Are small SMD resistors factory-tested one by one?...

[blisca]

I wonder if the accuracy is granted by the process itself,by testing samples,or automatic test one by one;
the last would be amazing in case of very cheap and very small resistors(or other passive components).The same question could be extended to semiconductors,despite test on wafer is probably easier, by mechanical point of view,what about the sealed component?
Thanks and forgive improper use of english language.
Diego

 

[server]

On Sun, 20 Sep 2020 19:28:06 +0200, blisca <blisca@tiscali.it> wrote:

I wonder if the accuracy is granted by the process itself,by testing samples,or automatic test one by one;
the last would be amazing in case of very cheap and very small resistors(or other passive components).The same question could be extended to semiconductors,despite test on wafer is probably easier, by mechanical point of view,what about the sealed component?
Thanks and forgive improper use of english language.
Diego

Resistors are generally laser trimmed. Look at some under a
microscope. Trimming requires that every resistor be measured.

We only buy 1% resistors, and they are probably all trimmed.
Apparently some sloppier parts, like 10%, aren\'t trimmed. Heck, a
resistor that fails one bin can just go into the next one.

But we never see bad resistors. Whatever the process, it sure works.

An automatic test machine could measure resistors as fast as they can
be processed. A millisecond is plenty of time to measure resistance.

Youtube knows all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wshRwO0MCSU




--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

Science teaches us to doubt.

Claude Bernard

 

[Michael Terrell]

On Sunday, September 20, 2020 at 2:02:40 PM UTC-4, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Sun, 20 Sep 2020 19:28:06 +0200, blisca <bli...@tiscali.it> wrote:

I wonder if the accuracy is granted by the process itself,by testing samples,or automatic test one by one;
the last would be amazing in case of very cheap and very small resistors(or other passive components).The same question could be extended to semiconductors,despite test on wafer is probably easier, by mechanical point of view,what about the sealed component?
Thanks and forgive improper use of english language.
Diego
Resistors are generally laser trimmed. Look at some under a
microscope. Trimming requires that every resistor be measured.

We only buy 1% resistors, and they are probably all trimmed.
Apparently some sloppier parts, like 10%, aren\'t trimmed. Heck, a
resistor that fails one bin can just go into the next one.

But we never see bad resistors. Whatever the process, it sure works.

An automatic test machine could measure resistors as fast as they can
be processed. A millisecond is plenty of time to measure resistance.

Youtube knows all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wshRwO0MCSU

I just got another 700+, 7\" reels of resistors, capacitors and transistors. Most appear to be full reels. It is going to take a while to sort everything out.

 

[server]

On Tue, 22 Sep 2020 07:32:48 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell
<terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, September 20, 2020 at 2:02:40 PM UTC-4, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Sun, 20 Sep 2020 19:28:06 +0200, blisca <bli...@tiscali.it> wrote:

I wonder if the accuracy is granted by the process itself,by testing samples,or automatic test one by one;
the last would be amazing in case of very cheap and very small resistors(or other passive components).The same question could be extended to semiconductors,despite test on wafer is probably easier, by mechanical point of view,what about the sealed component?
Thanks and forgive improper use of english language.
Diego
Resistors are generally laser trimmed. Look at some under a
microscope. Trimming requires that every resistor be measured.

We only buy 1% resistors, and they are probably all trimmed.
Apparently some sloppier parts, like 10%, aren\'t trimmed. Heck, a
resistor that fails one bin can just go into the next one.

But we never see bad resistors. Whatever the process, it sure works.

An automatic test machine could measure resistors as fast as they can
be processed. A millisecond is plenty of time to measure resistance.

Youtube knows all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wshRwO0MCSU


I just got another 700+, 7\" reels of resistors, capacitors and transistors. Most appear to be full reels. It is going to take a while to sort everything out.

I, and the rest of my engineers, have been forbidden from taking parts
out of the stock room. We have to send an email, and one of the
production people bring us the parts. I don\'t like to wait, so we\'ve
bought a lot of various R and C and L sample kits for engineering, and
I have a private stock of ICs and discretes.

And there\'s always nights and weekends.

I have a career-long record of successfully burgling stockrooms.




--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

Science teaches us to doubt.

Claude Bernard

 

[Michael Terrell]

On Tuesday, September 22, 2020 at 11:07:23 AM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

On Tue, 22 Sep 2020 07:32:48 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell wrote:

On Sunday, September 20, 2020 at 2:02:40 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 20 Sep 2020 19:28:06 +0200, blisca wrote:

I wonder if the accuracy is granted by the process itself,by testing samples,or automatic test one by one;
the last would be amazing in case of very cheap and very small resistors(or other passive components).The same question could be extended to semiconductors,despite test on wafer is probably easier, by mechanical point of view,what about the sealed component?
Thanks and forgive improper use of English language.
Diego

Resistors are generally laser trimmed. Look at some under a
microscope. Trimming requires that every resistor be measured.

