But now it is time to report in!
 |
| (not my actual lungs) |
Working in reverse, Today I had my chest X-ray'd, Urine sampled (yum), Prostate Checked (cough-cough) and my blood drawn (to apparently baseline my beryllium oxide levels). What does this all mean? It means I got a job!
Actually, I got another job. This past week I've been working for a staffing agency called Aerotek, and they placed me at a company called LapMaster Wolters assembling machines that do secret things in the creation of new wigits that ryhme with "piephone.." So in our funny economic world, I'm building American machines out of Chinese parts to produce Chinese products for the American (and world) markets. FYI, and totally not related to the work I'm doing, Apple (as of 2015) is the 3rd highest-ranked company on the Forbes 500 list, just a tidbit behind Exxon Mobile at 233,700,000,000 (that is $233.7 Billion). Of that pie, I'm making $25/hr and working 7am-6pm, Monday-Saturday with no health benefits. I will probably make a post sometime about our personal finance and the quackery (a blogger spell-check suggestion for the word "fuckery") that comprises our education and finance systems, but I'll hold off for now.
All that behind me, the big news is that I was offered a job on the spot (and I accepted on the spot) at an Injection Molding Tool company named A1 Tool Corporation, located a mere 15 minutes away in Melrose Park, Illinois. They build molds (or "moulds" if you prefer that spelling) out of super-strong metals that are CNC machined to super-high tolerances and fit together to allow for high-pressure molten plastic to be injected into intentional voids between the (typically) two pieces that comprise the mold. Once injected, the plastic cools and is then ejected from the mold and out pops a piece of Tupperware(TM), a car bumper, a peanut butter jar, a storage tote, or one of the thousands of different shapes that plastic comes in. I'm contributing to the manufacturing of the products the will help choke out life on this planet! Yay!
But in all seriousness, it's freaking awesome. Imagine being a teenager, pining to get their hands all over Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Farah Faucet, or Burt Reynolds...and then actually end up fulfilling those fantasy's....well, I'm in a similar situation here, and I'm going to get frisky with all sorts of freaking awesome CNC equipment! (with consent, of course) The first machine they hope to start me on is a Kuraki Horizontal Boring Machine, which is a MONSTER 3+1 axis CNC machine. As in, 8000lb capacity, 8' Z-axis travel, cut a block the size of a small car, MONSTER. If you're confused by my use of 3+1 (as opposed to saying "4-axis", it is because the 4th axis is a rotary axis on the XY plane that doesn't move silmiltaniously with the XYY axis. The cutting operations on XYZ stop, the rotational 4th axis rotates the part to a new orientation, then cutting resumes. I'll be doing roughing and boring operations on the raw blocks of material that arrive at the shop via truck, and then the parts I make will be sent to other machines for further machining. It is my personal goal to learn ALL of the machines that are at A1 (which include a 5-Axis DMG-Mori, CNC lathes, EDM's, and a slew of different controllers including a range of Fanuc's), in addition to the tooling and software that support their full operation. Along the way, if the opportunity presents itself, I'd love to get involved with training/onboarding of new employees.
Secondly, I made my first CNC tool purchase last week: 4 carbide end mills from a local Illinois company, Maritool. I wanted some locally-sourced, home-grown, made-in-USA carbide tooling for CNC work, and there were some strong contenders! There are actually a number of tool makers in the USA that use USA carbide, but I have yet to determine who makes quality tools and who I should avoid. There is a great youtube channel I've been following called NYC CNC, and while they mostly promote a company named Lakeshore Carbide in NY, there was mention at one point of Maritool, so when I was doing my search and found that Maritool was in Illinois AND was competitive in price, it made my purchase a no-brainer. They also allow for local pickup with no shipping cost, which put them ahead of the pack from NY. Last week we obtained a comparitor at PS1 and I'll hopefully be able to use that machine to record the tiny differences in the grind quality of these end mills, and compare the images to future purchases from other vendors.
 |
| (my contracting employer until Saturday) |
Actually, I got another job. This past week I've been working for a staffing agency called Aerotek, and they placed me at a company called LapMaster Wolters assembling machines that do secret things in the creation of new wigits that ryhme with "piephone.." So in our funny economic world, I'm building American machines out of Chinese parts to produce Chinese products for the American (and world) markets. FYI, and totally not related to the work I'm doing, Apple (as of 2015) is the 3rd highest-ranked company on the Forbes 500 list, just a tidbit behind Exxon Mobile at 233,700,000,000 (that is $233.7 Billion). Of that pie, I'm making $25/hr and working 7am-6pm, Monday-Saturday with no health benefits. I will probably make a post sometime about our personal finance and the quackery (a blogger spell-check suggestion for the word "fuckery") that comprises our education and finance systems, but I'll hold off for now.
