Hey, Hillary, how are you?
Cause I think you might be the first one to actually stop by and take a look at
our facility and we've just moved in and I'm just.
Happy you're here. I'm so glad to be here.
I'm excited to be the first person to see it all.
Oh, I think we're going to see a couple of different things today.
We're going to get to see the print production or QC process. Um,
we even printed a couple of something special for you as well.
So why don't you come on back and we'll check it out. Okay.
All right guys, come on.
Well, before we go into the prep room, I want to show you something. So we're,
we're in the hallway right outside the print production room, but this is,
we call this our hall of fame.
Somebody that looks kind of famous and kind of cute.
So a couple of them, the board poorly,
I think Frank is up on our wall right here. We've got, uh,
stickers from as many people that will send them to us. And then, you know,
if anybody hasn't sent us their stickers, they probably should. Um,
but you know,
we've collected these over the years and the different shows and things like
that. And so we like to call this our hall of fame.
I like it. I see several familiar stickers.
And if you guys are watching this and you have stickers,
you need to send them here. So we can add to this.
Although everybody that has stickers,
you're probably going to need like more of them.
We've got room,
we've got lots of walls in this place and we'll probably put another poster up
here.
Maybe your place has production board and move that into the print room and put
it there. And we'll just,
we'll just keep adding stickers until we've got enough. So send them over. Okay.
So let's go and walk into the print room.
This is the print production. I'm going to keep that door closed,
maintain temperature here.
You don't. I was going to ask, it feels actually really nice in here.
Kind of nice and warm, like perfect temperature.
You might think it's a little warm, but keep it between 80 and 82 degrees,
just to make sure that all the print production to right where we need it does
kind of our ceiling in terms of a warm-ups want to keep the room, um, without,
you know, messing up Prince boat to get the cooler storms we're getting warmer.
We have problems. So like I told you outside,
we'll be printed something special. So come on over here, take this out.
So this year is our first dual extruder or IDX printer.
It's got dual independent extruders,
so we just set it up and I haven't even tested it yet. But as a test,
I went ahead and printed up medallions were things for you.
So what I've designed, it's really simple,
but it basically is a little bit down in it has your name on it. Why the log 13,
13, our logo is today's date just to commemorate your visit here.
And so that is physically the test of this printed. See if it works.
And in fact it works. That's pretty cool doing a good job,
the two different colors. Yeah. So again, this is provably unique in this room.
It's the only idea of TriNet that we have at this time. Um,
and we're exploring some other printers and other processes, but beyond that,
we do have close to 30 printers in his room, which is again,
why it's a little warm in here. So they generate quite a bit of the heat.
So it's good to take a look at that.
We're actually manufacturing our random flow generator here on not all of the
printers. Um, in fact, this was, this is our smallest
one that we make a quarter inch
right off the front of that was really good,
but this is really just the first stage of this process.
There's about four of the state steps here before they actually make it a double
package.
We take them very seriously and we've made sure that we check them,
you see them and stack them fits them every step of the way for the naked out
for the packaging
you guys realize there were so many steps that were involved in making,
okay,
so this is basically the first stage of production out after we printed them.
And we're actually going to be getting these down the line so they can be
expected. The first stage here is a very quick inspection.
So this is the product to be printed today. Um, you know,
and this is pretty typical of a half day worth of printing and that will produce
twice as much in the day. Um,
and essentially what we do each piece here means going to be boxes,
which are we using in transport over to the QC side.
And it's interesting cause you keep a library of all these different plumbing
parts
[inaudible] are here and we cited. So, you know,
we'll make the full quarter styles when we got back over there and we'll,
we'll make sure it fits. And if it fits,
it goes into a box and move on down the line.
And so we want it to be packaged novels. Like the ones we just printed for you,
we're going to go ahead and make sure they fit and they have a good,
they step on, right?
They have a good amount of resistance on there and that's how we check them.
And we also use this slide here to kind of just make sure everything looks the
way it's supposed to is a quick visual inspection and everything looks good.
It's right. It goes on. Fox does good, good.
We take that box and we actually practice this whole thing.
It's got four stages. The first one,
we we'll watch it right down here, date it,
how many products are in here given size? And then people will then go off
to the next step.
How many approximately how many?
Yeah, so we keep, we keep track of everything that we're doing,
a spreadsheet here we use on a daily basis.
So you can see today's Saturday would be produced 173 parts today so far.
Um, but to give you an idea like on Monday we did 257 prints hours.
You pretty cool. And 49 parts to this, this week alone,
1,375 individual parts that are going through our QC process right now.
Now as we're filming,
we're gonna, we're gonna,
we'll call me in a day with a little over 250 parts for the movie novel or
captors and fittings. Um, but yeah, we're producing a lot of parts in here. Um,
on average we'll do around 200 print hours per day,
but when we're really cranking this thing out,
we can do 350 print hours per day for 24 hour period.
So we'll tranq out there with a lot of plastic and a lot of printing
multiple times. Um, so again, this is just the first date.
