Transcript
johngrimsmo: Good morning and welcome to the Business of Machining episode 471. My name is John Grimsmo.
John Saunders: My name is John Saunders.
johngrimsmo: And this is our weekly therapy session where we get to talk about business and what's on our minds and kind of the topics that we're chewing on and excited about.
John Saunders: Yes, how are you?
johngrimsmo: I'm doing awesome. Let's jump right in. What's on your list?
John Saunders: Haas UMC 400, Datron Neo. to -do lists a major major... network issue at the shop, which is has a comedic ending. Telstra, Queens, Barfed Mill.
johngrimsmo: Perfect. I've got Cam Templates and MCP. uh white light interferometer slash vision system slash
John Saunders: Mmm.
johngrimsmo: Thorlabs. and flashlight.
John Saunders: Oh. Oh that's good.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Kick it off.
johngrimsmo: Um... All right, let's jump into the white light interferometer. Um... as i think i mentioned last week i decided to go full hard on building my own i'm so
John Saunders: so for Let's say for Grimsmo.
johngrimsmo: It's a full Grimmsmo. I don't know man.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I'm definitely excited for this. You know what I mean?
John Saunders: ah ah ah Well, i so i don't the measurement the measurement ranges of the white light interferometer are hopefully smaller distances than...
johngrimsmo: sir
John Saunders: Keep us family friendly here.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, exactly. um Very excited. I've spent lots of money in the past week. super awesome purchases so far. What did I get? I got From eBay, I was able to buy two XY motorized stages.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: from One was actually from a Zygo interferometer, and one yeah and one was from...
John Saunders: No way.
johngrimsmo: asi i think was the brand it's like a vision system like brand Both tables are beautiful, really, really nice. The ASI one is actually extraordinarily nice and should be perfect and has the hole in the middle. for backlighting.
johngrimsmo: So if I want to use it for a vision system as well.
John Saunders: Oh interesting. Sure.
johngrimsmo: The Thorlabs table does not have that hole in the middle. so I bought both thinking I was going to make two microscopes. One vision system, one interferometer.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: and then literally after i place that order i go to bed and i'm laying in bed and i go You know, I think I just figured out a way to do it all in one microscope. and only need one of those tables. I don't actually need both tables.
johngrimsmo: And one of the tables is better for. both of them the other anyway um Yeah, there ended up being a shipping problem with the Zygo one that they couldn't ship it to me. so That got refunded and I just saved. 600 bucks that I was going to spend on two that I don't need.
johngrimsmo: So that's good.
John Saunders: So x, y, the... just like a pen, like just moves a, with, I assume.
johngrimsmo: okay
John Saunders: ball screws and linear guideways.
johngrimsmo: um Types of, not ball screws specifically, but like a threaded. arrangement, whatever it's called.
John Saunders: Yeah, okay But it's not not linear motors or or anything insane like that.
johngrimsmo: A lead screw. Correct. There are linear motor ones, but they're like way more expensive.
John Saunders: Sure, sure. sure
johngrimsmo: and I definitely looked into them, but it's fine. And they have encoders, so it should make very accurate, repeatable motion.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: and uh
John Saunders: What's the travel range?
johngrimsmo: the
John Saunders: i'm sorry
johngrimsmo: Like. five inches wide by maybe four inches deep something like that so i could do a whole a whole handle a whole knife handle
John Saunders: Okay. Too small, but... Yeah. but not like 15 milliliters, not like one of these tiny microseconds.
johngrimsmo: No, no, exactly.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And motorized, and the ASI -1 actually... Like. USB or ethernet cable plugs right into a computer and you can just send commands to it.
John Saunders: Oh.
johngrimsmo: So the configuration just went down to zero. for installing that one.
John Saunders: Yeah, that's nice.
johngrimsmo: you know It's like so easy.
John Saunders: Sure, sure, sure.
johngrimsmo: So I'm really excited for that.
John Saunders: Mm hmm. Good.
johngrimsmo: And I got that and I got two. very high quality mintutoyo Um... Um... long working distance microscope objectives.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: So lenses basically for a microscope. that I'll be using for the interferometer. Yeah. um Which will basically let me interferomet things.
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: And i I really tried hard to find kind of the built in. interferometer in the objective where there's a beam splitter, and there's like stuff inside of it. But I
John Saunders: Mm -hmm
johngrimsmo: in At this point in time, I couldn't find any ones on eBay that I liked.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: um Whereas these Mitutoyo lenses, they're not interferometer lenses. They're just like microscope lenses. but I can build a little DIY, what's called a Michelson interferometer underneath with a beam splitter and a reference mirror and some adjustments and stuff like that.
johngrimsmo: to make it. do the splitting of the beam and and give you the interference fringes.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And. So I'll be building that. So I get to build this, you know, very compact, small, precision little device that slips onto the end of each objective. That'll be fun.
John Saunders: Cool.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, so really excited. And then basically my last order is a huge Thor Labs order. Thor Labs is in... optical optics supply company so they make adjusting mounts and they make lenses and they make cameras and all kinds of stuff.
johngrimsmo: And the more I dig into their company, the more. utterly impressive they are as a company. it's shocking how good they are and The prices seem really expensive at first.
johngrimsmo: But... the deeper i dig the more i'm like these are completely reasonable prices this is this is not a joke
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um you know it may look like a hundred dollars and you're like i could do that for 30. yeah but plus time plus you still gotta buy their adjuster screws plus like it's a really good value for money for a lot of their stuff Some of their more electrical digital stuff gets like to be thousands.
John Saunders: i want
johngrimsmo: You're like, ah.
John Saunders: Oh.
johngrimsmo: i can ebay that
John Saunders: I want to say we bought some of their differential screws.
johngrimsmo: mm -hmm
John Saunders: for 30 bucks 20 bucks which of course you know it's a dollar of material but like that's a total no -brainer
johngrimsmo: Yep.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, and they're quality and they're really well made. Um,
John Saunders: Yeah. Fun fact or fun shared it some of our
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: like medium ah our job shop work when we were in Ohio, but not. quite where we were before we quit job shop work was with a number of different um educational institutions and professors there in chemistry departments who have had a bunch of Thor lab stuff, but wanted a bunch of it modified or wanted a bunch of it added on, or they're like, Hey, take this, but do this with it.
johngrimsmo: Mmm.
John Saunders: Um, and they didn't really care about the money.
johngrimsmo: Really?
