The Rule of 72
The Rule of 72 Four years ago, the big boss, 6'6" tall, 350 pound Mac Savage, said that the goal for the sales of a new product was at least...
Dr. Ron Lasky's Blog
The Miracle of Soldering
Folks, Imagine you are Guglielmo Marconi, and you opened the first radio factory in Chelmsford England in 1912. Using Lee De Forest’s 1906...
AI and Autonomous Vehicle Challenges: Common Sense, Flexibility, