I have been flying RC planes less and less so I sold some extra stuff and had a few bucks burning a hole in my pocket. I was surprised to see all of the copied homebuilt engines being sold on bang, ali and the like. I ordered the kerz version and it is what it is, but really runs well. I wasn’t expecting a super precision machine but I think it is a bit loose to make it easy to make and easy for people the get it running. I mainly bought it to see and learn the ways of hit and miss engines and I’ve enjoyed tuning on it and getting it to run nice and slowly. I haven’t taken a kerzlel off of my long list of projects.
That was one of my thoughts, ie: buy a ready-made engine just to get my feet wet with an IC engine before I started trying to built one.
Seems like I have seen a video of this type of engine being built, but I can't recall if it was CNC, or not.
My guess is CNC.
There was a table full of them, and a woman was doing something to each block.
I will look for that.
Labor cost seems to be what is driving things offshore.
I also think the long term trend may be much higher quality engines in the future, but I am not positive of that.
The Japanese back in the 50's had a lot of trouble with substandard parts/equipment, and the things they sold in the 50's were generally considered cheap junk.
Now I consider most of the Japanese made things to be the gold standard.
I have noticed that the trend seems to be Japan farming out their manufacturing to others, and I guess that is ok if quality control does not suffer.
There are several hurdles to be overcome when manufacturing things, and those are as follows:
1. Find a design to copy/use.
2. Figure out how to make something.
3. Figure out the metalurgy so the equipment is long lasting.
4. Maintain quality control during the manufacturing process.
5. Produce consistent quality parts/equipment over long periods of time.
6. Learn to do your own design.
The #1 complaint I hear about parts/equipment outsourced to some asian suppliers is that the quality control is poor.
The guy who runs Prusa (the 3D printer company) says that perhaps 60% of the time spent making his printer comes from checking the parts that are made elsewhere, and there are great variations in size, with many rejects.
There is a video out there of a guy who wanted to get bicycles produced in asia, and he goes through the trials and tribulations of trying to find a company in asia to make them, while maintaining price and quality.
His story is a case study of trying to avoid 1000 perils, and not go broke in a year (like running through an unmarked minefield; every step may be your last).
I read a casting magazine, and they mention many are re-shoring their products.
What happens is that someone here sends drawings to Asia.
The asians make the tooling required to make a product, and begin manufacturing that product, at a very reasonable price.
Not too much later, an almost identical product appears on Amazon at 1/2 of your price.
You go out of business, and your tooling now basically belongs to some other country/people.
The successful casting folks are bringing their products back stateside, redesigning the parts to make then superior to anything on the market, creating new tooling to make the product, and then selling a high grade superior product that YOU own the tooling for, a product that you own, and a superior consistent high quality part that people want/need.
Foundries report that people are willing to pay a premium for high quality parts, because downtime on equipment can be so expensive, and in the end the most expensive high quality part may be the least expensive option from an operational standpoint.
Some of asia seems to be about halfway down the list above.
Mastering and maintaining the remaining items on the list will be very difficult and perhaps impossible for many parts of asia (I won't mention any names).
The other thing I have heard is that business law suffers in some asian countries.
You agree to get X number of parts made, at Y dollars, but then your parts get sent to a government warehouse, where you have to pay what basically amounts to an extortion fee to ship your product.
You may get extorted at multiple levels before you actually get your product, and you many have to toss 60% of your product due to low quality.
Total manufacturing costs, and consistent quality are what determine the final cost of a product.
I suspect that some asian countries are selling products at cost, and being subsidized by their government, with the intent of capturing the market, forcing US and other manufacturers out of business, and then owning the market and products.
From this aspect, I think asia is winning on most (but not all) fronts, but this is not really a sustainable effort, and this does not really provide high quality products either in most cases.
Anyone who cannot learn how to design products will be limited to producing either substandard products, or limited to copying someone elses design. We need more protection in this country from copyright/patent violations.
This is my blog for the day.
Back to the grindstone.
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