January 8, 2024 • 53 mins
Welcome to the first episode of 2024 (which was recorded in 2023)! In today's show we're joined by AIM Solder's Content Marketing Specialist, Gayle Towell.
AIM is a leading global manufacturer of solder assembly materials for the electronics industry with manufacturing, distribution, and support facilities located throughout North and South America, EMEA, and Asia.
Gayle helps to walks us through topics like what exactly a soldering company like AIM does, how they make their products, who buys it, how they decide what product to design next, and more.
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Episode Transcript
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Chris (00:08):
Welcome to the Pick Place podcast, a show where
we talk about electronicsmanufacturing and everything
related to getting a circuitboard into this whole world.
This is Chris Dennywith Worthington.
Melissa (00:18):
And this is Melissa Hough with CircuitHub.
Chris (00:21):
keep trying to mix it up on you.
Melissa (00:23):
Yeah.
Sometimes just gettingrid of the whole intro.
Chris (00:26):
Altogether.
It's it's bad.
It's I've said this, what,seventy times now, and I I still
don't even have it memorized.
I've said it so many times,and I've listened to it
so many times, and I stillwon't have it memorized.
Melissa (00:38):
one of these days.
Chris (00:39):
of these days, I should be able to do it.
How's things been?
Melissa (00:42):
Pretty good.
Pretty good.
How about you?
Busy?
Chris (00:45):
Yeah.
Very busy as usual.
Very busy.
We're doing a recordmonth, which is exciting.
Growth is good.
And hiring, that's going well.
Getting some reallyawesome candidates.
And Got the sales team outhere, got to meet with them,
got some production engineerswe got to meet with kind of,
like, setting ourselves upfor the future and hoping
to hoping for big success.
(01:06):
Speaking of which, for thefuture, I think I had mentioned
on the show a while back thatwe're looking to sell some
pick and place equipment.
Melissa (01:14):
yeah.
Yeah.
Chris (01:15):
It that's looking very likely.
So we will be an allFuji manufacturer pretty
soon next three to sixmonths, I'm assuming.
These things take time.
But that'll be a relief.
When you're trying to operateon two different platforms,
it's quite a challenge for amanufacturer, so having just
one platform will be very nice.
Very nice.
(01:35):
Lot less headaches.
As it is today, you know,our one older machine, we
just, a lot of times, justmost days don't use it.
Whereas if we had, If we hadall Fuji equipment, we could
easily just sling the jobfrom one machine to the other
and and keep things moving.
But yeah.
We thank our customersfor being patient with us.
We're a little bit behind,not too far behind.
(01:57):
Most jobs are shipping, like,most jobs are shipping on time.
A few jobs are shipping,like, a day late.
Maybe a couple ofdays late at most.
But yeah, not doing too bad.
We get we just get slammed withorders at the end of the year.
I I'm not exactlysure why it is.
It happens
Melissa (02:13):
So hopefully we can catch up just in time
for the Lunar New Year,
Chris (02:17):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Exactly.
And I'm going away.
I'm
Melissa (02:22):
where are you going?
Chris (02:23):
to visit my niece, and so I'm gonna
be gone for a few days.
So yep.
North Carolina, Gonna go to a goto a Carolina Hurricanes game.
Ever heard of the Hurricanes?
Melissa (02:33):
I don't really follow sports, to be honest.
Chris (02:36):
This is this cracks me up.
North Carolina, where it'swhere it gets below thirty
two degrees maybe, like, fivetimes a year has a hockey team.
Melissa (02:44):
Oh.
Chris (02:44):
So, like, so does Miami.
Melissa (02:46):
I mean, like, California does too.
You know?
Chris (02:50):
Up here, like like, We play hockey, like, on ponds.
You know what I mean?
Can't exactly do thatin the Carolinas.
But, anyway, shouldbe a good time.
So I don't know if that'llhave an impact on when we
record next and when we getcontent out, but hopefully not.
We're trying to keepup with everything.
So Thank you everybody forlistening and sticking with us.
And by the way, more feedbackon the conveyor episode than
(03:14):
any I'm telling you, peoplelike the conveyor episode.
Melissa (03:19):
That's too funny.
Chris (03:20):
lot of this content is pretty evergreen too.
So if you if, you know, ifyou're if you're just catching
up to the the podcast and youwanna listen to something,
a lot of the old stuffis is still relevant and
Melissa (03:29):
Yeah.
For
Chris (03:30):
here.
So, great.
Well, let's generate somenew content, Melissa.
What do you
Melissa (03:34):
That sounds absolutely wonderful.
Chris (03:36):
Alright.
Well, so I I had been wantingto do an episode for a long
time with, a manufacturerof materials that we use.
Because I just love to hear,you know, sort of the way that
this show is pulling back thecurtain on what's going on
in electronics manufacturing.
(03:57):
I wanted I wanted to use thisas a tool to also pull back
the curtain on on everythingelse that's going on in
electronics manufacturing,not just within this factory,
but who are our suppliers.
Right?
So I would love to get people,like like, stencil people on
the show, and I'd love to get,like, pick and place people
on the show and and kindapick their brain a little bit.
(04:17):
And we we've had a coupleopportunities like that, but
like, even just the most recentSo just talking about software
and how software is used for,um, these sorts of things.
You know, we've had testequipment people on the
show and stuff like that.
But So this week we'regonna have a discussion
with Gayle Towel from AIMwhich we've talked quite a
bit about AIM in the past.
Melissa (04:39):
There we have.
Chris (04:41):
up in Montreal.
That was a epic,epic experience.
But but, yeah, let'shave her in, Gail.
Gail, welcome to the show,and thanks for coming on
the Pick Place podcast.
Gayle (04:51):
Hi.
Happy to be here.
Chris (04:53):
So let me make sure I got your bio right.
You are a you are thethe grand poobah at AIM.
Is that correct?
Did I read that title right?
The grand poobah?
Gayle (05:01):
I I don't think I put that
Chris (05:03):
Oh, shoot.
Alright.
I missed I missed all that.
No.
The content the contentmarketing specialist
for AIMS Solder.
And you're a smarty pants.
You've got degrees inmathematics and physics.
This is yeah.
I'm just a lowly engineer.
We just you know, We take yourmath and your physics and try
to apply it to the real world.
We don't really know what any
Gayle (05:20):
which is really the purpose of it
Chris (05:22):
Yeah.
I guess so, isn't it?
Yeah.
Brilliant.
And so, I guess you'veyou've been using, you know,
your experience in thisfield to, help generate
content and technicalpapers and things for AIM.
And I'd love to hear a littlebit about your background
and, you know, what youwere doing before you came
to AIM and and what ledto your current role here.
Gayle (05:44):
My background's a little weird.
Chris (05:46):
It all?
Gayle (05:48):
so I I got master's degrees in math and physics.
I went into teachingfrom college.
I taught mostly at a communitycollege for I think twelve
years or so teaching astronomyand physics and math classes.
And,
Chris (06:06):
That sounds cool, actually.
Gayle (06:07):
Yeah.
It sounds cool.
During that time, I alsostarted pursuing a passion
for creative writing andfiction writing and was doing
a lot of that on the side.
Then when I went
Chris (06:23):
Your own creative writing and fiction
Gayle (06:25):
Yes.
Chris (06:26):
Oh, no way.
What is with all these talentedartists coming on the show?
I don't understand this.
Yeah.
Okay.
Go ahead.
Gayle (06:33):
yeah.
And then I wanted to leaveteaching, and I was trying
to figure out what onearth I do with myself and
Chris (06:40):
to write any episodes of soap operas, did you?
Because that would just
Gayle (06:42):
No soap operas.
Chris (06:44):
thing.
Because our guest last week wasin soap operas, So that would
just been wild if, like, youwrote some of the episodes.
Yeah.
Gayle (06:50):
No.
No.
No.
No.
But I decided to try my handat some just freelance writing.
You know, I had Studied writing,I was really good at technical
stuff, and there was a reallygreat niche for people who can
handle complex technical subjectmatter and write about it well.
And since I've been notonly creative writing, but
teaching, I mean, you geta lot of the ability to
(07:12):
communicate complex ideas.
And that was going very well,and then I went to pursue a full
time role somewhere, and AIMSolder had this role available
that they were trying to figureout how they find someone to
fill, where they needed tobe able to Do all the content
writing and the marketingwriting, but also understand
(07:33):
what all of the technical peoplewere doing and how everything
was being developed and beable to communicate that.
And so I was able tojust slide right in and
it's been a great fit.
Chris (07:45):
Cool.
So how long haveyou been with AIM?
Gayle (07:47):
Only since April.
I would say it feels likelonger, but in a good way.
In a good way.
Chris (07:53):
Okay.
Alright.
Alright.
Very good.
If they make you feellike you're at home,
is that is that what
Gayle (07:58):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's been a veryvery comfortable fit.
Chris (08:01):
Yeah.
They're they're agreat organization.
I've I've enjoyed workingthem as a working with
them as a on the on thecustomer side of things.
So I imagine they treat theirpeople quite well because
they got good people there.
Gayle (08:12):
Yeah.
I mean, one of our things thatI've noticed is how long so many
of the people have been here.
People come and they stay.
Chris (08:19):
stay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Good.
Well, so I'll Okay.
I have all kinds of questions,but let's let's not let's not
get into my questions yet.
I just wanna make I wannamake sure I understand
kinda your role.
So when you say contactmarketing specialist, the goal
there is to is to create what?
(08:40):
It's it's to writetechnical papers.
It's to, like, interactwith customers.
Like, what, like, what is Whatdoes your day look like or maybe
what does your week look like?
What's what's your agenda?
Gayle (08:51):
It's a lot of different things.
So sometimes I'm I'mwriting press releases
about products or thingshappening with their company.
Sometimes I am workingon technical papers and
presentations that we mightbe doing at a conference.
Sometimes I'm putting togetherPowerPoint presentations
for, uh, peep other people todeliver at conferences or for
(09:14):
internal, you know, productreleases and things like that.
I've been doing a lot of work.
We're gonna be updatingour website very soon, so
I've been doing a lot ofthe content work for that.
And when we do update it, we'regonna have a blog section, so
there'll be regular blog content
Chris (09:31):
sympathize with that exercise.
That's a lot of
Gayle (09:35):
Yeah.
And then trying to placetrying to write and place
technical articles indifferent trade journals and
things like that as well.
So any Written content andthen I also do, um, I help
out with some of our socialmedia content I've been doing.
We have this series called lyingdown where we Discuss a problem
(09:55):
that might happen related tosolder on the production line
and what to do about it, andso I've been taking those on.
So, Basically, anyanything that's content.
Usually written content,but anything from the
heavily technical to theheavily marketing and
everything in between.
Chris (10:12):
Okay.
Yeah.
Melissa (10:13):
that very relatable myself, actually.
Yeah.
Chris (10:16):
I was gonna say, you just described
Melissa (10:18):
Yeah.
Basically.
Chris (10:22):
Wonderful.
So, That sounds great.
So with with only having beenthere for seven or eight months,
feel free to stop me if I askyou a question that is just,
you know, like, alright, Chris.
This is something thatyou need to talk to one of
our our doctorate PhD guysabout this kind of stuff.
But it's mostly just I'mcurious about, um, the the
(10:44):
gist of the show is to is to,you know, We expose engineers
to what goes on in electronicsmanufacturing and how we
how we get the job done.
So we buy products from AIM.
wE buy, you know, just there'sjust the raw material, just the
raw solder alloy that ends upgetting used in our Selective
(11:05):
soldering machines or it can beused in, like, wave soldering
machines, things like that.
We buy wire solder thatthat has maybe a little bit
flux embedded in it for handsoldering, things like that.
It's probably what mostengineers are familiar with.
And we buy solder paste,which we've discussed
on the show before.
It's like a powder of ofmetal, powdered metal that's
blended up with chemicals,flux in order to create the
(11:28):
surface mount solder joints.
And I think for me, it's, youknow, it's like you open a
website, you'll scroll throughand you're like, okay, yep,
I need some solder paste.
Click buy, it shows up.
I have no idea how it got there.
You know?
Like, I went to AIM I wentto AIM in Montreal, and I
saw their their factory.
(11:48):
Mind blowing.
Absolutely.
Like, the scale of thatoperation, I just had
no idea how big it was.
That have you had a chanceto visit Canada yet?
Gayle (11:57):
I haven't been to our Montreal site, but I did go to
our Juarez site in Mexico wherewe have Production and also
applications lab there as well.
Chris (12:06):
What are they doing?
What what are theyproducing in Juarez?
Gayle (12:10):
Everything.
Chris (12:11):
Okay.
Everything I
Gayle (12:12):
So all the things the the solder paste, the Bar solder
bar, the wire solder, and somespecialty materials as well.
Chris (12:21):
Alright.
So chances are if I'm buyingyou know, a bar solder, it
could be coming either fromMontreal or Juarez maybe.
Gayle (12:29):
Yeah.
So it probably I don't knowthe exact details of our
shipping strategy, but ittypically will ship from where
it's easiest to ship from
Chris (12:38):
Yeah.
Which I mean, like, I'mfour hours from Montreal,
so it's it's probably it'smuch further from Juarez.
But you never know.
Whatever's got availability,that sometimes can can
take precedent over it.