John Saunders: It was more like they just wanted their solution. Um, and so I wouldn't say we were in any way that familiar or experts with it, but like, that was my first exposure to the whole world of like, nobody has gone through.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: any sort of higher educational lab work and not have Floralabs become the McMaster car of their world, you know?
johngrimsmo: Yep, yep. And it's it's impressive how... ah plug and play their systems are. They've made the Lego of photonics.
John Saunders: Yeah, right.
johngrimsmo: And. For the interferometer, I had the choice of either buying... a what's called a Kohler illumination assembly so a microscope head that has a bunch of lenses and some inside that takes your light and it steers it and it makes it bigger and smaller and makes it better illumination for your part.
johngrimsmo: So I can buy a used one on Olympics. Olympus one on eBay for like three grand. or I can DIY with literally plug and play parts from Thorlabs. um i don't know what that assembly is going to cost me but it's going to be from the one to 2000.
johngrimsmo: But it's like I don't have to do anything I just plug all the parts together and adjust them everything's totally adjustable and then it'll just work
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And the more I thought about 3D printing stuff, oh, I could 3D print that bracket. And they have one for like. thirty dollars i'm like
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I'm just going to buy theirs.
John Saunders: We've definitely... as we sort of expected, although I guess if I'm being honest, we had hoped. maybe we could sneak one past the goalie here we're seeing some fatal flaws in the use of 3D printing stuff.
John Saunders: on some of the metrology.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: software And that's okay. Like it got us.
johngrimsmo: in In what ways?
John Saunders: Well, so like the linear gauge, the pinch measurement system.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: It's drooping. over time we set up a quick test
johngrimsmo: Really? and And you can measure it now because you're measuring millions.
John Saunders: What you're not even measuring it is the measurement like it's just showing you and so we were taught we had a huddle on it a week ago and we just quickly Rigged we have luckily we have two of these so it was easy to a be and we left one on a granite block and we left one on the pla block and it's like a little c -frame and it I know if you might if you're listening to this and you might think, well, of course, 3D prints suck. Like, no, like they're actually quite stable and you wouldn't expect it to.
John Saunders: Like you wouldn't expect Andy an air temper. I don't don't even know what this is but um it's it's proved its point and now it's like okay we need to not have that be part of the stack of error error possibility
johngrimsmo: But for... prototyping and proof of concept and and alignment and all this stuff. And now now you know the answer you need. to machine an aluminum one or whatever.
John Saunders: Yeah, great. I guess though to kind of put my Tom Lipton type hat on Good except 3D printing can make you lazy to wear. We probably need to make sure we're thinking of how this could work once we need to go with it to be.
John Saunders: I can't speak English. Once we need it to be not machine, not 3D printed, like should we just buy?
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: you know can we buy one two three and two four six blocks and just screw them together like that's cheap and easy or do we want to have do we want to machine something do we want to have something metal 3d printed and then clean up some surfaces we want to sub it out um
johngrimsmo: Mm.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Because and I just remember. ah some of Tom Lipton's lessons of like, Just because you have SOLIDWORKS doesn't mean you should. go crazy and complex and i think that is assume you can commit with 3D printing.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: but maybe that's a Whatever.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, and so sometimes you'll... uh make a solution in 3d print that is like easy and printing because it's free form you do whatever you want and then you have to turn that into metal and you're like oh this just got a lot more hard
John Saunders: Yeah, right.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. yep Although with the Thor lab stuff, they have STL files, step files for like everything. they sell.
John Saunders: That's super nice.
johngrimsmo: Lenses and everything so I was able to just import everything into fusion and literally build my Lego set And like. How long do the rails need to be to fit this focal length of all this stuff? And I'm like, okay, 12 inch rails will be perfect.
johngrimsmo: Add to cart.
John Saunders: maybe Maybe jumping ahead here, but have you thought of or did you already try letting an MCP handle all those imports, all that layout? cart.
johngrimsmo: I... I briefly thought about the assembly of it using the MCP do that. I hadn't really thought about it for like. ordering or placing to cart or stuff like that because i mean honestly i'm i'm fiddling a lot in that car i'm like i'm fiddling a lot in that car i'm like i'm fiddling a lot in that car i'm like adding a thing so i don't forget about it adding a thing so i don't forget about it adding a thing so i don't forget about it and then i delete it later and i'm like even even in fusion side i'm like fiddling a lot being like what if i do this before that what if i asking chat like what the order of all these optics needs to be Yes, I do wonder how.
johngrimsmo: the mcp would do with that. I don't know.
John Saunders: From a... I can't speak offhand to the... the ability to do web cart or web access, but like certainly. the mcp for the busy work of downloading importing realigning creating a joint It's great at it.
johngrimsmo: Interesting. That's a good point. You can just give it the whole string of part numbers and just say, download all these step files. and
John Saunders: Yeah, that should work if you had a Google Sheet or Excel file.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: and You're just like, yep.
johngrimsmo: But the the in the assembly, the order of things is... critical. I mean you could, see yeah, maybe.
John Saunders: I'd be surprised.
johngrimsmo: Don't know. I'd be surprised.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: Um...
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So i mean that brings me to my next talking point. which is Cam Templates and MCP. And I want to hear from you on this. um I don't really use templates and I feel like I'm missing. everything.
johngrimsmo: um And I was reading actually in your comments of your latest video on YouTube. uh where you talked about the mcp and some people were like oh i've got all my templates laid out it created all my templates and now making new cam files is like cakewalk because Not only does the MCP have all these rules, but...
johngrimsmo: Fusion has all these templates that I can just pull from. Um, How do you guys use templates? and Just explain it to me.
John Saunders: So we we don't, like full stop, we don't.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: um but Well, but the word template is also a little bit of a loaded term. fusion has its own true cam templates that i don't think are very often used at least not by the cool kids power users where you could like right click a bunch of operations choose save as template and then apply that later it kind of sucks for a bunch of reasons i want to get
johngrimsmo: Okay.
johngrimsmo: from multiple operations.
John Saunders: Yeah, bingo.
johngrimsmo: Interesting.
John Saunders: Um, And frankly, i met my my knowledge of that may be out of date because we just stopped using them or never really used them years ago.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: what i see more often would be like the lockwood container method where you can create saved operations, workholding, configurations, et cetera.
johngrimsmo: is
John Saunders: um we also don't we have that for the willam and we kind of have it for the umc 400 as a prototype machine but again we don't really do it what i have done is we've done a pretty good job on most of our machines now of having a folder for for each machine infusion that has a master assets.
John Saunders: file. that can include the work holding setups and all the tools that are currently used in it. um I don't right now use that to save operations samples, which we could. But what I have done with MCP. With.
