Episode 30

30 - Practicing Kinetic Energy Recovery

YCM Update, Fusion update, multiple breakdowns, chip management, Brother Speedio.

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HOSTS

Jem Freeman

Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia

Like Butter | Instagram | More Links


Justin Brouillette

Portland, Oregon, USA

PDX CNC | Instagram | More Links

Transcript
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Cheers.

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How are you feeling?

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Good morning, Justin.

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I'm okay.

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That's good.

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yeah.

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Been a little bit under the weather this week, but not too

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bad today, back at work, so, yeah.

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Yeah.

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that's good.

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Yeah.

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How are you?

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Better?

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I think better.

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Last week was pretty stressful.

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This week's better.

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Less stressful.

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I think.

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we should clap real quick.

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Yeah, let's do that.

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3, 2, 1.

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Spike,

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Spike,

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Mill update is, I have been using it, It sounds fine.

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Aside from my weird measurement remeasuring, all the tools seems

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to be the only thing that was really off, which is, shocking.

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theory on Discord was that, A coupler of the Z potentially just moved a little bit,

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Yep.

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which I barely understand, but I I sure that makes sense to me.

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I'm, mostly fine.

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They update.

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otherwise would be if you have as I PSA last time, they have now fixed that Fanic

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and met Sarah and all those other posts so you can download it and re-set up yours.

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I also believe, especially because of this, I will never

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stream a post from Fusion.

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I know everything's cloud based and they're kind of pushing that, but I'm

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not gonna allow it to stream my post.

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I wanna know what's changing.

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I don't know about post streaming.

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Is that what it sounds like?

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think it just kind of constantly updates in the background on its own.

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and I don't like that idea.

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No

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and I

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perhaps.

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had a couple other people with that know have more experience for saying the same.

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And so maybe an idea for some, not for me, I'm not doing that.

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But yeah, Panos helped me out over the weekend.

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Didn't have to do it, but.

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Offered to reset up my post.

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So thanks Nick.

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It's also got a few new features in it, which is kind of cool.

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I can now like change where the table ends up, which is great.

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It doesn't go into a back corner anymore.

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He added that little feature for me.

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So, it's been great.

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I made some parts.

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I had my palette was kind of messed up.

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I had.

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Little floor stock to leave on where the vertical parts go in.

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And that couple thou made it so that the parts didn't sit in their square.

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And so I had to like take it apart and re machine that with a new en mo.

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And now it that's great.

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We did the whole first one and done operation at the end of the day yesterday.

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So today I'm going to be running those parts all day, hopefully, and.

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Awesome.

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Much better results than last week.

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Yeah.

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Oh good.

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I'm glad that, you recovered from that.

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Me too.

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Geez.

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Could have ended very differently.

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Imagine.

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Yeah, I, I was thinking about that on the way in today too.

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I still have this kind of continual thought of like, what if it wasn't, What

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if it was 10 grand, 15 grand to replace a spindle and it wasn't my, It wasn't

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our fault, it was the software post.

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Like where do I go with that?

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Like kind of a salty relationship situation with Fusion, you know?

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Cuz like all those posts are effectively free.

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Right?

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Yeah.

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Which I think is kind of a new thing.

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I don't know well enough, but I think that they're offering them and

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you're not creating your own post.

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Somewhat of a new thing that often you have to get it from

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like your service provider or it's not the software providing it.

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I don't, I don't think, I don't know.

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Maybe I'm wrong on that, but Makes me question it.

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Never really thought about it before.

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Yeah, . Hopefully you don't have to think about it for a while.

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Yeah.

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No kidding.

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Hmm.

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Cool.

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Awesome.

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Well off into production land.

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Great.

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right?

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Yeah, no kidding.

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Does what, What are the updates on the new products then?

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Just chipping away.

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next week I will be, which I, I don't wanna continue to say this, but,

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and not do it, but assuming nothing else goes wrong I should have all

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the parts I need mated, and the, the real kind of caveat will be.

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I wanna make a video.

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I think it's gonna take a video to kind of describe it.

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Been a much better week since we talked last time for me.

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How about you?

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Very good.

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Well, it sounds like we both had a meltdown on Thursday night.

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Oh God.

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also, I also fell in a hole.

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Also a series of events.

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I think I mentioned on the podcast last week that I was doing some

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modifications to the office

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Yeah.

