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Written by Akiba
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Tuesday, 29 January 2013 |
2013-01-26 Generator Conference
My final day in Shenzhen and also the final event on the itinerary is
the Generator Conference. This is a conference put on by Cyril
Ebersweiler and Seeed Studios for the hardware startup scene. It was a
little bit crazy for us because the previous night, we had a big BBQ
party on the top of Rapscallions and invited a bunch of people including
AQS, HAXLR8R, Dangerous Prototypes, PCH, and others. It turned into a
huge bender and most of the group had some degree of hangover today.
Bunnie had the worst of it and I think it was the final few rounds of
vodka or whisky last night that did him in. Bunnie is also one of the speakers
at the Generator conference which is going to be interesting.
The Generator conference was right next to Seeed Studio which was
located far away from us. We took two taxis out there but ended up
getting lost along the way. We finally were able to meet up at a subway
station near the place and walked to the conference from there. At the
entrance to the venue, Cyril greeted us with his custom "Hardware is a
Bitch" shirt and wearing NekoMimi neural cat ears. I can see why
traditionally VC-averse people like Zach and Mitch Altman like him. I
can see myself getting along with him too. |
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Written by Akiba
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Tuesday, 29 January 2013 |
2013-01-24 PCH
Although the factory tours had ended, that didn't mean the events had
ended. As usual, the schedule was still packed and today, we had the
chance to visit the headquarters of a large contract manufacturer and
logistics company called PCH. According to rumors I overheard, PCH was
named by the founders, a group of Irishmen, as they were traveling down
Pacific Coast Highway in California. They needed a name for their
company and figured PCH would work.
PCH is the parent company of the logistics company we visited, CTS. They
also handle manufacturing for many Apple products and accessories as
well as various other brands. They run a technology accelerator to help
smaller companies get to manufacturing and provide services and
consulting to the companies in the accelerator. Darragh Hudson is one of
the heads of the accelerator and he also owns a popular restaurant in
the Coco Park district called Rapscallions. We've been going there
regularly so we've met up with Darragh a few times already. |
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Written by Akiba
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Monday, 28 January 2013 |
2013-01-22 AUK Connectors
For the final factory tour, we visited AUK Connectors. Bunnie wanted to
show us a connector factory because connectors are the pinnacle of
plastic injection molding technology. Making connectors is orders of
magnitude harder than making things like injection molded enclosures
because the tolerances are so tight. Any type of flashing occurring due
to tool wear will drastically affect the connector and hence somebody's
design. A good connector manufacturer needs to constantly check and test
their tooling to make sure it's always within spec.
Before I saw the AUK manufacturing operation, I did not realize that
connector manufacturing was so difficult. The tour started off in their
sample room with them showing us the various connectors they make and
also showing us a short PPT intro of their company. One of the things
that caught my attention was that one area they focus on is customized
connectors. Of course I started asking a lot of questions about it. I
was curious what it took to make a custom connector. The tooling fee
varies but it is in the area of around $30k for a custom connector. In
my opinion, it's worth it after seeing what they have to go through with
the tooling. The per connector charge also varies depending on the
composition and complexity of the connector, but in general, it sounds
like the NRE for the custom connector is the big hurdle. |
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Written by Akiba
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Monday, 28 January 2013 |
2013-01-22
Today we went on one of the most interesting tours of this trip. It's
something that I've always been interested in but didn't really know how
to approach. The tour was of a chip-on-board bare die bonding assembly
house. For those that don't know, one interesting technique used for
very low cost, high volume products is bare die bonding. In this
process, the bare die is used rather than a die packaged in a lead frame
and epoxy resin. This has two benefits. The first is that the form
factor is decreased since only the bare die is used. The second benefit
is that its possible to save cost since packaging materials usually add
cost to a chip.
