OT: I've just become Joerg-asmed ;-)

I've never had any joy at all from such websites. For what it's worth I've been an independent designer for more than 10 years now (I have my own factory unit with the space and equipment to do things but I very rarely make anything beyond prototypes) and the ways I've got jobs (roughly in order of success rate) is:

repeat business from established customers recommendations cold calling cold calling based on looking at prospective clients job ads website networking (once only and that from a contact gained years before I got the job)

If you are just starting the first (and best) two aren't any help.

Michael Kellett

In our fairly remote corner of SW Scotland my favorite shop is Tarf - the only place I know where you can get lunch, dog food, A Lindt Chocolate Teddy Bear and a nose ring for a bull, all under one roof !

If you're passing this way:

Michael Kellett

And all available at ultralow cost thanks to modern Chinese manufacturing...

umber.

now

s. Shoes.

...

I've just read that 93% of US paint and brushes is made by US prison labor, so it isn't all chinese

-Lasse

Put the link in your sig line, it's important. Some people want to check folks out incognito, meaning without sending an email right away, to see what they've been doing, their CV, and so on.

A professional look is good but the contents are more important. One new client said my site looks a bit "amateurish". I said yeah, one of these days maybe I transfer it to Wordpress like a friend suggested. Then he commented "Nah, no worries, it's all there and that's what mattered to us".

I wish you all the best for that. Lithotriptors are wonderful machines, not a totally painless procedure of course but it sure beats surgery and a lengthy recovery. I've worked on the design of one.

What I like is having 4 "tractor" supply houses, and a TSC. I can buy JD green, Kubota orange, Case red or New Holland blue and every implement you might need or not need but just want. Bobcat and Case are easy to find.

In addition to TSC there are 3 other locally owned feed stores here. When we have our Halloween hay ride we just go down to the feed store and get some bales. No charge as long as you bring them back.

That doesn't exist. Smeone could make a lot of money if they created one. Most sites that tried are either overpriced, too access-restricted or carry too much riff-raff.

That is exactly how it works. Good summary.

Absolutamente, and it was already predictable in the 80's. I've told people and tried to convince them not to defect to SW or sales but they did anyways. So now the hardcore shortage is here and we all get older.

Unfortunately this also resulted in many of the others (SW, digital, embedded, upper level management) to think that analog is simple and always a piece of cake. Because they often no longer understand what's involved.

Possibly you did it wrong or without enough gusto. I did it twice, in two different continents because there was a long phase in there where I had to work as an employee. But only after making sure all my clients from back then were taken care of and didn't get alienated. That, of course meant, I had to look for new ones when starting consulting the

In fact, I kind of had to do it a 3rd time because Obamacare caused the med devices investment climate to almost collapse. I saw that one coming, so around 2009/2010 I decided to offer my services in other markets, and did.

If it worked three times for me and never for you something must have gone wrong.

I can't imagine how it can not work in analog unless your expertise is way too narrow. Making absurd claims is a no-no though, I'd never do that. If I am asked to design a wireless combombulator I will honestly tell them that I know wireless very well but will have to get myself up to speed on combombulators.

That is what I repeatedly could not find. A technician with the right dexterity and skills could, with less than $1k worth of investments, set up a small corner in their home and offer that service. But locally here ... nada.

The equipment for hand assembly isn't expensive. You don't have to shell out $600+ for a fancy Metcal anymore these days. Many things can be had for much less on EBay or from China. So a tech could start out self-employed on the cheap and buy the fancy gear later, once the first $10-20k are in the bank.

Since I could never find such a person locally (beats me why nobody takes that opportunity) I send most everything to assembly houses.

I know a guy who knows a guy -- he's well stocked, give him the parts and he'll turn it around in his spare time for a very reasonable rate. But that's around here. Dunno if there are more guys like that around here, it's probably word of mouth if anyone "knows a guy" anywhere..

Tim

And here you just got finished telling us about distance commerce. The assembler doesn't need to be local.

The U.S. still makes a d*mn good toilet seat! The rest of the plumbing fixture stuff has moved to Mexico.

The CV is a bit too informative for a web-site - Jim YThompson could use it to send a hit-man

".

I've read a bit about them. The one I was reading about used an exploding w ire to generate the sound waves, which struck me as bit crude. Did you come up with something neater?

Having a kidney stone isn't exactly painless, and what I do know is that th e local medico's are good at providing effective pain management - it didn' t stop the cold sweat and the nausea when the renal colic did kick in, but it did kill the pain, and the episodes were mercifully brief.

I certainly felt like throwing up a couple of times, but didn't actually do so.

For electro-cardio-version (to get you out of atrial fibrillation) they use a short-acting general anesthetic, which only knocks you out for about ten minutes, but that comes with all the advice about not driving for 24 hours and so forth.

Then don't put your address in there if you are afraid of Arizonians. Besides, finding out someone's address is easier than you think and one does not need a CV for that.

The one I worked on uses a huge transducer. I can't devulge construction details but it doesn't work much differently than an ultrasound machine, just with a lot more power and everything is huge. It's amazing ... bam .. bam .. bam ... patient visits the dunny ... debris comes out ... done.

Even after a lithotriptor treatment I wouldn't drive, ask someone or use a taxi. Docs are often a bit too easy on that. When I had a sigmoidoscopy they said "sure you can drive". Well, I didn't, and was glad that I didn't.

I'd appreciate it if you could send me his contact info. Sometimes there's time enough for Fedex.

Ultimately a local tech would of course be better, like when you quickly need to have a 100-pin flat-pack chip swapped out because something went bzzzt-kapoof in there. But I've almost given up hope that we'll ever find a local guy. I can't understand that, lots of folks unemployed here in CA because of a screwed-up business climate. Instead of lining up for unemployment assistance I'd do my darndest to get back on my feet and this is an almost perfect opportunity for good techs.

Slowman is a village idiot, hardly worth the expense of a hit man ;-)

And who is this "YThompson" person anyway?

It's always a good idea to have a driver after you've had your ass reamed >:-} ...Jim Thompson

Yeah, unfortunately including toilets. We needed six (!) shipments until we have one that was not either broken, warped or full of large debris in the presure channels. This was a mainstream US manufacturer. Pathetic. Luckily the company had to pay for all repalcement truck rides and that was a lot of money.

Not ultralow cost in Truckee. A low-end 2-speed Dremel cost me $70. In the first week after we got the cabin, I was averaging about $1000 a day.

When it comes to design work, sure. Electrons travel from here to my clients in under 200 milliseconds. Hardware doesn't.

For some jobs he or she does. If you just blew a 100QFP because a probe tip slipped or whatever, what's better?

a. Going down the road and be back with a functional board by lunch time.

b. Send it overnight at high cost and wait two days.