November 20, 2023 • 55 mins
Why would we dedicate an entire episode to conveyers, you ask? Because it just so happens to be Chris' favorite topic! Chris has an addiction to progress and conveyers are one of the best ways in a factory setting to achieve that (both literally and figuratively). We get an overview of the different types of conveyers typically used in a factory setting and get into the technical aspects of how to set conveyers up before venting about the end of daylight saving time.
Transfer inspection conveyer - https://vanstron.us/collections/transfer-inspection-conveyors/products/copy-of-ptb-460l-5m-20-long-pcb-transfer-inspection-conveyor
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris (00:08):
Welcome to the PickPlace podcast.
This is Chris Dennywith Worthington.
Melissa (00:13):
That's not how we start our show,
Chris (00:14):
Sure it is.
Oh, hey, no, I missedmy whole thing.
Welcome to the PickPlacepodcast, a show where we
talk about electronicsmanufacturing and everything
related to getting thecircuit board into the world.
This.
Is Chris Denny with Worthington.
Melissa (00:31):
And this is Melissa Hough with CircuitHub.
Wow.
Rocked my whole worldthere for a second.
Chris (00:38):
Don't break my routine! Melissa.
Melissa (00:42):
It's okay.
It's okay.
So, welcome back, Chris.
Chris (00:47):
Welcome back, Melissa.
Didn't mean tothrow you off there.
Melissa (00:52):
Did.
Chris (00:54):
Sorry about that.
Melissa (00:55):
That's all right.
Yeah.
So, we're a bitshort on time today.
Chris (01:00):
It's okay.
We'll make it work.
We'll make
Melissa (01:02):
we'll make it work.
So, do we haveanything to catch up on
Chris (01:06):
aside from I had a delightful, delightful
vacation in Mexico City,one of, honestly, one of
the most amazing citiesin the world, I bet.
I, not that I've been to manyof them, mostly American cities,
but man, what a city MexicoCity was, just fantastic.
I tell you, I went to a, Itell you, I went to a luchador.
Or Lucha Libre
Melissa (01:24):
mhm, yeah,
Chris (01:27):
That's the best thing ever.
Always the best thing ever.
Absolutely.
I learned all kinds ofvulgar Spanish words.
Oh yeah.
I don't remember any of thembut I remember everybody
shouting them all around me.
You have like six year oldgirls just like cursing out
like these grown men in masks.
It was fantastic.
It was really something.
(01:47):
I was like, Oh boy,this is quite a thing.
But yeah, that's not whyI went to Mexico city.
I went to Mexico cityfor a Formula One race.
And the funniest thingis my nephew goes my
nephew came with us.
He goes, we literally wentfrom the lowest, the most
like high class sporting thingthere is in the world to the
lowest class sporting thing.
(02:12):
And I was like, Hey, thatis not fair to Lucha Libre.
And this was, wehad a great time.
But it's just like, they dothe whole, it's just like WWE.
They do the whole, they gottheir intro music and they do
the fireworks and, you know,they just it was, they climb the
ropes and get the crowd going.
It was so much fun.
I had so much fun.
I had a michelada.
(02:32):
You ever heard of a michelada?
Melissa (02:33):
I have, I've never had one
Chris (02:35):
So I, I don't know.
I believe that every sort oflike region does a micolada a
little bit differently, but it'stypically like a beer with clam
juice, sometimes tomato juice.
You put, you canput spices in it.
There's a whole, like, I thinkeverybody does it kind of a
little bit differently, but inMexico city, they put this like
gooey, spicy rim around it.
(02:57):
Almost like when you get a likea margarita and they put the
salt around the rim, you know,they put this like gooey, spicy,
Melissa (03:04):
like Tajin
Chris (03:06):
I don't, I don't know what, I don't even
know what tahini is.
I'm, I am uncultured, Melissa.
I couldn't do it.
I, and I'm, I'm theadventurous one.
Like I'm the one that tendsto like go out on a limb and
try all these weird things.
And I'm like, this is great.
I love it.
, I tried Melissa.
I really tried to enjoy it.
I really did.
I didn't mind the clamjuice in the beer.
(03:26):
It was the, it was that, thatsugary, spicy, weird rim.
I just couldn't.
Wasn't doing it,wasn't doing it for me.
So I just drank thebeer and enjoyed myself.
But anyway, yeah, Mexicocity, highly recommend,
highly, highly, highly,highly recommend this city.
It is amazing.
(03:48):
A lot of my American friendswere very concerned that
I'd feel unsafe there.
I never felt unsafe.
Like I felt like, I feltlike I was walking around
like, you know, Greenwichvillage in Manhattan.
Like it was just like beautifulneighborhoods, friendly
people, dogs everywhere.
So many pugs.
There were so many pugs there.
I like, definitely the mostpopular breed of dog in Mexico
Melissa (04:10):
Really, huh?
Chris (04:11):
for sure.
Pugs.
I saw so many of them.
There was a dog park notfar from where we were.
There was like thisbig, beautiful park with
fountains and everything.
And a skate park, and I waswatching the skaters, and
there was a dog park behind it.
And it was just,it was fantastic.
But yeah, we had a, wehad a wonderful time.
What an amazing city.
I can't recommend it enough.
Melissa (04:29):
Yeah.
I'd love to go
Chris (04:30):
Oh my gosh, so amazing.
And I'm so glad that FormulaOne goes there because I
don't think I ever wouldhave thought of visiting
if it weren't for the race.
And then I was like,well, let's do this.
And then I'm like, wow,what an amazing city.
It was like, I'm not surewhat I enjoyed more, the
city or the race, buteither way, it was great.
Yeah, didn't we say wedon't have much time today?
Melissa (04:47):
Yeah.
Chris (04:48):
I waxed poetic for five minutes about what an amazing
Melissa (04:50):
about your trip.
Chris (04:51):
is.
Yeah.
And the other thing is, it'svery like, obviously it's
a huge international city.
It's very cosmopolitan, but.
We were like some of theonly English speaking
people there, for sure.
Like, even at the race wewere completely outnumbered.
I think it mostly draws, youknow, people from Mexico.
I don't think it's drawing alot of crowds from a lot of,
(05:13):
like, European or elsewhere.
And so, it was funny, I wasstanding by the restrooms.
Waiting for my wife tocome out and this guy walks
up to me and he's like,so where are you from?
You know, in a heavy,heavy Spanish accent.
And I was like, ah, youknow, the United States.
I told him everything.
And, and I go, what,what gave me away?
They're like, obviously,like, I realize I stand out.
(05:34):
Like I'm in, I'm in Mexico andI, I don't look like a Mexican.
I get it.
Right.
But what, whatreally gave it away?
He goes, Oh, you'rewearing shorts.
Like what?
Shorts?
That's what gave it away?
I'm wearing shorts?
He goes, Oh yeah.
He goes, Mexicocity's way too cold.
Nobody wears shorts here.
And I'm looking around,you know, there's a hundred
thousand people at this race.
And I don't see anybodyelse wearing shorts.
(05:57):
I, you know, it'slike 75 degrees out.
I'm thinking, Oh, you know,
Melissa (06:01):
that's not cold, friend.
Chris (06:03):
that is, that is yeah, for me, that is hot,
you know, growing up in theNortheast, but to, to the
Mexicans, they're like, no,this is cold, man, we're, we're
wearing jackets and jeans.
I'm like, you, you're crazy.
I, but so then I didn't wantto stand out like a sore thumb.
So I wore jeans therest of the week,
Melissa (06:22):
And then your leg's just boiled, boiled up.
Chris (06:24):
Yeah, exactly.
I'll tell you though, I wasfascinated by that cultural
difference, like, because,because here in the Northeast
we find, oh yeah, you're inthe 60s, Americans are wearing
shorts, you know, down there,it's like, not until the
80s that and then our poorEuropean friends with Celsius,
they're like, I don't evenknow what temperature that is.
Anyway, it was great though.
Loved it.
Loved it.
Loved it.
Highly recommend.
(06:45):
You know what elseI highly recommend?
Melissa (06:46):
Conveyors.
Chris (06:48):
I highly recommend conveyors.
Yes.
Would you like to know why?
Melissa (06:53):
Of course I would.
I would love to know why.
Chris (06:56):
Melissa has in our outline here.
Why a whole episodeon conveyors?
Because it is my favoritething in the world.
it is the catnip ofwhat I get to do.
For some reason,I love it so much.
I have I'm learningabout myself.
I have an addiction.
I mean, perhaps a clinicaladdiction to progress, right?
Melissa (07:21):
I thought you were going to say conveyors.
Chris (07:22):
conveyors is part of it, but I have like a,
there's two things I'velearned about myself lately.
I have a clinicaladdiction to progress.
I have to be makingprogress in my life.
Things have to be movingforward and I have to be,
I have to see improvement.
I have to seeaccomplishment in my life.
Otherwise, I get very depressedand I can't handle it.
So this is why I'm not verygood at, like, doing the
(07:43):
same thing over and over.
Like, a lot of people inmanufacturing They love, and
a lot of our team here, theylove to just be like, given an
opportunity to just keep doingthe same task over and over.
And they really enjoy it.
And that is justnot how I'm wired.
I am not wired that way.
I can't handle doing thesame thing over and over.
(08:04):
I have to constantly bemaking progress and constantly
be improving things.
And I think it It is quiteliterally an addiction
because when somebody has anaddiction to something and they
don't get it, they get likeunhappy and depressed, right?
And that's how I feel when I'mnot making progress, is I'm
like unhappy and depressed.
And A similar sort ofaddiction that I have is, is an
(08:29):
addiction to eliminating waste.
Like, I, I really, reallydislike waste in all forms.
Like, I, I get uncomfortable,like, putting things in trash.
Cause I think like, you know,this could be so much better.
You know, this is stillsomehow like a Ziploc bag.
It's like, this is still aperfectly fine Ziploc bag,
(08:50):
you know, but then also Idon't want to be a hoarder,
Melissa (08:54):
yeah, yeah.
Chris (08:55):
but in a manufacturing setting, these two qualities
that I've found in myself,these two addictions I have
are very beneficial and a wayto apply them is to automate.
The handling of the productsthat we're building.
And that's whereconveyors come in.
They keep things progressingand they eliminate waste.
(09:19):
So maybe we should talk aboutwhat a conveyor is in, in a
PCB manufacturing setting,because you've seen all kinds of
shapes and sizes of conveyors.
You've been in an airport andyou've walked on, you know, the.
You know, like, likean escalator, but flat.
I think they have a termfor them in airports.
I can't think of what it'scalled at the moment people
(09:39):
shout at their radios togive me the name of them.
But you know, that's thetype of conveyor you go
to the grocery store.
You got the big flat belt andyou put your, put your groceries
on it and it goes to the barcodescanner all kinds of conveyors
in a circuit board assembly.
setting we can't use a flatbelt conveyor like that when
we build your circuit boardsbecause a lot of times there
(10:01):
are components on the bottomof these circuit boards that
would disrupt the flow ofthat circuit board through
the assembly line you know, ifwe're, if it were to sit flat,
imagine you've got a great bigtall 25 millimeter aluminum
capacitor on the bottom side orsomething, you know, it's like,
you know, the thing would toppleover, no way you could do it.
So what you have instead isyou have these two thin belts.
(10:24):
And when I say belt, likepicture, picture a belt that you
hold your pants up with, right?
Except much more narrow.
So typical, I don't know,Melissa, what's, what's a
typical, like a one inch,what's a typical belt?
Yeah.
One inch, something like that.
But in a PCB setting,those are typically maybe
about five millimeters.
So like less than aquarter inch, less than a
(10:44):
less than an eighth inch.
I'm not sure.
Very thin, very, very thin.
And you have two ofthese holding the
long edge of the PCB.
So you have and, andthey're, you know,
they're laid down flat.
So then when you set thePCB on them they're, they
can free hang all the bottomside parts without making
contact with anything,cause they're just held on
the two edges of the PCB.
(11:05):
And then those belts arehooked up to motors and they
can move the circuit boardsdown the assembly line.
It'd probably be best, youknow, if you're not familiar
with what these look likelet's say I can put here,
let me put a couple I'm sureI can get a good one here.
Yeah, here we go.
I'm going to put a link to.
These conveyors in the outline,if you want to include that
(11:26):
in the show notes, becauseit would help to kind of
visualize what one looks like.
Cause otherwise I'mgoing to struggle to
describe how they look.
But the beautiful thing aboutthem is, you know, I've been
to so many factories andI've mentioned this before,
like easily over a hundreddifferent circuit board assembly
shops, and I can't tell youthe number of them that.
(11:46):
Don't use conveyors at all.
And it's the strangest thing.
Like, yeah, they'll,they'll, they'll manually
load a stencil printer.
Then they'll manuallyload a ping place machine.
Then they'll manually loada reflow of, and they'll
manually load an AOImachine on and on and on.
And I don't know howthey stay in business
(12:09):
because it's so wasteful.
You have, you have peoplemoving all these products and
here in the United States.
You know, people want to be paidand you can't, you know, you
got to pay these people well,and to move a circuit board
around, it seems quite wasteful.
Right?
So we use conveyors to dothe same thing to move from
(12:32):
machine to machine to machine.
So between our stencil printerand our pick and place, and
between our pick and place andour reflow oven, conveyors.
Now.
Inside of each machine,there is also a conveyor.
