Transcript
John Saunders: Good morning. Welcome to the business of machining episode number 472. My name is John Saunders.
johngrimsmo: My name is John Grimsmo.
John Saunders: Just two guys who geek out on... technology and I will say we entered this in the era of DIY forums before you almost before YouTube And we're going to end our careers where.
John Saunders: you know. AI is vibe coding. apps in ways that are just like.
johngrimsmo: That's happening now.
John Saunders: Unbelievable. Yeah, exactly. Right. Well, so I didn't mean to presuppose that we're in New Yorkers now, but like.
johngrimsmo: No, but...
John Saunders: you know It's just incredible, like the era we live in.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, it's I kind of flip flop back and forth as like this is the greatest thing that's ever happened and this is gonna be the end of all of us like
John Saunders: 100%.
johngrimsmo: Not the end, but it makes me wonder where is the value going to be for... human interaction to
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: Make stuff. that's we We love to make stuff. um And I want to always keep that. ingenuity and craftsmanship and skill. um Because to do what... any of us you me or our listeners do to a high level takes takes actual skill you can't just read it in the book you have to like be adept and you have to. put in the hours to like be good at it you know
John Saunders: yeah yeah and i'm like gonna talk about ai again today and it's on the I were embracing it all the while, but like. I also on a personal note, absolutely believe.
John Saunders: you know this could be Catac... come a little is like is that the word whatever catastrophic yeah like
johngrimsmo: Cataclysmic.
John Saunders: But. There's nothing I can do about it, so let's have some fun.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: um Did we talk about the like the cancer joke on SNL?
johngrimsmo: No.
John Saunders: There was some interview. They interviewed the. pretend ceo of anthropic and they're like we thought we heard that you can cure you know the ai elements will cure cancer in 10 years we also just heard that um it could end civilization in 10 years. And he's like, correct. Cancer will not be an issue in 10 years.
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
John Saunders: Um, So I don't, I, cause I know there are some naysayers. I don't like intend to be disrespectful. And frankly, I get it, but I'm also just like, look.
johngrimsmo: Totally.
John Saunders: You know, this is just.
johngrimsmo: it's It's not going away and it's amazing
John Saunders: Bucket.
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Okay, so I...
johngrimsmo: Although conversely, I've heard. um Like I was talking with this one guy at a knife show who is an electrician. and is just buried in work setting up data centers like like technician work kind of, you know, blue collar hands on work. And it's just there's so much business for it right now.
johngrimsmo: Um,
John Saunders: well part of my top on my list today is to shop renovations and
johngrimsmo: It's interesting.
John Saunders: Funny enough, there was a New York Times article on how Sherwin Williams is having trouble keeping up with gray paint. Because... because Because of hashtag data centers.
John Saunders: Like it's kind of...
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: it's Kind of funny, but not funny.
johngrimsmo: Right. Yep.
John Saunders: Yeah. What's on yours?
johngrimsmo: Um, interferometer. Big conversation. Uh, Foam update.
John Saunders: Oh interesting.
johngrimsmo: Bloom laser probing. edge detection. Um,
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: And that's it.
John Saunders: Ooh. I thought you said, oh, well, that sounds like there's some meat though behind them then. If you were...
johngrimsmo: there's so Yeah, there's the meat, yeah.
John Saunders: You're . Grimzo, I'm talking to the audience. Grimzo was enthusiastic before he hit record, so I'm i'm excited to hear. um My list is bar fed mill. major life update.
John Saunders: um MCP servers on home assistants. shop layout. AI photo recognition of parts. Markdown files to share projects and I think we're hiring somebody which I'm actually which is probably the most germane to the idea of business of machine union.
John Saunders: our roles so
johngrimsmo: For sure.
John Saunders: um All those are relatively quick. So kick it off because I know you were excited.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I mean, jump right into the interferometer. I've had a very busy week since I talked to you last and like massive successes. um And I've only posted some of it. um Let's see One of the key.
johngrimsmo: uh unlocks like i had two huge unlocks with the interferometer this past week aside from ordering all the stuff I need for the new one. um The first one was a piezo actuator that I bought from eBay.
John Saunders: yeah
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: And it came with you know a circuit board. And I have to figure out, does this take 5 volts, 12 volts, 24 volts? How do I even? make this. Move.
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: And then what kind of controls do I need?
John Saunders: You had mentioned you reverse engineered the board to figure out the voltage, right?
johngrimsmo: Exactly. Right.
John Saunders: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: So I did that a few weeks ago and then. on Thursday this past week. i i stayed up and I was like, I'm gonna get this thing. working Because I will need it working in the future. So now's the perfect time to do it. um And I was totally able to get it controlled. I had to wire up a breadboard with like a digital to analog converter and the Pico.
John Saunders: Mm hmm. huh
johngrimsmo: and all the signals and stuff and cursor was obviously instrumental in creating the communication codes that go on the Pico. but I was able to move this thing and it moves.
johngrimsmo: I think about 4 ,000. um I haven't calibrated it yet.
John Saunders: It's incredible.
johngrimsmo: But the cool thing is a zero to 10 volt input.
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: lets it move from zero to fourth out. or 100 micron.
John Saunders: Amazing.
johngrimsmo: And so you give it 3 .992 volts and it moves exactly this much. and more importantly it can sweep at a very consistent speed. whereas before i had a stepper motor with a fine pitch lead screw And trying to get a...
John Saunders: Mm -hmm.
johngrimsmo: magnet driven stepper motor to not cog. then be like super smooth is
John Saunders: Sure.
johngrimsmo: nearly impossible, even with feedback and closed loop and all that stuff.
John Saunders: Right, right
johngrimsmo: Yeah, and then you put the PSO on, you're like... Holy cow, this is... This is so great. So that was huge. And then the next day. I rewatched Cyrus's latest interferometer video.
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: And. Normally you have the piezo holding the microscope objective, move it up and down. What he did for his hack is he flipped it upside down. He put the piezo on the table and put his part on top of the sensor so he can move the part up and down by fourth out.
johngrimsmo: to get your fringes to sweep across the part so i was like well let me just try that now that i have my piezo working like let me try that to sweep the part and so i 3d printed a little bracket um adjuster screws and everything and It was all of a sudden like.
johngrimsmo: my crappy V1 interferometer. is all of a sudden... starting to give decent results.