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and wanting to make it a bit more functional

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Yeah.

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private.

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And just nicer for people who spend a lot of time in it.

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And so I, I'd sort of hinted a few things on Slack that I was working on a little

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office pod pro like prototype design.

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And during the week, and then on Thursday at the staff meeting, I

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sort of showed people the floor plan of what I was thinking

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and ask, you know, ask for sort of quick feedback within the meeting.

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And then, Was planning to spend sort of the weekend for as much time as I could

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spare on the weekend, sort of coming into the workshop and sort of building

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this concept or prototyping it Anyway.

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To, to their credit, at the end of the day, a couple of staff and like,

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I suspect quite a few of them were like where, But can we just have a

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bit more time to think about this?

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Maybe don't, don't build this like this weekend we don't feel

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like we've had enough input

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Oh yeah, sure.

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which is totally fair enough.

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Cuz I had just, you know, I was doing the classic jam, Oh hey Hunter

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Hunter is knocking over my vacuum.

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Got her ball though.

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Sorry.

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I was doing the classic gem thing of like keeping it close to my chest and

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like, we don't have time or budget to be working on this on the clock.

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I'll just smash it out over the weekend

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Yeah.

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trying to make it better for people, blah, blah blah.

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Like, and so, you know, when they sort of propose this alternative direction,

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it really sent me for a bit of a spin on Thursday night, cuz I It wasn't so much

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about the fact that they'd said no or that I couldn't make the desks that weekend.

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It was sort of, it brought, kind of really brought it home like a number

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of things that have sort of made me aware of my, sort of in all my

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delegation, giving people these roles and responsibilities and the key as

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key sort of quadrants of the business.

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just really made me aware of sort of my lack or the, I'm not gonna say total

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lack, but like the less agency I have of like, whether it's deciding what

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we're gonna buy and when we're gonna buy it, or what we're gonna quote,

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or how we do things in production.

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All those elements which are really positive changes.

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But like I'm, I'm struggling with that lack.

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Decision making.

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And so yeah, I had a pretty rough night and Thursday night kind of just

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yeah, I suppose reflecting on that and just, you know, I think I said last

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week on the podcast, I'm something to the effect of like, yeah, I'm

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pretty useless now and it's great.

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And then thinking about that later, I'm like, it's not great.

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Like, I don't feel great about that a lot of the time.

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And, but I have a sense that I should feel great about that.

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So that's been an interesting challenge to try and digest over the last few days.

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Yeah.

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I don't know.

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Is it?

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Was it If I had to like back, not that it matters, I suppose, but

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probably in that, in your process.

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The last however many years of running a business that whenever

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you're kind of, ready to roll into making something, you just can do it.

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And it doesn't necessarily need a second opinion.

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And it's not even about probably that.

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It's about that that was your new project and you felt you were doing

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your old mental process of like, Yep, we're gonna get this done.

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But then it struck the cord of like, Oh wait.

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Yeah, So that project I thought, I.

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I don't have that anymore to, to attach to and to fulfill and

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Yeah.

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I could see how that yeah.

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Would be striking.

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a part of it, part of it is about fulfillment and feeling productive and.

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Useful.

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You know, like, I'm contributing.

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Yeah, yeah.

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So having that sort of shut down and very, you know, very validly shut down, I think,

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but still having that shut down just Yeah.

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Really struck a, struck a chord.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, I feel that.

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I'm sorry.

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yeah.

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Yep.

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No, no.

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That's why we're here.

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Otherwise, pretty weird week.

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Got sick had a public holiday, so really only had a couple of

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days of work and I've just felt.

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Well and truly behind Josh's finishing up his semester at uni, so

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he's less available at the moment.

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So I've been covering his fusion detailing or a big chunk of fusion detailing.

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And also just cuz of how slow sales have been this last month, I've

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sort of been jumping on a little bit more on the quoting bandwagon

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to just try and help Aaron.

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Lift our sales for October.

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So yeah, kind of feeling behind and scattered, spread too thin,

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Yeah.

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doing a very good job of what I think I'm supposed to be doing,

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which is leading this business.

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So yeah, challenging week, all round,

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Yeah,

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I'll try, try and reset and crack on.

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sure.

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That's not, I mean, I don't think it, these kind of like lessons, you can't

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just like slap yourself and say buck up and you know, just do it cuz it's

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like, I feel like we're pretty, pretty similar in that like we're driven.

