[sdiy] TT-303 specs, assembly quality vs. cost

[Robin Whittle]

The microcontrollers of the Quicksilver 303:

  http://socialentropy.com/quicksilver/

and the TT-303 Bass Bot are not connected to the 6 small pots which
directly - in an analogue voltage, current or resistance manner -
control the synthesizer.


I don't know where the SMT (robotic) assembly and soldering is done, or
the final assembly, but I understand both are done in Thailand - perhaps
by the same company.  I have been told this choice was made for reasons
of quality.  I would be surprised it was done to reduce costs,
considering the generally low cost of these services in China, and the
cost of air-freighting everything back and forth between Hong Kong and
Thailand.

China is a single party dictatorship in which labor unions are banned.
Hong Kong has labor unions and limited democracy, while being under
Chinese rule.  Thailand has labor unions and is a parliamentary
constitutional monarchy, as is the UK, Canada, Australia etc.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy

However Thai politics is complex and troubled, with military coups and
ten year prison terms for insulting the monarchy.  Still, it has labor
unions and is visited by millions of Western tourists.  A quick search
for information on relative labor costs lead me to:

  http://www.chinadailyapac.com/article/not-cheap-still-affordable

    Thailand, for example, has fantastic infrastructure and enough
    support industries to make it a great location for the
    manufacture of complex electronics or cars. There has been no
    exodus of these types of manufacturers and wages are among the
    highest.

    In January, minimum wages were hiked by 35 percent in some areas
    of Thailand, topping off a 40 percent increase in April 2012. In
    the decade to 2011, incomes in Thailand doubled. The World Bank
    now considers it to be an upper-middle-income nation. Credit
    Suisse believes wages could rise another 10 percent this year.

Surface Mount assembly and reflow soldering is highly automated in all
countries.  Success can only be achieved with good operating conditions,
huge capital investment and highly skilled operators.  Some larger
components would be hand-inserted and perhaps hand soldered.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tJhWw7cvT4

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qk5vxWY46A
    (Two heads each capable of placing 60 components a *second*!)

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vWrEmpRX_Q
    (Assembling a Gigabyte Intel PC motherboard in Tiawan, with
     automated optical inspection of components and solder joints.
     DIP components, connnectors etc. are manually inserted.
     Visual inspection with hand-soldered touch-up.  There is
     full functional testing.  The 2012 text indicates that
     Gigabyte is the only motherboard manufacturer which assembles
     in Tiawan.  The rest, I assume have their factories in China.)

The TB-303 would have been hand assembled and wave soldered, since as
far as I know, there were and still are no automated through-hole
assembly systems which could achieve the very high density of
components, including with vertically mounted resistors.

I have seen automated through-hole and SMT machines operating.  They are
astounding systems.

 - Robin


On 2013-02-13 3:35 AM, cheater cheater wrote:

> not sure, but i believe the Quicksilver 303 does.
> 
> Cheers,
> D.
> 
> On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 3:47 PM,  <rburnett at richieburnett.co.uk> wrote:
>> Does anyone know if this sends and receives MIDI CCs relating to the rotary
>> control positions?
>>
>> http://www.x0xclones.com/review-cyclone-analogic-bass-bot-tt-303/