We only buy 1% resistors, and they are probably all trimmed.
Apparently some sloppier parts, like 10%, aren\'t trimmed. Heck, a
resistor that fails one bin can just go into the next one.

But we never see bad resistors. Whatever the process, it sure works.

An automatic test machine could measure resistors as fast as they can
be processed. A millisecond is plenty of time to measure resistance.

Youtube knows all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wshRwO0MCSU


I just got another 700+, 7\" reels of resistors, capacitors and transistors. Most appear to be full reels. It is going to take a while to sort everything out.

I, and the rest of my engineers, have been forbidden from taking parts
out of the stock room. We have to send an email, and one of the
production people bring us the parts. I don\'t like to wait, so we\'ve
bought a lot of various R and C and L sample kits for engineering, and
I have a private stock of ICs and discretes.

And there\'s always nights and weekends.

I have a career-long record of successfully burgling stockrooms.

Me, too. The first time was in the Army. They wouldn\'t give me what I needed to keep a TV station on the air. In a three week period, I used 1400 line items, at a total of a little over 2100 parts. The station was still in good shape almost two years later when it was decommissioned and dismantled. I\'ve talked to people who were there after I left for home.

I have a room full of discretes. There were a lot of ROHS COG SMD capacitors in the last purchase. Most are under 1000pF. A real boon for people who play with RF. I have a local electroncs store that sells components to the public that I can trade parts with on a reel by reel basis. I also have dozens of \'Taiyo Yuden SMD/SMT Capacitor Kits\' in small footprints.

 

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 22 Sep 2020 09:59:34 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell
<terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tuesday, September 22, 2020 at 11:07:23 AM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 22 Sep 2020 07:32:48 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell wrote:

On Sunday, September 20, 2020 at 2:02:40 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 20 Sep 2020 19:28:06 +0200, blisca wrote:

I wonder if the accuracy is granted by the process itself,by testing samples,or automatic test one by one;
the last would be amazing in case of very cheap and very small resistors(or other passive components).The same question could be extended to semiconductors,despite test on wafer is probably easier, by mechanical point of view,what about the sealed component?
Thanks and forgive improper use of English language.
Diego

Resistors are generally laser trimmed. Look at some under a
microscope. Trimming requires that every resistor be measured.

We only buy 1% resistors, and they are probably all trimmed.
Apparently some sloppier parts, like 10%, aren\'t trimmed. Heck, a
resistor that fails one bin can just go into the next one.

But we never see bad resistors. Whatever the process, it sure works.

An automatic test machine could measure resistors as fast as they can
be processed. A millisecond is plenty of time to measure resistance.

Youtube knows all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wshRwO0MCSU


I just got another 700+, 7\" reels of resistors, capacitors and transistors. Most appear to be full reels. It is going to take a while to sort everything out.

I, and the rest of my engineers, have been forbidden from taking parts
out of the stock room. We have to send an email, and one of the
production people bring us the parts. I don\'t like to wait, so we\'ve
bought a lot of various R and C and L sample kits for engineering, and
I have a private stock of ICs and discretes.

And there\'s always nights and weekends.

I have a career-long record of successfully burgling stockrooms.

Me, too. The first time was in the Army. They wouldn\'t give me what I needed to keep a TV station on the air. In a three week period, I used 1400 line items, at a total of a little over 2100 parts. The station was still in good shape almost two years later when it was decommissioned and dismantled. I\'ve talked to people who were there after I left for home.

I have a room full of discretes. There were a lot of ROHS COG SMD capacitors in the last purchase. Most are under 1000pF. A real boon for people who play with RF. I have a local electroncs store that sells components to the public that I can trade parts with on a reel by reel basis. I also have dozens of \'Taiyo Yuden SMD/SMT Capacitor Kits\' in small footprints.

I never worked for a company so big that I couldn\'t walk to the
stockroom and production floor and machine shop. I\'ve known engineers
who worked in a \"office building\" where there they didn\'t even have a
lab. And I know outfits that send everything, even prototypes, out to
a contract manufacturer.

I could tell a funny story.

 

[Michael Terrell]

On Tuesday, September 22, 2020 at 3:31:23 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

On Tue, 22 Sep 2020 09:59:34 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell wrote:

On Tuesday, September 22, 2020 at 11:07:23 AM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

I have a career-long record of successfully burgling stockrooms.

Me, too. The first time was in the Army. They wouldn\'t give me what I needed to keep a TV station on the air. In a three week period, I used 1400 line items, at a total of a little over 2100 parts. The station was still in good shape almost two years later when it was decommissioned and dismantled. I\'ve talked to people who were there after I left for home.