John Saunders: Oh good.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. So like. Very interesting. um Fast forward a couple days later, I start getting really good results, but with a lot of noise in the signal. and
John Saunders: What do you mean by noise?
johngrimsmo: noise as in It's basically recording a 5 -10 second video of the fringes sweeping across the part.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: and the software algorithm looks at every pixel of every frame of video
John Saunders: Mm -hmm.
johngrimsmo: and measures light to dark. as the fringes s sweep across.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: which tells you basically height variation of the part.
John Saunders: Yeah. Mhm. huh
johngrimsmo: And there's a whole bunch of filtering. methods to do that. and um different ways to achieve that. And I could never find the right settings that would give me a clean 3D result.
John Saunders: Okay?
johngrimsmo: Um, So. And eventually I'm like, can't we just try? All of the settings? Like how many combinations could there possibly be? for all these settings. Let's just try them all.
John Saunders: Okay. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So. i go to cursor and I was like, can we just do a brute force test and test like 100 plus options And it comes back and he goes, there's only 54 actually. And yeah, let's do that.
John Saunders: But factorially, that's like end of time.
johngrimsmo: No.
John Saunders: Is that right? Okay.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, well, okay.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: I see what you're saying, but... um within reason. that's 54 options gave us all the answers we needed.
John Saunders: It's not that big a deal. Okay.
johngrimsmo: So I basically had a JPEG image times 54. And with the first one being my current results, which are terrible. and then all kinds of like noisy results drop pixels grainy And like three were.
johngrimsmo: Absolutely insane.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: like like so good and then i applied that to the video and uh
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I haven't posted this yet. but I don't know if you can see that
John Saunders: Ho! Dude. Is this Thor? Is that a set?
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: is a Look at that!
johngrimsmo: So I'll post this on Friday so you guys listening can watch it. um
John Saunders: It's playing a video now. Is that intentional?
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Oh, wait. wait Oh! Interesting.
johngrimsmo: So it's measuring the thickness of the plating.
John Saunders: Of ink.
johngrimsmo: on this calibration
John Saunders: Oh yeah, or not even. Oh, okay, so.
johngrimsmo: thing. And ah I'm measuring as 200 nanometers.
John Saunders: The plating which is like fingernail catching your fingernail thin i'm assuming
johngrimsmo: I don't even think you can feel it.
John Saunders: Okay. And the picture he just showed me made it look like a ocean cliff, like the sea.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: the sea
johngrimsmo: Yeah. yeah
John Saunders: like when the ocean drops off. That's insane.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: John. Good.
johngrimsmo: So good.
John Saunders: Oh, awesome.
johngrimsmo: So it's like actually really coming together. in such a massive way. And then I started getting. uh very excited and i started measuring other parts and i realized the limitation of my v1 setup is that it can only measure flat things anything with a curvature to it the the way the lens works the way my lighting system works it just bounces light in all the wrong ways
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: So it's great on flat parts like very very flat parts, but any machined part any domed part it's useless but the new one that i'm building will just be So good.
John Saunders: It'll handle that.
johngrimsmo: It'll handle that.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: And then I just yesterday, I rewatched a lot of the footage that I took at IMTS of all the interferometers there.
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: And I like. watched it again with with fresh eyes and I was like
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I'm so glad I filmed this because this is gold.
John Saunders: Yeah, right in that funny Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And I'm building you know relatively the so similar quality to what those machines can achieve. So.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Now that I've already placed my POs and I've got all the parts waiting, you know in the mail and I go back to see how those machines do it professionally i'm like oh this is in my future like this is happening
John Saunders: Well, so that's where we left it last week. And I think you were. Kind of him hauling on. whether to pull the trigger on the Thor labs car and then like, do you want to alter items in it and so forth?
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: So it sounds like you.
johngrimsmo: The next day after that podcast I placed the order. 4 ,900 US.
John Saunders: Awesome. Okay.
johngrimsmo: um for like 55 items, but totally worth it.
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um Yeah, very excited. So it's not here yet, but.
John Saunders: Dude. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Awesome.
johngrimsmo: Super, super excited.
John Saunders: That's going to be cool.
johngrimsmo: And then I posted last night, I bought an XY table. from ah when I want to mention it to you. Yeah, because I said I bought two.
John Saunders: the one in The one that got bounced?
johngrimsmo: One got refunded.
John Saunders: Yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: The second one came yesterday.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: And I. brought it home. Plugged it in. I'm like how much voltage does it take? I'm trying to read the documents online Turns out 24 volts. I think these are the two pins you know Don't get it backwards.
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: So i'm I'm like testing continuity between what I think is ground and the... the PCB board ground.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And okay, that's ground obviously and this goes okay. Yeah So 24 volts. And then. It's so simple because there's a USB plug on this circuit board.
johngrimsmo: And that USB to a computer talks. with serial protocol or whatever. and And they have a software you can download, the the board manufacturer. And I can just control the board. like give it 24 volts plug it into usb and it just moves And then this company, ASI, that makes these XY tables.
johngrimsmo: Beautiful work. Like this thing is aluminum, but it's heavier than you think. It's like three times heavier than I thought it was going to be.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: It's sturdy. um
John Saunders: Roll a pie.
johngrimsmo: It's got about six inches of X, four inches of Y. And. cross -roller guides and like Really, really good stuff.
John Saunders: Mm hmm. Feel stiff I assume period Yeah.
johngrimsmo: andco encoders yeah super stiff And what was I going to say? Their documentation is fantastic. and they have a whole documentation on how to program this, like what controls are needed.
johngrimsmo: to to do this. so
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: In one. prompt and one drag and drop of the PDF. I was able to literally create a motion controller in Grimmsmall Vision. that can now drive this.
johngrimsmo: xy table like perfectly
John Saunders: So you bought a table, but I would i guess I would think... A quote -unquote XY table would include... the linear rail components and whatever
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: so a motor with an encoder, but you still need to have something that. powers the motor and gives it the controller side of that right servo amps
johngrimsmo: Correct. And there's there's a huge circuit board that came with it.
John Saunders: So those are included.
johngrimsmo: Um,
John Saunders: that's part of it
johngrimsmo: It was included in the eBay purchase, yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah, go for it.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Cool.
johngrimsmo: But yeah, like a way over complicated circuit board. That's like.
John Saunders: Yeah, sure
johngrimsmo: you know 12 inches wide but all I had to do was give it voltage and a USB and it's like I tried to program a circle. um you know, just a...
johngrimsmo: I've been a one -inch circle and apparently the firmware on this board doesn't Except that...
John Saunders: Yes, sir
johngrimsmo: So then Chris was like, I'm going to break it up into line segments.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: 72 line segments is like... um Mm. But. realistically, I'm not moving in a circle. I'm moving. across an x maybe diagonally to y to the next row
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: and then so it's fine Doesn't matter.
John Saunders: the as usual wonderful uh pft live with spencer webb this past weekend had a gentleman i believe from scandinavia who has done some. vision type stuff as well. Quite cool. Always worth a listen.
John Saunders: And there was a story there. And I don't remember exactly what it was, but he had some. Similar to you, it wasn't an XY table, but it was a device or driver or camera, something that was USB.
John Saunders: and he wanted to run it on a Mac and it was only... Windows and he just gave AI the driver and it rewrote the driver for a Mac.
johngrimsmo: I'd say that.
John Saunders: John, what?
johngrimsmo: Easy. Yep.
John Saunders: Yeah, no, I know, but like, this is crazy.
johngrimsmo: I know. Yep.
John Saunders: Ugh.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. and And doing that yesterday, just drag and drop the PDF and said, here's what I want. Here's a screenshot of their. You know, button layout, it's not difficult stuff, but it's...
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: one prompt and it worked. and uh so the um that brute force testing i was talking about was the other huge huge win
John Saunders: Yeah, yeah
johngrimsmo: um
John Saunders: So we just did one permutation, create a picture, and then Justin made a picture, and then you you chose to review the pictures to pick the best?
johngrimsmo: I did both. I said, you pick your best. I'm gonna choose my best.
John Saunders: oh I like that.
johngrimsmo: um I'll show you. So here's my
John Saunders: Okay, I see the thumbnails. Okay. Yep.
johngrimsmo: right so you have like good ones bad ones i'll post this too so you guys listening can uh
John Saunders: Yeah. Oh sure. Shi shi shi
johngrimsmo: But these ones on the top are are what I was having before.
John Saunders: Oh wow.
johngrimsmo: and then you kind of find the best ones.
John Saunders: Yeah. it's It's so, there's so much like formal aspects in my opinion of like, well, I wouldn't like, that's a great idea. What I have thought of that, like. How do you think to do this stuff?
johngrimsmo: Yeah, how do you think? And exposure, share with each other.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um And it's like. The LLMs are fantastic because they can do what you tell them to and they can do some logic, like a lot of logic on their own too.
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: But sometimes you got to ask the right questions. You got to have the right problem and you got to like.
John Saunders: Right.
johngrimsmo: prompt it
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: to solve the problem problem creatively.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um, And that's where your creativity comes in to be like. Well, I i want this. llms just go sure no problem um i was watching a video last night on ai coding or whatever and and the guy was like software programming is basically free now he's like yeah you pay for the tokens but it's basically free so He was saying, us software engineers, we have to... um be engineers, not just coders.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: We have to engineer the software to make sure it's good and clean and safe. and does what the customer wants.
John Saunders: Did you watch that? of Salud. factory.
johngrimsmo: I saw.
John Saunders: video thing.
johngrimsmo: but half of it before i started falling asleep but it was interesting
John Saunders: Yeah. It was. I skimmed through it. And that's not to say it's not excellent, but the general idea that I haven't embraced and I probably should is building these workflows where. You.
John Saunders: have the AI evaluate its own work. we I know we had talked about this before, but it's the...
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: the i think the the blender example worked better for me is just a very lamest example of like hey blender i want you and through an mcp server connection with claude i want you to create a 32nd animated movie of a monkey swinging from a trees.
John Saunders: create five seconds of the wire frames and pass it to another agent that i want you to make that is a film reviewer, editor, whatever, or design critique. And if that person doesn't give it a better than a seven or 10, go recreate it.
John Saunders: So you create this. internal automatic ping pong of its own. evaluation that is different than the um call response that you and I probably as more. or beginners to AI, if you will.
John Saunders: Maybe we're not even beginners at this point, but you know what I mean? Where it's like, hey, do something, I'll just decide if I like it or not.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Okay.
John Saunders: And it's like, dude, let it.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: create his own reviewer.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: and iterate.
johngrimsmo: um Phil Butterworth was telling me, explaining this to me at IMTS because I asked him and I was like. what what does it mean to have like separate agents running and and reviewing the code and stuff and and he was saying um you give each reviewer its own set of instructions and prompts and you know you know nothing else other than
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: you know. how to read code. or other than how to research on the internet or other than.
John Saunders: Yeah. Yes.
johngrimsmo: um what looks good for this, whatever. And I still haven't really played with that to. kind of separate. the roles and responsibilities.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: But I mean these software factory guys as they call it are um
John Saunders: Hmm. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Finding very clever ways to use. these LLMs to like maximize their benefit.
John Saunders: When I had first heard about this sort of a thing, I naively just thought it meant like. people smarter than me with more resources had like a Mac mini over here and another Mac mini over here.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yeah, right?
John Saunders: And like, there's like setup and stuff I don't even know about. And I now realize, no, I literally think you just log on to Claude. and just tell it like, I want you to create two agents and do this like cloud code, I guess, but like.
John Saunders: As is so often the case, a recurring theme in my life has been overthinking stuff or not realizing it. Sometimes it's not. It may be as hard as you think. And that's it. I'm working on that stuff now that I should.
John Saunders: My big share this week is... I finally got the MCP. connection on home assistant working. And if you've used Home Assistant, you know that it's just annoying enough to be... Sometimes it goes great. Sometimes you're like, oh my gosh, this device ID is wrong or this YAML script is an error. It caused a different update here. That's frustrating. You probably saw this in the.
John Saunders: session we sat in with Nick.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: at Um,
johngrimsmo: I think that's my hesitation for even starting it.
John Saunders: and
johngrimsmo: It's just like another Raspberry Pi type. like situation where.
John Saunders: So...
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: So that's God. That's God.
johngrimsmo: Oh my gosh.
John Saunders: So as an example, what I'm doing now is it's like, okay, hey, home assistant, I have a webcam aimed at this room. I want. to you to tell me when a person enters the room and when a person does enter the room, I want you to put that footage.
John Saunders: prior to 30 starting 30 seconds per previously and as long as the person remains in the room I'm making up for it. for example, into a folder and email me a link to that folder and debounce it.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Like, don't alert me again. Alert me when that happens. Don't alert me again for another 30 minutes, like whatever you want to create.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah
John Saunders: Okay. It just does it.
johngrimsmo: Just done.
John Saunders: Just like done. done Yep. Bamboo, alert me when this printer... Like I have all the bamboos, they have a plugin. Alert me when these bamboos are finished, but don't alert me on these. Send me a screenshot of the print bed, like done. Like just.
John Saunders: i'm not trying to proletarize home assistant we love it i'm proud of how we're using it but like
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: The fact that this MCP server, anyone who's willing to do that. Full speed ahead now. on Home Assistant.
johngrimsmo: Would you say you're using Home Assistant more for camera and video integration or other types of sensors?
John Saunders: So. We have all of our machines hooked into it. Okuma's brother, there's Haas Fanuc. and they all have dashboards and home assistant and grant then yesterday vibe coded a windows taskbar light bar.
John Saunders: across his start menu that has every single machine with just red light yellow green. He did it in Lycus.
johngrimsmo: No way.
John Saunders: seven minutes and he ordered the hardware with an ESP32 because we all we both kind of agreed it actually is kind of better to have it as a standalone device.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah
John Saunders: And he's like, I think it'd be like 50 or 100 bucks. I'm like, do do not ask, proceed. um
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: So. it No, it is not just like security cameras. And then the last thing I'll... mention is I'm working right now with Home Assistant or clo actually. This side. This won't end up being home assistant, to be fair. It started that way.
John Saunders: but um to use a local Raspberry Pi hosted LLM to look at a picture of our top jaws and tell us when the engraving tool has broken. Because sometimes it chips in a way that even the brake detect Doesn't.
John Saunders: um Like it can chip on the side and we don't like how they look or something or stop.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: So basically it's we believe We looked at doing it through the Google API. um it should only be like 10 bucks a month in tokens which is which is okay but i kind of like the idea of just starting for free with a pie because it's so low
johngrimsmo: Yeah, interesting.
John Saunders: Over. calculation of overhead.
johngrimsmo: Is it one of those fancy pies that are for LLMs?
John Saunders: No. So I just.
johngrimsmo: Because there is one that, right?
John Saunders: There is and there are these um USB... accelerators, I think Coral, Google Coral was. a prior one they were like 80 bucks they got expensive because of what's happened I don't think I'll even need that here.
John Saunders: This is also though. This is a real use case for us, but it's also a gateway drug for... in the future Like, hey, I want the... one of the web cameras to look at our machine enclosure and like understand the state of the enclosure and. If you start to see chips building up.
John Saunders: you can alert somebody. I now think that that's very very doable.
johngrimsmo: Mm hmm. And that doesn't require a local.
John Saunders: Because...
johngrimsmo: locally hosted AI. Let's just... separate, right?
John Saunders: I don't know enough to offer like an educated opinion, but. i I don't love giving, I'm a little scared to give Claude my credit card and start buying API tokens. um So I'd rather just throw an $800 PC we have laying around at it.
John Saunders: if it's so
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: relatively So it's probably relatively low because things like the... the The... engraving parts that comes off. once, whenever. eight minutes or 15 minutes and the ma machine enclosure could be an ai analysis that's done once every 10 minutes so it's it's Quick.
johngrimsmo: I see what you're saying, though.
John Saunders: Simple.
johngrimsmo: it's it would run out. having having something running automatically for Ever, pretty much. like it would consume a lot of tokens.
John Saunders: Maybe.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Hmm.
John Saunders: It's just it gets me so fired up.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Well, congrats on the, sorry, bring it back. Congrats on the uh in laser. and Turforum.
johngrimsmo: Interferometer, no laser.
John Saunders: Thank you. Ooh, okay, white light in front of her.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Is that right? Okay. Great. That's awesome.
johngrimsmo: Which mine will be green, not white.
John Saunders: That's funny.
johngrimsmo: I actually had a note on one of my... document with my notepad documents for like months and I didn't look it up yet because I wanted to try and figure it out myself called Why Zygo Green?
John Saunders: oh
johngrimsmo: Because the Zygo... company, the interferometer, the one I saw at current, it had a green light. And I'm like, it's called white light interferometry. Why is theirs green?
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And I wanted to see if I could like. Come up with the answer on my own through my own experience without just Googling that answer and asking for it. And eventually I figured that I actually asked the guy at IMTS, the Zygo guy. I was like, why is it green?
johngrimsmo: And he said the band of wavelength, like green is 532 nanometers, but. you know, an LED might make a plus or minus 40 band. of that number. Whereas white light is more like.
johngrimsmo: two or three hundred nanometers of of wavelength width. um And that's where you get into things like coherence length. The the white light is. different the green lights different lasers very very finey um Anyway.
johngrimsmo: Green is.
John Saunders: I...
johngrimsmo: Better than white. But you... You can go too far. Um, It's actually about filters from Thorlabs. Get it. more specific. But... Good.
John Saunders: I now think you've reached the point where you don't realize how much you've learned.
johngrimsmo: I have learned a lot. and i
John Saunders: Cause like now I'm like not following you.
johngrimsmo: I'm getting to the point where...
John Saunders: Eh, eh.
johngrimsmo: I can start to confidently talk about it. you know
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Because as much as I read until I do it until I get my hands on it until I like break stuff and do it wrong then it's just regurgitating things I thought I read.
John Saunders: Sure.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um But now that I'm doing it, I'm. It's really starting to click.
John Saunders: Awesome.
johngrimsmo: And it's like. So cool. I can't wait to start showing. the cool things that I will be scanning. and I will show them a lot.
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: So i'll I'll be very proud of this.
John Saunders: I'm excited.
johngrimsmo: I was explaining it.
John Saunders: How long did it? Good.
johngrimsmo: I was explaining this to one of my neighbors. I was like, i've I feel like I've earned this, you know? I'm i'm ready for a real interferometer because like this is good. What are you going to say?
John Saunders: How long would it take to Thorlad sample? you you You get the sample, you carry it over, you hit a button.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: How long does this all take?
johngrimsmo: once ah the part is in focus and like the right adjustments.
John Saunders: Mm -hmm
johngrimsmo: to get the fringes to show my current microscope takes me about an hour to set up because everything's a minor tweak.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: Like I put a new part on there. I'm so i'm dicking around with it for an hour. to like to like tilt it and adjust it and length it because my first ones crappy like that.
John Saunders: Yeah. Okay.
johngrimsmo: Um, But the ones that I saw at the show and the goal for my new one is. You're probably adjusting within 30 seconds. at most.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: and then uh The scan takes... probably about five seconds. so it records a five second video of the fringes sweeping across the part and then my calculations take
John Saunders: Mm -hmm. huh
johngrimsmo: 10 to 40 seconds give or take.
John Saunders: Yeah, it's quick.
johngrimsmo: which is quick, it's quick.
John Saunders: It's it's not like a 30 minute.
johngrimsmo: No. No.
John Saunders: You know mr MRI scan or whatever
johngrimsmo: Okay. No, exactly.
John Saunders: Thanks.
johngrimsmo: So it's quick.
John Saunders: Yeah, cool.
johngrimsmo: Yep. and then with that xy table i'll be able to stitch images together so i'll be able to like that will take longer to calculate but
John Saunders: Um...
John Saunders: Yeah, right.
johngrimsmo: That's gonna be so cool
John Saunders: That's almost like an image stitching. algorithm that happens before it just passes it to the
johngrimsmo: yeah It depends on when you stitch it.
John Saunders: the
johngrimsmo: ah I'm not sure. Because you're taking videos, not photos.
John Saunders: Mm -hmm.
johngrimsmo: Um, But it's... I haven't gotten there yet, but I'm very confident that it'll work.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And actually one thing I want to do that I think is kind of unique because these microscope lenses can see. the The two times lens can see about three millimeters. which is tiny eighth of an inch is all I can see.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: and the 10 times lens can only see It's like 50 thou or something.
John Saunders: Crazy.
johngrimsmo: like a 20 thou is what it is. So I can only see a 20 thou square. um at a time so if i want to stitch i'm stitching those things together but what i think i would like to do is
John Saunders: Yeah, it's a lot.
johngrimsmo: Get it in focus and then literally Sweep it. Side like with the XY table sweep it and then down and zigzag and just record a video of the plane of what we're looking at.
johngrimsmo: and kind of Paint a picture. of the whole zone and log xy position
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: So now I have... a zoomed out photo of the whole part You know what I'm saying? Does it make sense?
John Saunders: I do, yeah, sure.
johngrimsmo: and then it's not a live feed anymore but i can click on an area i could draw a circle i could be like scan this whole area and it can x y go back to there and then do that whole part i think that'll be
John Saunders: That part? Yeah, sure.
John Saunders: this
johngrimsmo: Like really cool.
John Saunders: This is the Datron.
johngrimsmo: Kinda, yeah.
John Saunders: like draw a circle in this area. Like here's where I want you to go do this work.
johngrimsmo: Right.
John Saunders: Yeah, sure.
johngrimsmo: So I'm basically painting a picture from all these microscopic views. Not for measurement or anything like that, just for reference. And then I just go over here and I do a circle and be like, scan everything here, figure out your own Z height, figure out everything else.
John Saunders: Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: and
John Saunders: maybe you have a secondary camera that. So how you get them... co lined up enough or calibrated enough so that it just shoots the quick picture and
johngrimsmo: That's true. Maybe. Hmm.
John Saunders: Hmm.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, maybe I'm sure you could. but
John Saunders: Dude awesome.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, so anyway, that's my that's my rant. I'm very excited.
John Saunders: Another great AI win is part of my apology to everybody. So we've had viewers reach out over the years saying that there's a high -pitched noise of some sort.
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
John Saunders: and this is the perfect storm of Um, My hearing loss, I don't hear in that frequency range. And. There was...
johngrimsmo: Can't say I've heard. anything really.
John Saunders: Well, buckle up. thing you maybe you Maybe you need urinates too.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, no surprise.
John Saunders: um So other people in the shop hear it. And so I thought, okay, let's stop. And so we had some questions about like, is it an audio effect, like ground loop, cell phone, blah, blah, blah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I remember you talking about it.
John Saunders: And. so So I logged into Zencastr, downloaded our two... um MP3 or WAV files separately because it uploads them and keeps them as separate tracks. Because there's this question of like, is it Saunders or is it Grimsbaum?
johngrimsmo: yeah Yep. Yep.
John Saunders: And. f At first, it was funny. At first, LLM was like, I couldn't possibly do that. don't know how to. handle that And then I was like. I'm ignoring you. I started a new chat and i in cloud code. I'm like, here are two MP3 files. Here's this pitch noise. Tell me timestamp where they are.
John Saunders: like Instead of like asking if it could, I was just like, go do this. And it responded back and it. told me where they are. And it's in my clip. and then um i asked for it help identifying the source it did not answer that but um yvonne and maybe alex somebody here was just like it's the whistling effect when one of our four.
John Saunders: fixture plate CNC machines as drilling holes.
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
John Saunders: So it's either a cool through coolant or a whistle or a clean cycle of some sort so that explains why it's not It doesn't happen every podcast because we're not always in a drilling cycle.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: um
johngrimsmo: I mean I've certainly heard guys blowing off parts.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um I think that's what I think it is, but. Yeah.
John Saunders: And it may not. ah maybe i'm slightly wrong on something but it's it's we believe now on my end from our machines blah blah so i'm not totally sure what to do because this room is we When we built this room, it does have more sound stuff for privacy and so forth than the other rooms. but um obviously it's not good enough but um I wanted at least to let everybody know we're aware of it. If anybody is an audio guru and wants to offer me some suggestions, I'm not against it.
John Saunders: of like if i need to buy some acoustic tiles from my office, that's okay. John and I are not going to start running this podcast through filters post, right. I kind of speak for you here, but like, sorry, we're not.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, no.
John Saunders: um
johngrimsmo: It's a post and go kind of thing. like Nor are we going to spend a lot of money on our offices to make them all like blue red lights and fancy podcasty kind of stuff.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I did have a guy reach out and be like, where's the video of this podcast?
John Saunders: Whoa. whoop
johngrimsmo: Because I really want to watch the video of it. And I said, well, Sweet. We just...
John Saunders: We are here.
johngrimsmo: We don't really want to do that.
John Saunders: We could.
johngrimsmo: We could, but I told them the straight up.
John Saunders: I know. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I was like, I mean. We're not. I don't want to say like presentable, but like we pick our nose and stuff. It's like, it's you know.
John Saunders: Speak for yourself, John.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, sure. Yeah.
John Saunders: Good night.
johngrimsmo: um Yeah, I don't know.
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: We're just not ready to post it, but whatever.
John Saunders: Well. Uh... that may not be true on my end because i think we are going to potentially do a 10 -year shop overhaul um
johngrimsmo: Okay. Cause it's been 10 years. Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah, actually more I'll leave it at that for now um
johngrimsmo: Cool. Interesting.
John Saunders: But, um... We might do like a whole renovation Yeah, should be kind of crazy. So that's the other AI uses like I gave clawed are as -built drawings from 1991 of the building being built and just put them in a folder. Claude recreated the whole building infusion. I gave it our office requirements. I gave it our machines. I said, start drafting me various different iterations. I said, pull in best practices of shop layouts.
