Brown Oxide I

Perm Red S

Hansa Yellow AXN

Lamp Black B

Magenta M

Medium Yellow T

Raw Umber L

Red Oxide F

Thalo Blue E

Thalo Green D

White KX

Yellow Oxide C

The Frigidair Flair Custom Imperial range was light years ahead of its time. In fact, so much so, its still quite futuristic even today, some 50 years after its introduction. One reason it was so advanced was its control system. Beyond the traditional duty cycle controllers common to contemporary ranges, the Flair also had a speed heat mode, and a heat minder mode. The focus of this entry is on the speed heat functionality.

Speed Heat

Speed heat is pretty cool, in that it provides for much much faster initial heating than one would encounter with a standard burner. In a nutshell, speed heat flash powers a 120V burner at 240V during initial heatup. In effect, the 1250Watt burner becomes a 5000Watt burner… which makes it get hot super fast. Granted, such is a very time limited operation, or the burners lifespan would be incredibly short as its effective watt density is 4x greater than the normal design criteria.

The time of 230V operational status is a function of the initial setting of the burner control knob after coming from an off position such as shown in the following table.

230V Flash time

• High 31 Sec
• M. High 31 Sec
• M. Low 22 Sec
• Low 17 Sec
• Simmer 15 Sec

In addition, it should be noted that interrupting the flash time, or trying to repeat the flash interval without an extended period of time with the knob at the off position will have only a minimal effect.

While I am not privey to the internal details of the speed heat burner, my guess is it was subject to a higher degree of quality control/inspection than regular 1250Watt 120V burners. The reason being, with 4X greater watt density, the presence of a void and or differences in magnesium oxide insulator density would likely seriously reduce the MTBF (mean time before failure) of the burner, where as such would have minimal affect on a regular burder.

In todays design world, such would be impossible. Marketing guys and bean counters primarily focus on cost, not on quality nor on 20 year + MTBF as of eras long past. Even quality methodologies focus on consistency and inspection / sorting processes are severely looked down upon. My guess is inspection / sorting was likely a key aspect of the speed heat burner assembly process 50 years ago.

The Osram LUW CP7P-KTLP-5C8E-35-Z is a rather inexpensive LED with some fairly impressive specs. Digikey pricing is $2.47 at 1200 piece quantities.

The specs are the following;

• 109lumen at 350mA
• 243 lumen at max current 1A (assuming one can keep it cool)
• Viewing Angle 80 deg
• Color: Cool white, 6500K
• Size 3mmx3mmx2.23mm high

A full data sheet is available at http://media.digikey.com/pdf/Data%20Sheets/Osram%20PDFs/LUW_CP7P.pdf

The big problem with the above is temperature. Low cost FR4 PCB’s will not provide enough heat sinking.

The Cree MX3AWT-A1-R250-000C51 is another inexpensive LED, running about $1.87 at 250 piece quantities.

The specs are as follows.

• 67 lumen at 350mA
• 100 lumen at 400mA (assuming one can keep it cool)
• Viewing Angle 120 deg
• Color: Cool white 6500K
• Size: 4.65mmx4.65mm

A full data sheet is at http://www.cree.com/products/pdf/XLampMX-3.pdf

Whats nifty about this part, is that one can use a double sided FR4 pcb and through the use of vias under the paddle achieve adequate thermal performance.

I’ve been poking at emergency medical / alert systems for a number of years. Today, I’m going to focus on the benefits and drawbacks of central monitoring systems and autodialers such as offered by Life Alert, Lifeline, Alert-1, Lifestation, ADT Companion, Medical Alert by Connect America, Walgreens Ready Response, Alarmcare, CVS Medical Alert, Medical Guardian, American Medical Alarms, and American Senior Safety.

Many central office / autodialer systems are advertised on TV, and in print media and as such are the most well known approach to medical alarms/monitoring. Some are connected with medical centers and/or pharmacies.

The benefits of such systems are:

1. 24/7 central office availability, this is perhaps their biggest and best feature if done well.

2. The ability to talk with the central office after pressing an alert button provides for optimal response. Ie not every emergency requires EMS response, and such a method also reduces the potential for un-necessary EMS dispatch and/or false alarms.

3. The alert pendants are water proof, and can be worn anywhere and at any time.

4. The alert pendants have integral batteries with long life spans and as such do not require periodic charging. In order to maintain the pendants water proof status, batteries in generally are not user-serviceable. Fortunately, many systems do a periodic battery and diagnostic check and transparently send the data to the central office. Such an approach if handled well mititgates much of the the danger of system failure, in that replacements can be made well before any type of device failure occurs.

5. Most systems will operate even in the event of a power failure, as long as the local telephone system does not go down… subject of course to the limits of the systems internal battery.

6. The physical hardware is based upon exceedingly stable autodialer technology, robust analog telephone systems, simple rf remote control systems, and as a system in general is decently robust. In addition, such equipment is also under the FDA’s pervue as a medical device which serves to keep most sub par manufacturers and counterfeitors out of the business.

6. The central office is in possession of a lockbox keycode and physicial location of said lockbox just outside the customers dwelling. The idea of such, is that a neighbor, or EMS responder can be given said keycode when called out. The ultimate advantage, is that a neighbor or EMS provider can use a customer’s door key for entering the dwelling without the need to physically break a door or window. Likewise, after an activation, it is very easy to update the lockbox keycode on site and at the monitoring center and thus maintain the security of the customers home.

7. The setup and configuration / activation and test of said systems has the potential to be near 100% automated, after the customer connects it to the phone line, and plugs the power supply into a wall outlet.

However, such systems are subject to a number of shortcomings.

1. The sales techniques and business practices of some of the various vendors are worst than those of the worst used car salesman and/or loan shark firm.

2. The ability to talk with the central office after pressing the alert button is exceedingly limited. Yes, in an outdoor super quiet environment, such systems may allow for communication up to a 50 meter range. However, if one is using a shower or running water, wears a hearing aid, and/or has a tv at high volume, or is on another floor other than where the main unit is located, the probability of a successful verbal communication is exceedingly low.

3. 24/7 central monitoring centers vary a great deal in service and response. Most are UL listed, but even then, service can vary widely. A few vendors outsource their monitoring services to a third party, some of which are better than other internal operations. A good central office is worth its weight in gold. A bad one is worse than no system at all… the problem is, the consumer often doesnt know a good one from a bad one until its too late.

4. Such systems depend upon a users cognitive and physicial ability to press the pendant call button. In the event of a serious fall, and or partial dementia, the probability of the user pressing the call button is substantially reduced.

5. The costs of 24/7 monitoring can be substantial, to say nothing of other fees. Many systems would cost over $1000 for 3 years of service.

6. The alert pendants are typically worn around ones neck, and the FDA has reported cases of strangulation and/or injury when the pendant breakaway function did not work as designed.

7. As more and more people leave the world of analog telephone service behind, there exists a serious gap in this approach. VOIP is no where near as robust as analog telephone service, especially in the event of severe weather or electrical disruption. Likewise, cellular service is even worse in such regards, to say nothing of the massive issues involved with trying to couple an alert system to a cell phone.

8. While many hardware manufactures provide automated diagnostics to prevent failures and gaps in coverage, it is up to the vendor to step up to the plate when a device notifies them that it is in danger of failing. A good vendor manages this well, bad ones will drop the ball, and gaps in coverage are exceedingly possible.

9. Some pendant test procedures are excessively convoluted, which seems goofy in that weekly and/or monthly testing is highly recommended. Most assuredly if one of my customers had to jump said steps, they would quickly tell me to go jump… and they would be right.

The bottom line

Ultimately, this is a buyer beware industry to the max… Contracts need to be read through with a fine tooth comb, and likewise every t and every i dotted and double checked. Such decisions should never be made on the spur of the moment no matter how much pressure is exerted by the sales guy.

A recurrent problem with flight simulation is the huge cost and space requirements necessary for 6 axis motion control. As a result, motion controlled flight simulation is out of the realm for most, short of the airlines, or the exceedingly dedicated and well funded hobbyist.

A proposed flight simulator of the future would use 1.8 micron infrared energy pulses to stimulate sensory hairs in such a fashion as to emulate a given spatial orientation.

Obviously the technology to do such today is more than a bit lacking. Most assuredly the challenges of recreating accurate waveform patterns in the appropriate location of the semi-circular canals is anything but simple. Also, there is a long way to go from toadfish to human, but alas… imagine the possibilities in flight simulation, or even other gaming if spatial orientation could be simulated in such a fashion.

Canon EOS EF Lenses from film cameras can be used in Canon digital cameras which use EF-S lenses… sort of. They are not 100% interchangeable. A couple bid deal issues which must be considered.

1. EF lenses from Canon film cameras will work on Canon digital cameras that use EF-S lenses, the reverse however is not the case. The reason is that EF-S lenses project further into the camera body, and as such they will not fit, and may even damage the mirror mechanism on film cameras.
2. Digital camera sensors are for the most part smaller than 35mm film. The exception being cameras with full frame sensors, such as the Canon 1Ds etc. As a result of this, the lens effective focal length changes, typically by a factor of 1.6. As such a 35-80mm zoom lens becomes a 56-128mm.
3. There may be other factors as time passes, it is always best to check with a competent camera guy before buying something only to be disappointed, or worse, damage your unit.

Overall formula is risk=probability*consequences

Human Factors

Such works quite well in and of itself, however human factors must also enter in. Such is why the TSA actions are not justifiable based upon probability and consequences alone.. and also why cargo containers, trains, and mass transit are not subject to the same criteria airport gate areas are.

1. Unfamiliar risks are perceived as worse than familiar ones. Case in point, folks are often afraid to fly, but rarely afraid to drive in heavy traffic. The same applies to terroristic threats, and nuclear energy in contrast with the risks of coal or petro.
2. Controllability this is a major issue with nuclear power. People feel it is so outside their individual control. Its also why folks often feel more at risk when someone other than themselves drives a car.
3. Voluntary vs involuntary. Alcohol kills more people than nuclear power, but it is more acceptable as the drunk takes it on themselves. On the other hand, such needs to be balanced with the danger to others that the drunk creates should they get in a car and drive.
4. Ick Factor How gruesome is the death or injury? Is it an acute event, or chronic and slow.

The above concepts from a class given by Dr. Vicki Bier UW-Madison based upon tweets from Risk Analysis Engineer @arclight.

Consequences

As far as the consequences aspect goes, it can range from annoyed / ticked off customers with no safety impact, all the way up to catastrophic where in a large area can be impacted with multiple casualties. Back in my day, I remember the tedium of running MIL-STD-882 (Standard practice for system safety) analysis on gas valve controllers. Case in point, if the gas valve shuts down, and no fire can be maintained, such generally results in an annoyed customer. By the same token, should a large gas valve go to a fully locked on state, a catastrophic failure, ie substantial property damage, massive deaths, and severe injuries is likely.

In my previous post on technology now and then, I alluded to the issue of tax policy encouraging offshore rather than on shore manufacturing. Its a complex issue, full of nuances… it is very real, but also very easy to spin.

From a high level point of view, it would seem our max corporate rates of 45% (max rates combined state and federal) is a serious disadvantage in comparison with China whose corporate rate is 25%. Such is the view portrayed by the Heritage Foundation in their quest to maintain the status quo which provides for offshore tax deferral and other tax advantages.

In contrast, the Obama administrations “Leveling the Playing Field: Curbing Tax Havens and Removing Tax Incentives For Shifting Jobs Overseas” presents the view that such is counterproductive.

From the standpoint of a wealth being generated via investment, the Heritage foundations model is probably the best one. A good example of this is how google was able to lower its overseas tax rate to 2.4% and there by achieve a effective 22%rate which was far below the rates of Germany, France, and Japan. If one goes a bit further as concerns the applicability to defer and shift income eternally, the following stat from the Obama paper is likewise helpful. “In 2004, the most recent year for which data is available, U.S. multinational corporations paid about $16 billion of U.S. tax on approximately $700 billion of foreign active earnings – an effective U.S. tax rate of about 2.3%.

Its also interesting to consider the differences in the banking industry between the US and China. While this article is a couple years old, it is an eyebrow raiser.

In light of this Erik Hare presents a interesting view. .”,..it is work that creates all wealth in the end. Investment is only the tool that makes it possible.” Big picture wise, Erik is correct… but pragmatically, imagine the howls and screams which would occur should that 2.3% figure shift upward, even if only a tiny bit. Obviously there needs to be a balance, protectionism is counter productive, yet the current policies in place while being counter protectionism, also end up putting onshore entities at a severe disadvantage.

Another way onshore manufacturing is discouraged is via the delegation tax which I wrote on back in 2004. Sadly, little if any has changed in this regard, if anything, we’ve shifted towards a more regressive structure rewarding multinationals, while penalizing onshore efforts.

So what is the answer… there are no easy ones. Add in the fact that the above discussion can be swung and soundbited any number of ways, its unlikely that government will have any will to seriously address the problems at the base of this.

However, such is not all gloom and doom. It may mean that large factories of yore are off the table, but such doesnt mean their wont be niche markets that a small and nimble firm can jump into. I figure if Peavey Electronics, in one of the most manufacturing unfriendly states (MS goes so far as to tax inventory) can not only survive, but thrive, hope is present for all of us.

The blogs of Chris Gammell and Silicon Farmer were going back and forth on the issues of starting a small tech company back in the 1950′s as compared to now. Having been down the path with success and crash and burns a few times, plus an era as a chief engineer of a small contract manufacturer, I think I can see both sides. A buddy started a radio company back in the 30′s… I’ll throw some of that in there as well.

1. Startup costs

On the plus side

Startup costs are not necessarily that bad… a local contract manufacturer has 3 pick and place machines w xray equipment running 8+ hours a day in his barn with 2 employees. Granted, such is not state of the art by any means, but mid 90′s equipment is more than adequate for many jobs, and its often available for microcents on the dollar. Granted, service expertise, and the ability to have, or to fab your own replacement components is a must.

Also, component stuffing whether through hole or SMT via contract manufacturing is everywhere here in the Midwest, and likewise throughout much of the US. Its a similar deal with injection molding, metal stamping/forming, die casting, composites all within a 40 minute drive of my location. Vertical integration only pays if capital equipment and expertise can be found at a real bargain… but in my buddies case, the 1930′s, vertical integration was really his only option.

Inventory is and has always been a real pain, even more so today where JIT is the focus, and most mainline disty’s carry a minimal amount of inventory. All it takes is an entity that is running 500K/year to jump up 20%, and all disty stock is now pulled to support them. Of course, if you bug enough factory people you can get a handle on the sales mix, and how much of a risk this really is. One could also choose to work with a smaller more localized disty, they are out there. In the 1930′s, manufacturers were going out of business left and right, components could be bought for a song.

Cashflow is and has always been a problem. On the other hand, one can factor accounts receivable if need be, or ideally get an operating line of credit. The entities that operate on a cash only basis are a rare breed indeed, albeit back in the 30′s cash really was king. Also as others mentioned, you don’t open the door and ship 50K units a year… 1K or even a hundred is often more realistic. There are thousands of companies shipping 1K-10K a year and doing quite well at it.

Another thing to consider, is many contract manufacturers offer to take on inventory and cash flow risk (but you will pay / risk a significant amount to do so). Also, if the idea is too out there, and/or you dont have some decent sales growth over time, this option is likely off the table.

Having caught the very tail end of vacuum tube manufacturing… you haven’t had fun until you deal with a gear and cam driven vacuum tube glass envelope welder. Sure it wasn’t as expensive as a fab, but the skill level of techs needed to keep it happy was another matter indeed. Things pretty much had to be vertically integrated, and people had to learn on the job… labor was inexpensive, but training was a long term and huge investment. On the other hand, to build one of those machines today, while easier due to CNC gear would be anything but inexpensive.

Today, as contrasted with years ago, there are any number of fabs that will produce silicon to spec. I dont know how many times we had contract wafer runs of just one or two during a process development project a few years back. Yes, it is expensive.. but if you can live with an older process/lower yields, its not bad at all.

On the downside

Regulatory barriers are massive… if you dont have Osha, the EPA, or the FDA to deal with, you have local zoning. Egads, just to comply with NFPA 70e is a hassle for EE’s who understand it 10000 times more than your insurance company.

2. Offshore competition

On the upside

The distribution chain is vastly shorter. You can respond to customer requests or fubars with ease. You can run small batches, and catch errors early on. Far too many bet the farm on lucrative off shore deals,only to have a seemingly minor ECO put them under when a 6 month supply of inventory shows up and it requires near 100% rework or in other cases is not even salvageable.

On the downside

This can be a problem, not that it exists, as often offshore vs onshore direct costs are near identical, but that onshore capital cannot compete with foreign govt subsidized offshore capital. Throw in the tax advantages of offshore manufacturing, and the corresponding tax disadvantages of having manufacturing on shore, and its really demoralizing.

3. Funding

I would say funding is near the same issue as it was back when. Its an apples and oranges deal to compare a single audio oscillator offering with an entire product line. The bigger costs today are not in the engineering and manufacturing sector as they are in marketing… but the online world is making inroads in that arena.

4. Complexity

Considering they were starting out at near zero, ie their was nothing else even close on the market coming out of a garage they had to be fighting complexity at every turn that the big firms already had a handle on. Consider that a sophomore at college today could design a product with a 50000 gate FPGA in their dorm, I think its more apples and oranges deal than a huge barrier. In addition, I think we’ve been conditioned to think of innovation as evolution, rather than breakthrough when it comes to process issues.

