WEBVTT

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[shutters opening, light switch clicking]

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Let's clean up this mess!
[clap clap clap clap]

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Road to no compromise vibraphone!

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[cheering sample][clap]
[♪ unreleased/Work ♪]

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Check this out: These are the 22 Matrix Sentinel
marble gates for the new vibraphone drops.

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In the last episode I built this vibraphone drop system
with all the metal rails.

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[MMX playing a vibraphone scale]

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And then I took the angle grinder and
just removed like ten days work.

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In this video I will explain to you exactly
why I needed to make this redesign.

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But before I explain that, I'm so excited
to actually start to build this,

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so let's make some plywood pieces on the CNC.

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Ever since I came up with matrix sentinels
for the drums of the Marble Machine X,

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I have been toying with the idea to
use them for the vibraphone as well.

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It took me a day to design this assembly in CAD,

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and it consists of laser-cut metal parts
and CNC cut plywood parts.

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I'm going to start making these marble shuttles,
that feeds a marble every time a note is played.

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[♫]

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[boom]

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When I was at ThinkerCon in Alabama
I met my maker idol Frank Howarth.

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He has the same CNC machine as I have, and I
asked him what end mills he's using for plywood,

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and he was: "compression bits".

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I had never heard of these kinds of end mills before,
they're also called "up and down", and the special thing

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is that the flute direction is changing
in the middle of the end mill.

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So in the top of the end mill, it's cutting down,
and in the bottom, it's cutting up.

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So on the top of the plywood the end mill will cut down,
and on the bottom of the plywood it will cut up,

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which results in much less tear out.

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Normally, I had a great finish on the top of the plywood,
but a little bit of tear out on the underside,

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which is expected when you're using
the down cutters that I normally use.

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I was really excited to see
if this made a difference.

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[♫]

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[melody starts on vibraphone]

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To cut into tight corners you need to use
a smaller diameter tool,

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and I only have this up cutter for metal.

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And you can actually see how it's leaving
a little bit of tear out on the top there.

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Just because it's an up cutter.

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[♫]

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At this moment I realized I forgot tooolpaths for
some unique marble shutters that has a relief cut,

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to clear these washers.

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I also saw that I had some
interference on some relief cuts.

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I needed to redesign them to make them longer.

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And I checked the simulation for this extra cut,
very carefully, to not ruin my already cut pieces.

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Today me and the CNC machine were kind of best friends
and it did exactly what I asked it to do.

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[♫]

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[part lands in box with a thud]

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[music stops]

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Okay, there's only one single operation left to do
for these marble shuttles before they're completed:

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I need to pilot drill two holes for the L hooks.

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And old Martin would just go to the
drill press and hope for the best,

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but new Martin knows that when
you have a repetitive job like this;

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To pilot drill 44 holes;
And I want them accurate

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it's better to invest some time
in setting up the operation.

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So I'm going to do this on the CNC machine,
do it properly.

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I cut three locating slots with different tolerances
and found that the middle one had the perfect press fit.

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And here I'm using a custom-made mallet that a
French maker and youtuber sent me: Olivier Verdier.

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He has a fantastic channel, so check him out on YouTube!

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It does feel very proper to locate these plywood pieces
with a custom plywood mallet.

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Thank you, Olivier! I love the mallet,
and I love the "Puy lentils" as well.

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Here I'm reaping the rewards from my upfront
time investment in making this into a CNC operation,

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it's just to repeat the same tool path over and over
again, and the results are immaculate. Love it!

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[laughing]
Close!

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[noises from the activities]

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[air blowing]

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[Martin singing softly in Swedish:]
[♪ Allan Edvall: Du och jag ♪]

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♪ Livet är en sand som i ett timglas rinner. ♪
("Life is the sand in an hourglass flowing.")

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♪ Låt oss leva upp den lilla tid vi hinner. ♪
("Let us live the little time we are given.")

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♪ Åh, du dyra liv som tynar och försvinner. ♪
("Oh, the precious life that fades and vanish.")

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♪ Livet är en sand som i ett timglas rinner. ♪
("Life is the sand in an hourglass flowing.")

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[bass beat start]
[♪ Spring Gang: You Left Behind (Instrumental) ♪]

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[arcade game achievement samples]

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[music goes airy]

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[bass reintroduced]

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[arcade game achievement samples]
[music stops]

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Me and Wilson has leveled up enough
to take on the mini-boss of the assembly;

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The bottom plywood part here.

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You can see that it has a seven degree tilt,
and that is because the marble shuttles

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are moving perpendicular to the Marble Machine X.

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But the vibraphone is mounted at a seven degree angle.

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I started by drilling holes for M5 bolts

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and then I used a ball-end cutter
to cut these apple shaped marble grooves.

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And then I used a two millimeter end mill
to cut the "internal walls" slot.

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Those slots will separate the two marbles in each "apple".

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Here I'm using a three millimeter bit
to cut a thin groove

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for the vertical L hook that will go
straight through this plywood piece.

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And I ran into a problem with this operation.

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[CNC whirring]
[vacuum cleaner noise]

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The wood chips had nowhere to go and they got
packed up and they broke off this little tool.

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I tried redesigning the toolpaths and using another tool,
but I ended up breaking that as well,

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so I redesigned the tool paths again.

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In the end I solved this
by cutting only four millimeter deep,

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and then pausing the machine and vacuum cleaning
out all the wood chips, out of the groove.

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Then cutting four millimeter again,

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vacuum cleaning and then four millimeter deeper
and so on until I was through the whole plywood.