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Like a passion or some desire to work on.

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something in some fashion.

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So when you're not passionate about it, I mean, I'm not passionate about it.

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I, I procrastinate, first of all.

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I like don't work on it.

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I put it off till the end.

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I'm usually not very, like if it's just a repeated string of things I don't like

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to work on, it probably affects my mood pretty strongly and I get terse and.

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Probably make mistakes.

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So I, I don't know.

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I don't know how you can just, at least you have the business coach that maybe

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has some more insight than I do, but it feels, feels like you've gotta find

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something that is yours that I keep coming back to the, like in that NY C N C tour

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he talks to, I don't remember his name.

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His handle on Instagram is inventor captain, which is the owner,

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co-owner, co-founder of now Penta.

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I think about him a lot with you and maybe that's like, also my dream position

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is he used to be like the CEO and he is like, I don't wanna do that anymore.

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I'm just gonna make stuff.

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And he like started working on his new project is making the five

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access mill, you know, their new one.

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So it's.

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That's my dream scenario.

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If I can get to there, have people to make the decisions that are hard

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and I don't understand as well as I should, and and then I get do what

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I feel passionate about, is like potentially making something good and.

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Yeah, yeah, totally.

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I can relate to that.

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And yeah, I think, I think.

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Couple of factors, but I think because I have been spreading myself a bit

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too thin, what I thought I was sinking my teeth into in terms of sort of

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creating product videos and pushing that side of the, which is work I

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enjoy and can get passionate about.

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I think cuz I, yeah, I've been doing too many disparate things.

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I feel like I'm not doing very well at any of them.

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And therefore like,

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Yeah.

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The passion level drops off for all of it.

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So

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I was gonna say, I feel like I'm pretty good on that, like what you're saying.

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Handling a lot of different things, juggling a lot of things.

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And then when I think the number for me is when three things go.

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wrong, pretty close together, I have a pretty strong.

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I get real frustrated.

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Like, it's like I, there's like this, it's three or four, I don't

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know what it is, but it's like we can juggle all these things.

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I can do the shipping, that's fine.

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You know, like customer support, but it's, I hit three problems

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in a row and I'm like, Ooh.

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And I'm sure other people are like that, but it like really throws me for

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Yep.

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Well, they compound on each other too.

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I reckon.

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Mm-hmm.

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Once one thing starts stacking on top of another problem and then you get

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that magic third, it's like still much

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I'm done.

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too much for our little brains walking away.

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did I go often?

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I'll go, All right, now time to go sweep some stuff.

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Yeah.

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I need simpler tasks.

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Sweeping in denial.

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Splash

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what can I organize?

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Yeah.

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So, yeah.

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Yeah.

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So in, in terms of my shiny uh, Video world distracting distractions and

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not having fever dreams about editing.

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I discovered a new editing package this week, which I, I

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kind of, I'd heard the name of it.

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I never knew really what it was.

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And then I watched a YouTube video that just sold me in about five

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minutes on downloading DaVinci Resolve and giving that a whirl.

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Have you ever played with it?

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No, I've heard a lot of people talk about it.

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I'm apparently too content with my final cut to strike out.

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You're in Final cut.

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Cool.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, the guy in the video I watched was saying that Final Cut

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was sort of his second, second best

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Mm-hmm.

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Vinci.

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And just talking about how sort of Premier hasn't really evolved much over the years.

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Anyway, I get downloaded it, gave it a go.

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It's good.

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Spent a few evenings on the couch, just fiddling with it,

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trying to wrap my head around the tools, but it seems really good.

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Yeah.

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So I'm looking forward to getting in and editing some videos.

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Is there something that you're dissatisfied with in File Cut or not?

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In Premier?

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And prem?

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No, not specifically.

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I find the workflow a little bit clunky, but I've always just put that

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down to not doing enough hours to really get my, get my fusion hands, no

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, floppy CAD hands.

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you know, like cad hands flowing in there.

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No, it's pretty good.

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I, I do love a shiny new toy.

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I can't help myself

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Yeah.

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Same.

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Yeah.

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Oh, we talked about it previously, but it is astounding.

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I've been using final cuts since, what, 2015 or so, and you know, not every day.

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It's not something crazy like that.

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I'm decently quick at it.

