We could use an occasional parts researcher. Anyone need a part-time job? Maybe 5 or 10 hours a month.
- posted
2 years ago
We could use an occasional parts researcher. Anyone need a part-time job? Maybe 5 or 10 hours a month.
What types of parts do you need to research? For silicon parts, your new staff member should be able to help.
A lot of connectors, hardware, passives, cables, relays, and of course silicon. Part of the work is to look into price, availability, and second-sourcing, maybe to read some data sheets and discuss needs with the engineers.
I don't want any staff members to spend a lot of time looking for parts!
I don't mind looking for silicon so much. All that other stuff is distracting.
For example, I want to find a pre-assembled 10-pin cable to connect this LCD thing to a controller board a few inches away.
"5-10 hours a month" is "a lot of time"?
Don't your folks spend that much -- and more -- just trying to stay current with the offerings available in those industries? Or, do they let that knowledge atrophy cuz it's "too expensive" to keep current?
Let your distis do the gruntwork -- if you have decent quantities. They'll be more than happy to find a part that THEY sell to meet your needs! And, drop off samples to get you started.
And tell me which other distributors have the 2nd source parts in stock.
Back when I was designing at the discrete-components level, working for a pipsqueak company, I insisted on triple sources for everything I could not buy a lifetime supply of. Electronically, we were not doing anything leading edge. So, we never had any obsolescence dramas.
Joe Gwinn
Part of engineering discipline is not to put your design into a difficult supply position.
The only way to learn this, is to force the engineer to spec the actual part numbers or drawing, for quotation - ie rub his nose in it.
You don't want your staff looking for parts because . . . .
RL
Too bad unemployed English majors can't do the job, because then you could find a service to do it for 5$.
Hey, John- if nobody else suitable has interest I could maybe give it a try. Could be interesting. After the 19th or so.
I have doubts that it’s an easily outsourced function though- we’ve/I’ve tried outsourcing some research-type functions with somewhat mixed results. There are a lot of “cultural” aspects at play in a functional company.
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That adds a lot of work, like seeing if the pins line up on relays. Good sort of thing to outsource.
ICs are less easy to multi-source than passives.
Because their time is valuable, and because we will finish more product designs if someone can research parts for us.
I don't make them order office supplies or snacks either. People who are good at design are rare and should get all the help we can give them.
We would appreciate help now and then. It could sometimes be dull though, like finding relays and MS connectors. We have a project coming up with both!
Email me please.
If the researcher actually understood electronic design, the requirements could be a lot less specific. And the function more valuable.
At the time (late 1970s), it did not, and was useful for pushing transistor makers and their reps off their sales pitches for their proprietary super-dooper kind of transistor. For one thing, we didn't need super-dooper. Conversation-stopping question: "Great. Who else makes this exact same transistor?
The answer was always to go to a 2Nxxxx (or the European equivalent), which were made to a spec the manufacturers did not control.
Passives were already there.
PWBs were one- or two-sided through-hole.
Well, we were using only 74-series TTL and 4000-series CMOS in the day, so there were lots of second sources.
Still are, 50 years later. Raise a toast to jellybean components.
A year ago, I did a design that used a TI CD40106B (CMOS Hex Schmitt-Trigger Inverters) to buffer angle-encoder outputs and match them to Arduino digital inputs.
Joe Gwinn
Same reason he doesn't want them talking to factory reps, distis, answering phone calls, dealing with email, attending meetings or offsites, taking lunch breaks, browsing the 'net, etc.
These "distractions" are the very things that expose folks to new ideas. Trying to keep people "on" continuously leads to less inspired designs. Look at the folks who work in large bullpens.
Put them in a bubble and see how many NOVEL ideas they come up with!
Why do you make up nonsense like that? It's not even very good nonsense.
Researching availability and price and pinouts of connectors and relays isn't our concept of inspired new ideas.
Some junior engineer might learn something from that sort of thing. To a serious designer, it's wasted time. Tell the kid what we want and see what she comes up with.
The correct guy to go 'searching' is a rabid purchasing agent armed with a solid part spec and a purchase order.
RL
We have a purchasing agent, but she doesn't know enough about electronics to find new parts for us.
The ideal parts researcher would have ideas too. As in "Are you sure you want that kind of part? How about..." It's ideally a design function.
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