John Saunders: B, B plus success. Like I think it'll get better and I think I could probably prompt it better. But if I have. Um, a similar part so similar materials similar machine tool machine that's been made on you just tell the mcp hey Here's a part.
John Saunders: It opened. I had this other part that I haven't programmed. Use. these tools operations my cutting preference style.
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
John Saunders: and program it.
johngrimsmo: yeah I haven't tried that yet, but I'm very excited to try that.
John Saunders: Yeah.
John Saunders: That's all I got though, I mean.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Pretty sure. Is that what you're hoping, thinking, or what are you?
johngrimsmo: yeah i i think some i think amish uses camp templates like a lot and maybe the more job shop side of people make it easier you know i've played with it before i've created a threadmill template for an m6 hole or something like that and that is nice to just grab and go back to because then i don't have to worry about calculating it every time and it just got me into this thinking it's like a stepping stone of like
John Saunders: sure
John Saunders: Yeah.
John Saunders: Sure. Sure.
johngrimsmo: you know Step one, you calculate it every single time you touch that operation. Step two, you kind of save the rules in this template. and just recall that step three. have the mcp do it all the same every time based on step two. to get step one and it's like At some point, there's no point in just reinventing the wheel every time you do something.
johngrimsmo: Every time you program a part, you're just...
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Creating a workflow is all it is. um As I'm programming this hard mill part, which is not particularly difficult, but I'm like avoiding it and i spent a couple hours on it last night and it was really nice but it got me thinking about these templates and like like I'm setting up these hard milling tools and you know every time I use this high feed hard mill tool, I'm going to have the same step down, the same.
johngrimsmo: step over percentage, the same kind of.
John Saunders: mm -hmm
johngrimsmo: boundary constraints. And it's a form tool and you can't use a form tool on every type of operation and and that kind of fun stuff.
John Saunders: ah Yeah.
johngrimsmo: but I would love to just. save those rules somewhere. End. you know next time i need to use that tool for a hard milling job just be like yeah that one do it
John Saunders: Yeah. go I'll be curious to see what you do and learn. I think. Again, I'm not sure exactly what templates means and in the context of like an Amish, but. um I will say. you know, Amish.
John Saunders: is really focused really really dialed also a one -man shop so it's harder in my opinion or experience to keep those was managed across
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: multiple time periods and multiple employees and multiple machines.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. I think Rob and Phil work really hard to do that.
John Saunders: Yeah. agreed um but i think and i think it's so part of what
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: The problem with templates is they almost always become out of date by virtue of your own mistakes or laziness or just the fact that Fusion improves and changes.
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
John Saunders: Whereas the benefit of an MCP and AI, which again, I'm happy to join in on the naysayer side of.
johngrimsmo: Right.
John Saunders: critiquing it, but the reality is it has a form of intelligence that can continue to embrace. best best practices of the software. The prompts can improve. It can. see what you did most recently.
John Saunders: um And yeah, you're going to review it, but. we've talked about this a lot. Like I'd much rather sit down. and review something and make some tweaks. then have spent the time building it up from scratch, both from a time consumption and then also just.
John Saunders: Click mouse clicking and tendonitis.
johngrimsmo: yeah
John Saunders: It's like, yeah, no.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah
John Saunders: forum.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, it's fascinating.
John Saunders: Sorry, good.
johngrimsmo: But no.
John Saunders: We are running inch slim duals on the Brother now that got moved over and then I needed to run metrics. And so I already had them programmed. I didn't do this by. thought of it and should have which was to go into the mcp and just say hey separate files but I made a bunch, this is classic.
John Saunders: production life like i've made so many little tweaks to the inch file like oh i want to step down here i want a sock to leave here um
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah Mmm.
John Saunders: Just tell the MCP, hey, go through the inch one, which is the master and tell me. The cam is duplicated in millimeter, but tell me all those little settings.
johngrimsmo: compare it and
John Saunders: that might be different.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. It's fantastic. i'm I'm looking forward to playing with that. um and that's where uh llms are so good as like compare and contrast and just give me a list and like change Like, this one's fine. That one's bad. Make that one make the bad one good.
johngrimsmo: based on good results like Yeah.
John Saunders: You have it installed and running though?
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I do I even I turned it on last night and I.
John Saunders: Okay, okay.
johngrimsmo: asked cursor. I was like, You're connected to Fusion, right?
John Saunders: ay
johngrimsmo: and they're like yeah i see your i see this file's open and blah blah i was like okay cool
John Saunders: Well shameless plug we did a put a video out last week where we showed downloading a file from maker world for a 3d printed oil skimmer and i wanted to modify the stl And I didn't want to spend the time to remodel the STL as a B rep or a normal code of CAD file myself with, you know, sketches and extrusions and parametric.
johngrimsmo: Mm -hmm
John Saunders: parametric features and so forth so i just told claude remodel it and it Not only did it do it, but it did it quite well. And then I quickly showed. a cam example an mcp i'm just like hey i spoke to it i was like hey machine i'd rough and finish and chamfer this open pocket and it's like Yeah, done.
John Saunders: Um. and then actually it was great it made a mistake on that one which i I think it's a good sign to show it's not like.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I saw that, yeah.
John Saunders: Perfect cheerleader. And then. the last one i like really enjoyed was um This is like my layman's version of Phil Messenhauser's. who did who did have it do the whole watch. which actually coming in full circle.
John Saunders: When we first mentioned this a month or two ago, Messenhauser the next morning sent me a video of his MCP infusion modeling a Rolex or whatever. like mechanical watch with a hairspring and and escapement and all the motion joints.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: freaking nuts like
johngrimsmo: I think the the most impressive side of that is the joints and the constraints and the, all that stuff is so fiddly and so time consuming to do yourself.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: and regardless of if every tolerance on that watch is garbage the fact that the the motion profile everything's parametric everything's like you know
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: it's It's there. the heart The heavy lifting is done.
John Saunders: yeah
johngrimsmo: um
John Saunders: And MCPs are like. for most of us, like two two months old.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, exactly
John Saunders: So I just said. model the Geneva drive based on this Wikipedia article that shows the Geneva drive. you know, you know you move it and it rotates a quarter turn. and it nailed it like perfectly including the motion limits and fusion which i know how to set up a motion limit infusion i have zero desire to exactly zero desire to go do that
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yep.
johngrimsmo: They're annoying. Yeah. Yep, yep.
