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I can guess why electronics are cheaper in Japan, but....
Vigo:
--- Quote from: Gray_Area on December 11, 2011, 05:24:16 pm ---
--- Quote from: Vigo on December 07, 2011, 02:34:58 pm ---And the guy making the wooden Chopsticks is Korean, yet in Korea they prefer metal chopsticks.
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More sanitary, if they don't rust.
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There have actually been some interesting studies showing that good quality wood is more sanitary food handling surface than stainless steel or plastic. Wood was much easier to disinfect. I think that would translate to chopsticks as well. Cheap bamboo chopsticks would be a hive for bacteria, but those are disposable anyway. I personally hate metal chopsticks, they are heavy and don't grip food very well. They are interesting though because they came out of the notion that using silver chopsticks would detect poison in food. I don't know how effective it worked, but supposedly the silver would tarnish and turn black when exposed to certain poisons.
Wait, what was this thread about? :dunno
danny_galaga:
Those who still have China pegged as a place that makes tin whistles need to get with the 21st century. I saw a doco once where some American industrialists went to China not expecting much. What they saw was astounding. Those guys will build the most advanced factory, on spec, for you. If there's any machinery they can't make well enough, well they don't mind buying that in to install. I used to have a neighbour who sells a knock off version of Dexion racking. A lot of it. He had some ideas for improvements with some plastic end caps or something. Next he visited the factory in China, he told them his ideas, and straight away they implemented them. So not just super dooper brand new factories, but customer service as well. On a small scale, I just had 100 pcbs made in Shengzhen. Very nice quality, bloody cheap and they threw in an extra 12 while they were at it. A question emailed to them on a SUnday was answered in an hour or so. How can a Western manufacturer compete on all those levels?
MonMotha:
For the record, I'm not trying to imply that no facilities in China exist which can do high-end manufacturing. Quite the contrary. In fact, I think all iThings are made in China (by Foxconn) as are many laptop computers, etc. However, this comes at a price quite a bit higher than the facilities that do tin whistles and such. At these prices, it's not an immediate "no brainer" to offshore all your production to China or similar. In some cases, the economics say its a good idea, while in other cases, other regions including the US, western europe, Japan, etc. fare quite competitively. Low volume, high margin, high technology goods tend to fall into this latter category. A good chunk of it is that it's easier to manage a local production shop than one halfway around the world, and you can't spread the management costs out as much on lower volume designs. Fewer IP theft concerns, too.
Also, my US based PCB manufacturer does pretty well. ~$150 for 5x 2-layer boards, any size (up to 70 sq in), 6/6 w/ 15mil finished holes shipped to my door in about 8 business days (ground shipping), and I've gotten email responses quickly at all hours of the day if I email their CAM/tech department with an urgent need on an outstanding order or a question trying to hit a deadline. The quality is excellent. Always good layer registration, silkscreens that don't fall off (and on both sides, too), quality soldermask, etc. Full human review included at that price, too. I will admit they're not as competitive on larger orders, but they're still good enough that they get most of my business even in medium (100-1000) quantity. I do tend to look elsewhere for true volume production, but these guys specialize in quick-turn, so it's unsurprising they're not really geared up for high volume runs.
Gray_Area:
--- Quote from: MonMotha on December 11, 2011, 05:59:13 pm ---Cable Master, by chance?
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No, somebody on Ebay going by the name Advance McS electronics. Got the cables in a few days. Waiting on other equipment to see whether they're any good.
--- Quote from: Vigo on December 12, 2011, 12:09:37 am ---There have actually been some interesting studies showing that good quality wood is more sanitary food handling surface than stainless steel or plastic. Wood was much easier to disinfect.
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That's abso-weird, given plastic and metal have much smaller pores. When I worked fast-food, I was told everything was stainless because bacteria die on contact. But since chopsticks are disposable, who cares?
RayB:
Plastic leeches chemicals into food. And I'm not just talking about BPA. Apparently there is a long list of plastics that will be banned soon. They just started with BPA and are giving companies time to change their plastics before banning the rest. Corporations before people. Yay!