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I know some of the keyword shortcuts, but there's something to be said

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for how quickly discord, or, sorry, the wrong thing, how quickly des.

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Worked into my brain and I can just like edit like a flash.

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I mean, it's very weak in terms of feature capability compared to those

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other softwares, but man, the speed I, There's something also I love about

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how You just kind of dump files into it and then not worry about them.

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Like I don't, I have a different relationship, my friend Joan,

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and I've been talking about.

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How to deal with files related to video editing.

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Cuz it is, you know, if you wanna back it up, it's giant files.

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Like do you put it.

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in a cloud?

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Do you ingest them into the bundle, do you not?

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You know, when you move the bundles for, with final cut, it sometimes

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disassociates the links to the videos and then so it's, it's, it is, frankly,

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I find, I know what you mean, that.

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Especially for any type of short form video, it's typically just

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better if I just edit it on my phone.

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Like I'll use this app called Cap Cut, which is made by TikTok I think.

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And it's so fast to make videos cuz you don't have to like mess around with

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like, I need to create a library and then a, an event and what format is it?

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And it's like you just start editing

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You just

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instantly.

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Yeah.

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And script has similarities with that, I guess, doesn't it?

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Yeah, for sure.

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feature set, like the transcription stuff, and it's fantastic.

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yeah, yeah.

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what are you looking forward to in Da Vinci?

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I haven't opened it or tried it really.

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I just like the, the way the sort of the interface is set up in terms of

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how you roll through the processes.

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It's kind of got different, clearly defined, different

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workspaces for each stage.

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Rough cutting and editing.

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It's kind of got a built in after effects.

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It's got a built in audio workstation.

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Seems quite feature rich and deep.

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Like I add a bit of a, you know when you open Rhino and there's

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a million buttons and you can.

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It's just, you know, thousands of commands at your disposal.

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I had a little bit of a sense of that, of like, oh, this is a really deep, rich

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program and I'm only gonna use 1% of it.

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But that 1% is also quite available and present and seems quite

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intuitive to just pick up and go.

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So, yeah, see how that goes.

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Give it a whirl.

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Yeah, that's cool.

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bro, Brothers speeds.

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No, no.

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It was, came from Saunders's video.

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He was talking to the brother salesperson and they were talking about, which I,

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you know, it's a sales, every machine company has their sales pitches.

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But you know, I've heard a lot about Brother Speedia as being good.

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And they're incredibly fast as their top, top perk.

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It seems like they're very small footprint and they're very fast.

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And in particular they use, I believe, BT 30 Spindle Taper, which is essentially the

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same thing as an ISL 30 Strader spindle.

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So they're very small, and part of their pitch on that is the inertial startup

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start, you know, Start and stop is very quick and it has a lot less mass.

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So, I mean, they're kind of making a part t out of it, I feel like, where

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it's like now they're saying, Oh, well all that energy is not spent.

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But also they have this crazy thing that I've now found out that more

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machine companies, machine tool builders are using, which is like

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curves, which is basically what like a Prius uses kinetic energy recovery.

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So it's like how you break when you're slowing down an electric vehicle.

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But they're doing that with this, They're doing that with this spindle.

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When it spools down, they're catching the energy so that they

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can spin it back up again with it.

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And so it saves a crazy amount of energy.

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And I guess somebody was saying that this is common with other machine

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tool builders, but that was the first time I'd heard about it in that tour.

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So that was pretty cool.

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super cool.

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Are they doing it with the, the motion drives as well, or just the spindle?

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I think it's just a spindle?

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I'm not really sure.

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They have a bunch of pitches on their side about how versus a Cap 40 machine, Cap

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40 taper how much energy you're saving with a brother Speedia versus because of

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some of that's the how they've designed everything and like their crazy spinning

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ATC wheel thing is all right there.

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So it doesn't have to, I don't know.

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it does make, I mean, yeah, fantastic energy recovery's cool.

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And it makes some sense in tone, like the context of those machines.

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Like you see those photos of like the farms of them, like just rows on rows

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on rows or brothers pumping out, I think cases or whatever they're making.

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It makes sense that any little bit of energy recovery would

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be valuable in that context.

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Do you feel the cost of electricity in your shop?

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The biggest suck of energy that I notice is if we're

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running our hold vacuums a lot.

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If we are running jobs that just require them all day, every day

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for weeks, that will drive it up.