I have a room full of discretes. There were a lot of ROHS COG SMD capacitors in the last purchase. Most are under 1000pF. A real boon for people who play with RF. I have a local electroncs store that sells components to the public that I can trade parts with on a reel by reel basis. I also have dozens of \'Taiyo Yuden SMD/SMT Capacitor Kits\' in small footprints.
I never worked for a company so big that I couldn\'t walk to the
stockroom and production floor and machine shop. I\'ve known engineers
who worked in a \"office building\" where there they didn\'t even have a
lab. And I know outfits that send everything, even prototypes, out to
a contract manufacturer.

I could tell a funny story.

Tell it.

I don\'t have a full machine shop, but I do have some nice tools for building prototypes. I havee a Cameron precision drill press, a floor model drill press and a small milling machine. My latest addition was a small lathe. They are in my 1200 Sq foot detached
garage.

 

[bitrex]

On 9/20/2020 2:02 PM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Sun, 20 Sep 2020 19:28:06 +0200, blisca <blisca@tiscali.it> wrote:

I wonder if the accuracy is granted by the process itself,by testing samples,or automatic test one by one;
the last would be amazing in case of very cheap and very small resistors(or other passive components).The same question could be extended to semiconductors,despite test on wafer is probably easier, by mechanical point of view,what about the sealed component?
Thanks and forgive improper use of english language.
Diego

Resistors are generally laser trimmed. Look at some under a
microscope. Trimming requires that every resistor be measured.

We only buy 1% resistors, and they are probably all trimmed.
Apparently some sloppier parts, like 10%, aren\'t trimmed. Heck, a
resistor that fails one bin can just go into the next one.

But we never see bad resistors. Whatever the process, it sure works.

An automatic test machine could measure resistors as fast as they can
be processed. A millisecond is plenty of time to measure resistance.

Youtube knows all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wshRwO0MCSU

For the best quality you have to do both I believe. Testing each units
rejects duds at the individual level, and statistical sampling to reject
bias or errors in your trimming and measurement apparatus at the process
level.

 

[bitrex]

On 9/20/2020 1:28 PM, blisca wrote:

I wonder if the accuracy is granted by the process itself,by testing
samples,or automatic test one by one;
the last would be amazing in case of very cheap and very small
resistors(or other passive components).The same question could be
extended to semiconductors,despite test on wafer is probably easier, by
mechanical point of view,what about the sealed component?
Thanks and forgive improper use of english language.
Diego

Statistical sampling can ensure whole batches are very close to perfect,
like with prescription drug manufacturers. Testing pills is destructive,
though, so obviously they don\'t test each one in that biz they do it
statistically and set up the manufacturing process with hard limits so
if it\'s going to be off it\'s going to be off-low.

To ensure there are exactly 0 out-of-spec resistors in a batch you have
to test each one there\'s no way around it and for precision resistors
that\'s what they do, they\'re easier to test as individuals than pills.

But I believe for the best quality they also do batch sampling because
there can be errors in your overall process that just testing
individuals may not detect. No \"precision\" manufacturing pr mechanical
process stays precision forever, there\'s always some drift, and what
happens if your manufacturing apparatus and test apparatus drift the
same way, just sampling individuals won\'t detect that.

 

[Flyguy]

On Tuesday, September 22, 2020 at 6:22:56 PM UTC-7, bitrex wrote:

On 9/20/2020 2:02 PM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Sun, 20 Sep 2020 19:28:06 +0200, blisca <blisca@tiscali.it> wrote:

I wonder if the accuracy is granted by the process itself,by testing samples,or automatic test one by one;
the last would be amazing in case of very cheap and very small resistors(or other passive components).The same question could be extended to semiconductors,despite test on wafer is probably easier, by mechanical point of view,what about the sealed component?
Thanks and forgive improper use of english language.
Diego

Resistors are generally laser trimmed. Look at some under a
microscope. Trimming requires that every resistor be measured.

We only buy 1% resistors, and they are probably all trimmed.
Apparently some sloppier parts, like 10%, aren\'t trimmed. Heck, a
resistor that fails one bin can just go into the next one.

But we never see bad resistors. Whatever the process, it sure works.

An automatic test machine could measure resistors as fast as they can
be processed. A millisecond is plenty of time to measure resistance.

Youtube knows all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wshRwO0MCSU


For the best quality you have to do both I believe. Testing each units
rejects duds at the individual level, and statistical sampling to reject
bias or errors in your trimming and measurement apparatus at the process
level.

It\'s next to impossible for a small company to reproduce the testing done by today\'s electronic component manufacturers. The only reason to do so is to sub-select parts for a tighter spec than the manufacturers.

Sealed lead-acid batteries are another story, however. I did not use these in my products, but I have consumed them in my aircraft. I do 100% incoming inspection and testing, and annual retesting to ensure performance. I have switched to LiFePO4 batteries where possible. Their quality is much higher, along with their cost.

 

[bitrex]

On 9/22/2020 9:42 PM, bitrex wrote:

> same way, just sampling individuals won\'t detect that.

Just testing individuals, rather

 

[server]

On Tue, 22 Sep 2020 15:25:21 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell
<terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tuesday, September 22, 2020 at 3:31:23 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

On Tue, 22 Sep 2020 09:59:34 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell wrote:

On Tuesday, September 22, 2020 at 11:07:23 AM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

I have a career-long record of successfully burgling stockrooms.

Me, too. The first time was in the Army. They wouldn\'t give me what I needed to keep a TV station on the air. In a three week period, I used 1400 line items, at a total of a little over 2100 parts. The station was still in good shape almost two years later when it was decommissioned and dismantled. I\'ve talked to people who were there after I left for home.

I have a room full of discretes. There were a lot of ROHS COG SMD capacitors in the last purchase. Most are under 1000pF. A real boon for people who play with RF. I have a local electroncs store that sells components to the public that I can trade parts with on a reel by reel basis. I also have dozens of \'Taiyo Yuden SMD/SMT Capacitor Kits\' in small footprints.
I never worked for a company so big that I couldn\'t walk to the
stockroom and production floor and machine shop. I\'ve known engineers
who worked in a \"office building\" where there they didn\'t even have a
lab. And I know outfits that send everything, even prototypes, out to
a contract manufacturer.

I could tell a funny story.

Tell it.

Well, sorta funny. I was chief engineer of a big company. I was 25 and
looked 15. I went into the machine shop and asked a guy to drill a
hole in a piece of aluminum for me. He said \"Who do you think you
are?\" and I said \"I\'m Larkin.\" He was shocked. All the big burly
machinists surrounded me and pointed and said \"That\'s Larkin!\"

He drilled it for me. I wound up dirt bike riding with a bunch of
them. They made their own pistons.

I don\'t have a full machine shop, but I do have some nice tools for building prototypes. I havee a Cameron precision drill press, a floor model drill press and a small milling machine. My latest addition was a small lathe. They are in my 1200 Sq foot detached
garage.

We have a nice little shop downstairs. My manufacturing manager is a
superb machinist and mechanical designer too. That\'s really handy to
have around.




--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

Science teaches us to doubt.

Claude Bernard

 

[Michael Terrell]

On Tuesday, September 22, 2020 at 10:46:30 PM UTC-4,John Larkin wrote:

On Tue, 22 Sep 2020 15:25:21 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell wrote:

On Tuesday, September 22, 2020 at 3:31:23 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

On Tue, 22 Sep 2020 09:59:34 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell wrote:

On Tuesday, September 22, 2020 at 11:07:23 AM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

I have a career-long record of successfully burgling stockrooms.

Me, too. The first time was in the Army. They wouldn\'t give me what I needed to keep a TV station on the air. In a three week period, I used 1400 line items, at a total of a little over 2100 parts. The station was still in good shape almost two years later when it was decommissioned and dismantled. I\'ve talked to people who were there after I left for home.

I have a room full of discretes. There were a lot of ROHS COG SMD capacitors in the last purchase. Most are under 1000pF. A real boon for people who play with RF. I have a local electroncs store that sells components to the public that I can trade parts with on a reel by reel basis. I also have dozens of \'Taiyo Yuden SMD/SMT Capacitor Kits\' in small footprints.
I never worked for a company so big that I couldn\'t walk to the
stockroom and production floor and machine shop. I\'ve known engineers
who worked in a \"office building\" where there they didn\'t even have a
lab. And I know outfits that send everything, even prototypes, out to
a contract manufacturer.

I could tell a funny story.

Tell it.

Well, sorta funny. I was chief engineer of a big company. I was 25 and
looked 15. I went into the machine shop and asked a guy to drill a
hole in a piece of aluminum for me. He said \"Who do you think you
are?\" and I said \"I\'m Larkin.\" He was shocked. All the big burly
machinists surrounded me and pointed and said \"That\'s Larkin!\"

He drilled it for me. I wound up dirt bike riding with a bunch of
them. They made their own pistons.
I don\'t have a full machine shop, but I do have some nice tools for building prototypes. I have a Cameron precision drill press, a floor model drill press and a small milling machine. My latest addition was a small lathe. They are in my 1200 Sq foot detached
garage.
We have a nice little shop downstairs. My manufacturing manager is a
superb machinist and mechanical designer too. That\'s really handy to
have around.

