Met this past week with my new industrial designer Jon; with Harry, my amazing lead machinist; and an intermediary machinist (also John, who works with both the designer and with Harry, mostly on medical gear). We went over the designer’s drawings in detail. They discussed what machinery would be needed to do the fine/precision lathe and milling work that would be needed to make all the parts. The decision was “a 5-axis precision lathe with precision milling capability.” (!!) Well, ooookay! Harry called his rep for those types of machines (he has some of their machines, but not this one.)

Next day, Harry said the rep had referred him to a guy who is … amazingly … just 11 miles away!! (The intermediary guy said he knew a bunch of folks up in NJ with that machining capability, but we wanted someone we could actually go look over their shop and, as Harry phrased it: “see if they were flakes.” Harry also says his rep has never yet referred him to someone who was not excellent.)

Harry has spoken with the guy, who says his shop can do what Harry was describing, and he has the … push-off bar? I think the intermediary machinist said would be useful for making the retaining rings … that allows the part to be machined on the lathe, then automatically pushed to the edge and sawn off, sequentially – saving massive amounts of hand work!)

So, we’ve emailed the package of drawings for the custom scopes to this guy, and are planning to go up and meet him once he has had a chance to look over all the drawings.

As you know, getting the new scopes designed and manufactured has been a hellish process. (Now hitting four years and five months!) I’ve run out of patience and ability to keep trying and waiting with the sourcing company I have been working with (yes, it has taken me WAY too long; I should’ve pulled the plug about 2 years ago!). I’ve tried many times to find a company that was willing to take on this project (custom size and shape microscopes and with such a fine reticle — so, not your average OTS item!) and failing. (Got LOTS of replies: “yeah-sure, we’ll be HAPPY to make you scopes…. Oh, well, no, not CUSTOM scopes!” {sigh})

By amazing coincidence, my main machinist (whom I call “the Blessed Harry,” because he has “saved” me multiple times) has a customer who has a customer — who turns out to be an industrial designer with ten-plus years working in medical microscopes!! I’ve met with him twice in the past three weeks; he has prepared a good proposal which I have accepted; and has prepared preliminary drawings and is working on finals. After much discussion about possible sourcing (options and possible problems) and minor design changes (that might be needed or possible) without interfering with the required backward compatibility, he has started on the first prototype; we’re just waiting on delivery of a specific lens kit.

In the meantime, he has done a drawing of the proposed custom reticle. (Of course, we need a custom reticle too; and since it has to be custom; I’ve decided to make it really custom — instead of going back to having two ‘styles’ of Tooke Gage (an ‘English-unit’ version and a metric-unit version), let’s have both scales on one reticle. Et voila:

(Oh! And the new guy will also be helping me with the camera adapter; the next big project once we get the scopes into production! Whoo hoo!)

So, it’s mid-April. I started working on the custom-made scopes in April 2012 (that’s not a typo — it was four full years ago!). My sourcing co. prez returned last week from his latest trip to China to check on (among many other things, I’m sure), the second set of samples from the second microscope factory.

He, his engineer, and I just ended our conference call. And, just like always, it seems: some maybe-good news and some definitely mediocre news…

The maybe-good
The second factory has fixed the ‘up-side-down part’ in the eyepiece that caused rejection of the first sample set this past January. Mechanically/physically, everything in this second set of samples seems good.

The pretty darned mediocre
However…. and here we get back to my commitment: “if it’s not right, it’s not acceptable”: The English reticle, at the outer edges, seemed distorted. We have (and always use!) what’s called a ‘standard slide’ — it’s a certified microscope slide marked with exact ‘hashmark placement’ that allows one to look through a scope and verify/validate the hashmarks on a scope’s reticle by matching the hashmarks up. It’s how we make sure the reticle is accurate. (And, if it’s not right, it’s not acceptable. {sigh})

The metric reticle was (what, again: different factory, same problem!?) flat-out wrong. At least (is this a consolation?), the second factory wrongly multiplied a DIFFERENT factor than the first factory. (Hmmm nope, no consolation there!)

My sourcing co. left the standard slide and a metal-bodied and a plastic-bodied Tooke Gage with the factory engineers, after working with them to make sure they knew exactly and precisely and completely what is needed. The factory promises a new set of samples in ten days. (I’ll believe THAT when I hear they’ve done it! But sourcing co. prez will call them on the 28th, and if they say they’re done, he will send in his ‘guys on the ground there’ to go check, before they send the third set of samples over here for review.

