BL> (sigh) Our dollar is only 70c in real money, and the Chinese
BL> always sell into the market. Our basic 14" TV is $190 ($US130),
BL> so it looks liek the Chinese give you a 30% discount. If we had
BL> local competition, they'd sell here for $100. Being Communists,
BL> the idea of profit does not make sense. Hard currency, makes
BL> sense.

JB> I saw some 21" sets for sale in Coles Supermaket for (I think)
JB> $170 I don't know what Bob considers a good size.

 Did you actually measure the screen size on those "51cm" sets? 51 cm
is only 20" to start with. It's traditional to round-up an inch to the
size in inches, but the size in cm has to the diagonal of the *active*
screen, rounded *down*, by law. Those sets measured 48 cm (19inches)!

 I saw them too, and thought: "Gee! That's cheap!" but then I
thought: "That's the smallesr 51 cm screen I've ever seen!" so the
next time I went up to Coles I took my tape measure with me... 48cm!

 It's actually illegal to do that, but when they went to the flat
screen, the Chinese started labellign the set according to the "size"
of the picture tube (a 51cm tube leads to a 48cm flat screen). Kmart
did the same thing when they sold a really-cheap "17" monitor. To my
eye, it looked like a large 15". I've seen "73cm" TV sets that are
actually 68cm.

 It's worth measuring the fuckers, when price is roughly proportional
to the cube of the actual screen size. Your $170 scales up to $204 for
a *real* 51cm set, and a real 21" set (53cm) is $233. Not so cheap,
eh?

BL> It's easy to tell the difference. Manual labour uses discrete
BL> components with leads; pick-and-place uses block components.

JB> I've seen video footage of a machine inserting leaded
JB> components through a circuit board. I've also seen manually
JB> assembled surface mount (at a station with a vacuum pick-up
JB> tool and a magnifier.) Jasen

 So have I. And I've seen a pick-and-place machine give 100%
rejects. We had two production lines running... the CAD/CAM machine
and a line of nice ladies fixing the bits that fell off. CAD/CAM is
like the little girl who had a little curl, right in the middle of her
forehead. When it's good, it's very very good, but when it is bad, it
is horrid.

 The fact remains. The cheapest way to stuff a single-layer board is
manually, in China. Here in Oz, we try with CAD/CAM because we can't
afford to apy the manual rates and mostly, it's a farce. Just have a
look where all the TV sets are made...

Regards,
Bob


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