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Definitely learned a lesson here to actually plan for
proper chip evacuation on tight operations like these.

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Here I'm using that same compression bit,
that I talked about in the beginning of the video, again.

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I'm cutting the larger internal slots,
and then I'm cutting the contour.

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And I have to say it works so much better
than a straight down cutter.

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The result is actually perfect!

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There's no fraying or no tear
out on the bottom of the plywood,

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and that saves me a lot of sanding, and just
generally leaves a more professional-looking part.

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[camera shutter click]

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I don't remember when I made those burn marks,
I must have welded on top of this plywood or something.

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But they will be hidden inside this assembly,
so no worries! [♫]

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[whoosh]

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[♪ unreleased/Helping Out ♪]

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[music fades to background]

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On the top of the assembly we have these PMMA pipes,

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and the marbles come through them
into this 20 degree wedge transition piece.

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And looking at the top of the piece we can see that
we have spaced the holes to fit the PMMA pipes,

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but when the marbles go through this transition wedge,
they go closer to each other,

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which means that I have to split this piece
to be able to machine this shape on a 3-axis CNC machine.

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If we look from the front you can clearly see how the
transition from the PMMA pipes goes narrower,

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in through the top metal piece.

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Setting up the tool paths for this operation
was by far the most complicated,

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because I had to indicate the pieces correctly,

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and I had to be able to turn them 90 degrees
and machine them from different sides.

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I started by cutting the two long plywood rectangles.
I plan to use the resulting pockets for indication.

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I forgot to hog out the radius in the corners
so I'm just doing that manually here.

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And now you can see that my plywood rectangles can
indicate perfectly into the corner of the pocket.

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By doing it this way, the machine knows
exactly where my plywood rectangles are situated

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and I can start the machining of the shapes.
[CNC whining]

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[music continues]

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I left rectangular blocks
on the side of the piece

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so I can take them out when
I'm done machining from one side,

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turn them exactly 90 degrees,

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indicate them towards the same corner,
and run the next tool path;

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Machining from a completely new direction.

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This way I can achieve the quote unquote
"impossible shapes" on this three axis CNC.

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[music continues in foreground]

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So in this little plywood wedge there are 22 marble paths
that go at a compound angle,

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and I really love the challenge to try to
make these kind of difficult 3D shapes

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on a three-axis CNC machine from plywood.

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I think it's really fun.

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[♫]

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[music stops]

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When I first heard about CNC machines,
I thought they worked like this:

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You put the machine in your workshop.
You put the power on and you press Start.

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While the machine is making your perfect part,
you do this:

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[birds singing]

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That is not the case, in my case.
It actually feels more like this:

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[panic alarm]

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There's a lot of manual labor, the machine is actually
really really stupid in itself.

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If you tell it to do something, it will do it
even if it's a bad idea! [chuckles]

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And to figure out what is a good or bad idea
is entirely on your shoulders.

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But this is a specific rabbit hole that I
really love in the Marble Machine X process.

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I never get tired of cutting
Baltic birch plywood on the CNC.

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[marbles dropping]

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[laughing]

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Great!
[marble rolls on the floor]

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We're done with the plywood parts <i>procurement</i>
of this assembly.

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I have to wait for the metal parts
from the laser cutting place

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until we can put this together and put it on the machine.

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In the beginning of time I made an assumption.

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In engineering you should not assume anything.

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My assumption was that a vibraphone bar wants to be hit
in the middle, so we designed these holders for that.

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Then you guys helped out by posting brilliant comments
saying that there's better sound off center:

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[vibraphone notes]

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When this information reached me, we had
already made these vibraphone holders,

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so I made a video showing
that I'm gonna do a compromise.

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It was hitting closer to the sweet spot,
but not <i>at</i> the sweet spot.

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But I thought that was going to be ok.

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You guys again, were like
screaming in the comment field:

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"Why don't you just shift the bars like this?"
and I was like:

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"Ah, no, the resonator pipe has to be centered", I thought.

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And then I made a test and the resonator pipe
was super happy to be off center.

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So even moving a centimeter from:

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[vibraphone notes, on an off center]

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The vibraphone is the lead singer
of the Marble Machine X band.

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It requires very very special conditions
to perform. Basically a needy bastard.

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I don't know if that is a trait for lead singers,
but anyway... [chuckles]

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I'm a needy bastard band leader myself,
I just don't sing.

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Your suggestion proved to be absolutely,
probably the best.

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And I hope you understand why I assumed
what I assumed at the time.

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And now when I have the whole picture
I can see this much more clearly.

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The vibraphone was just screaming
for the matrix sentinels solution.

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Thank you for commenting and
thanks for helping out with this build!

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I'm really touched by the amazing support
from the crowdfunding campaign,

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all the new Wintergatan backers
who are supporting my dream.

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I talk about it more and more, it's because it's growing
and becoming more and more important.

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I can hire help around me:
It frees up my time

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to actually think about

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just where a marble should hit the vibraphone plate.

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I could not live with this horrible harmonic!

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When we could have
a clean transient with a good fundamental

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of the singer of the Marble Machine X.

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Thank you for watching. See you in the next video!

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[blows air]

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[thud]
What?

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[fanfare playing]

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[scratching sounds from lighting a match]

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[ignition spark]

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Yay.
[laughing]

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The milestone I never wanted to reach, okay.

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I just want to say seriously
thanks for following this journey.

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Click like on this video if you believe
I can avoid episode thousand.

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[blows air]

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[vibraphone tone]
// Subtitled by Wintergatan Writers. Join our team on discord. //