#linuxcnc Logs
Apr 11 2025
#linuxcnc Calendar
12:57 AM lcnc-relay: <meisterdippel@> moin
06:11 AM -!- #linuxcnc mode set to +v by ChanServ
06:18 AM -!- #linuxcnc mode set to +v by ChanServ
06:28 AM -!- #linuxcnc mode set to +v by ChanServ
08:23 AM JT-Cave: https://forum.linuxcnc.org/41-guis/51580-flexible-gui?start=150#326057
08:39 AM -!- #linuxcnc mode set to +v by ChanServ
09:17 AM mrec: I wonder is there anyone here who has been in the situation of taking over an older machining company in the past?
09:19 AM bjorkintosh: mrec: by purchasing it?
09:19 AM bjorkintosh: or by winning the genetic lottery?
09:20 AM mrec: I guess it depends on the situation, we have a machining shop here which either will stop operation or try to do something with it (I have a few projects in the pick and place area)
09:20 AM mrec: the genetic lottery winner cannot run the shop, but he would be willing to learn, he only knows the manual mill and their business is dropping also the employees are over 60
09:21 AM mrec: the son is 28 years old
09:21 AM mrec: they have one CNC (which I repaired within last year, and I'm the only one who can use it), 3 manual mills, 3 mills with large facemills and one small welding area
09:22 AM mrec: the deal was just I repair it and I can use it, and I should teach the senior's son how to use it
09:23 AM mrec: now they are in the situation that the owner is fighting death in hospital
09:23 AM mrec: and the original business is going down, the shop is in Taiwan the salary is low.
09:24 AM bjorkintosh: mrec: so just buy it if you can.
09:24 AM bjorkintosh: and shape it as you see fit.
09:27 AM mrec: well I'll very likely try. I would like to keep the son of the senior boss there he's a good person (and the previous owner is also very nice, hope he will get through but it doesn't look good for him).
09:35 AM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> where are you located? and the shop is in taiwan?
09:35 AM bjorkintosh: mrec: what do they make? is it a job shop? regular customers and so on?
09:35 AM mrec: I'm in Taiwan (married and have a full working visa), it's in the south of Taiwan
09:36 AM mrec: it is a job shop yes, they do quite accurate steel parts
09:36 AM mrec: but demand went down, they manually mill parts and weld them together so they save a lot material
09:37 AM mrec: the welding quality is not good, but I think I could help them with a small robot the welding items aren't too difficult
09:37 AM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> Neat!
09:37 AM bjorkintosh: mrec: what drove demand in the first place?
09:37 AM mrec: the son cannot take over the operational business, he doesn't have the skills
09:38 AM mrec: they made parts for other machinery here, and still do that at the moment (parts for mills, lathes, etc.)
09:39 AM mrec: his father failed to drive him to leadership, the owner did all the welding himself. I don't agree with the way how he did it (on a small chair in a corner on a self built rig)
09:39 AM mrec: the owner was more or less the heart of the business (they call them black hand workers here, because they're dirty all the time)
09:40 AM bjorkintosh: black hand workers!
09:40 AM bjorkintosh: interesting indeed.
09:40 AM mrec: and the welding poisoned him.. no appropriate protection
09:40 AM bjorkintosh: Werner Von Braun referred to it as 'dirty hands engineering'.
09:41 AM bjorkintosh: that being said, a mask and gloves would have cost him far less.
09:41 AM mrec: a poor guy .. smart to get things done but did not take care about his health
09:41 AM bjorkintosh: mrec: a lot of people don't. that is why so many of us spend time in chairs and forget to exercise.
09:42 AM bjorkintosh: the chair is a damned killer.
09:42 AM * bjorkintosh remains seated.
09:42 AM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> same
09:42 AM mrec: but it would be a pity to let everything go down the drain now.. so we're thinking (I'm onside doing prototypes at the moment)
09:42 AM mrec: I do electronics/pcb design and software normally... LinuxCNC got me into all that
09:44 AM mrec: that Mitsubishi machine is a rigid beast, milling my parts is much easier than with my small LinuxCNC mill
09:46 AM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> lol - yes - size does matter. That is why the K&T is my favorite cnc to use.
09:52 AM roycroft: bjorkintosh: that is one of the big reasons i decided to start a new woodworking business as my "retirement job"
09:53 AM roycroft: friends have encouraged me to write books, but i need to be physically active if i'm to survive much longer
09:53 AM bjorkintosh: roycroft: makes sense.
09:53 AM bjorkintosh: how's recovery?