John Saunders: ah
johngrimsmo: That's epic Yeah, it's interesting. As I was making the Thorlabs assembly, the Kohler illumination assembly, I was setting my own motion limits and I was like, I want to be able to drag this part and slide it and stop here and start here and all that. And I was like, this is time consuming. this is like Easy, but annoying and fiddly.
johngrimsmo: You know?
John Saunders: Dude, screenshot your cart, dump it into Claude, and just say... Download this and put it into... im I'd just love to see how it does it.
johngrimsmo: Just to see, yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah, right.
johngrimsmo: yeah Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the other thing I did is um In my hard mailing program, one of the ops has like an expression to define.
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: I forget it was step down or step over or something like that. It was a fairly complex expression, like enough words and letters that you're like, what what is happening here? Copy the whole thing, paste it into cursor. And I said, explain this to me. And it.
johngrimsmo: it explained it as a max of two options. Either it's tool diameter times... 0 .75 or just 0 .2 of tool like, whatever. and i was like oh obviously like now it makes sense now that i've somebody explained it to me like i'm five but Okay, thank you.
John Saunders: Yeah, it's great.
johngrimsmo: like
John Saunders: the world Yeah, it's incredible.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Well, I appreciated your nudge last week because I... Tried to remind myself again stop talking and just start doing to spend time on the telecentric Well, even though the telecentric project for us is very much a work project. I just wasn't able to easily find.
John Saunders: an hour or two where i could sit down uninterrupted and
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: Some of that's for good reason. I'm in the middle of... doing a bar fed mill grant and Garrett are implementing. more robots and that's exciting like there's a bunch of really good stuff going on and so i realized why don't i just take it home like i It was like, duh.
John Saunders: so That's been great.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: um And that also forced me to get over the hurdle of like, don't. have such a high burden to get back into the project. like where Where did you last leave off?
johngrimsmo: m
John Saunders: where you How do you open the program? Because like I don't remember all the Linux codes to always like go start a Python script from the right directory.
johngrimsmo: Right.
John Saunders: And so I solved it. I was like, hey, make this easier for me. create a cheat sheet that I can use. And then I've also.
johngrimsmo: Nice.
John Saunders: Separate from that, but just in general. i've Continue to try to come back to. reminding myself how helpful it is to leave projects in an easy point to pick back up on. It's just so easy to do that one more task.
John Saunders: and feels good to have it checked off, accept it. So much way easier to for me to just know
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: you've got an easy
johngrimsmo: It's a good reminder and i'm I'm glad you keep bringing it up because I keep not doing it. So I want you to keep bringing it up over the next months and years.
John Saunders: Yeah. What's... it It's counterintuitive to me too. Like even this morning, I... had some time on the telecentric with breakfast in the morning and i was like ready to measure this thread and i'm like no Perfect.
John Saunders: spot. to click measure when I get home tonight.
johngrimsmo: I think my brain says I'll forget about it. So I'll do it right now. And so do you leave yourself a note or do you just mentally know like next time I...
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: open this project, that is the first step to do.
John Saunders: I will remember that, although... um i'll jump around here i really have been liking muse the ai agent for
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
John Saunders: um for those reminders and i've done both explicit ones are like hey before six o 'clock remind me to check this and just does it And it I actually asked it to stop confirming that back to me.
John Saunders: I was like, I trust you.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: like don't But then the other thing Muse does, and stop me if I said this last week, that I really like is it it has the ability to create randomness in its reminders. So I've said. Hey.
John Saunders: um I have a list of things I like to review every month, but it's not my task list.
johngrimsmo: oh
John Saunders: My task list every month is very much like accounting tax. Like. like very business. process oriented there's a separate list of things i like to kind of reflect on and i can't you like I cannot do the reflection list.
John Saunders: in the middle of... As a check off of the. task list.
johngrimsmo: right
John Saunders: And so I said, hey. Once a month, remind me to... And it's great too, because it has my calendar. So like once a month when I'm not in a meeting, remind me to spend 15 minutes looking at that list. um and create it randomly and don't ever ask me within seven days of like don't ask me on the 28th one month, and the second the next.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Speed. oh
John Saunders: Telecentric though to. to
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: to share where I got. I... It is. crushing it at measuring Deltronics gauge pins. that are in tenth increments. It's crushing it.
John Saunders: where If I take... 10 measurements of the same pin, moving it around, it's or ten measuring different points, it's within two tenths. most of the time.
John Saunders: maybe maybe three tenths if i'm you know like an ah oddball whatever um But... if i take a pin out and switch sizes or i come back to that same pin 12 hours later it will be up to like five or six tenths off.
John Saunders: or could be.
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
John Saunders: Which sucks to be totally honest. I don't exactly know why
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: And it bothers me because... It's like, it does seems odd that you can recreate so accurately. throughout a 20 minute test session. Um, I probably should do some more thinking and exploring, including like, is it ambient lighting that could be affecting it? Like, do I need to put a cover over it so sunlight or room light doesn't affect it? but I stopped because.
John Saunders: I'm through. I didn't even have a reason to build this in the first place. It was just a reaction to seeing a... commercial system.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: And then i I remembered, you know, kind of like what makes the beer taste better. Grant was the one that had kind of thought he'd like this. So I asked Grant, I said, Grant. Time out. Why do you want this thing?
johngrimsmo: Yeah, that's the question right there.
John Saunders: And he was just like, I want it to measure. half 13 threads that come off the Willimon. Unfortunately, they' they're single point turned. It was three thread mills sometimes, but these are... turn on a nil.
johngrimsmo: Sure.
John Saunders: It has a ladybug shouting. And. Grant said that sometimes you'll get. Insert. problems, which aren't even always the tip of it. breaking where you would affect the root of the thread it can sometimes be the side of the insert which can affect the and What do you call that?
John Saunders: the taper
johngrimsmo: That taper it like one of the angles
John Saunders: Yeah. And so I thought, great, this is not a problem. for this system this is not something that requires
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: sub thousandth of an inch.
johngrimsmo: o
John Saunders: accuracy or repeatability. So this morning I spent building sort of converting it over from diametrical measurement to Automatic detection of half 13 threads. with.
John Saunders: crest root, side profile, go, no go, blah, bla blah, blah.
johngrimsmo: angle, all that stuff.
John Saunders: Yeah. yeah Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, it gives you... constraints. You just constrained your own prompt.
John Saunders: Yep. mm -hmm
johngrimsmo: to uh It did. Do something very specific instead of a general like let's make this as accurate as possible to do all things.