I had only worked at Microdyne for a couple weeks when some guy walked up and starts asking me a bunch of questions. He didn\'t introduce himself, and some of the questions were things that no one outside of the company should be asking. I looked up from the bench and said, \"Excuse me, but I have work to do.\" He came back five minutes later with my boss who was furious!. The man was the head of production, but he had not been introduced to me. He told my boss that I had done the right thing by not just sit there talking to a stranger.

I learned to run a lathe in high school, and a friend owned a nice machine shop in Ohio. He manufactured replacement parts for Model T and Model A Fords. Most were made on original Ford dies. He was one of the first companies allowed to use the Ford logo on his boxes. He made replica ignition coils with he Ford logo embossed on the steel can. He bought the raw coils from Echlin, and put them in the cans that he stamped. He made the Model T fenders with a heavy steel wire rolled into the edge, on original tooling and machines from Ford. I could use any machine that wasn\'t in use. He started this part time, while working as a tool and die maker in the Aerospace industry. That company developed the honeycomb steel heat shields for the early space program. He went full time during a layoff, and never went back.

 

[server]

On Tue, 22 Sep 2020 23:25:54 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell
<terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tuesday, September 22, 2020 at 10:46:30 PM UTC-4,John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 22 Sep 2020 15:25:21 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell wrote:

On Tuesday, September 22, 2020 at 3:31:23 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

On Tue, 22 Sep 2020 09:59:34 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell wrote:

On Tuesday, September 22, 2020 at 11:07:23 AM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

I have a career-long record of successfully burgling stockrooms.

Me, too. The first time was in the Army. They wouldn\'t give me what I needed to keep a TV station on the air. In a three week period, I used 1400 line items, at a total of a little over 2100 parts. The station was still in good shape almost two years later when it was decommissioned and dismantled. I\'ve talked to people who were there after I left for home.

I have a room full of discretes. There were a lot of ROHS COG SMD capacitors in the last purchase. Most are under 1000pF. A real boon for people who play with RF. I have a local electroncs store that sells components to the public that I can trade parts with on a reel by reel basis. I also have dozens of \'Taiyo Yuden SMD/SMT Capacitor Kits\' in small footprints.
I never worked for a company so big that I couldn\'t walk to the
stockroom and production floor and machine shop. I\'ve known engineers
who worked in a \"office building\" where there they didn\'t even have a
lab. And I know outfits that send everything, even prototypes, out to
a contract manufacturer.

I could tell a funny story.

Tell it.

Well, sorta funny. I was chief engineer of a big company. I was 25 and
looked 15. I went into the machine shop and asked a guy to drill a
hole in a piece of aluminum for me. He said \"Who do you think you
are?\" and I said \"I\'m Larkin.\" He was shocked. All the big burly
machinists surrounded me and pointed and said \"That\'s Larkin!\"

He drilled it for me. I wound up dirt bike riding with a bunch of
them. They made their own pistons.
I don\'t have a full machine shop, but I do have some nice tools for building prototypes. I have a Cameron precision drill press, a floor model drill press and a small milling machine. My latest addition was a small lathe. They are in my 1200 Sq foot detached
garage.
We have a nice little shop downstairs. My manufacturing manager is a
superb machinist and mechanical designer too. That\'s really handy to
have around.

I had only worked at Microdyne for a couple weeks when some guy walked up and starts asking me a bunch of questions. He didn\'t introduce himself, and some of the questions were things that no one outside of the company should be asking. I looked up from the bench and said, \"Excuse me, but I have work to do.\" He came back five minutes later with my boss who was furious!. The man was the head of production, but he had not been introduced to me. He told my boss that I had done the right thing by not just sit there talking to a stranger.

I learned to run a lathe in high school, and a friend owned a nice machine shop in Ohio. He manufactured replacement parts for Model T and Model A Fords. Most were made on original Ford dies. He was one of the first companies allowed to use the Ford logo on his boxes. He made replica ignition coils with he Ford logo embossed on the steel can. He bought the raw coils from Echlin, and put them in the cans that he stamped. He made the Model T fenders with a heavy steel wire rolled into the edge, on original tooling and machines from Ford. I could use any machine that wasn\'t in use. He started this part time, while working as a tool and die maker in the Aerospace industry. That company developed the honeycomb steel heat shields for the early space program. He went full time during a layoff, and never went back.

I like worker-guys - plumbers, farmers, electricians, machinists,
construction guys with giant pickup trucks.

At the place I mentioned, we had a huge Whitney n/c punch press. It
would punch 4\" holes in 1/8\" steel plate about 1 per second, and the
building shook at every hit. It was programmed from paper tape in an
atrocious format, so I wrote a language compiler for our PDP11
timeshare system, loosely based on Quickpoint syntax. It was fairly
basic, but it did have a PATn command to punch a pattern and remember
it for reuse, and OFS Xddddd Yddddd and OFS DXcccccc DYnnnnn to offset
the origin absolutely and incrementally. We turned that loose on the
machinists and discovered that they were soon writing elegant and
efficient programs with just a few control tools.