There are headaches with doing a bare die process. You'll have to
negotiate with a vendor to purchase bare die rather than packaged die
and you'll also usually have a rather high minimum order quantity. The
minimum order quantity can vary depending on whether the manufacturer is
set up to do bare die sales, but the general rule of thumb I've heard
is that the MOQ would be one wafer, which for something like a simple
ARM or AVR microcontroller would be in the thousands. |
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Written by Akiba
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Monday, 28 January 2013 |
2013-01-21 Okano SMT and Speaker Factory
The same day we went to the sanitary napkin factory, we also went to two
other factories. I broke them up into two parts because there were too
many factories to write about and it would have turned into a huge post.
After lunch we headed to the Okano PCB Assmembly house. Okano is a joint
venture between Okano in Taiwan and AQS so it was easy to set that tour
up. Unfortunately, Okano didn't want pictures being taken inside the
factory because one of their large customers was Nintendo and they
didn't want the PCB pictures and assembly process for them to get leaked
on to the internet. I was only able to take pictures of the initial
setup to go into the factory. By now, we're all pretty used to the gear
needed to go into an SMT assembly factory. All PCB assembly houses are
paranoid about ESD since they result in soft failures that are difficult
to diagnose. For Okano, we had to get dressed up in the standard ESD
frocks, hair nets, and shoe condoms. This was the first picture I got of
all of us geared up to go into an assembly house though since Huawei
wouldn't allow cameras. |
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Written by Akiba
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Monday, 28 January 2013 |
2013-01-21
Today we got taken to visit a diaper and sanitary napkin factory. Bunnie
had AQS line this one up because he wanted everyone to be exposed to a
non electronics manufacturing operation. The factory was actually quite
with only three lines total and one line in operation. The line in
operation was a diaper line and we were able to see in detail how
diapers were made. I'm not familiar with the exact details of what was
happening throughout the process, but the general idea is that paper
napkins were being layered on top of each other to form a sort of paper
sandwich. Along with that, there were other operations that needed to be
done such as adding the elastic bands, some cotton filling, and
spritzing the diapers with perfume.
The factory was quite young at only one year old. The owners were
formerly paper based product distributors and ran a trading company in
that industry. They eventually got to the point where it just made sense
for them to own their own factory. What I'm now understanding about
Shenzhen is that this is not a difficult undertaking. There is a company
that sold them the whole machine as a finished product. Technically, I
guess it'd be called something like a "modular paper layering machine"
but you can buy one for about $300k USD. This machine can be configured
to be used to make diapers, sanitary napkins, or likely any other paper
based product that requires layering on paper and there are technicians
available that can teach how the machine is used, configure it, and
repair it. |
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Written by Akiba
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Wednesday, 23 January 2013 |
2013-01-18
Yesterday and today are free days that we had to work
on our own stuff, but David organized an optional trip out to OCT
(Overseas Chinese Town) which is kind of an artist's district in
Shenzhen. The name comes from the company that created the area. It
seems the people that made the area are overseas Chinese and wanted to
create a place that reminded them of the artsy districts in other
countries like the US. It's in a slightly wooded area and has a indie
shops, book stores, restaurants, and coffee shop. It's a refreshing
break from the hustle of Hua Qiang Pei, the electronics district here in
Shenzhen.
David organized a talk with Cyril from HAXLR8R about
what HAXLR8R is and how incubators work so the media lab designers could
get a better idea about it. The talk was going to be held at the
ChaiHuo Makerspace, a makerspace started in Shenzhen. I actually brought
some things to work on for the Makerspace, mainly because I wanted to
get an idea of what it's like to try and do projects at a hackerspace in
Shenzhen.
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Written by Akiba
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Saturday, 19 January 2013 |
2013-01-16
Today our destination was a motor manufacturer called
Lotus. This manufacturer is used often by AQS and so they were able to
set us up with a very hands on tour. As opposed to the Huawei and CTS
tours, pictures were allowed and we were able to get deep into the
process and parts. One of the things I've taken a liking to is working
with the small and medium sized manufacturers rather than the larger
ones. At a smaller size, customized designs are much easier and the
processes are flexible enough that changes can be made sometimes on the
fly. The larger manufacturers are much more rigid in their processes and
methodology. Although they're more polished, it usually comes at a
price so it's difficult to make changes or do small batch test runs.