John Saunders: Yeah. Right. Yep.
johngrimsmo: Um Which is kind of where I'm at with... my vision system add -on to the interferometer project if i'm going to build one microscope that can do both It's it's different uses different cases different lenses different cameras different backlight solutions But I think I can still do it in both.
johngrimsmo: And. Just this morning, I was um doing a bunch of research on do I just buy the collimated backlight like what you bought?
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Thor lab sells one for $5 .95 and I'm like... I should just.
John Saunders: Oh really?
johngrimsmo: buy that one. um Or do I build a lens system? that provides you know perfectly diffused perfectly automated perfectly no angular divergence light That will be theoretically better and give me a crisper edge profile with less, you know, shadowing or whatever.
John Saunders: hu
johngrimsmo: Or like, is it not going to matter? Um, practically speaking. so
John Saunders: Is diffused and collimated opposites?
johngrimsmo: Kind of yeah diffused means light is well both evenly spread but also the beams kind of go all over the place
John Saunders: Yeah, exactly
johngrimsmo: and collimated means they all go the straight direction so
John Saunders: Yeah, it's this piece it's straws.
johngrimsmo: it if you have e led and then a diffuser and now you have the lights going everywhere and then you can still collimate it afterwards and now you have an evenly illuminated diffused light
John Saunders: Interesting.
John Saunders: Go.
johngrimsmo: that. You lose some light output, but like who cares because what are you going for here?
John Saunders: Sure.
johngrimsmo: Um,
John Saunders: Sure.
johngrimsmo: But I thought through that, the process, I can buy all the components, more Thorlob stuff. It'd still be a few hundred dollars in like stuff. And then I got to fiddle with it and adjust it and micro adjust and all this stuff. Or I could just buy that. plate for $600 that has the light in it.
johngrimsmo: And then it's like a one and done solution.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Maybe not as good, but. Plenty good for version one and not a bad purchase to have on the shelf anyway So.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I added it to cart immediately before starting this podcast. And that's the thing with the Thorlabs card is they make it so easy and everything's in stock. And I actually watched one of their marketing videos and they're like,
johngrimsmo: Actually, I wrote down the quote right here. The quote Thorlabs lady said was, the customer wants to make a quick purchasing decision. Let it be there for them when they need it.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: And it's like simple, but. In the world of. photonics what they do their customers their labs their their universities their whatever they're just like I need a lens and I need it tomorrow. Oh, they always have it. They're they're my trusted source.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: Um, So that got me thinking about how we make stuff and how we offer stuff and what we keep in stock and what we don't. and
John Saunders: John, 100%.
johngrimsmo: You know?
John Saunders: McMaster car. I remember on the stare it. stare at measuring tools tour i don't actually know this is true from an operating company standpoint but the steric to be tour they talked about how they stock all these things that they sell one or two of a year because like the us needs it like if lawrence livermore needs some weird
johngrimsmo: Mm.
John Saunders: Gauge they have it is like it may not make economic or business sense to keep it in stock But that's what they do and I love Like how many times? Has anybody here on McMaster Car ordered something and been told it's out of stock?
John Saunders: I don't know that it's... ever happened to us.
johngrimsmo: Sometimes i've I've seen it. They're like or six will ship from here six will ship from here or or But they'll...
John Saunders: Sure, that happens.
johngrimsmo: clearly tell you that.
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: they're long or they're they're six weeks out. um I've seen that for a screw.
John Saunders: Oh, really?
johngrimsmo: Yeah, even like an m4 by 25 socket head cap screw It was like four weeks out and I was like. Really?
John Saunders: Yeah, I've never so I've seen it for gauge pins like what tenth increments like that i don't I think that's always that way though.
johngrimsmo: I don't know Ta -da. mm -hmm
John Saunders: Like I think they're kind of building.
johngrimsmo: Exactly. Like direct ship from the supplier or whatever.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: yeah
John Saunders: But unlike other many other vendors including MSC where it's like regularly an issue of availability
John Saunders: But I think what you said should should be. emphasize of just like as a business. The quality and certainty of being able to order is huge.
johngrimsmo: b Yep. And with our stuff, like custom order is our. bread and butter it's our method people like that there are customers who just want to impulse buy
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Something.
John Saunders: Great. brick Great.
johngrimsmo: Immediately. And yeah, great for us.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: And you know, we're sort of. production limited in a way where we can't just keep stock all the time. But maybe we could work towards keeping like a base model you know silver with blue screws um in a certain pattern and it's you know always keep one or two on the site um because even our friend justin gray
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Texted me and he's like, I wanted to buy a saga for my. somebody somebody my family member. and um there was none available so I had to like place an order and I hope it... Get it quickly.
John Saunders: wait Yeah, right, or right, right.
johngrimsmo: And it's like, okay, this is... if my friends are texting me saying, I would have bought one today.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Um... Maybe we've got to solve that problem.
John Saunders: Yeah. But that's also the like kind of like sort of obvious trick of like Even if you don't have a saga or a Norseman or Fjell. for sale it's like having everything already machined in an inventory and you're just bolting it together which weird example we recorded it's kind of like how hospitals machines like all those parts are interchanged between machines to make it as easy as they possibly can and add as much value before they have to.
John Saunders: narrow it into a specific skewer product, right?
johngrimsmo: Mm hmm.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So my, my Thor labs cart of. you know sub 100 items is at 4 600 right now
John Saunders: Heh heh.
John Saunders: What's your like? no pressure but like do you think this is something where you might flip the on switch in a month or is it more like three months
johngrimsmo: Yeah. i've I've already told Eric I got him on board and I was like, this will work by the end of November. this will This will give us.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: awesome results and answers. And I'm telling you, man. every day in the shop. I'm like You know what would answer this question?
John Saunders: You would use yeah
johngrimsmo: the interferometer. And now I've got everybody hearing me say that.
John Saunders: Yes, we can. Good.
johngrimsmo: And so everybody's ah excited and on board. I am so jacked for this. Like it is. it's just gonna give us answers it's going to let us zoom in better it's going to give us perfect height data um And the more because we do so much hand finishing.
johngrimsmo: like any streaking from end mills any step mismatches whatever we'll be able to quantify them measure them hopefully fix them Or at least.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: ah gate them before they go to finishing and become a problem. um Because the amount of, you know. reworks that the guys do. for like finishing issues you know say you blend an edge and then you tumble apart and then oh it's still a streak is there and i gotta blend it again now i gotta tumble it again Um,
johngrimsmo: Westa.
John Saunders: Yeah. I love it
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Oh, uh...
johngrimsmo: It's going to be so cool.
John Saunders: I think to to the audience, I think I'm going to try to swing by Grimmsnows here in the next. uh coming coming uh while and i'll uh I'll throw my, actually Alex designed a 3D base for it.
johngrimsmo: Yes.
John Saunders: So the whole thing is kind of self -contained and it's not that big.
johngrimsmo: Mm.
John Saunders: I'll bring i'll bring my system up.
johngrimsmo: Nice.
John Saunders: It'd be fun to kind of. Swap notes on them.
johngrimsmo: Yep. And then something else my brother told me was the first interferometer that I built that's still on my desk at home. um Piece of garbage. Doesn't work.
John Saunders: ah
johngrimsmo: uh, you know, I just want to take it all apart and throw it away but eric's like you know what you got to do is you got to finish the video of all the stuff you filmed for that. And. Even if you tell everybody.
johngrimsmo: It didn't work. wait till phase two And I was like.
John Saunders: Isn't that funny? Yeah.
johngrimsmo: You're probably right. So maybe in the next.
John Saunders: It's a tough one.
johngrimsmo: in the next few weeks i should just uh just film like a narration and just you know, close that chapter, show it, share it.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: I can even get results. and then i forget if i told you about the piezo um What's it even called? Flexster that I bought on eBay. um
John Saunders: We've discussed... go I want to hear.
johngrimsmo: So for the interferometer um Remember the micro manipulator project? The YouTube thing with the little three...
John Saunders: Yes. Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: ummb
John Saunders: diffraction unlimited.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah So he made this tiny little CNC machine that moves in nanometers.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: basically. And so I basically used that technology on the first interferometer.
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: to... microstep the motors in such a way and create my own magnetic linear scale and measure literally millionths of an inch. And it's awesome, except it's it doesn't provide...
johngrimsmo: constant velocity. of travel.
John Saunders: Okay. Okay.
johngrimsmo: It kind of hunts and finds and...
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: and it moves erratically even as much as i tried to you know control that. So what you need is a piezo stage and a piezo is basically a little tiny capacitor looking thing. You stack a bunch of them on top of each other and you electrify them and they grow or shrink or grow or shrink.
johngrimsmo: in Super.
John Saunders: Oh. to replace that.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. yeahp And this is how all commercial microscopes and stuff do.
John Saunders: Interesting.
johngrimsmo: Precise micro motion because you can move it 1 millionth of an inch and it'll listen and you can move it 100.
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: millions or like 0 .01 micron or whatever.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And they usually have a strain gauge attached to the side too that measure feedback of. the growth and you calibrate that and now you have a stage that can not only move almost nothing distance, but it can move smoothly and consistently.
John Saunders: Yeah, that's cool.
johngrimsmo: and the input is literally a 0 to 10 volt signal. So. a raspberry pi can just tell it to move.
John Saunders: Yeah, so easy. Sure.
johngrimsmo: So I bought this from a company called PI, Precision Instrumentique or something like that. And they make all the best piezos this probably came off of zygo for all I know. Um And it's a little tiny square flexure with a piezo inside. And as that... the piezo is tilted at an angle so as it expands the flexure like moves up
John Saunders: Oh interesting.
johngrimsmo: And I'll definitely get some close -ups of video at once I have it powered up. And then... to your point of uh leaving a project in a good starting point. Now that I've gotten it and now that I've.
johngrimsmo: previously already done a bunch of research on how to like or it It came with a circuit board that. was pulled out of a machine. with like
John Saunders: Oh, it's used. it really
johngrimsmo: It's totally used.
John Saunders: Interesting.
johngrimsmo: I think used, i got I got it for a hundred bucks. It's just a killer deal. It's probably like 5 ,000 new. But anyway, the circuit board is like some OEM. click in install thing i'm like where do i even put Do I put 5 volts, 12 volts, 20 volts? I don't know.
johngrimsmo: And so I'm sitting there with chat for like hours and hours, just trying to figure out, okay, tracing all the wires, looking at all the components, typing in all the part numbers. And we eventually figured out, I think it was 12 volts into these two wires.
johngrimsmo: We don't know what that third wire does, but leave it alone for now. And then the output. Here goes to the piezo and I was able to get it working
John Saunders: Okay. That's insane.
johngrimsmo: And it's super cool. And I didn't have a zero to 10 volt adjustable source. at this time
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: But, uh... i was like hmm what do i have that's zero to ten volt in variable sources i have AA batteries.
John Saunders: batteries, yeah.
johngrimsmo: I have dead AA batteries. I have nine volt batteries. I have dead nine volt batteries.
John Saunders: Right, right.
johngrimsmo: So I had like, like one volt, one and a half volts and seven volts and nine volts.
John Saunders: like everyone in the family is holding batteries back to back to get like one half three volts
johngrimsmo: Literally, literally. Yeah, I was like, kids, check this out.
John Saunders: ah
johngrimsmo: And I was able to get it to move. And the whole thing moves only 100 micron. which is like 4 ,000.
John Saunders: It's insane. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So the thickness of your hair is the total movement to this. But I could tell it was moving because it like clicks when you plug power to it. And the strain gauge gives a variable output of voltage.
johngrimsmo: So I was able to measure that. And I'm not at the point of logging it yet, but I'm at the point now where it's like, if I can just feed it zero to 10 volts accurately, and I can now. read the strain gauge to a Raspberry Pi and then I can document all this and put a indicator on it and like calibrate it and all this stuff.
johngrimsmo: I have a working solution. so re -watching Cyrus' latest interferometer video.
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: He built his upside down, so... Okay. He has a zygote interferometer, but with no piezo stage. so he bought this piezo thing and put it under the park. So he's lifting the part up.
John Saunders: Okay. Okay.
johngrimsmo: as opposed to the microscope objective up and down like most systems do.
John Saunders: Mhm.
johngrimsmo: And I was like, oh, that's really clever. And then like a day later, I was thinking about mine and I was like. I could make my old interometer my first interferometer, the one that sucks. great just by putting this new piezo underneath it.
johngrimsmo: and like put a part under it and lift up the part.
John Saunders: okay
johngrimsmo: so That would be a way to get actually useful scans out of the first system. Um, while I'm building and planning and improving the second system. So I could do that. Like my parts just came in today, my electronics parts.
johngrimsmo: So like in the next few days I could actually have. actual real good results from the first system which is like super exciting and if i have that then i can fine tune the software and i can get that working better and
John Saunders: Hmm.
johngrimsmo: I'm like stair -stepping this project until everything delivers. and then I have a lot of work to do.