I also implemented a BHC (bolt hole circle) command which they adapted
to scallop really big holes using a smaller punch. It was awesome to
watch it punch out their programs on a big steel console panel.

The Westinghouse n/c controller was all discrete-transistor logic
cards. It read a paper tape and could do smooth vector moves into big
servo motors with encoders, using what we\'d think of as a DDS
algorithm, all in BCD.

One thing I\'ve noticed about those worker-guys is that they tend to be
mystified by and afraid of electricity. They think I wear robes and
pointy hats because I can wire a ceiling fan.

All kids should learn some basic machining and welding and
electrical/electronics skills. Some really high-end private high
schools do that.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

Science teaches us to doubt.

Claude Bernard

 

[Michael Terrell]

On Wednesday, September 23, 2020 at 11:46:30 AM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

On Tue, 22 Sep 2020 23:25:54 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell wrote:

On Tuesday, September 22, 2020 at 10:46:30 PM UTC-4,John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 22 Sep 2020 15:25:21 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell wrote:

On Tuesday, September 22, 2020 at 3:31:23 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

On Tue, 22 Sep 2020 09:59:34 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell wrote:

On Tuesday, September 22, 2020 at 11:07:23 AM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

I have a career-long record of successfully burgling stockrooms.

Me, too. The first time was in the Army. They wouldn\'t give me what I needed to keep a TV station on the air. In a three week period, I used 1400 line items, at a total of a little over 2100 parts. The station was still in good shape almost two years later when it was decommissioned and dismantled. I\'ve talked to people who were there after I left for home.

I have a room full of discretes. There were a lot of ROHS COG SMD capacitors in the last purchase. Most are under 1000pF. A real boon for people who play with RF. I have a local electroncs store that sells components to the public that I can trade parts with on a reel by reel basis. I also have dozens of \'Taiyo Yuden SMD/SMT Capacitor Kits\' in small footprints.
I never worked for a company so big that I couldn\'t walk to the
stockroom and production floor and machine shop. I\'ve known engineers
who worked in a \"office building\" where there they didn\'t even have a
lab. And I know outfits that send everything, even prototypes, out to
a contract manufacturer.

I could tell a funny story.

Tell it.

Well, sorta funny. I was chief engineer of a big company. I was 25 and
looked 15. I went into the machine shop and asked a guy to drill a
hole in a piece of aluminum for me. He said \"Who do you think you
are?\" and I said \"I\'m Larkin.\" He was shocked. All the big burly
machinists surrounded me and pointed and said \"That\'s Larkin!\"

He drilled it for me. I wound up dirt bike riding with a bunch of
them. They made their own pistons.
I don\'t have a full machine shop, but I do have some nice tools for building prototypes. I have a Cameron precision drill press, a floor model drill press and a small milling machine. My latest addition was a small lathe. They are in my 1200 Sq foot detached
garage.
We have a nice little shop downstairs. My manufacturing manager is a
superb machinist and mechanical designer too. That\'s really handy to
have around.

I had only worked at Microdyne for a couple weeks when some guy walked up and starts asking me a bunch of questions. He didn\'t introduce himself, and some of the questions were things that no one outside of the company should be asking. I looked up from the bench and said, \"Excuse me, but I have work to do.\" He came back five minutes later with my boss who was furious!. The man was the head of production, but he had not been introduced to me. He told my boss that I had done the right thing by not just sit there talking to a stranger.

I learned to run a lathe in high school, and a friend owned a nice machine shop in Ohio. He manufactured replacement parts for Model T and Model A Fords. Most were made on original Ford dies. He was one of the first companies allowed to use the Ford logo on his boxes. He made replica ignition coils with he Ford logo embossed on the steel can. He bought the raw coils from Echlin, and put them in the cans that he stamped. He made the Model T fenders with a heavy steel wire rolled into the edge, on original tooling and machines from Ford. I could use any machine that wasn\'t in use. He started this part time, while working as a tool and die maker in the Aerospace industry. That company developed the honeycomb steel heat shields for the early space program. He went full time during a layoff, and never went back.
I like worker-guys - plumbers, farmers, electricians, machinists,
construction guys with giant pickup trucks.

At the place I mentioned, we had a huge Whitney n/c punch press. It
would punch 4\" holes in 1/8\" steel plate about 1 per second, and the
building shook at every hit. It was programmed from paper tape in an
atrocious format, so I wrote a language compiler for our PDP11
timeshare system, loosely based on Quickpoint syntax. It was fairly
basic, but it did have a PATn command to punch a pattern and remember
it for reuse, and OFS Xddddd Yddddd and OFS DXcccccc DYnnnnn to offset
the origin absolutely and incrementally. We turned that loose on the
machinists and discovered that they were soon writing elegant and
efficient programs with just a few control tools.

