-
[shutters opening, light switch clicking]
-
Let's clean up this mess!
[clap clap clap clap]
-
Road to no compromise vibraphone!
-
[cheering sample] [clap]
[♪ unreleased/Work ♪]
-
Check this out: These are the 22 Matrix Sentinel
marble gates for the new vibraphone drops.
-
In the last episode I built this vibraphone drop system
with all the metal rails.
-
[MMX playing a vibraphone scale]
-
And then I took the angle grinder and
just removed like ten days work.
-
In this video I will explain to you exactly
why I needed to make this redesign.
-
But before I explain that, I'm so excited
to actually start to build this,
-
so let's make some plywood pieces on the CNC.
-
Ever since I came up with matrix sentinels
for the drums of the Marble Machine X,
-
I have been toying with the idea to
use them for the vibraphone as well.
-
It took me a day to design this assembly in CAD,
-
and it consists of laser-cut metal parts
and CNC cut plywood parts.
-
I'm going to start making these marble shuttles,
that feeds a marble every time a note is played.
-
[music continues]
-
[boom]
-
When I was at ThinkerCon in Alabama
I met my maker idol Frank Howard.
-
He has the same CNC machine as I have, and I
asked him what end mills he's using for plywood,
-
and he was: "compression bits".
-
I had never heard of these kinds of end mills before,
they're also called "up and down", and the special thing
-
is that the flute direction is changing
in the middle of the end mill.
-
So in the top of the end mill, it's cutting down,
and in the bottom, it's cutting up.
-
So on the top of the plywood the end mill will cut down,
and on the bottom of the plywood it will cut up,
-
which results in much less tear out.
-
Normally, I had a great finish on the top of the plywood,
but a little bit of tear out on the underside,
-
which is expected when you're using
the down cutters that I normally use.
-
I was really excited to see
if this made a difference.
-
[music continues]
-
[melody starts on vibraphone]
-
To cut into tight corners you need to use
a smaller diameter tool,
-
and I only have this up cutter for metal.
-
And you can actually see how it's leaving
a little bit of tear out on the top there.
-
Just because it's an up cutter.
-
[music continues]
-
At this moment I realized I forgot to pass for some unique
marble shutters that has a relief cut, to clear these washers.
-
I also saw that I had some interference on some relief cuts.
I needed to redesign them to make them longer.
-
And I checked the simulation for this extra cut very carefully,
to not ruin my already cut pieces.
-
Today me and the CNC machine were kind of best friends
and it did exactly what I asked it to do.
-
[music continues]
-
[part lands in box with a thud]
-
[music stops]
-
Okay, there's only one single operation left to do
for these marble shuttles before they're completed:
-
I need to pilot drill two holes for the L hooks.
-
And old Martin would just go to the
drill press and hope for the best,
-
but new Martin knows that when
you have a repetitive job like this;
-
to pilot drill 44 holes
- and I want them accurate -
-
it's better to invest some time in setting up the operation.
-
So I'm going to do this on the CNC machine,
do it properly.
-
I cut three locating slots with different tolerances
and found that the middle one had the perfect press fit.
-
And here I'm using a custom-made mallet that a
French maker and youtuber sent me: Olivier Verdier.
-
He has a fantastic channel, so check him out on YouTube!
-
It does feel very proper to locate these plywood pieces
with a custom plywood mallet.
-
Thank you, Olivier! I love the mallet,
and I love the "Puy lentils" as well.
-
Here I'm reaping the rewards from my upfront
time investment in making this into a CNC operation,
-
it's just to repeat the same tool path over and over
again, and the results are immaculate. Love it!
-
[laughing]
Close!
-
[noises from the activities]
-
[Martin singing softly in Swedish:]
[♪ Allan Edvall: Du och jag ♪]
-
♪ Livet är en sand som i ett timglas rinner. ♪
("Life is the sand in an hourglass flowing.")
-
♪ Låt oss leva upp den lilla tid vi hinner. ♪
("Let us live the little time we are given.")
-
♪ Åh, du dyra liv som tynar och försvinner. ♪
("Oh, the precious life that fades and vanish.")
-
♪ Livet är en sand som i ett timglas rinner. ♪
("Life is the sand in an hourglass flowing.")
-
[bass beat start]
[♪ spring gang: You Left Behind ♪]
-
[arcade game achievement samples]
-
[music goes airy]
-
[bass reintroduced]
-
[arcade game achievement samples]
[music stops]
-
Me and Wilson has leveled up enough to take on
the mini-boss of the assembly; the bottom plywood part here.
-
You can see that it has a seven degree tilt, and that is because the
marble shuttles are moving perpendicular to the Marble Machine X.
-
But the vibraphone is mounted at a seven degree angle.
-
I started by drilling holes for M5 bolts and then I used a
ball-end cutter to cut these apple shaped marble grooves.
-
And then I used a two millimeter end mill
to cut the "internal walls" slot.
-
Those slots will separate the two marbles in each "apple".
-
Here I'm using a three millimeter bit to cut a thin groove for the
vertical L hook that will go straight through this plywood piece.
-
And I ran into a problem with this operation.
-
The wood chips had nowhere to go and they got
packed up and they broke off this little tool.
-
I tried redesigning the tool paths and using another tool,
but I ended up breaking that as well,
-
so I redesigned the tool paths again.
-
In the end I solved this by cutting only four millimeter deep,
-
and then pausing the machine and vacuum cleaning
out all the wood chips, out of the groove.
-
Then cutting four millimeter again, vacuum cleaning and then four
millimeter deeper and so on until I was through the whole plywood.
