probe, a wired probe with the ZoomSpeed wireless kit.
00:48:31
Curt
Yes.
00:48:31
Justin Gray
And that's okay.
00:48:31
jamie peacock
Okay. Okay.
00:48:32
Justin Gray
It's okay. It works well it works fine. It's a little more finicky than I would like and when it like runs out of battery and stuff.
00:48:41
jamie peacock
Yeah, so I know where to connect my my probe on um the Siemens controller, but I don't know, and they can't, well, I'm sure they can tell me they're just choosing not to, um where to connect the low battery signal and the and probe enable signal.
00:48:41
Curt
yes
00:48:59
Justin Gray
The silver CNC probe has like a spin it to enable mode or something. So you can get away without that.
00:49:04
jamie peacock
Oh, that's cool.
00:49:06
Justin Gray
Yeah.
00:49:06
jamie peacock
Yeah, because I'm like, put it on an M code.
00:49:07
Justin Gray
<unk> the rennet I think the probes have.
00:49:10
jamie peacock
Just put everything on an M code.
00:49:13
Justin Gray
Yeah. Yeah. That's actually why I went with the zoom speed kit.
00:49:15
jamie peacock
What?
00:49:16
Justin Gray
Cause I didn't know there is an M code in this control for turning on the probe. It exists already, but I didn't know that at the time. And so this one doesn't require that. But yeah, both the Renishaw and the SilverCNC have a spin to turn on mode.
00:49:27
Curt
Yeah.
00:49:31
jamie peacock
Okay, so it measures the ah it's got IMU in it.
00:49:37
Justin Gray
Yeah, yeah.
00:49:38
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:49:42
Curt
Yeah, i don't i feel I feel like if I'm buying a probe, like I'm going to rely on it to the to keep things from like going bad. like i don't I don't want a cheap one. like I don't want it be like, oh, it didn't work because because it was whatever.
00:49:50
jamie peacock
No,
00:49:53
Curt
It's like, uh-oh. like That's the one thing I kind of want to depend on. It's like buying a cheap seatbelt.
00:49:59
jamie peacock
you it's only going to fail once if it's a cheap seatbelt.
00:50:01
Curt
um That's true.
00:50:03
Justin Gray
yeah
00:50:07
jamie peacock
I'm just scrolling down here quickly. You only got to worry about that one failure.
00:50:10
Justin Gray
I mean, there's definitely like
00:50:10
jamie peacock
It's fine.
00:50:11
Curt
I have heard good things about the silvers though.
00:50:12
jamie peacock
And you know you're not going to complain after it.
00:50:17
Justin Gray
definitely like levels of quality in probes, right? Like the Tormach probe is just a simple kinematic coupling, which is still very accurate, um but can get gummed up and over.
00:50:19
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:50:25
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:50:26
jamie peacock
That's all it... Yeah. That's all a TS27R is, is a kinematic coupling.
00:50:31
Justin Gray
Right, right.
00:50:32
jamie peacock
ah You can get a probe for $300 or $350. Wireless.
00:50:36
Justin Gray
with the receiver.
00:50:37
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:50:39
Justin Gray
Wow. Wow. That's a very good price.
00:50:40
Curt
That's nuts.
00:50:41
jamie peacock
Would you? Yeah, that it's a stupidly cheap price. Like, it is absurdly cheap. No, come back thing. I'm going send you a link because I think it's funny.
00:50:53
jamie peacock
um There's a more expensive one that has an integrated BT30 holder ah b t thirty yeah hold it on the back of it. Copy link address. There we go.
00:51:03
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:51:04
jamie peacock
Go AliExpress.
00:51:04
Justin Gray
You know what drives me absolutely nuts every time I have to do it because I'm not very good at it.
00:51:10
Justin Gray
Although I did recently get a ah pro tip on it, but truing the run out of a probe is like a huge pain in the butt.
00:51:16
jamie peacock
Oh, that's easy.
00:51:19
jamie peacock
It's easy.
00:51:21
Justin Gray
The tip I heard was to buy four of the same Allen wrench so that you can leave them all in the probe at the same time. And then you can turn the ah the two opposing ones at the same time.
00:51:28
jamie peacock
It's really not that hard No. I used to indicate chucks. We used to make a 270 diameter chuck for gripping alloy rims.
00:51:40
jamie peacock
And we used to put a ring on that and that had to be running dead nuts. And that also jack screws, same like ah like a probe. You got the four screws. Same story. I got really, really good at doing that. But yeah, it's not hard.
00:51:52
Justin Gray
Yeah, that's what real machinists say, is that it's not hard. But it's hard for me. It always takes me a long time. But...
00:51:57
jamie peacock
I used to indicate my, I used to run a wire cutter.
00:51:58
Curt
I'm with you, man. um I'm with you, Justin.
00:52:01
jamie peacock
I used to indicate parts in with a hammer. I literally down to the last couple microns by tapping with little copper hammer.
00:52:08
Justin Gray
um
00:52:09
jamie peacock
Yeah. But again, lots and lots and lots of practice of indicating stuff. So yeah.
00:52:14
jamie peacock
Like even four jaw, not difficult to dial in a four jaw. It's the same thing.
00:52:15
Justin Gray
but
00:52:20
Justin Gray
i yeah I don't understand why we use the four grub screw method on a probe, though. And I need to like find Robin Renzetti or something and have him explain it to me. Because to me, like an eccentric wheel with like a little grub screw or something, like a worm gear, would be way better.
00:52:36
Justin Gray
Ooh.
00:52:37
Curt
Yeah, like a million different ways you could do it.
00:52:37
jamie peacock
<unk>
00:52:39
Curt
Yeah, I agree with you.
00:52:40
jamie peacock
Swap the grab screws for Torx grab screws, and then you'll be fine.
00:52:44
Curt
You'd be still have like the stiction of like where you like you tighten it and you're like, good. And then like, yeah, I'm i'm with you. Like they're they're they're a hassle.
00:52:50
jamie peacock
Nah. You're tight, so what you do, okay.
00:52:52
Curt
they could be
00:52:52
jamie peacock
So what you do is you nip them both out, and then you loosen the one, just a crack, and then you just force the other one, and it pushes it over.
00:52:53
Curt
They could be designed so much better.
00:53:00
jamie peacock
You're not loosening and tightening. You're tightening and tightening and tightening, and then it it works fine.
00:53:07
Curt
Yeah, sure, but like this is this is like...
00:53:07
Justin Gray
i I can do okay.
00:53:08
jamie peacock
It's ya.
00:53:10
Justin Gray
I can do okay down to like a thou, but like sub a thou when I'm trying to deal with like tenths, then it's like, it feels pretty fiddly to me.
00:53:11
Curt
Go ahead
00:53:18
Curt
ahead. if you want to walk off a bridge... like that Yeah, I agree. That is annoying. machine leveling. That was the thing I found even more infuriating is like buying a really good machinist level and be like, okay, I want to get this machine dead nuts level.
00:53:31
Curt
Oh, like, yeah, that was the one thing i was like, i'm just going to walk into traffic. Like I can't get this anymore. And honestly, I don't need um any more level, but it's just like the OCDness of my brain. I'm like, I want all of it. Perfect. And you'd like, just tweak it And you're like, hate this.
00:53:41
jamie peacock
Pay the installer, make the installer do it.
00:53:44
Justin Gray
I bought a yeah Haas Machinist level, mostly because I had never played with one and I wanted to do it and they were on sale for like 50 bucks. I regretted that immediately.
00:53:55
Justin Gray
I was like, no, I should have paid for a nice one that has like a big, like high like ah high leverage adjustment screw or something.
00:53:59
Curt
Yeah.
00:54:02
Justin Gray
was like, this is this is the dumbest adjustment mechanism ever. So just calibrating the level made me want to yeah you want to walk into traffic.
00:54:07
Curt
yeah
00:54:09
Justin Gray
Yeah, that was bad.