So that's how these machineshandle circuit boards, is they
have an internal conveyor thatpulls the board in, clamps
the board in place, does itsoperation, unclamps the board,
(12:54):
and then spits the boardout onto the next conveyor.
Our assembly line, likeI'll just describe what,
what our kind of, wehave a couple of assembly
lines, but what our primaryassembly line looks like.
At the very beginning ofour assembly line, we have
a bare board D stacker.
(13:15):
So we can put an entire stack.
of circuit boards just flat ontop of each other before they
have any components on them.
Just, you know, just all stackedup 50 high, 100 high, whatever.
And we set them insideof this machine manually.
This is the first stepwhere you do it manually.
After this, it's all automated.
And...
This machine is designedto allow one board to drop
(13:38):
from that stack onto the,the, the belt conveyor that
I was describing earlier,and then load itself inside
of the stencil printer, andit's super handy because you
could just Load up a hundredof these, and then you never
have to go back to the frontof the assembly line again.
Every time you buildanother board, it just
sends another one in.
It's super convenient.
(14:00):
So that goes into our stencilprinter, and our stencil
printer and our solder pasteinspection machine are butted
right up against each other.
We have no conveyorin between them.
Which is, I don'tknow, kind of unusual.
I think a lot of shops,they, they tend to put
a conveyor between them.
Because if they have a problemwith the stencil print, they
want to pull it off beforeit goes into the SPI machine,
(14:22):
but we're limited on floorspace, so we have these two
just connected to each other.
From there after oursolder paste inspection
machine, we do have...
Just a single transportconveyor, just kind of like
a workstation conveyor wherein case there was a problem
with that print as it comesout of the solder paste
inspection machine, somebodycan come over and pick that
board up before it goes intoa pick and place machine.
(14:44):
But usually in an operation whenthings are going smoothly, It
just goes right from the solderpaste inspection machine to
the transport conveyor directlyinto our pick and place machine.
We have two pick andplace machines in line.
These, we've talked aboutthe Fuji AMX machines before.
And they are butted right upagainst each other as well.
There's no conveyorin between them.
(15:05):
Again, also, Slightly unusual.
A lot of people like to putconveyors between each of
their machines, again, incase there's any issues, but
that's not how we handle it.
They're, they're buttedright up against each other.
After that, we have a, what'scalled a workstation conveyor.
So a workstation conveyorlooks a lot like a transport
conveyor, except it has sortof like a, has like a, a work
table on the front side of it.
(15:26):
And it's kind of, it's got likea half moon shaped scalloped,
I don't know what you wantto call it, area where,
you know, a person can sit.
And do some work.
So a lot of times after it comesout of a pick and place machine,
there's usually something thatstill needs to be done to it.
There may be some kind of weirdpart that has to be hand placed.
Maybe they came in loose.
Maybe you know, you justwant to give it a once
(15:48):
over and, and, and seeif everything looks okay.
You know, there's all kinds ofreasons why you want to look
at a board or do somethingto the board before you put
it into the reflow oven.
Especially in our environmentwhere we're, you know,
we're building hundreds ofsomething, not, not always
thousands of something.
You know, when you're buildingthousands of something, you
just want to get that thingin the reflow oven, but when
(16:08):
you're building hundreds ofsomething, usually there's
some other auxiliary step.
You want to take and look at.
So we have this kind ofa workstation conveyor.
Then it goes into our reflowoven, which again has a
conveyor inside of it.
A very high temp, you know,all, all steel, stainless
steel designed conveyor becauseotherwise it's getting up
(16:28):
to 250 degrees Celsius andit would you know, destroy
anything else but steel.
You know, anotherhigh temp material.
So then it comes out theother end and at the other end
of our, of our reflow oven.
I know I've talked about thisa hundred times, but it's my
favorite thing in the world.
We have a conveyor to catchboards out of the reflow oven.
I, I've talked aboutthis so many times on
(16:49):
the show, I know I have.
I've told everybody about thisand they're sick of hearing
about it, but I can't tell youhow many shops I've been to that
have nothing at the end of thereflow oven to catch the boards.
It, it blows my mind.
We had, we had a companyvisiting us months
ago many months ago.
We, we have, Companiesvisiting us often, but this
(17:09):
is probably over a year ago.
And, and I asked him, I'm like,Hey, what do you guys have at
the end of your reflow event?
Cause they're acompetitor to us.
You're a little bit furtheraway, so it's not like
exactly a direct competitor.
And they're like, Ohyeah, no, nothing.
We just.
You know, we'll call somebodyover when it's time for
it to catch the boards.
And I'm like, I can't, Ican't understand this because
(17:31):
the, the, the reflow ovenconveyor, unlike all of
the other conveyors in yourassembly line, cannot stop.
Melissa (17:38):
It just keeps going.
Chris (17:39):
It just keeps going.
It literally cannot stopbecause if it does stop,
it burns itself up.
Because even though it'smade of stainless steel,
it's not designed to justsit there 250 degrees.
Plus you don't want to let anycircuit boards inside of it
bake at 260 degrees, right?
You got to get these things out.
And so if there's nobodythere to catch it, guess
Melissa (17:58):
falls on the
Chris (17:59):
Just falls on the floor.
I
Melissa (18:01):
That's crazy.
Chris (18:03):
don't understand it.
I just don't understand it.
But anyway, we have a, we havea conveyor at the end that is
specifically designed to catchboards out of a reflow oven
that on a continuous basis.
It has an array of sensorsthat point down and they're
looking at the reflow oven.
And they're waiting to seea board come towards the
(18:24):
edge of the reflow oven.
When those sensors see aboard, then the belt turns
on and collects the board.
As soon as it, as soonas that board is on the
conveyor, it shuts off.
So you, you've createda bit of a buffer.
So it's, it's sort oflike a buffering conveyor.
So that board will justsit there forever until
somebody picks it up.
Or another board comes and thenthey just queue them all up.
(18:46):
So you can queue upfive, six, seven, eight.
You know, it depends on the sizeof the board on this conveyor.
So it's kind of like anaccumulating conveyor, and
then from there, a person willcome over and they'll rack the
boards, you know, and get themready for the next process.
That's basically what ourassembly line looks like.
Remember how I said that at thevery beginning of the line we
have a bare board de stacker?
(19:08):
That wasn't entirely true,but it was the easiest way to
describe our assembly line.
If you have a double sidedboard you can't stack these
boards up on top of each otherbecause they've got all kinds of
components on the opposite side.
So how do you handle that?
Well, that's wheresomething called a
magazine comes in place.
And a magazine looks like,what does it look like?
(19:29):
I'm trying to think of how todescribe what this looks like.
I have no, I have noanalogy for this one.
I guess it's like, I guessit's like look at a bookshelf.
But imagine insteadof, you know,
Melissa (19:44):
Not shelves,
Chris (19:45):
12 inches from shelf to shelf, which would
normally hold your books.
It's like 10 millimetersfrom shelf to shelf, you
know, very, very thinbetween each of the shelves.
Melissa (19:57):
but without the actual shelves,
Chris (20:00):
yeah, yeah.
Instead of, instead of, well,no, kind of because you're,
Melissa (20:04):
well like the little, the little things that you
put into the wall so thatyou can put the shelves
Chris (20:10):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a better wayof thinking of it.
That's a better way of thinkingof it because it's just holding,
again, it's just holdingthe long edges of the PCB.
And, Yeah, so thatthe components on the
bottom can hang freely.
So we fill up this magazine.
It's about the size oflike a microwave oven,
roughly, somewherearound the size of that.
And what you can do is youcan load this magazine,
(20:32):
full of boards into what'scalled a magazine unloader.
And it's a little confusingbecause the unloader is at
the beginning of the assemblyline and the loader's on...
On the opposite side ofthe assembly line, but
the unloader unloads themagazine and therefore
loads the assembly line.
(20:53):
There needs to be, it getsvery confusing, but that's
basically what it means.
So now you can automaticallyfeed double sided boards
to your assembly line.
So you, you take thatmagazine full of boards.
at the end of the reflowoven that's finished one side
and you walk it over to thefront of your assembly line,
load it up in this machine,and this machine will unload
them onto your assembly line.
(21:13):
The beautiful thing about allof this is you eliminate a lot
of risk when you use conveyorsbecause people can drop things.
Right?
I was talking to one shopand they said they didn't
have any conveyors betweenany of their machines.
They manually loaded andunloaded all of their
machines, which I, I,I, you know, you're spe
Melissa (21:34):
They're not that expensive.
Chris (21:36):
not that expensive.
People are spending, people arespending like, you know, three,
four hundred thousand dollarson a pick and place machine.
A transport conveyor islike three, three thousand.
You know, like 2, 500,
Melissa (21:48):
they want the extra arm workout.
Chris (21:50):
I guess, I don't know.
And you have the riskof dropping boards.
You have the risk ofsticking your thumb in,
in solder paste and.
You know, parts that areplaced, but not reflowed.
It's just so risky to handleboards by hand, but then
it's also so expensive.
So yeah, that'snot how we do it.
We, we, we handle ourboards with conveyors
(22:11):
and we try to do the samewith our AOI operations.
We try to do the same withour selective soldering
operations on a large scalemanufacturing operation.
Like we're talking, youknow, your, your Jables
of the world, your Foxconsof the world, everything
is automatically handled.
Nobody's handling anythingby hand, you know, not until,
not until they're broken outof their panels, but they'll
(22:33):
literally like, they'll takea stack of boards at, in a
D stack or just like ours,they'll run it through their
assembly line when it getsout of the reflow oven,
they'll have a PCB flipper.
It's a special type of conveyor,which will clamp the board.
It'll literally flip it over.
It'll invert it.
So now the bottom side is onthe bottom because you start
(22:56):
with the bottom side and youbuild the whole bottom side.
Now you flipped it over.
The bottom side ison the bottom now.
So now the top side is, isup in the air and it goes
into the next assembly line.
So you have two SMT linesright in line with each other.
And that's how they builddouble sided boards in a,
in a large scale operationwith that PCB flipper.
And then from there, it'llgo through the reflow of,
(23:18):
and again, it'll go directlyinto an AOI machine.
It might go into a flyingprobe test machine.
It might go, if it has somekind of manual operation, it'll
go in front of a workstationwhere a worker's sitting there
just doing like putting theone screw in and then it keeps
going to the next worker whoputs the second screw in, it
keeps going, so on and so forth.
I think, I forget the heartbeat.
(23:39):
That these large scalemanufacturing operations want.
But I want to say it's likeeight seconds per panel
or 12 seconds per panel.
It's, there's like aspecific heartbeat.
There's a specific productionrate that they're, they
always try to achieve.
And they match their, theymatch the number of pick and
place machines and everythingto, you know, and, and to
(24:01):
hit that heart rate, it'sreally a wild operation.
I've only seen it oncein my life at a, at
a big Honda supplier.
It was, it was super cool.
I was like, really?
Remember my addictionto efficiency and
eliminating waste?
I was like in heaven there.
It was so cool.
But they you know, if theseassembly lines get super
(24:22):
long, you can picture twoassembly lines back to back.
You, you, how do youtransport materials
through the assembly line?
If you think about it, right?
There's a, there's threedifferent ways that I have seen.
If you, if, if you want aperson to person to be able to
walk through an assembly line,they will have a lift gate
and it literally looks like a
Melissa (24:43):
Ha!
Chris (24:44):
Yeah, literally looks like a drawbridge.
So they walk up to it, theypress a button, that button
will stop the previous conveyorfrom sending any boards to it.
And obviously you gotto make sure there's no
boards on that lift gate.
And they will literally justlift it up with their arm.
Walk through it, and thenbring it back down, and
then the assembly linecan pass through again.
(25:05):
Those are pretty rare nowadays.
They used to be more common.
Far more common nowadaysis what's called a
shuttlegate conveyor.
Or it's like atelescoping conveyor.
So it's literally like threeconveyors inside of a conveyor,
and and what it does isit's it's normally open so
anybody can walk through it.
And there's going to be somelight guards, so it detects
(25:27):
if a, if a person's walkingthrough or if there's like a
cart in the way or something.
So it, it won't it won'ttry to move the shuttle
gate if, if somebody'swalking through, otherwise
they get crushed, right?
Well, I mean, that's the thing.
So it's normally open and thenwhen it needs to transfer a
board, it sort of telescopes.
Open, you know, like atelescope, it expands and
expands and expands and passesthe board from one conveyor
(25:50):
to the next conveyor and thenit collapses again to allow
traffic to go through again.
Those are probably the mostcommon I've seen in large SMT
lines, very long SMT lines.
But the coolest, my favoriteest, dist est est, is,
is the vertical bridge.
And so what this is, is.
(26:12):
It's very large.
They're typicallyquite expensive.
You know, you're talking tens ofthousands of dollars for these.
But it shuttles aboard into a conveyor.
That conveyor is then liftedway high up in the air.
It shuttles the boardonto a conveyor that's
way high up in the air.
We're talking like 10 feetup in the air and onto a
(26:35):
long, long, long conveyoronto then another vertical
lift, just like an elevator.
And that elevator comes backdown and then feeds the next
side of the assembly line.
So then you don't have youdon't have a lift gate, you
don't have a shuttle gate.
You can just pass trafficunderneath that conveyor
all day long, becauseit's just a big bridge.
You're just, you're walkingthrough the underpass.
(26:55):
Those are, Super cool.
I love those things, but I havenever seen one in real life.
I've never seen one.
I've seen them likeat trade shows.
