[Fourlanders] TS-990 being built

[Brian McCarthy]

Jim,

That video looked too much like my work. Unfortunately, Kenwood does not
seem to be using any of my machines for the pick-and-place. The hand
placement of thru-hole components is still common. I have been working with
a new machine that is designed to do that kind of odd form parts placement.
It is rather amazing what can be done with machine vision and a scrubbing
motion to insert parts. A lot of the plants are telling us that hand
placement is becoming a liability in terms of mistakes, repeatability,
cycle time and staffing.

We also have a 3D x-ray automated inspection machine that could do the
manual BGA inspection shown in the video. There is significant market
pressure to automate that step.

The people that build cars and handsets are still doing real hardware every
day and most are doing it 3 shifts a day. There are still a lot of shops
doing assembly here in the US. The clothing, slippers and a lot of other
things are very familiar to me from my Japan visits and my Japanese managed
customers here in the US and Mexico.

Lately, I've been wanting to get away from the physical hardware part of my
work. Working on a noisy and busy shop floor isn't as interesting as it
used to be. It's still cool to see things created from bits, pieces and
data. It's just a messy noisy process.

Cheers,
Brian

On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 2:59 AM, Jim Worsham <w4kxy at bellsouth.net> wrote:

> Good to see that someone somewhere has factories still making stuff.  I am
> at CES in Vegas.  It is all about apps, software, hackathons, etc.  nothing
> real anymore.  Anyway, a very nice rig.  Kim and I saw an early prototype
> at the Kenwood hospitality suite in Dayton a couple of years ago.
> Unfortunately, way out of my budget.
>
> 73
> Jim, W4KXY
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Jan 3, 2015, at 7:23 PM, whensley11 at comcast.net wrote:
>
> In case you haven't already seen this.
>
> http://qrznow.com/kenwood-ts-990s-hf6m-flagship-base-station-built/
>
>
>
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