hi, dear all, I am Jaxman. Due to bad internet blocks, I visit BLF very hard.I need to go to another friends computer to post a topic in BLF……days are so hard…
in morning, I received a letter from Sharpie, who is the adviser of selling Z1 host for BLFers. I read his word word by word, the topic is focus on the rings on pills. Now let we talk about it.
The rings in pills are manufacturing marks. Pills are producted in thousands qty, and it is hard to make sure everyone pcs pill is smooth in surface.There may be few of them have marks rings. This is only can be check when we assemble Z1 flashlight. We would not and cant to make a check before assembling. In fact,it is not necessary.
If we find the problem before assembling,we will polish the rings by graver and sandpaper. That is easy to understand. This is the spirit of DIY and a pursue for good quality. In fact,most of flashlight producers never deal anything with it.While we are JAXMAN, we need to do well in details.
below is a example, which is taken in many years ago.
We had been insisting to polish pills before loading LED MCPCB for years. In fact it is very easy.While this need time and human resources consumption.
If you find that you cannot make every part fall within specifications, when making thousands at a time, it simply means you do not understand how to use Quality control and Process control to make every part fall within the guidelines. As I have said many times, the manufacturers overseas need to learn how to control their processes, before they just go out and make what would be considered scrap parts in other countries. What you fail to realize is that by controlling all parts of a process, you learn how to make sure that all of your parts fall within specification. Yes, all of them. It is possible. What you do is to make thousands as fast as possible, thinking that the acceptable level of rejects will be OK or that they can be reworked, but the idea of zero rejects to begin with, is something that you have not learned yet. Keep trying, but until you get there you will be considered unreliable from some of us, just as most of your counterparts are considered to be unreliable.
As far as using a graver and sandpaper to make the pill acceptable, that is really sad, for a supposedly modern manufacturer. For a backwoods modder like me? Sure, but for a manufacturer? No way.
I have agree with Old -Lumens!!!
I got frustrated and tired of being a production machinist due to Management wanted numbers over quality. It was acceptable to machine 40 bad parts, and send them to rework instead of machining 30 good parts.
We confirm it is acceptable that few of the pills has manufacturing marks.All parts are with specifications,otherwise they will cant focus.
To adjust a little in a part is hard to normal buyer, while we never provide this host parts to normal buyer. We would like to provide it to BLFers who want assemble it based on the ability of DIYer.
Anyway,to make a flashlight is a handcraft,not a mass auto production.And I admit that ,our manufacturing is still in a low level.Afterall, we are in China.
Ehm OL, please read an American describe almost the same situation Jaxman does.
We have seen several hosts arrive and one needed some serious sanding and another could use a little.
If this thread proves US companies do not want perfection right from the machines and opt to do rework, why would Chinese companies with much lower costs for a person doing the rework be marked as unreliable?
As long as the main specs are done (so it screws in correctly and focusses right) who cares if Jaxman polishes 20% of the pills manually?
The fact that Jaxman does it and takes pride in delivering lights that are good is what matters IMHO
In case of hosts now we get why Jaxman normally hand picks people to send them to and not sells them as a normal product
The will to have all completed lights bearing the Jaxman logo to be on par with their normal quality is pretty nice I think.
We slowly see new brands emerge that operate in the normal/budget range and still strive for good products and are unwilling to cut too many corners.
For example Convoy, Thorfire, Jaxman prove us what can be done.
For what I understand a few marks on the pill are not a problem.
The thermal paste, if applied with care, will take care of the minor scratches thatcan occur.
A mirror finished of the pill is no real need. Even in the CPU cooling systems, where there are a lot of W involved, and the benchmarks rotates around a single degree of difference…, the effect is not huge.
I’m afraid that a brass pill, flat but with a scatch, can be transformed in a not flat (U shaped) pill, making A LOT worse for heat dissipation.
Kudos to Jaxman for taking pride in their product though. They are the last chance for quality control. (the pills probably aren’t made by them)
It wouldn’t be hard for whoever makes those pills to just change inserts more often, or slow down the facing toolpath slightly. It’s brass after all; they get their money’s worth out of those inserts regardless. If I were Jaxman I’d insist on it.
Small imperfections on the pill such as machining marks, scratches or center dimple have little to no effect on the performance for an average consumer. However, flatness of the surface, the amount of thermal paste and the way the Mcpcb is secured plays a way more important role.
Investing resources on process control will only raise the production cost of the product, sure it will save time by not having to hand-finish the pills, but the fact is labour is cheap in China and everything revolves around highest production efficiency for the ¥¥¥.
To manually finish 20% of the pills, or slow down production by 30% to make them flawless? Maybe if it was in the US the answer would be different.
After all, remember this is a BRASS PILL, even with prefect machining the heat transfer won’t magically improve.
One problem is when they design the process to allow for a certain number of rejects but go ahead and use the rejects instead. Either because they don’t have Lucy inspecting them, or do but as with Lucy the person isn’t trained properly to handle them. Whatever the case, keep trying Jaxman. Improvement comes from not being satisfied by current results.
I know the other thread got locked but if anyone wants to go back and read my original ‘complaint’ (I use that word lightly) about my pill, which is really what started all of this, it wasn’t really about machining marks - it was about the profile. Mine was quite a bit taller in the center resulting in a teetering noctigon, which means very little surface-to-surface contact at all. I don’t mind taking a few minutes to smooth out some machining marks, or even “filling them in” with solder when I flow it all together, but if the noctigon won’t even lay flat there’s no solution but to remove quite a bit of material, which is not a fun process to do by hand.
Others have not reported the same issue though, so it would seem I just got unlucky which isn’t a big deal. It happens.
Jaxman you are really doing excellent work. I work very closely with Convoy on many projects so I am familiar with the troubles both you and Simon face having to work with the resources available to you in your part of China. I know you both put a tremendous amount of your own time into your flashlight companies. In my opinion Jaxman and Convoy stand out above the rest of the competition in providing high quality flashlights while keeping cost to your buyers very reasonable. Truly exceptional value-per-dollar. Well done. :+1:
