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5-axis CNC machining generative parts, low tool life troubleshooting & solutions, Fusion 360 Steep & Shallow feature, and Relieved Shank Endmills.
305 Plays6 years ago
TOPICS:
- 5-Axis Machining Generatively Designed Parts
- Tool life troubleshooting & solutions
- Steep & Shallow in Fusion 360
- McMaster Coolant Filtration Solutions
- Relieved Shank Endmills
- Shrink Fit, Set Screw, & Pull-Stud Extenders
SMW & MACHINING A GENERATIVE DESIGN PART
(Click Image to View Post)
In January, NYC CNC made trucks for a Datron longboard with a combination of 3-axis and 5-axis machining. However, they didn't stop there!
Gavin Bath from CADPRO Systems in New Zealand took the brunt of the work for modeling a generatively designed truck and now it's Saunders' turn to machine it! Today, he'll hit cycle start on his first true simultaneous steep and shallow toolpath. He also shares an important lesson about work coordinate systems.
No Rush on the Naks Grimsmo and his team settle into their new shop. Although the machines are up, the Naks still aren't making parts because of coolant line reconfiguration. Will they be forced to scramble or was it all part of the plan?
TORX KILLING TOOLS ON TORNOS The 17-4 stainless pivot screws are proving to be a challenge on the Swiss. Grimsmo's using the same process he's used for 5-6 years but the endmills are dying out after 35-60 parts! Saunders and Grimsmo troubleshoot various factors that affect tool life and possible solutions.
THE MENTAL TRAP - IS THIS YOU? When it comes to machining strategies, if you've ever found yourself saying, " But I want it to work like THIS," STOP RIGHT THERE! Saunders says, "Get the recipe working FIRST--even if you don't love it. THEN start tweaking it from there!"
REACH! When it comes to 5-Axis milling ensuring that you're able to reach occluded features is key. Grimsmo and Saunders discuss relieved shank tools, tapered endmills, and shrink fit, set screw, and pull-stud extenders.
Grimsmo + KERN = NEW Pocket Clip Supports Today, he's going to machine this part in 1 op but he's not quite sure which strategy to use for the curvy areas of the part. Saunders suggests either 3D Contour with shaft and holder detection OR Steep and Shallow.
SAUNDERS CALLS OUT ChipBLASTER When reaching out for coolant filtration solutions, he got nothing but poor customer service and people reluctant to give straight answers. With that, he sets out to find other options.
Grimsmo stands by his filter bag housing from McMaster. Click Here to See Part Number 5168K249
Adafruit Parallel While watching an interview with the CEO of Adafruit, one particular line strikes a chord with Saunders. It brings a new sense of clarity in terms of defining what SMW does.
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Transcript
Introduction and CNC Obsession
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the business and machining episode 160. My name is John Grimsmough.
00:00:05
Speaker
And my name is John Saunders. This is the podcast where the two of us talk about the CNC machines that we love running and the businesses that we've built and run that let us keep doing what we do, which is, I speak for myself here, absolutely love CNC machine, period. You know you speak for me too. I know, but I really do. I really do. I really do. Yeah. It's like an, I don't want to call it an unhealthy obsession because I think it's very healthy, but it's definitely an obsession.
00:00:34
Speaker
Yeah, and it's, I'm just so fortunate to have found something. Yeah, it is just the process of mixing computers with software with iron and precision components and cutting tools and this puzzle piece of tackling a part and the art of the strategy and the CAM and the toolpaths and measuring it is just, it's what it's all about.
Path to CNC Machining
00:01:01
Speaker
And it's, it's so fiddly and mechanical, which if I think back to my life, you know, as a kid, teenager and everything, I used to work on my mountain bikes all the time. I used to take apart the broken video camera just to see like why it's broken. Uh, it's, it's this fiddly mechanical nature, which now we make fiddly mechanical objects and it's just so cool. It is fun. We, uh, we are getting our, uh, I wouldn't say our butt kicked, but
00:01:31
Speaker
I think, okay, I will speak for you. You reach this point where you've got a level of confidence. Not that I've seen it all, not arrogance, but just confidence, and then you get experience. Oh, man, we're getting pushed.
Generative Design with CAD Pro Systems
00:01:45
Speaker
We're doing this generatively designed longboard truck.
00:01:51
Speaker
So we already did a widget on it. We built the trucks for that Datron longboard. And then Gavin from CAD Pro Systems in New Zealand, we were hanging out, I think at AU, and he was wanting to do a generative version. And I think he did a generative version on a three axis, not having access to a five axis. And I thought, hey, this is something I'd really like to
00:02:14
Speaker
play with, to be honest, not so much because of the generative, but also because it was a really good chance to make use of the holy grail of toolpaths, which is steep and shallow with some of its lead and lean as well as automatic tilting to basically give you a consistently good toolpath that can also take advantage of
Five-Axis Machining Techniques
00:02:35
Speaker
five-axis, not only to get better tool orientation from the cutting edge relative to the part, but also simply for the fact that a lot of times with five-axis, you've just got to tilt to get fixtures and work holding and tool holders out of the way. Steep and child can handle that, and I thought, this is awesome. Gavin, frankly, did a lot of the heavy lifting doing through the generative design process.
00:02:58
Speaker
to use the algorithms and computer data centers to design this part from scratch, which we have to have a video done on this by him because it's truly impressive if you kind of close your eyes and think about what it's taking a series of parameters and
00:03:15
Speaker
My understanding is it's not modeling a huge block and then removing material away subject to things like safety factors and material properties. So it's not a subtractive process in the computer algorithm. It's literally building up from nothing. You start with your data points where the wheels go here, the four bolts mounted here or whatever it is, and here's the load, right? Yes.
00:03:40
Speaker
and it fills in the gaps basically and says you only need this much to make your load safety rating. Right. Subject to the material, subject to are you doing this at a sheet metal, on a water jet, on a five axis, a 3D printing. I think this is a necessary step. It's an inevitable step.
00:03:59
Speaker
There's a fair number of complications. I don't think this is user-friendly. I don't think we'll be doing a training class anytime soon for generative design for normal job shops or normal industrial designers, because it's still pretty technical. But I have no doubt that Autodesk is tackling the harder parts of this and that turning this into some layman's more wizzy-wag system in the future would be, I think, a relatively easy step.
Machining Complex Parts
00:04:29
Speaker
not dissimilar from what they've done taking toolpaths like power mill and letting us use them in fusion and a relatively, I can teach somebody some fusion toolpaths in a matter of minutes oftentimes.
00:04:41
Speaker
Whereas, maybe five years ago, it was not quite so easy. Well, you just watch somebody use Mastercam or Powerheath and PowerPill, other software and you're just like, oh my gosh, I'm already well on my way to fine tuning this toolpath and you're still doing setups.
00:05:01
Speaker
Anyway, the part is, I mean, it's probably, it's like a Grimsmo level number of operations. I think it's probably 60 operations because there's just so many orientations and hidden features or occluded features. It's just, it's been on our Instagram. It's really freaking cool. Yeah. Yeah. I've been watching it.
00:05:27
Speaker
You're just repositioning it to get to different little areas that many times.
00:05:32
Speaker
Yeah, and there's roughing. There's semi-roughing. We're working the part. Yeah, and I've using a 1.8-inch ball end mill on a 6-inch YG1 extension because the table's tipped at B110. And literally, you can't. It's like, by far, the furthest reach and collision theory inducing. It's pretty cool, though. That's your full B travel, 110? Yeah.
00:05:59
Speaker
Yeah, mine too. Oh, really? That's a lot. Yeah. Okay. You wouldn't have the same issue because part of the problem is we're making a relatively small part. You've got your huge table. Yeah, exactly. Yours is what, 750 millimeter and mine's 350, I think. Yes, something like that. Still cool. No, yeah, it's still awesome.
Shop Setup and Efficiency Updates
00:06:20
Speaker
Next part out of titanium? Baby steps, young one. Yeah, it's fun though.
00:06:28
Speaker
The only thing I have to complain about is it's the first time where I've really found my computer to be under equipped. Oh, interesting. And I know Neil has talked about his computer building skills. And I think a lot of these components are not hugely expensive. So like, does it make sense to go get a $300 graphics card? Or can you still do? Like back in the 90s, I remember a friend had twin graphics cards. And I don't know if that's still a thing or not.
00:06:56
Speaker
But I'd love to throw some more horsepower at this because the compute times on rest machine adaptives or rest machining steep and shallow. Is there a rest machine steep and shallow? I don't want to misspeak. It takes a while. And is fusion just sluggish while working it, or is it just the calculation times? Just the calc time. OK, that's not as bad, but still annoying, I'm sure.
00:07:19
Speaker
Oh yeah. Well, and there's so many operations and things that I normally don't care about. Like I use comments to bracket the section of code that I'm currently running at the machine, because I'll go run three or four ops. And even when you drag those comments around, it can force regions, which is silly. Fusion doesn't know any better. And I've been protecting toolpaths, but even the process of protecting and unprotecting can be frankly time consuming.
00:07:44
Speaker
So you're pulling a fill by program one up, put on the machine, start running, program the next up. Oh yeah. Absolutely. That's out of the seven cities playbook.
00:07:57
Speaker
So anyways, I've been talking too much. How are you? No, it's good. Excellent. Things are good. Things are flowing really nice at the shop. Finally feel like we're in, moved in. All the machines are on now. Nice. Everything's just kind of back to normal and better, and then room for growth from here. So it's a good feeling. Yeah, Nakamura's running parts.
00:08:24
Speaker
It's not running parts yet, but we had to do a whole bunch of coolant line rejiggering just to do some additions, add some extra gate valves in the coolant drain system so we can maintain it much better. Oh, thanks. Yeah, those are a huge quality of life. Yeah, exactly. To the point where we just couldn't really drain and properly clean the coolant tank without a giant hassle, and now it's going to be easy.
00:08:55
Speaker
Yes, that's all. Yeah, that's well worth it. Yeah, so that was worth it. And it's good because before we moved, we stocked up on lathe parts. So we were not in any rush to get the lathes going, which is actually very handy because we just had so much other stuff to do during the move in the first month that the lathes were just not
Tool Life Challenges and Solutions
00:09:15
Speaker
a priority. And that's cool. I was fine with it. But now the stockpile is getting lower out.
00:09:21
Speaker
It's nice to have both the lathes going. So I've been on the Swiss a lot the past few days making these pivot screws for our knives. And they were kicking my butt for a while. Oh, yeah. Because I'm using the 20 thou end mill to mill the torx pattern, which I've been doing for five years, six years. And I get 35 to 60 parts out of an end mill, which is nothing.
00:09:52
Speaker
It's too little, but is that a change? On the Swiss, it's always been like that. On the Nakamura, I don't remember it being that ridiculously short. I feel like I used to get hundreds out of it. Are you using that speeder?
00:10:08
Speaker
I am, yeah. I was using it at 18,000 RPM, which I realized yesterday gives me 95 SFM. Oh my God, that's it? Yeah, and I was like, well, let me crank it up. So yesterday I cranked it up to 36,000 RPM, which is 180 RPM.
00:10:27
Speaker
I'm sorry, 180 SFM at 36,000 RPM. And when I left yesterday, I'd made 75 parts and the last one was still good. So that might've been a welcome change. This is titanium? 74 stainless. Oh, okay. So it's about 45 Rockwell. And what's the, actually, what's the brand of your spear?
00:10:54
Speaker
a May rat. Interesting. It's an electric spindle. It's an electric spindle. Okay. It's a brush. Basically. Right. It's its own, it's like a die grinder, but precise. Okay. What's your feed per tooth offhand? Two tenths, I think it is. You wouldn't think ... Because I can't ... It's so tiny, I can't tell it to go 60 inches per minute because it just won't.
00:11:24
Speaker
It's such small movements that the number on the screen as it's running just lags because it can't move that small, that fast. Sure. Changing directions. It's 20,000 tool, light, feet per tooth. Do you know your axial and radials? Axial's 45,000. Radial is, I forget.
00:11:47
Speaker
10%, 20%? Yeah, something like that. I mean, surface footage can have bands where it works better. And it's for sure if the tool is coded or there's other things you want to generate some heat to activate that. But generally speaking, regardless of all that, increasing your surface footage isn't going to increase tool life.
00:12:14
Speaker
Generally speaking. No. In fact, it should be the opposite. Really? Yeah. Well, I figured it would just get it to where it's supposed to be. Because I mean, I turn and otherwise mill this material at like 400 SFM or 300. Yeah. I wonder if the axial is too much. You're doing over two times on a small tool.
00:12:45
Speaker
True. The other big difference is going to be the way the coolant is hitting that. You've moved from a coolant to an oil. There's a chance that that's actually, I'm making this up, but is there a chance that the oil is actually not evacuating the chips as well or the hospital? The higher RPMs are, because the max you were running it on the knock was a 6,000 speeder sped to 18.
00:13:14
Speaker
Correct. But I think there was a lot of inherent vibration in that speeder with all the worm gears and all the stuff inside. Sure. Whereas the electric spindle is way smoother. Right.
00:13:26
Speaker
And you check right out on the tool. I don't actually. John. I normally do, but I just haven't in forever. Well, at least just check it once. I have in the past, but not recently. So yeah. The other thing that's totally different that I'd be curious to see, it'd be a little bit of a, ah, wouldn't even be that bad to program it would be to
00:13:49
Speaker
Plunge, rough it. So you drill out the center hole, right? Or mill it out? I do. With a big tool? Yeah, mill it out as big as I can with a 160 and flat. That's funny. And then you could program. We did a video on it. You just basically sketch a line. Actually, it'd be really easy. Because you could just sketch one line with points along it. You could pattern that. And you could use those points as drill points with that 20,000 mill. Yeah, I was wondering about that. I just worry about chipping the edges and therefore tool life.
00:14:16
Speaker
It's the same thing with doing two vertical passes. I don't want to kill the tip of the tool and then not have vertical sidewalls. Sure. But I haven't actually tried plunge drilling it, and maybe I should.
00:14:31
Speaker
Just a thought. I would definitely, again, a great example, somebody was asking for help, and they were making that mistake we all make, which is like, but I want it to work like this, which was, you know, fast, efficient, perfect. And I'm like, slow down, back up.
00:14:47
Speaker
Get it to work, even if you don't love it, and then let's start increasing it. So I would go to one times D. I would make sure you're at 10% or less radial engagement. Leave it at 18,000 RPMs, because darn it, that's how you run these things for years. And get it working, and then you can start tweaking. You said it perfectly. That's the classic. It works for me. I don't know if it's all machinists or makers or whatever, but it's like, but I want it to work like this. Right.
00:15:16
Speaker
I so fall into that trap all the time. Also, make sure your electric spindle is not running backward. Good point. Good point. No, I don't think I'd get past one part if that were the case. Or if you can, it's a really good tool.
00:15:31
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, imagine how many hundreds of parts I'd get if it was running the right direction. It's like your stir weld machining in the Torx pockets. Yeah. Yeah. That's why they look so funny. No, I did actually reprogram the Torx toolpaths because it turns out there were some weird moves in there that I was noticing because, yeah, the code just needed some massaging, depending on which post processor I'm using to out post it.
00:16:01
Speaker
Yeah, so there were some gouges, like the star pattern, the lobes in the star had a couple little missing spots. And I'm like, where's that even coming from? Well, that could be a huge problem. Right, but it didn't help tool life at all. Are you doing an adaptive? Yeah. Yeah, probably. And then multiple 1,000 radial finishing passes. Yeah, I think
00:16:30
Speaker
An outsider would tell you to dial that in so you're not doing so many spring passes, but you've also got a pretty good system, so I'd hesitate to tell you to break that up. Keep playing with it. We had a tool break on adaptive yesterday, which never happens. It was on the generative part, and it was actually pretty obvious in hindsight.
00:16:54
Speaker
a tapered end mill, so it kind of looks like one of those barrel cutters that are real, but it's not a fancy barrel cutter. It's just a 5.4 degree end mill. What does it look like? It looks like a really extended length pencil tip that comes to basically a point, but instead of a point, it's a 1 16th inch ball that tapers out to a quarter inch shank
Adaptive Roughing Adjustments
00:17:19
Speaker
along probably an inch and a half of flute.
00:17:21
Speaker
OK, so kind of like the Lakeshore engravers, but more of an end mill. Yeah, a four-flute aluminum cutting end mill that's in the Lakeshore engravers only, maybe 300 thou of cut. This is inch and a half or something. But the adaptive that we were using as a semi-roughing adaptive was taking that tool, and it was plunging. Not plunging, it was ramping it down. Not that much, maybe 100 thou.
00:17:50
Speaker
uh in your appropriate fees and speeds but you just can't take a tool like that that has such a small tip ramp it down and then start doing a traditional adaptive it just just doesn't work right um which is funny it was quite obvious after it broke and i switched it to a traditional
00:18:06
Speaker
square flute one eighth or three sixteenths I forget and just did a semi semi rough to get most of the material out of there and then came back with that tool that reaches the issue. Man, there are these like areas as parts that are just super deep and super small, which means you've got not only extended extenders because of the machine tool axes, but then you need long shanks to get the tool inside the part. Crazy things you don't normally think about. Yeah.
00:18:37
Speaker
I just ordered some helical extended length relieved shank. They weren't that expensive, like one eighth inch and three sixteenths square bull and ball nose. I ordered one each, which normally I don't make that mistake, but I did want to buy multiples of each one.
00:18:56
Speaker
I got to make a second one of these anyways. I might switch some of them out to that because it'll be a little bit easier to have that carbide. It'll just feel better with clearances rather than trying to use ER6-inch gauge lengths where you've got a collet nut right there next to the part. Right. Yeah. I don't have any relief shank tools and I see the need now finally. Oh, they're great. Yeah.
00:19:21
Speaker
We keep a three eighths and a half inch in the machine at all times. Now you may not want them that big, but they're kind of a go-to at this point. Yeah, divide that by 10 is current size.
New Kern Machine Project
00:19:38
Speaker
Dude, you're going to love. Are you back, been back on it yet at all? A little bit. And I've got a part I'm excited to make today.
00:19:47
Speaker
What's the part? It is a clip support for our pocket clips on a Norseman fixture on the Maury. Nice. Because we had some problems with them with the ones we made before. They actually cracked because they were poorly designed from a couple of years ago.
00:20:03
Speaker
And, uh, so every now and then we get a bad clip coming off and it's due to this support and the way we tighten it and stuff. So I'm like, instead of, you know, taking downtime on the Maury, uh, to make another one, how about I just make them on the current and one up? I could totally do that. That'd be fun. Yeah, let's do that. Awesome. And I've already got material here and I've got this chunk of material that I can stack three parts high. They're like little ovals, you know, like two inches long, half inch wide. Um,
00:20:32
Speaker
And from the square of material, if I put it in the vice, I can get one part and then move down, pattern down two parts, and then three parts. And I think I'll just run them one at a time. Make the first one finish it, break it off, and then go and make the second one finish it, break it off.
Five-Axis Machining Lessons
00:20:49
Speaker
But yeah, we'll be playing with that today. Looking forward to that.
00:20:53
Speaker
Awesome. We actually learned a good lesson on five axis with regard to the work coordinate system. It's a little bit of a quirky scenario, but I think it's still worth sharing. For the generative truck, we actually pre-machined the stock
00:21:11
Speaker
and put an angle on the bottom of it and a boss on the top. So the stock doesn't sit in the vice square. It sits at a tipped over angle, which actually helps with clearances because it lets us present the part. Basically, it lets us tip to B110 and have a different orientation because it's already angled.
00:21:30
Speaker
Does that make sense? I think so. Basically, instead of putting a piece of stock in there square, like you always do, think of it as tipped over 17 degrees or something. You're cheating. You're trying to get 127 degrees. Yeah, something like that. Or something, yeah. Right. And that angle should be quite accurate because we machined the part, again, as op zero. But the coordinate system was at the top of our stock.
00:21:56
Speaker
And I didn't think about this until I started the part, but I did something because machines don't make mistakes, operators do. I did something that has that coordinate system slightly different than what Fusion thinks it is, meaning
00:22:11
Speaker
So the stock might just be a little bit left to right or it shouldn't be tall or short because of the way I machined it. But regardless, right now I'm in the middle of writing this part and I don't have confidence in my simulation because the coordinate system was this part point I just picked on the stock that was eight inches above my vice or something.
00:22:32
Speaker
And what I should have done, because we have extra material all around the workpiece or the bra material, what I should have done is five axis 101, which is let my coordinate system be a point on the fifth axis base, like the zero point system.
00:22:48
Speaker
and then drop the stock in there. And because number one, it would have worked and been better. Number two, it would have been safer. And number three, even if it goofed, I'd rather just goof the piece of material than not have confidence in my fusion or complete simulations with regard to part holder clearances and the whole machine clearances.
00:23:11
Speaker
makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I've been wondering about that too with programming parts on the current, you know, do I put the work coordinate system at the top corner of the part or the center of the part or whatever and let the probe come in and do the work or trust all the
00:23:26
Speaker
the drawings and the documents and, you know, the vice, you know, put it on the center of the Aroa palette, basically, and it never changes. It's always there. And then your model's vice, and then your model's stock, and it just knows where everything is. And I think both work, but I feel like the second one will be better.
00:23:44
Speaker
Well, if you have net material, then maintaining a, what do you want to call it, like a palette, a master WCS is the way to go. What I've heard about some of our mutual friends do is do that, and then you can do localized probing to either confirm things or I guess kind of walk in certain features, if you will. Yeah, because sometimes you want surface down. So I'll probably do a bit of both.
00:24:13
Speaker
Look, it's not an issue. It's never been an issue in every part that we've made to date because every part we've had has been basically, we know where we put the stock and it's fine. This is just a super weird example because it's a weird size stock and it's pushing the limits of the machine travel. It's cool though. Yeah, it's fun.
00:24:36
Speaker
Hey, I wanted to ask you about coolant and filtering.
Coolant Filtering Challenges
00:24:42
Speaker
We want to better filter our coolant even beyond the kind of Pearson canister things that we implemented.
00:24:50
Speaker
And I called, actually, I'm going to call out Chip Blaster. I emailed them through their website and no one got back to me. I followed up and then finally it was like one of those, oh, we've got somebody who wants something. So it's really disappointing to see companies not stay hungry and be active and so forth. I thought that was a poor experience. And then it was like pulling teeth to get any actual answers out of them. And the answer, unfortunately, was that their
00:25:15
Speaker
Uh, the cyclone system, which I've heard great things about is starts at like six grand, which is not really in the budget for what I was thinking, but I want a better way to filter out, um,
00:25:29
Speaker
both chips, but it also finds from our coolant. Any research thoughts? What do you do? Which machine? Now the VF2 for now, but I mean, if it's a system that we like and is reasonably priced, I would probably add it as I can afford to over time to every machine.
00:25:47
Speaker
The ones that we have and love, we have two of them. They're from McMaster. They're about 500 something dollars. I think they're only good to 500 PSI. So you wouldn't put it on your high pressure machines, but anything less than that and they're fantastic. They're bag filters.
00:26:05
Speaker
It's this black metal can that's probably two feet tall, six, seven inches in diameter. Okay. And a bag looks like a giant tube sock with a plastic lip on the top, just goes in there. And I think I'm buying 20 micron filters. Okay. And they're white. So you see the garbage on the inside, like after a day or a month or a year or whatever, however long they last.