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We've frankly, ashamedly not run the mill enough to know whether

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it's really throwing a lot of energy cost at us, but it should.

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I.

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mean, it, it's a giant, it's a hundred amp break.

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For that thing.

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It's, it is three phase, so I guess it's a little bit more efficient.

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But yeah, I've had thing's running all day.

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We'll see it, but it won't be significant enough that it'll offset what it's,

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what its value is making by any means.

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No, way.

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not much of a change, frankly.

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It's crazy.

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I wonder why it's so high amperage.

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I can't imagine it

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you know, it's that.

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like safety factor of

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Yeah,

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of

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I think it's only at 60 or 70 or something like that.

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And then they switch it up for,

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yeah,

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I don't really know.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Mm.

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on the brothers speed thought uh, listening to the bomb the last couple

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weeks with Saunders giving grims mo shit about cutting, cutting.

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What is it?

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What is It Stuff called papers, Paper, rich light.

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I cannot, Every time this comes up, I'm like, What the hell is going on?

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I would never do that.

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That makes me so uncomfortable to run like wood type epoxy stuff

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in $150,000 machine with cooling.

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Like I get his concept of like it's capturing the dust, but like Saunders

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was Everybody else just sucks it up in a vacuum, you know, like a dust

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collection system on a $10,000 router like , it makes me so uncomfortable.

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It's pretty funny.

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I did, I was entertained slash made uncomfortable by like the kind of the

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return to Saunders laying into Grims Mo.

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I remember like years ago there was a period there where

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it was just like really heavy

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Yeah.

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. Yeah,

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I, I think to the point where the audience were like, Hey guys.

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Just need to turn tone this, tone this down a little bit.

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Mommy and daddy are fighting too much.

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Yeah, look, I'd say it's pretty weird, but I, I understand his perspective

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of like, Look, I've got this machine.

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I would need to make this part.

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Now I don't have, I've got my router coming, so yeah, I, I'm, I'm into it.

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I mean, I'm really into the idea.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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A lot.

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I am going to need some type of chip management.

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I don't know if it's gonna be a full chip conveyor.

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That's gonna require us to like, break out the side of the room, What we've

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built in it, and like put the chip conveyor through the wall if we need that.

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But like, if we're running parts for these, these, you know, I totally

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would be for some type of system like he's thinking of where it's like a

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paper van and it's just like falls on that and then off onto a bin.

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You know, the problem is dealing with all the coolant.

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and that's what those conveyors are So good with is like they create a

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place for it to track back in and.

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But yeah, ours

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what do you do?

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horrible.

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It Is I mean, I feel like nobody thinks this through, but like the

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chips come out of a little waterfall into a bin and immediately stack up

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to the point where they never leave.

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There's probably 10 times the volume in the, on each bin side that can be

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filled up, but they never go out farther.

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They just like come out, fall into a pile, and then stack back up.

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Into the waterfall that goes out the back.

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so, they're so grippy.

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They don't kind of self doesn't

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Something.

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Yeah,

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Self manage itself into a pile.

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I was kind,

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though?

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Can you just shake the bin every five

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Yeah, I mean we're talking about like roughing set.

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I have a, the pallet I made or I, it makes it roughs two parts.

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From Like minimal overage in the stock, roughs two, two risers, you

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know, cuts the center out, it cuts the side minimally off of two.

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Then it, you know, the second op takes off the top and that's really,

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it basically every cycle it will stack up that every time we'd have to

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go back and move it out of the way.

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It's just really bad.

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And I, I feel like somebody told.

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Often, Well anyway, with the Y cm, they basically just like, Well

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we have these coolant tanks, it should fit behind this machine.

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Do you want this one?

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And it's like not designed for it really, apparently.

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And which totally makes sense.

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Cause it is terrible.

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Maybe also it's like planned obsolescence of like, we just expect

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you're gonna get a conveyor and we don't put much thought into these

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little chip bins for that reason.

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I don't know.

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mm Interesting.

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So like, yeah, I suppose I look at that part, but your, your pocketing

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out that full, like all of that center just gets turned into chips, right?

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Mm-hmm.

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. Yeah,

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logic where you cut that.

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You don't just slot out and have a little slug of aluminum Left.

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Let's try it.

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I lifted one out.

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I put the wrong in mill in my rougher yesterday.