Lotus
is a medium sized motor manufacturer and the facility we visited
manufactures DC motors. They have a separate facility to manufacture
stepper motors as well, but we were not able to go to that factory. Once
we arrived at the factory, they took us to the sample room to talk a
little bit about the types of motors they manufacture. After this, we
went to a small room where they put together customized sample motors.
These are custom DC motors that are requested by their customers and the
initial sample quantities are handmade.
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Written by Akiba
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Friday, 18 January 2013 |
2013-01-12
This post is out of chronological order because I wanted to wait for the custom clothing to be finished before posting it.
It's
the weekend so Bunnie offered to take us on a fun trip to the LuoHu
fabric mall. It's a place where you can get raw materials and also
contract tailors to make custom clothing. The fabric mall itself was an
impressive collection of stalls selling all kinds of fabric like denim,
linen, cashmere, etc. Walking through the place was just floor to
ceiling fabrics of all types. In the back, there were a bunch of tailors
that would custom make the clothing for you from the available fabrics.
All you had to do was go to a tailor, specify the clothing you wanted,
either from the available magazines, a picture you have, or even a
sketch. Then an assistant goes with you through the fabric stalls and
helps you find the fabric that you want to use. Once it's done, then you
negotiate the price of the fabric and the labor. Once the pricing is
settled, you take your fabric back to the tailors shop, get the
measurements, pay for the labor, and your custom made clothing or bag
will be available in approximately one week.
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Written by Akiba
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Friday, 18 January 2013 |
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2013-01-15
Today's tour destination was Huawei. For those that
don't know, Huawei is a gigantic Chinese communications equipment
provider. They're also an MIT Media Lab sponsor so the tour could be
lined up through the mutual relationship with the lab. In the first
part, we'll be meeting with the R&D engineers, they'll be
demonstration what they're working on, and the students will be giving a
presentation on what they're working on in the lab. In the second part
of the tour, we'll go out to Dongguan where HuaThe wei is establishing a
new manufacturing facility. Over there, we'll be able to see their SMT,
test, and final assembly lines for their cell phones. They are a major
manufacturer of cell phones in many countries except the US from what I
understand. Unfortunately, Huawei also has a strict no camera policy and
we weren't allowed to bring any type of camera, laptop, or memory stick
to their R&D and factory areas.
At first, they gave us a
tour of the exhibition area and explained what Huawei does. There was a
lot of infrastructure communications equipment down there and it was
kind of nice getting back in contact with my communications background.
Bunnie and I were geeking out over a lot of the big iron rack mount
communications equipment there, while Jie and Pip were geeking out over
the designer furniture they had there. Engineers versus designers. Ha ha ha. |
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Written by Akiba
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Thursday, 17 January 2013 |
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2013-01-14
It's Monday and the factory tours are starting up again. Today's destination is a logistics facility called CTS that works with big brands like Apple, Beats by Dre, etc, and suprisingly, Little Bits. The security was extremely heavy at this facility and we needed to provide passports and go through security clearance before we entered the facility. Cameras were unfortunately not allowed since Apple products are housed there so there are no pictures of this facility.
The first area we were taken to is the packaging department. For mass production, most people including myself only consider the production of the actual product. However there are also separate assembly lines for the packaging. We were watching one popular consumer product getting packaged up and there were eighteen people in the assembly line. It starts with an empty acrylic box. Paper inserts were put in the front and back with the company logo and product picture. A molded insert was then added to hold the product, labels were added, barcode stickers, documentation, accessories, styrofoam bag to encase the main device, and then the final product was put into a shipping box. |
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Written by Akiba
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Sunday, 13 January 2013 |
2013-01-11
Day four of the Shenzhen trip and the destination was a
contract manufacturer called Eagle. They had both a plastics injection
molding side and also an electonics assembly manufacturing side. Bunnie
chose this site to provide a contrast to Colinda which is the injection
molding factory we saw earlier.