But anyway, so, like,I I'm genuinely curious
sometimes about about okay.
(13:00):
You know, there was a time whenand and I know you you haven't
been in this industry as long assome of us ink stained wretches
have, which that's actually moreyour term, ink stained wretch,
because in the writing industry,that's where it comes from.
Right?
But, um, but I've been aroundthis industry for a long time.
And I remember When thepredominant alloy in this
(13:20):
industry was the tin leadalloy, that was the predominant
alloy that everybody used.
And then somebody startedtalking about like, hey,
you know, what if we gotrid of this lead stuff?
You know, it's notso great, you know.
And Somebody, somewhere, hadto take the time to figure out
(13:43):
How to blend metals togetherto create an alloy that
could work for electronicsmanufacturing, could create a
reliable solder joint, Wet tolead somehow and could, you
know, handle the temperaturesand and these sorts of things
and and and create a productthat that people would buy.
At some point, the most, nowtoday, the most popular alloy,
(14:05):
now there's a lot of alloys,but probably the most popular
lead free alloy that I'maware of is the shorthand is
called SAC three zero five.
And it's it's Yeah.
It's a very, very popular alloy.
I've always been curiouswhat what the process is like
that a a company says, okay.
(14:26):
We you know, it doesn't have tobe you don't you don't have to
talk about SAC three zero five.
You weren't around thirty yearsago when that LOI came up.
But, like, Somebodydrives a need.
Who who is the persondriving that need?
Is is it a Centimeters like us?
Is it is it NASA?
Is it You know, Raytheon, like,who who is saying, like, hey.
SAC three zero five doesn'twork for us, or ten lead
(14:47):
doesn't work for us, or s n onehundred c doesn't work for us.
You know?
We need we need a newproduct to to accomplish x.
And then what does that looklike on AIM side of things?
Like, do they do theydo, like, market analysis
or do they, like, Just,you know, like, okay.
Well, if you if you'll committo buying ten thousand pounds of
it, then we'll make it for you.
You know?
Like, I'm I just have no idea,like, what it looks like on
(15:09):
the opposite end when it goesto create a new product or
it doesn't have to be alloy.
It could be flux.
It could be whatever,you know, because you
guys make everything.
Gayle (15:17):
Yeah.
So well, I mean, itdepends on many things.
So Some of the what we developis driven by, you know,
what potential customersare saying they need.
We need somethingthat does x y z.
And we have already severaldifferent alloys we make, and
we different flux chemistries,and sometimes we can meet that
need with existing products.
Chris (15:38):
Okay.
Gayle (15:39):
But if we need to develop a new product we
we need to evaluate thebusiness case for it.
Right?
If someone just wants alittle bit of something and
you know, once a year, it'snot really worth our while.
But if it's going tobe a new product, the
use case makes sense.
And if we also see that there's,You know, broader market
appeal like we could sellthis to other people as well.
(16:01):
We'll look into that.
So some of it is driven bythe the needs of the customers
and prospective customers.
Some of it is also lookingahead and seeing where trends
are leading which you cansometimes get hints at if you
attend Different conferences.
You can see what people arewhere people are putting the
research dollars and whatthey're trying to make happen.
Chris (16:20):
Yeah.
Because, like, I rememberhearing at Apex a couple years
ago, people are looking intolower temperature alloys to try
to save energy and things like
Gayle (16:28):
Yeah.
That's a big thing becauseI think when we moved away
from lead, a lot of sac threezero five and so on have
higher melting temperatures,
Chris (16:35):
Yeah.
Much
Gayle (16:36):
more energy.
And not only that, but, youknow, it starts to affect
Which components you can use,what kind of board substrate
you can use and so on.
But the big trick at thebeginning is a lot of those
low temperature soldersInclude bismuth and you
Chris (16:52):
Yes.
Gayle (16:53):
do bismuth with lead or you get super low temperature
and it doesn't work very well.
And so we had to wait untilthe industry really got away
from lead, and most thingsdid not have any lead in them.
And now, a lot more lowtemperature solders are able to
start coming on the market withbismuth in them because of that.
But
Chris (17:12):
Oh, no kidding.
Oh, so you're saying becausebecause the components had
lead on them, you couldn'tuse an alloy that had bismuth
because because of thisit would it would the end
result would be some lowtemperature melting point
Gayle (17:25):
Or you might be mixing like different like an existing
solder on on a board with thethe Low temperature solder.
Yeah.
So they're now becoming more ofa thing because most processes
don't have lead in them anymore.
So now you can use those alloys,but there's a whole lot of
variations on those alloys.
So you have your very basictin bismuth, but then you have
(17:47):
people adding all sorts oflittle bits and pieces of other
things like antimony and so onto just change little things
about what the alloy does.
Chris (17:55):
about unobtanium?
Do you guys use any unobtanium?
Gayle (17:58):
That's a trade secret.
Okay.
But, yeah, I mean, the partof the trick is Bismuth
can also make stuff brittleand it doesn't do very
well with drop shock.
And so there's a lot of whatcan we do both with the process
of Creating the alloy or addinglittle bits of things into
the alloy to make it better,and that's an ongoing thing.
(18:19):
There's a lot of people workingon How to make a really nice
low temperature alloy thatcan handle drop shock testing.
Chris (18:27):
Gosh.
I would love to have alower temperature alloy.
You know, it's like, when whenwe were primarily a leaded
solder shop, um, to to getthe hole fill on a through
hole part was like, Alright.
It was like you like, oh, okay.
This didn't feel very well.
Let me just dwell here alittle bit longer, and then
sure enough, just wickedright up, and life was
(18:48):
good, and you moved on.
Now with the high tempalloys, it's like, oh, gosh.
This is I cannot getthis hole to fill.
I'm fighting this.
So if we can get backnow to some low temp
alloys, I'm all for it.
Except now I boughtall your solder and I
filled my solder pots.
Would you buy it back from me?
You want some?
Gayle (19:04):
Well, we do we do do recycling and reclaim.
Chris (19:07):
true.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
I forgot about that.
How could I forget?
That's what I went tovisit in Montreal was the
recycling and reclaim.
Yeah.
It's interesting.
So, I I I love the idea ofof looking ahead to trends
and things like that.
Now do you guys present papersand stuff at, like, Apex or
Product Tronica, like, whatwhat's what's that like to talk
(19:28):
about what you're working on?
Gayle (19:30):
Yeah.
So, one of the things that I'mdoing as I'm on as we had sort
of, had trouble keeping up withall of that side of things.
So I'm trying to rampthat back up again.
We do we are potentiallypresenting on some low
temperature solder researchat Apex this this year
coming up in April.
And then we are working on someother projects, uh, hopefully
(19:53):
for the next year's SMTAI andthe Apex after that Related to
looking at t five pastes and
Chris (20:01):
Oh, interesting.
Why t five?
What's what's going on there?
Gayle (20:06):
First of all, the t five refers to the size of the
solder powder used in the paste.
One of the most common,The higher the number,
the smaller the powder.
So t four is one of the mostcommonly used sizes right now.
And then but once you startgetting smaller and smaller
components and you're tryingto print that solder on smaller
(20:27):
and smaller apertures, you haveto go to smaller and powders.
So we've been doing a lot ofwork on our sort of research
and development side, working ontype six powders and even finer.
We actually just released aproduct a a paste that designed
for type six and finer powders.
But a lot of companiesare working in that type
(20:48):
five space right now.
And we had I believe we hadlooked into that several years
ago, but we've refined processesand and things have evolved
so much since then that ourtype five capabilities have
really significantly improved.
And so we're doing sort of athorough deep dive into, uh,
what is the ideal metal load?
(21:09):
How well does it Prints usingdifferent flux mediums and
things like that to sort ofcome up with the the ideal
mixture and use cases Fortype five solder paste.
Chris (21:20):
Yeah.
Interesting.
Yeah.
We we are, no surprise,primarily using type four.
It's still Kind ofthe most popular.
We've had some aperturesthough that are pretty tight.
And yeah.
I I can see the writing onthe wall here, you know.
And and our the nature of ourbusiness is we tend to be at the
bleeding edge of capabilities.
(21:41):
Because a lot of people arehiring us to test out parts.
Right?
So when TI comes out with thelatest, you know, who's them
or what's it, and somebodywants to try it and they
just need five of them built.
You know, they'll come to usto have them built because
you're not going to handassemble a device that has
point two five millimeter pitch,know, solder balls on there.
You gotta you have got tobuild that with machines.
(22:05):
So I could I could see typefive becoming more of a thing.
Do do you have a feel for, likelike is it mostly kind of in
development, or are people,like, really starting to buy
it now and they're startingto use it and and you're you
know, you have some volumesthat are shipping out the doors.
Is it mostly, like, people arejust testing the waters with
Gayle (22:22):
I would say like more and more people are Looking into it.
I think we've been doing it morein our Asia market in in China.
bUt Like I said, we actuallyjust released in the Americas
and for the rest of the worldare are a paste designed
for type six and smallerwhich can print through
(22:42):
apertures smaller than ahundred and fifty microns.
We actually have had successfulprinting down to things with
diameters of around seventyor eighty Microns, so it's
designed for the very,very, very tiny apertures.
Chris (22:58):
I can't I can't even imagine that must be
a chemically etched no.
I I think they can makeapertures that small on a laser.
Gayle (23:05):
they are making Yeah.
I'm not sure how this thestencils are made but they're
Thinner and very tiny aperturesand they usually have a coating
on them I think to aid in therelease because it starts to get
really tricky once you get that
Chris (23:18):
I can't remember the last stencil I used that did
not have that coating on them.
I mean, it's just likethey all need it now.
There's everything hasfine pitch parts on it.
We need that coating to get therelease we're looking after.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Alright.
So let me let me ask then.
Alright.
You're you're doingthis research.
You're lookinginto these things.
Who are the peopledoing this, though?
(23:39):
Are are the are theScientists, are they chemists?
Are they physicists?
Mathematicians that went tothe University of Oregon?
Or what what what are who
Gayle (23:47):
Yeah.
So we have research anddevelopment teams and
we have research anddevelopment facilities in
Canada, Mexico, and China.
And it consists ofchemists, metallurgists,
process engineers.
Those are the sortof people involved.
And we keep them supplied withall of the latest equipment,
so we can make sure we're we'regetting accurate measurements
Chris (24:07):
you have a stencil printer that you're or
maybe multiple, probably.
Yeah.
Gayle (24:12):
so yeah.
So it's basically alot of scientists.
So one of my coworkerslikes to call them the
eggheads, you know.
Chris (24:19):
That ain't right.
And they're andthey're just okay.
So, like, in my world,we get, You know, we
get like a work order.
Somebody comes to us and says,hey, we gotta build this, and
it has all the informationof what we have to work on.
In their world is somebody likehypothesizing, like, I think I
need to develop a product likethis and then going out and
(24:39):
trying it out, or is there likeis there like a is do they get
a work order that says, hey,or blend these things together?
I guess the processengineers are probably
the ones who get the workorders from the scientists.
That's probably how that
Gayle (24:49):
Yeah.
I think it's more of awe need a product that
can do this or that.
And then they start to figureout, okay, well, that's
gonna require using smallerparticles or changing the
flux chemistry or and theyjust Start experimenting with
different variations untilthey come upon a solution.
Chris (25:08):
Gosh.
Science is so cool.
Alright.
So, I'm actually we're inthe middle of evaluating
reflow ovens right now.
We're trying to investigatewhat kind of reflow
oven we wanna buy.
We're looking at a few differentvendors, and there's there's
some great options out there.
But one of the things that thatgets talked about when it comes
to reflow ovens and you know,a mass soldering process in
(25:31):
general, is whether to solderin air or whether to solder in
some kind of inert environment.
Because you could you could youcould take a traditional reflow
oven, And you can fill it withnitrogen, and you can reflow in
an inert environment that way.
Or you can use, like, a vaporphase system which uses I forgot
what the it's like I think theterm is like a golden fluid.
(25:52):
It's like liquid Teflon thatthey boil into a vapor, and
it's it's really stinking cool.
But anyway, From your sideof things, you must have some
understanding of the marketand how to develop products.
Do you do you know ifAIM specifically targets,
developing products for, Wewanna make sure this works
(26:14):
really, really well in air.
We don't care how it performsin nitrogen and vice versa.
Or, you know, Is thateven a consideration?
Or or I've I've alwaysbeen curious about that.
And the reason I'mparticularly asking right
now is because Should Ibe spending all this money
trying to get a nitrogen oven?
Or or are you guys, like, no.
We we we do all ourresearch for error.
(26:35):
Chris, you don't haveto worry about it.
Gayle (26:37):
Well, so it's a it's a it's a little complicated.
So, I mean, ideally, and I thinkthis is probably true of any
solder manufacturer, we wouldreally like all of our products
to work just fine in air.
We would like the alloy,the flux chemistry.
So the flux is sort ofwhat the problem with
air is the oxidation.
Right?
So if
Chris (26:56):
Great for us, horrible for everything else.
Gayle (26:58):
Exactly.
So the metal comes in contactwith oxygen and then it
oxidizes and creates thingsthat that cause problems when
you try to solder and doesn'tattach as well and so on.
So the flux chemistryis designed to minimize
that oxidation.
Okay?
But it's not perfect.