I've seen them youknow, pictures and
brochures and stuff.
But I've never actually seen onein a manufacturing operation.
I'm confident there areloads of these in Asia where
(27:15):
it's, it's going to be morenecessary, but I've never
seen one in North America.
But I want to.
Melissa (27:21):
it's like a little roller coaster for
your circuit board, huh?
Chris (27:26):
Imagine putting like a little GoPro inside of it.
That'd be fun.
Hmm.
That's an idea.
That's an idea, Melissa.
I know, I know you'replanning on a video coming up.
Melissa (27:34):
What a GoPro.
Well, definitely notthrough the reflow oven,
Chris (27:37):
No, not through the reflow oven.
Not through the reflow oven.
But yeah, that might be fun tomount to like a little GoPro
through the assembly process.
I'm sure we could figureout a way to make it work.
Yeah, we'll have togive that some thought.
We'll figure it out.
So yeah, so there's.
That's how you would passthrough a very long SMT line.
But there's all kinds of other,like, specialty conveyors.
(27:58):
You have conveyors that mighthave laser markers built
in to, like, mark You know,serial numbers onto each PCB.
You have conveyors thathave like cooling fans.
So as they come out of thereflow oven, they might have
like additional cooling ifthey need them to cool off more
quickly, if they're going like,so if you have that long SMT
line where you have a boardflipper, you'll oftentimes
(28:19):
have cooling fans Either justbefore or just after the board
flipper, because you're going tostencil print that right away.
And you want to stencil printa room temperature board.
You do not want to stencilprint a warm board.
You will, you will messeverything up because it'll
cause that solder pastethe slump and maybe even
begin to activate and you'llhave all kinds of issues.
(28:40):
Yeah.
So, you have conveyors arespecifically designed to
catch boards out of reflowovens or not reflow ovens
wave soldering machines.
So if you've ever seen, again,hard to describe if you've never
seen a wave soldering machinein real life, but they have
kind of a vertical not vertical,like, like an uphill climb.
Wave solder machines like,like have, it's like a ramp.
(29:03):
It's, you know, maybe likea 15 degree, 20 degree
ramp the boards go up.
So you have to have conveyorsthat have a similar ramp to
kind of, you know, feed andcatch boards as it comes
out of these machines.
There's all kinds ofvery interesting things.
Now, hopefully you've enjoyedconveyors so far, but what
does this actually, what doesthis actually mean for you, the
(29:25):
designer of the product, right?
So you're an engineer.
You're like.
Great, Chris.
I can fall asleep at nightnow because I have this boring
discussion about conveyors,but what does it do for me?
I think it's importantto understand that in
all of this operation, westill need some clearance
to handle these boards.
Like when it sits on thatbelt we need to make sure
(29:45):
it's not going to siton components, right?
We need to make sure componentsaren't going to sit on.
So we recently did a job foryou know, I didn't get the
permission to use their name,but it was it was a conference.
We built a badge for a bigconference, pretty well known.
Anyway, yeah.
I guarantee every listeneris familiar with this.
Anyway, but I didn't gettheir permission, so I
don't want to use their nameyet until I talk to them.
(30:07):
But we built thesebadges for them.
They have their own sort of likeassembly line, but they didn't
quite have the capacity to getall of them done in time, so
they wanted to hire us to to getmore of them done more quickly.
And but they, they had, so theyhad all these boards ordered
already before contacting usabout Make getting them built.
So what does that mean?
That means they're not designedfor manufacturing operation.
(30:30):
They're designed for theirassembly process, which they're
probably loading things inby hand and everything else.
So we they were about maybelike three inches by four
inches, like the size of anindex card, maybe a little bit
larger than a post it note.
And like a typical size postit note, you know what I mean?
(30:53):
And they were just falling.
on our conveyors,because they just, they
didn't bridge the gap.
Because in all of theseconveyors and all these
machines, they have tomeet a very specific
specification laid out by IPC.
It's called the SMEMA spec.
It's S M E M A.
And does it actually,does that mean anything?
(31:14):
Hang on,
Melissa (31:16):
Whoop.
Yeah.
It does because I was justreading a transcript from an
old episode where you weretalking about SMEMA and you
asked the same exact thing.
Chris (31:28):
So I'm, I have the document right in front of me
and it's called IPC SMEMA 9851.
We, we bought thestandard for this.
And its title is theMechanical Equipment Interface
Standard, which is MEIS.
So, I don't know.
(31:48):
What is it?
No, they don't, they don'teven, no, I don't see, I don't
see an acronym for it in the
Melissa (31:58):
Mount Equipment Manufacturers Association.
Chris (32:01):
you go.
That must be it, butthat is not mentioned
anywhere in the standard.
Melissa (32:09):
Yeah.
Chris (32:10):
Go figure.
Thank you.
Melissa (32:12):
Now, you
Chris (32:12):
for real time feedback there.
But anyway, this standard,this specification, has
all kinds of like, okay, ifyou're going to design...
A conveyor to handlecircuit boards.
Let's all agree on the way thatwe design these conveyors so
that they can all work together.
So if I buy a pick and placemachine from Fuji and a
stencil printer from Ekra anda reflow oven from Bytronix,
they can all work together.
And so they all follow thestandard, the SMEMA standard.
(32:35):
And.
They're allowed to have a19mm air gap from the end
of their conveyor to the youknow, basically where it needs
to meet the next conveyor.
But what that means is youhave 19mm plus 19mm, so
(32:57):
now you're at 38mm, right?
And then...
The two conveyors are notgoing to touch each other.
There's going to be a verysmall air gap between them.
You know, a guy like me ina factory is going to try
to line these two things up.
I'm not going tomake them touch.
I'm going to get themas close as possible.
I'll get them within you know,4 or 5 millimeters, but I can't
(33:17):
get them that much closer.
You know, typically maybe 10millimeters between the two.
So now you have an air gapof 50 millimeters, 2 inches.
And if your circuit board isonly 3 inches long, You've
just created a high dive.
Melissa (33:32):
mm-Hmm?
Chris (33:33):
So we, we put the, they were bare circuit boards.
We hadn't we hadn't putany components on them yet.
And they were just, you know,as soon as you put them on
the first conveyor, just
Melissa (33:42):
Oh
Chris (33:42):
right on the floor.
All right.
So then we rotated themto the four inch way.
We could get them tofit the four inch way.
The trouble is on that sideof the board, there was
all kinds of components.
So we couldn't, wehad to mask off.
Our stencil to not depositsolder paste on those
(34:02):
components, because otherwisethey would get damaged when we
flipped them over to run theopposite side and we couldn't
mount them with our machine.
So we had to hand solder abunch of these edge components.
It was just,
Melissa (34:13):
Hmm.
Chris (34:15):
it's the first time we've said yes to.
Customer consigned circuitboards in, I can't even
remember, I honestly can'tremember the last like years,
many, many years, like probablyover a decade since we allowed
a customer to send us circuitboards you know, just single
(34:36):
up like that, not, not ina, so we normally put them
in a panel so that we giveourselves 10 millimeters on
each edge, plenty of clearanceto handle these circuit boards.
Because We need to bridgethat we need to bridge
that 38, 50 millimeter gapbetween the two machines.
So we need it to be longenough, but we also need room
for the, to let the boardssit on those conveyors.
(34:57):
So it was it was a bit ofan annoying experience,
but we got through it.
Customer was happy.
All the badgesgot built in time.
I guess the conferencewas a success.
They told us it was a success.
Everybody was happy about it.
And and yeah, so gettingback to the spec, SMEMA
says that you can use,like, if you're designing a
(35:18):
conveyor, you can use up tofive millimeters of the PCBs
material to handle the PCB.
So in other words, youknow, say you have a, a
200 millimeter wide board.
The conveyor is allowedto use five millimeters on
the front edge of the boardand five millimeters on
(35:41):
the back edge of the board.
So effectively our workingarea, we're only allowed to
use when we build this board,190 millimeters, right?
Cause you subtract five fromthis side, five from that side,
from a 200 millimeter board, weshould, whatever it is that we
want to do to that board shouldbe within that 190 millimeter.
area.
(36:02):
That's why we panelizeeverything so that we give
ourselves more than that.
We actually give ourselves 10millimeters, so huge buffer
for, you know, no chance of theconveyor getting in the way of
the work that we need to do.
By work I mean apply solderpaste with a stencil, pick
and place machine, AOI, etc.
(36:23):
So the bottom edge of the boardis going to be handled by about
five millimeters, and then thetop edge of the board typically
Very similar, about fivemillimeters because the top,
on the top side, you're goingto have a clamp because when
it gets inside the machine, youdon't want that board moving.
You want, you wantit to stay in place.
You want it rigid.
Especially in a pick andplace machine and a stencil
printer, if it moves at all,you've messed everything up.
(36:45):
On those edges, we put ourfiducials, see episode 30,
whatever it was about fiducialsand you know, but what we're
trying to do is we're designingour panels to meet the spec of.
SMEMA.
So just all the, all themachines are designed
to meet the spec.
Our panels are designedto meet the spec.
That means we're not evengoing to think about it.
(37:07):
And generally speaking, youdo not even think about the
SMEMA spec until a customerwants to send you badges
and they're in a hurry andyou've got to make this work.
So the specification has allkinds of important things.
It defines the heightof the conveyor as well.
And this is an interestingone because technically,
(37:28):
according to the specifications,the minimum height of a
conveyor is 940 millimetersand the maximum height of a
conveyor is 965 millimeters.
So everybody should designtheir machines in such a
way that they can be raisedand lowered anywhere from
940 to 965 millimeters.
But the crazy thing is, inAsia, they're all designed
(37:50):
for 900 millimeters.
Melissa (37:52):
Mm-Hmm?
. Mm-Hmm.
. I remember, yeah.
You talking about this before?
Chris (37:56):
yeah.
And because that's thelargest market, you know,
we just said tack with it.
We're just every, everymachine we get from now on,
we're just setting all ofour assembly lines to 900
millimeters, but that's wherethose numbers come from.
They come from a specification.
I have to imaginethere's a similar SMEMA
specification for for Asia.
Like maybe they have theirown standard over there that's
similar to SMEMA, but just for.
(38:18):
for their region of the world.
But I'm not familiar with itand likely it's not written
in the language I can read.
So, but yeah, so that,so it defines really, it
defines everything andeven how they communicate.
Because if you think aboutit, if my pick and place
machine is still running.
I don't want that conveyortrying to send a board inside
my pick and place machine.
(38:38):
I need that pick and placemachine to finish doing its
work, evacuate the boardthat it's done with before
it accepts the next one.
And because my pick and placeis made by Fuji, and my conveyor
is made by Vanstron, and mystencil printer is made by Acra,
and my solder paste inspectionmachine is made by Omron,
these all need to be able tocommunicate in such a way that
(38:59):
you don't have just absolutemadness of communication.
And so, that's...
You know, they all meetthe spec and everything
works brilliantly.
We did actually buya machine one time.
I, this manufacturer, I shallgo unnamed because I don't
want to that they told usit met the SMEMA spec in no
(39:21):
way, under any circumstances,in Any fathomable universe
didn't meet this Mimaspec.
It had, thecommunication was a mess.
It was an absolute mess.
It did not communicate right.
It would send, it would,it would request boards
before it was ready.
It would send boardsbefore it was finished.
It was a disaster.
It was an absolute disaster.
(39:43):
Which is why we'renever going to...
Buy machines from them again.
So it was a whole thing.
I mean, we didn't, we didn'tpay our, pay our invoice for
months because we're like,it doesn't meet the spec.
And they said, yes,it does meet the spec.
And we're like, okay,well you run the machine.
It does not meet the spec.
Melissa (39:58):
Yeah.
Chris (39:59):
Oh, what a mess.
What a mess.
We ended up just takingthat machine offline.
We don't use theconveyor at all.
We hand load it and unloadit because it still does work
for what we need it to do.
But not that I'm bitter.
Oh yeah.
Conveyors.
What do you think, Melissa?
Want some?
Melissa (40:17):
Would I like a conveyor in my house?
Chris (40:20):
Yeah.
Why not?
You could have like a,like a sushi boat thing.
You know,
Melissa (40:24):
Something I could Unload the dishwasher.
Yeah Like convey thatwould be a very hectic
kitchen kitchen if you justhad conveyors everywhere
Chris (40:34):
in, in a manufacturing operation, they are, in my
opinion, essential, I highlyrecommend if you are hiring
a contract manufacturerto assemble your circuit
boards, pay them a visit
Melissa (40:46):
See if
Chris (40:47):
you can, if, if they're across the country
and you don't want to flyout to their, out to them.
Ask them to do a FaceTimetour, a Zoom tour, whatever
you want to call it.
And have you have them walkyou around, have them walk
you around their factory andjust see what it looks like.
Melissa (41:04):
Conveyors then that's just that's it's very low
technology well, I mean it canbe high technology, but you
know, like a very basic thing
Chris (41:13):
it's just, for me, it's like a sign of like
poor decision making.
It's just a sign of like,they're, they're not thinking
critically about their operationand their efficiencies.
And so, you know, it's a canaryin a coal mine, in my opinion,
because it means you're, you're,where else are they inefficient?
Melissa (41:31):
Right.
Exactly.
Chris (41:32):
What else are you paying extra for that you don't?
Have to be paying extra for it.
And it's, it's built intothe fat of the quote, right?
It's not that it's not thatthere, you know, there's going
to be a separate line itemthat says we're wasteful.
