Hi Dennis, You realize Steve was stirring the pot with that label (as is his nature) and that I was pointing out a flaw in his logic. If someone were truly lazy they wouldn't bother with TechNet or a response. Can anybody in this industry be labeled as lazy? I honestly don't think so. Others might associate me with that much bigger bunch of lazy Federal civil service employees who don't care about their careers, the people they serve, the country they love and just sit around . . . waiting to retire and in my case they would be 100% wrong. Not to speak for Steve, but his main point was the difficulty in revising/improving dated DOD PCBs. Trust me there is a certain amount of frustration, as yet unquantified, with building something you could make better or easier on you and your people but can't because . . . . the system isn't designed to efficiently introduce change. If it were it wouldn't be so difficult or frowned upon. As a relative newbie to the PCB industry, I wonder/worry how long I can afford to remain here, working on yesterday's technology before I become obsolete to all but the industrial/military complex. The only thing lazy in my life is my dog, Rusty, and I like him that way. Hans -----Original Message----- From: Beerman, Dennis [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2000 3:02 PM To: [log in to unmask]; Hinners Hans Civ WRALC/LYPME Subject: RE: [TN] DOD Designs... As an IPC Certified Designer, I take offense to comments referring to the "Lazy Designer". Perhaps you are forgetting that the Designer is not responsible for contractual requirements, or perhaps the Lead Engineer has stipulated certain requirements to be met. Perhaps the Designer was responsible for the design of the board and not the documentation. As a designer that has worked with both fabrication and assembly shops to meet their needs, I take offense to your "Lazy Designer" stigma. Perhaps when I call two assembly houses that have two sets of requirements, and each is unwilling to change, I should call you "Lazy Assembly Houses". Perhaps to those board shops that have modified my supplied artwork without notification or approval, I should call you "Lazy Board Shops". Perhaps you should ask the Designer (and not a Purchasing rep) why he made such choices, and listen to the answer. Perhaps you are too lazy to call!!! Is that the type of response you expected Hans? ---------- From: Hinners Hans Civ WRALC/LYPME [SMTP:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2000 2:40 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] DOD Designs... Hey Steve, Amen to everything already said. I'm gonna rant... Okay . . . I know the documentation paper trail can be daunting with DOD assemblies, but is correcting the design to specify current assembly standards too much to ask? It can only enhance the assembly reliability... Daunting is right. I kill toner cartridges when I print hardcopies of the documentation we need. In addition to the people with engineering responsibility over those parts, there are alot of non-technical people involved in supplying DOD with parts. Your initial customer is probably a nontechie. And as everybody knows, you can't make changes without customer approval. So the customer (or rather their engineering support) need testing done to demonstrate that it meets or exceeds the design's intended use and will survive in the "wild". If you ordered something out of a catalog you wouldn't want them to make a substitution without asking? We make suggestions to improve manufacturability and/or reliability during the bidding process. Sometimes they are accepted other times not. If there isn't money for design modification the customer might not be able to make the changes no matter what. You could write up a "Best Practices for PCB Assembly" (the hints of what makes your life easier) and provide that to customers. The wall I hit is obsolescence. The design drawings and BOM may look complete until you actually try to build the little darlings. Here's one I could use some help on. I'm looking for a connector pin (solder plated with a copper base) that looks like a thumb tack/nail. It was originally used/made by Applied Technology (A Division of Itek Corporation). I checked with Amp and they don't make one like it. Anybody know of a custom connector manufacturer who does small batches - 750? I am expecting replies from lazy designers that don't want to "buck the system"... I'm saying that to get some people to speak-up..... Should I point out that lazy designers wouldn't reply or be on the list? This list is not for the lazy. Later, Hans ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hans M. Hinners Materials (Process & Manufacturing) Engineer Warner Robins Air Logistics Center Avionics Production Division Manufacturing Branch 380 Second Street, Suite 104 Building: 640, Mail Stop: LYPME Robins AFB, GA 31098-1638 Voice: (912) 926 - 1970 Fax: (912) 926 - 7164 mailto:[log in to unmask] http://www.robins.af.mil ############################################################## TechNet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ############################################################## To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TECHNET <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TECHNET ############################################################## Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information. 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