Pencils

Inside One of America’s Last Pencil Factories - worth a click for the pictures alone. I like seeing the machines and getting a glimpse of the manufacturing process.

More .22LR

Twenty percent more .22LR production coming from Federal/CCI manufacturer:

"I talked to Dan Compton at the Shot Show about what was going on with .22 production. Everyone is interested in the situation with the ongoing .22 ammunition bubble for the last three years. Store shelves have been empty more often than not. Dan is a Senior Product Line Specialist for Vista Outdoors, which includes CCI and Federal brands. I also talked with other people at the Vista booths and in the industry. 

Over the last year, the decision was made to increase .22 rimfire production. Now it will take about a year to implement that decision. Part of that decision is based on the belief that the overall market has expanded to include more new shooters, young shooters, women and urban shooters."

Via the Weapon-Blog

Second Half

I think it's pretty sporting of the North to let the other team have the arms factories for the second half. http://t.co/Ypw3vHb6KT
— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) July 22, 2014

Auto Manufacturing Down Under

I had no idea.

"Toyota announced it will shut down its Australian manufacturing by 2017. Quite simply, it's cheaper to manufacture elsewhere (especially here in the U.S.) and ship to Australia. The company had been trying to reduce its labor costs by amending contracts, but that got nixed by the country's court system. Toyota was the last of the automakers to announce that it is leaving Australia. Once it pulls out, Australia will have no consumer carmaker."

Via Ace of Spades HQ

Bunnie Interview on CSDN.net

Makers, fixers, open-source hardware, technology and more... some quotes below from Bunnie's interview with "CSDN.net, which stands for 'China Software Developer Network', or more colloquially, “Programmer Magazine.'"

It all starts with radio... of course, that is how I read it...

"In 1960, for all practical purposes there was only hardware, and it was all open. When you bought a transistor radio, it had its schematic printed in the back. If it broke, you had to fix it yourself. It was popular to buy kits to make your own radios."

Of course, you might break a few things along the way to becoming a magician...

"The Maker movement, I think, is less about developing products, and more about developing people. It’s about helping people realize that technology is something man-made, and because of this, every person has the power to control it: it just takes some knowledge. There is no magic in technology. Another way to look at it is, we can all be magicians with a little training."

And the company shouldn't have to meet any warranty obligations if a user breaks the hardware...

"I believe users should “own” their hardware, and “owning” means having the right to modify, change, etc. including root access rights. If the company has a concern about users being unsafe, then it’s easy enough to include an “opt-out” where users can simply select an electronic waiver form, and give up their support and warranty right to gain access to their own machine. Most people who care to root their machine are already smarter than the phone support they would be calling inside the company, so anyways it’s not a problem."

Jobs Wanted

Beretta (and Magpul) should come to Tennessee.

Here is a helpful link to get them started.

Factory Tour - Injection Molding

Not directly ham radio related, but I suspect the process for creating the cases for the radios is the same. Also, given the amount of effort required to make a mold, you can see why the TYT TH-F8 and Boafeng UV-5R (among others) might look the same.

MIT Media Lab IAP 2013 - Shenzhen, China:

"The tool and die shop was amazing. I had no idea how massive the tooling was just to make a simple enclosure. The tooling is cut out of steel using CNC, EDM (Electron Discharge Machining), and manual milling. Each steel mold can weigh a ton or more and requires a lot of manual and automated work. Depending on the finish, the molds also need to be hand polished. To tool and die shop consists of a lot of heavy metalworking equipment. The steel blocks are first cut on the CNC machine. The EDM machine is used to remove steel in parts that can't be cut accurately using a CNC machine. It uses electrical current to remove steel at a rate of 5 microns per electrical burst."

And on a side note, the drinking matches my experience, too. The hosts would, one-by-one, engage you in a "ganbei". This might result in your having four or five drinks to their one. You could often respond with "cheers" and you would just have to take a small drink instead of finishing your glass. Another tactic would be to tap the table with your drink and it meant everyone at the table had to "ganbei."

"This concluded our tour of this injection molding factory and the boss of the factory took us all out to lunch. I didn't realize that lunch included drinking alcohol and we had many "ganbei" (chinese for "bottoms up") glasses of beer with the boss. By the end of lunch, I was fairly trashed and Bunnie was getting there too."

Oh and the "white lightening," as we called it, was horrible. I much prefer the warm Coca Cola and ginger drink that they also encountered. I've actually made that drink at home a few times.

"AQS, a contract manufacturer that was helping to organize all the tours and also a company that Bunnie works closely with, took us all out to dinner with their staff. It was a wonderful dinner and we talked about a lot of the things we saw with them. They also broke out the Chinese hard liquor (53% alcohol) and proudly proclaimed that they wanted to drink with us. I hid from the "white liquor" since I've had a few bad experiences with it but most of the others were game to try it out. Overall, it was a fun evening with AQS and it was our first real dinner together as a group. It was a wonderful chance to meet everyone and hear about what they were working on, why they were on the trip, and just randomly ramble on in a happy, semi drunken state :) "

Crossover 27Q

The Chinese continue to crank out the inexpensive electronics. In this case, it is not a radio, but a monitor - the Crossover 27Q. It is said to use the same LCD panel as the Apple Thunderbolt Display. Yet another opportunity to save a lot of money if you are willing to take a risk.

Made in the USA?

The new Google Nexus Q is designed and manufactured in the USA. Is that a big deal?

Chinese Radios - The Center?

The Baofeng UV-3R is a re-branded Vero Telecom UV-3R.

The Vero Telecom VR-2200 is a re-branded TYT TH-9000.

The Baofeng UV-5R (which I cannot find on the Baofeng site) is similar to the TYT TH-F8.

When the UV-3R came out, I thought VeroTelecom was going to be the actual manufacturer - if not the design house, too. The UV-3R was availible as a Baofeng UV-3R, Magiksun UV-3R, Comtex UV-3R, and a Zastone ZT-UV3R. Vero Telecom was going to be the source.

Now it appears that the VR-2200 is actually a TYT TH-9000. And the UV-5R looks like it has it origins in the TYT TH-F8.

Is TYT going to be the center of the ham radio world for China manufacturers?

Does ICOM buy Yaesu radios and re-brand them? Is Elecraft reselling Ten-Tec rigs? The game is different in China. Maybe they just like to keep us on our toes. I am going to need a map.

Bunnie On Counterfeit Chips in US Military Hardware

An interesting read from Bunnie on counterfeit chips in US military hardware. (I like Bunnie's stuff. He rarely posts, but when he does his electronics, manufacturing, and China experiences make for good reading.)

The problem:

"In the case of the US Military, they have a unique problem where they are one of the biggest and wealthiest buyers of really old parts. Military designs have shelf lives of decades, but parts have production cycles of only years."

A solution:

"A final option could be to establish a strategic reserve of parts. A production run of military planes is limited to perhaps hundreds of units, and so I imagine the lifetime demand of a part including replacements is limited to tens of thousands of units. I can fit ten thousand chips in the volume of a large shoebox"