I deviced to take apart an orignal Nikon F 35mm camera today, to see
what's inside.

About 5000 parts is the answer, for a completely mechanical 35mm camera.

There were easily hundreds of screws, mostly of differnt types and clearly
no concept of standardized parts.

I took the rest apart with a hammer and pliers. The magnesium? body was
pretty brittle so the hammer worked great.

The thing was clearly overly complex for what it does, cleary not designed
to be easily serviced, and clearly built to use as many different
components and specialized tools as needed.

Does anybody know if these were designed to simply create lots of busy
work for people? I think the basic design was from the late 1950s this
this particular one being made in the early 1970s.

I've seem some German rifles that were made this way too, with as many
parts as possible crammed in, none of which were even truly needed.

What's the deal with this? When did this rediculous fad finally go away?

Old VCRs used to be overly built the same way with too many mechanical
parts.

Has anybody come across any other products, new or old that just appear to
be some sort of socialist work program, and not about making a machine
that works, at a reasonable price and that can be easily serviced?

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 00:32:43 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I deviced to take apart an orignal Nikon F 35mm camera today, to see
what's inside.

About 5000 parts is the answer, for a completely mechanical 35mm camera.


WHY???!!! did you smash a Nikon F body???

They are still worth in excess of $200 each and for us
collectors..they are freaking priceless!!!


"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child,
miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied,
demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless.
Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats."
PJ O'Rourke

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 00:32:43 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I deviced to take apart an orignal Nikon F 35mm camera today, to see
what's inside.

About 5000 parts is the answer, for a completely mechanical 35mm camera.


WHY???!!! did you smash a Nikon F body???

They are still worth in excess of $200 each and for us
collectors..they are freaking priceless!!!

It had no pentaprism, so it's not actually worth anything. I still have
one left that is complete.

while I'm typically no fan of destroying stuff like this, it is the only
option when no service manuals are available, and you can't hire and old
guy to let you watch a repair.

The question still stands. When do companies design stuff to be overly
complex. What's the real end goal?

On Sunday, September 21, 2014 8:48:26 PM UTC-7, Cydrome Leader wrote:
Gunner Asch wrote:

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 00:32:43 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader

wrote:



I deviced to take apart an orignal Nikon F 35mm camera today, to see

what's inside.



About 5000 parts is the answer, for a completely mechanical 35mm camera.





WHY???!!! did you smash a Nikon F body???



They are still worth in excess of $200 each and for us

collectors..they are freaking priceless!!!



It had no pentaprism, so it's not actually worth anything. I still have

one left that is complete.



while I'm typically no fan of destroying stuff like this, it is the only

option when no service manuals are available, and you can't hire and old

guy to let you watch a repair.



The question still stands. When do companies design stuff to be overly

complex. What's the real end goal?


To sell replacement parts, to make sure very few people besides OEM can properly repair.

jon_banquer wrote:
On Sunday, September 21, 2014 8:48:26 PM UTC-7, Cydrome Leader wrote:
Gunner Asch wrote:

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 00:32:43 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader

wrote:



I deviced to take apart an orignal Nikon F 35mm camera today, to see

what's inside.



About 5000 parts is the answer, for a completely mechanical 35mm camera.





WHY???!!! did you smash a Nikon F body???



They are still worth in excess of $200 each and for us

collectors..they are freaking priceless!!!



It had no pentaprism, so it's not actually worth anything. I still have

one left that is complete.



while I'm typically no fan of destroying stuff like this, it is the only

option when no service manuals are available, and you can't hire and old

guy to let you watch a repair.



The question still stands. When do companies design stuff to be overly

complex. What's the real end goal?


To sell replacement parts, to make sure very few people besides OEM can properly repair.

I did notice that to get to the self timer, you're supposed to peel off
and throw away the fake leather skin, because of course there's screws
under there. That reminds me of screws under lables and bezels you can't
replace in new equipment.

Oh, and to clean the escapement, you need to do the same thing and
basically take the ENTIRE thing apart. Even if the parts were free, the
amount of labor required is just senseless.

I also destroy-explored a Sears branded Mamiya 35mm camera to figure out
how to get to the escapement. Those jackasses really love their random
English threaded parts for no reason. This was a mid to late 1970s
product.

The part count in the Mamiya seemed way lower than the Nikon F, plus it's
a more advanced camera to start with. There was a chain driven mechanism
to transfer "information" from one side of the camera body to the other. I
guess they get points for something that crazy to make it all work.

Canon FD lenses are an incomprehensible mess of parts. Never been able to
get one of those back together again, ever.

Personally, I find things like padlocks and those throw away type pliers
made of stamped sheet metal brilliant. They're effective and just can't
get any more simple.

I'm actually sort of surpised Knipex adjustable pliers don't have 450
parts like cams, roller bearings, timing wheels, adjustable guides, set
screws holding locking pins and other weird rube goldberg type stuff in
true German spirit.

Cydrome Leader wrote:
Gunner Asch wrote:
On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 00:32:43 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I deviced to take apart an orignal Nikon F 35mm camera today, to see
what's inside.

About 5000 parts is the answer, for a completely mechanical 35mm camera.

WHY???!!! did you smash a Nikon F body???

They are still worth in excess of $200 each and for us
collectors..they are freaking priceless!!!

It had no pentaprism, so it's not actually worth anything. I still have
one left that is complete.

while I'm typically no fan of destroying stuff like this, it is the only
option when no service manuals are available, and you can't hire and old
guy to let you watch a repair.

The question still stands. When do companies design stuff to be overly
complex. What's the real end goal?



Service manuals for many Nikon cameras, including the F

http://arcticwolfs.net/downloads.php

--
Steve W.

Gunner Asch on Sun, 21 Sep 2014 19:12:04 -0700
typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 00:32:43 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I deviced to take apart an orignal Nikon F 35mm camera today, to see
what's inside.

About 5000 parts is the answer, for a completely mechanical 35mm camera.


WHY???!!! did you smash a Nikon F body???

They are still worth in excess of $200 each and for us
collectors..they are freaking priceless!!!

Barbarians - they break what they don't understand.

Witness the actions of the Democrat party towards the economy over
the last forty years.
--
pyotr filipivich
"With Age comes Wisdom. Although more often, Age travels alone."

On Sunday, September 21, 2014 10:59:42 PM UTC-7, pyotr filipivich wrote:
Gunner Asch on Sun, 21 Sep 2014 19:12:04 -0700

typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 00:32:43 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader

wrote:



I deviced to take apart an orignal Nikon F 35mm camera today, to see

what's inside.



About 5000 parts is the answer, for a completely mechanical 35mm camera.





WHY???!!! did you smash a Nikon F body???



They are still worth in excess of $200 each and for us

collectors..they are freaking priceless!!!



Barbarians - they break what they don't understand.



Witness the actions of the Democrat party towards the economy over

the last forty years.

--

pyotr filipivich

"With Age comes Wisdom. Although more often, Age travels alone."


Note how this asshole is attempting to take a thread that's not political and make it political.

The reason he's doing it is to save face for Mark Wieber.

**** off and die, Filipivich

Steve W. wrote:
Cydrome Leader wrote:
Gunner Asch wrote:
On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 00:32:43 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I deviced to take apart an orignal Nikon F 35mm camera today, to see
what's inside.

About 5000 parts is the answer, for a completely mechanical 35mm camera.

WHY???!!! did you smash a Nikon F body???

They are still worth in excess of $200 each and for us
collectors..they are freaking priceless!!!

It had no pentaprism, so it's not actually worth anything. I still have
one left that is complete.

while I'm typically no fan of destroying stuff like this, it is the only
option when no service manuals are available, and you can't hire and old
guy to let you watch a repair.

The question still stands. When do companies design stuff to be overly
complex. What's the real end goal?



Service manuals for many Nikon cameras, including the F

http://arcticwolfs.net/downloads.php

interesting. I looked for weeks and found nothing with the exploded
diagram, like this site does actually have.

oh well. Apparently the one I ripped apart had titanium foil instead of
cloth for the shutter. weird stuff.

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 03:48:26 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 00:32:43 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I deviced to take apart an orignal Nikon F 35mm camera today, to see
what's inside.

About 5000 parts is the answer, for a completely mechanical 35mm camera.


WHY???!!! did you smash a Nikon F body???

They are still worth in excess of $200 each and for us
collectors..they are freaking priceless!!!

It had no pentaprism, so it's not actually worth anything. I still have
one left that is complete.

while I'm typically no fan of destroying stuff like this, it is the only
option when no service manuals are available, and you can't hire and old
guy to let you watch a repair.

The question still stands. When do companies design stuff to be overly
complex. What's the real end goal?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NIKON-F301-F...-/131279111554

As for manuals....

http://cameraobscura.zenfolio.com/downloads



The F and similar high end cameras of its time were designed to do
what the end user wanted..with the technology of the time. No
computers were available small enough to make the F (and many other
devices) equal to todays cameras.

http://imaging.nikon.com/history/chronicle/history-f/



An example was the Norden bombsight. A rather complex collection of
mechanisms that is easily surpassed today with a simply app on a smart
cell phone.

humm...a perfect analogy would be the lowly calculator..

http://www.thecalculatorsite.com/art...calculator.php

The mechanical supreme was (in my humble opinion) the Curta
Calculator...

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

Today..a single chip, a solenoid or two and a couple sensors do all
the work in modern cameras. But the F..and the Ftn and F1..were
reliable, accurate works of art/workhorses.... which simply worked
year in and year out.

Gunner, one time commerical photographer and minor camera
collector...with a couple Nikon S1s he regulary shoots and
treasures..circa 1951




"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child,
miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied,
demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless.
Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats."
PJ O'Rourke

pyotr filipivich wrote:
Gunner Asch on Sun, 21 Sep 2014 19:12:04 -0700
typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 00:32:43 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I deviced to take apart an orignal Nikon F 35mm camera today, to see
what's inside.

About 5000 parts is the answer, for a completely mechanical 35mm camera.


WHY???!!! did you smash a Nikon F body???

They are still worth in excess of $200 each and for us
collectors..they are freaking priceless!!!

Barbarians - they break what they don't understand.

Tearing stuff apart is the greatest way to learn about how things work.

