Eric T. Roy's Blog

DA-200 tapping solution

no1toolmkr — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 23:49:44 GMT

Well the website is back up anyway. still don't have my opensource portal ready as I wanted but heres the gimmick. all of my tooling is opensourcable. meaning that I made my own tooling so I can use it and then inventory the extras for retail to anyone with a machine shop who wants them. If you set up a CNC machine of any sort these tools will benifit you greatly in their quality and price. And there is no reason you could not make them yourselves if your up to it. Sometime later as I get my new platform up and running I'll show you just how to make the tooling in house but for now Here they are. Ready for distribution. In the picture below I'm showing a real price comparison. I can manufacture for you 2 collet holders and 1 tapping head for about the same price as you can get a tapping head from the competition. If you set up and program CNC's you have got to try this system. I guarantee you will save money. You will be able to inventory more tooling ready to use for less money. And that people is efficiency.

www.ericstoolroom.com

C.H.A.N.G.E.

no1toolmkr — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 11:05:54 GMT

Obama preaches C.H.A.N.G.E.

Come

Help

Nobody

Get

Elected

colaboration, ownership and your drawings

no1toolmkr — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 12:27:13 GMT

The idea of being able to electronically shred a document seems like a pipe dream to me. I'm not to sure your going to be able to rely on it. I'm certain a computer can do it, but a computer is a little like a gun. It's the owner you have to be afraid of. I currently employ a safe file transfer with customers securely by either my ftp server or theirs. Using this method allows me to either publish or not, my customers or my drawings. very safely. The larger companies are very hip to this and use software that makes use of this ability of a computer to transfer files and still maintain the integrity of the distribution. This is not a very cost effective way to maintain security for the smaller companies right now and may be why its not widely used with them. An online server can cost thousands to have and maintain, not to mention you may need an "IT guy" as they say to keep control of it. This is how I'm CURRENTLY maintaining the integrity of my customers documents. I share an ftp user account with them or vise versa. I can pull these documents right out of the folder into my CAM software and then onto code. I can open a read only file from an customers ftp server around the globe, make code from it. never save anything of the file other than my text doc for the CNC.

This is just one more way Eric's Tool Room, Inc. is statying ahead of the curve.

Any one out there requiring the service and talent of real tool makers and wants privacy can ask for a ftp user acct or provide one of their own either way we can work together on a level not found anywhere else.

bad head

no1toolmkr — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 10:52:47 GMT

If you have and use the DA-200 collet system from any manufacture your heads probably get all chewed up from slipped wrenches, then the channel locks and then finally, it takes the vise grip to get that head off. It seems to be the nature of the beast. small tools taking the beating of everyday use. You just need access to service for your tooling. You need to be able to pick up the phone or drop an e-mail and have ya a new one. So next time you get bad head. You know what to do. Get a new head from Eric's Tool Room, Inc.

http://www.ericstoolroom.com/ home page

http://www.ericstoolroom.com/DA-200.html new collet system

http://www.ericstoolroom.com/badhead.html replacement head

supplementing cash flow with open sourcing????

no1toolmkr — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:48:55 GMT

Open sourcing to be the new rage? maybe. If your like me you've got 10's or even 100's of thousands of dollars all around you in tooling, and its not all that special either. Go ahead look I dare you. You've got this tool and that tool Oh and that one over there you paid extra for it just to have it fast because you needed it yesterday. Uh huh. I've got an idea for you. pick one of then up that you use alot. It don't matter just pick one up. See how its made. Golly I bet you could make one of those couldn't you... I bet its an old design on a new tool tool too so theres no patent infringement either. not that their would be if you made one for yourself. I'm trying a new idea here. I love the DA-200 collet holders. and their counterpart tapping head that uses DA-200 collets as well. I think they are just super at the small stuff. you know little hole big part. I'm manufacturing a bunch of them just because, and I'll sell you the extras cheaper than you can buy them and I'll have an inventory of them just waiting on your call because I'm tired of paying $100.00 plus shipping for the darn things. I'm selling the collet holders at $58.00 ea. they are very professionally made with a black oxided finnish. THATS 58% of retail MAN.....

Tell you what. you go pick up one of those tools you hate to buy make some and maybe I'll need one someday and I'll be on the phone with you wanting one yesterday. meanwhile if you need a DA-200 collet holder call me.. or just go make one gees..

We've got the OIL

no1toolmkr — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 20:38:07 GMT

To drill or not to drill? environmentally friendly or not. Solar power or wind. Definately not corn or beans though please, people need to eat more than we need to drive. which ever side of the fence your on we all seem to agree on one thing, we need energy independence and we need it right now!!!!

Ok then, We've lost billions in cash to high oil prices, true? want it back? Then we definately drill and become energy independent with other resources. Whats that going to accomplish? that will give US the good OL USA a taxable income from our oil companies. Thats right. the very industry we love to hate. Think about it. If we have all this oil a flowing and were not using anywhere near what we can produce, thats cash in our pockets. In just a few more years other developing energy hungry nations will be gulping the oil as bad as we are now, do you realy want them buying it from our enemies?

Seriously, If we don't drill right now we will be missing out on the biggest opportunity of the milenium, and we will have probably forfeited our leadership in the world.

Its a BLOGGGGGGGG

no1toolmkr — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:17:06 GMT

Ok I'm 42 not 24 and Blogging is, well, not natural. I'd rather stand on a soap box in front of the whole town and shout....LOUDLY...