John Saunders: awesome
johngrimsmo: It's exciting.
John Saunders: Dude I love it. It's gonna be Awesome to have that.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: What is... um I was going to say. I lost my train of thought. Um. Yeah. Cool.
johngrimsmo: You had a lot of things on your list. but
John Saunders: Well, it's like you didn't ask my opinion but like Part of me wants to be like, dude. I love getting the old one up and running and like. video as well like i'd love a video oh that's what i was gonna say was your video but um Part of me is also like, dude.
John Saunders: full so Full focus on the new one. Sorry, like, dude, make it. make it work.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: um Now, if you if you parallel process and get software development, maybe. whatever you um i'll just give you a shout out love the video dude on the the high feed mill and the fiel flooring really like if anyone's if anyone hasn't watched it
johngrimsmo: Thank you.
John Saunders: uh it was an excellent video and i hope a taste of what's to come
johngrimsmo: Yes. Yeah.
John Saunders: Good. Great.
johngrimsmo: And... workflow wise for us that was me sitting down from like an hour maybe two hours doing the cam stuff um filming that and then a quick the next day a quick like intro outro thing
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And then Ryan did everything else with the footage of the machine and the editing and all that.
John Saunders: That's awesome.
johngrimsmo: And I just watched one review. I had no changes.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And it was awesome.
John Saunders: Oh, that's what I was going, sorry.
johngrimsmo: so It was good, good workflow.
John Saunders: You had mentioned. the you found this piezo from a company doesn't matter and made by this like How are you researching these days? Is it Google? Is it chat? Is it?
johngrimsmo: Chat GPT.
John Saunders: blog post. Okay.
johngrimsmo: Pretty much everything, yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah, so it's just it's telling you vendors and options. and so forth.
johngrimsmo: Yep. And then I do my own further like deeper research past that.
John Saunders: Yeah. sure Yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: But it's like. yeah give me the top five suppliers for this because if you go to google you'll just get all kinds of
John Saunders: Isn't it funny?
johngrimsmo: global industry is like crap.
John Saunders: We are sure. sure sure team yeah timo has a or whatever uh uh what's the what's the yeah um
johngrimsmo: And like... you know. Yeah. like No.
John Saunders: Have you used any of the quote unquote research modes of like a quad or cursor?
johngrimsmo: Um... in cursor, but not so much for. this kind of stuff.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: Explain.
John Saunders: well when Before IMTS, I realized... I really wanted to do enough homework. front -loaded homework to know what questions I wanted to ask the bar feeder companies.
johngrimsmo: That's what it's all about.
John Saunders: And so I. went into the research mode of chat. And I had done some.
johngrimsmo: In.
John Saunders: research on the research thing before.
johngrimsmo: In chat GPT, huh?
John Saunders: No incline, I believe.
johngrimsmo: Okay, claud because i don't I don't do cloud yet.
John Saunders: um And this was in Claude. Well. i don't I really don't want to make it sound intimidating because I don't want people to not. Try this. It was in the VS code. Claude.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: code integration so i'm in like a like the black vs code text terminal i believe you can do the same thing in the desktop app of Claude. If you switch over at the top from chat into code.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: But um I said. something like, please prepare prepare a... Oh, I did two different ones. I'll keep it short. One is... I want to know everything about building a barbed head mill that can include and relate to the control of bar feeder as it relates to the machine tool itself integration Um,
John Saunders: et cetera. That was like one. report, which is really what I'm after is the barfhead mill side. I did a second report, which was like, you're, you are a um Senior mechanical engineer at a industry -leading bar -fed company, and you're welcoming 10 new mechanical engineering interns.
John Saunders: and your first week of training, you're giving them ah a presentation on everything they need to know about how a bar feeder works.
johngrimsmo: That's interesting.
John Saunders: Because I don't know if we have them, but like...
johngrimsmo: Bye -bye. Huh.
John Saunders: Like how do you bar how do they clunk in and out and was it push or pull? and Is it colostyle? Is it guide bushings? Is it is it hydrostatically floating the bar? or Is it the dumb pusher like just explain everything? presupposing that I'm intelligent enough to like know.
John Saunders: what screws are and so forth.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: and it um both instances ended up creating um it's actually a web page output i thought it I think I asked for a Google slide, but it was like, I'd rather do a webpage. I was like, okay, fine. And it was like 20 sections that I could hyper. click or you know, like hyperlink click through.
John Saunders: um Freaking great.
johngrimsmo: huh
John Saunders: John and Greet.
johngrimsmo: No, I like that that type of prompt where it's like you're you're giving it... um Give me a presentation and here's who's coming.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And I can't say I've ever done it like that, but that's that's cool.
John Saunders: Yeah. um My list. I can bang through these quick. um I wanted to give a shout out just on how happy we are with our UMC 400. It's been running production of our puck chucks, and then we needed to stop and switch over to make a new set of hard jaws. Actually, fun fact, we blew up a...
John Saunders: We blew up a... A2. hard jaw that we We bought the A2. We... machined it we hard milled it we hard We heat treat it, then we hard melt it. And we think.
John Saunders: What do we think? Oh, we had a real thin. thinner section than we should have so it's kind of like our design fault but you know when you break carbide and it looks almost like It almost looks like Plato or like.
John Saunders: plastic a gray shiny plastic it looked like that which is just trippy to see
johngrimsmo: Okay. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Interesting.
John Saunders: So grant Actually. to credit of our own product line the puck chuck on the umc allowed us to switch out the podcast production over to a. uh self -centered advice. Grant Rehard milled.
John Saunders: a remilled A2 tool steel to make a new one and the finishes off of it and and the tolerances we needed were like spectacular. um So I just want to say I'm happy with that. the other funny one though is um I plugged in a new.
John Saunders: Poe router because we're using a lot of these Poe cameras for home assistant throughout the shop
johngrimsmo: Power over Ethernet.
John Saunders: Yeah. It just means you can plug in. these these web cameras, which are a hundred bucks and you don't need a 110 outlet.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: Just the ethernet gives you power and it obviously connects it to the network. Super nice.
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
John Saunders: And we've done quite a few of them. And I plugged in. um a new PoE switch because you need a PoE switch to inject the power. A PoE doesn't work unless you have a PoE switch somewhere.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: feeling it
johngrimsmo: like anywhere, like one switch somewhere.
John Saunders: No. has to be the switch that feeds into the PoE device, I believe. um And. short version was I spent almost two hours effectively panicking because our network went down slash intermittently was up and down.