I was just thinking about other things that are just overly complex for no
reason and remembered server rail kits from Sun and especially the ones
from Sun designed by Fujitsu. They're supposed to just be rails that allow
a server to slide in and out of a 19" rack. Pretty simple, like glides for
a desk drawer. HP has it figured out, Dell took years too, and almost got
it right, but not Sun/Oracle/Fujitsu. I've still never figured out what
all the extra pieces are for, even with the installation book, and I've
not come across anybody else that has either. As to why rails need to be
highly asymmetrical from left to right is mind boggling. Even with ball
bearings, they're harder to operate than metal on metal sliders, are prone
to just falling apart and require special alignment jigs for installation,
even into industry standard racks. Plus, with no matter what you do,
you're going to get grease all over your hands. Here's a personal message
to anybody involved in those products - "you're a complete idiot".

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 06:19:52 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Steve W. wrote:
Cydrome Leader wrote:
Gunner Asch wrote:
On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 00:32:43 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I deviced to take apart an orignal Nikon F 35mm camera today, to see
what's inside.

About 5000 parts is the answer, for a completely mechanical 35mm camera.

WHY???!!! did you smash a Nikon F body???

They are still worth in excess of $200 each and for us
collectors..they are freaking priceless!!!

It had no pentaprism, so it's not actually worth anything. I still have
one left that is complete.

while I'm typically no fan of destroying stuff like this, it is the only
option when no service manuals are available, and you can't hire and old
guy to let you watch a repair.

The question still stands. When do companies design stuff to be overly
complex. What's the real end goal?



Service manuals for many Nikon cameras, including the F

http://arcticwolfs.net/downloads.php

interesting. I looked for weeks and found nothing with the exploded
diagram, like this site does actually have.

oh well. Apparently the one I ripped apart had titanium foil instead of
cloth for the shutter. weird stuff.


Thats because the shutter was FAST and cloth couldnt take the stress
for years.


"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child,
miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied,
demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless.
Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats."
PJ O'Rourke

On Sun, 21 Sep 2014 22:59:42 -0700, pyotr filipivich
wrote:

Gunner Asch on Sun, 21 Sep 2014 19:12:04 -0700
typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 00:32:43 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I deviced to take apart an orignal Nikon F 35mm camera today, to see
what's inside.

About 5000 parts is the answer, for a completely mechanical 35mm camera.


WHY???!!! did you smash a Nikon F body???

They are still worth in excess of $200 each and for us
collectors..they are freaking priceless!!!

Barbarians - they break what they don't understand.

True..sadly. "Couldnt take one apart and put it back together again
so it was obviously junk"

Funny that shops did it all the time on the rare event such things
needed adjustment or fixing.

Now try taking a Canon EOS apart without a complete high tech computer
repair department. Well..there always is..simply dropping it on the
pavement.

I was starting to wonder if the lad was simply having a go with us..or
is that...lame.





Witness the actions of the Democrat party towards the economy over
the last forty years.

Very well stated! Bravo!!


--
pyotr filipivich
"With Age comes Wisdom. Although more often, Age travels alone."

"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child,
miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied,
demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless.
Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats."
PJ O'Rourke

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 07:11:25 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

pyotr filipivich wrote:
Gunner Asch on Sun, 21 Sep 2014 19:12:04 -0700
typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 00:32:43 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I deviced to take apart an orignal Nikon F 35mm camera today, to see
what's inside.

About 5000 parts is the answer, for a completely mechanical 35mm camera.


WHY???!!! did you smash a Nikon F body???

They are still worth in excess of $200 each and for us
collectors..they are freaking priceless!!!

Barbarians - they break what they don't understand.

Tearing stuff apart is the greatest way to learn about how things work.

Yes....if you have lots of money or lots of product to beat to death.

Im curious..would you use the same technique to learn how a Mercedes
SLS AMG GT works?

They are only a quarter million dollars each.



"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child,
miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied,
demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless.
Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats."
PJ O'Rourke

The question still stands. When do companies design stuff to be overly

complex. What's the real end goal?

It's often not intentional, just a mindset. I used to design motorized displays for a toy company. The bases would show the kinetic aspects of the toys. I would get a proposed design from their engineers, and come in the next day with revisions that would sometimes halve the cost with no loss of performance or reliability. I had no real motive to save them money, I just like simplicity and abhor waste. Most of my suggestions would be shot down just because they were perceived as cutting corners.

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 03:02:39 -0700 (PDT), robobass
wrote:


The question still stands. When do companies design stuff to be overly

complex. What's the real end goal?

It's often not intentional, just a mindset. I used to design motorized displays for a toy company. The bases would show the kinetic aspects of the toys. I would get a proposed design from their engineers, and come in the next day with revisions that would sometimes halve the cost with no loss of performance or reliability. I had no real motive to save them money, I just like simplicity and abhor waste. Most of my suggestions would be shot down just because they were perceived as cutting corners.

I wonder how much of that shooting down was covering for the "We
couldn't charge as much for it, so it would be less profitable" line
of thought.

Absolutely _all_ of us, who either build or repair things, thank those
who simplify their products and/or software.


--
One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.
-- Sophocles

"Cydrome Leader" wrote in message
...

I was just thinking about other things that are just overly complex
for no
reason ...

Have you ever personally participated in the design of new products?

You start by defining the requirements, or rather debating them until
you're too tired to argue, then distribute the work among your
personnel, come up with a separate solution to each requirement,
prototype and test them individually and then together, and finally
try to combine the elements that seem to need no further redesign to
serve multiple functions and reduce tooling, fabrication and assembly
cost while management pesters you to release it to production NOW to
beat the competition to market. They are obsessed with the name
recognition and sales momentum that comes with being first, and know
that the engineers would love to keep playing with it.