So if you have oxygen,you can have oxidation.
(27:21):
But if you remove the oxygenand replace it Nitrogen which
doesn't react in the sameway, then that doesn't happen.
So we ideally try to getour products to be as great
in Oxygen and in air asthey can be, but in certain
cases, if depending upon howcritical an application is
or in particular what we'vebeen looking at is Smaller
(27:44):
and smaller particle size, itbecomes much more of an issue.
And the reason for that Yeah.
So it's it's sort of, Ifyou think of tiny little
spheres, once the spheresit's the surface of the sphere
that is going to oxidize.
Right?
And when you make a bunch ofsmaller spheres, if you take
the total surface area dividedby the mass, It actually gets
(28:09):
bigger and bigger, so you havemuch more surface exposed when
you're using smaller particles,and because of that, oxidation
can be much more of an issue.
And so, when
Chris (28:19):
even cross my mind.
That's fascinating.
Okay.
Gayle (28:22):
Yeah.
And so, once you start gettingdown, we actually recommend
with our type six pastesand smaller that you people
use nitrogen reflow and it'sjust because, you know, the
flux can only do so much.
It can't be completely perfectNo matter how well we try to
design it, and so you attackthe problem of oxidation from
another angle by getting rid ofthe oxygen and replacing it with
Chris (28:45):
Right.
Yeah.
Because we have we havekinda two processes.
We we listeners and andcustomers are probably very
familiar with the fact thatwe have a prototype assembly
line where we jet all of oursolder paste, and we have A
couple production assemblylines where we stencil print
all of our solder paste.
And we use a competitivea competitor's jettable,
solder paste for that.
(29:06):
And I believe it'sthere's two kinds.
I believe one is type six andthe other might also be type
six, but I wanna say it Couldpossibly even be type seven.
And one of themcan be used in air.
It can be used forlarger, uh, dots.
And the other one has tobe reflowed to nitrogen
and but it's used forvery, very small dots.
(29:27):
So when we're doing very finepitch, components and we're
ejecting the solder paste.
We have to re reflowthose in nitrogen.
But the nitrogenis so expensive.
Like, it's so expensive thatjust to just to give listeners
and and yourself, if you're notalready familiar with an idea
of how expensive nitrogen is.
If we were to wetoday we buy it.
(29:50):
Okay?
But we buy it in a liquefiedform and it shows up in a in
a giant tractor trailer witha huge, like, six inch hose
coming off the back of itthat plugs into a nine hundred
gallon tank and fills this up.
And then that comes outof the liquid state.
It it goes into what'scalled an evaporator.
(30:11):
It's basically likea heat exchanger.
It's like a radiator in yourcar, and it takes the liquid
and converts it into a gas,and then we pump that gas into
our reflow oven to to reflowyour boards in nitrogen.
But each one of thosedeliveries is, like, thousands
of dollars, and we get it, Ithink we get it almost every
week we get these deliveries.
(30:32):
So we were like, okay.
It's really expensive tobuy all this nitrogen.
What if we generate it on-site?
I mean, What's air?
Air is like seventy percentnitrogen or something like that.
Right?
So we looked at the generators.
Generators are like A generatorlarge enough to to supply our
reflow oven, just one reflowoven, is like twice the cost
(30:56):
of the reflow oven itself.
Like, it's crazyhow expensive it is.
And then you gotta pay forElectricity to power these
things, which is an it'senormous amount of power.
You gotta be replacing filters,and you got belts, and you
got coolant, and you got oil,and you got all these like,
it's it's a whole thing.
You know?
It's like, oh, man.
(31:16):
So this is why AIM really,really likes to make their
products work in air becausenitrogen's very expensive.
Gayle (31:24):
And, you know, and depending upon your application
that might be just weighingthe costs and benefits of if we
do this without nitrogen, Howmany problems are we running
into, and what is the costof dealing with that versus
what is the cost of just using
Chris (31:37):
Yeah.
Because one order oneorder might be the cost
of our nitrogen generator.
Hundreds ofthousands of dollars.
Like, one order.
So, in that case, itmight be worth it.
That's not profit.
Listeners out there, we'renot I'm not raking it in.
I'm not not driving a Ferrariout of the parking lot.
That's not profit.
That's just the totalorder value that
(31:58):
includes all of my time.
It includes all the partsand all your boards.
The the vapor phase though.
I'm curious if you haveany familiarity with vapor
phase, and And does AIM tryto consider vapor phase when
they're designing products?
Or is it just like, hey, itworks in vapor phase too?
Gayle (32:16):
I'm not super familiar with vapor phase off the
top of my head, But I think,like like I said before,
like, when we design stuff,ideally, we wanted to do
as good as possible in air,And then the other additions
just are attacking oxidationfrom a different angle.
Chris (32:30):
Okay.
Vapor Phase is super cool.
I would love to getsomebody that knows
Vapor Phase on the show.
It's like, apparently,I remember Hearing from
a manufacturer that theliquid, um, Melissa, I
know you we talked aboutthis before, the material.
Do you remember the name of
Melissa (32:47):
Nope.
I'm trying to
Chris (32:48):
She's googling it.
It's it's like a liquid Teflonor something like that, but it's
used in, like, makeup and stuff.
It gets like a relativelyharmless material that
Melissa (32:58):
Golden?
Yeah.
It is golden.
Chris (33:00):
Okay.
It is golden.
And and they you know, it itstays at one temperature, so
you can Put your board in there.
You could put it inthere for an hour.
Well, not really.
You wouldn't wanna putit in there for an hour.
But you could you could and it'snever gonna change temperature.
The weight of a reflow oven,you gotta get that thing
out because otherwise, it'llit'll burn your circuit board.
So you can do some really coolstuff with these vapor phase
systems, but they too are veryexpensive, expensive to operate.
(33:24):
You know, you have allother kinda weird process
considerations you gottago through with all of them
and everything, but it'sa really neat technology.
The other thing I was curiousabout from and I was hoping to
pick your brain a little bit.
In in my opinion, and Imight be wrong and you can
correct me if I'm wrong, butthere are more or less two
categories of flux in the world.
(33:44):
I mean, there's lots ofcategories, but there's
two primary heavy hittersin the world of flux.
You have your so called no cleanflux, And you have your water
washable organic acid fluxes.
I'm really, I really want youto answer this, and I really bet
you don't want to answer this.
Melissa (34:05):
Mhmm.
Chris (34:06):
I really want you to tell me, Chris, We
put all of our energydesigning no clean fluxes.
We the organic acid fluxes,we don't we don't we don't
put a lot of r and d in thoseinto into those anymore.
So just just buy our no cleanbecause that's the best fluxes.
Is that true?
Gayle (34:23):
We definitely do, I think, a lot more no clean
Chris (34:27):
Yes.
Gayle (34:27):
now.
no clean is also like whetherit's truly no clean depends
on your situation too.
So, I mean, usually, it'sminimal residue, and we
always test it to make surethere's no, like, It has good
surface insulation resistance.
You're not gonna get sortof electrochemical migration
(34:50):
or anything going throughany remaining residue.
So we're alwaystesting all of that.
But
Chris (34:55):
you ask if you ask Mike Conrad, who's a friend
of the show, he'll tell youit all needs to be cleaned.
Get it all
Gayle (35:00):
Yeah.
Well, yeah.
Yeah.
It it that could be application
Chris (35:03):
Well, it's in his best interest because
he sells board washers.
So
Gayle (35:07):
go.
Chris (35:08):
he wants it all clean, you know.
The more cleaning we have todo, the more the board More
board washers, he sells.
Yeah.
But we we found that.
And when when we go to theshows and stuff, typically,
your aims of the world andtheir various competitors, what
they're bragging about and whatthey wanna talk about are these
chemistries that generallyare considered no clean.
You know, if used properlyin your processes control
(35:30):
and, you know, all kinds ofasterisks and footnotes there
just to make sure everybodyunderstands that no clean
is just a marketing term.
Yes.
I understand.
Gayle (35:39):
Well, a lot of the way it works is with the flux is
like the it has to all getpast a a certain temperature to
activate and then become inert.
And so if you've gotcertain components that are
trapping bits of the fluxin them or things like that
during the reflow, thenthen it becomes an issue.
So
Chris (35:58):
no issues.
Not coming out ofthis factory, Gail.
Gayle (36:01):
Okay.
Everything's perfect.
You guys never run into a
Chris (36:04):
Never.
Never.
Nope.
I wish.
Yeah.
So, no.
That's fascinating, though.
I I I I, you know, itseemed pretty obvious, and
I would and I have alwaystold people just from my own
observations, like, Look,you know, everybody's pouring
their effort into no cleansolder paste because we don't
wanna you know, you talk aboutenvironmental responsibility.
(36:25):
There's a lot of, you know,chemicals and heat and water
that's used in washing boards.
So if you can create a productthat's reliable without having
to take the flux off of it it itthere is an environmental impact
to leaving that all in place.
So,
Gayle (36:38):
Yeah.
I mean, not only that,like, you've you're
skipping a process step.
You can do a lotmore, A lot faster.
Chris (36:44):
and we have officially purchased a a board washer.
Must I don't know if that'snews to you or not, but we
Melissa (36:51):
What have
Chris (36:51):
Yep.
And so it should be arrivingin the next, I don't know,
several months whenever itdoes arrive, and we'll be
able to offer that service.
But that service isnot gonna be free.
Right, you're gonna it's it'sgonna be something you have
to pay for because, you know,like you said, it's it's an
added it's an added process.
It's an added step.
And, um, yeah, I wouldlisteners, if you're if you're
(37:12):
designing products and youneed boards washed you know,
really consider excuse me.
If you think you need boardswashed, really consider if your
product really does need tohave the boards washed because
it is, you know, an added step.
There's it's not azero risk either.
Parts can become damagedin a in a wash process.
There's certain partsthat cannot get wet.
(37:32):
You know?
And and so then, okay, dowe hand solder those parts?
You know, that it's it's notas simple as just throw this
thing in and then walk away.
It's it there's awhole process control
development side of things.
So, a lot of these noclean solder pastes
are, are being cleaned.
And that's probablywhat we're gonna do.
We're probably not gonnabuy organic acid fluxes
(37:54):
and and try to clean those.
We're probably gonnabuy no clean, and when
customers request it, we'regonna try to clean it.
Think we can do it, Gail?
Of course, we can do it.
Gayle (38:04):
Well, yes.
There are ways to do it, but itis worth noting that Sometimes
the if you try to clean noclean, the cleaner you use
can't just can't be the isn'tnecessarily the same that you
would use on on something else.
And then they'll also notall no cleans are the same.
Of them you you may nothave an issue with at all.
And other ones, if don't cleanthem, you end up with issues.
(38:25):
So the flux chemistry makesa big difference who whoever
the manufacturer is and so on.
So There's always athousand variables at
play at any given time.
Right?
Chris (38:35):
right.
That's right.
And we're reaching out tothe chemistry companies that
make the cleaning chemicalsto you know, make sure we're
getting all that qualifiedfor the type of flux reason.
Do you Gail, if you don'tmind my asking, do you have a
reasonably good understanding?
And if you don't, justsay no and we'll move on.
That's totally fine.
But I I have longstruggled to understand the
classifications of fluxes.
(38:56):
Right?
I I always hear, like, Roloand Halide free in these terms.
And every time I I, like, lookat this stuff, I'm like, okay.
I'm finally gonna sitdown and this stuff out
so they understand it.
And then I'm just likeI I don't understand it.
And I just walk away from it.
And and to this day, Istill don't have a thorough
understanding of what theseterms mean and what they're
(39:17):
trying to address by thesevarious classifications.
Do you do you have a feelfor what they are and what
they mean and and why Ishould care about them?
Gayle (39:25):
Yeah.
I'm I'm I'm not gonna beable to to recite off the
top of my head, but the basicnotion, I think, well, the
halogen and hyaloid free
Chris (39:33):
thought you were the grand poobah of
Gayle (39:34):
Well, I did not say that.
That is not on my bio.
Thank you very much.
Chris (39:40):
I misread that.
I misread that.
Gayle (39:43):
Yeah.
So so sometimes it hasto do with whether a
customer is trying to meetcertain specifications,
uh, like reach or the RoHS
Chris (39:53):
Okay.
Yep.
Gayle (39:54):
Requirements and so you can't have
halogens in your product.
And I know there's a distinctionbetween, like, whether it
Has added halogens versuswhether halogens are there
somehow after things are puttogether, And there's, like,
distinctions in that way.
And then the I'm trying toremember the, like, the the
(40:15):
The, like, r o l zero stuff, ithas to do with halogens and it
has to do, I think, also with,something to do with whether
the chemicals are Organic orrosin or resin or something.
But I do have on my list towrite up an article about this
(40:36):
for our blog when it comes up
Chris (40:39):
you do, be sure to
Gayle (40:40):
that's something I'm always like, oh wait, I
forget which one was whichnow and I, you know, it's It's
really easy to mix that up,so a nice detailed outline
of what exactly it means,
Chris (40:50):
do me a favor.
Add add me to yourdistribution list your blog
newsletter, however you'regonna publish the fact that
you have new blog posts.
And I will read that as soonas it's released because
inquiring minds want to know.
Do you guys rememberthat commercial?
