Being retired ( and not over the hill) you could very well afford to do all the necessary testing for free on your big layout. And being in California would make it convenient to the container ports..
John Armstrong ----- Original Message ----- From: Ed To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 2:23 PM Subject: {S-Scale List} Quality Problems...... > While there's enough blame to go around, most of > the soaring electronic failure rate experienced > over the last decade is the responsibility of the > Taiwanese. > Stan > Stokrocki In my opinion, the firm making the bad parts is only partially to blame. Most of the blame should be heaped upon the maker/importer of the final product for not having an incoming receiving inspection process. Yes, it costs money to hire inspectors and provide them with test equipment. Then again, there are outside laboratories that can be contracted to do testing of the complex parts. Merely assuming that all parts coming in the back door are working and built properly is like a time bomb waiting to go off. Sooner or later it will bite you. Likewise, sending completed products out the front door without a thorough final test/inspection is the same as telling your customers to do the inspection that you should have done yourself. Would airlines purchase Boeing airplanes if the planes were not tested and inspected thoroughly? I wonder how much Boeing spends on QC -- both incoming and final -- as a percentage of the cost of an airplane? I wonder if Gary Chudzinski would have willingly paid an extra $15 for an HO mass-produced engine without any problems at all? I bet he would, but he can answer for himself. To add a bit of S scale model railroading to this message, even the best of S importers/manufacturers do not do thorough testing. Some do not test at all, but just send the box off to the customer after it clears customs from the orient. Others do a test run on a short section of straight track and do fix the obvious defects. Nobody actually runs each and every loco around a curve or up a grade before shipping to a customer. Curves and grades are where many problems surface because the pilot truck, trailing truck, wheelsets, couplers, etc. all shift sideways and up&down and touch things they should not be touching. Pulling a long train up a grade would quickly expose wimpy u-joints and rubber tubing slippage and the like. We, the model railroading consumer, have been brainwashed to believe that we are not willing to pay for tested and inspected merchandise. If Gary will pay extra for a good loco, so will I !! I just wish every loco ran as well as the UP turbine that performs during my open houses. That is on heckuva piece of industrial machinery. By the way, the "S"acto convention will have a clinic on how to make engines run better. Is that a sign of the times or what? Cheers...Ed L. __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 5747 (20101230) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 5747 (20101230) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