All the while realizing that you may be out of a job when it's
complete, unless your performance gets you nominated to the next new
product design team, if there is one.

At the prototype stage having each part serve a single function is an
advantage when it needs to be reworked. Combining and simplifying them
later is time-consuming and non-essential.

Any competent draftsman can design complexity, simplicity requires
inspired genius.

-jsw

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 00:32:43 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I deviced to take apart an orignal Nikon F 35mm camera today, to see
what's inside.

About 5000 parts is the answer, for a completely mechanical 35mm camera.

There were easily hundreds of screws, mostly of differnt types and clearly
no concept of standardized parts.

I took the rest apart with a hammer and pliers. The magnesium? body was
pretty brittle so the hammer worked great.

The thing was clearly overly complex for what it does, cleary not designed
to be easily serviced, and clearly built to use as many different
components and specialized tools as needed.

Does anybody know if these were designed to simply create lots of busy
work for people? I think the basic design was from the late 1950s this
this particular one being made in the early 1970s.

I've seem some German rifles that were made this way too, with as many
parts as possible crammed in, none of which were even truly needed.

What's the deal with this? When did this rediculous fad finally go away?

Old VCRs used to be overly built the same way with too many mechanical
parts.

Has anybody come across any other products, new or old that just appear to
be some sort of socialist work program, and not about making a machine
that works, at a reasonable price and that can be easily serviced?

I don't know the answer to your question, but there are a few things
you could consider. First, the Model F was designed to outperform the
competitors in Germany as well as in Japan: Contax and Exa, primarily.
Things like the quilted titanium-foil shutter were the best in the
world, and Nikon lenses had, at that time, contrast superior to Zeiss
and sharpness superior to Leitz.

Second, many of the parts were taken from the Nikon rangefinder models
of the late '50s, which were largely Contax copies. They were fairly
complex. Then Nikon built the SLR on top of that design.

Another thing is that they conceived the F as a system camera from the
start. For my F I have a 250-frame motor back; look-down viewfinder;
interchangeable finder screens; and so on. To accomodate all of those
options required more complexity.

In the end, it proved to be about the toughest and most reliable SLR
going. I worked in NYC for what was then the world's fourth-largest
publisher; we all used Fs, and we all had them serviced at the shop in
midtown that serviced all of the Life and Time magazine photogs.
Service was quick, cheap, and expert. A few blocks away was the Nikon
service center in Rockefeller Center. They were not as quick, and
possibly not quite as good.

My F is still in occassional use, on my copy stand. It is on its third
shutter and has had ungodly amounts of film run through it (I wasn't
paying for film or processing. g) It still works perfectly.

However, for work now I use a Sony NEX-7. I love it but I don't rely
on it, because I have no idea what goes on inside and if it craps out,
I'm screwed. I have always carried a backup camera. Sometimes now it's
my F or F2.

--
Ed Huntress

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 09:19:28 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

"Cydrome Leader" wrote in message
...

I was just thinking about other things that are just overly complex
for no
reason ...

Have you ever personally participated in the design of new products?

You start by defining the requirements, or rather debating them until
you're too tired to argue, then distribute the work among your
personnel, come up with a separate solution to each requirement,
prototype and test them individually and then together, and finally
try to combine the elements that seem to need no further redesign to
serve multiple functions and reduce tooling, fabrication and assembly
cost while management pesters you to release it to production NOW to
beat the competition to market. They are obsessed with the name
recognition and sales momentum that comes with being first, and know
that the engineers would love to keep playing with it.

All the while realizing that you may be out of a job when it's
complete, unless your performance gets you nominated to the next new
product design team, if there is one.

At the prototype stage having each part serve a single function is an
advantage when it needs to be reworked. Combining and simplifying them
later is time-consuming and non-essential.

Any competent draftsman can design complexity, simplicity requires
inspired genius.

-jsw

Or, as they used to say at GM, "Any damned fool can design a
carburettor for a Rolls-Royce. It takes a genius to design one for a
Chevrolet."

Or the tongue-in-cheek motto applied to Mercedes-Benz: "Never use two
parts to do a job when you can get away with three." g

--
Ed Huntress

"robobass" wrote in message
...

The question still stands. When do companies design stuff to be
overly

complex. What's the real end goal?

It's often not intentional, just a mindset. I used to design motorized
displays for a toy company. The bases would show the kinetic aspects
of the toys. I would get a proposed design from their engineers, and
come in the next day with revisions that would sometimes halve the
cost with no loss of performance or reliability. I had no real motive
to save them money, I just like simplicity and abhor waste. Most of my
suggestions would be shot down just because they were perceived as
cutting corners.

===================

I was asked to simplify the circuit for a custom IC, and did it so
well the engineer was embarrassed and upset he hadn't thought of my
solution, which he couldn't understand at first so I had to build it
for proof. I reduced the complexity of two of their other persistent
problems by half by substituting simple but subtle mechanics for
complex electronics and probably earned more resentment than gratitude
for it, though they did move me from lab tech to design engineer.

The electronic and mechanical engineers at that and several other
places I've worked knew little of each others' discipline and didn't
cooperate very well when it meant subordinating themselves to each
other instead of being in charge. I'm fairly competent at both so
often they dumped the problem on me, and I had to be very diplomatic
to stay on everyones' good side, or at least not be the person they
hated most.
-jsw

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 09:19:28 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

....
Or, as they used to say at GM, "Any damned fool can design a
carburettor for a Rolls-Royce. It takes a genius to design one for a
Chevrolet."

Or the tongue-in-cheek motto applied to Mercedes-Benz: "Never use
two
parts to do a job when you can get away with three." g

--
Ed Huntress

The trouble with Chevy is they would order the tooling and test
station for that carb well in advance and then keep calling with "Oh,
by the way..." changes as they refined it.

We larded the test station for their 1970's analog ABS controller with
jumpers so they could change the test parameters themselves. While I
enjoyed flying first-class I didn't at all like Flint MI. For some
reason there weren't many passengers on those flights.

GM's project engineer was a Ph.D. from India with absolutely no
practical hands-on experience. He wanted the ramp-down curve of wheel
sensor speed accurate to 8 decimal places because that's what his
calculator gave him. No one had taught him that resistors have
tolerances.

Prior to emission controls the only electronic device in a car was the
radio, which they bought. The new electrical engineers they hired
faced a steep leaning curve to adapt to the contamination and
fighter-plane-like range of temperatures in an engine compartment.

-jsw

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 05:44:13 -0700, Larry Jaques
wrote:

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 03:02:39 -0700 (PDT), robobass
wrote:


The question still stands. When do companies design stuff to be overly

complex. What's the real end goal?

It's often not intentional, just a mindset. I used to design motorized displays for a toy company. The bases would show the kinetic aspects of the toys. I would get a proposed design from their engineers, and come in the next day with revisions that would sometimes halve the cost with no loss of performance or reliability. I had no real motive to save them money, I just like simplicity and abhor waste. Most of my suggestions would be shot down just because they were perceived as cutting corners.

I wonder how much of that shooting down was covering for the "We
couldn't charge as much for it, so it would be less profitable" line
of thought.

Absolutely _all_ of us, who either build or repair things, thank those
who simplify their products and/or software.

Hear Hear!!!

Gunner

"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child,
miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied,
demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless.
Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats."
PJ O'Rourke

Gunner Asch on Mon, 22 Sep 2014 02:15:56 -0700
typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 07:11:25 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

pyotr filipivich wrote:
Gunner Asch on Sun, 21 Sep 2014 19:12:04 -0700
typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 00:32:43 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:
I deviced to take apart an orignal Nikon F 35mm camera today, to see
what's inside.

About 5000 parts is the answer, for a completely mechanical 35mm camera.

WHY???!!! did you smash a Nikon F body???

They are still worth in excess of $200 each and for us
collectors..they are freaking priceless!!!

Barbarians - they break what they don't understand.

Tearing stuff apart is the greatest way to learn about how things work.

Disassembling is one thing. It is called "reverse engineering."
Breaking some thing because you don't understand how it works is not
"educational".

Yes....if you have lots of money or lots of product to beat to death.

Im curious..would you use the same technique to learn how a Mercedes
SLS AMG GT works?

They are only a quarter million dollars each.
--
pyotr filipivich
"With Age comes Wisdom. Although more often, Age travels alone."

Ed Huntress on Mon, 22 Sep 2014 09:35:46
-0400 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

Or, as they used to say at GM, "Any damned fool can design a
carburettor for a Rolls-Royce. It takes a genius to design one for a
Chevrolet."

Or the tongue-in-cheek motto applied to Mercedes-Benz: "Never use two
parts to do a job when you can get away with three." g

OTOH, when you have three parts, you can replace one of them. B-)

Nowadays, we have modules which are plug and play, do multiple
functions, and can't really be repaired. Not cost effectively,
compared to removing and replacing.
--
pyotr filipivich
"With Age comes Wisdom. Although more often, Age travels alone."

"Jim Wilkins" on Mon, 22 Sep 2014 09:19:28
-0400 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
"Cydrome Leader" wrote in message
...

I was just thinking about other things that are just overly complex
for no
reason ...

Have you ever personally participated in the design of new products?

You start by defining the requirements, or rather debating them until
you're too tired to argue, then distribute the work among your
personnel, come up with a separate solution to each requirement,
prototype and test them individually and then together, and finally
try to combine the elements that seem to need no further redesign to
serve multiple functions and reduce tooling, fabrication and assembly
cost while management pesters you to release it to production NOW to
beat the competition to market. They are obsessed with the name
recognition and sales momentum that comes with being first, and know
that the engineers would love to keep playing with it.

All the while realizing that you may be out of a job when it's
complete, unless your performance gets you nominated to the next new
product design team, if there is one.

At the prototype stage having each part serve a single function is an
advantage when it needs to be reworked. Combining and simplifying them
later is time-consuming and non-essential.

Any competent draftsman can design complexity, simplicity requires
inspired genius.

You know when your design is complete - not when there is nothing
left to add, but when there is mottling left to take away.

OTOH, rarely are products "completed" so much as the designers run
out of time to make any improvements or changes.
--
pyotr filipivich
"With Age comes Wisdom. Although more often, Age travels alone."

"Jim Wilkins" on Mon, 22 Sep 2014 09:52:19
-0400 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

The electronic and mechanical engineers at that and several other
places I've worked knew little of each others' discipline

Not just the EE & ME. I learned machining. When I was tasked
with making some fenders for a friends walker - of course the first
thing I though of was "get a block of aluminum, and mill it ...".