For the injection molding side,
it's our third plastics factory we visited so there wasn't a whole lot
that was new to us. However it was interesting to see how their process
differed from the others. It was obvious that Colinda was a smaller
factory, Kunda was specialized in huge automotive tooling and specialty
plastics, and Eagle had more of a polished operational process. |
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Written by Akiba
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Saturday, 12 January 2013 |
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2013-01-10
This is day 3 of the MIT Media Lab organized Shenzhen Trip and it feels like it's already been an eternity. I can feel a lot of my attitudes towards design changing by seeing the manufacturing flows and factories. Previously I would unconsciously limit myself to different possibilities because things like doing an injection molded enclosure felt outside of my reach in terms of cost and volume. After seeing and talking to the people here, many are willing to take on all kinds of projects and offer a lot of help. It all depends on the relationship you have with them. It's a very Asian thing.
Today we're taking a break from the factory tours and going to the South China Market. This market is kind of in the middle of nowhere about an hour's drive outside of Shenzhen. It's a huge market spanning probably a few kilometers on each side and rather than small stalls, each manufacturer occupies a proper shop space. The storefront is just a showroom and you go into the shops to discuss business with each manufacturer.
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Written by Akiba
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Friday, 11 January 2013 |
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2013-01-09 Okay, I think there were some issues with
the old pages that I put the original journal on. I've just moved them
to some new pages that should be faster. Sorry about that. Anyhow,
on with the story. Today, we went on a tour of a bag and luggage
factory in the Dongguan area. It's really nice because it's a change
from the decidedly tech nature of the trip. Many of the Media Lab
members are interested in textiles and soft circuits, and Bunnie and I
have pretty much seen a lot of electronics assembly lines. |
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Written by Akiba
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Friday, 11 January 2013 |
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2013-01-08 The
first day of tours started and it was an amazing experience. I've never
been really super interested in the process of injection molding but
after seeing how things are done, I found the subject fascinating. We
started the day off taking the van to an injection molding factory. The
owner of the factory welcomed us with open arms and surprisingly allowed
us to take pictures inside the facility. Our first stop was a
meeting room where the owner brought out samples of injection molded
devices for us to examine. Coleman, an injection molding expert from AQS
(a contract manufacturer that's helping us organize the tours) and
Bunnie were explaining how the parts were made, the materials, finish,
what decisions went into making the mold, defects, and identifying the
markings from the different parts of the mold. I was impressed how much
information could be had just by looking at a plastic enclosure. They
were able to reverse engineer the design tradeoffs that the designers
had to make, some bad decisions, and were easily able to approximate the
cost of the tooling and cost per part. |
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Written by Akiba
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Friday, 11 January 2013 |
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2013-01-06 - The Beginning
It started out with me,
Bunnie, and some other members of Tokyo Hackerspace on one of his trips
to Tokyo about six months ago. We were talking about possibly doing a
summer hacker train trip across Northern Siberia using the
TransSiberian Railway or the Baikal Amur Mainline which runs parallel to
it to tour the back country of Russia. This actually turned into an
active project and one of the (crazier) girls in Tokyo Hackerspace is
organizing the trip for this summer. Here's more info. Of
course we were also getting buzzed off of beers at the izakaya we were
at when Bunnie casually mentioned that he might do a month long workshop
in Shenzhen for MIT Media Lab. The purpose was to teach the grad
student designers about how to take their designs to manufacturing. My
immediate reflex when I heard "month, shenzhen, manufacturing, bunnie"
was to force myself into the project. So here I am, prepping to
leave for Hong Kong today, then take a bus up into Shenzhen to meet up
with Bunnie. He's arranged living apartments for all the participants
including myself and Sean Cross (formerly of Chumby) as mentors. The MIT
Media Lab students are grad student designers and this is technically
an (independent activities period (IAP)) study project. |
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