09:53 AM roycroft: i'm not feeling great this morning, but i've also not had my coffee yet
09:54 AM roycroft: i had the staples removed from my scalp yesteray, and my head feels better for that
09:54 AM roycroft: regarding my back, it's slow and steady progress
09:54 AM roycroft: i got the green light yesterday to do some light stretching and twisting of my back
09:55 AM roycroft: kind of pre-physical therapy stuff
09:57 AM roycroft: the staples in my back come out in a couple weeks
09:57 AM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> how bad were the head staple removal?
09:57 AM roycroft: i anticipate i'll be feeling much better by then, but maybe a lot worse for a bit after
09:57 AM roycroft: it did not hurt as much as i anticipated, but i definitely felt it
09:57 AM roycroft: the scalp is a very sensitive area
09:57 AM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> right - probably one of the worse areas..
09:58 AM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> A head wound was the first time I found out blood had a smell..
09:58 AM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> (had staples too) but so long ago - I don't really remember the removal.
09:59 AM bjorkintosh: iron.
09:59 AM bjorkintosh: it smells like iron.
09:59 AM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> right - smells rusty
09:59 AM bjorkintosh: because it is.
09:59 AM bjorkintosh: oxidation from exposure to air and what not.
09:59 AM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> I didn't duck
09:59 AM bjorkintosh: tsk tsk Goliath.
09:59 AM bjorkintosh: tsk tsk.
10:01 AM roycroft: i'm doing well enough that i'm starting to think about whether i can climb a ladder or not
10:02 AM roycroft: i need to reach some stuff in my shop that requires a ladder
10:02 AM roycroft: right now i'm thinking that i proably can climb up and down the ladder, but not with a load, even a light one
10:03 AM roycroft: but two days ago i don't think i'd even be pondering this at all
10:03 AM roycroft: so i guess that's progress
10:04 AM roycroft: and no, i'm not going to give it a go any time soon
10:05 AM bjorkintosh: thank goodness!
10:06 AM roycroft: there is a small warehouse/large shop next door tome
10:07 AM roycroft: i'm not sure exactly what goes on there, but there's a kid who plays basketball with his friends there in the parking lot
10:07 AM roycroft: he says hi to me whenever he sees me, and has stopped to chat with me a few times
10:07 AM roycroft: i'm going to ask him if he wants to earn a bit of $$ by helping me out once in a while - i have a hot tub on my pickup that need to go to the dump, for example
10:08 AM roycroft: if i drive here and he unloads that would be great
10:08 AM roycroft: if he's agreeable to that i can have him do the ladder stuff
10:10 AM bjorkintosh: the very same infamous hot tub??
10:10 AM roycroft: the one that i was removing from the old place when i suffered my injury
10:11 AM roycroft: it's still on the pickup - a friend drive it up here, went back to eugene, then said "hmm, i probably should have taken that to the dump for you"
10:12 AM roycroft: anyway, a helper for an hour or two/week for stuff like that would be nice
10:13 AM roycroft: i'm too old to breed, so i have to outsource that kind of labor
10:13 AM bjorkintosh: it takes a village...
10:13 AM bjorkintosh: it's never too late to adopt :-D
10:14 AM roycroft: even if i weren't too old to breed, it takes a dozen years before one gets any useful return
10:14 AM roycroft: there are pretty much no jobs here
10:14 AM bjorkintosh: pfft. by then they have opinions. damned whipper snappers.
10:14 AM roycroft: a teenager wanting to make a little extra cash has limited options
10:15 AM roycroft: if i can provide an opportunity for one that would be good for me, good for the kid, and good for the community
10:17 AM * roycroft gets to work, and thanks goodness it's friday
10:17 AM bjorkintosh: many teenagers have found their calling by being useful community members.
10:18 AM bjorkintosh: I hope this one does.
10:19 AM roycroft: he seems like a nice kid
10:19 AM roycroft: and he goes out of his way to greet me when he's around
10:19 AM roycroft: he's probably about 16
10:20 AM roycroft: i think most kids are good by nature
10:20 AM roycroft: but the environment in which they're raised affects their attitude and behavior
10:25 AM roycroft: it is overcast here today, but no rain in the forecast
10:25 AM roycroft: starting tomorrow it's supposed to be sunny and warm for a solid week
11:01 AM bjorkintosh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuZjjActWmQ Unusual Shop Tips Dan Gelbart
11:27 AM roycroft: i wish i could understand how my boss' brain works
11:28 AM roycroft: the software vendor told us yesterday that their importer changed with the current version of their code, and that we might try installing the previous version and using that importer to see if it works better
11:28 AM roycroft: that's what i tried doing yesterday, when my boss told me to instead do exactly the same thing as i did before, which i did, and got the same results as before
11:28 AM roycroft: today i installed the previous version, did the import, and it worked much better
11:28 AM roycroft: so i told my boss that we could use that, and that i would upgrade the new software to current
11:29 AM roycroft: instead, he wants me to nuke the install, install the current version, copy the importer from the previous version, and attempt the import with that
11:29 AM roycroft: i think there's about a 187% chance that would fail catestrophically, and about a 99.9% chance that doing it my way will work beautifully
11:30 AM bjorkintosh: parallel installs?