Sigh, the whole "if all you know is the hammer, everything is a
nail."

and didn't
cooperate very well when it meant subordinating themselves to each
other instead of being in charge. I'm fairly competent at both so
often they dumped the problem on me, and I had to be very diplomatic
to stay on everyones' good side, or at least not be the person they
hated most.


-jsw

--
pyotr filipivich
"With Age comes Wisdom. Although more often, Age travels alone."

Larry Jaques on Mon, 22 Sep 2014
05:44:13 -0700 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 03:02:39 -0700 (PDT), robobass
wrote:


The question still stands. When do companies design stuff to be overly

complex. What's the real end goal?

It's often not intentional, just a mindset. I used to design motorized displays for a toy company. The bases would show the kinetic aspects of the toys. I would get a proposed design from their engineers, and come in the next day with revisions that would sometimes halve the cost with no loss of performance or reliability. I had no real motive to save them money, I just like simplicity and abhor waste. Most of my suggestions would be shot down just because they were perceived as cutting corners.

I wonder how much of that shooting down was covering for the "We
couldn't charge as much for it, so it would be less profitable" line
of thought.

Feh. If I can simplify the final production, I don't have to tell
the customer who much it actually cost to make.

Absolutely _all_ of us, who either build or repair things, thank those
who simplify their products and/or software.

OTOH, there is the engineering mantra of

"It meets the specs,
it is under cost,
now take this thing
and just get lost!"


--
pyotr filipivich
"With Age comes Wisdom. Although more often, Age travels alone."

"pyotr filipivich" wrote in message
...
"Jim Wilkins" on Mon, 22 Sep 2014 09:52:19
-0400 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

The electronic and mechanical engineers at that and several other
places I've worked knew little of each others' discipline

Not just the EE & ME. I learned machining. When I was tasked
with making some fenders for a friends walker - of course the first
thing I though of was "get a block of aluminum, and mill it ...".

Sigh, the whole "if all you know is the hammer, everything is a
nail."


At my first job after the Army I told them I'd like to work my way up
to engineer, so they ran me through all the departments to learn the
intricacies of custom machine design and fabrication. I'd learned
mechanical drawing in jr high and Statics and the properties of metals
in college, which were big helps. I didn't actually operate a
Bridgeport, TIG welder or press brake but I learned what they can and
can't do. I did drill and tap a lot of holes and learn to bend sheet
metal accurately on a manual brake.
-jsw

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 08:48:01 -0700, pyotr filipivich
wrote:

Ed Huntress on Mon, 22 Sep 2014 09:35:46
-0400 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

Or, as they used to say at GM, "Any damned fool can design a
carburettor for a Rolls-Royce. It takes a genius to design one for a
Chevrolet."

Or the tongue-in-cheek motto applied to Mercedes-Benz: "Never use two
parts to do a job when you can get away with three." g

OTOH, when you have three parts, you can replace one of them. B-)

Nowadays, we have modules which are plug and play, do multiple
functions, and can't really be repaired. Not cost effectively,
compared to removing and replacing.

I don't know about the cost effectiveness. I've had this conversation
with Tier 1 automotive supply-chain engineers -- me being in line with
your thoughts, and the frustrations of not being able to fix many
things these days -- and they've pretty well convinced me that making
things repairable at a flesh-and-bones level is not at all cost
effective with today's engineering.

I don't know. Sometimes I miss my old VWs and MG, which I could fix
while on the road. OTOH, I now own two 10-year-old cars that have
never needed a repair.

My suspicion is that they're doing it right. Nostalgia for fixing and
adjusting my S.U. carburetors (carburettors, I guess) on my mother's
kitchen table isn't enough to overcome the fact that I had to do
*something* with my old cars almost every week.

--
Ed Huntress

Ed Huntress fired this volley in
:


My suspicion is that they're doing it right. Nostalgia for fixing and
adjusting my S.U. carburetors (carburettors, I guess) on my mother's
kitchen table isn't enough to overcome the fact that I had to do
*something* with my old cars almost every week.


I'd say they are. Even though the purchase cost of autos has gone up vs
real income, the _usage_ cost has plummetted. Most cars of the 1960s and
early 70s required things like valve jobs every 30K; not a minor cost to
someone who could not do the work themselves. Now, it's common to go
200K without a major repair, and only the 'timing belt issue' to deal
with in the interim. "Tune-ups"? Phhhfffttt! Thing of the past. A car
can easily go 100K without even looking at the plugs.

Everything about modern cars works better, is more comfortable, and lasts
FAR longer than those of even 40 years ago. They're more efficient with
fuel and lubricants, and they're far safer.

Some of it was government intervention. Some of it was innovation.

To me, all the above are signs of engineering excellence, regardless of
how difficult the vehicles might be to work on.

Lloyd

"pyotr filipivich" wrote in message
...
Ed Huntress on Mon, 22 Sep 2014 09:35:46
-0400 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

Or, as they used to say at GM, "Any damned fool can design a
carburettor for a Rolls-Royce. It takes a genius to design one for a
Chevrolet."

Or the tongue-in-cheek motto applied to Mercedes-Benz: "Never use
two
parts to do a job when you can get away with three." g

OTOH, when you have three parts, you can replace one of them. B-)

Nowadays, we have modules which are plug and play, do multiple
functions, and can't really be repaired. Not cost effectively,
compared to removing and replacing.
--
pyotr filipivich

That started in the 1980's with surface-mount electronics, which are
substantially more difficult to repair by hand than thru-hole, and not
reliable unless the tech who solders on the new parts is more than
usually skilled and experienced. I got the experience on lab
prototypes where a solder failure was only a brief inconvenience
instead of costing a field service call.