That was a goodnineties commercial.
Gayle (41:03):
Yes.
Yes.
Chris (41:04):
know.
It's like, wasn't it for theNational Enquirer, actually?
I think it was.
Gayle (41:08):
yes.
I believe so.
Chris (41:10):
is like a rag about, like, if the aliens are real and
Gayle (41:13):
Yeah.
That boy
Chris (41:14):
Yeah.
Gayle (41:14):
out of his cave.
Chris (41:16):
Yeah.
That boy.
Oh my gosh.
That's good stuff.
See?
Everybody everybody hadwild stories in their time.
It wasn't just it wasn'tjust the twenty twenties that
we had these wild stories.
Beautiful.
Anything else?
Anything else we we didn'ttouch on that you wanted to
chat about or discuss or youknow, Fill us in on why they
call you the grand poo bot at
Gayle (41:37):
Who calls me that?
Where is this coming from?
Chris (41:43):
It's my ridiculous personality is where
it's coming from, Gail.
Gayle (41:46):
Man, there's too much too much expectation there.
Chris (41:50):
I
Gayle (41:51):
still I'm still learning.
Chris (41:53):
Yeah.
Excellent.
Excellent.
Well, I I tell you what.
For for somebody who's beenwith with with a soldering
company for, if I'm doingmy math right eight months.
You're you're doingpretty well there.
You I I asked you some hardhitting questions, and you
Gayle (42:06):
it it helps to have a background in in, like, physics.
A lot of this I mean, alot of solder is physics.
It's from yeah.
Chris (42:15):
Of course.
Alright.
So let's do it.
Let's get into our favoritepart of the episode.
Really, the real reasonwe do this podcast is it
has nothing to do withelectronics manufacturing.
We just like to get petpeeves off our chest.
So, I understandyou have a good one.
Do you wanna lay it on us?
Gayle (42:28):
iNefficiency.
And inefficiency in many,many ways, not even just in
processes, But, you know, if youever watch people deplane when
you travel or if you've been toa to a grocery store recently,
Chris (42:44):
Gail.
Gayle (42:45):
people don't know how to move to the side and
allow the flow of traffic.
Yes.
Inefficiency is a bigpet peeve of mine.
Chris (42:52):
It's like you went into my mind and
extracted my thoughts.
Gayle (42:58):
I did.
You didn't noticeI was in there?
Chris (43:02):
That one and you and and while you were
there, you implantedthe grand poo ba title.
Is
Gayle (43:06):
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
You
Chris (43:08):
That is so funny.
So we've talkedabout, like, airport
inefficiencies and stuff.
I love that you mentionedAnd I I I don't think this
is a huge pet peeve of mine,but I don't think I've ever
really put my finger on it.
Moving out of the wayfor the flow of traffic.
Melissa (43:24):
Yeah.
Gayle (43:25):
do this thing too, like, I don't know if
you've been in crowds.
If they walk into a newroom or through some sort of
portal to another, they stopbecause they're trying to
figure out what to do nextinstead of moving to the side
and then figuring it out.
Chris (43:39):
so true.
It's so true.
I was just my wife and I justran a five k in a nearby town.
Did they call it thehot chocolate run?
It's a great time.
You get hot chocolate the end,made it the local brewery.
And so everybody walks upto get their hot chocolate
out of the they have theseinsulated dispensers, you know?
And and you get your hotchocolate and they turn
around and they start sippingit and you're like, you're
(43:59):
in front of the dispenser?
Hello?
Gayle (44:03):
Yep.
Yep.
It's like there's somethingin our, like, Instinctual
nature that makes us juststay near the thing or
you get into the new room.
Yes.
Some of us are verygood about moving to the
Chris (44:15):
Not that I'm very good at it.
I'm really uncomfortablebeing in the way.
Like, I'm reallyreally uncomfortable
when I'm in the way.
Like, I'm trying to find thecorner I can get out of people's
way because I do not like,
Gayle (44:26):
Yeah.
Because I know how much Ihate people who do that.
I don't want people hating me,so I have to be perfect on this
front so I can judge others.
Chris (44:33):
That's right.
Gayle (44:34):
gotta have the moral high ground.
Chris (44:36):
I like that.
Having the world high ground.
Oh, that, That's
Melissa (44:40):
Yeah.
Especially this time of year.
It's the worst.
Chris (44:42):
good
Gayle (44:43):
Oh, yes.
Don't go don't go togrocery stores on the
weekends right now.
It's it's a terrible situation.
Chris (44:50):
My wife my wife showed me a meme the other day that
said well, not the other day.
It was a while ago now.
And it was like it was likea a man, like, talking to his
wife, and he goes you know, he'slike, honey, I love you so much.
I'd even go to Costcoon a Saturday with you.
Gayle (45:09):
Yes.
Chris (45:12):
And so she sent that to me, and then it was
like it was Saturday, andwe had to go to a Costco.
And I'm like, Oh,let's see the zoo.
Because normally normally,I have an amazing wife,
and she does all theshopping for our family.
And And I rarely ever haveto go to one of these stores.
But I was like, let'sgo together, you know.
Let's go on a Saturday.
And I just like sat back likeit was like a performance.
(45:34):
I was like, This is insane.
And I'm the guy that,like, parks really far
away because I don't liketo be in people's way.
So I park at, like, the veryedge of the parking lot.
I'd much rather justWalk in rather than drive
through all the traffic andpedestrians and everything.
And, like, just just likestanding back at the back
of the parking lot andWatching the madness of people
(45:55):
try to navigate a parkinglot, I'm like, holy moly.
This is nuts.
This is stressful.
No wonder, like, the daysthat my wife goes shopping,
It's like, you know, she'slike spent she's spent.
You know, you get home.
It's like,
Gayle (46:08):
Well, I have a I have a trick for dealing with this,
and this is my same trick fordealing with being annoyed
in traffic, and that is Audiobooks and podcasts in your ear.
So you got something elsegoing on, you can be less
annoyed by everythingthat's in front of you.
Chris (46:24):
I agree with that.
I agree with that.
You you got a goodpodcast for us?
Something you really enjoy that
Gayle (46:29):
Oh my gosh.
Chris (46:30):
It doesn't have to be related to electronics.
It could be, you know, you'rereally into some, like,
you know, uh-uh, commentaryon the Golden Bachelor.
I don't know.
Gayle (46:39):
I mean, lately, I've been, I've been listening
to some audiobooks aboutthe Ottoman Empire, you
know, with all the conflictin the Middle East.
I'm trying to get tothe bottom of things
Chris (46:51):
Are you are you referring to Dan Carlin's podcast
about the Ottoman Empire?
Gayle (46:55):
No.
I don't think I'vecome across that.
I've been listeningto some of them.
I don't know if anyone'sever come across the
great courses series.
Chris (47:02):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Gayle (47:03):
Yeah.
So there's a lot of lectureseries that they have on on
all sorts of historical things.
So I've been doing some OttomanEmpire, some big history,
trying to piece together, youknow, the entire current state
of humanity and how it got
Chris (47:16):
Oh, then hopefully, you can solve it for us, Gail,
Gayle (47:18):
I'm working on it.
It's it's it's coming.
It's coming.
Chris (47:20):
So so Dan Carlin's Hardcore History,
very famous podcast.
He had a whole bit onthe Ottoman Empire.
It was excellent.
It's going back a few years now.
But, Um, I I am a bigfan of the podcast ninety
nine percent Invisible.
And I think a lot of people are.
I wouldn't be alone there.
I think it's one of the morePopular podcast out there.
And they are doing a deep diveon, Uh, Robert Moses and the
(47:47):
book that was written abouthim called The Power Broker.
Have you everheard of this book?
Gayle (47:52):
No.
Chris (47:53):
Okay.
So people who've heardof this book are,
like, obsessed with it.
Absolutely obsessed with it.
And it's one of these thingswhere, like, once you've read
it, If you can't help but telleverybody about it and, like, to
an like, an annoying state, it'slike, oh, do you know that guy?
He
Gayle (48:06):
how to annoy your
Chris (48:07):
Yeah.
Exactly.
How to know your know yourfriends and influence nobody.
It's but so it's my My favoritepodcast, and they're doing
they're like, we're gonnaread this book together, and
we're gonna do about a hundredpages a month, and we're gonna
discuss those hundred pageseach month for this podcast.
I'm like, alright.
I love this podcast, soI'll I'll I'll pull it up.
(48:28):
And I bought it.
Be you can't buy it on Kindle,which is very annoying.
No idea why you can'tbuy it on Kindle.
But the worst part about it is,I so I bought it on paperback.
This book, it it's I thinkthey classify it as a weapon.
I'm pretty sure it shouldbe classified as a weapon.
This thing is sevenhundred thousand words.
Seven hundred thousand words.
(48:49):
I go, I'm trying toput this into context.
I go, wait a
Gayle (48:53):
pages did they get that into?
Like, how small is the
Chris (48:56):
it's small.
It is small.
And then, And I'm I'm tryingto put this into context.
I'm like, wait a second.
How many pages so I Google,the bible is seven hundred and
twenty five thousand words.
The Bible
Gayle (49:09):
Yeah.
I think most, like, novelsare usually in the hundred
thousand word range.
Chris (49:14):
so I'm thinking to myself, what have I
committed myself too.
And so I started I startedreading it, and I get it.
Like, I got it within thefirst couple chapters.
I'm like, oh, thisis an amazing book.
Because As an American,it is so much about how,
like, things outside ofpolitics works in government.
(49:36):
You know?
So it's like, okay.
Outside of the political system,how does the government work,
and and how do people influencethings, and how does stuff get
built, and, you know, how dohow does how does this life
that we call civilization inthe United States come about.
And and we're using RobertMoses and his career as a
lens to focus in on that.
And it's like, it'sreally, really interesting,
(49:58):
really fascinating.
But, yeah, so now I'm that guy.
Now I'm that guy that has to
Gayle (50:03):
Now I have to check it out.
Chris (50:04):
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
The power broker.
I'm not sure if there's gonnabe as many lessons to learn in
the power broker as there wouldbe in the bible, but we'll see.
We'll see how farwe get on Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a good pet peeve, Gail.
Oh, man.
I mean, we get somedoozies on here.
That's top That's number one.
That's the best one yet.
(50:25):
It's the best one.
The inefficiency ofmovement of people.
Yeah.
Because it just it strikes
Gayle (50:30):
inefficiency in general.
Like, I always feel like it itit is my nature to streamline
processes as best I can.
Like, it's is something Ido without even thinking
about it, and so when I comeacross people who don't even
Chris (50:44):
See
Gayle (50:44):
the world that way,
Chris (50:45):
It's like they're blind.
Right?
It's like you you don't youdon't even have this sixth sense
that you're like do you when
Gayle (50:51):
aren't plotting five steps ahead to figure out how
to line things up and do twentythings simultaneously so you
can get it all done quicker.
What's wrong
Chris (50:58):
Exactly.
Well, I'll tell you what, Gail.
With the if this whole thingwith AIM doesn't work out.
You come out hereto Massachusetts, we
got a job for you.
We need we needefficient thinkers.
Actually, Melissa, was itthe last episode where I
talked about this where Ihave, like, to efficient no.
It was the conveyor episode.
It was the conveyor episode.
Gal, if you wanna hear my wholediscussion on my addiction
to efficiency and and I and Icall it an addiction because
(51:20):
I think it's unhealthy.
Like, I think I've damagedrelationships with it.
I
Gayle (51:23):
Well, yeah.
Well, a part of the problemwith it is you can, you
know, when you think youcan Make everything more
efficient when you reallycan't because there's always
that theory versus practice.
Right?
Like, Hypothetically, inyour mind, you can see how
it'll be super efficient.
Then, when reality happens,little little things start
coming in that you didn'tinclude in your analysis, So
(51:46):
you can only judge from afar.
Chris (51:48):
That's right.
That's right.
Because we are social creatures,and we base our decisions on
social things, not on facts, andthat's just how the world is.
So alright.
Great.
Thank you forcoming on the show.
Really, really enjoyed this,and it's just been wonderful.
I I'm gonna have follow-upquestions for you.
Okay?
So you're gonna get emails fromme whether you want it or not.
Gayle (52:06):
yay.
Chris (52:12):
Said every person ever when they heard
me say that to them.
Brilliant.
So, yeah, as always, wewelcome the audience to
get in touch with us.
We're contact at pickplace podcast dot com.
How if if listeners wanna getin touch with Gail, what's
the what's the best way toget in touch with yourself?
Gayle (52:27):
You can email me at g towell, that's g t o w e
l l At aims solder dot com.
Yeah.
Second l, very important.
Chris (52:36):
At aim at aim solder dot com.
K?
A I m solder dot com.
Excellent.
So, and please anybodywho's listening, if you've
enjoyed the show best wayto spread the message about
it, leave us a review asMelissa always reminds us.
But I really like tosay, tell a friend.
Tell somebody if youthink they'll enjoy it.
Gail, tell some friends thataim to listen to this episode.
Gayle (52:56):
I will, I will.
We're gonna add it to ournext The internal newsletter.
We're gonna be putting somelinks maybe on social media.
Chris (53:03):
Oh, that's great.
Beautiful.
I appreciate it.
Melissa (53:06):
Wonderful.