So pay us an extra 500, right?
It's just, yeah,
Melissa (41:48):
Pfft.
Can you imagine?
Chris (41:49):
yeah.
So yeah, just my opinionis canary in a coal mine.
And if you don't see anythingcatching boards at the
end of the reflow oven.
means you are gettingboards that have been
dropped on the floor.
I promise you, I promise you.
And if anybody, and Iknow there's CMs that
listen to the show.
I know there's OEMsthat listen to the show.
(42:09):
If you are one of these shopsthat does not have a conveyor.
At the end of yourreflow oven, email me.
I will send you a link to aconveyor that you can put at
the end of your reflow oven.
It is cheap.
It is worth every penny.
You can afford it.
I promise you can afford it.
I will send you a link to it.
I'm happy to givethis recommendation
(42:30):
for this conveyor.
We love ours.
It works great.
And you will save your customersall kinds of headaches and
yield because you won't bedropping their boards anymore.
Melissa (42:39):
Oh, that just gave me an idea.
You know what weshould do, Chris?
We should become ManufacturingEquipment Influencers.
Chris (42:47):
Ooh, Influencer.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I like the sound of that.
Melissa (42:50):
And then get the companies to pay us commission
for recommending their productson Pick, Place Podcast.
Chris (42:57):
Oh, I, what do they call that?
They call that notpaid promotion.
There's like a term forpaid content, right?
Isn't it like sponsoredcontent or paid content?
Yeah, let's do it.
Melissa (43:06):
Yeah.
Chris (43:07):
Just totally do it.
I bet we probably, I bet if wetried, we probably could get
Melissa (43:12):
I'm sure we could,
Chris (43:12):
component distributors, manufacturers or whatever.
I feel like, I know it's notwhy we do the show, but, yeah,
we do the show because we loveour listeners and we want them
to understand how to be betterengineers, especially when it
comes to manufacturability.
Melissa (43:27):
And because Chris needs an outlet to express
his love for conveyors.
Chris (43:31):
Yes, you know what also I need an outlet for?
Pet peeves.
Melissa (43:35):
Oh yeah.
Chris (43:36):
I need an outlet for pet peeves.
And this is a timely one.
See what I did there?
It's a
Melissa (43:41):
Oh, oh yes, yes, yes.
Okay, finally used it.
There you go.
Chris (43:46):
It's a timely one.
It's about daylight saving time.
Now.
I love Daylight Saving Time.
I loathe Standard Time.
We've made the switchhere in the United States.
I don't think it's every state,but most of the states here in
the United States, we switch.
No, like Arizona doesn't switch.
Melissa (44:05):
I didn't know
Chris (44:06):
yeah, yeah, there's a, I
Melissa (44:07):
How
Chris (44:08):
a, I know, can you imagine?
Yeah, there's certainareas that don't switch.
So, I don't know the history,I'm not going to get into the
history of Daylight SavingTime because that's a boring,
it's not a good pet peeve.
You know what isa good pet peeve?
When it's
Melissa (44:20):
into the
Chris (44:21):
Dark at 4.
30.
4.
30.
It should not be dark at 4.
30 in the afternoon.
Like you're just getting,you're just like you're
just getting out of work andit's already dark and you're
just like depressed becauseyou missed the whole day.
Like, no, I hate it.
I hate it.
So technically we'rein standard time.
Standard time is what we'rein now here in November
(44:41):
2023, November 10th, 2023is when we're recording.
We're in, we'rein standard time.
It's dark at 4 30.
I hate it so much.
I could never be one of thosepeople that lives in an area of
the world where it's dark forlike six months out of the year.
I couldn't, I, no, I can't.
I, I, humans need sunlight.
I'm sorry.
I can't handle it.
(45:02):
I need sunlight.
I, I could be one of thosepeople where it's bright for
six months out of the year.
I think, you know, put somelong curtains on your windows.
You could sleep, but no, I,I do not like the darkness.
Sorry.
And, and, and I wish,and I don't like
switching all the time.
Switching thing is annoying.
I, I, I love it when it getsdark at like 9 30 at night.
(45:23):
That's perfect.
That's, that's time togo to bed before then.
No, no, thank you.
Melissa (45:31):
Oh, and yeah, I just experienced for the first
time the end of daylightsavings with a child.
That's, mhm.
Because they don't
Chris (45:40):
to it.
Yeah, my dogs, mydogs are the same way.
They're like, Hey, time to eat.
And they're like,nah, you got to
Melissa (45:46):
you're like, it's it's 4 30 in the morning.
You're not getting up
Chris (45:50):
Yep, exactly.
Melissa (45:52):
but yeah, I thought I'd play devil's advocate
because you know, there is abill or an act or something
Chris (45:59):
Yeah.
Yes.
I've heard
Melissa (46:00):
try to get Basically permanent
daylight savings times and
Chris (46:04):
So no more standard time.
Just whatever we are callingdaylight saving time.
Oh, by the way,another pet peeve.
It is daylight saving,not daylight savings.
Yeah.
Melissa (46:16):
yeah, I didn't
Chris (46:17):
Not really a
Melissa (46:18):
my apologies.
Chris (46:19):
it's not really a pet peeve.
That is technically thecorrect way of saying it.
And you know, I want tobe that pedantic jerk that
everybody's annoyed by.
Like, actually, it isdaylight saving time.
There is no S.
Melissa (46:33):
Okay.
I apologize for my
Chris (46:35):
Apology accepted, Melissa.
Melissa (46:38):
Yeah, and so there's a bunch of researchers that say
that the change will be bad.
Bad for all of
Chris (46:44):
Did they have reasons for this?
Melissa (46:46):
Yeah, it's, it's very detrimental to
our health apparently.
Chris (46:51):
What?
Melissa (46:52):
Because it disrupts our normal circadian rhythm,
usually It gets dark and that,signals your body, Okay, it's
time to start getting readyto go to sleep, but since it's
lighter, closer to bedtime, thenyour body's not, prepared to go
to sleep because it just had allthis input from all the light.
Chris (47:11):
Hmm.
Melissa (47:12):
Mm hmm,
Chris (47:13):
Hmm.
Melissa (47:14):
yeah.
And also, apparently DaylightSaving Time, saving, yeah,
saving, okay, was inventedby Ben, supposedly invented
by Benjamin Franklin.
Chris (47:26):
The inventor of all things.
Melissa (47:27):
Yeah, of course.
To economize candle usageand save people money.
But now it's doing the opposite.
So the extended use ofdaily hours is causing
more energy usage
Chris (47:40):
Maybe because, like, air conditioning and stuff like
Melissa (47:42):
Mm hmm, because of air conditioning and then heating.
Yeah.
Mm hmm,
Chris (47:48):
Yeah, I don't know.
Maybe I just need tolike, move to the southern
hemisphere during the winter.
You know what I
Melissa (47:55):
or you can just wake up earlier and go to sleep earlier.
Or not.
Chris (48:02):
The reasoning is sound, Melissa.
That is very sound reasoning.
You know what?
That, that, I think Imight apply that advice.
I think I mightapply that advice.
I'm sure my dogs wouldappreciate it, because they're
still like, waking up andthey're like, hey, time to eat.
Melissa (48:23):
that's what I have.
I have to do that now.
There's no choice.
So, unless you have stuffto do at night, you know,
unless you're out andabout, then it's difficult.
Chris (48:33):
no, I just, I just, I don't know.
I'm a lot of people, like alot of people, I tend to be the
most, like, my mind works bestat night, and I tend to be,
like, the most productive atnight, and yeah, I don't know.
Mornings, I really, reallystruggle with mornings.
I need, like, a long time to Itjust, I can't be, I can't get
(48:56):
up and go, and I envy peoplethat can, and I've tried to be
one of these people that can.
Unfortunately, I'm not.
I'm not!Well, the other, the other
thing is, because we havetwo shifts at Wordinton
Assembly, I tend to kind ofwork between the two shifts.
So I tend to get into the shoparound, you know, nine o'clock
or so, and stay till six ish totry to overlap the two shifts
(49:20):
and, and work with each team.
So.
That's another reason thatannoys me, because, well,
but at least when I'm like...
On my way to work,it's nice and bright.
So at least I getit in the morning.
But, but it's like, I love tolike, you know, be in my yard
and, and, and be around my houseand getting things done around
my house at, at, in the evening.
(49:40):
And I can't do anythingbecause it's dark.
Melissa (49:42):
Well, although at the same time, it would be
cold anyways, so you don'treally want to be outside
doing all that stuff anyways.
Chris (49:51):
Eh, cold doesn't really bother me.
It's not, it's really notthe cold that bothers me
because I'll just bundleup and especially when you
start working on somethingyou get hot, you know, you
know, you tend to, all of asudden you're shedding layers
off because it's too warm butyeah, so then you just got to
wait for, you know, weekendsor you got to take a day off
to where it's nice and brightout so you can get stuff done.
(50:11):
Like right now, I got to cleanmy gutters and I either have
to take a day off or I haveto do it Like early in the
morning before I come into work.
And the problem with tryingto do a project like that
before going to work is youdon't really know how much
time it's going to take.
You know what I mean?
Like you think like,Oh, I could probably get
this done in two hours.
And all of a sudden, like youdon't even have your ladder
(50:32):
set up for an hour and a
Melissa (50:33):
right.
Chris (50:34):
you know, versus.
Melissa (50:36):
into something.
Chris (50:36):
Yeah.
Versus like, if you come homeand it's bright out and you
get started on it and youdon't finish it in a couple
hours, like you think youwill, well, it doesn't matter.
You're not going anywhere.
You're home, you know?
So like, I don't like tostart projects in the morning
because I, I don't wantto leave them unfinished.
And, and then I can't startprojects outside in the
(50:57):
evening because it's dark.
And it's like, the darknessis also like, it's like,
I don't want to drive.
In the dark.
So I don't want to have tolike start an errand and then
be driving around in the dark.
Melissa (51:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I went grocery shoppingand I was done.
I was like, whoa, have I beenin this target for hours?
Because it's pitch dark out andit was like, nope, nope, it's 4
Chris (51:20):
it's four 30.
I just, I don't, I, thecold has never bothered me.
It's the darkness thathas always bothered me
ever since I was little.
I, it was like, Oh, I wantto go out and play play.
There's no, Ican't see anything.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, okay.
So my pet peeve isn't with,with standard time or,
(51:40):
you know, changing fromdaylight or back and forth.
It's my pet peeveis the darkness.
That's what it is, Melissa.
It's the darkness.
I want some darkness, nottoo much, not too little.
I want the appropriateamount of darkness and
the appropriate amount ofdarkness is the longest day
of the year in the summer.
Melissa (51:58):
Then just move to Alaska during the summer
Chris (52:02):
I know.
Melissa (52:03):
And then,
Chris (52:03):
you know what I, I, I think Melissa, we should start.
CircuitHub Australia, and Ijust, six months in Australia,
six months in the UnitedStates, it's a win win.
Melissa (52:17):
all right, if you can figure out all the logistics and
financials of doing that, Chris,I think that's a fantastic idea.
Chris (52:23):
Well, if anybody has advice on how to help me move
to Australia and work theresix months out of the year,
feel free to email us atcontact at pickplacepodcast.
com.
You can X us at CircuitHub orat WAssembly or whatever social
media program you prefer.
Let us know, I think you hadmentioned this on a previous
episode, if there is one thatyou did have a preference for.
If you enjoyed this episode,which I know you did because
(52:45):
it's my favorite topic,tell a friend about it.
Hopefully they enjoy it as well.
And let us know, like,I'd love to, I'd love to
hear people who have foundthis information helpful.
Like, like, if they themselvesfeel like they've become a
better engineer from listeningto some of this advice and,
and have seen improvementin, in their ability to
(53:08):
outsource manufacturing and,and it'd be good to know.
I don't know.
So.
You know, reach out, letus know what you think.
Melissa (53:16):
Oh, something we forgot to mention is that the show
now has over 50, 000 downloads.
Chris (53:22):
yeah.
Do I have a is it, what's this?
Soundboard (53:24):
Chalk, huh?
Chris (53:25):
No.
Yeah.
That's about, that'sabout as close as I
Melissa (53:27):
close enough.
Chris (53:30):
Celebratory ballpark music.
Yeah.
50, 000.
So thank you everybody forlistening and downloading.
Yeah, that's, well,so that's crazy.
That is, that is mind blowing.
I,
Melissa (53:46):
Especially for what we're talking
Chris (53:47):
I know, I know.
I mean, like Rogan,watch out, here we come.
Melissa (53:53):
Not quite.
Chris (53:54):
Oh,
Melissa (53:55):
Nah, just a little bit more.
Just a few more thousand.
Chris (53:59):
I just got to get I just got to get you know,
Elon Musk on the show.
And then I thinkwe'll, we'll catch up,
Melissa (54:06):
Elon, if you're out there listening,
Chris (54:08):
which I know you are.
Cause I know you love,you love efficiency.
Melissa (54:12):
Can you imagine if he's just out there
secretly listening tothe Pig Place podcast?
Chris (54:18):
I, I have no idea how I would feel about.
That if I learnedthat that was true.
I have no idea.
I don't know if I'd bethrilled or upset or confused.
I'd definitely beconfused for sure.
That is the emotion Iwould have, but yes,
congratulations, Melissa.
50, 000.
Awesome.
Melissa (54:39):
Yeah, Elon, if you're out there send
us a, send us an X x us.
And for everyone else,thanks for listening to
the PickPlace podcast.
If you like what you heard,consider following us in
your favorite podcast app andplease leave us a review on
Apple Podcasts or whereveryou get your podcasts from.
Chris (54:57):
Thanks Melissa.
Melissa (54:58):
Thanks, Chris.
Welcome to the PickPlace podcast.
This is Chris Dennywith Worthington.
Melissa (00:13):
That's not how we start our show,
Chris (00:14):
Sure it is.
Oh, hey, no, I missedmy whole thing.
Welcome to the PickPlacepodcast, a show where we
talk about electronicsmanufacturing and everything
related to getting thecircuit board into the world.
This.
Is Chris Denny with Worthington.
Melissa (00:31):
And this is Melissa Hough with CircuitHub.
Wow.
Rocked my whole worldthere for a second.
Chris (00:38):
Don't break my routine! Melissa.
Melissa (00:42):
It's okay.
It's okay.
So, welcome back, Chris.
Chris (00:47):
Welcome back, Melissa.
Didn't mean tothrow you off there.
Melissa (00:52):
Did.
Chris (00:54):
Sorry about that.
Melissa (00:55):
That's all right.
Yeah.
So, we're a bitshort on time today.
Chris (01:00):
It's okay.
We'll make it work.
We'll make
Melissa (01:02):
we'll make it work.
So, do we haveanything to catch up on
Chris (01:06):
aside from I had a delightful, delightful
vacation in Mexico City,one of, honestly, one of
the most amazing citiesin the world, I bet.
I, not that I've been to manyof them, mostly American cities,
but man, what a city MexicoCity was, just fantastic.
I tell you, I went to a, Itell you, I went to a luchador.
Or Lucha Libre
Melissa (01:24):
mhm, yeah,
Chris (01:27):
That's the best thing ever.
Always the best thing ever.
Absolutely.
I learned all kinds ofvulgar Spanish words.
Oh yeah.
I don't remember any of thembut I remember everybody
shouting them all around me.
You have like six year oldgirls just like cursing out
like these grown men in masks.
It was fantastic.
It was really something.
(01:47):
I was like, Oh boy,this is quite a thing.
But yeah, that's not whyI went to Mexico city.
I went to Mexico cityfor a Formula One race.
And the funniest thingis my nephew goes my
nephew came with us.
He goes, we literally wentfrom the lowest, the most
like high class sporting thingthere is in the world to the
lowest class sporting thing.
(02:12):
And I was like, Hey, thatis not fair to Lucha Libre.
And this was, wehad a great time.
But it's just like, they dothe whole, it's just like WWE.
They do the whole, they gottheir intro music and they do
the fireworks and, you know,they just it was, they climb the
ropes and get the crowd going.
It was so much fun.
I had so much fun.
I had a michelada.
(02:32):
You ever heard of a michelada?
Melissa (02:33):
I have, I've never had one
Chris (02:35):
So I, I don't know.
I believe that every sort oflike region does a micolada a
little bit differently, but it'stypically like a beer with clam
juice, sometimes tomato juice.
You put, you canput spices in it.
There's a whole, like, I thinkeverybody does it kind of a
little bit differently, but inMexico city, they put this like
gooey, spicy rim around it.
(02:57):
Almost like when you get a likea margarita and they put the
salt around the rim, you know,they put this like gooey, spicy,
Melissa (03:04):
like Tajin
Chris (03:06):
I don't, I don't know what, I don't even
know what tahini is.
I'm, I am uncultured, Melissa.
I couldn't do it.
I, and I'm, I'm theadventurous one.
Like I'm the one that tendsto like go out on a limb and
try all these weird things.
And I'm like, this is great.
I love it.
, I tried Melissa.
I really tried to enjoy it.
I really did.
I didn't mind the clamjuice in the beer.
(03:26):
It was the, it was that, thatsugary, spicy, weird rim.
I just couldn't.
Wasn't doing it,wasn't doing it for me.
So I just drank thebeer and enjoyed myself.
But anyway, yeah, Mexicocity, highly recommend,
highly, highly, highly,highly recommend this city.
It is amazing.
(03:48):
A lot of my American friendswere very concerned that
I'd feel unsafe there.
I never felt unsafe.
Like I felt like, I feltlike I was walking around
like, you know, Greenwichvillage in Manhattan.
Like it was just like beautifulneighborhoods, friendly
people, dogs everywhere.
So many pugs.
There were so many pugs there.
I like, definitely the mostpopular breed of dog in Mexico
Melissa (04:10):
Really, huh?
Chris (04:11):
for sure.
Pugs.
I saw so many of them.
There was a dog park notfar from where we were.
There was like thisbig, beautiful park with
fountains and everything.
And a skate park, and I waswatching the skaters, and
there was a dog park behind it.
And it was just,it was fantastic.
But yeah, we had a, wehad a wonderful time.
What an amazing city.
I can't recommend it enough.
Melissa (04:29):
Yeah.
I'd love to go
Chris (04:30):
Oh my gosh, so amazing.
And I'm so glad that FormulaOne goes there because I
don't think I ever wouldhave thought of visiting
if it weren't for the race.
And then I was like,well, let's do this.
And then I'm like, wow,what an amazing city.
It was like, I'm not surewhat I enjoyed more, the
city or the race, buteither way, it was great.
Yeah, didn't we say wedon't have much time today?
Melissa (04:47):
Yeah.
Chris (04:48):
I waxed poetic for five minutes about what an amazing
Melissa (04:50):
about your trip.
Chris (04:51):
is.
Yeah.
And the other thing is, it'svery like, obviously it's
a huge international city.
It's very cosmopolitan, but.
We were like some of theonly English speaking
people there, for sure.
Like, even at the race wewere completely outnumbered.
I think it mostly draws, youknow, people from Mexico.
I don't think it's drawing alot of crowds from a lot of,
(05:13):
like, European or elsewhere.
And so, it was funny, I wasstanding by the restrooms.
Waiting for my wife tocome out and this guy walks
up to me and he's like,so where are you from?
You know, in a heavy,heavy Spanish accent.
And I was like, ah, youknow, the United States.
I told him everything.
And, and I go, what,what gave me away?
They're like, obviously,like, I realize I stand out.
(05:34):
Like I'm in, I'm in Mexico andI, I don't look like a Mexican.
I get it.
Right.
But what, whatreally gave it away?
He goes, Oh, you'rewearing shorts.
Like what?
Shorts?
That's what gave it away?
I'm wearing shorts?
He goes, Oh yeah.
He goes, Mexicocity's way too cold.
Nobody wears shorts here.
And I'm looking around,you know, there's a hundred
thousand people at this race.
And I don't see anybodyelse wearing shorts.
(05:57):
I, you know, it'slike 75 degrees out.
I'm thinking, Oh, you know,
Melissa (06:01):
that's not cold, friend.
Chris (06:03):
that is, that is yeah, for me, that is hot,
you know, growing up in theNortheast, but to, to the
Mexicans, they're like, no,this is cold, man, we're, we're
wearing jackets and jeans.
I'm like, you, you're crazy.
I, but so then I didn't wantto stand out like a sore thumb.
So I wore jeans therest of the week,
Melissa (06:22):
And then your leg's just boiled, boiled up.
Chris (06:24):
Yeah, exactly.
I'll tell you though, I wasfascinated by that cultural
difference, like, because,because here in the Northeast
we find, oh yeah, you're inthe 60s, Americans are wearing
shorts, you know, down there,it's like, not until the
80s that and then our poorEuropean friends with Celsius,
they're like, I don't evenknow what temperature that is.
Anyway, it was great though.
Loved it.
Loved it.
Loved it.
Highly recommend.
(06:45):
You know what elseI highly recommend?
Melissa (06:46):
Conveyors.
Chris (06:48):
I highly recommend conveyors.
Yes.
Would you like to know why?
Melissa (06:53):
Of course I would.
I would love to know why.
Chris (06:56):
Melissa has in our outline here.
Why a whole episodeon conveyors?
Because it is my favoritething in the world.
it is the catnip ofwhat I get to do.
For some reason,I love it so much.
I have I'm learningabout myself.
I have an addiction.
I mean, perhaps a clinicaladdiction to progress, right?
Melissa (07:21):
I thought you were going to say conveyors.
Chris (07:22):
conveyors is part of it, but I have like a,
there's two things I'velearned about myself lately.
I have a clinicaladdiction to progress.
I have to be makingprogress in my life.
Things have to be movingforward and I have to be,
I have to see improvement.
I have to seeaccomplishment in my life.
Otherwise, I get very depressedand I can't handle it.
So this is why I'm not verygood at, like, doing the
(07:43):
same thing over and over.
Like, a lot of people inmanufacturing They love, and
a lot of our team here, theylove to just be like, given an
opportunity to just keep doingthe same task over and over.
And they really enjoy it.
And that is justnot how I'm wired.
I am not wired that way.
I can't handle doing thesame thing over and over.
(08:04):
I have to constantly bemaking progress and constantly
be improving things.
And I think it It is quiteliterally an addiction
because when somebody has anaddiction to something and they
don't get it, they get likeunhappy and depressed, right?
And that's how I feel when I'mnot making progress, is I'm
like unhappy and depressed.
And A similar sort ofaddiction that I have is, is an
(08:29):
addiction to eliminating waste.
Like, I, I really, reallydislike waste in all forms.
Like, I, I get uncomfortable,like, putting things in trash.
Cause I think like, you know,this could be so much better.
You know, this is stillsomehow like a Ziploc bag.
It's like, this is still aperfectly fine Ziploc bag,
(08:50):
you know, but then also Idon't want to be a hoarder,
Melissa (08:54):
yeah, yeah.
Chris (08:55):
but in a manufacturing setting, these two qualities
that I've found in myself,these two addictions I have
are very beneficial and a wayto apply them is to automate.
The handling of the productsthat we're building.
And that's whereconveyors come in.
They keep things progressingand they eliminate waste.
(09:19):
So maybe we should talk aboutwhat a conveyor is in, in a
PCB manufacturing setting,because you've seen all kinds of
shapes and sizes of conveyors.
You've been in an airport andyou've walked on, you know, the.
You know, like, likean escalator, but flat.
I think they have a termfor them in airports.
I can't think of what it'scalled at the moment people
(09:39):
shout at their radios togive me the name of them.
But you know, that's thetype of conveyor you go
to the grocery store.
You got the big flat belt andyou put your, put your groceries
on it and it goes to the barcodescanner all kinds of conveyors
in a circuit board assembly.
setting we can't use a flatbelt conveyor like that when
we build your circuit boardsbecause a lot of times there
(10:01):
are components on the bottomof these circuit boards that
would disrupt the flow ofthat circuit board through
the assembly line you know, ifwe're, if it were to sit flat,
imagine you've got a great bigtall 25 millimeter aluminum
capacitor on the bottom side orsomething, you know, it's like,
you know, the thing would toppleover, no way you could do it.
So what you have instead isyou have these two thin belts.
(10:24):
And when I say belt, likepicture, picture a belt that you
hold your pants up with, right?
Except much more narrow.
So typical, I don't know,Melissa, what's, what's a
typical, like a one inch,what's a typical belt?
Yeah.
One inch, something like that.
But in a PCB setting,those are typically maybe
about five millimeters.
So like less than aquarter inch, less than a
(10:44):
less than an eighth inch.
I'm not sure.
Very thin, very, very thin.
And you have two ofthese holding the
long edge of the PCB.
So you have and, andthey're, you know,
they're laid down flat.
So then when you set thePCB on them they're, they
can free hang all the bottomside parts without making
contact with anything,cause they're just held on
the two edges of the PCB.
(11:05):
And then those belts arehooked up to motors and they
can move the circuit boardsdown the assembly line.
It'd probably be best, youknow, if you're not familiar
with what these look likelet's say I can put here,
let me put a couple I'm sureI can get a good one here.
Yeah, here we go.
I'm going to put a link to.
These conveyors in the outline,if you want to include that
(11:26):
in the show notes, becauseit would help to kind of
visualize what one looks like.
Cause otherwise I'mgoing to struggle to
describe how they look.
But the beautiful thing aboutthem is, you know, I've been
to so many factories andI've mentioned this before,
like easily over a hundreddifferent circuit board assembly
shops, and I can't tell youthe number of them that.
(11:46):
Don't use conveyors at all.
And it's the strangest thing.
Like, yeah, they'll,they'll, they'll manually
load a stencil printer.
Then they'll manuallyload a ping place machine.
Then they'll manually loada reflow of, and they'll
manually load an AOImachine on and on and on.
And I don't know howthey stay in business
(12:09):
because it's so wasteful.
You have, you have peoplemoving all these products and
here in the United States.
You know, people want to be paidand you can't, you know, you
got to pay these people well,and to move a circuit board
around, it seems quite wasteful.
Right?
So we use conveyors to dothe same thing to move from
(12:32):
machine to machine to machine.
So between our stencil printerand our pick and place, and
between our pick and place andour reflow oven, conveyors.
Now.
Inside of each machine,there is also a conveyor.
So that's how these machineshandle circuit boards, is they
have an internal conveyor thatpulls the board in, clamps
the board in place, does itsoperation, unclamps the board,
(12:54):
and then spits the boardout onto the next conveyor.
Our assembly line, likeI'll just describe what,
what our kind of, wehave a couple of assembly
lines, but what our primaryassembly line looks like.
At the very beginning ofour assembly line, we have
a bare board D stacker.