00:26:31
Speaker
I really like them because they're steel, and they're super burly, and they have lots of inlet and outlet ports. So we've got pressure gauges before and after. And we actually see the difference in pressure drop between the two. And on the lathe, we have the two pressure gauges. But of course, they were threaded differently, so the pressure gauges don't line up the same, like one's backwards, one's facing away from you, and one's facing towards you. Oh, that's annoying.
00:26:59
Speaker
So it's super annoying. So on the Maury, I got from McMaster two braided stainless steel lines so I can mount them up and like glue them to the side of the machine or 3D print a little bracket or something. Right now they're just duct taped up. But that's nice because then every time you walk by and the machine's on, you see, oh, we've still got 52 PSI even on both sides.
00:27:24
Speaker
Yeah, and I really like them. Is that in line with your coolant flow, or is that just something that's pulling stuff out of your sump, filtering it and putting it back in the sump? No. Coolant pump feeds directly into this and then feeds to the machine. Okay. Because my thought is we tried to look for it for the TSC, for the 1000 PSI.
00:27:46
Speaker
And we found, through Dr. Phil, a really cool Donaldson. It looks almost like a huge oil filter for your car, which is awesome, because it's like, hey, that's perfect. This relatively inexpensive steel mechanical filter that just is inline, but its limit is 1,000. And if I'm reading it correctly, there's no safety factor, and that's not OK with that pressure and so forth. Because you have 1,000, right?
00:28:12
Speaker
Yeah. So if anybody's listening, it has, I mean, the oil filter style solution I really like, and that would let it again be in line. But short of that, my thought is I think you're still doing a really good job either just with a loop system that just pulls out of your sump constantly and cleans it and puts it back in the sump or maybe what you just said, I mean, a lot of the volume of coolant still
00:28:39
Speaker
goes through the regular flow system. If you had a long TSC run, it wouldn't be doing using it. Anything filtered, you want the coolant that's hitting the cutting tool to be as filtered as possible. You don't just want to filter the tank and pump it back into the tank.
00:28:59
Speaker
Well, I don't disagree, but the point is also to keep it out of the tank because it's not that I care about the parts. I also don't want it to be hitting the rotary union. I don't want it to be hitting the pump intake stuff. I basically want coolant to be clean, period. Right. I'd almost feel more on the return. Actually, that may be the way to go, John.
00:29:22
Speaker
Because the return- Depends on how your return works. Because on my machines, that doesn't work at all. But on some other machines, like on yours, do you have basically a little waterfall of coolant that goes back into the tank? Yeah. I don't have that at all. But I've seen other guys with the Haas machines, they put that aquarium foam or whatever it is, the white mesh material down and catch a lot of the stuff coming back. And that seems to work really well.
00:29:48
Speaker
as we do, but inevitably it doesn't catch everything or it's not easy to maintain those perfectly. You should have seen how many gallons of chips were in the Maury coolant tank. Really? Like buckets and buckets and buckets full. It must have been 20, 50 gallons of chips. Wow, that's not good. A lot. No, it's not great.
00:30:18
Speaker
Did you going to change up how you use that machine? Not really. Just at the new shop, we have a much easier way of accessing it and cleaning it out. Yeah, you're not tripping over yourself. That's awesome. That would be nice. That's all the stuff that gets around the chip conveyor. Wow. I remember the chip conveyor when you pulled off that front panel itself was also pretty packed up, right? The bottom of it?
00:30:43
Speaker
Well, now we leave the front panel off always. Oh, that's funny. So that we can actually see those, those chip trays. Right. Because otherwise we're, we're missing it. Can you, or I'll email you a reminder that McMaster black metal can part number? Yeah, I put it in our bomb notes here, but I'll tell you right now. Great. Also part number 5168. 5168. K249.
00:31:10
Speaker
Two, four, nine. Awesome. And that'll be in the description of the bomb here. Yeah, perfect. So you don't have to pull over on the side of the road. And actually, you'll like this one. The guy who was at our training class last week is from the LA area. And he walks to work about a mile away. And you're thinking, OK, here's a joke about Los Angeles traffic. And it was really nice. He's like, no, if I drive, it's so quick. And if I walk, I have a chance to listen to the bomb. That's amazing.
00:31:39
Speaker
This looks great, this filter housing. Yeah, and maybe there's a higher pressure version somewhere in the world of that kind of style. Yeah.
00:31:50
Speaker
But I really like them. They're sturdy. I mean, they're heavy and great. I just think about like a, sounds silly, but it's like an ecosystem. It's not like a one sort of thing is going to solve all your problems. It's like, hey, look, if you use this system and it captures more of the chips, that puts less strain on the
00:32:09
Speaker
return filter that may just be aquarium mesh or, you know, cheesecloth type thing, which lets it last longer. And then maybe you do something in the sump as well, kind of tackle it from different angles. Sure. Cool. Thank you. Yeah. And then everything lasts longer. Right. Sounds like a video.
