My worst supply chain problem was 30 years ago. I use a chip that was a DTMF decoder, generator and something else. Maybe it had a dial tone detector in it. The fab broke the mask when moving some equipment. Nobody told the supply chain until they were totally out of parts and lead time was something like a year.
This part was the most critical part of my product back then. So, I found three chips that could so the individual functions of the one chip. Created a circuit then a PCB that was about 4X the size of the original chip. Put it on .032” substrate. Then I found these pins that you could hammer onto SMT pads on the edge. They came on a roll .100” spacing. So I could cut off 8 or however many and literally press them onto the side of the PCB. The pins were made out of the same stuff as IC legs. They were long enough that I could bend them toward each other under the PCB and get them into the same holes designed for the original part. It was almost a thick film hybrid type of part when I finished that mated with a DIP footprint. What a PITA. Never went back to the original part. Just used the several separate discrete chips and then later learned how to synthesize DTMF with 7 or 8 GPIO pins and a resistor network. From: Forrest Christian (List Account) Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2021 12:32 AM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Supply Chain Issues Yeah, if it was JUST that one, then I wouldn't be whining. The part which set me off is a "ACS711ELCTR12AB-T" Here's a snip from the most recent email from Digi-key: Note that the "original delivery date" is NOT the original delivery date as expected initially. Both of these were already supposed to be here. There are also thousands on order on other orders which are now in the same state. The supply went from "we have standing orders in place and plenty of safety stock, should be fine" to "well this isn't good at all" fairly quickly here. Requiring a scramble to find a new part. Note that we use thousands and thousands of these ACS711's every year. Every injection or PoE port on a recently designed injector uses one of these per port. We still have enough left that we won't run out soon. But it's soon enough that when the lead time goes from "60 days" to "90 days" to "6 months" to "we have no clue", and that's the same at every vendor we have orders in for this part with, then you start to panic. ESPECIALLY when loss of that part, or a mostly drop-in replacement, would result in being unable to ship ALL current-design products and necessitate an entire design revamp. Fortunately, I've found a pair of parts (2 different ones with the same functionality) which are hopefully "just drop it in and make a software change", and tied up 6 months worth of inventory. Right now that's all that is actually in existence. So I might be back to panicking in 6 months. On Tue, Sep 28, 2021 at 6:48 AM Josh Luthman <[email protected]> wrote: You have to wait a couple of days for your truck. I've been waiting 6 months for parts. I'd LOVE to hear a "few days away" response. Josh Luthman 24/7 Help Desk: 937-552-2340 Direct: 937-552-2343 1100 Wayne St Suite 1337 Troy, OH 45373 On Tue, Sep 28, 2021 at 12:58 AM Forrest Christian (List Account) <[email protected]> wrote: Fortunately in my case we're largely doing component-level sourcing instead of assembly-level sourcing, and I'm probably over fussy about qualifying a new part. Plus the vendors tend to be over-fussy about change management so the risk is rather low, at least I hope so. But your point is exactly right. There is a lot of "what can we do to get this out the door" going on right now. And it isn't just your immediate vendor you have to worry about. On Mon, Sep 27, 2021 at 10:20 PM Steve Jones <[email protected]> wrote: That's what concerns me. Companies like packetflux deliver topnotch gear at affordable prices. They stand behind their product. So forrest may bring in 10 units to verify, then order months or years worth of component. Somewhere up the chain though one of the components components gets a shortcut to meet demand. Something like the time chucks surge suppresors didnt get the flux washed off the ethernet pins (note, ever since that, whenever I plug in an rj45 I work it in and out 3 or 4 times,so the snafu created outward quality checks) chuck stood by it, I think changed a vendor or brought the process in house. But that didnt change the fact that there was end user failure that was not directly due to the manufacturers lack of due diligence. An upstream in the chain cut a corner. I'm dreading the consumer electronics hitting the market this holiday season. I forsee a ton of weird shit hitting support that boils down to supply chain component changes on the fly. On Mon, Sep 27, 2021, 10:19 PM Sean Heskett <[email protected]> wrote: I'm sorry to hear this Forest. I wanted to send you some words of encouragement though. Your products and the solutions they provide are EXTREMELY valuable to not just my business but our whole industry. There is a slew of stuff your products accomplish for us that would honestly take a fraken-monster to replicate. I know it's tough going and there's not really an end in sight with these supply chain issues, not just for you but for America and the world. Unfortunately we've off-shored most of our manufacturing and that won't come back home quick. With all the weird things we've had to deal with the last couple years, I have to keep telling myself "This too shall pass". But please please please keep doing what you are doing!!!! You are a true hero of the WISP world who makes products we all need!!! Please let us know if there's any way we can help. Sean Heskett ZIRKEL Internet • WiFi • Phone • TV 970-871-8500 x100 - Office Website | Facebook On Mon, Sep 27, 2021 at 4:06 PM Forrest Christian (List Account) <[email protected]> wrote: I'm getting really tired of dealing with supply chain issues. Like burnt out, don't want to do this anymore, I've had enough tired. Just the things I'm dealing with today: The last few days, all of my spare time has been related to reviewing options to replace a part which has become unobtainum. Like as in, manufacturer has moved from a long lead time to 'don't bother asking'. This seems to happen on a recurring basis now (with different parts) - versus pre-covid it was maybe once every year or two (since I'm careful to select parts to avoid this issue). I've had one part I've had to switch vendors on like 6 times now. And it's not just parts, my enclosure manufacturer for the rackinjectors sent us this gem today: "We had the enclosures ready for pickup since last week, but our road is under maintenance and the whole street got ripped off. My forklift is not able to get off from our driveway to the road because the step is very steep. I heard the city will start paving tomorrow. Hopefully we can load the pallet by Wednesday." Can we please go back to the way it was in 2019 sometime soon? -- - Forrest -- AF mailing list [email protected] http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list [email protected] http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list [email protected] http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- - Forrest -- AF mailing list [email protected] http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list [email protected] http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- - Forrest -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- AF mailing list [email protected] http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
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