Cheap 12-bit, 200 Ms/s arb--any wisdom?

Is that why newspaper circulation is growing by leaps and bounds?

sacrifice.

A friend owned a restaurant. The state demanded lids for the kitchen garbage cans, the county said he'd be closed down if he put lids on the cans.

Do they bring it back?

Off-shoring is no picnic for small businesses, either. If you don't have someone on-site to inspect every detail, you'll get something you didn't expect and *really* don't want. Too bad, you own it.

You need the scale of an Apple to make it work.

So can a Manits on a floor stand. It's got wheels. ;-)

Probably. From what I've seen many of them like to stick other people with the check at lunch and probably pad their expense accounts too..

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it's the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

Fashion, schmashion!

I once profoundly shocked an optometrist's "frame stylist" by saying:

"They're for looking through, not looking at."

--
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence 
over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
                                       (Richard Feynman)

didn't

want

glitches

store

work,

better.

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I

But I ain't got no space for such a monster here :-)

Plus there's up to three large dogs there who are not too inclined to moved out of the way.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

If no one else buys them because they're "out of fashion", neither will I. That's the problem.

didn't

want

glitches

"brand

an

Taiwan

storage,

store

work,

better.

is

black

then I

arb

of

nose

seasick.

I find my cats have learned how to stay out of the way of wheeled things. Are you saying that your dogs are dumber than cats? More obstinate? ;-)

didn't

want

glitches

"brand

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an

Taiwan

storage,

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software is

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arb

of

stuff.

making

nose

obviously.

some

seasick.

Obstinate to some extent when they want to have their rest. The office and lab is an area where they know they can just doze off for a while. Phone conferences and clanging of tools doesn't bother them a bit. Other than that they are smart and obedient. They have to be, two of them must pass the therapy dog test every two year so we can visit nursing homes and such with them.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Stuff like that should be exposed in the press, loudly. Maybe then some left-leaning people finally get it and see why smaller government usually equals better government.

It's actually easier than you think. The important part is to establish a good relationship with an assembly place in Outsourcia. Yeah, it does require business trips but after a while it can almost go on auto-pilot. Some of my stuff is produced at in Guangdong since around 15 years. The rules and fees and whatnot simply became way to onerous here. Politicians usually fail to see how much damage such legislation can do and that the damage can hardly ever be undone later.

For that, yes. It is an almost perfect example of the Laffer curve at work. Onerous tax rates for corporations create a motivator to seek legit alternatives.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Everyone is "shocked" and then flips back to "The Price is Right".

government

Like that's going to happen.

My PPoE does it but it's always a clusterfuck. For anything more complicated than a raw PCB it's a disaster and even with raw PCBs it gets there at times.

I meant off shoring.

Absolutely. Lefties will never "get" that simple fact, either.

Not out here in Sacramento. Many times stuff showed up in our paper or on "Call Kurtis" on CBS 13 and ... *WHAMBAM* ... some bureaucrats got into the hot-seat, and were sometimes subsequently canned.

government

True. It's most likely never going to happen, they usually just do not get it.

Hmm, I have seen only one mess-up from Chinese contract production so far and they ate it. Other than that I was always impressed with the quality of the boards, fully assembled and tested. South of the border from us, very different story.

That's something almost anyone can do. I know rather small companies that run the whole board production somewhere overseas. Successfully since years. It would behove our politicians to understand how easy it is to move such production out of the country if they slap onerous rules and regs on companies.

Heck, even in the late 80's we already had a place in India that made some of our ultrasound gear. They did a pretty good job.

Yup :-(

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

garbage

I've seen that a few times but mostly when they go after some private business. Government always gets a pass.

government

*Every* time it was tried it was a mess. The samples were fine but the production was always garbage. The owner would never trust board stuffing off-shore (or on-shore for that matter). He insisted on doing it himself, where he had control over the problems. OTOH, he'd buy headphones, cables, and other custom small parts from China. The samples were fine or the specification could be changed to make them right. When the production pieces came they were *nothing* like the samples. Different wiring, even different wire. He spent a year reworking one delivery just because he needed the parts.

Not true. Every time they did it it was a mess and we spent more time fixing issues than we would have doing the work ourselves. It was usually a total mess. He did insist on off-shore board fabs and was burned about 20% of the time there, too[*]. They kept a few months worth of board inventory so they could recover. Usually the materials management people wouldn't open the packages until they were needed, though.

India was an even bigger problem than China. They were hopeless, even though the spoke "English".

They totally gave up on India. They couldn't even describe the problem because they didn't believe in elementary physics.

Sounds like you have been doing business with the wrong people. If the Chinese where that bad they wouldn't be able to produce the stuff they do.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------

I've had fairly good results, but you HAVE to keep them on a short leash. Without your own (really your own, not those guys taking money from both sides) people on the ground and control of materials you can easily find yourself living in 'interesting times'.

Some companies have been trained well enough that it's no longer a problem, but you have to really have enough business now to interest them (preferably some prestige as well) and have to be willing to pay more than the lowest bidder's quote.

Lately some companies (with overseas connections) have been trying to do very small quantities (prototype) with high quality (and high prices, of course) but I have not tried them. Cost saving is not very much when you include shipping and if I pay through the nose, I can get local guys to do stuff in less time than the shipping, or if time is not a problem, do it in-house for the prototypes.

garbage

As I said, not here. For example, this story made national headlines later:

Some time later a few folks no longer had their government jobs.

government

Maybe you guys have been working with less-than-reputable partner companies. My stuff runs off the production line like clockwork.

Not true? In my cases it certainly was (and is) true.

Production was ok. Software writing .. well ... different thing.

Again, probably wrong partners. We simply did not have such problems at all in India. But production doesn't happen so much there anymore. I guess because of too much corruption and onerous customs regs.

[...]

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Utter nonsense. To successfully off-shore to China you *need* someone there to look over their shoulder EVERY MINUTE. A small company just doesn't have the resources.

Crap,, just look at the poisons they ship to us as food, toys, and sheetrock. Did the customers really specify that? GMAFB.

Then why did my client not need that? After moving production offshore they were maybe down to a dozen employees, I guess that qualifies as "small company".

[...]

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

You are the *only* one I've ever heard that made a go of off-shoring as a small company without major headaches. Even the big guys have problems.