(13:15):
So we can put an entire stack.
of circuit boards just flat ontop of each other before they
have any components on them.
Just, you know, just all stackedup 50 high, 100 high, whatever.
And we set them insideof this machine manually.
This is the first stepwhere you do it manually.
After this, it's all automated.
And...
This machine is designedto allow one board to drop
(13:38):
from that stack onto the,the, the belt conveyor that
I was describing earlier,and then load itself inside
of the stencil printer, andit's super handy because you
could just Load up a hundredof these, and then you never
have to go back to the frontof the assembly line again.
Every time you buildanother board, it just
sends another one in.
It's super convenient.
(14:00):
So that goes into our stencilprinter, and our stencil
printer and our solder pasteinspection machine are butted
right up against each other.
We have no conveyorin between them.
Which is, I don'tknow, kind of unusual.
I think a lot of shops,they, they tend to put
a conveyor between them.
Because if they have a problemwith the stencil print, they
want to pull it off beforeit goes into the SPI machine,
(14:22):
but we're limited on floorspace, so we have these two
just connected to each other.
From there after oursolder paste inspection
machine, we do have...
Just a single transportconveyor, just kind of like
a workstation conveyor wherein case there was a problem
with that print as it comesout of the solder paste
inspection machine, somebodycan come over and pick that
board up before it goes intoa pick and place machine.
(14:44):
But usually in an operation whenthings are going smoothly, It
just goes right from the solderpaste inspection machine to
the transport conveyor directlyinto our pick and place machine.
We have two pick andplace machines in line.
These, we've talked aboutthe Fuji AMX machines before.
And they are butted right upagainst each other as well.
There's no conveyorin between them.
(15:05):
Again, also, Slightly unusual.
A lot of people like to putconveyors between each of
their machines, again, incase there's any issues, but
that's not how we handle it.
They're, they're buttedright up against each other.
After that, we have a, what'scalled a workstation conveyor.
So a workstation conveyorlooks a lot like a transport
conveyor, except it has sortof like a, has like a, a work
table on the front side of it.
(15:26):
And it's kind of, it's got likea half moon shaped scalloped,
I don't know what you wantto call it, area where,
you know, a person can sit.
And do some work.
So a lot of times after it comesout of a pick and place machine,
there's usually something thatstill needs to be done to it.
There may be some kind of weirdpart that has to be hand placed.
Maybe they came in loose.
Maybe you know, you justwant to give it a once
(15:48):
over and, and, and seeif everything looks okay.
You know, there's all kinds ofreasons why you want to look
at a board or do somethingto the board before you put
it into the reflow oven.
Especially in our environmentwhere we're, you know,
we're building hundreds ofsomething, not, not always
thousands of something.
You know, when you're buildingthousands of something, you
just want to get that thingin the reflow oven, but when
(16:08):
you're building hundreds ofsomething, usually there's
some other auxiliary step.
You want to take and look at.
So we have this kind ofa workstation conveyor.
Then it goes into our reflowoven, which again has a
conveyor inside of it.
A very high temp, you know,all, all steel, stainless
steel designed conveyor becauseotherwise it's getting up
(16:28):
to 250 degrees Celsius andit would you know, destroy
anything else but steel.
You know, anotherhigh temp material.
So then it comes out theother end and at the other end
of our, of our reflow oven.
I know I've talked about thisa hundred times, but it's my
favorite thing in the world.
We have a conveyor to catchboards out of the reflow oven.
I, I've talked aboutthis so many times on
(16:49):
the show, I know I have.
I've told everybody about thisand they're sick of hearing
about it, but I can't tell youhow many shops I've been to that
have nothing at the end of thereflow oven to catch the boards.
It, it blows my mind.
We had, we had a companyvisiting us months
ago many months ago.
We, we have, Companiesvisiting us often, but this
(17:09):
is probably over a year ago.
And, and I asked him, I'm like,Hey, what do you guys have at
the end of your reflow event?
Cause they're acompetitor to us.
You're a little bit furtheraway, so it's not like
exactly a direct competitor.
And they're like, Ohyeah, no, nothing.
We just.
You know, we'll call somebodyover when it's time for
it to catch the boards.
And I'm like, I can't, Ican't understand this because
(17:31):
the, the, the reflow ovenconveyor, unlike all of
the other conveyors in yourassembly line, cannot stop.
Melissa (17:38):
It just keeps going.
Chris (17:39):
It just keeps going.
It literally cannot stopbecause if it does stop,
it burns itself up.
Because even though it'smade of stainless steel,
it's not designed to justsit there 250 degrees.
Plus you don't want to let anycircuit boards inside of it
bake at 260 degrees, right?
You got to get these things out.
And so if there's nobodythere to catch it, guess
Melissa (17:58):
falls on the
Chris (17:59):
Just falls on the floor.
I
Melissa (18:01):
That's crazy.
Chris (18:03):
don't understand it.
I just don't understand it.
But anyway, we have a, we havea conveyor at the end that is
specifically designed to catchboards out of a reflow oven
that on a continuous basis.
It has an array of sensorsthat point down and they're
looking at the reflow oven.
And they're waiting to seea board come towards the
(18:24):
edge of the reflow oven.
When those sensors see aboard, then the belt turns
on and collects the board.
As soon as it, as soonas that board is on the
conveyor, it shuts off.
So you, you've createda bit of a buffer.
So it's, it's sort oflike a buffering conveyor.
So that board will justsit there forever until
somebody picks it up.
Or another board comes and thenthey just queue them all up.
(18:46):
So you can queue upfive, six, seven, eight.
You know, it depends on the sizeof the board on this conveyor.
So it's kind of like anaccumulating conveyor, and
then from there, a person willcome over and they'll rack the
boards, you know, and get themready for the next process.
That's basically what ourassembly line looks like.
Remember how I said that at thevery beginning of the line we
have a bare board de stacker?
(19:08):
That wasn't entirely true,but it was the easiest way to
describe our assembly line.
If you have a double sidedboard you can't stack these
boards up on top of each otherbecause they've got all kinds of
components on the opposite side.
So how do you handle that?
Well, that's wheresomething called a
magazine comes in place.
And a magazine looks like,what does it look like?
(19:29):
I'm trying to think of how todescribe what this looks like.
I have no, I have noanalogy for this one.
I guess it's like, I guessit's like look at a bookshelf.
But imagine insteadof, you know,
Melissa (19:44):
Not shelves,
Chris (19:45):
12 inches from shelf to shelf, which would
normally hold your books.
It's like 10 millimetersfrom shelf to shelf, you
know, very, very thinbetween each of the shelves.
Melissa (19:57):
but without the actual shelves,
Chris (20:00):
yeah, yeah.
Instead of, instead of, well,no, kind of because you're,
Melissa (20:04):
well like the little, the little things that you
put into the wall so thatyou can put the shelves
Chris (20:10):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a better wayof thinking of it.
That's a better way of thinkingof it because it's just holding,
again, it's just holdingthe long edges of the PCB.
And, Yeah, so thatthe components on the
bottom can hang freely.
So we fill up this magazine.
It's about the size oflike a microwave oven,
roughly, somewherearound the size of that.
And what you can do is youcan load this magazine,
(20:32):
full of boards into what'scalled a magazine unloader.
And it's a little confusingbecause the unloader is at
the beginning of the assemblyline and the loader's on...
On the opposite side ofthe assembly line, but
the unloader unloads themagazine and therefore
loads the assembly line.
(20:53):
There needs to be, it getsvery confusing, but that's
basically what it means.
So now you can automaticallyfeed double sided boards
to your assembly line.
So you, you take thatmagazine full of boards.
at the end of the reflowoven that's finished one side
and you walk it over to thefront of your assembly line,
load it up in this machine,and this machine will unload
them onto your assembly line.
(21:13):
The beautiful thing about allof this is you eliminate a lot
of risk when you use conveyorsbecause people can drop things.
Right?
I was talking to one shopand they said they didn't
have any conveyors betweenany of their machines.
They manually loaded andunloaded all of their
machines, which I, I,I, you know, you're spe
Melissa (21:34):
They're not that expensive.
Chris (21:36):
not that expensive.
People are spending, people arespending like, you know, three,
four hundred thousand dollarson a pick and place machine.
A transport conveyor islike three, three thousand.
You know, like 2, 500,
Melissa (21:48):
they want the extra arm workout.
Chris (21:50):
I guess, I don't know.
And you have the riskof dropping boards.
You have the risk ofsticking your thumb in,
in solder paste and.
You know, parts that areplaced, but not reflowed.
It's just so risky to handleboards by hand, but then
it's also so expensive.
So yeah, that'snot how we do it.
We, we, we handle ourboards with conveyors
(22:11):
and we try to do the samewith our AOI operations.
We try to do the same withour selective soldering
operations on a large scalemanufacturing operation.
Like we're talking, youknow, your, your Jables
of the world, your Foxconsof the world, everything
is automatically handled.
Nobody's handling anythingby hand, you know, not until,
not until they're broken outof their panels, but they'll
(22:33):
literally like, they'll takea stack of boards at, in a
D stack or just like ours,they'll run it through their
assembly line when it getsout of the reflow oven,
they'll have a PCB flipper.
It's a special type of conveyor,which will clamp the board.
It'll literally flip it over.
It'll invert it.
So now the bottom side is onthe bottom because you start
(22:56):
with the bottom side and youbuild the whole bottom side.
Now you flipped it over.
The bottom side ison the bottom now.
So now the top side is, isup in the air and it goes
into the next assembly line.
So you have two SMT linesright in line with each other.
And that's how they builddouble sided boards in a,
in a large scale operationwith that PCB flipper.
And then from there, it'llgo through the reflow of,
(23:18):
and again, it'll go directlyinto an AOI machine.
It might go into a flyingprobe test machine.
It might go, if it has somekind of manual operation, it'll
go in front of a workstationwhere a worker's sitting there
just doing like putting theone screw in and then it keeps
going to the next worker whoputs the second screw in, it
keeps going, so on and so forth.
I think, I forget the heartbeat.
(23:39):
That these large scalemanufacturing operations want.
But I want to say it's likeeight seconds per panel
or 12 seconds per panel.
It's, there's like aspecific heartbeat.
There's a specific productionrate that they're, they
always try to achieve.
And they match their, theymatch the number of pick and
place machines and everythingto, you know, and, and to
(24:01):
hit that heart rate, it'sreally a wild operation.
I've only seen it oncein my life at a, at
a big Honda supplier.
It was, it was super cool.
I was like, really?
Remember my addictionto efficiency and
eliminating waste?
I was like in heaven there.
It was so cool.
But they you know, if theseassembly lines get super
(24:22):
long, you can picture twoassembly lines back to back.
You, you, how do youtransport materials
through the assembly line?
If you think about it, right?
There's a, there's threedifferent ways that I have seen.
If you, if, if you want aperson to person to be able to
walk through an assembly line,they will have a lift gate
and it literally looks like a
Melissa (24:43):
Ha!
Chris (24:44):
Yeah, literally looks like a drawbridge.
So they walk up to it, theypress a button, that button
will stop the previous conveyorfrom sending any boards to it.
And obviously you gotto make sure there's no
boards on that lift gate.
And they will literally justlift it up with their arm.
Walk through it, and thenbring it back down, and
then the assembly linecan pass through again.
(25:05):
Those are pretty rare nowadays.
They used to be more common.
Far more common nowadaysis what's called a
shuttlegate conveyor.
Or it's like atelescoping conveyor.
So it's literally like threeconveyors inside of a conveyor,
and and what it does isit's it's normally open so
anybody can walk through it.
And there's going to be somelight guards, so it detects
(25:27):
if a, if a person's walkingthrough or if there's like a
cart in the way or something.
So it, it won't it won'ttry to move the shuttle
gate if, if somebody'swalking through, otherwise
they get crushed, right?
Well, I mean, that's the thing.
So it's normally open and thenwhen it needs to transfer a
board, it sort of telescopes.
Open, you know, like atelescope, it expands and
expands and expands and passesthe board from one conveyor
(25:50):
to the next conveyor and thenit collapses again to allow
traffic to go through again.
Those are probably the mostcommon I've seen in large SMT
lines, very long SMT lines.
But the coolest, my favoriteest, dist est est, is,
is the vertical bridge.
And so what this is, is.
(26:12):
It's very large.
They're typicallyquite expensive.
You know, you're talking tens ofthousands of dollars for these.
But it shuttles aboard into a conveyor.
That conveyor is then liftedway high up in the air.
It shuttles the boardonto a conveyor that's
way high up in the air.
We're talking like 10 feetup in the air and onto a
(26:35):
long, long, long conveyoronto then another vertical
lift, just like an elevator.
And that elevator comes backdown and then feeds the next
side of the assembly line.
So then you don't have youdon't have a lift gate, you
don't have a shuttle gate.
You can just pass trafficunderneath that conveyor
all day long, becauseit's just a big bridge.
You're just, you're walkingthrough the underpass.
(26:55):
Those are, Super cool.
I love those things, but I havenever seen one in real life.
I've never seen one.
I've seen them likeat trade shows.
I've seen them youknow, pictures and
brochures and stuff.
But I've never actually seen onein a manufacturing operation.
I'm confident there areloads of these in Asia where
(27:15):
it's, it's going to be morenecessary, but I've never
seen one in North America.
But I want to.
Melissa (27:21):
it's like a little roller coaster for
your circuit board, huh?