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It was a higher helix.

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And it lifted out and shifted it out and I was like, Oh,

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no, something else happened.

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And luckily it just like broke that edmi and I fixed it.

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But

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hmm.

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no, and I've learned a little bit about like, people talking about

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making smaller, more compact chips.

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Totally makes sense.

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It fills up the area so much less.

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Your bins that you put 'em in are so much less, they're heavier.

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Like, so I'll, I'll probably hopefully get into optimizing

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that stuff a little bit better.

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But I don.

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I'll take it for right now.

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If I can make a lot of chips, I'll be happy.

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It's fun.

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Yeah.

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Cool.

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New challenges.

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Very cool.

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are you still thinking about making a video of your one year

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anniversary of the pencil sharpener?

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Yeah, I would like to, That date is slipping away from me,

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but yeah, it's on the list.

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Sure.

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Would like to get into that?

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That sounds like a good passion, passion project to bring your your spirits up.

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Go spend a week.

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what's happening in the shop today?

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Is Ricky there?

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Ricky is here.

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he's, he's kind of, we've been working on upgrading our, We've never had to do

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this yet because for the longest time I shipped all of the calendar stuff.

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It's very cyclical around this time of year.

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But now that we have changes with that, we're selling CNC products, rookies

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slowly turning into the one that manages.

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Those things.

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How to, you know, making them and keeping them stuff in stock and

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I order stuff and he makes it.

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And so we're basically borrowing some of Pearson's logic with his like work

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order boards and using Kanban cards probably to like, think about reordering

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or re reordering from ourselves, right?

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Like work process.

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Of, Oh, we're getting low on dust boots.

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Like we need to make more because we hit this level.

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Because for now it's just been like, Hey, you think I should make some more?

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And I go, Yeah.

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Yeah.

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But it's kinda a little too, a little too tedious now cuz it's

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like happening frequently enough.

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So Ricky's been working on that.

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He's always organizing things better and.

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Cool.

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We are about to do that aluminum job that I keep talking about on the router.

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I will be testing that probably by tomorrow and then running the whole

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thing we've made, like we didn't have an mql, like a minimum a mis

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set up for the router previous.

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So we like 3D printed a little thing for the container to sit on

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the side of the mil or the router.

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the plumbing for the wire or for the air all the way to it.

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So that's basically set up.

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sweet.

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Gonna try out thread milling.

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I got the thread mill, which is

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Nice.

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still a little bit terrifying, but

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You're gonna practice in timber, right?

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Oh, that's a good idea.

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I probably should.

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Yeah.

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Do it.

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Cause I bet you can not break them far easier.

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Hmm.

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You can do, you can get the entry and exit wrong and just like

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drag the tool up through the

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You've just cut and it, it doesn't care.

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Oh God, man, I, it is, I am getting less and less scared every time

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I form tap something in the mill.

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But since it was like Op four of the Pallet hadn't done it before,

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it's taller, but once it did one and I just, the second one, I was

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just like, Oh, that's so satisfying.

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It just smashing its way through aluminum.

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They're so clean afterwards.

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Awesome.

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Do you edge break after tapping

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Dude, I don't, I need to, I need, need to look into this.

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I have been, I don't know if that's messing up the threads or not.

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Hmm.

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Wow.

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Do they take a bolt?

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Okay.

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Most of the time.

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Yeah, I had a little bit, a little bit, I don't know like how deep to go.

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I've been doing like a five thou edge break on those because it

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does make a little bit of a bur.

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And I just don't know, like if I go too far, am I, am I making

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it hard to start the thread?

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I don't know.

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Maybe you need to do it twice

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Maybe like before and after.

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the tap and after.

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Hmm.

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Cool.

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Yeah.

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What's up with you?

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How, what are you all up to?

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We've got our Lean Day today, Shop improvement day which will

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be primarily just an effort to tidy up and get organized for

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our studio sale on the weekend.

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What are you, what are you leaning

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. leaning .We're trying to sell off all our

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and stuff, clearing out old stock, make room for new things, and so the guys will

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be focused on getting all of that ready and just getting the workshop a little

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bit ship shape to have a whole bunch

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shape.

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people in here

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Do you make everybody wear safety glasses?

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Uh, Not on a weekend studio,

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cuz it's not running.

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Yeah.

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we won't be running anything.