Thanks so much, and thankseveryone for listening to
the Pick Place podcast.
And if you like what youheard, consider following
us in your favorite podcastapp, And please leave us a
review, like Chris said, onApple Podcasts or wherever
you get your podcast from.
Chris (53:21):
Thanks, everybody.
Thanks,
Welcome to the Pick Place podcast, a show where
we talk about electronicsmanufacturing and everything
related to getting a circuitboard into this whole world.
This is Chris Dennywith Worthington.
Melissa (00:18):
And this is Melissa Hough with CircuitHub.
Chris (00:21):
keep trying to mix it up on you.
Melissa (00:23):
Yeah.
Sometimes just gettingrid of the whole intro.
Chris (00:26):
Altogether.
It's it's bad.
It's I've said this, what,seventy times now, and I I still
don't even have it memorized.
I've said it so many times,and I've listened to it
so many times, and I stillwon't have it memorized.
Melissa (00:38):
one of these days.
Chris (00:39):
of these days, I should be able to do it.
How's things been?
Melissa (00:42):
Pretty good.
Pretty good.
How about you?
Busy?
Chris (00:45):
Yeah.
Very busy as usual.
Very busy.
We're doing a recordmonth, which is exciting.
Growth is good.
And hiring, that's going well.
Getting some reallyawesome candidates.
And Got the sales team outhere, got to meet with them,
got some production engineerswe got to meet with kind of,
like, setting ourselves upfor the future and hoping
to hoping for big success.
(01:06):
Speaking of which, for thefuture, I think I had mentioned
on the show a while back thatwe're looking to sell some
pick and place equipment.
Melissa (01:14):
yeah.
Yeah.
Chris (01:15):
It that's looking very likely.
So we will be an allFuji manufacturer pretty
soon next three to sixmonths, I'm assuming.
These things take time.
But that'll be a relief.
When you're trying to operateon two different platforms,
it's quite a challenge for amanufacturer, so having just
one platform will be very nice.
Very nice.
(01:35):
Lot less headaches.
As it is today, you know,our one older machine, we
just, a lot of times, justmost days don't use it.
Whereas if we had, If we hadall Fuji equipment, we could
easily just sling the jobfrom one machine to the other
and and keep things moving.
But yeah.
We thank our customersfor being patient with us.
We're a little bit behind,not too far behind.
(01:57):
Most jobs are shipping, like,most jobs are shipping on time.
A few jobs are shipping,like, a day late.
Maybe a couple ofdays late at most.
But yeah, not doing too bad.
We get we just get slammed withorders at the end of the year.
I I'm not exactlysure why it is.
It happens
Melissa (02:13):
So hopefully we can catch up just in time
for the Lunar New Year,
Chris (02:17):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Exactly.
And I'm going away.
I'm
Melissa (02:22):
where are you going?
Chris (02:23):
to visit my niece, and so I'm gonna
be gone for a few days.
So yep.
North Carolina, Gonna go to a goto a Carolina Hurricanes game.
Ever heard of the Hurricanes?
Melissa (02:33):
I don't really follow sports, to be honest.
Chris (02:36):
This is this cracks me up.
North Carolina, where it'swhere it gets below thirty
two degrees maybe, like, fivetimes a year has a hockey team.
Melissa (02:44):
Oh.
Chris (02:44):
So, like, so does Miami.
Melissa (02:46):
I mean, like, California does too.
You know?
Chris (02:50):
Up here, like like, We play hockey, like, on ponds.
You know what I mean?
Can't exactly do thatin the Carolinas.
But, anyway, shouldbe a good time.
So I don't know if that'llhave an impact on when we
record next and when we getcontent out, but hopefully not.
We're trying to keepup with everything.
So Thank you everybody forlistening and sticking with us.
And by the way, more feedbackon the conveyor episode than
(03:14):
any I'm telling you, peoplelike the conveyor episode.
Melissa (03:19):
That's too funny.
Chris (03:20):
lot of this content is pretty evergreen too.
So if you if, you know, ifyou're if you're just catching
up to the the podcast and youwanna listen to something,
a lot of the old stuffis is still relevant and
Melissa (03:29):
Yeah.
For
Chris (03:30):
here.
So, great.
Well, let's generate somenew content, Melissa.
What do you
Melissa (03:34):
That sounds absolutely wonderful.
Chris (03:36):
Alright.
Well, so I I had been wantingto do an episode for a long
time with, a manufacturerof materials that we use.
Because I just love to hear,you know, sort of the way that
this show is pulling back thecurtain on what's going on
in electronics manufacturing.
(03:57):
I wanted I wanted to use thisas a tool to also pull back
the curtain on on everythingelse that's going on in
electronics manufacturing,not just within this factory,
but who are our suppliers.
Right?
So I would love to get people,like like, stencil people on
the show, and I'd love to get,like, pick and place people
on the show and and kindapick their brain a little bit.
(04:17):
And we we've had a coupleopportunities like that, but
like, even just the most recentSo just talking about software
and how software is used for,um, these sorts of things.
You know, we've had testequipment people on the
show and stuff like that.
But So this week we'regonna have a discussion
with Gayle Towel from AIMwhich we've talked quite a
bit about AIM in the past.
Melissa (04:39):
There we have.
Chris (04:41):
up in Montreal.
That was a epic,epic experience.
But but, yeah, let'shave her in, Gail.
Gail, welcome to the show,and thanks for coming on
the Pick Place podcast.
Gayle (04:51):
Hi.
Happy to be here.
Chris (04:53):
So let me make sure I got your bio right.
You are a you are thethe grand poobah at AIM.
Is that correct?
Did I read that title right?
The grand poobah?
Gayle (05:01):
I I don't think I put that
Chris (05:03):
Oh, shoot.
Alright.
I missed I missed all that.
No.
The content the contentmarketing specialist
for AIMS Solder.
And you're a smarty pants.
You've got degrees inmathematics and physics.
This is yeah.
I'm just a lowly engineer.
We just you know, We take yourmath and your physics and try
to apply it to the real world.
We don't really know what any
Gayle (05:20):
which is really the purpose of it
Chris (05:22):
Yeah.
I guess so, isn't it?
Yeah.
Brilliant.
And so, I guess you'veyou've been using, you know,
your experience in thisfield to, help generate
content and technicalpapers and things for AIM.
And I'd love to hear a littlebit about your background
and, you know, what youwere doing before you came
to AIM and and what ledto your current role here.
Gayle (05:44):
My background's a little weird.
Chris (05:46):
It all?
Gayle (05:48):
so I I got master's degrees in math and physics.
I went into teachingfrom college.
I taught mostly at a communitycollege for I think twelve
years or so teaching astronomyand physics and math classes.
And,
Chris (06:06):
That sounds cool, actually.
Gayle (06:07):
Yeah.
It sounds cool.
During that time, I alsostarted pursuing a passion
for creative writing andfiction writing and was doing
a lot of that on the side.
Then when I went
Chris (06:23):
Your own creative writing and fiction
Gayle (06:25):
Yes.
Chris (06:26):
Oh, no way.
What is with all these talentedartists coming on the show?
I don't understand this.
Yeah.
Okay.
Go ahead.
Gayle (06:33):
yeah.
And then I wanted to leaveteaching, and I was trying
to figure out what onearth I do with myself and
Chris (06:40):
to write any episodes of soap operas, did you?
Because that would just
Gayle (06:42):
No soap operas.
Chris (06:44):
thing.
Because our guest last week wasin soap operas, So that would
just been wild if, like, youwrote some of the episodes.
Yeah.
Gayle (06:50):
No.
No.
No.
No.
But I decided to try my handat some just freelance writing.
You know, I had Studied writing,I was really good at technical
stuff, and there was a reallygreat niche for people who can
handle complex technical subjectmatter and write about it well.
And since I've been notonly creative writing, but
teaching, I mean, you geta lot of the ability to
(07:12):
communicate complex ideas.
And that was going very well,and then I went to pursue a full
time role somewhere, and AIMSolder had this role available
that they were trying to figureout how they find someone to
fill, where they needed tobe able to Do all the content
writing and the marketingwriting, but also understand
(07:33):
what all of the technical peoplewere doing and how everything
was being developed and beable to communicate that.
And so I was able tojust slide right in and
it's been a great fit.
Chris (07:45):
Cool.
So how long haveyou been with AIM?
Gayle (07:47):
Only since April.
I would say it feels likelonger, but in a good way.
In a good way.
Chris (07:53):
Okay.
Alright.
Alright.
Very good.
If they make you feellike you're at home,
is that is that what
Gayle (07:58):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's been a veryvery comfortable fit.
Chris (08:01):
Yeah.
They're they're agreat organization.
I've I've enjoyed workingthem as a working with
them as a on the on thecustomer side of things.
So I imagine they treat theirpeople quite well because
they got good people there.
Gayle (08:12):
Yeah.
I mean, one of our things thatI've noticed is how long so many
of the people have been here.
People come and they stay.
Chris (08:19):
stay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Good.
Well, so I'll Okay.
I have all kinds of questions,but let's let's not let's not
get into my questions yet.
I just wanna make I wannamake sure I understand
kinda your role.
So when you say contactmarketing specialist, the goal
there is to is to create what?
(08:40):
It's it's to writetechnical papers.
It's to, like, interactwith customers.
Like, what, like, what is Whatdoes your day look like or maybe
what does your week look like?
What's what's your agenda?
Gayle (08:51):
It's a lot of different things.
So sometimes I'm I'mwriting press releases
about products or thingshappening with their company.
Sometimes I am workingon technical papers and
presentations that we mightbe doing at a conference.
Sometimes I'm putting togetherPowerPoint presentations
for, uh, peep other people todeliver at conferences or for
(09:14):
internal, you know, productreleases and things like that.
I've been doing a lot of work.
We're gonna be updatingour website very soon, so
I've been doing a lot ofthe content work for that.
And when we do update it, we'regonna have a blog section, so
there'll be regular blog content
Chris (09:31):
sympathize with that exercise.
That's a lot of
Gayle (09:35):
Yeah.
And then trying to placetrying to write and place
technical articles indifferent trade journals and
things like that as well.
So any Written content andthen I also do, um, I help
out with some of our socialmedia content I've been doing.
We have this series called lyingdown where we Discuss a problem
(09:55):
that might happen related tosolder on the production line
and what to do about it, andso I've been taking those on.
So, Basically, anyanything that's content.
Usually written content,but anything from the
heavily technical to theheavily marketing and
everything in between.
Chris (10:12):
Okay.
Yeah.
Melissa (10:13):
that very relatable myself, actually.
Yeah.
Chris (10:16):
I was gonna say, you just described
Melissa (10:18):
Yeah.
Basically.
Chris (10:22):
Wonderful.
So, That sounds great.
So with with only having beenthere for seven or eight months,
feel free to stop me if I askyou a question that is just,
you know, like, alright, Chris.
This is something thatyou need to talk to one of
our our doctorate PhD guysabout this kind of stuff.
But it's mostly just I'mcurious about, um, the the
(10:44):
gist of the show is to is to,you know, We expose engineers
to what goes on in electronicsmanufacturing and how we
how we get the job done.
So we buy products from AIM.
wE buy, you know, just there'sjust the raw material, just the
raw solder alloy that ends upgetting used in our Selective
(11:05):
soldering machines or it can beused in, like, wave soldering
machines, things like that.
We buy wire solder thatthat has maybe a little bit
flux embedded in it for handsoldering, things like that.
It's probably what mostengineers are familiar with.
And we buy solder paste,which we've discussed
on the show before.
It's like a powder of ofmetal, powdered metal that's
blended up with chemicals,flux in order to create the
(11:28):
surface mount solder joints.
And I think for me, it's, youknow, it's like you open a
website, you'll scroll throughand you're like, okay, yep,
I need some solder paste.
Click buy, it shows up.
I have no idea how it got there.
You know?
Like, I went to AIM I wentto AIM in Montreal, and I
saw their their factory.
(11:48):
Mind blowing.
Absolutely.
Like, the scale of thatoperation, I just had
no idea how big it was.
That have you had a chanceto visit Canada yet?
Gayle (11:57):
I haven't been to our Montreal site, but I did go to
our Juarez site in Mexico wherewe have Production and also
applications lab there as well.
Chris (12:06):
What are they doing?
What what are theyproducing in Juarez?
Gayle (12:10):
Everything.
Chris (12:11):
Okay.
Everything I
Gayle (12:12):
So all the things the the solder paste, the Bar solder
bar, the wire solder, and somespecialty materials as well.
Chris (12:21):
Alright.
So chances are if I'm buyingyou know, a bar solder, it
could be coming either fromMontreal or Juarez maybe.
Gayle (12:29):
Yeah.
So it probably I don't knowthe exact details of our
shipping strategy, but ittypically will ship from where
it's easiest to ship from
Chris (12:38):
Yeah.
Which I mean, like, I'mfour hours from Montreal,
so it's it's probably it'smuch further from Juarez.
But you never know.
Whatever's got availability,that sometimes can can
take precedent over it.
But anyway, so, like,I I'm genuinely curious
sometimes about about okay.
(13:00):
You know, there was a time whenand and I know you you haven't
been in this industry as long assome of us ink stained wretches
have, which that's actually moreyour term, ink stained wretch,
because in the writing industry,that's where it comes from.