Compared to thru-hole SMT is very cheap to manufacture, costing little
more to make than the Bill of Materials, and the ICs themselves are
cheaper to make due to the smaller lead frame with much less metal. I
first encountered the no-repair policy on computer add-in cards for
Winchester drives, when the vendor didn't want us to return defective
ones.

The Army taught us troubleshooting to the transistor level. They had
so much difficulty finding recruits who could learn it that they
changed to training LRU (Line-Replaceable Unit) board-swappers. The
four (of ~80) of us who graduated all had science degrees. The
washouts had a choice of other repair schools so they weren't wasted.
-jsw

"Jim Wilkins" fired this volley in news:lvpki2$j5c
:

That started in the 1980's with surface-mount electronics, which are
substantially more difficult to repair by hand than thru-hole, and not
reliable unless the tech who solders on the new parts is more than
usually skilled and experienced. I got the experience on lab
prototypes where a solder failure was only a brief inconvenience
instead of costing a field service call.

Jim, are you familiar with "Chip Quick" alloy?

It's a 'solder' with a large hysteresis between melting point and re-
solidification point. It allows you to 'dope' all the leads of an SMT
component, then simply run a hot iron 'round it once, and lift it off the
board as if it were not even soldered down.

Re-soldering is just as easy, as the stuff has amazingly high surface
tension (automatically centering the chip on the leads), and a very low
tendency to oxidize.

Lloyd

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 11:59:38 -0500, "Lloyd E. Sponenburgh"
lloydspinsidemindspring.com wrote:



My suspicion is that they're doing it right. Nostalgia for fixing and
adjusting my S.U. carburetors (carburettors, I guess) on my mother's
kitchen table isn't enough to overcome the fact that I had to do
*something* with my old cars almost every week.

What kind of an engine did you mums table have? Was it fast?

Gunner

"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child,
miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied,
demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless.
Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats."
PJ O'Rourke

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 08:48:01 -0700, pyotr filipivich
wrote:

Gunner Asch on Mon, 22 Sep 2014 02:15:56 -0700
typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 07:11:25 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

pyotr filipivich wrote:
Gunner Asch on Sun, 21 Sep 2014 19:12:04 -0700
typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 00:32:43 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:
I deviced to take apart an orignal Nikon F 35mm camera today, to see
what's inside.

About 5000 parts is the answer, for a completely mechanical 35mm camera.

WHY???!!! did you smash a Nikon F body???

They are still worth in excess of $200 each and for us
collectors..they are freaking priceless!!!

Barbarians - they break what they don't understand.

Tearing stuff apart is the greatest way to learn about how things work.

Disassembling is one thing. It is called "reverse engineering."
Breaking some thing because you don't understand how it works is not
"educational".

Hence the invention of the word "Vandal" used to describe a tribe of
people who came, saw, stole and then destroyed all that was left
behind.



Yes....if you have lots of money or lots of product to beat to death.

Im curious..would you use the same technique to learn how a Mercedes
SLS AMG GT works?

They are only a quarter million dollars each.
--
pyotr filipivich
"With Age comes Wisdom. Although more often, Age travels alone."

"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child,
miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied,
demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless.
Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats."
PJ O'Rourke

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 08:48:01 -0700, pyotr filipivich
wrote:


Nowadays, we have modules which are plug and play, do multiple
functions, and can't really be repaired. Not cost effectively,
compared to removing and replacing.

I don't know about the cost effectiveness. I've had this
conversation
with Tier 1 automotive supply-chain engineers -- me being in line
with
your thoughts, and the frustrations of not being able to fix many
things these days -- and they've pretty well convinced me that
making
things repairable at a flesh-and-bones level is not at all cost
effective with today's engineering.

I've substantially modified densely packed Segway control boards for
factory testing and then ridden the machine, with padding and a
helmet. There's no way I can match the reliability of the original
manufacturing process. Afterwards the engineer who designed it asked
me what changes would have made working on it easier, but I couldn't
give him any that wouldn't unacceptably increase the size of the
board. On surface mount prototypes I extend the pads out half a mm to
give a spot to heat them with an iron.

I did the layout for the 2nd generation Balance Sensor Assembly
circuit board ("gyroscope"), crammed with much effort into the same
footprint as the first one, and am very glad I didn't have to
hand-solder one.

I don't know. Sometimes I miss my old VWs and MG, which I could fix
while on the road. OTOH, I now own two 10-year-old cars that have
never needed a repair.

My suspicion is that they're doing it right. Nostalgia for fixing
and
adjusting my S.U. carburetors (carburettors, I guess) on my mother's
kitchen table isn't enough to overcome the fact that I had to do
*something* with my old cars almost every week.
--
Ed Huntress

I've tinkered with the Mass Air Flow and Oxygen sensors on my 1991
truck, and thoroughly scoped out the signals to and from the ignition
module. I found some help on line but most of the instructions and
operational parameter data came from my complete set of factory repair
manuals.

http://www.amazon.com/CRC-05110-Mass.../dp/B000J19XSA
Amazon just loads quickly over dialup. I bought it at NAPA.
-jsw

"Lloyd E. Sponenburgh" lloydspinsidemindspring.com wrote in message
. 3.70...
"Jim Wilkins" fired this volley in
news:lvpki2$j5c
:

That started in the 1980's with surface-mount electronics, which
are
substantially more difficult to repair by hand than thru-hole, and
not
reliable unless the tech who solders on the new parts is more than
usually skilled and experienced. I got the experience on lab
prototypes where a solder failure was only a brief inconvenience
instead of costing a field service call.

Jim, are you familiar with "Chip Quick" alloy?

It's a 'solder' with a large hysteresis between melting point and
re-
solidification point. It allows you to 'dope' all the leads of an
SMT
component, then simply run a hot iron 'round it once, and lift it
off the
board as if it were not even soldered down.

Re-soldering is just as easy, as the stuff has amazingly high
surface
tension (automatically centering the chip on the leads), and a very
low
tendency to oxidize.

Lloyd

I've retired and hope to never solder another SMT component.

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 10:27:04 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 11:59:38 -0500, "Lloyd E. Sponenburgh"
lloydspinsidemindspring.com wrote:



My suspicion is that they're doing it right. Nostalgia for fixing and
adjusting my S.U. carburetors (carburettors, I guess) on my mother's
kitchen table isn't enough to overcome the fact that I had to do
*something* with my old cars almost every week.

What kind of an engine did you mums table have? Was it fast?

g It was a big parson's-type table with a good laminate top. And I
had a *very* tolerant mother.

--
Ed Huntress

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 12:59:49 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

"pyotr filipivich" wrote in message
.. .
Ed Huntress on Mon, 22 Sep 2014 09:35:46
-0400 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

Or, as they used to say at GM, "Any damned fool can design a
carburettor for a Rolls-Royce. It takes a genius to design one for a
Chevrolet."

Or the tongue-in-cheek motto applied to Mercedes-Benz: "Never use
two
parts to do a job when you can get away with three." g

OTOH, when you have three parts, you can replace one of them. B-)

Nowadays, we have modules which are plug and play, do multiple
functions, and can't really be repaired. Not cost effectively,
compared to removing and replacing.
--
pyotr filipivich

That started in the 1980's with surface-mount electronics, which are
substantially more difficult to repair by hand than thru-hole, and not
reliable unless the tech who solders on the new parts is more than
usually skilled and experienced. I got the experience on lab
prototypes where a solder failure was only a brief inconvenience
instead of costing a field service call.

Compared to thru-hole SMT is very cheap to manufacture, costing little
more to make than the Bill of Materials, and the ICs themselves are
cheaper to make due to the smaller lead frame with much less metal. I
first encountered the no-repair policy on computer add-in cards for
Winchester drives, when the vendor didn't want us to return defective
ones.

The Army taught us troubleshooting to the transistor level. They had
so much difficulty finding recruits who could learn it that they
changed to training LRU (Line-Replaceable Unit) board-swappers. The
four (of ~80) of us who graduated all had science degrees. The
washouts had a choice of other repair schools so they weren't wasted.
-jsw

You would have appreciated the board-level repairs I had to make, in a
shirt and tie, at the Rocky Flats bomb plant. We had sold a Sodick EDM
to them and we had to fly out to do a repait -- two young Japanese
guys from our staff, one an engineer and the other a technician, and
me (Marketing Manager).

But they make (or made) nuclear-bomb triggers there and the Japanese
couldn't get past the lobby. So they sent me in with some test
equipment and got on the phone with me. We had a box of discrete parts
and the boards with us that we thought were the problem, but that
wasn't it. So I had to solder a couple of components right on the shop
floor.

Fortunately, they were through-hole, two-side boards, not multi-layer.

--
Ed Huntress (KC2NZT)

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 03:02:39 -0700, robobass wrote:


The question still stands. When do companies design stuff to be overly

complex. What's the real end goal?

It's often not intentional, just a mindset. I used to design motorized
displays for a toy company. The bases would show the kinetic aspects of
the toys. I would get a proposed design from their engineers, and come
in the next day with revisions that would sometimes halve the cost with
no loss of performance or reliability. I had no real motive to save them
money, I just like simplicity and abhor waste. Most of my suggestions
would be shot down just because they were perceived as cutting corners.

It's not just a mindset. I would love to be able to reliably design
simple solutions to simple problems. I can't, easily. I can COPY
someone's simple solution to a problem, I can, eventually, figure out
simplifications to some complex solution that I (or someone else) has come
up with, but a dirt-simple solution that actually works often evades me.

Fortunately, there are plenty of Really Complex problems out there just
crying out to be solved, and that I can do.

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Tim Wescott fired this volley in
:

but a dirt-simple solution that actually works often evades me.

Fortunately, there are plenty of Really Complex problems out there just
crying out to be solved, and that I can do.


Dirt-simple solutions are the epitomy of engineering. It's hard to get
to that point.

I just spent two years of my life designing (and building) a prototype
machine for an explosives manufacturer. Some of the most difficult
aspects of its operation were solve by those dirt-simple mechanisms
invented in the 1920s and 1930s. Some others required complex mechanisms
I'm not totally pleased with, but must endure, because there seemed no
other way to accomplish them.

To be sure, it is a complex machine, full of potential failure points.
Mitigating them required "over-engineering" to make those points robust
enough to stand the duty. When complex overcomes simple, that's the
cost.

I'm not sure any complex machine (like a mechanical camera with 47
functions!) can be made simply.

Lloyd