John Saunders: John, i was I wasn't freaking out, but it was like one step below freaking out. I didn't think we got hacked, but like FTP servers were up and down. IP addresses were like getting reassigned to machines. computer Some people had internet, some people didn't. Like it was the weirdest thing. I'm like in Ubiquity and Unify trying to figure it out. And I'm like.
John Saunders: Again, I'm like what is going on? This doesn't make sense and You know what I did?
johngrimsmo: What?
John Saunders: I had set up the PoE switch previously just to test it. by plugging the PoE switch into the switch. that we were going to replace. Well, then I was ready to so replace the switch.
John Saunders: And I plugged. that Ethernet cable. Both ends of it into the new switch and created a loop
John Saunders: and an unmanaged switch, which like... i mean i don't know why i don't think we will ever use managed switches they're quite more involved i think most of the switches we see around are unmanaged An unmanaged switch does not handle a...
johngrimsmo: okay
John Saunders: the Ethernet loop very well.
johngrimsmo: A loop. Oh interesting.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: It's always something silly.
John Saunders: Right?
johngrimsmo: And then when you fixed it, everything went back to normal. All the IPs were the same. and
John Saunders: Oh, it was comical. Well, I honestly know it was a little bit of a nightmare.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: But I will report you to that.
johngrimsmo: Foof.
John Saunders: We got it. work We're good now. Yep.
John Saunders: What's ah what's in your list?
johngrimsmo: um i mean last thing is a little flashlight uh
John Saunders: Oh yeah.
johngrimsmo: excitement. So I spend my Saturday Completely obsessing about flashlights. So as you know
John Saunders: Uh -huh.
johngrimsmo: I've been wanting to make a flashlight for 10 years I bought my Nakamura.
John Saunders: Yep. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: to also make flashlights 10 years ago.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Haven't made one yet. Very happy with my Prometheus light that's in my pocket. Um got to hang out with him when I went to california. He took me flying like
John Saunders: It's awesome.
johngrimsmo: It was amazing. um In the. this white light interferometer process learning about leds and lenses and and collimating light and then playing and diverging and converting all this flashlight stuff I'm like, I know one of these days it's going to bite me and I'm going to like really want to use this information to build a flashlight. That happened on Saturday.
John Saunders: ah It was precisely 8 .47 in the morning.
johngrimsmo: it yeah It literally was. you know The girls want to go antiquing. I'm like, okay, I'll come, but I'm thinking about flashlights the whole time. I found a box of microscope parts at the antique store and I was like looking through them all.
John Saunders: It's awesome.
johngrimsmo: Um, Yeah, so I did come up with a really interesting idea for how to... make a flashlight that's you know different than most. because The reason I haven't made one in 10 years is because like I don't want to make just another flashlight.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: I want to do something a little different, a little fun. so I've got an idea. It's not the first time it's ever been done, but it's certainly more rare. Wait. Interesting. So some of the Thorlabs cart.
johngrimsmo: is part of this.
John Saunders: Oh. Interesting.
johngrimsmo: and it ties to some other stuff, and I'm going to keep it secretive for now. but um Let's just say I'm i'm getting excited.
John Saunders: Well, I like the teaser. I'm a proud of EDC to flashlight for over 10 years now. without exception.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: and um I will say you should create an email signup list for Flashlight News because I will put myself on that list right now.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Yes. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Good to know.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, just for fun last night because I have my notebooks that I use all the time. um I started writing a little, you know, one, two, three, four, five. um tally marks for the amount of times I pull up my flashlight.
John Saunders: Yeah. Okay.
johngrimsmo: in a day.
John Saunders: Oh. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Because I carry a flashlight, I carry a knife. The pens have obviously decimated the usage lately because my notebook usage. but um
John Saunders: Uh -huh.
johngrimsmo: I was like, knife or flashlight? I asked Leif. I was like, which one do you think I use more in a day? And he goes, knife for sure. I'm like. I don't know buddy.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I think it's probably like five to one flashlight. um So last night. since 7 p .m. I used my flashlight seven times.
John Saunders: Yeah. ah believe it.
johngrimsmo: And I'm like.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: you know only once today so far but days young I use it all the time.
John Saunders: Well, it's my ah My wife probably knows this is coming because she now listens to the podcast, but she makes fun of me for carrying a flashlight. I will tell you, my but my buddy that got me into it, who's very funny, so it's funnier hearing this come from him. He's like, ends up it gets dark every night. um But. ah I use it. shocking about.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, even in the daytime. even
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: at home at work.
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: look under your car like
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: All the time.
John Saunders: Yeah. yeah and the only The only other thing that's fun to share for me as a dad is twice, I think, in my life, I have used the flashlight in a night, quasi -emergency, not emergency, but like...
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Something was going on. My kids were lost. You couldn't find me, but I could see them. And you bump that flashlight up in the sky.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: boom you're you are
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: Good to go.
johngrimsmo: They know you are.
John Saunders: um
johngrimsmo: Yep, exactly.
John Saunders: Actually, this is a super stupid story, but we were getting off a flight last month and. We had to bag check. or gate check because the carry -on bins were really small.
John Saunders: And so I'm waiting in the jetway for the bags to come off. with like 30 other people it's cramped in there. and And all of a sudden. the lights in the jetway go out. And I'm like, I thought like it lost power or whatever.
John Saunders: And without even thinking I whip out my flashlight and turn it on just because that's what I do ends up I was the one that backed up against the light switch in the jetway and turned it off.
John Saunders: So I'm the like, I got to take the loss on this one because I'm the like guy who inadvertently flipped the lights off. And then it's immediately like, well, I can solve this problem with my flashlight.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. You created and solved your own problem.
John Saunders: um Yeah.
johngrimsmo: That's hilarious.
John Saunders: um Yeah. Well, hey, speaking of solving problems, tip of the hat to Spencer Webb, reached out, recommended RoboKiller. as a phone spam app. I had tried Verizon's. built -in paid feature app called Call Filter and I had paid for Haya before. Both sucked. So I paid 130 bucks for a year of RoboKiller. I've been using it for a week and so far I am quite happy. It does take some setup time.
John Saunders: and you do lose like your apple visual voicemail and there's some other compromises it has its own voicemail but given how kind of desperate i was um so far really happy with with what it's doing.
johngrimsmo: Good.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: Good for you.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: Thank you Spencer.
John Saunders: See you next week.
johngrimsmo: See you next week man.
John Saunders: so good I'll see you.
johngrimsmo: Alright, bye.
John Saunders: Bye.
