So after you got over the first 5 Xometry jobs you are actually making decent money? I have not been too happy with the offerings for the jobs I see on the board. Also, what are you using for your surface test? You using a profilometer or surface comparator?

@AudacityMicro

6 ай бұрын

yes! I had a friend who sat down with me, and gave me some really good advise on how to get good work with xometry. The biggest thing is to never take jobs for less than $500, if you take low paying jobs, the algorithm will just keep showing you other low paying work. At this point i pretty much only see jobs that are over $500. The second big thing is to ask for more money on basically every job you take. I probably average atleast 50% over what they originally offer. They will turn you down for 90% of you offers, but the ones they take are good money makers. and lastly, don't do the easy work. There's no money in the easy parts. You would need to make far to many of them in a day to make a living, but you can often find harder parts that most people are too lazy to take. Those have WAY higher margins. I'm averaging about 65% profit on all my xometry jobs right now.

@tdg911

6 ай бұрын

@@AudacityMicro wow thanks for the advice. I was really depressed when I finally saw the job offerings. I have an 1100mx. Do you use your 4th axis much with some xometry parts? Currently I am contemplating purchasing a 4th axis or a mitutoyo sj-210 for more measuring gear. Do you use the cometary standard inspection forms? I have so many questions!

@AudacityMicro

6 ай бұрын

I haven't actually done any of the xometry work on my Tormach yet, not that you couldn't, I've just been specializing in small parts, and the Haas just does them better. A 4th axis would definitely let you do a bunch of parts that people with a 3 axis machine can't do. It would be a good advantage for you. In terms of inspection I just use a fillable version of the xometry inspection form. It's a little time consuming, but works well enough. At some point I'm going to clone it in a spreadsheet to help speed things up a little.

@mauricerojas9229

6 ай бұрын

@@AudacityMicro when you ask for more money on those jobs are you doing it on the provide feedback part of it? And wait to see if they accept it or not

@AudacityMicro

6 ай бұрын

Correct! It'll just show back up on your job board with an orange tag if they take it.

Your shop is so well organized! You are SUCH a great teacher and explainer. You should consider teaching. Thank you for sharing your expertise with us!

On sawing tough material stand that bar up on edge cutting the thin side and narrow the cut guide. It will cut faster and most likely get more cuts per blade.

That haas looos amazing ! I love the older smaller easy to use machines haas is probably my favorite just how simple they are to learn

@AudacityMicro

2 ай бұрын

Ive been very happy with mine so far!

I use vacuum chucks from Pierson to work on flat parts like that. Sometimes a few skim passes on both sides allow you to control the stresses and get it flat. One button to hold it. One button to release it. No glue. No clamps.

@AudacityMicro

6 ай бұрын

That would certainly be faster! And on a part like this it probably wouldn't warp anything. The only reason that I don't do vacuum workholding is that *most* of my stuff is rather small. This part is very much the exception. I am generally working on parts that are like less than a square inch, and vacuum just doesn't have enough surface area. Definitely jealous of your pierson system though, it would be really handy when the occasional called for it. Especially on the Tormach that has larger travels.

I work in manufacturing and it's amazing how almost every place has gone to no phones for safety reasons when everyone knows it's for productivity reasons. Because the rule only applies to the peasants not anyone in charge. But everyone walks around with headphones on.

@AudacityMicro

5 ай бұрын

The irony is that if I had someone working for me, I wouldn't require them to keep their phones out of their pocket, I just know that I need to for me to be productive.

@Houcnc

5 ай бұрын

I mainly use my phone to put up a listenable yt video ,if you want to be productive drink some coffee 😂

Get acro mills for process bins. A bit expensive for a 6 pack yes you can print them but just not the same. You can get them 8.5" wide so they fit a document protector page standing up or on the bottom. Then you can cut whiteboard type tags for the front of them to leave little notes and they stack perfectly. Get 2 or more colors to make certain parts for the process easier to identify from across the shop with clearly defined tape lines to further breakdown where in the process it is. And they make wall mountable racks for them so you can put them on the back of your rollable carts clearing up working space. This allows you to have to write down and remember less. You know what needs to be blasted, you know what needs to be measured, and shipped without even thinking about it.

@AudacityMicro

5 ай бұрын

I'll look into them! Thanks! The wood ones work, but I'm always afraid of breaking them.

Nice one! Enjoyed it 💯

@AudacityMicro

6 ай бұрын

Thank you!

Good on you with the phone!!!!!!