John Saunders: PDFs, case studies, researches, safety. uh forklift stuff like just like find everything you can that would relate to how people should design and build machine shops lighting we want to add natural light like Just. and And it just does all of it. And it started to give me.
John Saunders: sketch iterations. Let's do 2D first before I have the... waste the time trying to build 3d versions of it i'd like to then have it create 3d models of the shop we could then even put ah an oculus headset on and walk through the new shop office area um Yeah. It's going to be awesome.
johngrimsmo: dude
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: okay You're not going to need that 3D printed. like box anymore
John Saunders: No, it's it's like full speed ahead.
johngrimsmo: Okay, interesting.
John Saunders: We've been using it a ton. I started printing I printed uh our pallet racking i've printed pallets of material now i should show you a picture of it it's like here hold up
johngrimsmo: post post it on Instagram.
John Saunders: Yeah, I will.
johngrimsmo: Just do a little walkthrough, but oh, look at that.
John Saunders: but you can see it. so you're over there you can see the pallet racking the forklift
johngrimsmo: Okay, yeah, yeah.
John Saunders: um
johngrimsmo: You got a whole table dedicated to it.
John Saunders: jib cranes
johngrimsmo: I love it.
John Saunders: Yep. Yeah, it's been. It's been. Super cool. And we're, to be fair, we're also have engaged with an architect. um But architect's a friend. um I say that in the sense that like I had. sent him We were trying to figure out some of the structural things about the building and I just asked chat.
John Saunders: after I uploaded the 1991 kind of poorly scanned Asbill drawings. And it gave me these answers. and I know this guy well enough. i wasn't worried about it but again some people i can understand are offended if you You send a professional. architect some drawings and you're like, but I wasn't sure about this and so AI told me this is what it's done.
John Saunders: yeah It can be kind of a chafing.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah
John Saunders: especially if it's wrong. And his response was the opposite. His response was like, oh my God, we're trying to figure out how to use it better. I didn't realize that. it can read 30 -year -old PDFs and come to conclusions citing Three different.
John Saunders: Like, it's just incredible. So it kind of felt good that you're like, okay, cool.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah and then he's got the expertise to look at that and be like garbage amazing you know like
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Well, congrats. that's That's very exciting.
John Saunders: Thank you.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Does that mean so Saunders Latheworks is happening?
John Saunders: What?
John Saunders: Ah. It is. not happening in such a way that it. is it'll be hilarious just
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Okay.
John Saunders: Yeah. actually Tip of the hat to, I just posted on on Instagram, Noah's shoot. I put it in our conference room to show it off. The golf, Noah's golf arc. or whatever it made a super cool challenge coin star wars stormtrooper and like fighting the tyranny of the lathe um I was like, yeah, I love it.
johngrimsmo: Amazing.
John Saunders: Yep. Sorry, thanks for indulging me on all that what's
johngrimsmo: Of course.
John Saunders: What's on your list next?
johngrimsmo: um Quick foam update. so um Probably mentioned a few months ago, we were... We bought a bunch of new foam, Zote foam. um to switch from the stuff we've been using for a few years that kind of gums up the cutting tools
John Saunders: mm -hmm
johngrimsmo: um We bought it. It came in. um then cutting it with clean fresh datron tools um they make this foam end mill that's like really polished and really really sharp and it's been cutting great
John Saunders: Yeah
johngrimsmo: It's fantastic. It just works.
John Saunders: Great.
johngrimsmo: Yep, so we've...
John Saunders: Love it.
johngrimsmo: we've We're playing with the tool path strategy and kind of speeds and feeds. and um foam's weird because you do everything backwards like you need to conventional millage you don't want to climb mill it
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: Um, And sometimes you want to. like imagine if you have a block of foam and you're doing a pocket to put your knife in it. We've learned that. profiling first and then clearing out the middle.
John Saunders: Oh, that's funny. then clearly So funny.
johngrimsmo: It's like so backwards.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Um, You don't do a skim cut at the end. like No, you don't do that.
John Saunders: Right. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um this foam lets us do a little bit more playing like that it will take a skim cut um except
John Saunders: Right right.
johngrimsmo: Say you're cutting off a 5 ,000 skin pass around the profile or whatever. it'll it'll cut it conventionally um but it it makes this like whisper it doesn't make chips it just makes a like you're peeling the cheese kind of thing like
johngrimsmo: What am I trying to say?
John Saunders: like stringy.
johngrimsmo: like a yeah like a string come off or like uh you're peeling a carrot and the whole peel comes off right
John Saunders: Wisps.
John Saunders: Mm -hmm.
johngrimsmo: And that whole peel of foam will wrap around the tool. at 12 000 rpm and then just start flapping around and then either
John Saunders: Oh sure, sure. Sure.
johngrimsmo: tear off your piece off the vacuum chuck or um
John Saunders: Ugh.
johngrimsmo: kind of melt the top end of the foam. so we're trying to manage those flappies. Um,
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: But otherwise. it's It's been going great. so
John Saunders: Good.
johngrimsmo: this strategy, but if, you know. rough this than that do this kind of stuff. But yeah, generally great results. That's good.
John Saunders: You remember those... cold air guns that I felt like were a thing like 10 or 15 years ago.
johngrimsmo: Hm?
John Saunders: I never see them anymore. Um,
johngrimsmo: I've seen them come up a little bit. Some people love them. but They're not like... the most prevalent thing ever.
John Saunders: Agree. And look, this is a dumb idea. It doesn't matter. But I'm like. obviously you're not gonna like freeze each piece of foam but i'm like i wonder if a cold air gun That's aimed. like right before the cutter, after the cutter, whatever, could... could give the film just a five percent increase in rigidity because of the lower temperature to help it cut shear better cut better
johngrimsmo: Hmm. Okay. It's interesting. We do have ah a gentle air blast on it, but... it's not pointed right at the tool and it's sort of in the general vicinity and it's a small airline so That's interesting.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I know. um I heard Marv talk or comment or something about. um have' you seen people use like liquid nitrogen instead of coolant to do the thing and he's like that is the worst idea ever because like at kern we're trying so hard to thermally isolate and control and like everything.
John Saunders: Yeah. No, but
John Saunders: Right.
johngrimsmo: And here you're putting. negative 300 degree air blast on the part what is that going to do to the tolerances to the casting like he he's like
John Saunders: It's buttoning.
johngrimsmo: Totally unsubscribe.
John Saunders: Yeah, it's funny.