00:32:29
Speaker
Yeah. Well, we're going to learn first, but yes. Sure. Speaking of nothing, actually, it's a horrible transition, but I saw a blurb about Adafruit. You know who Adafruit is? Yeah, Raspberry Pi or Arduino kind of huge company.
00:32:49
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny you say a huge company. I mean, it's still like Lamor and a small team in New York. Yeah. But as far as Arduinos go, they are, I guess, the company. They're a big deal. Yeah. Yeah. And I give them a lot of credit.
Business Philosophy and Adafruit Model
00:33:00
Speaker
They've been very open about who they are, how they've done it, how they built it, sharing stuff, paying it forward. They absolutely passed the very awesome company.
00:33:10
Speaker
She had a video interview recently and it was the single best line I've heard about their company. I want to say it applies to what we do. I want to do some more thinking on that.
00:33:27
Speaker
It was simple. She said about Adafruit, we're an education company with a gift shop at the end. Nice. It's great because we as Saunders, I want to sell products that can help people learn fusion, make their parts, all the stuff that speeds and feeds.
00:33:45
Speaker
And I don't want those purchases to ever be sympathy purchases, like, oh, he's whatever. I want them to be real tools for you, the end user. But in front of all of that is a massive amount of information and passion, right? Like, you know, you don't have to buy anything at the gift shop to be kind of right. It's there if you want to.
00:34:06
Speaker
Yeah, right. That's cool. And that suits their company, man to the T because I mean, especially pretty much only creatives are going to go to their website. Only guys who like to tinker and girls who like to tinker and make stuff. And you start scrolling through their stuff. And it's just like massive amounts of ideas start flowing through your head like, Oh, man, I get temperature control this thing in the house and have it activate that relay. And it's like all the stuff is there just plug and play and
00:34:36
Speaker
Yeah, and they show you how to do it and they give you an option to buy it through their site at a fair price with good support, but you can still go search DigiKey or another site to buy all if you wanted to. Yeah, and still utilize their information and tutorials and knowledge and stuff.
00:34:56
Speaker
Yeah, I have, I've seen a bunch of other videos and they're super nerdy, but super helpful and like perfect exactly what they need to be. Yeah. How's your daily life going in terms of your work versus outsourcing or getting folks in the team to help you out?
00:35:13
Speaker
I've been getting much better about helping folks on the team to take on more tasks and more responsibility so that I can focus on what I need to, which has been very good. Awesome. It's better for everybody. Guys are happier and challenged and get to tackle new things. That's always fun.
00:35:34
Speaker
Yeah, that's, that's going really well. And I just, it's that hesitation of like, Oh, but I always do it like this. And no, I've, I've always been the one to do that. No, let go, let go. Just let them try. Let them make mistakes. You know, it's, it's silly when you stink about it in retrospect, but in the moment you're like, yeah, but I just, I could do it. I could do it faster. It doesn't matter. Yeah. Oh, that's great. Are you, are you working on the floor or on your mezzanine office more?
00:36:02
Speaker
I have not used my office much yet at all. We've had a couple of meetings in there, which has been nice because it's like a remote location so we can close the door and you know.
00:36:13
Speaker
have proper meetings. So that's been awesome. And actually we're going to turn that office into a studio. So kind of sit down filming. We're going to build a nice set. Um, Fraser accidentally ordered his entire B and H shopping cart, um, no, for the studio plan. Like he's just been adding stuff to the cart and on his own personal, like
00:36:36
Speaker
like almost $2,000 on his credit card. And he's like, ah, I just accidentally hit send, hit order. Uh, I guess we're getting that stuff. Is that okay? It's like, yeah, it was bound to happen. That's fine. I'll reimburse you. Like no problem. But that was a funny, funny moment. That's really funny. Oops. Yeah. But, uh, what else, what else? I feel like he had a two part question there.
00:37:01
Speaker
I was just curious if you're going to use the mezzanine office. Well, yeah, it'll be our studio slash my quiet zone slash any meetings or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool. What's on tap for today? I got to get that curtain fired up and make that part, that clip support. I'm pumped about that. Have you programmed it yet?
00:37:23
Speaker
Yeah, I've, I program most of it. Um, I'm a little stuck on a five axis simultaneous. Um, I don't know what strategy to use. What's the, can you, can you try to describe it? It's like, uh, it's, I could do it just straight three axis with a long eighth inch end mill, but it's got some curves and contours. So I want to tilt it a little bit and I want to take a ball end mill and just kind of contour this curvy area. Um, have you seen the 3d contour with shaft and holder? I don't know.
00:37:51
Speaker
Do I have a video of that? Can you explain to me real quick what is with shaft and holder because I don't really know. The example that we used this for was machining the crank. Do you know how an engine crank has hemispherical parts on the crankcase that it mates into?
00:38:12
Speaker
If you had an engine tipped up and down so that the crank shaft was ported towards the sky, and you were trying to machine those hemispherical shapes, the first one you could get to with the tool no problem, and certainly the third one, you can't get to it because the tool would have to be 20 times long relative to its diameter.