00:54:10
jamie peacock
Yeah, I don't ah don't miss doing high accuracy things. I really don't. We used to build and level and do dumb things where I used to work. My favorite was, so the one the first thing I was taught to the level.
00:54:21
jamie peacock
You put a machiner's level down, you see the reading, you turn it around and make sure the reading isn't the same but opposite. First thing you do. We had builders here building my mother-in-law's cottage.
00:54:32
jamie peacock
And the guy, I put in all the the cupboards. I bought kit cupboards, bolted to them all together. We installed them. Spent a good two hours making sure everything's level before I bolted to the wall. The one day I'm busy working and the builders come call me, no, no, the counter's skewed.
00:54:45
jamie peacock
So I could, pardon me. Walk over there, grab the guy's level, put it on. Oh, look, it's high this side. Turn around, oh, look, it's high that side. They had a piece of concrete stuck to their level. Like, I'm not surprised by the quality of the work. I'm really not surprised.
Conclusion and Future Plans
00:55:01
jamie peacock
But in 600, in two feet, it changes this much between the floor, between the wall and the front of the cupboard. When I put the bottom boards on, literally cut off like a two-inch taper.
00:55:12
jamie peacock
It was insane, the shitty quality of their work.
00:55:15
jamie peacock
Yeah, but that's builders for you. Can't take them anywhere. Like, yeah. We like our things to be precise.
00:55:16
Justin Gray
wow
00:55:22
Justin Gray
Kurt, I have a question for you. I have a question for you. And i remind remind you reminded me of it because you have your lathe in the background there. um You do some manual turning on your pens?
00:55:33
Curt
Yeah, I am for the like that the hard.
00:55:36
Justin Gray
Even though you have a CNC lathe?
00:55:38
Curt
Absolutely. Yeah, it sounds and sounds insane. um So the hard inch is, I mean, it's a turret lathe, so i don't have tail stock. um So and I buy all my bar oversized and turn it to diameter. And I so like I would Swiss turn in the past. so I'd stick an inch out, turn it to nominal, advance the bar, another inch, advance bar, another inch, advance the bar, another inch.
00:55:53
jamie peacock
All right.
00:55:55
Curt
And that worked honestly really good. um But I would still have like a few tenths of difference between all the little steps um as it came through. Even if I you know kept the bar clocked to the same you know as a collet was advancing, um which is just annoying. It just made finishing like longer. It was something that you could polish out. like I didn't have to machine it to make it smooth, but it was something that was just like...
00:56:16
Curt
and when I want to to do this like multiple times. I can like manual hand finishing is just so tedious. and i'm like, I'm going to get like carpal tunnel. My hands are going to like collapse. ah So there's two solutions I have.
00:56:25
Justin Gray
right.
00:56:27
Curt
Either I'm going to buy a like a lathe, like a CNC lathe, the tail stock. And I did find a few that I wanted. I'll buy a Swiss machine, which is kind of probably the end goal. And then, ah or I could just buy a big manual lathe and just turn it between centers and then just feed those blanks into the hard inch. Cause the operation where I do like the drilling and the reaming and all the threading and everything on the end is long enough that I could, I can manually turn them.
00:56:48
Curt
So not ideal, but i was like, well, for the price of a manual lathe, like it would pay for itself within like a month or two. And that's why I went that way. And then I just, if you like having a giant manual lathe is just so nice to be like, oh, I just got to like knock the end off this bar. to like make it smooth or I got like tweak this. Like it just, it's so convenient to have. I just, I wanted one. So it it was kind of like just forced me down that rabbit hole.
00:57:09
Curt
But yeah, like
00:57:09
Justin Gray
I have a small bench top lathe from Little Machine Shop. I bought it right before I went off to do my PhD.
00:57:14
Curt
nice.
00:57:17
Justin Gray
I bought it and then I was like, I'm going to go do a PhD. And then I didn't touch it for four or five years. But yeah, having having a manual lathe is super helpful for like the moments when you need a manual lathe.
00:57:22
Curt
Yeah.
00:57:28
jamie peacock
You can't be without one.
00:57:28
Curt
Yeah, no, totally. No, it's super like even.
00:57:31
jamie peacock
I sold my big one and I bought a toy one because you cannot be without a manual lathe and a workshop.
00:57:38
Curt
Yeah. Yeah, no, I totally agree.
00:57:41
jamie peacock
You need to shorten a bolt or do some stupid thing. I actually went and used my old lathe this this last week. We bought a new thing. the The basket lid for our pool cracked, but really small crack. So when the pump was off, it was watertight.
00:57:57
jamie peacock
As soon as I pulled a vacuum and the lid would cave a bit, so it would open up a crack and suck air in We had the pool guy out here for like three weeks trying to fix it. Eventually i was down there and noticed it. So we went to buy a new one. They don't sell that anymore. They now sell a thing with a big nut.
00:58:10
jamie peacock
And the threads on the motor are too short. So the nut was bottoming out. So took it to my old lathe and just skimmed 10 mils off of it quickly. But you've got it gotta to have a lathe. I tried to put it on the toy lathe, but I couldn't grip it with the tiny ass chuck.
00:58:27
jamie peacock
But... so
00:58:27
Curt
Nice.
00:58:29
Justin Gray
I can't remember what it was for now, but when I was at Dylan's shop, we were doing something. i was I was doing a cleanup activity for him or something, and we needed some screws and the heads on the screws were too big.
00:58:40
Justin Gray
And so I was like gonna chuck it up in their lathe. And ah Brad was like, no, no. And he put it in a drill and put it on the belt sander. And I was like, oh yeah, that's way, way smarter.
00:58:49
Curt
and The OG lathe.
00:58:51
Justin Gray
Yeah.
00:58:51
jamie peacock
yeah so
00:58:52
Justin Gray
Screw lathe, yeah.
00:58:54
Curt
Exactly. Screw lathe. Precisely.
00:58:56
Justin Gray
yeah
00:58:59
jamie peacock
um okay we are sorry we're coming up on an hour so i'm just going to quickly do the shout outs that we need to do because we now have a patreon supporter so shout out to jade from benchmark 20 thank you for supporting us on patreon you are number one at the moment and all patreons will be numbered on the wall of fame
00:59:00
Curt
Awesome.
00:59:15
Curt
Thank you kindly.
00:59:17
jamie peacock
um
00:59:18
Curt
Ooh.
00:59:18
jamie peacock
Yeah, so i just thought I would quickly shout that out. so And then ah most important question of the day, Justin, how's your t-shirt?
00:59:26
Justin Gray
Oh, dude, I love this t shirt. This thing is great. i'm wearing it right.
00:59:28
jamie peacock
I didn't expect you to be wearing it today.
00:59:31
Justin Gray
I'm wearing it right now.
00:59:31
jamie peacock
Nice.
00:59:32
Justin Gray
Yeah, there you go.
00:59:34
jamie peacock
I've got one coming. It's going to be great.
00:59:38
Justin Gray
This is great, man. Like, don't know if you I don't know if you want to spill the beans on the podcast or not.
00:59:38
jamie peacock
ah Yeah.
00:59:43
Justin Gray
So you can edit this out if you don't. But it says, I'll be nicer if you'll be smarter.
00:59:49
jamie peacock
So that shirt is available on our website. There's a whole bunch of fun shirts. They're all available there now. And there's also some Lone Machinist merch that's available. I've got a shirt coming that says, I said it worked. I didn't say it was fixed.
01:00:05
Justin Gray
I think you definitely won.
01:00:05
jamie peacock
So that that's actually, ah yeah, I've got to go buy vinyl tomorrow for shirts because all my shirts, I'm still wearing the IMTS shirts and ol have holes in them. Okay.
01:00:16
Justin Gray
I think you won the IMTS fashion show for sure. um
01:00:19
jamie peacock
100% I plan on winning next time as well.
01:00:19
Justin Gray
and
01:00:23
Justin Gray
But when I got this shirt in the mail, I showed it to my wife and she was like, yep, that's, that's you. That's good. Yeah. Good job.