John Saunders: My big update, which I... I probably should have led with because it's just it's a highlight of my life is.
johngrimsmo: i'm curious yeah
John Saunders: Machine Life is on Friday. I took a. Uh... I took this part.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: off of the brother as a
johngrimsmo: um
John Saunders: fully barfed mill part. I did not touch it. Um... So the OP1 happened between so if my hand is fist is the chuck the material was like right here and then it was supported on the other end with a pneumatic vise so it was kind of the bar was sitting in free air if you will supported on each end
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: That was the op one, which was post out of fusion in disclosure. I did MDI. the the current. transition part. I never touched the part with my hands. Obviously, because it's MDI, we will then be able to.
johngrimsmo: of course
John Saunders: That's it. automate that. but it rotated the part over, slid it into the pneumatic vice, reclamped it. you know, in the soft jaws. um zipped it off probed did the optu spindle gripper came in Senator Grover picked it up. Vice.
John Saunders: pneumatic vice open, lifted the part up and came over and handed it to me. So this went from five eighths inch round bar to a. finished prismatic part. with not anybody touching it, which is just awesome.
johngrimsmo: It's a Willimon. But it's a mil.
John Saunders: minus the B axis head.
johngrimsmo: Well, it has to be exercise. So it's a three -axis Willimon.
John Saunders: Which is which is a big deal Forward -ish axis, yeah.
johngrimsmo: for Four -ish, yeah.
John Saunders: Three plus one, Willeman.
johngrimsmo: You do have an actual rotary table, right? Like a fourth axis.
John Saunders: With a Brother T200 rotary, correct.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: Yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: um
johngrimsmo: Dude.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: I've been actually thinking a lot more about um either either part loading like that or robot loading or something like that. i'm I'm trying to make it work for me and my parts and what I want. I'm not quite there yet, but it's it's always good to see those wins.
John Saunders: Yeah. It is. i mean i already said it i'll repeat it it was just an absolute highlight for me and for everyone in the shop like we've talked about it for so long and now
johngrimsmo: Wow. Yeah, yeah
John Saunders: um It's happening. we It was such a win. We learned enough that we then threw those soft draws away. I need to make the next set to change a few things.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: So here's the oddly, because of the way we're doing it, we want the elegance of the design. so You picture a 12 foot part. The part has a sacrificial Um, front ah a sacrificial front and a sacrificial tail.
John Saunders: Right? What's the right word for that?
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: Yeah, front and tail, whatever.
johngrimsmo: Sure, whatever.
John Saunders: um And those... are to accommodate the kerf of the cutting tool for parting it off as well as the um the work holding at the front end of op1.
John Saunders: We want that patterned such that when you pull. Op 1 into Op 2.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: We are. One. workholding is already in place.
johngrimsmo: Oh. So you're through feeding it.
John Saunders: ends. Well sure are so it's already ready to go
johngrimsmo: Okay. can Does that work?
John Saunders: It does I had I sketched it out
johngrimsmo: Interesting.
John Saunders: and If I'm being like...
johngrimsmo: Okay, I can see it.
John Saunders: so
johngrimsmo: Yeah, okay.
John Saunders: I'm being super honest. I knew what I wanted and I threw it over the fence to Alex. I'm like, hey, you're the sharp young engineer. This probably isn't that hard, but I'm just. I'm not there right now.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: And he did a great job at. And then what's really cool is we color coded the fusion file in the components so we can sort of see it and understand it and it ties Awesome.
johngrimsmo: Mm hmm. Wow. dude Good for you.
John Saunders: Thank you. It's awesome.
johngrimsmo: Do you think this... um I guess soft draws and tooling is kind of the only... job setup between different um parts that you're making.
John Saunders: tooling we should be fine on for what we it's the 28 tool brother well actually this won't even be the machine long term for it but yeah um
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: It's sort of the Willeman thing.
John Saunders: For sure.
johngrimsmo: It's just like, oh, it's got all the tools and just put different soft jaws in a different program, maybe a different collet depending on material diameter. but
John Saunders: Yeah, correct. Correct. Yep. Yep the
johngrimsmo: It's good. Crazy.
John Saunders: this is a four inch long part so the pneumatic vise is quite far It's five inches away. We do want to move our Modvise washers over to it, which are only one inch out. So I do.
John Saunders: a couple ideas on how to solve that but the one more extreme option. Which honestly isn't even... that bad. I bet you will find a better way, but it's an option would be.
John Saunders: to have different pneumatic vices which are not cheap but different ones that are on puck chucks And that way you're just, I don't want to switch soft jaws. I don't want to have set up risk. I don't want to have.
John Saunders: first article inspections where you're actually nervous about it. Like we'll still do FAIs, but like it's more.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: It's more. cursory not like uh we'll see how they we'll see how they you know squared up this time
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yeah. So you hate lathes so much you're going to make a washer on a mill.
John Saunders: We already do.
johngrimsmo: in production.
John Saunders: We, so yeah.
johngrimsmo: On the Willamette.
John Saunders: Me. We... yeah we do make on the world yeah we used to make on yeah yeah
johngrimsmo: Are they using turning tools or is it all milled?
John Saunders: 100 % milled.
johngrimsmo: Is it really, actually?
John Saunders: Thank you
johngrimsmo: Good.
John Saunders: Yes, is we we do.
johngrimsmo: No part of offer.
John Saunders: I'll have to ask Grant. I've never. i
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: would Look, um i we joke a lot. We do a decent amount of turning. Well, we do a decent amount of turning, but the... For whatever reason. And you know me, I'm a cynic for like. The whole. joke tense all day bs but the willowman interpolates better than it turns
johngrimsmo: It does, yeah. because turn is a thermally variable, interpolating.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: is not depending on how you do it. um that's what we learned on ours like we are literally holding like one and a half tenths milled feature
John Saunders: Okay.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: All day every day. rarely ever scrap apart.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um that's outside of 10th tolerance
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: on a milled feature. um Turn feature is thermally dependent.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: Absolutely.
John Saunders: Yeah. You obviously have said the radial issue of your... having your machine accuracy if you will.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: And the one that's all like. sort of like soft stuff. Commentary the one that is real that I would sort of say is more legit criticism, if you will, is that the Willeman is not a great.
John Saunders: turning lathe in terms of long term lights out. reliability of chip breaking and
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
John Saunders: dumping enough horsepower into the cut to get done what you want to be done. I don't want to. mess up that spindle because we were trying to like
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: um Yeah, joking aside about that. it's that is a criticism of it
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: But. Yeah, so happy. It's awesome.
johngrimsmo: Dude. Good.
John Saunders: Yeah. So that's my last quick comment is, so Grant built a Fusion plugin for our UR robots that handles point to point. code outputs of this.