I also implemented a BHC (bolt hole circle) command which they adapted
to scallop really big holes using a smaller punch. It was awesome to
watch it punch out their programs on a big steel console panel.

The Westinghouse n/c controller was all discrete-transistor logic
cards. It read a paper tape and could do smooth vector moves into big
servo motors with encoders, using what we\'d think of as a DDS
algorithm, all in BCD.

One thing I\'ve noticed about those worker-guys is that they tend to be
mystified by and afraid of electricity. They think I wear robes and
pointy hats because I can wire a ceiling fan.

All kids should learn some basic machining and welding and
electrical/electronics skills. Some really high-end private high
schools do that.

They need to put shop classes back into public schools. It was a huge mistake to remove them. I took every shop class that I could, along with the College prep track that I was on. I got sick of being told that I should go into medicine or law, because of my IQ. I also got sick of being told that I needed to see the numbers. I never did look at whatever was in the envelop that they slid across the table to me. I just pushed it back. I was but on thee College Prep track in thee seventh grade. I often got the highest scores on the aptitude tests of anyone in my school system, but it didn\'t matter to me. I wanted to learn, for the sake of learning, not to impress people.. I had a good laugh after one test on mechanics. There were two perfect scores in the entire school system. Me and a girl. The boys who claimed to be mechanical geniuses scored very low. They couldn\'t figure out what direction the output shaft would turn in a gearbox, yet it was obvious at a glance..

I learned to weld. I learned to wire a house when I was 10. I have a portable Oxyacetylene torch that can be carried to places that you can\'t take the big bottles. Those were handy as a Broadcast Engineer. You could cut up old crap too remove it, or make temporary repairs until a tower crew could replace a tower. They were also handy to solder 2\" and larger copper pipe i the transmitter cooling systems. People thought that I was nuts, because I pre-tinned the pipe and the cast brass fittings, but my work never leaked. Old systems that I had to take apart often had only a thin ring of flowed solder that would crack from vibration. One idiot had brazed the copper pie to the brass fittings. Those took a lot of work to reuse. They were custom designed by RCA, and there hadn\'t been spares for at least a decade. I had to use Oxyacetylene on an area that wasn\'t brazed, and drive a thin punch into the seam to dimlpe the copper pipe. Then I had to file the brazing off from the sloppy repairs. After that, a large pair of needle nose pliers were used to twist it loose while the solder was molten. I salvaged and reused every one of them. It was the worst use of 50/50 solder that I had ever seen. I replaced it with a very high tin content solder that flowed properly. It had 0.5% Antimony and may have been 99.5% tin. I still have the rest of the five pound spool somewhere.

I had a bunch of those large, bright orange Burroughs plasma displays for early CNC machines. They were from industrial terminals wit cast aluminum cabinets. The displays ran so hot that they needed it to cool the displays. I think they were in a warehouse that I lost in 2001 when I ended up bedridden for two years.

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 2020-09-22 22:46, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Tue, 22 Sep 2020 15:25:21 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell
terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tuesday, September 22, 2020 at 3:31:23 PM UTC-4, John Larkin
wrote:

On Tue, 22 Sep 2020 09:59:34 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell wrote:

On Tuesday, September 22, 2020 at 11:07:23 AM UTC-4, John
Larkin wrote:

I have a career-long record of successfully burgling
stockrooms.

Me, too. The first time was in the Army. They wouldn\'t give me
what I needed to keep a TV station on the air. In a three week
period, I used 1400 line items, at a total of a little over
2100 parts. The station was still in good shape almost two
years later when it was decommissioned and dismantled. I\'ve
talked to people who were there after I left for home.

I have a room full of discretes. There were a lot of ROHS COG
SMD capacitors in the last purchase. Most are under 1000pF. A
real boon for people who play with RF. I have a local
electroncs store that sells components to the public that I can
trade parts with on a reel by reel basis. I also have dozens of
\'Taiyo Yuden SMD/SMT Capacitor Kits\' in small footprints.
I never worked for a company so big that I couldn\'t walk to the
stockroom and production floor and machine shop. I\'ve known
engineers who worked in a \"office building\" where there they
didn\'t even have a lab. And I know outfits that send everything,
even prototypes, out to a contract manufacturer.

I could tell a funny story.

Tell it.


Well, sorta funny. I was chief engineer of a big company. I was 25
and looked 15. I went into the machine shop and asked a guy to drill
a hole in a piece of aluminum for me. He said \"Who do you think you
are?\" and I said \"I\'m Larkin.\" He was shocked. All the big burly
machinists surrounded me and pointed and said \"That\'s Larkin!\"

He drilled it for me. I wound up dirt bike riding with a bunch of
them. They made their own pistons.