-
Definitely learned a lesson here to actually plan for proper
chip evacuation on tight operations like these.
-
Here I'm using that same compression bit, that I
talked about in the beginning of the video, again.
-
I'm cutting the larger internal slots,
and then I'm cutting the contour.
-
And I have to say it works so much better
than a straight down cutter.
-
The result is actually perfect!
-
There's no fraying or no tear out on the bottom of the plywood,
and that saves me a lot of sanding,
-
and just generally leaves a more professional-looking part.
-
[camera shutter sound]
-
I don't remember when I made those burn marks,
I must have welded on top of this plywood or something.
-
But they will be hidden inside this assembly, so no worries!
-
[woosh]
[♪ unreleased/Helping Out ♪]
-
On the top of the assembly we have these PMMA pipes,
-
and the marbles come through them
into this 20 degree wedge transition piece.
-
And looking at the top of the piece we can see that
we have spaced the holes to fit the PMMA pipes,
-
but when the marbles go through this transition wedge,
they go closer to each other,
-
which means that I have to split this piece
to be able to machine this shape on a 3-axis CNC machine.
-
If we look from the front you can clearly see how the
transition from the PMMA pipes goes narrower,
-
in through the top metal piece.
-
Setting up the tool paths for this operation
was by far the most complicated,
-
because I had to indicate the pieces correctly,
-
and I had to be able to turn them 90 degrees
and machine them from different sides.
-
I started by cutting the two long plywood rectangles.
I plan to use the resulting pockets for indication.
-
I forgot to hog out the radius in the corners
so I'm just doing that manually here.
-
And now you can see that my plywood rectangles can
indicate perfectly into the corner of the pocket.
-
By doing it this way, the machine knows exactly where my plywood
rectangles are situated and I can start the machining of the shapes.
-
[music continues]
-
I left rectangular blocks on the side of the piece so I can
take them out when I'm done machining from one side,
-
turn them exactly 90 degrees,
-
indicate them towards the same corner,
and run the next tool path;
-
machining from a completely new direction.
-
This way I can achieve the quote unquote "impossible shapes"
on this three axis CNC.
-
[music continues]
-
So in this little plywood wedge there are 22 marble paths
that go at a compound angle,
-
and I really love the challenge to try to
make these kind of difficult 3D shapes
-
on a three-axis CNC machine from plywood.
-
I think it's really fun.
-
[music continues]
-
[music stops]
-
When I first heard about CNC machines,
I thought they worked like this:
-
You put the machine in your workshop.
You put the power on and you press Start.
-
While the machine is making your perfect part, you do this:
-
[birds singing]
-
That is not the case, in my case.
It actually feels more like this:
-
[panic alarm]
-
There's a lot of manual labor, the machine is actually
really really stupid in itself.
-
If you tell it to do something, it will do it
even if it's a bad idea! [chuckles]
-
And to figure out what is a good or bad idea
is entirely on your shoulders.
-
But this is a specific rabbit hole that I
really love in the Marble Machine X process.
-
I never get tired of cutting
Baltic birch plywood on the CNC.
-
[marbles dropping]
-
[laughing]
-
Great!
-
We're done with the plywood parts
procurement of this assembly.
-
I have to wait for the metal parts from the laser cutting place
-
until we can put this together and put it on the machine.
-
In the beginning of time I made an assumption.
-
In engineering you should not assume anything.
-
My assumption was that a vibraphone bar wants to be hit
in the middle, so we designed these holders for that.
-
Then you guys helped out by posting brilliant comments
saying that there's better sound off center:
-
[vibraphone notes]
-
When this information reached me, we had
already made these vibraphone holders,
-
so I made a video showing
that I'm gonna do a compromise.
-
It was hitting closer to the sweet spot,
but not at the sweet spot.
-
But I thought that was going to be ok.
-
You guys again, were like
screaming in the comment field:
-
"Why don't you just shift the bars like this?" and I was like:
-
"Ah, no, the resonator pipe has to be centered", I thought.
-
And then I made a test and the resonator pipe
was super happy to be off center.
-
So even moving a centimeter from:
-
[vibraphone notes, on an off center]
-
The vibraphone is the lead singer
of the Marble Machine X band.
-
It requires very very special conditions
to perform. Basically a needy bastard.
-
I don't know if that is a trait for lead singers, but anyway...
[chuckles]
-
I'm a needy bastard band leader myself,
I just don't sing.
-
Your suggestion proved to be absolutely, probably the best.
-
And I hope you understand why I assumed
what I assumed at the time.
-
And now when I have the whole picture
I can see this much more clearly.
-
The vibraphone was just screaming
for the matrix sentinels solution.
-
Thank you for commenting and
thanks for helping out with this build!
-
I'm really touched by the amazing support
from the crowdfunding campaign,
-
all the new Wintergatan backers who are supporting my dream.
-
I talk about it more and more, it's because it's growing
and becoming more and more important.
-
I can hire help around me:
It frees up my time to actually think
-
about just where a marble should
hit the vibraphone plate.
-
I could not live with this horrible harmonic!
-
When we could have a clean transient with a good fundamental
-
of the singer of the Marble Machine X.
Thank you for watching. See you in the next video!
-
[blows air]
-
[thud]
What?
-
[fanfare playing]
-
[noise from trying to light the match]
-
[ignition spark]
-
Yay.
[laughing]
-
The milestone I never wanted to reach, okay.
-
I just want to say seriously
thanks for following this journey.
-
Click like on this video if you believe
I can avoid episode thousand.
-
[blows air]
-
[vibraphone tone]