For precisely this reason I just bought two of these motherfuckers https://www.keyence.com/products/measur ... /lj-x8060/djimbe wrote: Wed Mar 30, 2022 1:32 pmWhile I'm stone ignorant about the specifics of tube manufacture, I have a lot of experience with other automated manufacturing processes and you might be surprised what some of the downfalls of automation are. One of the biggest is the volume of production that isn't scrupulously watched over, leading to potential large runs of off spec product. Before super modern automation, someone was manning the various stages of the manufacturing process and adjusting (sometimes very subtly based on experience) the manufacturing process variables to keep from making piles of scrap product. Not a perfect example, but related to my business:twelvepoint wrote: I am absolutely ignorant about this stuff, but one would think every aspect of that - which could be automated - would be better that 50 years ago.
Perhaps it’s the vacuum itself that’s inconsistent?
Like I said, I’m totally in the dark here, but there must be consistent points in modern tube manufacturing that are unreliable, and that would be a known thing among the 20 people in the world familiar with this stuff, and potentially addressable with some effort.
used to be when an automaker was making fenders (for example), they'd take a coil of steel and cut it into small pieces called blanks that would make the fenders. Someone had to tend the blanking press and they'd have eyeballs on the surface quality of the blank and the press parameters, and die lubricant and shit like that and could react right away if something went wrong. Then the blanks would go to another process to maybe punch some holes and someone tended that process to make sure the holes were clean and blanks were oriented right. Then the blanks would go to another press or two (or three) to get formed into a fender, with more people manning those processes and the output. At every stage there was opportunity to make adjustments to the process and get rid of "failed" parts. These days, coils get loaded up on a big multi-stage transfer press out the other end of which comes fenders. But what if there's a repeating defect in that coil, or a shear knife in your big press assembly has a nick in it and is leaving a ragged edge on the part? Nobody sees it until you have 12 tons of scrap fenders. You made them fenders fast and with limited human intervention due to a highly automated process, but what did it get you? Scrap. Off spec shit. And this happens in what we might consider modern advanced countries like the US and Germany and Japan. Now imagine what kind of attention to detail is being paid in less developed places like Russia and maybe you get some idea why the older processes could result in "better" quality than modern automated ones.
Re: Russian tubes (unavailable)
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