Unfortunately, only unsuccessful designs can be easily made in an extra bedroom, or prototypes, if you will. Production requires the economies of scale, to save buying each part, over and over. Usually 100 is the minimum purchase, except perhaps for transformers and cases. Takes a lot of room, and hundreds of separate plastic drawers, each labeled with what it contains. I live and work in this environment, even today, using the warehouse for storage only, these days. It would be too dangerous for me to drive to and from the warehouse, today, considering the condition of my eyes, but I used to drive there, to and from, for several years on a daily basis, and enough is enough. Design warehouses that I can afford in Berkeley? Give me a break!
I came up with a short history on circuit layout and my experience with it.
Back, 42 years ago, I just gave my servo breadboard design to my office room-mate, and he did it for me. Not a bad job, either.
In 1970, when working with the GD, my boss, Ron Wickersham, now, as then, head of Alembic Inc., did the layouts, and they were OK. Where we failed, was parts choice, at the time.
Interestingly enough, we hired this guy, Jim Furman, a college graduate, to make prototypes and solder for us. Yes, the very Jim Furman, who created Furman Sound, looked up to, with reverance, today. Well, then, Jim Furman was a lousy layout man, the worst in my experience. I would have fired him, on the spot, but I wasn't the boss. He could solder, so he had at least one redeeming virtue. While I did not know or appreciate it at the time, he was an EXCELLENT business man, and took a few ideas developed while he worked with the GD, and made quite an industry. He became a great promoter, second only, in my opinion, to Noel Lee, who I got to know very well.
Ever onward, when I moved to Switzerland, we hired a Swiss 'kid' who had an amazing gift for circuit layout, both in hand wired prototype, and circuit diagrams. His drawings and layouts were 'works of art' and he did the Symmetry crossover, preamp and power amp, (you didn't know about those, did you?), and my pro circuit boards, back in the late 1970's. Unfortunately, he went totally blind, in 1980, and could not work any further.
When I first met Carl Thompson, and saw his work, I was immediately impressed, and still am, today. Carl works for the 'big boys', as well as for audio companies. You know: Fairchild Instrumentation, Intel, Tektronix, Grass Valley Group, etc. His efforts are just as important as mine in making a successful product.
Back, 42 years ago, I just gave my servo breadboard design to my office room-mate, and he did it for me. Not a bad job, either.
In 1970, when working with the GD, my boss, Ron Wickersham, now, as then, head of Alembic Inc., did the layouts, and they were OK. Where we failed, was parts choice, at the time.
Interestingly enough, we hired this guy, Jim Furman, a college graduate, to make prototypes and solder for us. Yes, the very Jim Furman, who created Furman Sound, looked up to, with reverance, today. Well, then, Jim Furman was a lousy layout man, the worst in my experience. I would have fired him, on the spot, but I wasn't the boss. He could solder, so he had at least one redeeming virtue. While I did not know or appreciate it at the time, he was an EXCELLENT business man, and took a few ideas developed while he worked with the GD, and made quite an industry. He became a great promoter, second only, in my opinion, to Noel Lee, who I got to know very well.
Ever onward, when I moved to Switzerland, we hired a Swiss 'kid' who had an amazing gift for circuit layout, both in hand wired prototype, and circuit diagrams. His drawings and layouts were 'works of art' and he did the Symmetry crossover, preamp and power amp, (you didn't know about those, did you?), and my pro circuit boards, back in the late 1970's. Unfortunately, he went totally blind, in 1980, and could not work any further.
When I first met Carl Thompson, and saw his work, I was immediately impressed, and still am, today. Carl works for the 'big boys', as well as for audio companies. You know: Fairchild Instrumentation, Intel, Tektronix, Grass Valley Group, etc. His efforts are just as important as mine in making a successful product.
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And you think PMA, that rocket science is not just trying things too? Wake up and smell the coffee! '-) Do you have ANY IDEA how solid state fuel for assisted take-off of planes, and first stages of rockets, today, was invented near Cal Tech in the late '30's and early 1940's. Ever heard of JPL? Read and weep!
Unsuccessful?
And exactly how successful was Vendetta?
How many units were ever sold in its ten year existence?
Even after being in business for seven years, Gordon wrote "Most audiophiles, including those who've heard of John Curl, don't even know Vendetta Research exists."
Now that's a sure sign of success.
Ever heard of scheduled delivery, John?
And even then, I'd wager I could fit the parts for 100 SCP-2's in my bedroom closet.
Hundreds? There are hundreds of unique parts in an SCP-2?
Now, if you were producing a dozen or so different products I could see hundreds of parts bins. But something like an SCP-2? Maybe a couple dozen tops.
Don't need a warehouse. Just need a little creativity and imagination.
se
Go for it Steve Eddy. My best wishes come with it! I now have drawers and drawers, but then I have 3 projects running at the moment. All out of a spare bedroom. My bedroom closet is floor to ceiling with plastic drawers, at least 250. Spare transformers and caps sit on the floor. Under every bench are tools, large and small, Dremels, battery powered drills, and AC power drills for big work. My floor standing drill press is at the warehouse, as it is too big for the bedroom. I have thousands and thousands of electronic parts, large and small, some cheap enough to throw away if necessary, some that should be kept in a bank vault. That's my reality, and I ONLY build prototypes at the moment.
If you go to IKEA and buy 80 drawers and rails, stick 'm in 4 closets, you end up with 1600 compartments.
Doesn't hold any transformers, big caps, or chassis parts though (sigh, the burdens of a drawer fetishist, me go clean kitchen now)
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Hopefully I have enough to do with different kind of technologies and I can compare. Many of the famous 'high end' designers are just amateurs in EE, without any deeper knowledge of anything, but marketing.
They keep the losses low by using thin laminations, just try keeping the efficiency up if you use thicker laminations. On extremly large transformers and also the early 25 Hz transformers in the states they used thicker laminations.
I thought your writings were a breath of fresh air in this thread until you lost the plot with your stubborness over using thick conductors to remove AC magnetic fields.
It may not be the most efficient means of doing so, but it surely works , that is why have a skin depth for any conductor at a particular frequency.
Hehehe.
Those look nice!
I'm something of a drawer fetishist myself.
My mother used to work as a custodian at one of the local high schools. When the library was "upgrading" by computerizing their index and getting rid of their card indexes, I was able to grab a couple of beautiful card index files made back in the 1950's out of solid hardwood by Remington Rand.
I also got a couple of big vertical gray metal card file cabinets made about the same time by Art Metal.
They're both beautifully well made and as rugged as it gets. As they say, they don't make 'em like they used to.
And just as an OT aside, I think it's stupid for libraries to get rid of their card indexes.
Some years ago I went to one of our local public library branches. Both the power and the phone lines were out because of a careless backhoe operator.
I asked the librarian where their card files were. She said they had got rid of them after they upgraded to the computerized indexes.
Idiots.
se
Tell me about it, i visited the refit of the Cunard QE2 cruise ship in Hamburg, late 80s.
The entire interior was thrown into dumpster containers, should have seen some of the furniture and one-off cabinets, up for grabs, brought tears to my eyes that i hadn't brought a 40t truck along.
Either/or is rather dull, no ?
Agreed.
Your story about the QE2 is rather like a story a friend of mine told me the other day about the Bata Shoes office in Toronto. Full of rosewood paneling and furnishings. Was leveled and hauled off.
se
I think there's a lot more salvage going on these days. I've seen some incredible ebay sales from closed Catholic churches. Imagine that white marble altar in your kitchen. My mother bought an entire pew for her livingroom.
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