And so going down the line is gonna be three more stops along the way to make
sure that we've got a good product and there's actually product critical will
get rejected. You know, not everything off the table makes it through.
Boxing has down the line and at every stage we're going to reject the product as
well. The don't lead our screen. Um, and so again, first page B,
where to go. And so,
and so this is our QC section.
This is where we take care of all the products that are coming out of the print
production and we inspect each one and we make sure that they're perfect.
So we've dropped us off to the guys here.
And so what they're doing here is they're taking each and every product there I
ended up we make and then specking it under a magnifying glass or using brushes
and tweezers and pulling out any little debris and pieces of the print process
produces and making sure that there is clean, that they can see. Um,
but in addition to that,
they're also inspecting them closely to make sure we don't have any defects or,
or things that that would be unacceptable. And so at this stage,
even we're probably going to lose as much as 5% of the product coming out of
here. It's never going to make it to a package. So we, we we'll,
we'll call some product down the print production side and then same thing here.
If it's not up to our standards, it doesn't make it any for instance, room.
It's very high standards. So what are some of the things like you said,
the different tools that they use? Well,
what are some of the specific things that they're looking for?
So they're looking, so we print with a material called PETG or Peggy,
and it's pretty stringy and gooey kind of plastic. And so when it prints,
it leaves a little errors behind little, little pieces and parts, and so.
Not super glue, hot glue.
Sometimes. Um,
and so part of the QC process is to make sure we get rid of all the little hairs
inside of the little pieces that have come off there.
So we'll use Exacto blades, we'll use tweezers, we'll use brushes, um,
all kinds of tools like that to get in there and clean that stuff.
And that's why we have the magnifying glasses that can look close and see things
that you couldn't see just by looking at it.
And there's a lot of detail now to take a look at.
Now. I got to say that, that, that makes a lot of sense,
especially if we're putting them on our aquariums, we,
you want to make sure that there's not anything accidentally going into tanks
over time, but I imagine too, it's very specific pieces like the, the,
the blades, I guess, are creating patterns. And if they're not just.
Exactly. So if you,
cause the nozzle relies on fluid dynamics to create the effect that it does,
if you've got a little obstruction in there or a piece is malformed that can
disrupt the entire process of what happens on the inside of the novel.
That's crazy.
Something so tiny that you might not even be able to see with the naked eye.
Okay.
Exactly. It can mess up the whole process and then it just doesn't do it.
Doesn't do it a random flow generator does. And so before a product actually,
well, not all of our products make it out of that room,
that we were just getting into a package. Um,
sometimes the QC team will find something that has something they need a closer
look at. And so that's where we're at right now.
This is the final final stage for some of these products. And so, uh,
Brittany here, we'll,
we'll take these and she'll look at these very closely and do some additional
work on them. And sometimes they'll still pass and sometimes they won't.
So this is really kind of just the final
stop for these products. And if they make it here,
then we know we've got the absolute best product going into package.
That's good to know. Okay. So after.
No with the QC process and everything's been inspected and we're satisfied with
it, it move on to the packaging side of it.
And here's where we keep all of our packaging inventory and the, our,
our bags and our header cars and all the different parts.
And so right now we're packaging up. Uh, what, where are we packaging here,
Derek?
Well, Patsy being the MJC is, um, the vacuum attachment.
Very nice. So very, very popular one of our newer products.
And so this is going into the bag and then she'll put the header cards on there
and then they'll go into the,
the shipping containers and they'll go off to the wholesalers.
And hopefully you guys will go by the way.
Yes, these are fantastic for cleaning out your sumps.
Yep. And so we also have a set of our 40 millimeter.
These are headed off to Germany in fact, wow. Um, these are,
these will fit a 40 millimeter pipe in the end, just like our one 25.
So as we called them our one and a half inch pipe mage, uh, random generators.
Okay. Same thing. So it's almost the same size, but slightly smaller.
And so we maintained all kinds of products. So we've got all of our,
all of our nozzles packaging here with the bags.
We have a lock lines here,
lots of different lockbox fittings of all of our packaging for all of our
attachments. And then over there over adapters and things like that. Wow.
And so we have to maintain all.
Of this stuff. That's a lot because.
I think we have, if you count all the pieces and parts,
we have close to 40 skews that we're maintaining. Wow.
I don't know about you guys that are watching this.
If you are familiar with these little houses before,
but you didn't realize like how large of a product line there is and really how
much goes into all of this. Yeah.
So one of the final things we haven't really talked about here is how do you
maintain a print pharma? So, you know, we've got 30 plus printers.
That's a lot and they're working all of the time.
At least 16 hours a day. And so one thing that a lot of people don't realize,
maybe they do, maybe they don't, but these have to be maintained.
And then there's always working. When you have that many printers,
there's always a printer that needs to be fixed. Um, you know,
we've got pretty well. The racks of these are various stages of,
of being fixed and, or already fixed and ready for the line.