5. Mega Corporations

Then as now they are for the most part non-issues, until you have significant visibility. And once you have significant visibility, you can afford the legal team to deal with them. On the other hand, there are lots of squabbles of $5M firms trying to dick with other $5M firms, all the while both sides lawyers get rich.

The big deal is anti-competitive regulations which protect the mega corp and kill off startups (unless they have huge pockets to either work around or buy their way out of them). Case in point, it takes a full team of people just to deal with the FDA paper work when in the medical arena (short of pre-1976 grandfathering). While not as bad, the FCC and CE headaches are a huge expense before one even gets rolling, all the while its pretty obvious many FCC and CE compliant products if tested in real life situations would crash and burn. Throw in zoning and shipping restrictions that reach out to a 2032 battery, as well as any and all process chemicals and its a real mess.

Its it easier today… sort of, its more so things are so very different. The big thing imho is to find an arena where regs and such have yet to have a great impact, and for those, the sky literally is the limit.

The biggest thing I think is that todays society is exceedingly risk averse. I dont know how many folks walked away from their business when they were unwilling to bet the farm to to speak. In some cases, such was probably a good call… but in others, far too many promising startups who had products, had a market, and even had sales, just walked away as the risk seemed to high.

The Guardian had an interesting article entitled “The need to protect the internet from ‘astroturfing’ grows ever more urgent“. As one who used to co-lead a very large internet forum, we used to laugh at some of the lame attempts at astroturfing (they were easy to detect). The big deal is that over time, such methods will become harder and harder to detect, and secondly they will increase in intensity multifold.

In a large forum, repetitive postings, and or nearly repetitive postings were easy to detect. Namely as soon as an entity started to astroturf, within an hour, there would be dozens of reports of something fishy going on. Within two hours, 5-10 staffers would be on it, and such campaigns were killed off before the majority of users were even aware of it. The thing is, astroturf detection relies not only on a moderation team (we had around 130 or so staffers such that all time zones were covered), but also the membership to take issue with the problem. Back in 2006, with over 100,000 registered screen names, and a minimum of 3000 real live humans online 24/7, such detection was nearly automatic.

On the other hand its not 2006 anymore. In the future nefarious individuals, companies, and orgs will distribute their efforts not only on a few large forums as they did years back, ie the top 20 on bigboards, (and yes, we talked amongst each other over coordinated trolls and astroturfers) but a coordinated campaign could reach small forums, newspaper comment sites, and individual blogs who dont have wide ranging linkage.

In the future, its also likely such content will not be identical, or nearly identical. When I left the forum world, such was just starting to occur… I remember testing out some different types of linguistic analysis on my desktop to look for parallels when we’d see spikes in subject content, and more often than not, even rudimentary linguistics tools would pick it up.

Large Scale Detection and Mitigation

The thing is, such has to happen on a large scale to be effective. Case in point, most savvy folks know not to click on links from ezinearticles, fizya, or associated content as the quality sucks… but they still rank high in search results. On the other hand, google to appears finally get fed up enough to start to put the kabosh on such, and hopefully it will correct over time… (on the other hand, why ehow didnt get whacked is beyond me).

It is possible that as search engine algo’s evolve that just as they capture and downrate the get rich quick world, likewise they will also capture the astroturfers. Persona management tools are still a function of a limited number of individuals, and such will lend itself to shallow content, and thereby low rankings and visibility, yes even to the main article if a blogger doesnt keep tabs of comments. Kos is a bit more eloquent, “bullshit only goes so far, no matter how many personas are spreading it.” I’m thinking something on the order of an aksimet with linguistic analysis might be the way to go. Granted, such will also capture coordinated campaigns of like minded sound bite individuals who dont put in the time to really think about an issue, but then again, we dont need anymore sound bites.

Bribery

A second issue, is the bribing of individuals for purposes of one sided collective campaigns, case in point this rather interesting fiasco with mommy bloggers, Toyota, and apparently a very inept third party, the last text of which is located here.

This bribery issue is a tough one considering it is regulated, but many are likely ignorant of such, case in point the individual who started the whole Toyota mess, as well as those who took her up on it… Granted, I am giving the benefit of a doubt here.

Ultimately such is a serious concern, and its something all of us, even the sporadic lone blogger need to consider. Just as we need to keep out sites free of the get rich quick folks, we also need to be aware of the need to keep astroturfers away.