11:30 AM bjorkintosh: for A/B testing and demonstration.
11:30 AM roycroft: well i am making backups after every step and retaining them
11:31 AM roycroft: in spite of a direct order not to "waste your time" doing that
11:31 AM roycroft: it takes about 15 seconds to back up the database
11:31 AM roycroft: and maybe a minute if i have to back up the files too
11:32 AM roycroft: it might take me a good part of the day to figure out how to get all the bits and pieces of the old importer merged into the new code (the software uses library directories, utility directories, etc. - nothing at all wrong with that, but it's not highly containerized)
11:33 AM roycroft: or i can just do an upgrade to what we have, which will take about 5 minutes
11:33 AM roycroft: with the same net effect, except for the added feature of working
11:33 AM * roycroft is getting a headache
11:33 AM bjorkintosh: what's all this written in, php?
11:34 AM roycroft: yes, but obfuscated php
11:34 AM roycroft: i can't even read the code
11:34 AM roycroft: it uses that ioncube loader
11:34 AM roycroft: so the files look like binary data
11:35 AM roycroft: the only way i can try to figure out which pieces belong to what part of the code is by filename, not by contents
11:36 AM bjorkintosh: nuts.
11:36 AM roycroft: ?>
11:36 AM roycroft: HR+cPowmnO1wDZwtSrnGemEdZ5qr1+dafu6A4PV84iDYyv2VTyV2HzrIAC5WqizuT3ugBLVMY690
11:36 AM roycroft: uOop2RzEvyaesXRV/5LtMAxhYykOckTHn3dIl8DRy5rJvB8kbkKKAek7vT5R3rhbUYBawU0XNFl/
11:36 AM roycroft: that's the php code
11:36 AM roycroft: in obfuscated mode
11:37 AM bjorkintosh: oh that's awful!
11:37 AM bjorkintosh: kill it with fire!
11:37 AM roycroft: i don't care about that
11:37 AM roycroft: the open source accounting/billing packages all have serious problems and require dozens of hours of configuration to get even basic functionality
11:38 AM roycroft: i don't mind buying commercial code that is closed-source as long as it works and is worth the money we pay
12:18 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> we looked at some open source erp systems and the powers to be decided that netsuite was the solution. We are still trying to get it to work for us. The basic stuff works - but we are also still using our home grown costing/scheduling as they tried to do something similar in netsute and it just didn't work.
12:18 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> I think we will get there - maybe
12:19 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> it is nice not having to worry about the erp infrastructure.. (other than keeping our internet up)
12:19 PM roycroft: i haven't seen netsuite
12:19 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> it is oricle..
12:19 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> oricle?
12:19 PM roycroft: oracle
12:20 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> oracle
12:20 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> right
12:20 PM roycroft: i've been spending a bit of time with erpnext for my woodworking business
12:21 PM roycroft: i put a lot of energy into ledgersmb, but in the end decided it won't work for me
12:21 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> getting access to the tables for our system was a pain. (odbc) the table structure is certainly odd.. Most eveything is in a 'transaction and transaction lines' tables. Everything.
12:21 PM roycroft: the community version of erpnext has some manufacturing support - certainly enough for a one-person shop
12:22 PM roycroft: ledgersmb has better core accounting features, but no manufacturing at all, and even invoicing is limited
12:22 PM roycroft: there are no cc payment modules, for example - all payments must be entered manually
12:22 PM roycroft: erpnext supports paypal/square/stripe/etc
12:23 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> we have gone from a home written (locally in ibm basic) to SBT then to Navision (microsoft) now to netsuite. Through all of that - the table structures were suprisingly similar.
12:23 PM roycroft: i don't want to spend a ton of time configuring accounting software, but for my own business, i also don't want to spend a lot of money on an accounting software subscription
12:23 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> right
12:24 PM roycroft: this era of rentalware has really cramped my style
12:24 PM roycroft: i would not mind paying $500 for a copy of quickbooks that works forever but does not get upgrades after a year
12:24 PM roycroft: but i am not willing to pay for it on a subscription basis
12:24 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> right.
12:24 PM roycroft: just as an example, not to pick on quickbooks in particular
12:26 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> one of the selling points was we didn't have to worry about the server hardware or updates and such.. But we were down for a day when one of netsuites server farms started on fire. It didn't fall over to a different location or anything.. Pissed a ton of people off.