@AudacityMicro

6 ай бұрын

It's amazing how distracting they can be 😅

From one (ex) job shop machinist to another, if you can afford it, don't cheap out on saw blades, the bandsaw is your primary material removal tool so splurge for the good belts, I used to use Starrett blades and those did me absolutely wonderfully, never had any issues with those, didn't break many, just through and through they were great blades, I started on the cheaper ones too mind you, they worked alright but they break fairly frequently Best of luck on your endeavours though! Always rough starting a job shop but it can be very rewarding, hoping all goes well for you!

@AudacityMicro

6 ай бұрын

It's funny how "don't cheap out" is a lesson that I've had to learn a few times 😂. I learned it with tooling not too long ago too. I think I had just been lucky with the blades I was buying, and the kind of parts I've been cutting. And thanks! I'm definitely learning a lot as I go!

We used bandsaws for years if you can swing it get a evolution metal cutting circular saw it would laterally take you 5 minutes to cut that stick down and the finish is a machine finish on the cut end. We just converted a 14" saw with metal cutting circular blade with coolant for thicker materials and it cuts like a hot knife thru butter and leaves very little mess.

@AudacityMicro

6 ай бұрын

I definitely want to do something like that at some point! At my old day job we had a big cold saw, and it was awesome. This bandsaw was cheap, and it generally works well, so I just haven't gotten around to upgrading it.

@teddytavernier7522

5 ай бұрын

I don’t foresee a high speed carbide tipped blade behaving well in stainless steel. Turning the bar 90* would make the biggest difference in this application. less teeth in the cut

@AudacityMicro

5 ай бұрын

Can confirm, you are right that doing it on end worked WAY better. Though as soon as my blade started to get dull, it would wonder pretty far. Definitely would have saved me some pain and frustration though.

Our jobbing shop has a huge cell phone problem and management does nothing about it. It's so bad that I would estimate one of our large cnc lathes runs 1.5hrs out of a 8hr shift.

@AudacityMicro

4 ай бұрын

Doesn't sound like a cellphone problem, sounds like a leadership issue 🤷‍♂️. I wouldn't impose my cellphone rules on others, I just know it's what I need to do in order to get enough done in a day.

Can you throw a link to the tape you’re using? 🙌🏼🙌🏼

@AudacityMicro

6 ай бұрын

Here you go! amzn.to/3NwfPwX I have a 2" wide role, and a 1" wide roll. That lets you cover just about anything without too much waste.

Great video! How did you go about to purchase your OM2A? I'm thinking of getting one over a tormach but I don't want to risk buying a machine with major issues, can you share any advice on machine shopping?

@AudacityMicro

6 ай бұрын

Thanks! I bought it through a used machine dealer, and honestly I did take a huge risk on it, I just got lucky. The machine was located in California (I am in Indiana). I could have gone and inspected it, but it was cheap enough that I figured I would just take the risk and buy it sight unseen. Not sure I recommend that method, but I got lucky.

for stainless u need a band with bigger thoots and slow speed on the rotation . it will help

@AudacityMicro

6 ай бұрын

It's already running the slowest speed, need to play with different blades though.

@Matthew_ASD

6 ай бұрын

@@AudacityMicro and i ddnt see cutting spray at the saw. You should spray it every once in a while might help aswell 😁 I hate when the band snaps , scares me alot 😅

@AudacityMicro

6 ай бұрын

I occasionally give it a shot of WD-40. but it doesn't have any sort of built in lubrication system. I am thinking about adding a oil drip system for constant lubrication.

I think as time goes by we adjust to issues. I'm noticing more and more resistance to phones. I myself hardly use mine for anything but phone calls these days. My 17 year old son believe it or not leaves his phone in the car when at work. I know 99% of people have a total addiction but some of us are waking up to the bullshit of it all.

@AudacityMicro

2 ай бұрын

Definitely

This is the longest Instagram story I've ever seen. 😂 Looking forward to these 20 min stories on what Audacity Micro is up to, Tormach replacement video will be fun. 😅

@AudacityMicro

6 ай бұрын

Lol, pretty much! This may sound counter intuitive, but it's way faster for me to make a long video than it is for me to make short videos. Short videos require a lot more thought and editing to make them make sense. Long videos you can kinda throw all the clips together.