00:38:32
Speaker
What you do, and I can do a little video for you here if you need me to, is program it as a 3D contour. Normally, just 3-axis, and it's going to give you a good toolpath, but it's going to show an obvious crash, which will be the holder or spindle crashing into the engine block. But after you program it successfully, you then turn on under the Passes tab, Multi-axis.
00:38:56
Speaker
when you check that enables shaft and holder detection. And it takes a three-axis toolpath and it automatically tips your part over and turns it into a simultaneous five-axis simply to avoid hitting the shank of the cutting tool or the holder itself. And you don't then do a tool orientation. Correct.
00:39:14
Speaker
because I tried one last night. I'm looking at it right now. I tried tool orientation, but it only hit like the bottom one quarter of the part. And it didn't get it all. And I'm like, hey, where's the rest of my tool path?
00:39:27
Speaker
The other way to do it, which is freaking amazing, is steep and shallow, where you can have the... It's not the orientation, but let's see, what do they call it? The five-axis mode is called... Primary mode is from a point. Basically, you can say, I want you to machine this feature simultaneous five, where the pool stud stays in a static location, if that makes sense.
00:39:53
Speaker
So it's fanning the tip of the tool out, or you could do to a point which would move the part around. That makes sense. So you're saying I need to give myself some cloud credits and use Steep and Shallow? The answer to that is yes. Because I haven't tried it yet. I have a bunch of free cloud credits. I just haven't even used them for anything yet.
00:40:15
Speaker
I think to quote everybody I've talked to who has used it, including Rob and Lauren's steep and shallow, all the things. Yeah. Nice. Sweet. Oh, that'd be my day. And speaking of that, I'm about to literally go hit cycle start on my first true simultaneous steep and shallow myself.
00:40:38
Speaker
Which is kind of exciting. With using Camplete, is it much more confidence inspiring? Or are you still super butt clenching, slowly feeding every toolpath? Oh, no, it's the former for sure. The thing that I don't like is that
00:40:55
Speaker
because I screwed up that coordinate system. I don't know how I did that either. It's only like 50 thou off. I think it was just that the part was shifted left to right in the vice a little bit, which has consequences when it's sipped over. But I don't fully trust
00:41:11
Speaker
Fusion or complete. So what I've been doing is just making sure every tool has like an extra 50 to 100 thou of stick out or gauge length. But there's this one feature that I need every, every thou matters on reach. So, um, in, in the extenders I got were from YG one and, and well, I got one and then I bought a second one last night and overnighted it because I really need it. Um,
00:41:37
Speaker
and it's heat shrink, which I don't have a problem with, but I really want to find somebody who makes a extender that's not heat shrink because I want a way that I can just swap out a tool if I break it or want to switch this style to or test something. So I don't know if that means it's a set. I think AB makes some set screw versions, which I would be willing to try. Yeah. I've had some like what size end mill, eighth inch or quarter? Eighth.
00:42:01
Speaker
I have some of the AB ones, they're pretty solid. And they are set screw based but never had a tool slip or move or anything. I've got those and I've got some Technics collet holders, but they use a pull stud style collet or a pull screw.
00:42:22
Speaker
So, unfortunately, you have to remove the extension from your tool holder to be able to change an end mill. Unless you can get through it actually through the pull stud. But that also means that the whole extension thing is somehow hollow. Yeah. Yeah. See, I got...
00:42:42
Speaker
I think. Well, the YG one is only hollow enough for a little bit of through spindle, so it's much stiffer because it's almost solid. I wouldn't want a whole threaded assembly through it. I got to think that weakens it significantly. Maybe. Although the tube's pretty strong. I don't know. AB ones are good. Okay. I'll look at one of those. You should definitely have one on hand and play with it and get to know how they work and stuff.
00:43:05
Speaker
Yeah, because even I found a tapered, oh, even with a, this is crazy, a three inch long helical one eighth inch end mill that has a inch and a half relieved shank.
00:43:19
Speaker
Sorry, did I say that in the wrong order? It's a one-eighth inch end mill, relief shank with one and a half inches of reach. That's the relieved portion. That's huge. It's three inches long OAL, but I can hold it, easily hold it out a total of two inches in an ER 6.0, and I'm still crashing by like two and a half inches. What? I platter into my spindle housing. Yeah.
00:43:42
Speaker
That's it. You have an ER, wait, an ER6 call it? No, no, no. Sorry. ER6.0 is the gauge length of the hole. It's the longest ER16 that MariTool makes. Okay. Yeah. Got it. Huh. Yeah. Yeah. That's a lot of reach. Yeah. Sweet. Well, I'm off to make some chips. Sounds good. Me too. Have a good week, bud. I'll see you. You too. Bye. Okay. Take care. Bye.