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Meet a Shenzhen Maker: Mr. Chen

hoektronics.com

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Re: Meet a Shenzhen Maker: Mr. Chen

#51

Post by nnq »

muyuu wrote: post #45
nnq wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one thing I loved when first coming to the US was how spread out and spacious everything was (compared to most European cities), bar NYC. It's amazing how you Americans strive to change exactly the things that foreigners absolutely love about your country... for me "high density living" is a mind wrecking nightmare that only those with the "hypesocial city rat" personality type can enjoy...

Depleting oil reserves are quickly forcing this change. I'd take "medium" density any day though. Enough density so people don't need to move miles daily, not enough density so people can't afford some healthy living space. NYC and SanFran are way over the top.

Agree, probably your "american style medium density" is what I would consider "low-ish density", healthy and pleasant too...

...but using the "depleting oil reserves" and other eco arguments to make people leave in what I see as much lower quality conditions is inhumane and cruel in my pov - just build good quality public transportation, make it electrical (even trains are efficient) and go all nuclear to power it all, putting up with all the eco-consequences of it ...or maybe Elon Musk's Hyperloop will redeem everything :)

Re: Meet a Shenzhen Maker: Mr. Chen

#52

Post by akiselev »

coryrc wrote: post #21
akiselev wrote: post #6

Reading stories about Shenzhen makes me terrified for the future of electrical engineering in the United States. Here in Silicon Valley I often have to wait a week to get a board fabbed and another week to get it assembled. I usually have to order the parts myself from Digikey, which takes a few days, and then manually build the kits. If something goes wrong during the bring up, I need to either spend boatloads of mo…

If you are building a product, you don't really want to be using rare ICs. When you are making a decent number, you don't want to always be hunting for reliable suppliers (i.e. counterfeited SD cards http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?page_id=1022 ). I like that when I'm buying parts from Digikey, I get what I actually ordered. When or if I want to take my chances and cut costs, I have the option to have it built ove…

When you're getting ready to do massive runs, yes, you want to make sure your ICs are common, have pin-equivalent drop in replacements, and can be sourced from a reliable distributor. But that's not the point since such a run would take weeks or months anyway, more than enough time to properly source everything.

However, there's still no "3d printer equivalent" for electronics prototyping especially when using BGAs.

I've paid way more than $65 for overnight shipping from Digikey, Mouser, Arrow NAC, etc. Especially when ordering from multiple distributors (for some reason it always seems that my kits end up being a 90:10 split between Digikey:Mouser).

Re: Meet a Shenzhen Maker: Mr. Chen

#53

Post by akiselev »

stbtrax wrote: post #14
akiselev wrote: post #6

Reading stories about Shenzhen makes me terrified for the future of electrical engineering in the United States. Here in Silicon Valley I often have to wait a week to get a board fabbed and another week to get it assembled. I usually have to order the parts myself from Digikey, which takes a few days, and then manually build the kits. If something goes wrong during the bring up, I need to either spend boatloads of mo…

I'm not sure who you're using but 1-day turns on PCB and assembly are not at all uncommon in the Bay Area.

Please link me to your suppliers. I've never had less than 3 day quotes for assembly (400+ parts per board with BGAs, 3-5 boards) and they usually cost $3k+ just for the setup of the Pick n places.

Re: Meet a Shenzhen Maker: Mr. Chen

#54

Post by newhouseb »

muyuu wrote: post #46
newhouseb wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really irritating - whenever I'm in China, I feel like I'm in a desert of the free information (see: GFW & Github) and when I'm in the US I'm in a desert of accessible components for EE work. Now that I'm out of college, and have a better idea of what a EE builders paradise looks like, I should see if Taiwan bridges the gap here.

Taiwan is great. I loved walking around Neihu in Taipei and seeing all the brand names in components right there, plus others you don't know because they make the stuff other companies brand.

Do you mean you can buy components in Neihu or just see the companies HQs? When I lived in Taipie, it was before the metro reached Neihu so I never fully explored it.

Re: Meet a Shenzhen Maker: Mr. Chen

#55

Post by kyllo »

derleth wrote: post #30
icelancer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote an article on my blog about this very topic. A common theme amongst college graduates with no job is that they "want a fair shot." Not quite. They don't want a fair shot against Chinese nationals with their same skill set with an order of magnitude less in wage requests!

> They don't want a fair shot against Chinese nationals with their same skill set with an order of magnitude less in wage requests! That isn't a fair shot, though. The Chinese national has an unfair advantage due to the order of magnitude wage differential.

Not for long, with inflation being in the double digits in many parts of China. Soon, China is going to be a lot like the US only with 10x as many old people.

Re: Meet a Shenzhen Maker: Mr. Chen

#56

Post by mapt »

pm90 wrote: post #34
alaskamiller wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if the massive empty complexes along the 101 in Silicon Valley gets repurposed to be hacker spaces and dorms, imagine if RadioShack and Fry's makes a comeback and returns to their roots of supplying bare parts, imagine if 3D printers become affordable and everywhere, imagine if crowd funding sites can wire funds within a day, imagine if the distribution channels can also mail out products the next day. Imagin…

One of the biggest shocks for me when I came to the US for the first time was to see what Radio Shack had turned into. Especially because it is often cited as one of the reasons for technological progress in america (easy availability of electronics)

What is disgusting to me is that the Apple Stores, marked by extreme profit margins, and high turnover due to a scarcity of locations, have become a model copied by every chain retail store in the US, ten to a shopping mall. Big amounts of sleek empty space separate units to toy with, and ten employees wander around begging you to let them assist you.

Cell phones are commodity items, not modular case+fans+CPU+GPU+PSU+motherboard+X+Y+Z purchases. You can (and some markets do) fit $100k of product into an 8'x8' stall and have plenty of space left over. Cell phone plans are perfectly centralized, and can be purchased online or over the phone. At the same time, online reviews are essentially the only reasonable place to seek unbiased advice, and are plentiful.

This is a market demand that, while it may have reason to exist, could be filled by 10% of the current locations selling cell service & phones. Instead, T-Mobile needs a storefront, Verizon needs a storefront, Apple needs a storefront, and half a dozen adjacent electronics stores or electronic departments sell cell phones on the side, in every large strip mall or indoor shopping mall in America.

In a functional market economy, profitability is minimized through competition; It's a waste that we tolerate in order to incentivize performance. By 2013, the cell phone companies & retail established have established de facto agreement that it's better for them to plow profits into essentially purchasing large quantities of well-manned empty space in every major electronics store in the nation, rather than lower prices or improve their infrastructure.

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