Right?
But, um, but I've been aroundthis industry for a long time.
And I remember When thepredominant alloy in this
(13:20):
industry was the tin leadalloy, that was the predominant
alloy that everybody used.
And then somebody startedtalking about like, hey,
you know, what if we gotrid of this lead stuff?
You know, it's notso great, you know.
And Somebody, somewhere, hadto take the time to figure out
(13:43):
How to blend metals togetherto create an alloy that
could work for electronicsmanufacturing, could create a
reliable solder joint, Wet tolead somehow and could, you
know, handle the temperaturesand and these sorts of things
and and and create a productthat that people would buy.
At some point, the most, nowtoday, the most popular alloy,
(14:05):
now there's a lot of alloys,but probably the most popular
lead free alloy that I'maware of is the shorthand is
called SAC three zero five.
And it's it's Yeah.
It's a very, very popular alloy.
I've always been curiouswhat what the process is like
that a a company says, okay.
(14:26):
We you know, it doesn't have tobe you don't you don't have to
talk about SAC three zero five.
You weren't around thirty yearsago when that LOI came up.
But, like, Somebodydrives a need.
Who who is the persondriving that need?
Is is it a Centimeters like us?
Is it is it NASA?
Is it You know, Raytheon, like,who who is saying, like, hey.
SAC three zero five doesn'twork for us, or ten lead
(14:47):
doesn't work for us, or s n onehundred c doesn't work for us.
You know?
We need we need a newproduct to to accomplish x.
And then what does that looklike on AIM side of things?
Like, do they do theydo, like, market analysis
or do they, like, Just,you know, like, okay.
Well, if you if you'll committo buying ten thousand pounds of
it, then we'll make it for you.
You know?
Like, I'm I just have no idea,like, what it looks like on
(15:09):
the opposite end when it goesto create a new product or
it doesn't have to be alloy.
It could be flux.
It could be whatever,you know, because you
guys make everything.
Gayle (15:17):
Yeah.
So well, I mean, itdepends on many things.
So Some of the what we developis driven by, you know,
what potential customersare saying they need.
We need somethingthat does x y z.
And we have already severaldifferent alloys we make, and
we different flux chemistries,and sometimes we can meet that
need with existing products.
Chris (15:38):
Okay.
Gayle (15:39):
But if we need to develop a new product we
we need to evaluate thebusiness case for it.
Right?
If someone just wants alittle bit of something and
you know, once a year, it'snot really worth our while.
But if it's going tobe a new product, the
use case makes sense.
And if we also see that there's,You know, broader market
appeal like we could sellthis to other people as well.
(16:01):
We'll look into that.
So some of it is driven bythe the needs of the customers
and prospective customers.
Some of it is also lookingahead and seeing where trends
are leading which you cansometimes get hints at if you
attend Different conferences.
You can see what people arewhere people are putting the
research dollars and whatthey're trying to make happen.
Chris (16:20):
Yeah.
Because, like, I rememberhearing at Apex a couple years
ago, people are looking intolower temperature alloys to try
to save energy and things like
Gayle (16:28):
Yeah.
That's a big thing becauseI think when we moved away
from lead, a lot of sac threezero five and so on have
higher melting temperatures,
Chris (16:35):
Yeah.
Much
Gayle (16:36):
more energy.
And not only that, but, youknow, it starts to affect
Which components you can use,what kind of board substrate
you can use and so on.
But the big trick at thebeginning is a lot of those
low temperature soldersInclude bismuth and you
Chris (16:52):
Yes.
Gayle (16:53):
do bismuth with lead or you get super low temperature
and it doesn't work very well.
And so we had to wait untilthe industry really got away
from lead, and most thingsdid not have any lead in them.
And now, a lot more lowtemperature solders are able to
start coming on the market withbismuth in them because of that.
But
Chris (17:12):
Oh, no kidding.
Oh, so you're saying becausebecause the components had
lead on them, you couldn'tuse an alloy that had bismuth
because because of thisit would it would the end
result would be some lowtemperature melting point
Gayle (17:25):
Or you might be mixing like different like an existing
solder on on a board with thethe Low temperature solder.
Yeah.
So they're now becoming more ofa thing because most processes
don't have lead in them anymore.
So now you can use those alloys,but there's a whole lot of
variations on those alloys.
So you have your very basictin bismuth, but then you have
(17:47):
people adding all sorts oflittle bits and pieces of other
things like antimony and so onto just change little things
about what the alloy does.
Chris (17:55):
about unobtanium?
Do you guys use any unobtanium?
Gayle (17:58):
That's a trade secret.
Okay.
But, yeah, I mean, the partof the trick is Bismuth
can also make stuff brittleand it doesn't do very
well with drop shock.
And so there's a lot of whatcan we do both with the process
of Creating the alloy or addinglittle bits of things into
the alloy to make it better,and that's an ongoing thing.
(18:19):
There's a lot of people workingon How to make a really nice
low temperature alloy thatcan handle drop shock testing.
Chris (18:27):
Gosh.
I would love to have alower temperature alloy.
You know, it's like, when whenwe were primarily a leaded
solder shop, um, to to getthe hole fill on a through
hole part was like, Alright.
It was like you like, oh, okay.
This didn't feel very well.
Let me just dwell here alittle bit longer, and then
sure enough, just wickedright up, and life was
(18:48):
good, and you moved on.
Now with the high tempalloys, it's like, oh, gosh.
This is I cannot getthis hole to fill.
I'm fighting this.
So if we can get backnow to some low temp
alloys, I'm all for it.
Except now I boughtall your solder and I
filled my solder pots.
Would you buy it back from me?
You want some?
Gayle (19:04):
Well, we do we do do recycling and reclaim.
Chris (19:07):
true.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
I forgot about that.
How could I forget?
That's what I went tovisit in Montreal was the
recycling and reclaim.
Yeah.
It's interesting.
So, I I I love the idea ofof looking ahead to trends
and things like that.
Now do you guys present papersand stuff at, like, Apex or
Product Tronica, like, whatwhat's what's that like to talk
(19:28):
about what you're working on?
Gayle (19:30):
Yeah.
So, one of the things that I'mdoing as I'm on as we had sort
of, had trouble keeping up withall of that side of things.
So I'm trying to rampthat back up again.
We do we are potentiallypresenting on some low
temperature solder researchat Apex this this year
coming up in April.
And then we are working on someother projects, uh, hopefully
(19:53):
for the next year's SMTAI andthe Apex after that Related to
looking at t five pastes and
Chris (20:01):
Oh, interesting.
Why t five?
What's what's going on there?
Gayle (20:06):
First of all, the t five refers to the size of the
solder powder used in the paste.
One of the most common,The higher the number,
the smaller the powder.
So t four is one of the mostcommonly used sizes right now.
And then but once you startgetting smaller and smaller
components and you're tryingto print that solder on smaller
(20:27):
and smaller apertures, you haveto go to smaller and powders.
So we've been doing a lot ofwork on our sort of research
and development side, working ontype six powders and even finer.
We actually just released aproduct a a paste that designed
for type six and finer powders.
But a lot of companiesare working in that type
(20:48):
five space right now.
And we had I believe we hadlooked into that several years
ago, but we've refined processesand and things have evolved
so much since then that ourtype five capabilities have
really significantly improved.
And so we're doing sort of athorough deep dive into, uh,
what is the ideal metal load?
(21:09):
How well does it Prints usingdifferent flux mediums and
things like that to sort ofcome up with the the ideal
mixture and use cases Fortype five solder paste.
Chris (21:20):
Yeah.
Interesting.
Yeah.
We we are, no surprise,primarily using type four.
It's still Kind ofthe most popular.
We've had some aperturesthough that are pretty tight.
And yeah.
I I can see the writing onthe wall here, you know.
And and our the nature of ourbusiness is we tend to be at the
bleeding edge of capabilities.
(21:41):
Because a lot of people arehiring us to test out parts.
Right?
So when TI comes out with thelatest, you know, who's them
or what's it, and somebodywants to try it and they
just need five of them built.
You know, they'll come to usto have them built because
you're not going to handassemble a device that has
point two five millimeter pitch,know, solder balls on there.
You gotta you have got tobuild that with machines.
(22:05):
So I could I could see typefive becoming more of a thing.
Do do you have a feel for, likelike is it mostly kind of in
development, or are people,like, really starting to buy
it now and they're startingto use it and and you're you
know, you have some volumesthat are shipping out the doors.
Is it mostly, like, people arejust testing the waters with
Gayle (22:22):
I would say like more and more people are Looking into it.
I think we've been doing it morein our Asia market in in China.
bUt Like I said, we actuallyjust released in the Americas
and for the rest of the worldare are a paste designed
for type six and smallerwhich can print through
(22:42):
apertures smaller than ahundred and fifty microns.
We actually have had successfulprinting down to things with
diameters of around seventyor eighty Microns, so it's
designed for the very,very, very tiny apertures.
Chris (22:58):
I can't I can't even imagine that must be
a chemically etched no.
I I think they can makeapertures that small on a laser.
Gayle (23:05):
they are making Yeah.
I'm not sure how this thestencils are made but they're
Thinner and very tiny aperturesand they usually have a coating
on them I think to aid in therelease because it starts to get
really tricky once you get that
Chris (23:18):
I can't remember the last stencil I used that did
not have that coating on them.
I mean, it's just likethey all need it now.
There's everything hasfine pitch parts on it.
We need that coating to get therelease we're looking after.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Alright.
So let me let me ask then.
Alright.
You're you're doingthis research.
You're lookinginto these things.
Who are the peopledoing this, though?
(23:39):
Are are the are theScientists, are they chemists?
Are they physicists?
Mathematicians that went tothe University of Oregon?
Or what what what are who
Gayle (23:47):
Yeah.
So we have research anddevelopment teams and
we have research anddevelopment facilities in
Canada, Mexico, and China.
And it consists ofchemists, metallurgists,
process engineers.
Those are the sortof people involved.
And we keep them supplied withall of the latest equipment,
so we can make sure we're we'regetting accurate measurements
Chris (24:07):
you have a stencil printer that you're or
maybe multiple, probably.
Yeah.
Gayle (24:12):
so yeah.
So it's basically alot of scientists.
So one of my coworkerslikes to call them the
eggheads, you know.
Chris (24:19):
That ain't right.
And they're andthey're just okay.
So, like, in my world,we get, You know, we
get like a work order.
Somebody comes to us and says,hey, we gotta build this, and
it has all the informationof what we have to work on.
In their world is somebody likehypothesizing, like, I think I
need to develop a product likethis and then going out and
(24:39):
trying it out, or is there likeis there like a is do they get
a work order that says, hey,or blend these things together?
I guess the processengineers are probably
the ones who get the workorders from the scientists.
That's probably how that
Gayle (24:49):
Yeah.
I think it's more of awe need a product that
can do this or that.
And then they start to figureout, okay, well, that's
gonna require using smallerparticles or changing the
flux chemistry or and theyjust Start experimenting with
different variations untilthey come upon a solution.
Chris (25:08):
Gosh.
Science is so cool.
Alright.
So, I'm actually we're inthe middle of evaluating
reflow ovens right now.
We're trying to investigatewhat kind of reflow
oven we wanna buy.
We're looking at a few differentvendors, and there's there's
some great options out there.
But one of the things that thatgets talked about when it comes
to reflow ovens and you know,a mass soldering process in
(25:31):
general, is whether to solderin air or whether to solder in
some kind of inert environment.
Because you could you could youcould take a traditional reflow
oven, And you can fill it withnitrogen, and you can reflow in
an inert environment that way.
Or you can use, like, a vaporphase system which uses I forgot
what the it's like I think theterm is like a golden fluid.
(25:52):
It's like liquid Teflon thatthey boil into a vapor, and
it's it's really stinking cool.
But anyway, From your sideof things, you must have some
understanding of the marketand how to develop products.
Do you do you know ifAIM specifically targets,
developing products for, Wewanna make sure this works
(26:14):
really, really well in air.
We don't care how it performsin nitrogen and vice versa.
Or, you know, Is thateven a consideration?
Or or I've I've alwaysbeen curious about that.
And the reason I'mparticularly asking right
now is because Should Ibe spending all this money
trying to get a nitrogen oven?
Or or are you guys, like, no.
We we we do all ourresearch for error.
(26:35):
Chris, you don't haveto worry about it.
Gayle (26:37):
Well, so it's a it's a it's a little complicated.
So, I mean, ideally, and I thinkthis is probably true of any
solder manufacturer, we wouldreally like all of our products
to work just fine in air.
We would like the alloy,the flux chemistry.
So the flux is sort ofwhat the problem with
air is the oxidation.
Right?
So if
Chris (26:56):
Great for us, horrible for everything else.
Gayle (26:58):
Exactly.
So the metal comes in contactwith oxygen and then it
oxidizes and creates thingsthat that cause problems when
you try to solder and doesn'tattach as well and so on.
So the flux chemistryis designed to minimize
that oxidation.
Okay?
But it's not perfect.
So if you have oxygen,you can have oxidation.
(27:21):
But if you remove the oxygenand replace it Nitrogen which
doesn't react in the sameway, then that doesn't happen.