But what's really good forward here is just in sheer number of pieces and
spare parts that we keep on hand.
So we keep everything from a fully assembled hot in.
So we can just drop those right into the printers when they wear out.
And they do wear out over time. I mean, it doesn't take long, um,
but they'll wear out. And then we also keep, you know, nozzles, we keep Springs,
we keep all these different pieces and parts like you could actually know
you're printing along and this little $5 part could break.
And that printer is completely useless. Wow. And these parts are hard to find,
so it makes sense. So I buy it,
I'll buy it like 50 of minutes because we're going to need them at some point.
And so we maintain a full library of, of,
of spare parts for the particular printers that we use.
And this is our work bench where we repair them and keep them running. Wow,
you must be an expert.
Then it repair or become an expert or repair on 3d printers now.
And specifically in the 3d printers that we use every 3d printers,
a little bit different, but for the most part we're using,
since we're using FDM printers, um, they all have similar parts to them,
regardless of which brand you're using.
A lot of them will use some of the same motors and things like that. So, um,
we don't have to maintain a specific library for each of the printers we use,
but, but you know, just general.
Different parts. All right. That makes sense. Pretty cool. Now I can't help,
but notice that some of these printers back here have some of the Marvel
characters on there looks like they notice that.
Yeah. And so a while back when we were starting to build up our print library,
we were having trouble keeping track of all the different prayers that we,
you know, when we're printing,
I have a problem and we had to convey that message to the next guy. Um,
and it was, we were doing numbers, but this wasn't the fun.
And so our oldest daughter at the time was helping us out and she said, well,
how we use characters? So she printed up these little plaques or whatever,
you know, the little printouts with the Marvel characters gave them all names.
And so we maintain that to today. So we have DC characters,
we have Marvel characters. And so as we bring new printers in,
they get a name and we log it that way and we keep track of them that way.
And so in fact,
one of the very first printers we've ever purchased was one that got labeled
Ironman. It's actually still on the rack today's printing right now.
And it's what three and a half years later, he's been printing every day,
16 plus hours a day for three and a half years.
Tony stark, you can expect nothing less, right?
So we've gone through this whole process and seen how they're made,
but if you're not familiar with them,
tell us a little bit about what they look like inside, how they work.
Yeah. So this,
this is basically all this effort is to produce a random flow generator.
This is the only random flow device on the market that has no moving parts.
And it,
and it does that using an internal design that you leverage is fluid dynamics to
randomly move the flow around the tank as it exits nozzle.
So the best way to show that is just to kind of show it to you here in this tank
that we've got set up. All right.
So take this random flow generator and you can see that right now,
we're hitting just the one fan there, cause there's nothing on it,
but you take the RFG nozzle,
you drop it on the end of the return line and it instantly begin to randomize
the flow. And all of a sudden, all of the fans are moving.
They're moving at different times at different paces.
And that's because what it's doing is it's literally redirecting the flight as
it exits the nozzle.
That's pretty cool. And so we've got this very large version of it, right?
So you kind of show it to you. This is a little easier to see inside.
Cause it's, it's, it's, it's definitely bigger than that one is. Um,
and so what you can see as you can see the internal design here.
And so it uses a set of internal,
I'm going to turn the helix connected to inductors and a jet.
And those three parts work together to create a pressure in balance inside the
nozzle. And that imbalance causes the,
the flow exiting the center to be pulled left right up and down.
And so it almost acts like a five channel nozzle,
or it has five individual channels and only one channel is active at a time.
So flow exits the nozzle left,
and then it will go up and it will go down to the left and I go, right.
But it only one direction at a time. And that's where the,
the word random comes from. It's a random flow.
There's nothing inside the nozzle dictates which way it should go next.
And in fact,
the turbulence that creates in the aquarium is what actually facilitates the
randomness of it. And it causes it to be more random. Huh? Wow.
It's really, it's really tricky.
Cool. It is amazing like something so simple, especially on the outside,
you would have no idea that I guess there's so much.
There's a lot of,
there's a lot of things going on in the inside here that that causes to happen
then cause the effect to work.
And we worked very hard to kind of dial this in and get it to the point where
you just pop it on and it works every time. And the, and you know, it's,
it's definitely unique.
I, I would say so.
And as we've talked about,
we did print something special for you in your aquarium.
And so if you give me a minute here, I'm going to need to switch this out.
Now I've only done this one at a time before, so let's see if I can do it again.
So let me try this here. Okay.
That looks a little bit big.
I don't think it's going to work. Okay. What's costuming one, two, three.
Ah, wow. There we go. I wish they all printed that fast, but anyway,
it's going to put them in a package for you.
That's going to be perfect on my nano tank.
You know what my corals have been growing like crazy and I needed to get some
very flow in my tank. So this is going to be awesome. Thanks.
Just for you. There you go. Thank you so much for stopping by.
I really appreciate it.
Yes. Thank you so much for having me and letting me get the first scoop and see
everything in your new building and see how it's made.
This is absolutely fascinating.