John Saunders: non cnc thingy whatever i don't even know God's with you. But Grant was like, do the sore for your spinal gripper. um Because I need code. I'd like to have an infusion where I can pick a like a joint origin or a sketch point and have the spindle grubber go here and go there.
johngrimsmo: a
John Saunders: and um you you can't do it with tool pass fusion just always wants to retract tools and um
johngrimsmo: Okay, yeah.
John Saunders: What I was doing now is I was grabbing coordinate positions and then moving that in i think this is a lot of what some folks have worked on with whatever patterns and stuff.
johngrimsmo: um
John Saunders: But what I think is really cool is. So Grant has this whole... quad code fusion. add -in on his cloud account in his work account and i haven't heard much from anybody about well How does John Saunders piggyback off of Grant's?
John Saunders: existing thing. Like I don't. like want to be in his account and we're not going to do this together And the best way I know, which is probably not the best way, is Grant just feeds it a prompt. It's like my coworker wants to. do a similar project please summarize this work in a markdown file, include all resources, internal or external, as needed, blah, blah, blah.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: And we've done that now quite a few times on projects. And sometimes it's just a simple markdown file. Sometimes it creates its own folder with. PDF resources, other files, other stuff. And so Grant kind of throws it over to the fence to me and I just.
John Saunders: ingested in the clod. a new cloud project on my side and it works great.
johngrimsmo: Perfect.
John Saunders: um Have you done it?
johngrimsmo: It does yeah.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: No, I mean, I've got... um ryan here working on gurp so he's in cursor he's doing gurp updates constantly now which is Awesome.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Past few weeks now handing that off to him.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: We've got our own separate projects that we work on in GERP, but he's like. Free as a bird now. He's like doing the craziest stuff and just loving it. So we just started doing...
johngrimsmo: branches from GitHub. I don't know if you're doing this.
John Saunders: Nice.
johngrimsmo: This is like my first time.
John Saunders: Yeah. asking for a friend what are those
johngrimsmo: sure Sure. As I understand, as of three days ago, because CJ told me to do it, was um you basically create like a little fork in the road of.
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: of Okay. I'm going to work on this project over here and then I'll merge it back in to main once it's all done.
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And being a solo GitHub user, this never mattered to me because I would just push to main like all the time. Now that we have two people, now that we have two projects going on, I was working on something that I didn't want to push to the...
johngrimsmo: to GitHub until it works. because otherwise it'll break buyer's choice.
John Saunders: Yeah, sure, sure.
johngrimsmo: So I'm like a week or two behind. Ryan's got 36 updates ahead of me and like I'm falling behind. and I needed to clean this up, so it took a while. but I think branching is the way to go um
John Saunders: So you can sandbox it, if you will. cause your github I guess that's what's weird.
johngrimsmo: In a way, yeah, exactly.
John Saunders: Your GitHub is like your live website where it's like...
johngrimsmo: It is, yeah.
John Saunders: for like
johngrimsmo: The main is yeah
John Saunders: I've been githubbing the telecentric vision project i'm working but nobody has like it's just me so it doesn't matter
johngrimsmo: Be right.
John Saunders: I see.
johngrimsmo: and And you're right, since we have, you know...
John Saunders: See ya.
johngrimsmo: hundreds of customers a week on buyer's choice. It's our live site. It can't break at this point.
John Saunders: Right. Sure.
johngrimsmo: so
John Saunders: That's cool.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, it is cool.
John Saunders: Was it hard to learn and get implemented?
johngrimsmo: it It took a few hours because my setup was messy before and I had. just stuff all over the place. Justin Gray set up some rules and stuff. And so I have to tie that into like, what is our future plan?
John Saunders: Nice.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: So a bit of tweaking, a bit of figuring out, mostly me just not understanding what I'm doing.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: and then uh It's still a little stumbly for me because I have to remember what branch i'm on i have to remember where i'm posting code to when to merge it back to maine all that stuff and i'm still learning but
John Saunders: You okay? Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Good.
John Saunders: Cool. Interesting.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: Um... What else?
johngrimsmo: That's about it for me.
John Saunders: Perfect. I've got to. one that I'll save save for next week, but we had a really good. Like. very high level practical conversations on long -term dimensional print tolerances of parts at Saunders.
John Saunders: that I'm actually really happy with where we ended up, but it's pretty raw. a pretty raw conversation about stuff. um well there's a good it's a good
johngrimsmo: Tighter or looser?
John Saunders: um More about.
johngrimsmo: Generally.
John Saunders: adherence without Like... I'm spoiling the end here, but like, let's say you have a tolerance that's. plus or minus half a thou.
johngrimsmo: Because you've always said this. You're like, well, it's out, but it's still good. like
John Saunders: but that Exactly. And and there's there's like, let's stop that.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Mm hmm.
John Saunders: or let's give a process or framework where.
johngrimsmo: I could see that.
John Saunders: Yeah, and so that's... I love where we ended up. It was sort of logical, but it wasn't obvious until we really went through a couple of weeks of back and forth.
johngrimsmo: Sure.
John Saunders: discussions around it.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: And we're in that kind of. role too right now where I mean, every tolerance we have U2 is made up. It's like it's for a reason, but.
John Saunders: Right.
johngrimsmo: we're choosing these tolerances and when the guys are inspecting parts if they don't
John Saunders: Right.
johngrimsmo: clearly know what those tolerances are. or what to visually inspect or whatever they're like i think it's good
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Or i I didn't know to measure that, or I don't. you said it was this six months ago oh we've changed it we forgot to you know
John Saunders: What I enjoyed about this process too was that it ties in. the, you know, machining and QC, measuring tools, hand tools, the ERP system, customer service, customer, you know, the brand's reliability, or or, you know, but then also just things like, you know,
johngrimsmo: mm -hmm
John Saunders: If I take a blade mic... you're gonna need a different measurement than if you take a mic that has a one inch anvil. So The fact that most of the world just uses... What's an anvil on a quantum mic? like quarter inch or six millimeters, right?
johngrimsmo: quarter inch yeah
John Saunders: Like that hasn't. that has an acceptably normal averaging aspect to it. And like, you're a great point. It's like your interferometer is not measuring like. you know, crazy undulations, which.
johngrimsmo: nanometers like yeah
John Saunders: i've On. in most cases are irrelevant to the end use of a traditional product anyway.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: I'll share more next week. It's good.
johngrimsmo: Cool.
johngrimsmo: Right?
John Saunders: See you next week.
johngrimsmo: See you next week buddy.
John Saunders: Just but
johngrimsmo: Bye.