So we ideally try to getour products to be as great
in Oxygen and in air asthey can be, but in certain
cases, if depending upon howcritical an application is
or in particular what we'vebeen looking at is Smaller
(27:44):
and smaller particle size, itbecomes much more of an issue.
And the reason for that Yeah.
So it's it's sort of, Ifyou think of tiny little
spheres, once the spheresit's the surface of the sphere
that is going to oxidize.
Right?
And when you make a bunch ofsmaller spheres, if you take
the total surface area dividedby the mass, It actually gets
(28:09):
bigger and bigger, so you havemuch more surface exposed when
you're using smaller particles,and because of that, oxidation
can be much more of an issue.
And so, when
Chris (28:19):
even cross my mind.
That's fascinating.
Okay.
Gayle (28:22):
Yeah.
And so, once you start gettingdown, we actually recommend
with our type six pastesand smaller that you people
use nitrogen reflow and it'sjust because, you know, the
flux can only do so much.
It can't be completely perfectNo matter how well we try to
design it, and so you attackthe problem of oxidation from
another angle by getting rid ofthe oxygen and replacing it with
Chris (28:45):
Right.
Yeah.
Because we have we havekinda two processes.
We we listeners and andcustomers are probably very
familiar with the fact thatwe have a prototype assembly
line where we jet all of oursolder paste, and we have A
couple production assemblylines where we stencil print
all of our solder paste.
And we use a competitivea competitor's jettable,
solder paste for that.
(29:06):
And I believe it'sthere's two kinds.
I believe one is type six andthe other might also be type
six, but I wanna say it Couldpossibly even be type seven.
And one of themcan be used in air.
It can be used forlarger, uh, dots.
And the other one has tobe reflowed to nitrogen
and but it's used forvery, very small dots.
(29:27):
So when we're doing very finepitch, components and we're
ejecting the solder paste.
We have to re reflowthose in nitrogen.
But the nitrogenis so expensive.
Like, it's so expensive thatjust to just to give listeners
and and yourself, if you're notalready familiar with an idea
of how expensive nitrogen is.
If we were to wetoday we buy it.
(29:50):
Okay?
But we buy it in a liquefiedform and it shows up in a in
a giant tractor trailer witha huge, like, six inch hose
coming off the back of itthat plugs into a nine hundred
gallon tank and fills this up.
And then that comes outof the liquid state.
It it goes into what'scalled an evaporator.
(30:11):
It's basically likea heat exchanger.
It's like a radiator in yourcar, and it takes the liquid
and converts it into a gas,and then we pump that gas into
our reflow oven to to reflowyour boards in nitrogen.
But each one of thosedeliveries is, like, thousands
of dollars, and we get it, Ithink we get it almost every
week we get these deliveries.
(30:32):
So we were like, okay.
It's really expensive tobuy all this nitrogen.
What if we generate it on-site?
I mean, What's air?
Air is like seventy percentnitrogen or something like that.
Right?
So we looked at the generators.
Generators are like A generatorlarge enough to to supply our
reflow oven, just one reflowoven, is like twice the cost
(30:56):
of the reflow oven itself.
Like, it's crazyhow expensive it is.
And then you gotta pay forElectricity to power these
things, which is an it'senormous amount of power.
You gotta be replacing filters,and you got belts, and you
got coolant, and you got oil,and you got all these like,
it's it's a whole thing.
You know?
It's like, oh, man.
(31:16):
So this is why AIM really,really likes to make their
products work in air becausenitrogen's very expensive.
Gayle (31:24):
And, you know, and depending upon your application
that might be just weighingthe costs and benefits of if we
do this without nitrogen, Howmany problems are we running
into, and what is the costof dealing with that versus
what is the cost of just using
Chris (31:37):
Yeah.
Because one order oneorder might be the cost
of our nitrogen generator.
Hundreds ofthousands of dollars.
Like, one order.
So, in that case, itmight be worth it.
That's not profit.
Listeners out there, we'renot I'm not raking it in.
I'm not not driving a Ferrariout of the parking lot.
That's not profit.
That's just the totalorder value that
(31:58):
includes all of my time.
It includes all the partsand all your boards.
The the vapor phase though.
I'm curious if you haveany familiarity with vapor
phase, and And does AIM tryto consider vapor phase when
they're designing products?
Or is it just like, hey, itworks in vapor phase too?
Gayle (32:16):
I'm not super familiar with vapor phase off the
top of my head, But I think,like like I said before,
like, when we design stuff,ideally, we wanted to do
as good as possible in air,And then the other additions
just are attacking oxidationfrom a different angle.
Chris (32:30):
Okay.
Vapor Phase is super cool.
I would love to getsomebody that knows
Vapor Phase on the show.
It's like, apparently,I remember Hearing from
a manufacturer that theliquid, um, Melissa, I
know you we talked aboutthis before, the material.
Do you remember the name of
Melissa (32:47):
Nope.
I'm trying to
Chris (32:48):
She's googling it.
It's it's like a liquid Teflonor something like that, but it's
used in, like, makeup and stuff.
It gets like a relativelyharmless material that
Melissa (32:58):
Golden?
Yeah.
It is golden.
Chris (33:00):
Okay.
It is golden.
And and they you know, it itstays at one temperature, so
you can Put your board in there.
You could put it inthere for an hour.
Well, not really.
You wouldn't wanna putit in there for an hour.
But you could you could and it'snever gonna change temperature.
The weight of a reflow oven,you gotta get that thing
out because otherwise, it'llit'll burn your circuit board.
So you can do some really coolstuff with these vapor phase
systems, but they too are veryexpensive, expensive to operate.
(33:24):
You know, you have allother kinda weird process
considerations you gottago through with all of them
and everything, but it'sa really neat technology.
The other thing I was curiousabout from and I was hoping to
pick your brain a little bit.
In in my opinion, and Imight be wrong and you can
correct me if I'm wrong, butthere are more or less two
categories of flux in the world.
(33:44):
I mean, there's lots ofcategories, but there's
two primary heavy hittersin the world of flux.
You have your so called no cleanflux, And you have your water
washable organic acid fluxes.
I'm really, I really want youto answer this, and I really bet
you don't want to answer this.
Melissa (34:05):
Mhmm.
Chris (34:06):
I really want you to tell me, Chris, We
put all of our energydesigning no clean fluxes.
We the organic acid fluxes,we don't we don't we don't
put a lot of r and d in thoseinto into those anymore.
So just just buy our no cleanbecause that's the best fluxes.
Is that true?
Gayle (34:23):
We definitely do, I think, a lot more no clean
Chris (34:27):
Yes.
Gayle (34:27):
now.
no clean is also like whetherit's truly no clean depends
on your situation too.
So, I mean, usually, it'sminimal residue, and we
always test it to make surethere's no, like, It has good
surface insulation resistance.
You're not gonna get sortof electrochemical migration
(34:50):
or anything going throughany remaining residue.
So we're alwaystesting all of that.
But
Chris (34:55):
you ask if you ask Mike Conrad, who's a friend
of the show, he'll tell youit all needs to be cleaned.
Get it all
Gayle (35:00):
Yeah.
Well, yeah.
Yeah.
It it that could be application
Chris (35:03):
Well, it's in his best interest because
he sells board washers.
So
Gayle (35:07):
go.
Chris (35:08):
he wants it all clean, you know.
The more cleaning we have todo, the more the board More
board washers, he sells.
Yeah.
But we we found that.
And when when we go to theshows and stuff, typically,
your aims of the world andtheir various competitors, what
they're bragging about and whatthey wanna talk about are these
chemistries that generallyare considered no clean.
You know, if used properlyin your processes control
(35:30):
and, you know, all kinds ofasterisks and footnotes there
just to make sure everybodyunderstands that no clean
is just a marketing term.
Yes.
I understand.
Gayle (35:39):
Well, a lot of the way it works is with the flux is
like the it has to all getpast a a certain temperature to
activate and then become inert.
And so if you've gotcertain components that are
trapping bits of the fluxin them or things like that
during the reflow, thenthen it becomes an issue.
So
Chris (35:58):
no issues.
Not coming out ofthis factory, Gail.
Gayle (36:01):
Okay.
Everything's perfect.
You guys never run into a
Chris (36:04):
Never.
Never.
Nope.
I wish.
Yeah.
So, no.
That's fascinating, though.
I I I I, you know, itseemed pretty obvious, and
I would and I have alwaystold people just from my own
observations, like, Look,you know, everybody's pouring
their effort into no cleansolder paste because we don't
wanna you know, you talk aboutenvironmental responsibility.
(36:25):
There's a lot of, you know,chemicals and heat and water
that's used in washing boards.
So if you can create a productthat's reliable without having
to take the flux off of it it itthere is an environmental impact
to leaving that all in place.
So,
Gayle (36:38):
Yeah.
I mean, not only that,like, you've you're
skipping a process step.
You can do a lotmore, A lot faster.
Chris (36:44):
and we have officially purchased a a board washer.
Must I don't know if that'snews to you or not, but we
Melissa (36:51):
What have
Chris (36:51):
Yep.
And so it should be arrivingin the next, I don't know,
several months whenever itdoes arrive, and we'll be
able to offer that service.
But that service isnot gonna be free.
Right, you're gonna it's it'sgonna be something you have
to pay for because, you know,like you said, it's it's an
added it's an added process.
It's an added step.
And, um, yeah, I wouldlisteners, if you're if you're
(37:12):
designing products and youneed boards washed you know,
really consider excuse me.
If you think you need boardswashed, really consider if your
product really does need tohave the boards washed because
it is, you know, an added step.
There's it's not azero risk either.
Parts can become damagedin a in a wash process.
There's certain partsthat cannot get wet.
(37:32):
You know?
And and so then, okay, dowe hand solder those parts?
You know, that it's it's notas simple as just throw this
thing in and then walk away.
It's it there's awhole process control
development side of things.
So, a lot of these noclean solder pastes
are, are being cleaned.
And that's probablywhat we're gonna do.
We're probably not gonnabuy organic acid fluxes
(37:54):
and and try to clean those.
We're probably gonnabuy no clean, and when
customers request it, we'regonna try to clean it.
Think we can do it, Gail?
Of course, we can do it.
Gayle (38:04):
Well, yes.
There are ways to do it, but itis worth noting that Sometimes
the if you try to clean noclean, the cleaner you use
can't just can't be the isn'tnecessarily the same that you
would use on on something else.
And then they'll also notall no cleans are the same.
Of them you you may nothave an issue with at all.
And other ones, if don't cleanthem, you end up with issues.
(38:25):
So the flux chemistry makesa big difference who whoever
the manufacturer is and so on.
So There's always athousand variables at
play at any given time.
Right?
Chris (38:35):
right.
That's right.
And we're reaching out tothe chemistry companies that
make the cleaning chemicalsto you know, make sure we're
getting all that qualifiedfor the type of flux reason.
Do you Gail, if you don'tmind my asking, do you have a
reasonably good understanding?
And if you don't, justsay no and we'll move on.
That's totally fine.
But I I have longstruggled to understand the
classifications of fluxes.
(38:56):
Right?
I I always hear, like, Roloand Halide free in these terms.
And every time I I, like, lookat this stuff, I'm like, okay.
I'm finally gonna sitdown and this stuff out
so they understand it.
And then I'm just likeI I don't understand it.
And I just walk away from it.
And and to this day, Istill don't have a thorough
understanding of what theseterms mean and what they're
(39:17):
trying to address by thesevarious classifications.
Do you do you have a feelfor what they are and what
they mean and and why Ishould care about them?
Gayle (39:25):
Yeah.
I'm I'm I'm not gonna beable to to recite off the
top of my head, but the basicnotion, I think, well, the
halogen and hyaloid free
Chris (39:33):
thought you were the grand poobah of
Gayle (39:34):
Well, I did not say that.
That is not on my bio.
Thank you very much.
Chris (39:40):
I misread that.
I misread that.
Gayle (39:43):
Yeah.
So so sometimes it hasto do with whether a
customer is trying to meetcertain specifications,
uh, like reach or the RoHS
Chris (39:53):
Okay.
Yep.
Gayle (39:54):
Requirements and so you can't have
halogens in your product.
And I know there's a distinctionbetween, like, whether it
Has added halogens versuswhether halogens are there
somehow after things are puttogether, And there's, like,
distinctions in that way.
And then the I'm trying toremember the, like, the the
(40:15):
The, like, r o l zero stuff, ithas to do with halogens and it
has to do, I think, also with,something to do with whether
the chemicals are Organic orrosin or resin or something.
But I do have on my list towrite up an article about this
(40:36):
for our blog when it comes up
Chris (40:39):
you do, be sure to
Gayle (40:40):
that's something I'm always like, oh wait, I
forget which one was whichnow and I, you know, it's It's
really easy to mix that up,so a nice detailed outline
of what exactly it means,
Chris (40:50):
do me a favor.
Add add me to yourdistribution list your blog
newsletter, however you'regonna publish the fact that
you have new blog posts.
And I will read that as soonas it's released because
inquiring minds want to know.
Do you guys rememberthat commercial?
That was a goodnineties commercial.
Gayle (41:03):
Yes.
Yes.
Chris (41:04):
know.
It's like, wasn't it for theNational Enquirer, actually?
I think it was.
Gayle (41:08):
yes.
I believe so.