Chris (27:26):
Imagine putting like a little GoPro inside of it.
That'd be fun.
Hmm.
That's an idea.
That's an idea, Melissa.
I know, I know you'replanning on a video coming up.
Melissa (27:34):
What a GoPro.
Well, definitely notthrough the reflow oven,
Chris (27:37):
No, not through the reflow oven.
Not through the reflow oven.
But yeah, that might be fun tomount to like a little GoPro
through the assembly process.
I'm sure we could figureout a way to make it work.
Yeah, we'll have togive that some thought.
We'll figure it out.
So yeah, so there's.
That's how you would passthrough a very long SMT line.
But there's all kinds of other,like, specialty conveyors.
(27:58):
You have conveyors that mighthave laser markers built
in to, like, mark You know,serial numbers onto each PCB.
You have conveyors thathave like cooling fans.
So as they come out of thereflow oven, they might have
like additional cooling ifthey need them to cool off more
quickly, if they're going like,so if you have that long SMT
line where you have a boardflipper, you'll oftentimes
(28:19):
have cooling fans Either justbefore or just after the board
flipper, because you're going tostencil print that right away.
And you want to stencil printa room temperature board.
You do not want to stencilprint a warm board.
You will, you will messeverything up because it'll
cause that solder pastethe slump and maybe even
begin to activate and you'llhave all kinds of issues.
(28:40):
Yeah.
So, you have conveyors arespecifically designed to
catch boards out of reflowovens or not reflow ovens
wave soldering machines.
So if you've ever seen, again,hard to describe if you've never
seen a wave soldering machinein real life, but they have
kind of a vertical not vertical,like, like an uphill climb.
Wave solder machines like,like have, it's like a ramp.
(29:03):
It's, you know, maybe likea 15 degree, 20 degree
ramp the boards go up.
So you have to have conveyorsthat have a similar ramp to
kind of, you know, feed andcatch boards as it comes
out of these machines.
There's all kinds ofvery interesting things.
Now, hopefully you've enjoyedconveyors so far, but what
does this actually, what doesthis actually mean for you, the
(29:25):
designer of the product, right?
So you're an engineer.
You're like.
Great, Chris.
I can fall asleep at nightnow because I have this boring
discussion about conveyors,but what does it do for me?
I think it's importantto understand that in
all of this operation, westill need some clearance
to handle these boards.
Like when it sits on thatbelt we need to make sure
(29:45):
it's not going to siton components, right?
We need to make sure componentsaren't going to sit on.
So we recently did a job foryou know, I didn't get the
permission to use their name,but it was it was a conference.
We built a badge for a bigconference, pretty well known.
Anyway, yeah.
I guarantee every listeneris familiar with this.
Anyway, but I didn't gettheir permission, so I
don't want to use their nameyet until I talk to them.
(30:07):
But we built thesebadges for them.
They have their own sort of likeassembly line, but they didn't
quite have the capacity to getall of them done in time, so
they wanted to hire us to to getmore of them done more quickly.
And but they, they had, so theyhad all these boards ordered
already before contacting usabout Make getting them built.
So what does that mean?
That means they're not designedfor manufacturing operation.
(30:30):
They're designed for theirassembly process, which they're
probably loading things inby hand and everything else.
So we they were about maybelike three inches by four
inches, like the size of anindex card, maybe a little bit
larger than a post it note.
And like a typical size postit note, you know what I mean?
(30:53):
And they were just falling.
on our conveyors,because they just, they
didn't bridge the gap.
Because in all of theseconveyors and all these
machines, they have tomeet a very specific
specification laid out by IPC.
It's called the SMEMA spec.
It's S M E M A.
And does it actually,does that mean anything?
(31:14):
Hang on,
Melissa (31:16):
Whoop.
Yeah.
It does because I was justreading a transcript from an
old episode where you weretalking about SMEMA and you
asked the same exact thing.
Chris (31:28):
So I'm, I have the document right in front of me
and it's called IPC SMEMA 9851.
We, we bought thestandard for this.
And its title is theMechanical Equipment Interface
Standard, which is MEIS.
So, I don't know.
(31:48):
What is it?
No, they don't, they don'teven, no, I don't see, I don't
see an acronym for it in the
Melissa (31:58):
Mount Equipment Manufacturers Association.
Chris (32:01):
you go.
That must be it, butthat is not mentioned
anywhere in the standard.
Melissa (32:09):
Yeah.
Chris (32:10):
Go figure.
Thank you.
Melissa (32:12):
Now, you
Chris (32:12):
for real time feedback there.
But anyway, this standard,this specification, has
all kinds of like, okay, ifyou're going to design...
A conveyor to handlecircuit boards.
Let's all agree on the way thatwe design these conveyors so
that they can all work together.
So if I buy a pick and placemachine from Fuji and a
stencil printer from Ekra anda reflow oven from Bytronix,
they can all work together.
And so they all follow thestandard, the SMEMA standard.
(32:35):
And.
They're allowed to have a19mm air gap from the end
of their conveyor to the youknow, basically where it needs
to meet the next conveyor.
But what that means is youhave 19mm plus 19mm, so
(32:57):
now you're at 38mm, right?
And then...
The two conveyors are notgoing to touch each other.
There's going to be a verysmall air gap between them.
You know, a guy like me ina factory is going to try
to line these two things up.
I'm not going tomake them touch.
I'm going to get themas close as possible.
I'll get them within you know,4 or 5 millimeters, but I can't
(33:17):
get them that much closer.
You know, typically maybe 10millimeters between the two.
So now you have an air gapof 50 millimeters, 2 inches.
And if your circuit board isonly 3 inches long, You've
just created a high dive.
Melissa (33:32):
mm-Hmm?
Chris (33:33):
So we, we put the, they were bare circuit boards.
We hadn't we hadn't putany components on them yet.
And they were just, you know,as soon as you put them on
the first conveyor, just
Melissa (33:42):
Oh
Chris (33:42):
right on the floor.
All right.
So then we rotated themto the four inch way.
We could get them tofit the four inch way.
The trouble is on that sideof the board, there was
all kinds of components.
So we couldn't, wehad to mask off.
Our stencil to not depositsolder paste on those
(34:02):
components, because otherwisethey would get damaged when we
flipped them over to run theopposite side and we couldn't
mount them with our machine.
So we had to hand solder abunch of these edge components.
It was just,
Melissa (34:13):
Hmm.
Chris (34:15):
it's the first time we've said yes to.
Customer consigned circuitboards in, I can't even
remember, I honestly can'tremember the last like years,
many, many years, like probablyover a decade since we allowed
a customer to send us circuitboards you know, just single
(34:36):
up like that, not, not ina, so we normally put them
in a panel so that we giveourselves 10 millimeters on
each edge, plenty of clearanceto handle these circuit boards.
Because We need to bridgethat we need to bridge
that 38, 50 millimeter gapbetween the two machines.
So we need it to be longenough, but we also need room
for the, to let the boardssit on those conveyors.
(34:57):
So it was it was a bit ofan annoying experience,
but we got through it.
Customer was happy.
All the badgesgot built in time.
I guess the conferencewas a success.
They told us it was a success.
Everybody was happy about it.
And and yeah, so gettingback to the spec, SMEMA
says that you can use,like, if you're designing a
(35:18):
conveyor, you can use up tofive millimeters of the PCBs
material to handle the PCB.
So in other words, youknow, say you have a, a
200 millimeter wide board.
The conveyor is allowedto use five millimeters on
the front edge of the boardand five millimeters on
(35:41):
the back edge of the board.
So effectively our workingarea, we're only allowed to
use when we build this board,190 millimeters, right?
Cause you subtract five fromthis side, five from that side,
from a 200 millimeter board, weshould, whatever it is that we
want to do to that board shouldbe within that 190 millimeter.
area.
(36:02):
That's why we panelizeeverything so that we give
ourselves more than that.
We actually give ourselves 10millimeters, so huge buffer
for, you know, no chance of theconveyor getting in the way of
the work that we need to do.
By work I mean apply solderpaste with a stencil, pick
and place machine, AOI, etc.
(36:23):
So the bottom edge of the boardis going to be handled by about
five millimeters, and then thetop edge of the board typically
Very similar, about fivemillimeters because the top,
on the top side, you're goingto have a clamp because when
it gets inside the machine, youdon't want that board moving.
You want, you wantit to stay in place.
You want it rigid.
Especially in a pick andplace machine and a stencil
printer, if it moves at all,you've messed everything up.
(36:45):
On those edges, we put ourfiducials, see episode 30,
whatever it was about fiducialsand you know, but what we're
trying to do is we're designingour panels to meet the spec of.
SMEMA.
So just all the, all themachines are designed
to meet the spec.
Our panels are designedto meet the spec.
That means we're not evengoing to think about it.
(37:07):
And generally speaking, youdo not even think about the
SMEMA spec until a customerwants to send you badges
and they're in a hurry andyou've got to make this work.
So the specification has allkinds of important things.
It defines the heightof the conveyor as well.
And this is an interestingone because technically,
(37:28):
according to the specifications,the minimum height of a
conveyor is 940 millimetersand the maximum height of a
conveyor is 965 millimeters.
So everybody should designtheir machines in such a
way that they can be raisedand lowered anywhere from
940 to 965 millimeters.
But the crazy thing is, inAsia, they're all designed
(37:50):
for 900 millimeters.
Melissa (37:52):
Mm-Hmm?
. Mm-Hmm.
. I remember, yeah.
You talking about this before?
Chris (37:56):
yeah.
And because that's thelargest market, you know,
we just said tack with it.
We're just every, everymachine we get from now on,
we're just setting all ofour assembly lines to 900
millimeters, but that's wherethose numbers come from.
They come from a specification.
I have to imaginethere's a similar SMEMA
specification for for Asia.
Like maybe they have theirown standard over there that's
similar to SMEMA, but just for.
(38:18):
for their region of the world.
But I'm not familiar with itand likely it's not written
in the language I can read.
So, but yeah, so that,so it defines really, it
defines everything andeven how they communicate.
Because if you think aboutit, if my pick and place
machine is still running.
I don't want that conveyortrying to send a board inside
my pick and place machine.
(38:38):
I need that pick and placemachine to finish doing its
work, evacuate the boardthat it's done with before
it accepts the next one.
And because my pick and placeis made by Fuji, and my conveyor
is made by Vanstron, and mystencil printer is made by Acra,
and my solder paste inspectionmachine is made by Omron,
these all need to be able tocommunicate in such a way that
(38:59):
you don't have just absolutemadness of communication.
And so, that's...
You know, they all meetthe spec and everything
works brilliantly.
We did actually buya machine one time.
I, this manufacturer, I shallgo unnamed because I don't
want to that they told usit met the SMEMA spec in no
(39:21):
way, under any circumstances,in Any fathomable universe
didn't meet this Mimaspec.
It had, thecommunication was a mess.
It was an absolute mess.
It did not communicate right.
It would send, it would,it would request boards
before it was ready.
It would send boardsbefore it was finished.
It was a disaster.
It was an absolute disaster.
(39:43):
Which is why we'renever going to...
Buy machines from them again.
So it was a whole thing.
I mean, we didn't, we didn'tpay our, pay our invoice for
months because we're like,it doesn't meet the spec.
And they said, yes,it does meet the spec.
And we're like, okay,well you run the machine.
It does not meet the spec.
Melissa (39:58):
Yeah.
Chris (39:59):
Oh, what a mess.
What a mess.
We ended up just takingthat machine offline.
We don't use theconveyor at all.
We hand load it and unloadit because it still does work
for what we need it to do.
But not that I'm bitter.
Oh yeah.
Conveyors.
What do you think, Melissa?
Want some?
Melissa (40:17):
Would I like a conveyor in my house?
Chris (40:20):
Yeah.
Why not?
You could have like a,like a sushi boat thing.
You know,
Melissa (40:24):
Something I could Unload the dishwasher.
Yeah Like convey thatwould be a very hectic
kitchen kitchen if you justhad conveyors everywhere
Chris (40:34):
in, in a manufacturing operation, they are, in my
opinion, essential, I highlyrecommend if you are hiring
a contract manufacturerto assemble your circuit
boards, pay them a visit
Melissa (40:46):
See if
Chris (40:47):
you can, if, if they're across the country
and you don't want to flyout to their, out to them.
Ask them to do a FaceTimetour, a Zoom tour, whatever
you want to call it.
And have you have them walkyou around, have them walk
you around their factory andjust see what it looks like.
Melissa (41:04):
Conveyors then that's just that's it's very low
technology well, I mean it canbe high technology, but you
know, like a very basic thing
Chris (41:13):
it's just, for me, it's like a sign of like
poor decision making.
It's just a sign of like,they're, they're not thinking
critically about their operationand their efficiencies.
And so, you know, it's a canaryin a coal mine, in my opinion,
because it means you're, you're,where else are they inefficient?
Melissa (41:31):
Right.
Exactly.
Chris (41:32):
What else are you paying extra for that you don't?
Have to be paying extra for it.
And it's, it's built intothe fat of the quote, right?
It's not that it's not thatthere, you know, there's going
to be a separate line itemthat says we're wasteful.
So pay us an extra 500, right?
It's just, yeah,
Melissa (41:48):
Pfft.
Can you imagine?
Chris (41:49):
yeah.
So yeah, just my opinionis canary in a coal mine.
And if you don't see anythingcatching boards at the
end of the reflow oven.
means you are gettingboards that have been
dropped on the floor.