Maybe thats what i'm actually doing by blogging. So far my only other blog wants to save the world. allthough a noble attempt I'm not exactly getting many takers wanting to argue it out and see what we can come up with.

If blogging is the new way to reach customers then I'm behind because I thought it was web sites and video content www.ericstoolroom.com neither of which I'm the best at but I get my point across and I'm geting better at it everyday. My forte is machining. I've been in it for 30 of my 42 years. I literally had a south bend lathe in my grandparents basement when i turned 13. CNC's are kinda new too me but computers are not. I was on the internet in 1984. it was called compuserve at the time.

I own 7 CNC machines now. 2-three axis mills, 2-four axis mills, 3-two axis lathes large, medium, and small. each machine has its own PC station and everything is networked with a system I call clones drones and servants. I can personally take these things apart and put them back together again and run them too.

A clone is a PC with a cloned operating system like win 2000 or NT and has CAM sofware on it, A drone is a CNC machine, and a servant is a PC with other operational software like quick books, E2 and other aplications... So far it works out well and I can find all customers drawings on my network server after being placed there by a servant. I can then goto the clone station and work up any cad files necesary for a job and write and post the apropriate program to the drone after its been saved to the network server.

I can actually set my tools and hit the button and walk away from the machine and leave the drone un attended for the duration of its cycle on all but the 2-three axis mills. I use these mostly for quick set up or tooling build and not so much for production. I have some high volume production and need a little more but I mostly concentrate on the large scale parts over 500# and under 3,000# This is where my shop realy excells.

I can do anything with parts in this range. I can swing it on a 30 inch lathe, mill it on a 42 inch rotary table. and here real shortly I'm going to have a 5 axis mill with a 42 inch rotary table and a swiveling head. My goal is to be able to manufacture absolutely any tool you can imagine of almost any size in a shop completely automated with a minimal staff. This goal has largely been met as now I have no more tool makers. I don't need them. No more programmers because I don't need them either. all hardware in this shop is networked and can be operated by me and my one and only self if necesary. I do have some employees that help out with some remaining manual work, inspection and getting tooling set up. This is my plan to compete effectively. by eliminating all the manpower I can, and automate automate and automate some more. I allready know what my next goal is and how to achieve it but before I tell everyone what I'm going to do next lets see if anyone out there has caught up with me now..

I don't know if this has been a good read for you or not, but for me. It's a Blog, I'm waiting to see if anyone cares....

solve these problems

no1toolmkr — Thu, 15 May 2008 17:43:42 GMT

How to feed the world solve the energy crisis and global warming with one idea...

The planet earth, even though it has provided all that ever lived with home, shelter, and food since its birth many billions of years ago. Is suffering from a infestation of humans like never seen before. We are consuming its resources like there is no tomorrow. Well there isn't going to be a tomorrow it seems if we don't help old mother earth out.

If you ask religion the answer seems to be the earth is for us to use. If you ask a scientist the future seems to be disastrous and bleak.

If you can imagine one idea that could solve the crisis's upon us in say the next 50 years would you embrace it? Would 50 years be enough time to come up with alternative energy solutions.

I'm not the guy that can answer that directly but I have an idea for the world to examine and prove me wrong if you can. By throwing this idea out there I expect that a lot of people will punch some holes in it and others will certify it, however one thing is certain If we could make it work we all will win so here goes it.

First: we need to find a reasonable way to feed the world. We are losing a great deal of people due to sheer stupidity from how the worlds capacity to grow food is distributed.

Oh and lets not forget shipping. My god what it takes to ship and distribute food around the globe is absolutely staggering. From seed to table growing food takes fuel and lots of it. The farmer buys the seed it comes by truck. The farmer tills the soil with a tractor. Fertilizes it and cultivates with tractor. Ships it by truck to distributor. By truck to your store. And to the store you go in your automobile. We are consuming so much energy to get a loaf of bread its probable that if the energy costs keep going that loaf will probably be 5 times its present cost in a few more years.

My idea starts with raising our food crops in very large terrariums in low earth orbit. Why you ask because there is a lot of room up there. Solar cells work extremely well up there and the sun provides an unlimited source of heat energy. Water is the only problem I can see because it would take a lot of water to grow crops to feed the world. I expect we would shuttle the water to the terrariums and this would be the highest expense. If it were only for the food it might even be a little impractical .

By having these large terrariums in orbit they are literally blocking the sun. The bigger they are the more light they will block and we need this right now. We have so much of a greenhouse effect from the hydrocarbons we use we simply must block out as much as we can. I'm not suggesting we build terrariums so large that there are giant shadows across the globe but I bet you be able to see them with the naked eye.

Location, location, location and in orbit you have location. Anywhere on the globe you want to ship the food, you can do it with very little effort. Simply pack it up in a reentry vehicle and send it where it need to go.

I think it would be slow at first and I don't expect that it could provide us with all the food items we use. Lets presume for the moment we could raise just soy beans and corn. The amount of land that could be used for other purposes such as more trees, and the fuel and energy we could save by having food delivered to our doorstep. It would keep trucks, trains and ships from having to transport billions of tons of food items Bring down a little of the intensity of the sun by keeping the terrariums on the sunny side of earth. You would have no uncontrollable seasons or weather either.

I don't have designs or formulas saying this will work its just an idea and I believe it could work. Its only chance is if the world as a whole embraces the idea and wants it to work bad enough the people find a way.