Chris (41:10):
is like a rag about, like, if the aliens are real and
Gayle (41:13):
Yeah.
That boy
Chris (41:14):
Yeah.
Gayle (41:14):
out of his cave.
Chris (41:16):
Yeah.
That boy.
Oh my gosh.
That's good stuff.
See?
Everybody everybody hadwild stories in their time.
It wasn't just it wasn'tjust the twenty twenties that
we had these wild stories.
Beautiful.
Anything else?
Anything else we we didn'ttouch on that you wanted to
chat about or discuss or youknow, Fill us in on why they
call you the grand poo bot at
Gayle (41:37):
Who calls me that?
Where is this coming from?
Chris (41:43):
It's my ridiculous personality is where
it's coming from, Gail.
Gayle (41:46):
Man, there's too much too much expectation there.
Chris (41:50):
I
Gayle (41:51):
still I'm still learning.
Chris (41:53):
Yeah.
Excellent.
Excellent.
Well, I I tell you what.
For for somebody who's beenwith with with a soldering
company for, if I'm doingmy math right eight months.
You're you're doingpretty well there.
You I I asked you some hardhitting questions, and you
Gayle (42:06):
it it helps to have a background in in, like, physics.
A lot of this I mean, alot of solder is physics.
It's from yeah.
Chris (42:15):
Of course.
Alright.
So let's do it.
Let's get into our favoritepart of the episode.
Really, the real reasonwe do this podcast is it
has nothing to do withelectronics manufacturing.
We just like to get petpeeves off our chest.
So, I understandyou have a good one.
Do you wanna lay it on us?
Gayle (42:28):
iNefficiency.
And inefficiency in many,many ways, not even just in
processes, But, you know, if youever watch people deplane when
you travel or if you've been toa to a grocery store recently,
Chris (42:44):
Gail.
Gayle (42:45):
people don't know how to move to the side and
allow the flow of traffic.
Yes.
Inefficiency is a bigpet peeve of mine.
Chris (42:52):
It's like you went into my mind and
extracted my thoughts.
Gayle (42:58):
I did.
You didn't noticeI was in there?
Chris (43:02):
That one and you and and while you were
there, you implantedthe grand poo ba title.
Is
Gayle (43:06):
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
You
Chris (43:08):
That is so funny.
So we've talkedabout, like, airport
inefficiencies and stuff.
I love that you mentionedAnd I I I don't think this
is a huge pet peeve of mine,but I don't think I've ever
really put my finger on it.
Moving out of the wayfor the flow of traffic.
Melissa (43:24):
Yeah.
Gayle (43:25):
do this thing too, like, I don't know if
you've been in crowds.
If they walk into a newroom or through some sort of
portal to another, they stopbecause they're trying to
figure out what to do nextinstead of moving to the side
and then figuring it out.
Chris (43:39):
so true.
It's so true.
I was just my wife and I justran a five k in a nearby town.
Did they call it thehot chocolate run?
It's a great time.
You get hot chocolate the end,made it the local brewery.
And so everybody walks upto get their hot chocolate
out of the they have theseinsulated dispensers, you know?
And and you get your hotchocolate and they turn
around and they start sippingit and you're like, you're
(43:59):
in front of the dispenser?
Hello?
Gayle (44:03):
Yep.
Yep.
It's like there's somethingin our, like, Instinctual
nature that makes us juststay near the thing or
you get into the new room.
Yes.
Some of us are verygood about moving to the
Chris (44:15):
Not that I'm very good at it.
I'm really uncomfortablebeing in the way.
Like, I'm reallyreally uncomfortable
when I'm in the way.
Like, I'm trying to find thecorner I can get out of people's
way because I do not like,
Gayle (44:26):
Yeah.
Because I know how much Ihate people who do that.
I don't want people hating me,so I have to be perfect on this
front so I can judge others.
Chris (44:33):
That's right.
Gayle (44:34):
gotta have the moral high ground.
Chris (44:36):
I like that.
Having the world high ground.
Oh, that, That's
Melissa (44:40):
Yeah.
Especially this time of year.
It's the worst.
Chris (44:42):
good
Gayle (44:43):
Oh, yes.
Don't go don't go togrocery stores on the
weekends right now.
It's it's a terrible situation.
Chris (44:50):
My wife my wife showed me a meme the other day that
said well, not the other day.
It was a while ago now.
And it was like it was likea a man, like, talking to his
wife, and he goes you know, he'slike, honey, I love you so much.
I'd even go to Costcoon a Saturday with you.
Gayle (45:09):
Yes.
Chris (45:12):
And so she sent that to me, and then it was
like it was Saturday, andwe had to go to a Costco.
And I'm like, Oh,let's see the zoo.
Because normally normally,I have an amazing wife,
and she does all theshopping for our family.
And And I rarely ever haveto go to one of these stores.
But I was like, let'sgo together, you know.
Let's go on a Saturday.
And I just like sat back likeit was like a performance.
(45:34):
I was like, This is insane.
And I'm the guy that,like, parks really far
away because I don't liketo be in people's way.
So I park at, like, the veryedge of the parking lot.
I'd much rather justWalk in rather than drive
through all the traffic andpedestrians and everything.
And, like, just just likestanding back at the back
of the parking lot andWatching the madness of people
(45:55):
try to navigate a parkinglot, I'm like, holy moly.
This is nuts.
This is stressful.
No wonder, like, the daysthat my wife goes shopping,
It's like, you know, she'slike spent she's spent.
You know, you get home.
It's like,
Gayle (46:08):
Well, I have a I have a trick for dealing with this,
and this is my same trick fordealing with being annoyed
in traffic, and that is Audiobooks and podcasts in your ear.
So you got something elsegoing on, you can be less
annoyed by everythingthat's in front of you.
Chris (46:24):
I agree with that.
I agree with that.
You you got a goodpodcast for us?
Something you really enjoy that
Gayle (46:29):
Oh my gosh.
Chris (46:30):
It doesn't have to be related to electronics.
It could be, you know, you'rereally into some, like,
you know, uh-uh, commentaryon the Golden Bachelor.
I don't know.
Gayle (46:39):
I mean, lately, I've been, I've been listening
to some audiobooks aboutthe Ottoman Empire, you
know, with all the conflictin the Middle East.
I'm trying to get tothe bottom of things
Chris (46:51):
Are you are you referring to Dan Carlin's podcast
about the Ottoman Empire?
Gayle (46:55):
No.
I don't think I'vecome across that.
I've been listeningto some of them.
I don't know if anyone'sever come across the
great courses series.
Chris (47:02):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Gayle (47:03):
Yeah.
So there's a lot of lectureseries that they have on on
all sorts of historical things.
So I've been doing some OttomanEmpire, some big history,
trying to piece together, youknow, the entire current state
of humanity and how it got
Chris (47:16):
Oh, then hopefully, you can solve it for us, Gail,
Gayle (47:18):
I'm working on it.
It's it's it's coming.
It's coming.
Chris (47:20):
So so Dan Carlin's Hardcore History,
very famous podcast.
He had a whole bit onthe Ottoman Empire.
It was excellent.
It's going back a few years now.
But, Um, I I am a bigfan of the podcast ninety
nine percent Invisible.
And I think a lot of people are.
I wouldn't be alone there.
I think it's one of the morePopular podcast out there.
And they are doing a deep diveon, Uh, Robert Moses and the
(47:47):
book that was written abouthim called The Power Broker.
Have you everheard of this book?
Gayle (47:52):
No.
Chris (47:53):
Okay.
So people who've heardof this book are,
like, obsessed with it.
Absolutely obsessed with it.
And it's one of these thingswhere, like, once you've read
it, If you can't help but telleverybody about it and, like, to
an like, an annoying state, it'slike, oh, do you know that guy?
He
Gayle (48:06):
how to annoy your
Chris (48:07):
Yeah.
Exactly.
How to know your know yourfriends and influence nobody.
It's but so it's my My favoritepodcast, and they're doing
they're like, we're gonnaread this book together, and
we're gonna do about a hundredpages a month, and we're gonna
discuss those hundred pageseach month for this podcast.
I'm like, alright.
I love this podcast, soI'll I'll I'll pull it up.
(48:28):
And I bought it.
Be you can't buy it on Kindle,which is very annoying.
No idea why you can'tbuy it on Kindle.
But the worst part about it is,I so I bought it on paperback.
This book, it it's I thinkthey classify it as a weapon.
I'm pretty sure it shouldbe classified as a weapon.
This thing is sevenhundred thousand words.
Seven hundred thousand words.
(48:49):
I go, I'm trying toput this into context.
I go, wait a
Gayle (48:53):
pages did they get that into?
Like, how small is the
Chris (48:56):
it's small.
It is small.
And then, And I'm I'm tryingto put this into context.
I'm like, wait a second.
How many pages so I Google,the bible is seven hundred and
twenty five thousand words.
The Bible
Gayle (49:09):
Yeah.
I think most, like, novelsare usually in the hundred
thousand word range.
Chris (49:14):
so I'm thinking to myself, what have I
committed myself too.
And so I started I startedreading it, and I get it.
Like, I got it within thefirst couple chapters.
I'm like, oh, thisis an amazing book.
Because As an American,it is so much about how,
like, things outside ofpolitics works in government.
(49:36):
You know?
So it's like, okay.
Outside of the political system,how does the government work,
and and how do people influencethings, and how does stuff get
built, and, you know, how dohow does how does this life
that we call civilization inthe United States come about.
And and we're using RobertMoses and his career as a
lens to focus in on that.
And it's like, it'sreally, really interesting,
(49:58):
really fascinating.
But, yeah, so now I'm that guy.
Now I'm that guy that has to
Gayle (50:03):
Now I have to check it out.
Chris (50:04):
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
The power broker.
I'm not sure if there's gonnabe as many lessons to learn in
the power broker as there wouldbe in the bible, but we'll see.
We'll see how farwe get on Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a good pet peeve, Gail.
Oh, man.
I mean, we get somedoozies on here.
That's top That's number one.
That's the best one yet.
(50:25):
It's the best one.
The inefficiency ofmovement of people.
Yeah.
Because it just it strikes
Gayle (50:30):
inefficiency in general.
Like, I always feel like it itit is my nature to streamline
processes as best I can.
Like, it's is something Ido without even thinking
about it, and so when I comeacross people who don't even
Chris (50:44):
See
Gayle (50:44):
the world that way,
Chris (50:45):
It's like they're blind.
Right?
It's like you you don't youdon't even have this sixth sense
that you're like do you when
Gayle (50:51):
aren't plotting five steps ahead to figure out how
to line things up and do twentythings simultaneously so you
can get it all done quicker.
What's wrong
Chris (50:58):
Exactly.
Well, I'll tell you what, Gail.
With the if this whole thingwith AIM doesn't work out.
You come out hereto Massachusetts, we
got a job for you.
We need we needefficient thinkers.
Actually, Melissa, was itthe last episode where I
talked about this where Ihave, like, to efficient no.
It was the conveyor episode.
It was the conveyor episode.
Gal, if you wanna hear my wholediscussion on my addiction
to efficiency and and I and Icall it an addiction because
(51:20):
I think it's unhealthy.
Like, I think I've damagedrelationships with it.
I
Gayle (51:23):
Well, yeah.
Well, a part of the problemwith it is you can, you
know, when you think youcan Make everything more
efficient when you reallycan't because there's always
that theory versus practice.
Right?
Like, Hypothetically, inyour mind, you can see how
it'll be super efficient.
Then, when reality happens,little little things start
coming in that you didn'tinclude in your analysis, So
(51:46):
you can only judge from afar.
Chris (51:48):
That's right.
That's right.
Because we are social creatures,and we base our decisions on
social things, not on facts, andthat's just how the world is.
So alright.
Great.
Thank you forcoming on the show.
Really, really enjoyed this,and it's just been wonderful.
I I'm gonna have follow-upquestions for you.
Okay?
So you're gonna get emails fromme whether you want it or not.
Gayle (52:06):
yay.
Chris (52:12):
Said every person ever when they heard
me say that to them.
Brilliant.
So, yeah, as always, wewelcome the audience to
get in touch with us.
We're contact at pickplace podcast dot com.
How if if listeners wanna getin touch with Gail, what's
the what's the best way toget in touch with yourself?
Gayle (52:27):
You can email me at g towell, that's g t o w e
l l At aims solder dot com.
Yeah.
Second l, very important.
Chris (52:36):
At aim at aim solder dot com.
K?
A I m solder dot com.
Excellent.
So, and please anybodywho's listening, if you've
enjoyed the show best wayto spread the message about
it, leave us a review asMelissa always reminds us.
But I really like tosay, tell a friend.
Tell somebody if youthink they'll enjoy it.
Gail, tell some friends thataim to listen to this episode.
Gayle (52:56):
I will, I will.
We're gonna add it to ournext The internal newsletter.
We're gonna be putting somelinks maybe on social media.
Chris (53:03):
Oh, that's great.
Beautiful.
I appreciate it.
Melissa (53:06):
Wonderful.
Thanks so much, and thankseveryone for listening to
the Pick Place podcast.
And if you like what youheard, consider following
us in your favorite podcastapp, And please leave us a
review, like Chris said, onApple Podcasts or wherever
you get your podcast from.
Chris (53:21):
Thanks, everybody.
Thanks,
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