I promise you, I promise you.
And if anybody, and Iknow there's CMs that
listen to the show.
I know there's OEMsthat listen to the show.
(42:09):
If you are one of these shopsthat does not have a conveyor.
At the end of yourreflow oven, email me.
I will send you a link to aconveyor that you can put at
the end of your reflow oven.
It is cheap.
It is worth every penny.
You can afford it.
I promise you can afford it.
I will send you a link to it.
I'm happy to givethis recommendation
(42:30):
for this conveyor.
We love ours.
It works great.
And you will save your customersall kinds of headaches and
yield because you won't bedropping their boards anymore.
Melissa (42:39):
Oh, that just gave me an idea.
You know what weshould do, Chris?
We should become ManufacturingEquipment Influencers.
Chris (42:47):
Ooh, Influencer.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I like the sound of that.
Melissa (42:50):
And then get the companies to pay us commission
for recommending their productson Pick, Place Podcast.
Chris (42:57):
Oh, I, what do they call that?
They call that notpaid promotion.
There's like a term forpaid content, right?
Isn't it like sponsoredcontent or paid content?
Yeah, let's do it.
Melissa (43:06):
Yeah.
Chris (43:07):
Just totally do it.
I bet we probably, I bet if wetried, we probably could get
Melissa (43:12):
I'm sure we could,
Chris (43:12):
component distributors, manufacturers or whatever.
I feel like, I know it's notwhy we do the show, but, yeah,
we do the show because we loveour listeners and we want them
to understand how to be betterengineers, especially when it
comes to manufacturability.
Melissa (43:27):
And because Chris needs an outlet to express
his love for conveyors.
Chris (43:31):
Yes, you know what also I need an outlet for?
Pet peeves.
Melissa (43:35):
Oh yeah.
Chris (43:36):
I need an outlet for pet peeves.
And this is a timely one.
See what I did there?
It's a
Melissa (43:41):
Oh, oh yes, yes, yes.
Okay, finally used it.
There you go.
Chris (43:46):
It's a timely one.
It's about daylight saving time.
Now.
I love Daylight Saving Time.
I loathe Standard Time.
We've made the switchhere in the United States.
I don't think it's every state,but most of the states here in
the United States, we switch.
No, like Arizona doesn't switch.
Melissa (44:05):
I didn't know
Chris (44:06):
yeah, yeah, there's a, I
Melissa (44:07):
How
Chris (44:08):
a, I know, can you imagine?
Yeah, there's certainareas that don't switch.
So, I don't know the history,I'm not going to get into the
history of Daylight SavingTime because that's a boring,
it's not a good pet peeve.
You know what isa good pet peeve?
When it's
Melissa (44:20):
into the
Chris (44:21):
Dark at 4.
30.
4.
30.
It should not be dark at 4.
30 in the afternoon.
Like you're just getting,you're just like you're
just getting out of work andit's already dark and you're
just like depressed becauseyou missed the whole day.
Like, no, I hate it.
I hate it.
So technically we'rein standard time.
Standard time is what we'rein now here in November
(44:41):
2023, November 10th, 2023is when we're recording.
We're in, we'rein standard time.
It's dark at 4 30.
I hate it so much.
I could never be one of thosepeople that lives in an area of
the world where it's dark forlike six months out of the year.
I couldn't, I, no, I can't.
I, I, humans need sunlight.
I'm sorry.
I can't handle it.
(45:02):
I need sunlight.
I, I could be one of thosepeople where it's bright for
six months out of the year.
I think, you know, put somelong curtains on your windows.
You could sleep, but no, I,I do not like the darkness.
Sorry.
And, and, and I wish,and I don't like
switching all the time.
Switching thing is annoying.
I, I, I love it when it getsdark at like 9 30 at night.
(45:23):
That's perfect.
That's, that's time togo to bed before then.
No, no, thank you.
Melissa (45:31):
Oh, and yeah, I just experienced for the first
time the end of daylightsavings with a child.
That's, mhm.
Because they don't
Chris (45:40):
to it.
Yeah, my dogs, mydogs are the same way.
They're like, Hey, time to eat.
And they're like,nah, you got to
Melissa (45:46):
you're like, it's it's 4 30 in the morning.
You're not getting up
Chris (45:50):
Yep, exactly.
Melissa (45:52):
but yeah, I thought I'd play devil's advocate
because you know, there is abill or an act or something
Chris (45:59):
Yeah.
Yes.
I've heard
Melissa (46:00):
try to get Basically permanent
daylight savings times and
Chris (46:04):
So no more standard time.
Just whatever we are callingdaylight saving time.
Oh, by the way,another pet peeve.
It is daylight saving,not daylight savings.
Yeah.
Melissa (46:16):
yeah, I didn't
Chris (46:17):
Not really a
Melissa (46:18):
my apologies.
Chris (46:19):
it's not really a pet peeve.
That is technically thecorrect way of saying it.
And you know, I want tobe that pedantic jerk that
everybody's annoyed by.
Like, actually, it isdaylight saving time.
There is no S.
Melissa (46:33):
Okay.
I apologize for my
Chris (46:35):
Apology accepted, Melissa.
Melissa (46:38):
Yeah, and so there's a bunch of researchers that say
that the change will be bad.
Bad for all of
Chris (46:44):
Did they have reasons for this?
Melissa (46:46):
Yeah, it's, it's very detrimental to
our health apparently.
Chris (46:51):
What?
Melissa (46:52):
Because it disrupts our normal circadian rhythm,
usually It gets dark and that,signals your body, Okay, it's
time to start getting readyto go to sleep, but since it's
lighter, closer to bedtime, thenyour body's not, prepared to go
to sleep because it just had allthis input from all the light.
Chris (47:11):
Hmm.
Melissa (47:12):
Mm hmm,
Chris (47:13):
Hmm.
Melissa (47:14):
yeah.
And also, apparently DaylightSaving Time, saving, yeah,
saving, okay, was inventedby Ben, supposedly invented
by Benjamin Franklin.
Chris (47:26):
The inventor of all things.
Melissa (47:27):
Yeah, of course.
To economize candle usageand save people money.
But now it's doing the opposite.
So the extended use ofdaily hours is causing
more energy usage
Chris (47:40):
Maybe because, like, air conditioning and stuff like
Melissa (47:42):
Mm hmm, because of air conditioning and then heating.
Yeah.
Mm hmm,
Chris (47:48):
Yeah, I don't know.
Maybe I just need tolike, move to the southern
hemisphere during the winter.
You know what I
Melissa (47:55):
or you can just wake up earlier and go to sleep earlier.
Or not.
Chris (48:02):
The reasoning is sound, Melissa.
That is very sound reasoning.
You know what?
That, that, I think Imight apply that advice.
I think I mightapply that advice.
I'm sure my dogs wouldappreciate it, because they're
still like, waking up andthey're like, hey, time to eat.
Melissa (48:23):
that's what I have.
I have to do that now.
There's no choice.
So, unless you have stuffto do at night, you know,
unless you're out andabout, then it's difficult.
Chris (48:33):
no, I just, I just, I don't know.
I'm a lot of people, like alot of people, I tend to be the
most, like, my mind works bestat night, and I tend to be,
like, the most productive atnight, and yeah, I don't know.
Mornings, I really, reallystruggle with mornings.
I need, like, a long time to Itjust, I can't be, I can't get
(48:56):
up and go, and I envy peoplethat can, and I've tried to be
one of these people that can.
Unfortunately, I'm not.
I'm not!Well, the other, the other
thing is, because we havetwo shifts at Wordinton
Assembly, I tend to kind ofwork between the two shifts.
So I tend to get into the shoparound, you know, nine o'clock
or so, and stay till six ish totry to overlap the two shifts
(49:20):
and, and work with each team.
So.
That's another reason thatannoys me, because, well,
but at least when I'm like...
On my way to work,it's nice and bright.
So at least I getit in the morning.
But, but it's like, I love tolike, you know, be in my yard
and, and, and be around my houseand getting things done around
my house at, at, in the evening.
(49:40):
And I can't do anythingbecause it's dark.
Melissa (49:42):
Well, although at the same time, it would be
cold anyways, so you don'treally want to be outside
doing all that stuff anyways.
Chris (49:51):
Eh, cold doesn't really bother me.
It's not, it's really notthe cold that bothers me
because I'll just bundleup and especially when you
start working on somethingyou get hot, you know, you
know, you tend to, all of asudden you're shedding layers
off because it's too warm butyeah, so then you just got to
wait for, you know, weekendsor you got to take a day off
to where it's nice and brightout so you can get stuff done.
(50:11):
Like right now, I got to cleanmy gutters and I either have
to take a day off or I haveto do it Like early in the
morning before I come into work.
And the problem with tryingto do a project like that
before going to work is youdon't really know how much
time it's going to take.
You know what I mean?
Like you think like,Oh, I could probably get
this done in two hours.
And all of a sudden, like youdon't even have your ladder
(50:32):
set up for an hour and a
Melissa (50:33):
right.
Chris (50:34):
you know, versus.
Melissa (50:36):
into something.
Chris (50:36):
Yeah.
Versus like, if you come homeand it's bright out and you
get started on it and youdon't finish it in a couple
hours, like you think youwill, well, it doesn't matter.
You're not going anywhere.
You're home, you know?
So like, I don't like tostart projects in the morning
because I, I don't wantto leave them unfinished.
And, and then I can't startprojects outside in the
(50:57):
evening because it's dark.
And it's like, the darknessis also like, it's like,
I don't want to drive.
In the dark.
So I don't want to have tolike start an errand and then
be driving around in the dark.
Melissa (51:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I went grocery shoppingand I was done.
I was like, whoa, have I beenin this target for hours?
Because it's pitch dark out andit was like, nope, nope, it's 4
Chris (51:20):
it's four 30.
I just, I don't, I, thecold has never bothered me.
It's the darkness thathas always bothered me
ever since I was little.
I, it was like, Oh, I wantto go out and play play.
There's no, Ican't see anything.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, okay.
So my pet peeve isn't with,with standard time or,
(51:40):
you know, changing fromdaylight or back and forth.
It's my pet peeveis the darkness.
That's what it is, Melissa.
It's the darkness.
I want some darkness, nottoo much, not too little.
I want the appropriateamount of darkness and
the appropriate amount ofdarkness is the longest day
of the year in the summer.
Melissa (51:58):
Then just move to Alaska during the summer
Chris (52:02):
I know.
Melissa (52:03):
And then,
Chris (52:03):
you know what I, I, I think Melissa, we should start.
CircuitHub Australia, and Ijust, six months in Australia,
six months in the UnitedStates, it's a win win.
Melissa (52:17):
all right, if you can figure out all the logistics and
financials of doing that, Chris,I think that's a fantastic idea.
Chris (52:23):
Well, if anybody has advice on how to help me move
to Australia and work theresix months out of the year,
feel free to email us atcontact at pickplacepodcast.
com.
You can X us at CircuitHub orat WAssembly or whatever social
media program you prefer.
Let us know, I think you hadmentioned this on a previous
episode, if there is one thatyou did have a preference for.
If you enjoyed this episode,which I know you did because
(52:45):
it's my favorite topic,tell a friend about it.
Hopefully they enjoy it as well.
And let us know, like,I'd love to, I'd love to
hear people who have foundthis information helpful.
Like, like, if they themselvesfeel like they've become a
better engineer from listeningto some of this advice and,
and have seen improvementin, in their ability to
(53:08):
outsource manufacturing and,and it'd be good to know.
I don't know.
So.
You know, reach out, letus know what you think.
Melissa (53:16):
Oh, something we forgot to mention is that the show
now has over 50, 000 downloads.
Chris (53:22):
yeah.
Do I have a is it, what's this?
Soundboard (53:24):
Chalk, huh?
Chris (53:25):
No.
Yeah.
That's about, that'sabout as close as I
Melissa (53:27):
close enough.
Chris (53:30):
Celebratory ballpark music.
Yeah.
50, 000.
So thank you everybody forlistening and downloading.
Yeah, that's, well,so that's crazy.
That is, that is mind blowing.
I,
Melissa (53:46):
Especially for what we're talking
Chris (53:47):
I know, I know.
I mean, like Rogan,watch out, here we come.
Melissa (53:53):
Not quite.
Chris (53:54):
Oh,
Melissa (53:55):
Nah, just a little bit more.
Just a few more thousand.
Chris (53:59):
I just got to get I just got to get you know,
Elon Musk on the show.
And then I thinkwe'll, we'll catch up,
Melissa (54:06):
Elon, if you're out there listening,
Chris (54:08):
which I know you are.
Cause I know you love,you love efficiency.
Melissa (54:12):
Can you imagine if he's just out there
secretly listening tothe Pig Place podcast?
Chris (54:18):
I, I have no idea how I would feel about.
That if I learnedthat that was true.
I have no idea.
I don't know if I'd bethrilled or upset or confused.
I'd definitely beconfused for sure.
That is the emotion Iwould have, but yes,
congratulations, Melissa.
50, 000.
Awesome.
Melissa (54:39):
Yeah, Elon, if you're out there send
us a, send us an X x us.
And for everyone else,thanks for listening to
the PickPlace podcast.
If you like what you heard,consider following us in
your favorite podcast app andplease leave us a review on
Apple Podcasts or whereveryou get your podcasts from.
Chris (54:57):
Thanks Melissa.
Melissa (54:58):
Thanks, Chris.
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