So, once again, I must rely on your patience for what I sincerely hope will be only a little bit longer till we finally get the new enhanced scopes actually manufactured.

As always: if it’s not right, it’s not acceptable. And that’s non-negotiable.

Well-so, more good news and bad news. (Well, bad news followed by hopeful news, followed by putative good news!)

Short version:
I spent Monday driving (6 hr each way!) down to Brunswick GA (out on the South Georgia coast) to meet with the sourcing company president and the engineer I’ve been working with about the benighted new enhanced scopes. The first samples from the second factory arrived last Monday and were not acceptable at all. ({sigh} Just how hard CAN it be to make an exact duplicate of a scope?!)

First face-to-face meeting for us-all, and it was a good meeting. We went over everything. The sourcing co. is going to go back to the second factory to see if they can make the scopes right AND to the first factory (to see if they can fix the mechanical problem that made us drop them).

Loooong drive home, and Tuesday morning, (sourcing co. engineer) Charlie calls and says he was disassembling the (new, second-factory) scopes to make sure he knew everything that needed to be addressed, and he found that one part of the top optics (in the eyepiece) had been **screwed in up-side-down**! When he reversed that piece, the new-new scopes worked perfectly. He is sending me one again to test and, we hope, approve. (Because I won’t accept ANYthing I have not actually had in my hands to test!)

So, I once again have hope we might actually GET there! “There” being actual great working scopes to replace those mostly undesirable “universal” scopes! (Cock-eyed optimist or am I being reasonable? Only time will tell!)

Semi-random entertainment: The first factory made a ‘proof of concept’
version, without tooling up for it. Shown next to their final version.

Longer version:
In our last installment, you may remember that last August we fired the first (and, to that point, only) microscope factory after a continuing “Keystone-cop cascade” (am I the only one old enough to remember who they were?) of mistakes, flaws, and less-than-optimal choices (not ours, theirs!).

The sourcing co. found a new factory that promised great new sample-scopes would be supplied within 30 days of … you know … last AUGUST?! The first samples arrived in late December. Engineer Charlie called and said he was just going to send them straight back to China, because the samples couldn’t even focus on the surface the gauge was standing on. ({sigh} I said: let me come down there and we’ll go over everything.)

I had emailed to the SBDC fellow who referred me (in April 2012!) that I didn’t know if I was going down there to fire the sourcing co. president, or he was going to fire me, or we were going to find a way to make this process work! (Turns out: the third…)

We went over all the previous prototypes and the drawings and the gauges and the problems and the successes. End result: They are going back to both the second and first factories (the first one did the optics perfectly — but there was an insuperable mechanical problem (with their “final production” run!). The disqualifying problem was a mechanical flaw: the bottom collar was not made smooth-and-flush (see previous blog entry for pix), and so the focusing screw would hang up and prevent the scope from focusing without backing-out the focusing screw, raising the scope by hand, and then continuing with the focusing screw. But they had the optics right!

The second factory? Pretty scopes, worked well in the gauge bodies: but could NOT focus on the surface the gauge was standing on.

Tuesday morning, Charlie calls and says he was disassembling the second-factory scopes to make sure he knew everything that needed to be addressed, and he found that one part of the top optics (in the eyepiece) had been **screwed in up-side-down**! When he reversed that piece, the new-new scopes worked perfectly. He is sending me one again to test and, we hope, approve. (Because I won’t accept ANYthing I have not actually had in my hands to test!)

I stressed that I need them to make sure there was some ‘physical’ way for a future-assembler to know which way is up on this piece. Five years down the track, could be some new guy at the factory, maybe new guys at the sourcing co., and I needed to make ABSOLUTELY SURE they wouldn’t be putting the eyepiece components in up-side-down again. I don’t care if it’s a notch or a stamped-on arrow, or they make one side a half-inch longer (it’s inside the barrel — no effect on the focus): there has to be a(s close as possible to a) “sailor-proof” way to assemble these things.

(I described for Charlie the old P-250 pump in the Navy (here’s a version: http://my.firefighternation.com/forum/topics/889755:Topic:2096360) — it has NO moving parts, not one! And yet (granted, rarely), sailors STILL sometimes manage to break it! So I want to make this assembly process as close to “sailor-proof” as we can! “THIS SIDE UP!” eh?)

So, I once again have hope we might actually be on track to finally (three years and at least ten months down the track!) have the new enhanced microscopes.