12:26 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> (not just us)
01:44 PM -!- #linuxcnc mode set to +v by ChanServ
01:48 PM -!- #linuxcnc mode set to +v by ChanServ
02:51 PM lcnc-relay: <vibram@> Hello, Which CAM software do you use for turning?
02:55 PM lcnc-relay: <vibram@> I remember a gcode generator online for simple operations but impossible to find it
03:02 PM roycroft: the cam software you use will depend both on the cad software and the machine controller software you want to use
03:03 PM roycroft: it has to be compatible with the cad software so that it can do the gcode generation, and it has to be compatible with the machine controller software so it can generate gcode that the machine can use
03:11 PM lcnc-relay: <die_limonade@> i use fusion360 cam...but for lathes conversional programming is very handy
03:12 PM JT-Mobile: Yo
03:13 PM roycroft: happy friday
03:13 PM xxcoder: its friday forever for me
03:13 PM xxcoder: but yes happy friday
03:13 PM roycroft: better than monday forever
03:13 PM JT-Mobile: Yup
03:34 PM roycroft: i'm trying to wean myself off the acetaminophine during the day, so i can just take ibuprofin, but it may be a bit early for that
03:34 PM * roycroft is feeling some pain right now
03:36 PM * JT-Mobile is feeling no pain after a few glasses of Norton
03:49 PM -!- #linuxcnc mode set to +v by ChanServ
03:52 PM Tom_L: JT-MOBILE, out & about today too ehh
05:21 PM xxcoder: heyy new engineerguy video. been a while
05:22 PM xxcoder: https://youtu.be/kU_gH36GG58
06:19 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> well - the silver contacts sold on ebay... that was quick...
06:19 PM xxcoder: nice
06:21 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> friday forever sounds nice
09:02 PM roycroft: it is friday night, and i am making pizza
09:03 PM roycroft: that's a sure sign i'm doing better
09:03 PM xxcoder: lol nice. I had airfried food and quealas. was pretty good.
09:03 PM roycroft: there were many nights of opening a can of soup for dinner when i got home
09:04 PM roycroft: i did buy the dough from the market, though - i'm not up to kneading yet
09:04 PM roycroft: but i should be able to roll it out without issue
09:05 PM roycroft: i hope so, otherwise it's going to be a lousy pizza
09:26 PM lcnc-relay: <lackdaz@> https://www.reddit.com/r/hobbycnc/s/AiTWsQ7n43
09:28 PM xxcoder: pretty big for hobby
09:29 PM lcnc-relay: <lackdaz@> The comment section is quite entertaining
09:29 PM lcnc-relay: <lackdaz@> I had to check if it was a shit post too
09:30 PM lcnc-relay: <lackdaz@> This happens pretty damn much in the espresso subreddits
09:33 PM roycroft: the poster is canadian
09:33 PM roycroft: maybe it's veegee
09:34 PM lcnc-relay: <lackdaz@> I can't believe that's 1300CAD
09:35 PM roycroft: there are lots of machines like that going for next to nothing
09:36 PM roycroft: it can cost a company way more than that to sell it at market value
09:36 PM roycroft: it's often cheaper to almost give it away and take a tax write-off
09:37 PM xxcoder: yeah shop I used to work at had dead older version of a61, they left it till it devalued enough to write off and scrap em
09:37 PM xxcoder: it was bunch of years
09:38 PM roycroft: if it's fully depreciated and then you sell it you're liable for taxes on the sale
09:38 PM lcnc-relay: <lackdaz@> Oh well he might turn up soon
09:39 PM xxcoder: veegee? nah hope he stay away
09:39 PM xxcoder: hes awful troll, and not even a good troll
09:39 PM roycroft: it could also be a complete troll post
09:39 PM roycroft: maybe he's here now
09:39 PM roycroft: we'll find out soon
09:40 PM xxcoder: maybe. wont last long
09:40 PM roycroft: i'm pretty sore after making the pizza
09:41 PM roycroft: but it felt good to be back in the routine
09:41 PM roycroft: and it's going to taste delicious when it comes out of the oven
09:42 PM lcnc-relay: <lackdaz@> Yummy what kind of oven?
09:43 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> Our gateway drug into CNC machines was from a junkyard.
09:44 PM roycroft: a conventional electric oven
09:45 PM roycroft: that was one of the hardest parts of the whole process - bending down to put it in the oven and remove it
09:45 PM roycroft: but it will be worth the pain
10:07 PM rdtsc: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuZjjActWmQ
10:58 PM roycroft: those seem more like shop hacks than machining tips
11:58 PM lcnc-relay: <vibram@> roycroft: Yes I was using solidworks fir cad but their cam looks terrible
11:58 PM lcnc-relay: <vibram@> So I tried to switch on freecad but no lathe cam possibility on the V1