01:00:29
jamie peacock
Yeah, that's a brilliant guide. But yeah, there's a whole bunch. So yeah, Danica is planning on releasing new ones every like four months or so. So the like five designs every four months, because there's all sorts of fun stuff.
01:00:40
Justin Gray
and be careful. Pretty sure you're not going to be in the machining parts business anymore. You're going to be in the fashion business.
01:00:46
jamie peacock
No, no, she'll be in the fashion business and the podcast editing business, and I'll be in the machining business, which means I'm going to lose my bar loader, but that's fine.
01:00:55
Curt
Yeah, I think she needs a raise raise up from zero dollars.
01:00:56
Justin Gray
That's why you have to build one.
01:00:58
jamie peacock
Well, we're going to we're going to go to ProPack next week, and I signed up today as the dictator of JSpec Engineering, and I told her she needs to sign up as the bar loader of JSpec Engineering.
01:01:11
jamie peacock
I always sign up as the dictator. Do you know how few people actually read your badge? Or read it that well. I think at IMTS, four people commented on the fact that mine said dictator.
01:01:22
Justin Gray
I saw some good badges at IMTS, but I was intentionally looking at everybody's badges. But I think um my my favorite one of my favorite ones was like God Level Machinist was the title.
01:01:27
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:01:33
Curt
Nice.
01:01:33
jamie peacock
Lovely. but Now, IMTS was a proper jaw. Like, it really was. You guys made it, like, really, really good. The toolpath booth was top-notch.
01:01:46
jamie peacock
Like, that was a very clever plan.
01:01:46
Justin Gray
Wait till you see what we have in store for 2026.
01:01:48
Justin Gray
twenty twenty six
01:01:50
jamie peacock
Oh, nice. I was going to... I was hinting at finding out if you guys were going to be there and doing something fancy again.
01:01:56
Justin Gray
Oh, we'll be there. We'll be there. um
01:01:57
jamie peacock
Okay. Awesome.
01:01:58
Justin Gray
I don't know what we'll be doing yet. We're going to figure out something to top 2024, but we'll be there. Yeah.
01:02:03
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:02:03
jamie peacock
Okay. Sweet. Because we're planning... Kurt and are both planning on being there as well.
01:02:04
Justin Gray
Oh,
01:02:08
Justin Gray
yeah cool. Yeah, we'll have to do, maybe we can, maybe I'll actually figure out a way to have some spar spare time and I'll be able to go out to dinner with a few folks this time.
01:02:10
jamie peacock
Yeah. So it'll actually...
01:02:18
jamie peacock
Yeah, Danica actually wants to do on the... I think on the Wednesday, she wants to do a bra at the Airbnb. So invites a whole pile the guys over for effectively a barbecue, but better.
01:02:29
jamie peacock
um All South African stuff. So she wants to... She likes to complicate my life. She wants to find a butcher and have them sell a sausage casing so we can make proper borovoos while we're there. can bring the spices, but we can't bring bring the meat.
01:02:43
jamie peacock
So go get the meat and make sausage while we're there so that you guys can have real South African food.
01:02:50
Justin Gray
I mean, that's 100% doable in Chicago.
01:02:50
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:02:53
Justin Gray
so
01:02:53
jamie peacock
yeah
01:02:54
Justin Gray
um But if not, you guys can talk to me. i'll I'll make sure you have what you need to make that work at INTS.
01:02:59
jamie peacock
Okay, that's sweet. Because I think that'll be quite fun. Because every night we went out for dinner during IMTS. it was It was silly. like but It was fun.
01:03:10
jamie peacock
Lots of fun, but like yeah it's a whole lot of whole lot of networking. That's what the whole thing... Well, that's not actually what it's all about. It's about buying machines. But networking is... That's the reason I'm going again.
01:03:22
jamie peacock
It's not necessarily... I'm not going to buy a machine from a US distributor. But it is nice to see what's out there.
01:03:30
Justin Gray
That's why you're working on your small fidget toy, right, Kurt? So that you have a pile of cheap toys you can hand out at IMTS 2026? Yeah.
01:03:37
Curt
I mean, it's one of them, yeah, for certain.
01:03:39
Justin Gray
but
01:03:40
jamie peacock
Well, oh yeah, Justin justin wouldn't have heard the ah the after show.
01:03:41
Curt
I'd love to be to get away.
01:03:44
jamie peacock
I ordered the the blanks this morning for my little projects I'm working on.
01:03:50
Curt
Oh, nice.
01:03:51
jamie peacock
Yeah, they're ready. I ordered them this morning. I got an email this afternoon. No, they've been laser cutting. Come collect. was like, what?
01:03:56
Curt
Sick.
01:03:57
jamie peacock
and so It's obviously the beginning of the month. They don't have many orders yet. So they put out like 250 parts for me today between that and a couple other things. So I'm...
01:04:05
Curt
Nice.
01:04:05
Justin Gray
This is for your like quick quick release fidget toy.
01:04:09
jamie peacock
I know this is for a ruler. It's a, it's become a two inch ruler, two inch ruler, but, uh, yeah.
01:04:12
Justin Gray
Oh.
01:04:15
Justin Gray
That was yeah ah was good. ah That was good. I'm looking forward to when that comes out. That was good.
01:04:19
jamie peacock
Yeah. So Danica is doing the artwork for me. Now we're going to do a whole bunch of them with different, uh, different breakdowns of effectively two inches, but in real units, because yeah, okay it's going to be fun.
Shipping Logistics and Challenges
01:04:35
Justin Gray
Oh.
01:04:36
jamie peacock
But yeah, I've been ah um been plugging away at the the Anchor Point system. So those are leaving shortly. I now have the packaging sorted out.
01:04:46
Justin Gray
Awesome. Awesome.
01:04:47
jamie peacock
Yes.
01:04:47
Justin Gray
Yeah. You're laser cutting your packaging.
01:04:47
jamie peacock
It's been a... yeah Yeah, laser cutting some origami. I'm waiting. The guys didn't actually send me a quote today for MDF. um In the box, I'm putting in a three millimeter MDF base, then all the origami stuff, then a three millimeter MDF base on the top. So you can literally throw the thing at a wall and nothing's going to get broken.
01:05:09
jamie peacock
Because courier transfer exists. look
01:05:13
Curt
also i don't think i don't think MDF qualifies because I don't think that's considered wood but um weirdly enough wood has shipping things like I had to avoid it for reasons because they're like oh if you're shipping to this country you can't ship wood it's like oh okay I don't think i' think MDF call it's like it's a glue and
01:05:13
jamie peacock
But yeah, Yeah.
01:05:19
jamie peacock
Oh yeah, good point.
01:05:22
jamie peacock
Yes.
01:05:27
jamie peacock
Okay. I just won't declare it, but good point.
01:05:31
jamie peacock
Yeah, it's glue and sawdust, like...
01:05:31
Curt
glue and poison um
01:05:32
Curt
yeah okay
01:05:34
jamie peacock
Yeah, it shouldn't. That's actually a good point. I hadn't thought of that. But I'm going to ProPack next week to go see what options there are because it's a packaging expo. ah Last time I was there, I saw some really cool stuff. And this time I'm actually in a position to buy some really cool stuff.
01:05:46
jamie peacock
Whereas when I went there last, I think, four years ago, ah wasn't really in a position to buy anything. like i was I actually watched my, on my YouTube channel, there's a shop tour video from December 2018. And I watched this video. I'm like, this lighty doesn't know what's going on.
01:06:01
jamie peacock
Like I look at how I was set up.
01:06:01
Curt
Yeah.
01:06:02
jamie peacock
I'm like, he's so optimistic. Like, but at that point I didn't have to be profitable. So I could afford to just stuff around. I had to pay my bean counter and I had to pay for electricity. And that was it.
01:06:14
jamie peacock
Like i wasn't paying rent. It was just, ah yeah, it was fun at the time.
01:06:21
Justin Gray
Speaking of shipping, Kurt, are you going to get hosed by tariffs?
01:06:22
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:06:26
Curt
um I won't, customers will, but that's, I don't think people quite realize that.
01:06:30
Justin Gray
Okay.
01:06:31
Curt
Like it's it's the importer, it's always the importer that pays the tariff.
01:06:34
jamie peacock
yeah
01:06:35
Curt
So unfortunately, I mean, there's a feedback, right? Because it makes your product more expensive to the person buying it. So they're not going to be like, it it plays down the line, but yeah, it's usually the importer that pays. So rest of the world, not going to get hosed, but yeah, all my American folks, who knows?
01:06:45
Justin Gray
right
01:06:48
Curt
I mean, it it changes every month. So just kind of just kind of stop paying attention to it, honestly.
01:06:52
Justin Gray
Hmm.
01:06:52
jamie peacock
Yeah, that was that was a discussion we had today, was adding terms and conditions to our shipping policy, that if it gets stops at customs and you get a $100 bill, that's not my problem.
01:06:54
Justin Gray
Wait and see.
01:07:06
jamie peacock
We're declaring it at full value because I can't afford for a pallet system to go missing. and then i don't have insurance on it declared it as a low value so if it gets stopped at customs and you get a hundred dollar bill that's not my problem like don't try to send it back because you got a hundred dollar it's like it's against we're going to put in the terms of service because we're looking at potentially shipping directly from south africa i have a a way to do that that costs an arm and a leg but we absorb a portion of that and it'll be okay because there you are it's 170 to ship a parcel it's a bit brutal
01:07:10
Curt
Yep.
01:07:42
jamie peacock
But we have a plan.
01:07:42
Justin Gray
i yeah I don't have enough spare time to understand the lottery system, but I need to figure it out because I've been trying not to become an EDC guy, but I was talking to Zach Smith and he was trying to convince me that I needed to wear a watch, which he he failed miserably at, that I needed to wear a watch.
01:07:48
Curt
oh
01:08:02
Justin Gray
I don't need to wear a watch.
01:08:05
Justin Gray
But he convinced me that I should care about, that I should see what this whole knife thing is all about. So I bought a couple of knives. And so now I have a knife and a flashlight.
01:08:13
Curt
Nice.
01:08:15
Justin Gray
And so I feel like I need a pen to to complete the EDC stuff.
01:08:17
Curt
Of course, yeah. That's your that's your trifecta.
01:08:21
Justin Gray
Yeah, so i'm I'm in the market for a pen now. Although what I want is a pen and flashlight combined. Nobody sells one that I've been really happy with yet. but
01:08:29
Curt
Fair. Yeah, no fair.
01:08:34
Curt
Yeah, I know.
01:08:34
Justin Gray
So I guess I'm in the market for a pen too.
01:08:34
jamie peacock
Yeah. How did, how did your, uh, your sale go, Kurt?
01:08:37
Curt
Well, Iowa.
01:08:40
Curt
Oh, fantastic, as always. Yeah, i can't I can never say thank you enough to the folks.
01:08:42
jamie peacock
Okay. Well, that's good.
01:08:46
Curt
I mean, that's its it's heinous that I got to sell via lottery. um I love it, but I get it. It's annoying for customers.
01:08:52
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:08:53
Curt
ah Seven o'clock today, whatever remains, is this going go up for first come first serve? No one's going to hear this. So it was seven o'clock yesterday. So sorry you missed out. um But that's how she works.
01:09:01
Justin Gray
ah
01:09:01
jamie peacock
yeah
01:09:03
Justin Gray
It might be might be useful for to me.
01:09:03
Curt
It it will be probably...
01:09:05
jamie peacock
Well, yeah, it's going to be useful to you.
01:09:08
Curt
Yeah, they go fast. It's usually like within 20 seconds, they're all gone, which is once again, lovely.
01:09:13
Justin Gray
Really?
01:09:14
Curt
But yeah, no, shoot me message.
01:09:14
Justin Gray
Wow. That's awesome.
01:09:16
Curt
We can figure something out. I always have friends and family ones um floating around. So although I shouldn't have said that on the podcast, because people will be like, wait.
01:09:22
Justin Gray
actually
01:09:25
jamie peacock
They're not friends and family.
01:09:25
Justin Gray
We actually...
01:09:27
Curt
Yeah, yeah, exactly. You're not friends or family.
01:09:27
Justin Gray
Yeah, we'll edit that out.
01:09:29
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:09:30
Justin Gray
We actually have one Canadian employee on Toolpath.
01:09:30
jamie peacock
Um, I have,
01:09:33
Justin Gray
So they're in Mississauga.
01:09:34
Curt
Oh,
01:09:36
Justin Gray
um And I've been looking for an excuse to to get up there, visit them in person, maybe see Grimsow shop and and maybe I'll come see your stuff too.
01:09:38
Curt
Oh.
01:09:45
Curt
Yeah, I'm a hike from there, but yeah, anytime, man, I'll ah i'll do whatever whatever I got to do.
01:09:48
jamie peacock
that is that is one shop i would like to tour this grimsmo shop i really i wanted to meet him at imts i mts ah literally had one of my knives that i had two-tone anodized because of his video and he wasn't there i was a bit upset yeah i'm sure he'll be there at the next one like i can't believe how many people got together at imts it was insane
01:10:06
Curt
Yeah, that's cool.
01:10:06
Justin Gray
We'll get them there in the next one.
01:10:16
jamie peacock
All right, good play is pumped.
01:10:16
Curt
So we're we're nearing the end, Justin.
01:10:17
jamie peacock
Hmm.
01:10:19
Curt
What's your ah what what's what's exciting you this week? What are you excited to work on? Or what are you delving into?
01:10:27
Justin Gray
um For me, it's almost all chatter right now. So learning to understand chatter and to understand the like production machining mindset a little bit better.
01:10:30
Curt
yeah
01:10:34
Justin Gray
It's not something I've ever played with before. So like understanding what people think about in terms of tool life and how they track that and like playing with part counters in my machine and stuff like that.
01:10:37
Curt
Mm-hmm.
01:10:43
Justin Gray
I've never never touched any of that stuff before.
Hands-on Experience and Global Presence
01:10:46
Justin Gray
um um So a little bit of that. um And then also long-term planning for toolpaths. So was trying to figure out you know exactly what we're going to be doing for the the rest of the year.
01:10:55
Justin Gray
It might sound a little crazy that I don't actually know what that is, but when you're moving this fast, everything changes all the time. So... Thinking about what it's going to look like for us to start making our own parts and to really refine that quoting product out there and how to integrate Chatter into it is is most of the stuff I'm thinking about.
01:11:13
Justin Gray
The other thing, though, is that we're having a toolpath on site at the end of the month. So the first time it's actually the first time the entire company will be together. We're we're global. um I think we literally have somebody.
01:11:25
Justin Gray
It is definitely true that the sun never sets on toolpath employees. I don't think we have ever somebody in every time zone, but
01:11:29
Curt
That's cool.
01:11:32
Justin Gray
um When we added Scott Moise New Zealand, we we we made it so the sun never sets on Toolpath. um So starting to plan out for that a little bit. And it'll be one of those moments where I have a bunch of people who have never touched a machine, and I'm going to have them make some parts.
01:11:47
Justin Gray
um And I want to be a little bit more well-prepared and well-organized this time. So thinking through, like what are the parts? But I want to have them like fully like run it through Toolpath, auto you know get the programs from Toolpath, and make the tweaks you need.
01:12:01
Justin Gray
I'm trying to decide whether or not I'm going to have them make their own soft jaws and stuff, or whether I'll just give that to them. I want them to set up the tooling and everything. So thinking thinking through what that's going to look like, I guess, you know, machining 101 for toolpath employees is what I'm thinking about this week.
01:12:14
Curt
Nice.
01:12:17
Curt
nice
01:12:18
jamie peacock
Okay. Yeah, that is really valuable to have them actually understand the process.
01:12:24
Justin Gray
Yeah, I want them to feel that fear of pressing that green button. i want them to know what they're what they're expecting our customers to feel like.
01:12:31
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:12:31
Curt
Well, that's like a great feedback into software too, is like when you get to like experience like all aspects of the thing you're creating, as opposed to being like, this will work and just pushing out into the world and everyone being like, this is terrible.
01:12:42
Curt
And it's just like, well, it worked in theory for us. So I don't see what your problem is. It's like, it's cool to get real world feedback.
01:12:47
Justin Gray
Right.
01:12:49
Curt
And I think that's probably why you guys have a useful product is because you get to like, you get to iterate on it yourself.
01:12:58
Justin Gray
Yeah, yeah. Getting more useful by the day. Working hard on the coding part of it, for sure. But yeah.
01:13:05
Curt
That's awesome.
01:13:05
jamie peacock
I have a question about chatter. You mentioned part counting in chatter and tool life management.
01:13:08
Justin Gray
Mm-hmm.
01:13:11
Justin Gray
Mm-hmm.
01:13:12
jamie peacock
I heard it somewhere. work can't remember where. um With regards to using chatter to do your tool life management of specific tools across multiple jobs kind of story. So it's not in the controller. It's actually in chatter.
01:13:26
jamie peacock
Is that something that's in the works?
01:13:27
Justin Gray
Yeah, except so I don't think it it does. It's on the roadmap. It doesn't work that way right now. um the way The way, and i have to be a little bit careful here because I'm just diving into this.
01:13:39
Justin Gray
So Pete will listen to this and tell me I got it all wrong. But I was literally just playing with this.
01:13:42
jamie peacock
Yeah, I think I was listening to him. was listening to him on, on, with intolerance.
01:13:47
Justin Gray
I'm Dylan's. Yeah. So the the way it works right now is you set up ah for tool life management, you set up a specific job, you tell it what tools are in that job, and then it's watching the machine to see how many cycles that tool has gone through.
01:13:50
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:14:00
jamie peacock
Okay. Okay.
01:14:02
Justin Gray
And then there's some extra features in there where you can like take some notes and tell it to like reset the count and everything. um And then it knows like, it looks at the runtime from that job to figure out like how many minutes in the cut you
Chatter's Features and Integration Potential
01:14:14
Justin Gray
get.
01:14:14
Justin Gray
um
01:14:15
jamie peacock
Okay.
01:14:15
Justin Gray
And so it'll, you know, it'll basically tell you like, oh, well I can see that you have seven cycles out of a hundred on this tool. So you're going to need to replace this tool in two hours or two days or whatever.
01:14:26
jamie peacock
Okay. So it does a bit of forward planning, assuming you're running production consistently.
01:14:31
Justin Gray
Right.
01:14:31
jamie peacock
Okay. Oh, that's very, very interesting.
01:14:32
Justin Gray
But it doesn't it doesn't map from job to job though.
01:14:33
jamie peacock
And yeah.
01:14:36
Justin Gray
So it doesn't like tell you, oh, you have 20 minutes on this job and 30 minutes on that job.
01:14:37
jamie peacock
Yeah. Okay.
01:14:42
jamie peacock
No, but that's fine. it I was just ah but curious about that. And what kind of information... So, and we're going to dive into my bad understanding of chatter. um You're talking over Ethernet.
01:14:54
jamie peacock
So you're basically, the machine's spitting out a whole lot of stuff over Ethernet. As long as you're listening correctly, you can hear it. What kind of information is the machine actually spitting out?
01:14:59
Justin Gray
Correct.
01:15:01
jamie peacock
so Okay.
01:15:02
Justin Gray
A surprising amount. um Put very simply, there's three kinds of information that come out.
01:15:04
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:15:08
Justin Gray
There's message and alert signals. That's one kind.
01:15:10
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:15:11
Justin Gray
And then the machine can respond to queries about the values of any macro variables, any variables.
01:15:18
jamie peacock
Ooh, okay.
01:15:19
Justin Gray
And then it'll also tell you its current state. Like, is it in memory or, or yeah, handle mode or whatever.
01:15:23
jamie peacock
Running or... Okay. Okay. Does it spit out the tool number that's currently in the spindle and spindle RPM and all those kind of things?
01:15:30
Justin Gray
And so...
01:15:34
Justin Gray
Sure.
01:15:36
jamie peacock
Okay. No, very, very interesting.
01:15:36
Justin Gray
Yeah, yeah.
01:15:37
Justin Gray
And Shatter, yeah, so it'll track all of that.
01:15:37
jamie peacock
Yeah, okay.
01:15:40
Justin Gray
And in production mode, it like tries to be a little bit smart. And it'll tell you like it's looking for even periods of spindle downtime. And then it'll say those are setup times.
01:15:51
Justin Gray
And then when it sees the part count increment, which it's just tracking the part count variables in the machine, when it sees the part count go back to zero, and then there's a long pause after that, it'll mark that as setup time.
01:16:02
jamie peacock
as a setup okay no that's very interesting okay no it's interesting to hear how these things work i haven't looked very deeply into it because uh for i need i've got one of these but i would be very interested to to dive a bit deeper into it like i i'm monitoring it for shits and giggles to be honest like i just want to see what my uptime is
01:16:04
Justin Gray
Yeah.
01:16:14
Justin Gray
Yeah.
01:16:16
Justin Gray
You're.
01:16:23
Justin Gray
So I think the biggest thing that let me caveat, i'm not I'm absolutely not trying to sell Chatter to anybody here. And in fact, we are not even allowing new Chatter customers onto the platform right now. um Jamie, you are on my short list of of beta testers for the Siemens control. And Kurt, if you're interested, you can be on that list too, since you have a Siemens control but when we're ready to deploy that.
01:16:44
Justin Gray
um But the there are different classes of users for Chatter. And some people really, like all they care about is getting a text message when the machine stops running. um
01:16:52
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yeah.
01:16:53
Justin Gray
So like CJ really cares about that because he's got pretty tight production schedules. And so like if it's nine o'clock at night and there's an error, he's going to go back to the shop and fix it. He wants to know that.
01:17:02
jamie peacock
yeah
01:17:03
Justin Gray
And that's like his critical thing. um Some other folks really want like part count and tool a life management um and then larger shops with like lots and lots of machines just really want to take a look at like spindle uptime and kind of the evil boss thing a little bit. But they want to know like, hey, why is this machine down for an hour? Right. Like what's going on here?
01:17:23
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:17:24
Justin Gray
The challenge for us moving forward, and and it's going to take us probably a year before we're really ready to do this, is to integrate Chatter and Toolpath so that, like, oh, I quoted this job, and these are the tools I'm using, and I programmed it. And so now I'm tracking, like, closing that loop.
01:17:40
Justin Gray
And then also being like, oh, and by the way, you quoted that job as taking 20 minutes apart. But when you ran it, it was actually 27 minutes apart. Right. and And like closing that loop so that over time we can correct, come up with like the correct fudge factor for the job.
01:17:55
Justin Gray
Right.
01:17:56
Curt
That's cool.
01:17:56
jamie peacock
okay yeah
01:17:56
Justin Gray
Because there's always something.
01:17:56
Curt
Yeah.
01:17:57
Justin Gray
Right. There's always, you know, like, oh, it took a little longer to load the part than you thought. Or ah you tweaked a feed in speed or whatever. Right. Like vice tightening time. And so. you Not that I actually think that if you're in a high mix environment that you should be quoting down to the minute, right? Like there needs to be a good amount of buffer.
01:18:17
jamie peacock
yeah
01:18:18
Justin Gray
But you know if you're consistently 30% low on your runtime estimates, then Chatter can hopefully soon help you understand that and add that in as you start quoting. And where I think that really starts to help, and this this bit me, the bit the biggest job I ever did was like 150 parts or something.
01:18:35
Justin Gray
um And I don't have like super optimized feeds and speeds or anything.
01:18:36
jamie peacock
That's cute.
01:18:40
Justin Gray
So that was like that 150 parts was like three days of running, right, for me. um no No automation or anything, like me hand loading the parts. But like when I quoted the part, I thought it'd be a day and a half of running.
01:18:52
Justin Gray
um And I was just off, right? And so that was a weekend in the shop getting that job ready. and
01:18:57
Curt
Thank
01:18:57
Justin Gray
And I think like closing the loop with chatter will really really help avoid those kinds of situations. um I like to say that it's not the quotes you get right that kill you, it's the quotes you get wrong. Right. And so like having some hard data to be like, listen, no moron.
01:19:12
Justin Gray
I know that you think you can make that part in five minutes, but every time you've made that part, it's taken you seven and a half. So like, how about we quote this right from now on, you know?
01:19:23
jamie peacock
Yeah, know that that's also the what's measured is managed.
01:19:27
jamie peacock
not
01:19:27
Justin Gray
Right.
01:19:28
jamie peacock
If you actually monitor things, you you find you find stuff out. Like i I was having a conversation with my brother this afternoon and I was saying to him, we were running a job. We started off, it was taking us like seven or eight minutes per assembly. It's now down to like three and a half minutes.
01:19:28
Justin Gray
Yeah.
01:19:42
jamie peacock
Guess what? Customer has an increase in price in two years because I don't need to put the price up. I kind of feel bad I'm charging them so much, but they can't get it cheap anywhere else. So, It is what it is. Like, yeah.
01:19:55
jamie peacock
and Finding those improvements. And I think chatter will help a lot with that. And closing like said, closing that loop is a big thing. Because quoting, like, yeah.
01:20:03
Justin Gray
And then the other one, yeah. The other one that I think it's not it's not in the main product yet, but I'm really excited about bringing it back to what we were talking about before is keeping a log of your in-process probing data.
01:20:07
jamie peacock
Quoting's a schlep.
01:20:16
Justin Gray
I think there actually is some alpha features in there that some customers have access to, but believe it or not, I don't have access to it yet.
01:20:24
Curt
on top of that.
01:20:25
Justin Gray
But you know once you have a probe and you can do in-process probing, like tracking that data and like watching the parts change over time and things like that, I think it'll be hugely valuable.
01:20:35
jamie peacock
Yeah, you could, yeah, make...
01:20:35
Justin Gray
So those are the things that I think are are really exciting about Chatter.
01:20:39
jamie peacock
Yeah, because that would make tracking thermal growth really easy.
01:20:43
jamie peacock
Like if you can actually archive all that information.
01:20:43
Justin Gray
Right.
01:20:48
Justin Gray
Yeah. So I think there's a lot of potential there.
01:20:49
jamie peacock
not Not that I worry about growth.
Designing for Manufacturing Constraints
01:20:55
jamie peacock
All the stuff I do, i don't need to measure. And that is by design and by choice.
01:20:58
Justin Gray
Okay.
01:21:00
jamie peacock
it doesn't need to be measured, don't measure it. Okay.
01:21:04
Justin Gray
i get I get the impression you hold some pretty tight tolerances though, Kurt, and you probably do care about thermal growth.
01:21:08
jamie peacock
ah kta yeah
01:21:10
Curt
I definitely do Yeah, I definitely do. Jamie's a woodworker over there. I just, yeah. My parts are tiny, though, so it's different.
01:21:16
jamie peacock
the entire palette system let me actually put this into the uh the imperializer points yeah two point two yeah that's uh 79 thou i know 7.9 thou is the tolerance on the on everything on the palette system except for like three critical features
01:21:37
Curt
Wow.
01:21:37
jamie peacock
It's designed to rattle fit because if it doesn't need to be tight, don't make it tight.
01:21:38
Curt
That's nuts.
01:21:41
jamie peacock
Like there's a couple of tight features, everything else rattle fit. That's what O-rings are for.
01:21:47
Justin Gray
it
01:21:47
jamie peacock
Like it like, it needs to seal for air and that's what the O-rings for. Otherwise it can be loose. Rather let it be loose and find its center than have it over constrained.
01:21:59
Justin Gray
Except for the locating pins, right?
01:22:02
jamie peacock
Yeah, those those are the balls for those, their positional and their diameter. The center ball for the where the pad locates and the inner ball of the pad are the only critical dimensions. Everything else is non-critical.
01:22:17
jamie peacock
And that's by design. It's been designed to be easy to manufacture. Now, I'm not going to try and hold silly tight tolerance if I can avoid it. so like Silly tight tolerance is just add stress for no reason.
01:22:24
Justin Gray
Thank you.
01:22:29
jamie peacock
Like a lot of the stuff we do, a lot of it's got a 2,000 tolerance on it, plus minus 2,000. I try and hold it well, well within that. It's running brass on the Emco. It does it all day.
01:22:40
jamie peacock
ah love that machine.
01:22:40
Curt
Thank you.
01:22:41
jamie peacock
I set it up in the morning in an afternoon. I mean, I ran 600 pieces of 303 stainless making little like little rivets. Yeah. I would set up, I think I did a batch of 200, then I did another 300, then I did 100 the next day.
01:22:57
jamie peacock
And in the morning you set size, and in the afternoon, no, look, it's still the same size. Like our machine is astonishingly accurate, especially for being 30 years old.
01:23:08
jamie peacock
Or 35 years old.
01:23:08
Justin Gray
that's That's awesome.
01:23:09
Justin Gray
Yeah. That's awesome. yeah
01:23:11
jamie peacock
Yeah. Now the M-Codes are really, really, yeah especially the old ones are really, really well built.
01:23:19
jamie peacock
But yeah, ah cool. um So we've stolen some questions from other podcasts. What have you been Googling? Because that is is the best question.
01:23:31
Justin Gray
um I've actually been Googling, it's going to be super nerdy, but like real-time data architectures for chatter. There's like a large volume of data when you have thousands and thousands of machines piping into a database.
01:23:44
Justin Gray
um So looking up like what best practices are for that. And then this morning I was looking up part countercodes for brothers and how to call call sub programs. Cause I needed to like write a simulated production job for the brother.
01:23:55
jamie peacock
Okay.
01:23:57
Justin Gray
So I have it like just looping over the same program and everything.
01:24:01
jamie peacock
Okay. Nice.
01:24:03
Justin Gray
yeah
01:24:04
Curt
I imagine that's a fun thing in your world is just like none of the machines you're interfacing with, I'm assuming have like the same kind of like a standard for even like data output on ethernet.
01:24:04
jamie peacock
Yeah. I've, I've,
01:24:14
Curt
Like, are they all different? Are you like constantly iterating? Yeah, that's, that's not heinous.
01:24:18
Justin Gray
um Yeah, so I don't want to take credit for that. Pete did a lot of that work. Believe it or not, the most consistent machines are the FANUC machines, sort of.
01:24:27
Curt
Hmm.
01:24:27
Justin Gray
sort of The connection connection interface is the most consistent. um the The world of like other machines that use MT Connect is just a nightmare. like It's supposed to be a self-describing standard, and it's not.
01:24:40
Justin Gray
So there's some work we have to do there. Haases and brothers are pretty consistent for kind of the obvious reason that they just control the whole thing. And then um like the Siemens controls with the OPC we're just starting to figure that out. So already we're talking about like four or five different protocols. And some of those protocols are like all these sort of protocols.
01:25:02
Justin Gray
So yeah, it's it's a challenge for sure.
01:25:05
jamie peacock
Yeah, that seems unpleasant.
01:25:06
Justin Gray
For sure. And Pete did a great job like coming up with a way to wrangle all of that complexity. That's the Chatterbox actually handles most of that. um So it's pretty cool. you You could literally like I have one Chatterbox and I could run We don't actually know what the limit of the number of the machines is, but you could run, like, let's just say five machines.
01:25:24
Justin Gray
You could run a Brother, Haas, a Fanuc, a Siemens, and a Heidenheim machine all on into one chatterbox, and it talks to all of them, which is pretty cool.
01:25:32
Curt
Oh, wow. Oh, i didn't know that was the case now. Oh, that's the sick. That's cool.
01:25:35
Justin Gray
Yeah, so.
01:25:36
jamie peacock
Now that that's really sweet.
01:25:37
Justin Gray
Not all of those are officially supported yet.
01:25:38
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:25:39
Justin Gray
Some of those are beta beta-s supported, but just theoretically, that one box can talk to all the machines.
01:25:41
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:25:43
Curt
Sure. Yeah. yeah
01:25:45
jamie peacock
Okay.
01:25:45
Curt
Oh, that's cool.
01:25:46
Justin Gray
Does it all over ethernet, which is cool. So like the chatterbox just goes in your networking closet. And then as long as the machines are networked, i hear, I hear your machines are not ne networked.
01:25:52
Curt
Right.
01:25:57
Justin Gray
kurt You'll have to work on that, but.
01:25:59
Curt
I just have to run a cable.
01:25:59
jamie peacock
Yes, Kurt, come.
01:26:00
Curt
That's all have to do.
01:26:00
jamie peacock
Yes.
01:26:01
Curt
That's all i have to do.
01:26:01
jamie peacock
Stop being a poor person and run a cable.
01:26:04
Curt
i have to run a big cable though.
01:26:04
jamie peacock
USB drives are for poor people.
01:26:06
Curt
I don't like cables on roofs.
01:26:06
jamie peacock
That's fine.
01:26:07
Curt
I have to like run it around things and it'll be.
01:26:09
jamie peacock
My Ethan is just glued to the roof. Like literally in the middle of the workshop, glued to the roof and the cables I've drilled into the roof, cable sticks out and plugs in.
01:26:12
Curt
No, no, no deal.
01:26:17
jamie peacock
It's great.
01:26:18
Curt
No, no, that'll make me throw up. I can't do that. I can't do that.
01:26:21
jamie peacock
But some trunking, it'll be fine.
01:26:23
Curt
oh No, no, no, no, no. i
01:26:26
Justin Gray
i'll send you I'll send you a picture of the Ethernet cables in my garage at home when I when i get home, Kurt.
01:26:26
jamie peacock
Um,
01:26:32
Curt
Are they pretty?
01:26:32
jamie peacock
Yeah, i move um moved the I moved the Ethernet jack from the side of my machine to the top because the side, it was going to get broken off. I guess in a reasonable person's workshop, it's not a problem.
01:26:43
jamie peacock
When you've got to walk like a crab past your machine, it's a bit of a challenge.
01:26:48
Curt
see. Oh, yeah. No, no, no. not No, it makes my skin hurt.
01:26:50
jamie peacock
No! You know there's a plug on the back, right?
01:26:52
Curt
No. No.
01:26:54
jamie peacock
There's a plug on the back of most controllers.
01:26:55
Justin Gray
There's there's it's inside the box and I just like have never had the 20 minutes to like go. I even own, I even bought like an extra cable or whatever to like reroute it.
01:27:07
Justin Gray
And I just haven't had the ah time.
01:27:08
jamie peacock
That's the first thing I did. i was like this. I can't have it sticking out the front and I can't have it sticking out the side. I make it look pretty.
01:27:15
Curt
Yeah. I don't.
01:27:15
Justin Gray
No, but actually these LNC controls can take a wireless adapter, a USB wireless adapter.
01:27:20
jamie peacock
Ooh, that seems unreliable.
01:27:24
Justin Gray
Yeah. Yeah.
01:27:25
jamie peacock
I hate wireless. My new 3D printer wireless and I hate it.
01:27:27
Curt
and
01:27:28
jamie peacock
I bought another resin printer because I have a problem. And it's it wants me to connect to Wi-Fi and updates. I'm like, you're a printer. What do you need an update for? ah Print the thing.
01:27:38
jamie peacock
This
3D Printing Demand and Practicality
01:27:39
jamie peacock
isn't hard.
01:27:39
Justin Gray
no We're going to have to talk to the bar feeder about taking away your credit card.
01:27:45
jamie peacock
ah No, we need it for a job.
01:27:45
Curt
Yeah, exactly.
01:27:46
jamie peacock
I could justify this one. And now I've got to print 100 things in the next three weeks, 100 enclosures, injection molding samples. So I needed another printer. It wasn't going to happen. Um, so yeah I've been Googling screens. I've got, I now leave all my tabs open on my phone, all 12 of them.
01:28:03
jamie peacock
Um, been Googling monitors cause I want to bigger a monitor because I don't know, I feel like my 24 inch one isn't big enough. Uh, and then 3d printing store cause was looking at buying another printer.
01:28:18
jamie peacock
And then I went and did it today.
01:28:18
Curt
Okay.
01:28:20
jamie peacock
Yeah, ended up buying a Creality Harlot 1 Pro. one pro So we'll see. The print should be done after the podcast and i'll go have a look at it. I've also now got a curing station and all the freaking paraphernalia.
01:28:28
Justin Gray
right The name of the printer is the harlot?
01:28:32
jamie peacock
Yeah, the Creality Harlot 1 Pro.
01:28:33
Justin Gray
something Is this something where it means something different in South African than it does in
01:28:38
jamie peacock
No, it means the same thing. It means something different in China, but we bring them straight in from China. like
01:28:45
jamie peacock
there Their software is called Harlot Box. which is friggin hilarious.
01:28:49
Curt
nice oh my boy no i will i'll stay off that way i mean i always have yeah but i'll just i'll leave that off the podcast talk about that in weekly uh googling i mean last week i did i swapped out my hard drive to his old state and i just max this thing out and rammed
01:28:51
Justin Gray
okay
01:28:53
jamie peacock
Yeah, it's, it's, yeah, it seems to be doing a good job. We'll see later. And yeah, Kurt, what have you been ah searching? Probably home assistant things? No.
01:29:13
jamie peacock
Oh, yes.
01:29:15
Curt
Dude, if you have a laptop or a PC at home now, like just just max out the RAM and put in good solid-state hard drives. They're so cheap nowadays. And it was like a 500% performance increase. It boots up in like 20 seconds now.
01:29:26
Curt
Yeah, it's yeah highly.
01:29:27
jamie peacock
I literally did that today for a customer.
01:29:28
Curt
So anyways.
01:29:30
jamie peacock
Their machine was running a hard drive.
01:29:31
Curt
Yeah.
01:29:31
jamie peacock
I didn't realize I sold it to them with a hard drive. The drive started failing.
01:29:34
Curt
Yeah.
01:29:35
jamie peacock
So I'm like, just send me the computer. I'll put SSD in it for you. Thought I had one laying around. Didn't ended up buying a 500 gig one for, I think $40. Not even. It was like, yeah, $40. Super cheap. but
01:29:49
Curt
Yeah, exactly. I spent $200 and I bought like 32 gigs of RAM and a 100 gig or a ah but terabyte hard drive. All brand name stuff too.
01:29:55
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:29:56
Curt
like It's insane how cheap that stuff is nowadays.
01:29:58
jamie peacock
It's gotten cheap.
01:30:00
Curt
Anyway, that's...
01:30:00
jamie peacock
Except for graphics cards. Those are stupid expensive.
01:30:03
Curt
Yeah, well, it's because we're all Bitcoin mining with them or we're break Bitcoin mining with them. So um anyway...
01:30:07
jamie peacock
Yeah. that It's gotten very, very silly. But yeah.
01:30:11
Curt
Yeah, so that's basically in my world.
01:30:12
jamie peacock
Oh, sweet.
01:30:12
Curt
And then i I lost my entire Fusion local library because it's on this hard drive, which is no longer connect in the computer because i did it fresh.
01:30:12
jamie peacock
Oh,
01:30:18
jamie peacock
ah yes.
01:30:19
Curt
So I got to bring that across. But i think going to run all that through Toolpath because i've been you've been helping on me to run my own.
01:30:24
jamie peacock
Oh, well, there's your excuse. Yeah.
01:30:26
Curt
Yeah, to run a Chatter Toolpath.
01:30:27
jamie peacock
Yeah, Pre-Tool.
01:30:28
Curt
Or not Chatter, a Toolpath. Pre-Tool. That's it.
01:30:30
Justin Gray
Oh, I'm
01:30:30
Curt
one
01:30:31
jamie peacock
pretool Yeah, Pre-Tool.
01:30:31
jamie peacock
Yeah, Pre-Tool's the best.
01:30:31
Curt
Yeah, just just to see what it spits out.
01:30:31
Justin Gray
um
01:30:33
jamie peacock
I love Pre-Tool.
01:30:33
Justin Gray
um i'm glad you guys like it. Yeah. um
01:30:35
jamie peacock
I love it.
01:30:36
Curt
Yeah. I actually meant to play with it.
01:30:37
jamie peacock
I read it all my libraries.
01:30:40
Curt
Yeah, I was going to play with it this weekend, so I'd have something to talk to you about, but then children and all that stuff. So I'm going to do that today because i have to.
01:30:45
Justin Gray
Oh, man. Well, ah message me when you're doing it and we can do it on a call together. I'll give you a hand.
01:30:52
Curt
Oh, okay. Okay. Well, I'll stumble my way through, and then when I get myself good and head ached, then I'll bug you so i don't have to suck
Invitation to Try Toolpath
01:30:59
Curt
up more of your time. because Yeah, definitely appreciate you coming on here. This was a lot of fun.
01:31:02
jamie peacock
Yeah, no, it's been lovely having you. So we're going to do, let's do call to actions quickly. Justin, would you like to send people anywhere?
01:31:12
Justin Gray
Oh, well, visit toolpath.com and chatter.com. Check us out. Like I said, we're not taking any new chatter customers right now, but there is a form you can like sign up to get notified when we are taking new ones.
01:31:23
Justin Gray
um And please sign up for a toolpath trial and give it a try. You get a 14-day free trial, and if you ask nicely, we'll often extend it longer than that.
01:31:33
jamie peacock
Oh, very nice. So yeah, if you want to find any of my stuff, you can hit up jspeceng.com. We've got our Framelock Utility Knife. We've got a bunch of t-shirts available with all funny things on them.
01:31:45
jamie peacock
And there's also sign up for the Anchor Point, which we will be going to market with shortly. Just got to get it off to the testers, two of which happen to be on the call.
01:31:56
Curt
Yay. I'm super excited for that.
01:31:58
jamie peacock
Yeah, I'm keen to box them up now.
01:31:58
Justin Gray
Me too.
01:32:01
jamie peacock
And yeah, Kurt, where can people find you?
01:32:02
Curt
And you can find my wares at confoundermachine.com. Like I said, I have a first come first serve sale coming out before you even can listen to this. But if you don't want to miss out in the future, there's a contact box. I'll send you an email. You don't have to turn try to remember things.
01:32:17
Curt
Yeah, that'd be mine. And theloanmachinist.com. There's all kinds of links to weirdness there.
01:32:21
jamie peacock
ah yes.
01:32:22
Curt
And yeah. Jamie's weird words and Patreon, all that jazz is over there.
01:32:26
jamie peacock
Ah, yes, the companion guard. Companion guard is quite entertaining. um Cool. So, Justin, what are you up to today? Because, yeah, it's the middle of the day there for you guys now.
01:32:39
Justin Gray
What am I up to next? um We are ending a sprint cycle, so I need to jump into sprint planning and make sure um my team of developers has their their priorities for the next two weeks set up.
01:32:51
jamie peacock
Okay, nice.
01:32:52
Curt
is now two weeks?
01:32:53
Justin Gray
Yeah, ah going into IMTS, it was one week, and that was insane.
01:32:57
Curt
I remember that. was going to say that's stupid.
01:32:58
Justin Gray
i was That was absolutely insane.
01:32:59
Curt
Yeah.
01:33:01
Justin Gray
there There was a method to that madness and now it's two weeks. And sometimes I feel like even that's too short, but two weeks is okay for right now.
01:33:06
Curt
Seems more.
01:33:10
Curt
Yeah, think in the software world, two weeks is still nuts. But yeah, that's when I heard about one week, i was like, that's crazy. Yeah.
01:33:19
Justin Gray
Yeah, the the reason we were doing that is, um so like estimating when when you give a software developer a task and then how long is this going to take? it's like a like a basically like they want to overestimate it because they want more time and they don't want to cut it short. And I want to underestimate it because I want to get more done.
01:33:38
Justin Gray
And so it's this like stupid friction point. And if you just make everything a week, then no, like it's pretty obvious whether something can be done in a week or not. Right. And if it turns out to go longer than that, then at least you only lost a week.
01:33:49
Justin Gray
So when you need like absolute highest velocity and you're trying to get rid of slower parts of the process that are, I don't want to call them inefficient, but slower, then the week makes sense. But when you're not in a mad dash for INTS and everybody deserves a little bit more time to breathe, then longer cycles make more sense.
01:34:11
jamie peacock
No, okay.
01:34:12
Curt
Nice.
01:34:13
jamie peacock
Sweet. Kurt, what are you up to today?
01:34:16
Curt
ahli said I'm going to fix the tool path. I got pre tool open right now. so I'm going to fumble through that a little bit. I have to clean a tumbler. That's the only tumbling talk I'll talk about on this podcast because I haven't cleaned it in like few days.
01:34:26
jamie peacock
Oh,
01:34:28
Curt
And I got a box up a whole bushel of pens to ship out today. ah yeah, that's, that's basically my day.
01:34:32
jamie peacock
nice.
01:34:34
Curt
How about your, ah how about your evening or your tomorrow or your today, whatever you want to talk about, Jamie, you're in the future.
01:34:36
jamie peacock
Uh, My tomorrow. let's Let's focus on my tomorrow. Tomorrow I'm going to finally finish up the camera housing stuff. I've got, I think, four more parts that have to be machined. ah Some of it, there's like 30 parts that have to machined, so that's easy. Make soft draws then just push go.
01:34:53
jamie peacock
um and some tufnel parts and then that job is finished and I can start setting up some other jobs on the other lathes. Also got a bunch of material arriving tomorrow. So so tomorrow afternoon, my plan is to machine 150 parts.
01:35:04
jamie peacock
So on Wednesday, when I go to pick up another job, I can drop them off at powder coating. But yeah, those are nice and quick. They're sub one minute parts. So i'll load I'm going to load. It turns out I can load eight in the machine with the MightyBots I have without having to buy more.
01:35:18
jamie peacock
Load eight pieces at a time and just see how the fixture holds up. And then I know for future that I need to buy a whole bunch more of MightyBots. And then that's the job I want to automate loading. But for now, I'm just going to build two fixtures in the machine and run it that way.
01:35:32
jamie peacock
Because I can run out 500 parts in an afternoon. So It's kind of pointless automating it if I can do it in an afternoon. But yeah in the long run, it might be worth automating. But yeah, that's the that's the plan.
01:35:47
Curt
sounds like fun.
01:35:47
jamie peacock
Yeah. Sweet. So thank you everybody for listening. We had a great time just chatting to Justin. um please hit up, give us a like and subscribe on YouTube. Give us a review on Spotify or Apple podcast because we're on there now because Justin asked nicely.
01:36:05
jamie peacock
um Yeah, thank you. Thank you again very much for listening. There's a Patreon available on our website, theloanmachinists.com and that goes towards covering the podcast costs and getting Kurtz and I to not stay in the south of Chicago in 2026.
01:36:20
jamie peacock
So thank you very much for listening guys and we will see you next week.
01:36:27
jamie peacock
Say the thing, Kurt.
01:36:29
Curt
Oh, take care, all.