Probably on company time.

I don\'t have a full machine shop, but I do have some nice tools for
building prototypes. I havee a Cameron precision drill press, a
floor model drill press and a small milling machine. My latest
addition was a small lathe. They are in my 1200 Sq foot detached
garage.

We have a nice little shop downstairs. My manufacturing manager is a
superb machinist and mechanical designer too. That\'s really handy to
have around.

When our ship comes in, we\'re going to get a bigger lab with a room
dedicated to mechanical work and test jigs. We couldn\'t fit even a
Sherline into our current space because of all the other stuff.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

http://electrooptical.net
http://hobbs-eo.com

 

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 23 Sep 2020 17:50:51 -0400, Phil Hobbs
<pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2020-09-22 22:46, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Tue, 22 Sep 2020 15:25:21 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell
terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tuesday, September 22, 2020 at 3:31:23 PM UTC-4, John Larkin
wrote:

On Tue, 22 Sep 2020 09:59:34 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell wrote:

On Tuesday, September 22, 2020 at 11:07:23 AM UTC-4, John
Larkin wrote:

I have a career-long record of successfully burgling
stockrooms.

Me, too. The first time was in the Army. They wouldn\'t give me
what I needed to keep a TV station on the air. In a three week
period, I used 1400 line items, at a total of a little over
2100 parts. The station was still in good shape almost two
years later when it was decommissioned and dismantled. I\'ve
talked to people who were there after I left for home.

I have a room full of discretes. There were a lot of ROHS COG
SMD capacitors in the last purchase. Most are under 1000pF. A
real boon for people who play with RF. I have a local
electroncs store that sells components to the public that I can
trade parts with on a reel by reel basis. I also have dozens of
\'Taiyo Yuden SMD/SMT Capacitor Kits\' in small footprints.
I never worked for a company so big that I couldn\'t walk to the
stockroom and production floor and machine shop. I\'ve known
engineers who worked in a \"office building\" where there they
didn\'t even have a lab. And I know outfits that send everything,
even prototypes, out to a contract manufacturer.

I could tell a funny story.

Tell it.


Well, sorta funny. I was chief engineer of a big company. I was 25
and looked 15. I went into the machine shop and asked a guy to drill
a hole in a piece of aluminum for me. He said \"Who do you think you
are?\" and I said \"I\'m Larkin.\" He was shocked. All the big burly
machinists surrounded me and pointed and said \"That\'s Larkin!\"

He drilled it for me. I wound up dirt bike riding with a bunch of
them. They made their own pistons.


Probably on company time.

Several of us had Yamaha 250 dirt bikes. I was used to mine. I tried
one of the machinist\'s bikes, cranked the throttle as usual, and it
wheelied and flung me into the air. They found that to be amusing.

We\'d ride in the bonnet carre spillway (which was illegal) and play
motorcycle tag in a big bowl-shaped gravel pit. Crashed a lot.

I don\'t have a full machine shop, but I do have some nice tools for
building prototypes. I havee a Cameron precision drill press, a
floor model drill press and a small milling machine. My latest
addition was a small lathe. They are in my 1200 Sq foot detached
garage.

We have a nice little shop downstairs. My manufacturing manager is a
superb machinist and mechanical designer too. That\'s really handy to
have around.

When our ship comes in, we\'re going to get a bigger lab with a room
dedicated to mechanical work and test jigs. We couldn\'t fit even a
Sherline into our current space because of all the other stuff.

We have a Tormach, which is fabulous. But I still like our ancient
manual Bridgeport; you can *feel* it cutting metal. When they refurbed
it, I wanted them to paint it purple but they stuck with grey.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8iusfwe1k62w2fr/Tor1.JPG?raw=1

 

[Tabby]

On Wednesday, 23 September 2020 18:51:08 UTC+1, Michael Terrell wrote:

> I learned to weld. I learned to wire a house when I was 10. I have a portable

I learnt how not to wire a house when I was 10.

 

[Michael Terrell]

On Wednesday, September 23, 2020 at 7:51:52 PM UTC-4, Tabby wrote:

On Wednesday, 23 September 2020 18:51:08 UTC+1, Michael Terrell wrote:

I learned to weld. I learned to wire a house when I was 10. I have a portable
I learnt how not to wire a house when I was 10.

Did you burn it down?

 

[Tabby]

On Thursday, 24 September 2020 14:34:01 UTC+1, Michael Terrell wrote:

On Wednesday, September 23, 2020 at 7:51:52 PM UTC-4, Tabby wrote:
On Wednesday, 23 September 2020 18:51:08 UTC+1, Michael Terrell wrote:

I learned to weld. I learned to wire a house when I was 10. I have a portable
I learnt how not to wire a house when I was 10.

Did you burn it down?

no