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It's kind of tempting to have the pencil sharp though, like sitting

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there in demo mode running apart.

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But

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Then it'll crash.

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We'll see how, Yeah.

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So then it'll crash and break a tool and,

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Also, maybe that's just my American sensibility of like, everybody

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will sue you all the time.

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Yeah, so glad the culture's a little, a little bit different here.

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So yeah, getting rid of that, I've got.

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Uh, I should probably not do any fun stuff and just focus on some

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fusion drawings that I'm behind on

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Mm.

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Josh will be in, so he'll probably be in fusion land as well.

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So we might just do that together.

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And just really just getting some, a couple of big jobs just

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ready for the end of the year.

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Like I feel like we are

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Don't

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much thinking.

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The Christmas shutdown, which is only a week and a half for us, but like, yeah,

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just making sure that we are ready.

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Like there's definitely a sense, I don't know whether this is different

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for you, but this is definitely a sense here because Christmas

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is a summer holiday um, of like

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Blow my mind.

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Every,

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That's so strange, huh?

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Everything stops.

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So even if we only close for one or two weeks, it's like, it's a real

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sense from customers of like, Oh, but I need my thing before Christmas.

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It's like, Do you why?

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What, what, what?

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Yeah.

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perhaps unfair, but I think there's a false sense of like, no, it's

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gotta be done before Christmas.

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And so like, we're trying to get better at pushing back and going, Does

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it really, like, let's just do it in January when everyone's a bit more

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relaxed and we've got more capacity.

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And so trying to schedule out all that work and quote new jobs

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and make sure that they fall in.

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Time, et cetera.

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But Sarah, Sarah's been building out some new tools in air table,

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some new views, which allow us to see like week by week our

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Hmm.

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production schedule and month by month and kind of look at it and go,

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Right, well, November's looking quiet, but December's looking too full.

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What can we move around?

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And so it's been cool.

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Sure.

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Yeah, that sounds

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Um, Yeah, kind of, yeah.

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Running into the end of the.

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Just crazy

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I think my mind is still reeling that your Christmas is.

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Summer like that is, especially coming from being a Midwesterner in

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the United States, it's like zero degrees in winter and zero fre night.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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terrible blizzards and, and it is an interesting situation of like,

Speaker:

it is frankly, both for the scale of commercialism that happens with

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increased shipments, but also the weather gets so bad that ship.

Speaker:

Often don't get there because they just can't Yeah.

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So that's part of what I'm like, Whoa, Summer, holy crap.

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Yeah.

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that's an interesting, I have a terrible time planning for that kind of thing.

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We did have the thought that there could be a scenario where people are trying to

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get an order in because of end of year.

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Extensibility of, you know, the things we're selling with the CNC stuff.

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Now I'm not sure if that actually feel like we're not financing machine tools,

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but I'll take advantage of that if I can.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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Yeah.

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Cuz your financial year is calendar year,

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Mm-hmm.

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.Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And most, most, I would say most small businesses are that way.

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If I had to guess here,

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Yeah.

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Cool.

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I, I don't know . I did figure out a, a thing pretty sure we figured it out,

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which is frankly just really silly.

Speaker:

But both of our peruses have had issues printing, We've had gobs of

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why access crashes as it deems them.

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So it like thinks there's a problem and it homes itself again,

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basically, it, it fills friction.

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It something's.

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We have spent, I've said this before, weeks off and on, chatting with support

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from Parisa, and they have tried to help us, but in no time did anybody say,

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Hey, do you have this in an enclosure?

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Which I don't blame them for.

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I don't blame them for this, we didn't bring it up either.

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Yeah.

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And we have technically two different enclosures.

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One is larger than the other.

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The top one is always where the crashes.

Speaker:

We've always thought enclosure better, keeps the temperature stable.

Speaker:

Dust out.

Speaker:

Turns out I just Googled it last week.

Speaker:

Other people have this problem too because it gets too hot.

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Just too hot.

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So we leave the door open and they're flawless prints with no.

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, more crashes.

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Ridiculous.

Speaker:

We've had six or eight since then, right?

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Don?

Speaker:

Don't overheat your perus, I guess like somebody was saying,

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maybe it's a bad, You know um,

Speaker:

had it

Speaker:

what, what God.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

So that's been Great.

Speaker:

that it's working again.

Speaker:

They're not broken, I guess they're fine.

Speaker:

They're both working now.

Speaker:

yeah, they're, yeah, we have 'em both printing at the same time.

Speaker:

I probably can see them back here, but we printed tool tag towers.

Speaker:

Somebody will ordered a couple and we print and ship them for people

Speaker:

and had some trouble with that too.

Speaker:

They were warping and we put some glue down.

Speaker:

Not finally fixed that, but like, yeah, the dust boots, we'd have giant

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shifts open the door, That's fine.

Speaker:

So satisfying, but also like, God, what that was it.

Speaker:

awesome.

Speaker:

Oh, I'm glad you found it.

Speaker:

That's great.

Speaker:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

So can you just set up a simple little ventilation route so

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you can keep it dust free?

Speaker:

that's what I want to do.

Speaker:

fan with a filter and just keeps a man moving through it.

Speaker:

It's kind of what I was thinking to do.

Speaker:

I don't know what the level of heat is, but it's definitely hot.

Speaker:

Like we put an acrylic scrap piece on the door of the front of the top one

Speaker:

and it warps the door out while it's hot and then it closes itself when it's not.

Speaker:

So it's definitely hot in there.

Speaker:

but it, at no time did the machine go, Hey, it's too hot for me.

Speaker:

It's just like, instead I'm just gonna think I crashed all the time.

Speaker:

Anyway, just me, I guess

Speaker:

nos.

Speaker:

Say the only other thing I have, we have a few new Patreon

Speaker:

members, which we appreciate.

Speaker:

hey uh,

Speaker:

I feel remiss after listening back and I had a couple comments

Speaker:

that we didn't really mention.

Speaker:

There's other tiers.

Speaker:

So we have tiers from $2 $5, 10, and 25, all with differing levels of benefit.

Speaker:

5, 10, 20.

Speaker:

Yeah, sorry, US dollars.

Speaker:

Gem will now convert live.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

2, 5 and 10 USD equates to roughly 3, 7 and 15 AUD

Speaker:

Thanks Don.

Speaker:

Don.

Speaker:

You're welcome.

Speaker:

So, yeah, those are not the only levels.

Speaker:

I was just trying to espouse the ones that were my favorite last

Speaker:

time and somebody was like, I don't know if I can go that high.

Speaker:

And I was like, Yeah, oh no, we have whatever you can give.

Speaker:

That's cool.

Speaker:

So you can go check it out the link and you can see those, what

Speaker:

the benefits are and, and such.

Speaker:

Awesome.

Speaker:

Thank you.

Speaker:

New Patreon's Paton's Pet.

Speaker:

Pitch pit, pit PDs.

Speaker:

Excuse me.

Speaker:

I dunno.

Speaker:

I dunno.

Speaker:

I was trying to make a word, but it didn't really work.

Speaker:

Apparently my audio doesn't work again.

Speaker:

Is that me?

Speaker:

Oh my God.

Speaker:

Oh my God.

Speaker:

you

Speaker:

I'm just typing PS apparently

Speaker:

Revolting.

Speaker:

I, I got Okay.

Speaker:

Right away.

Speaker:

Okay.

Speaker:

That's all I got.

Speaker:

I wanna make some parts

Speaker:

Yeah, go do it.

Speaker:

feel better, man, both emotionally and uh, find a passion project.

Speaker:

Thank you.

Speaker:

Make a video or something.

Speaker:

Make a new product.

Speaker:

I've just been getting some more sleep in the meantime.

Speaker:

That's been good.

Speaker:

Sleep's good.

Speaker:

Sleep

Speaker:

yeah.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Cool.

Speaker:

Well, happy milling.

Speaker:

Go make some chips, fill some bins, and I'll see

Speaker:

Bill Smith.

Speaker:

Bye.

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About the Podcast

Show artwork for Parts Department
Parts Department
Justin Brouillette (Portland CNC) and Jem Freeman (Like Butter) discuss CNC machines, their product design and manufacturing businesses, and every kind of tool that they fancy.

Listen for free

About your hosts

Profile picture for Jem Freeman

Jem Freeman

Co-founder and director of Like Butter, a CNC focussed timber design and manufacturing business in their purpose-built solar-powered workshop. Castlemaine, VIC, Australia.
Profile picture for Justin Brouillette

Justin Brouillette

Founder of Portland CNC & Nack