 |
| (my new employer) |
All that behind me, the big news is that I was offered a job on the spot (and I accepted on the spot) at an Injection Molding Tool company named A1 Tool Corporation, located a mere 15 minutes away in Melrose Park, Illinois. They build molds (or "moulds" if you prefer that spelling) out of super-strong metals that are CNC machined to super-high tolerances and fit together to allow for high-pressure molten plastic to be injected into intentional voids between the (typically) two pieces that comprise the mold. Once injected, the plastic cools and is then ejected from the mold and out pops a piece of Tupperware(TM), a car bumper, a peanut butter jar, a storage tote, or one of the thousands of different shapes that plastic comes in. I'm contributing to the manufacturing of the products the will help choke out life on this planet! Yay!
 |
| (Example of a Kuraki Horizontal Boring Machine ) |
But in all seriousness, it's freaking awesome. Imagine being a teenager, pining to get their hands all over Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Farah Faucet, or Burt Reynolds...and then actually end up fulfilling those fantasy's....well, I'm in a similar situation here, and I'm going to get frisky with all sorts of freaking awesome CNC equipment! (with consent, of course) The first machine they hope to start me on is a Kuraki Horizontal Boring Machine, which is a MONSTER 3+1 axis CNC machine. As in, 8000lb capacity, 8' Z-axis travel, cut a block the size of a small car, MONSTER. If you're confused by my use of 3+1 (as opposed to saying "4-axis", it is because the 4th axis is a rotary axis on the XY plane that doesn't move silmiltaniously with the XYY axis. The cutting operations on XYZ stop, the rotational 4th axis rotates the part to a new orientation, then cutting resumes. I'll be doing roughing and boring operations on the raw blocks of material that arrive at the shop via truck, and then the parts I make will be sent to other machines for further machining. It is my personal goal to learn ALL of the machines that are at A1 (which include a 5-Axis DMG-Mori, CNC lathes, EDM's, and a slew of different controllers including a range of Fanuc's), in addition to the tooling and software that support their full operation. Along the way, if the opportunity presents itself, I'd love to get involved with training/onboarding of new employees.
 |
| (local carbide cutter and tool-holder manufacturer) |
Secondly, I made my first CNC tool purchase last week: 4 carbide end mills from a local Illinois company, Maritool. I wanted some locally-sourced, home-grown, made-in-USA carbide tooling for CNC work, and there were some strong contenders! There are actually a number of tool makers in the USA that use USA carbide, but I have yet to determine who makes quality tools and who I should avoid. There is a great youtube channel I've been following called NYC CNC, and while they mostly promote a company named Lakeshore Carbide in NY, there was mention at one point of Maritool, so when I was doing my search and found that Maritool was in Illinois AND was competitive in price, it made my purchase a no-brainer. They also allow for local pickup with no shipping cost, which put them ahead of the pack from NY. Last week we obtained a comparitor at PS1 and I'll hopefully be able to use that machine to record the tiny differences in the grind quality of these end mills, and compare the images to future purchases from other vendors.
 |
| CNC Pumpkin Carving with the ShapeOko1 at PS1 |
Next up is the CNC work at PS1. I finished installing limit switches on each axis of a 3-axis CNC router (a Shapeoko 2, by Inventables, if you must know), but since these switches use a hi/low voltage value to indicate a status change, they can be susceptible to voltage spikes/noise from other nearby electronics throwing out EMI (electromagnetic interference). So to help out I installed 330ohm "pull-up" resistors to ensure that the signal voltage was at a full 5V when not tripped, then also installed some .22uf (micro-farad) capacitors to absorb any voltage spikes that may be induced by the surrounding electronics (mainly a 48VDC spindle, and lots of 4-wire stepper motors).
After all of the electronics bugs were worked out, I trammed (aligned) the spindle and gantry (the moving parts of the machine that position the spindle/cutter) and finished cleaning up the wiring. Now the machine is mostly straight, clean looking, and ready to get back to operational status. I still want to document the "tool-chain" (which is a fancy way of saying which software systems you use in producing parts) so that other people can use whatever software best suits their needs and abilities. But hey, there are only so many hours in a day.
Ok, so that just about catches things up.
Thanks for reading/viewing!
Danny
Ok, so that just about catches things up.
Thanks for reading/viewing!
Danny