@zanebeefybutler

6 ай бұрын

@DesignTheEverything Oh I get it, just throwing it all together and not getting distracted by notifications popping up on the phone all the time makes complete sense. 🤙🏻

Is the material too wide to cut it standing up? From my experience those small saws are too light to put enough pressure on a cut that wide (some people add weights to the frame) and also i haven't found a course enough blade in that size (i'm not in the US though). You really see the difference when you cut square tubing. The MRR is like 20+ times higher on the upright walls. I would probably try to half the bar one or two times and cut 1-4 pieces standing up at the same time. You can force the saw to go faster but it's a great recipe for deflection issues. The chip space just isn't there. Breaking blades kind of defies the purpose (for me) of a bandsaw being super cheap to run.

@AudacityMicro

6 ай бұрын

I was worried about the straightness of the cut. I knew the blade on there was dull, and likely to wander. This orientation gave the blade the least distance to move.

@shawnclonts6485

6 ай бұрын

@@AudacityMicro Sometimes I’ll put a piece of stock on one side to raise it at an angle which reduce the length of cut presented to the saw. Not having enough room in the tooth for that long of a chip also helps slow you down.

When you say 6 tenths I had to do a double take. .6 vs .0006 almost tuned out lol.

@AudacityMicro

5 ай бұрын

Lol, understandable unless you have hung out with machinists enough to pickup the slang. Most of us think in "thou" or .001 inch. So a tenth is a tenth of a thou. Most my parts are smaller than .6" anyway 🤣.

I have that same hass om1 it’s from 2007 but looks like it’s that same. I am a stem educator teaching kids to build robots and I’m wondering if I could get any tips on running the machine. Thanks so much.

@AudacityMicro

6 ай бұрын

Awesome! Checkout the Haas channel, they have great educational stuff!

@poetac15

6 ай бұрын

What are your issues with the machine? Do you have cad/cam software and tooling?

Is the HAAS with a steel or cast iron body?

@AudacityMicro

6 ай бұрын

It's a cast iron frame

What kind of tape are you using? It kinda looks like a blue green colored kapton

@AudacityMicro

17 күн бұрын

It's similar. It's a high temp powder coating tape. I recorded a video a few weeks ago with an updated process, my new method works a LOT better now.

FIX THAT CONTACT/SWITCH ISSUE NOW. it will be 99% cheaper and faster then having to replace your controller! im amazed that they dont come with backup batteries just for the controllers, incase of power outages (which might happen 1/2 times a year) but can still be deadly to the controller. best of luck with the business!

@AudacityMicro

5 ай бұрын

That is a very good point. It's easy to ignore issues like this because they only happen once in a while, but there can definitely be some longer term damage caused. Alright alright, I'll see if I can find a replacement.

@fukit420

3 ай бұрын

@@AudacityMicro 2 months later..... hows that switch doing?? all fixed?? how you doing? hows the business doing?

@AudacityMicro

3 ай бұрын

It's stopped having issues, so I haven't messed with it. Probably should still grab a spare just in case. The business is growing! I've been able to match what I was making as an engineer most months. Still a lot more investment and growing needed though

How TF do you make *any* profit from Xometry jobs given today’s material cost? It’s almost impossible after I did the math…especially considering foreign manufacturers

@AudacityMicro

5 ай бұрын

On most my jobs material cost is less than 20% of the job. Excluding my labor, my average profit is about 65%. and most of that is because I'm still building up a tool library, and a collection of things like thread gauges that I may or may not be able to reuse in the future. There's a few tricks to actually make money on xometry. First rule is to never take low value work, that'll just train xometry to keep showing it to you. Second rule is to be patient, xometry doesn't show every job to everyone. When you first sign up, they don't have any reason to trust you yet, and don't show you high value work. Just like any other supplier relationship, you have to build trust. I started being shown the decent jobs after about my 10th.

What’s the weight of the tormach? I just bought a fadal 4020 but it’s too heavy for my garage at home . There has to be something I can do to keep it in my garage.

@AudacityMicro

5 ай бұрын

It's like 1200lbs without the enclosure. It has no problems in a garage.

@Poncho-dd2pl

5 ай бұрын

@@AudacityMicro wow that’s nothing . So my garage is a 2car . It should handle a machine I hope . Just don’t wana spend extra money for moving it around

my harbor frieght bandsaw breaks blades about once a month.

@AudacityMicro

6 ай бұрын

I'm glad it isn't just me 😂

Should have your stainless supplier cut it for you. If you're going to blow through blades $$, it doesn't make sense to cut it with that rinky dink saw.

@AudacityMicro

6 ай бұрын

In retrospect, that totally would have been the way to go.