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Manufacturing & Automation, CNC Lathes, 3D Printing, and Business Direction 2020.
268 Plays6 years ago
Merry Chipsmas and Happy New Year!
2020 is just around the corner and so are the Eumachs, the KERN, and the new shop! With a ton of micro-tasks that make up the larger task of changing locations, Grimsmo goes into tactical mode rather than focusing on the philosophical, big-picture of GK.
Saunders notices an obvious but admirable difference between himself and his Canadian counterpart. Despite the multitude of details that need ironing in the coming days, Grimsmo appears to have a calm and collected disposition.
Grimsmo admits to worrying more than he lets on but it pays to have a centered vibe whether or not he feels that way internally.
"I need warriors, not worriers," he declares. What seems like a survival tactic for high stress situations results in setting the tone for how his team perceives and reacts to challenge and change.
FREE Phil Butterworth Autodesk University Class | Machining Complicated Parts Quickly
Did you know cnc lathe love has 30 Haaspowers? The ST-20Y has been a phenomenal addition to SMW and John sings the praises of the automatic tool presetter but there a few other itty bitty sticking points.
1. An internal slot left of the chuck can trap shorter pieces of stock
2. the parts catcher door's stingy opening distance
When it comes to the parts catcher door...Grimsmo is UNSUBBING. After all, "That's what the sub-spindle is for!"
WHO PARTED?! THEY DID. The Johns discuss methods, theories, and tooling for parting off.
FANUC. FAST AF. The speed of the robot arm at SMW is enough to make heads spin. Ready Robotics installed Forge; software that controls FANUC while making it easier for end users to program automation.
Automation & Pushing Manufacturing Boundaries Back from the MetalQuest tour in Nebraska, Saunders starts to understand the importance of the automation flow chart.
Speaking of pushing boundaries, he also JUST printed his first 3D part ever on the Prusa i3 MK3 3D printer. Grimsmo discusses the Erowa, tombstones, pallets, and vises.
3D Printer Misconceptions After their introduction to the consumer market, they still haven't garnered support of the masses. Grimsmo suggests that instead of showing their full capabilities, marketing tends to show the printer printing cheap/useless products.
Want an unconventional, awesome, entrepreneurial movie? Temple Grandin
YES, DISSASEMBLE. NOW.
Sometimes you want to punch a hole through your 11-year old TV--especially when it's possessed. However, this became a father-son bonding/learning experience. By giving William a screwdriver and allowing him to experience the joys of disassembling electronics, it instills curiosity and fascination.
Saunders and Grimsmo reminisce about disassembling electronics.
End of the Year Challenge: Think about 2020. Not in terms of tasks but ethos. What do you want your business to be?
Please don't forget to send audio clips to us. We want to feature you!
Happy Holidays, friends! We wish you and your families the best. Thanks for listening!
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Transcript
Introduction to Entrepreneurial Conversations
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the business of machining episode 150. My name is John Grimsmo. And my name is John Saunders. This is the podcast where two entrepreneurs have a weekly conversation that was meant to be private to talk about some of the successes, the struggles, the past, but hopefully more about the future. Yeah, I like the future. It's that quote. I know I've said it before, but there's a reason the windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror.
00:00:30
Speaker
I don't know. I do think the past... Well, interesting philosophical question. I'm not sure there's a big point to pondering it deeply, but we certainly...
00:00:42
Speaker
We as humanity often reflect a lot. We think about things. We study history. We think about our own lives. We're probably more affected by it than we realize. I mean, watching the Star Wars movie yesterday in the movie theater, I mean, that's the whole things about the father-son struggles or family struggles that's all past related, not future.
Optimism vs. Dwelling on the Past
00:01:04
Speaker
And it's so easy to be stuck in your head, even even short term stuff like, you know, something you said or something you did or something you didn't do or whether it's something that happened yesterday or 10 years ago. It's it's like a natural default to just worry about that old stuff. Yeah. But I'm also a very optimistic person and love forward looking and forward thinking. So
00:01:31
Speaker
I don't dwell that much on the past, but I see a lot of people that do. Yeah, that's fair.
Handling Upcoming Changes and Growth
00:01:40
Speaker
Speaking of the future, are you starting to think about 2020? Well, only from a tactical standpoint, not from the fact that it is now a new year and we get to do all kinds of crazy new stuff, but the fact that my life is changing on January 1st.
00:01:59
Speaker
like new shop, the new shop, you know, the two UMA machines, just the shop is now six times bigger, spread across two buildings. And like a lot's going to change. And I'm not, I'm not worried or freaking out about it, but I know there's a lot to do.
Practical Approaches to Overcoming Challenges
00:02:15
Speaker
And I know that's, uh, it is heavy. So I would almost argue, I would almost argue not to have that mindset. Um,
00:02:26
Speaker
In other words, I would almost argue, don't look at it as a big change. I don't mean this in an optimistic versus a pessimistic way. I mean, look at it as, I don't care that this represents a lot more opportunity and a lot more growth. I don't care that this will be a good thing for us. What I care about right now is just these few hurdles, which is
00:02:49
Speaker
You know like the you lack machines don't even worry about those at first go there get your existing machines running Get the current safely moved in and start that process. That'll be a journey. That's not a machine. You just turn on and start using But just make it much more, you know identifiable
00:03:07
Speaker
kind of like the guy that buys the sports car and instead of wanting to go win races with it, it's like, no, all I want to do is get it back to my garage and learn how to change the oil. That's the only goal I care about right now. I'm not getting more excited about it. I'm not worried about more.
00:03:24
Speaker
And you're absolutely right. And I think that is how I default to. And sometimes I feel like I should be having more worry than I do because I mean, there is a lot going on and there's a lot to do. And it is, you know, I look at it objectively and I'm like, it is a really big thing. But in my mind, I'm usually just like, well, all I have to do is I tackle this, tackle this, tackle this, and then more stuff will come up and I'll deal with that.
Planning a Shop Move
00:03:48
Speaker
Yeah, right. And there's plenty ahead of time.
00:03:52
Speaker
What is big? Well, so moving into a new shop. I mean, big but not crazy.
00:04:00
Speaker
Like you said, rigging machines, electric power, there'll be hiccups, but it's not like you're moving across the country. It's not true. It's just the scale of all the micro-planning, even getting the floors painted, even where to put outlets, where to put sinks, how to plumb everything, where we want to put all the machines, for that matter.
00:04:30
Speaker
What coolant are we going to fill all the machines with? Are we going to standardize? There's just all these micro decisions that they just have to be systematically handled. And I kind of spend small chunks of time here and there just working through them in my head. Yeah. I mean, the Alice question is a great one.
00:04:51
Speaker
holds true for things like water sinks as well, but the reality is it's going to change. You're always going to want more. We've run numerous extra lines of air, water, and power, and it's not that big a deal.
00:05:09
Speaker
Um, yeah. And, and having the, the one thing I would say is thinking about, Hey, if you're going to run conduit, run it a little bit big or run a second piece, that's just literally an empty conduit that you're, you'll be able to throw up something through later. Um,
00:05:26
Speaker
I don't know what you're running for water lines, but if it's PEX-lined, you can splice into that easily and add in. The biggest thing to think about now is do yourself a favor and add relatively expensive, but worth it. Ball valve so that you can isolate out sections and go ahead and splice in without making a huge mess or shutting everything else down.
00:05:47
Speaker
Excellent idea. Yeah, I didn't think about the ball valves throughout the system. Yeah. Same thing with air compressors. If you want to isolate leaks or splice in, you got to have ball valves. Yep. And yeah, I guess they got to be full size ones if I'm getting the whatever, the three quarter, the one inch tubing.
00:06:08
Speaker
Well, you only need, if you're doing a big main line, you probably only need one valve valve at the end of it because you're not going to necessarily splice off in a bunch. Or if you do splice off that, that's probably a, we're shutting down for a couple hours. Yeah, which is, it's not, I mean, really, it only takes 10 minutes.
00:06:24
Speaker
to drain it and cut it and put the valve in and then get it back up again. Speaking of which, I got to order all my air piping stuff so that it comes in a reasonable time. Yeah, so that's the one thing I would say. I commend you on your
00:06:41
Speaker
I don't know if it's to be personal here. I don't know if it's your true self or whether it's you putting up a shield publicly, but I commend you with how little you worry about stuff. I don't know if you worry about it. It's so consciously. You don't come off that way. True. I don't exude the worry.
00:07:02
Speaker
Yes. Because I have enough warriors around me. I need warriors, not worriers. Right. That's good. We finally found something that you and I are distinctly different about, which is I do more likely, I guess, wear my heart on my sleeve or I will let it show more like overcome your worry.
00:07:21
Speaker
What I would worry about if I were you is stuff like you just said, like, oh, we can't run our PEX lines because I forgot to order them. Or I have to cancel the electrician because the floors can't be walked on for three days. And now the electrician can't come back for three weeks. That's a problem. Exactly. So the bulk of my, I don't even want to call it stress, but
00:07:43
Speaker
worry, you know, just busyness deep in my head is all these micro decisions, all this planning, all this logistics and scheduling and purchasing and it's kind of a big deal. But at the end of the day, it's like tackle it one at a time, you know, try to step back and look at the whole picture to make sure nobody's stepping on anybody's toes. And you do it in a decent order. So you don't have the electrician come back four times.
00:08:10
Speaker
But speaking of which, I was talking with my electrician, and he's like, it'd be really good to get a little walkthrough of the place ahead of time so we can plan what to bring, what to purchase, how to run everything.
Logistical Simplicity of the Move
00:08:21
Speaker
So yesterday morning, we went to the shop. I walked across the street, and I met him there. And is it that close? It's a minute walk door to door. From your current shop? Yeah.
00:08:34
Speaker
Oh my gosh, I didn't know it was that close. So I'm not joking when I say it's across the street, yeah. Oh my gosh, I would pallet jack machines there if I could. I know.
00:08:41
Speaker
I drew a little map in whatever, MS Paint or something, like satellite view from Google. And I drew a line out our driveway, across, down the road, 100 feet, and then into the next driveway. And I'm like, are you guys just going to forklift the machines across the street? Or is that allowed? I don't know. How does this work? What do you? Here's your map. You tell me what is best.
00:09:05
Speaker
So that's going to be interesting. But I was going to say, yeah, the electrician and I walked through and I mean, the current tenants still have a week left, but they're almost all the way moved out. So I was getting downright, I was getting downright giddy.
00:09:21
Speaker
like seeing the shop emptying and like probably 80% empty already. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is actually happening. I've been planning and wanting this for so long and looking at so many different shops. And the more I look at it, the more I'm like, this is almost one of the most perfect scenarios possible because the place is so nice and so good and well laid out too. Like even the electrician was really happy.
00:09:48
Speaker
because they put conduit under the concrete and across the shop and then up on the other side. They put what? They put conduit. Oh, wow. Really? Yeah. So distribution is fairly simple.
00:10:04
Speaker
like half the juice is already on the one wall and then all of it's on the panel side. So yeah, he's like, this is going to be kind of a cakewalk. Like tell me where you want the machines and then we'll just wire it up. Then we talked about lighting too. You've got LED bay lights in yours, right? Correct. And you're happy, obviously.
00:10:25
Speaker
Yeah, we spent a fair amount of time. It wasn't that expensive, but we went with the kind of high end option in terms of having more above average. They call it candle power here, which is basically like how much light there is. But then also we went with 5500 Kelvin or K, which is a white light more so than the yellow light. And we went with a high CRI.
00:10:52
Speaker
like a 90CRI, which if I remember correctly means there's a good consistency in the quality of the light, so they shouldn't vary a lot across them, which is just good for filming. It wasn't that much more. The one thing I do regret or lesson learned is we went with, let's say, 20 double lights, whereas we could have gone with 40 single lights. Obviously, the 40 singles would have been a little bit more wiring and hanging work, but
00:11:22
Speaker
It wasn't otherwise a big difference anywhere else. I wish I had because what happens now is machines like the, especially the UMC 750, but even a regular VMC will effectively cast a shadow. I wish I had more lights. Interesting. 20 lights in both buildings or just in the one machine shop?
00:11:45
Speaker
Oh, I'm making that up. The lighting company did a lighting plan at no charge before we committed to it. And so they'll do that for you. That's pretty quick for them. I can send you that detail if you want that PDF that we did.
00:12:00
Speaker
That'd be helpful. Yeah, because I haven't talked to a lighting company yet, but my electrician can also hook that up. Because they've got fluorescent tubes in there right now, and it's fairly dim. And I'm both for just making it a showroom, machine shop, but also filming, and et cetera. It's got to be nice. Yeah, and actually, you want to remove those fluorescence.
00:12:24
Speaker
Yeah. Although Fraser brought his camera in there and he's like, it doesn't flicker. You know, it's got good light, good color temperature. And it's not bad, but it's, it's not bright enough. Yeah. Um, yeah. So very exciting. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah.
00:12:41
Speaker
I was going to ask you. Oh, I was laughing, because I stumbled across an old picture when we moved into our shop. And the layout has totally changed. But even that first initial layout was like, we didn't even own a Haas at the time. So it was like, he was one or two of Tormach's, like the Tormach mill and lathe or something. And then the compressor is just like in the middle of the floor with a probably not code legal extension cord, a folding table for a desk. You kind of make it work. I guess that's what I would say is,
00:13:11
Speaker
the bootstrapper, the person in me that's always a hustler is kind of like, just go get working on parts. Don't spend the two, three months vanity version of, well, we can't do anything until it's all perfect life. For sure. I don't know. Just go. Yeah. Yeah. There's a balance. I want to do the things that can't be done after or the things that are easiest to do when the building's empty. Put the lighting in, get the wiring in, et cetera.
00:13:39
Speaker
I'm not afraid to do the floors, obviously, the floors have to be done first. But I'm not afraid to just kind of throw everything in there as long as the machines are where they're supposed to be and get properly powered and bolted down and whatever, then everything else is flexible.
00:13:56
Speaker
So it's been really handy having my 3D printed models of the shop and kind of, I haven't finalized the layout yet. I need to do that very soon, but we're close. Did you watch Dr. Phil's class at AU online?
00:14:13
Speaker
I haven't yet, but I want to for sure. We'll put a link to that in the podcast description because I find the AU classes to be a tremendously valuable resource that are free, but are shockingly difficult to navigate through the site to find.
Simplifying Complex Tasks
00:14:29
Speaker
But Phil's class was exceptionally good. He didn't win a top speaker award, but exceptionally good.
00:14:36
Speaker
he talked about something that I think we as machinists or entrepreneurs often overlook, which is just chill out, break it down. What's the goal? What are the steps to that? And don't let yourself get into this overwhelmed feedback loop of anxiety about the scope of something or the complexity of something. Yeah, like that.
00:15:02
Speaker
I actually texted him yesterday. I'm like, what color did you guys paint your floors? Because I remember it looks really nice. And how's it holding up? And does it stain? And is it easy to clean? And he's like, I don't remember the color. I just told him light gray. Have you been to his shop, or are you just referring to pictures? Referring to pictures, yeah. Got it. Got it. Are you going to buy one of those little forklift meets rascal floor cleaners? The floor cleaners? He said his was only $900. So yeah, probably.
00:15:31
Speaker
Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. I've heard other people say there were a few thousand, but, um, but yeah, if it's, if it's under a thousand, I'm like, if we need it, yeah, of course. Yeah. Sweet. But yeah, yeah. So we got the epoxy guy coming by this morning so we can finalize the color we want and then, uh, make sure you do some grit. I forget what they call it, but some sand or grit and that stuff. Cause otherwise, um, it's too slippery.
00:15:57
Speaker
Do you have any in yours? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So the flakes give you some texture, but in addition to the flake we have... I'm sorry, I wish I remembered what it was, but I think it literally is like a type of sand or something. Yeah, it is. It's like glass beads or whatever. Yeah. Otherwise, that stuff, especially like there's something like WD-40, it's like the lowest coefficient of friction I've ever seen in my life. You could literally ice skate across the floor.
00:16:24
Speaker
Phil didn't put any in, and he said it's obviously slippery when there's oil on it, but they just keep it clean. What's the drawback to having a little bit in, though, I guess? Harder to clean, I guess. Not really. Well, I should say maybe, maybe, but for us, it's not hard to keep ours clean. I mean, it takes work, of course, but it's not hard. Yeah. Hmm.
00:16:52
Speaker
How much power does the current take, do you know? Um... No, I don't. I would think not that much.
00:17:01
Speaker
I forget. I would think your Nakamura is probably still just being a relatively large lathe, having to spin a chuck up. I would think that's probably the biggest power draw machine you have. I forget what horsepower the NAC spindles are. Maybe 10 or something. No, I get more than that. I forget. I don't know. Our ST20Y is 30 horsepower.
00:17:26
Speaker
The thing is awesome. I'm loving, I'm freaking loving it. We're doing a, actually today we are filming this on Christmas Eve or recording this. So I'm not sure how much I'm going to go into the shop today, but I bet like a video I want to do on a job shop job. We ran on the lathe for a friend and
00:17:42
Speaker
I am just loving. I think I mentioned it, but it was a perfect thing to have to break yourself into it, to teach yourself, to learn, to nail it down. Everything from the fusion workflows, to the tooling, to tool life, to chip management, to the bar feeder, or the sleeving it, all that stuff was great. Love it. So is there anything that is surprising you about the lathe, like pleasantly or unpleasantly? Oh, that's a great question.
00:18:12
Speaker
Well, is what I expected with the sub spindle is is kind of a whole different animal and beast. We haven't used it yet. The closest thing I found to a are you kidding me moment like this is absurd is there appears to be a trough like an actual rigidly sharp trough in the middle of the
00:18:37
Speaker
what would you call the, effectively, the sleeve or the liner that's built into the spindle that's to the left of the main chuck. Not in the machine, but to the left of it, that your spindle liner goes into. When we were feeding the two and a half inch bars in, that is the, effectively, the spindle liner diameter. You don't use sleeves. You don't choke it down with sleeves.
00:19:02
Speaker
we wanted to avoid any whip, so we just shimmed the end of the 50-inch long 2.5-inch bar of steel. It has some weight to it, so we shimmed the end of it so it wasn't having any whip, but then you need to take that shim off
00:19:19
Speaker
before you take the last few cuts and we tried to push it, you can't push it out the Royal Chuck end because the Royal Chuck doesn't allow it. We ended up, that works if you just pull the call it out, but we tried to push it back the other way and the thing got stuck.
00:19:33
Speaker
in the whatever 50,000 drop and I'm like, that is... I'm still in denial of the thinking that maybe we're just misunderstanding something. Yeah, I think my tux probably have something similar. It's like when I do run a spindle liner, it's like the gap between the spindle liner and the collet, I guess. There's just a space there. Yeah.
00:19:59
Speaker
I got to figure this out or I got to figure out if we can disassemble we are almost were really in a pinch I ended up taking a
00:20:06
Speaker
20,000 piece of stainless shim stock on a paint stirring stick and getting it in there and secure it around the top of the part which had clearance and then rolling the spindle over that served as a ramp as one other person from the other side pushed so that it had a little ramp to go up over that lip. It wasn't stuck, but gravity was just not your friend for the moment.
00:20:30
Speaker
Well, it's literally like you have a picture that you have a 50-inch long tube, and in the middle of that tube, you've got a dropped groove. I can't think of a good word. Just a little step in it. It's absurd. Anyway, love the machine so far. Yeah, very happy.
00:20:52
Speaker
Cool. Toleranceing is interesting, where I do notice I programmed a little warm up routine to make sure I give it a chance to warm up. I think some of that might just be a few degrees in the spindle and coolant. But I will tell you, I love the way Haas has their probing set up with the tool arm. Not to pick on your machine, but I can't imagine not having an integrated and automatic tool arm, because I just run a program in the morning.
00:21:19
Speaker
and it knows where your major, especially the finishing tool, so the grooving tool, parting tool, and finishing VB GT or whatever insert, you just hit one button and it automatically brings all those tools in and retouches them off. What? Okay, so your tool touch probe comes down automatically on the arm and then the lathe can just auto touch off. Yep. Yeah, I'm jealous. Yep.
00:21:45
Speaker
And you could run that right in the morning. And then after maybe half an hour, you could rerun it again. Because what we're doing, we had a sharp corner on these parts, which even the V-insert we're using is, I think, an eighth-hour-ad tip. And honestly, I'm not sure. In this case, the customer would have known or cared. But I was like, no, let's do this right. So I got a groove tool that does have a sharp corner, which we needed for another feature on the part anyways. And so we just infusion program a single groove point
00:22:14
Speaker
we come in and we break that rad into a sharp corner. But I'm actually doing it before the finishing insert and I'm cheating with a couple tenths stock to leave to make sure it blends in right. But if the tooling is in any way not warm or offsets move, you can see a difference in how that blend looks. For sure. Yeah, even mismatch between a refer and a finisher or
00:22:40
Speaker
groover and a turning tool in X or Z. I noticed all this stuff. Yeah. The next part to run, I'll finish those up probably this week, actually maybe today. Then we've got the part we want to make for ourselves.
00:22:58
Speaker
which is legit a mill part. It's far more time using driven tools than turning tools, but I'm really excited to see how that works. I have a lot more confidence tackling that now, and maybe that's a good lesson. I've said it before, but I don't know if I always listen to my own advice, which is go get comfortable, whether you're bringing a product to market, bring a simple product to market that you can have a win on a success on for a confidence booster on before you try to go tackle the pretty complex part.
00:23:26
Speaker
Yeah, because even with simple things, you don't see it on the surface, but there's so many aspects to it. Even just manufacturing it, just choosing the right material, choosing the right tools, learning the right tools, tool paths, yet alone selling it, marketing it, all that stuff. Do you use neutral or handed parting tools?
00:23:54
Speaker
Neutral. I haven't used an angled tip, right hand, left hand part off tool in years and years and years.
00:24:06
Speaker
I'm going to try. Actually, it's a pretty nice sample. It doesn't care if you order two inserts of something. Really? They don't change the pricing or give you a hard time. I bought a couple of right-handed ones to try because on that part that I care about the complex one, I'm going to try to not use the subspindle, but I very much don't want a burr on the part. Is it heavy? No. The part? Very light.
00:24:36
Speaker
Because I mean, if you're just letting it fall, I think the heavier the part, the more of a nib you're going to leave at the end. Yeah. Because at some point, it just breaks.
00:24:48
Speaker
Sure, yeah, the weight of the mass will tip it over. Yeah, that part we have an advantage to for sure, because it's not heavy. But we'll have to just see. I mean, if we have to use this gut. We might also want to slow down near center line just to get it closer before the part falls off. Slow down on service footage on feed per rev. Feed per rev, I think. OK.
00:25:19
Speaker
Yeah, that's actually nice. If you have a really heavy chip load and you're just blasting through the part off operation, as you get down to the center line, it's going to have a heavy chip load. It's just going to push it off. But if you're using a sharp tool and you slow it down a little bit, I'm theorizing here, you might get away closer to center line before it falls off because you're creating a lighter chip, lighter tool pressure.
00:25:44
Speaker
Yes, I don't disagree. I just also wonder about formation of a chip, tool pressure, all that. Excuse me, with a right-handed tool, we might actually get by with this because it's actually nice. We're not parting the center because we have a center hole through the part already, and I'm going to come in with a backside chamfer tool and put a backside chamfer on that
00:26:14
Speaker
on that hole, so we'll be parting from the OD into a drilled hole that also already has a backside chamfer. So with the way that right-handed parting tool works, there's a chance it won't sever the part off until it really cleans it up.
00:26:32
Speaker
Yeah, I've done quite a bit of that, trying to get that perfect, both on the tormac lathe, which is single spindle, and on even with the sub spindle, you're grabbing the part, there's the ID chamfer, you're parting it off and trying to get that perfect no burr finish. And it's, it's difficult.
00:26:51
Speaker
Is it? Yeah. Okay. But I was not using a handed insert, and it probably had a little radius to it too. So if you're using a fairly sharp right handed insert, then it might work well. Okay. Not sure. I'll let you know for sure. I gotta talk about our robot.
00:27:15
Speaker
I saw that Instagram video. That thing looks insanely fast. It is insanely fast. Yes. Yes. Now you see why it's bolted to the ground? Oh my gosh. We jogged it around. We'd even run the demo program that it came with. It was cool, but whatever. It wasn't anything where you turned your head around like, what did I just see?
00:27:40
Speaker
We spent the whole time training and programming it and demoing it at the normal molasses speed. Then all of a sudden they ran the program and I was blown away. The acceleration and deceleration is one of the most amazing phenomenons that I've ever seen in an electromechanical device. It is mind-blowing. That's how fast it is. Awesome. Yeah.
00:28:09
Speaker
So we kind of took it simple. Actually, maybe I am heeding my own advice. We kind of just reuse the existing parts tray that that whole setup came with, which does kind of work for one of the parts we'd like to run with it.
Programming for Automation
00:28:23
Speaker
It works in the sense that the parts fit. It doesn't work in the sense that we would never build an automation system around just having 12
00:28:30
Speaker
parts there. What we want is that kind of sloped trophy where you could just drop 50 or 100 parts on it, but baby steps. Sure. I will say programming it was certainly easy to learn.
00:28:45
Speaker
Uh, and much better with the system that we got from ready robotics. Like that makes me happy, but it's still, to be honest, a pain in the butt. Um, the, the, and I don't have a lot to compare it to cause we never went through like the full blown fanic stuff. Um, and I'm sure we could have learned it. The, the wizzy wag, um, kind of interface with the touch screen that you get, uh, on the radio robotics overlay is really nice for building these containers. Cause it's all about, and this, I heard this from the metal quest folks that shop in Nebraska.
00:29:15
Speaker
You really have to think about your flowchart when you do automation. I didn't really understand that a month ago. I understand it more now, but you have to think about scenarios of the order that things happen and what happens if something else happens. You want to figure that out as much. You want to front load that thought process before you start programming them.
00:29:39
Speaker
and that all went great. I think the one thing I would say is, boy, as much as I love that RoboMate L-R mate, I totally see the value of a cobot because the thing I dislike about the L-R mate, even with the ready robotic system, is you still have to
00:29:57
Speaker
do a fair amount of tedious jogging to program it to these waypoints. And it just, to me, would be so much easier to grab a cobot and you push that slave button or whatever it is, the teach button, and then you just move it around to where you want it. And that's not an option on the FANUC ones? No. Well, FANUC makes, I think, cobots now, like the UR's and others, but no.
00:30:24
Speaker
And maybe you could get quicker at it. I think they probably had us in a pretty slow mode because we're learning. I also don't laugh. I have tendonitis that kills me. So you have to hold this dead man switch in a half depressed position, which I just can't do.
00:30:40
Speaker
So not a big deal in terms of the investment of time for the outcome of an automation process, but that presupposes you're going to run that way for a long time. Whereas what I would want is kind of the job shopy, let's just set this up to run parts for a week or two, and then we'll try something else or do something else with it. Yep. And that's the choice of flexibility or dedication. And it's cool that there are plenty of options out there.
00:31:10
Speaker
I mean, you see the the you are robots are not fast, but they're clearly easy and flexible and cheaper probably and and etc. But that fantic is so fast.
00:31:24
Speaker
Yeah. Well, and that's the funny thing that you said. I'm not sure there any real difference in price, by the way, but the speed is amazingly cool for one reason, which is Instagram. Like it has no, it has no role for us in terms of it's the value that robot would offer. In fact, you know, all we would want is, oh, by the way, totally random shout out to anybody who wants to watch a totally random movie. Um, but that was, I thought really good and inspirational temple Grandin.
00:31:54
Speaker
Have you ever heard of it? No. It's a true story. Claire Danes is this actress. She's an autistic woman who revolutionized the cattle industry. If anybody's wondering, no, this is not all a bunch of horse manure. It's a true story.
00:32:12
Speaker
and she figured out a way of redesigning the way feedlots flow cattle through these wash stations and then ultimately into the slaughterhouse. And some great insights into automation and people thought she was nuts, partly because her process was slower, but slower
00:32:33
Speaker
slower but continuous, slower without an eruption, slower without a cow getting hurt and shutting the whole thing down ultimately led to a much higher throughput. Interesting. I'm looking at on Instagram or on IMDb right now. 2010 movie Temple Grand Inn. 8.3 rating. That's really good.
00:32:52
Speaker
Cool. I might catch that. Yeah, so I don't need a robot that moves at 2G's to pick a part up. I just need something that's just slow and steady. And that's the difference between theorizing it and drooling on Instagram and planning your future with an unlimited budget versus the reality of ease of programming, flexibility, actual intended use, things like that. So that's interesting.
00:33:20
Speaker
The thing I want to think about now is if we make the leap away from what we're using that robot with and go to those ... I don't know if Fifth Access has even released them yet, but they have these little toe clamps that put onto their vices that have to
Building Mini Automation Systems
00:33:36
Speaker
be the small stuff because our robot doesn't have that much lifting power, but we could build a mini aroa system without
00:33:43
Speaker
Any costs other than buying the vices because we could build our own little Christmas tree that the robot could reach. And, um, that would be game changing because now the robot never really changes. Basically I would program like 20 vices that are never going to move. And now in fusion, I can handle all the fact that these are different parts, different mixes, different ops. Um, you might not be able to flip a part. And that was obviously something that we programmed that was really cool as we flipped the part over. Um, but.
00:34:13
Speaker
Um, that's the whole debate about work holding versus like part holding versus vice holding or whatever. Yeah. Interesting. I still like your setup with the Aroa of your holding onto the vice. Yeah. Oh, you just got me excited for the Aroa to come.
00:34:32
Speaker
Oh, I am freaking excited for that aroa. I'm so excited. Yep. Have you bought, um, you're going to make, where did you end up actually? So I'm going to make, um, tombstones for the majority of our production, but I still need vices, not necessarily for production, but just for stuff. Um, so I'm going to give, gets a bunch of fifth axis stuff. Um, my original wish list was about.
00:35:01
Speaker
And I'm like, okay, hold on, step back. I don't need all of this stuff upfront. So I pared it down to about five, $6,000 worth of various vices and rock locks and dovetail thingies. And I'm like, that'll give me a really good start and give me a decent assortment of, you know, small vices, decent sized vices.
00:35:23
Speaker
kind of two of everything so I could have one in the machine, one to load back and forth and never really miss a beat. I think that'll be good. Awesome. When you build a tombstone, it'll be a single piece of aluminum that you just put through a rock lock studs into the base? I think I'll bolt it directly to the Aroa base.
00:35:45
Speaker
Well, that's right. You still have to use an Aroa base. I still have to use an Aroa palette. Yeah. Right. OK. So to add $1,000 rock lock base and then studs, it's for every tombstone is unrealistic. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Remind me that the Aroa base has a single center point gripper clamp thing? It does. It's got a pull stud on the bottom. OK. And four, it's like crosshairs for alignment. Yes. That's right.
00:36:12
Speaker
and you don't want to make, it's maybe just not necessary or overkill, but you could in theory make your own monolithic tombstone that had you machine the rock, the arrow.
00:36:25
Speaker
thing in base into it, right? Yeah, because you can buy the pull studs and the square plate crosshair thingy and bolt that to the bottom. And they do sell aluminum Arroa pallets. So theoretically, you could make the whole thing out of aluminum. I just package deal I was like, give me 25 a row of pallets and I'll be good. That's awesome.
00:36:51
Speaker
in other shocking news of pushing the boundaries of manufacturing world. I 3D printed my first part last week. I literally had never printed a part before. It kind of surprises me, but it kind of doesn't too. That's incredible. I've printed, I've sent them out to Shapeways. I've had Ed print them, but then we got that new Prusa. We're loving it.
00:37:19
Speaker
And so Ed showed me how to use the slicer. It's not hard, the slicer. And it was actually really satisfying. They're awesome. I love 3D printers.
00:37:30
Speaker
I've got this little $200 model price mini that, uh, you know, has some issues, but it's, it's impressive. And I've been drooling about that Prusa for the past couple of weeks. Um, cause I've been printing so much stuff and I'm like, man, I wish I had a bigger printer, a little bit better. Um, but that's whatever $800 that I would probably be better spent on the new shop at this time. So otherwise I'd have it here tomorrow. Yeah.
00:37:59
Speaker
It's been reliable so far. I don't know how many prints we've done on it, but I would guess maybe a dozen or two. I needed a little jar for my desk, which worked great. Actually, pretty legitimately, use was the ... Oh, you asked me about the lathe. Something I've learned is ... It's an obvious point now, but parts catchers are pretty peculiar little things because
00:38:22
Speaker
Regardless of the design or style, when we're parting off a two and a half inch bar,
00:38:29
Speaker
you know, moving towards centerline, you generally want to increase your RPMs to make up for reducing surface footage. So you're turning it, you know, quite a few RPMs on a two and a half inch bar. And when it finally parts it off, not only does the part we're making have some weight to it, but it's also rotating. And so it's got a lot of energy or foot pounds to it. So that thing comes rifling out of that, down that chute, out of that parts catcher. No, no, unsubscribe.
00:38:58
Speaker
What? This is what sub-spiddles were made for. Oh, that's a really good point, John. Think about that. I haven't dealt with that for like four years. Yeah, that's a really good point. Because then you can just hold on to it, stabilize it, and then just do a little vomit bar at zero RPM. Yeah.
00:39:17
Speaker
Anyway, I'll let you continue. So it's spinning fast, and then it goes to the parts catcher, and then? Well, so luckily, the parts are not getting damaged. It sounds pretty, we've gotten used to it in the shop, but it's a different sound. So it's actually a semi-controlled crash. So I don't have any complaints.
00:39:37
Speaker
But what we the Haas parts catcher door ships with these little cams that open the door up enough for like a one inch diameter part. And we obviously need it bigger. And so I think the guy don't want to mispronounce his Instagram name. I think it's Bitroot Diesel had mocked up the larger door cam, just a little 3D printed. It's basically a rectangle, but one side of the rectangle has a rat radius to it.
00:40:05
Speaker
And so printed that out in literally 20 minutes, bolted it on. And I'm like, this is what 3D printers are for. That's awesome. Yeah. And so flexible. And if you printed it wrong, oh darn, you changed the fusion model. You print another one. Yeah. And you wasted 12 cents in plastic. Yeah. Yep.
00:40:27
Speaker
Yeah, I think that the problem with 3D printers is when people misunderstand what their use is or they think, you know, it'll print. You almost never see a sellable product that is 3D printed. That's not just artwork or a toy or something.
00:40:45
Speaker
But that's not what it's like. If you don't look at it like that, you look at it for like brackets and fixtures and, you know, handles and models and scale models and like all, there's so many things that I printed around the shop that I'm like, this is fun. This is what it's for. That's a great video idea right there. Use 3D printer uses in a machine shop. I'm taking that. Yeah. Give that video to Ed and just say go nuts.
00:41:13
Speaker
No, because there are some legit things we've used it for. For sure. I do still think it's kind of the reason 3D printers missed their mark 10 years ago is this idea that they were going to be revolutionary and everyone was just going to have one next to their laser printer. It's kind of like, well, we don't all break curtain rods or our hair dryer switch and thus need to make our own replacements. But yeah. But those are great examples of things you could do. Yeah. When I want to start getting William into it, I think
00:41:43
Speaker
You probably saw this on instagram but our tv sort of stopped working it was getting into this loop of turning on and off and you literally wanted to put put your fist through a wall because it was doing the sound of like the dung it would just loop through that and sometimes it would break the loop and actually turn on we don't really use our tv all that much but
00:42:02
Speaker
Um, I was like, this is, this is frustrating. And I quit Google search meant check a couple of wiring harnesses or something. And so I did that. And then it's 11 year old, you know, 40 inch TV. It's like literally probably worth $42 at this point. And, uh,
00:42:18
Speaker
And so as soon as I realized it was going to be going to the scrap yard, I handed William a screwdriver. I'm like, let's go. I'd given him a hard drive a couple of weeks ago to disassemble, and he actually did a great job. Got it all the way down to the platters with some help. And so we have stripped every single component out of that TV, and it is super fun. Nice. With the intention of putting it back together or just to explore? Absolutely not. Yeah, good. Even better. Yeah. Yeah, just good notes. I remember I did that when I was a kid.
00:42:48
Speaker
the video camera stopped working because Eric zoomed it out 100 million times just for fun. And so I took it all apart. I remember I had my Tupperware bin and all the screws laid out and I was like, I know I could put it back together, but there's no point because it's broken.
00:43:05
Speaker
We found the blown caps. Part of me thought, oh my gosh, just to prove that I could have fixed it. I almost wanted to get on DigiKey and order the caps. At that point, I had already ripped a couple harnesses out a little rough. It's not about that. It's about letting William see those.
00:43:26
Speaker
skill of using a screwdriver and thinking about how to disassemble something. We talk a little bit about safety. We actually talked about caps, and I tried to show him how we could discharge a cap to make sure there's not residual power in it. I mean, he's five. Some of this goes over his head, but it's fun. I love it. It's amazing what they remember though. I mean, Leif came down just before the podcast and saw me setting up, and he's like, I remember when I used to be on the podcast. I was like, that was like two years ago.
00:43:54
Speaker
Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, when him and William would come on before we hit record. Yeah. You'd sit and be like, hey guys. Do you guys have that cozy nook in your old house that I liked where we'd hang out sometimes and drink our bagged milk?
00:44:10
Speaker
Well, on that note, but Merry Christmas. Say hi to the family and kids today and tomorrow. And I'm sure they're going to be, I'm sure they're that age where it's just awesome time. Yeah. Yeah. It's a very exciting time. So, uh, yep. Enjoy. Enjoy the holidays. Try to take a few minutes of rest because I'm going to attempt to stay in my pajamas a little bit longer than normal and, you know, spend time with the family. Yeah. I will. Yeah.
00:44:34
Speaker
Excellent. Take care, bud. Hey, let's think about it. I'm going to hold you to this though. So you actually have homework this week. I do want you to think about 2020 and not like task goals, but
00:44:47
Speaker
think a bit about what's important to Grinsville and Ives, whether that's doing the same of the same or whether it's a little bit different. I mean, we've talked about some stuff about outsourcing and efficiency and ERPs and responsibilities and staffing. Let's actually- Yeah, we can dig into that next week for New Year. And I have thought a lot about that. So that's going to be an epic conversation. Good. All right. Take care. Bye.