On 1/21/2016 10:32 PM, Sal M. O'Nella wrote:


"highlandham" wrote in message ...

snip

What strikes me in this newsgroup thread , time and again, is that MFJ´s
quality control people (if they exist) pass badly soldered PCBs and
other imperfections which affect their products´ reliability . But for
some reason they get away with it. To me this seems to be an attitude
brought about by management.........Martin F. Jue ?

Frank , GM0CSZ / KN6WH

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I picked up an MFJ "Deluxe Versatuner" at a ham swap meet. I opened it
at home to give it some poking and prodding. I quickly discovered that
most of the hardware need to be tightened or retightened -- if it was
ever tight. This reminds me to open it again. It's been a few years. :-)

"Sal" (really KD6VKW)









It's not just what we first think of as electronics: I have a Chevrolet
pickup truck, and the windshield wipers quit working. (Of course it
happened during an intense storm while I was far from home.)

Online I found that (a) it was a common problem among many models from
General Motors (not just Chevy) for quite a few years, and (b) if you
went to the dealer they would install a new wiper motor for about $200.

I took the motor out and disassembled it. There was a surprisingly
complicated PC board governing the several different speeds of
operation. And, of course, at least half the soldered connections needed
to be redone.

It has now worked fine for another decade, but I feel badly about the
(hundreds of?) thousands of people who wasted all that money, and all
the wasted (probably trashed rather than recycled) motors and gear
trains and electronics, etc.

Maybe I should be amazed at how well so much of our electronics does
work, if it is this hard (read expensive to the manufacturer, not really
difficult!) to do mass production PC board soldering right!
Bob Wilson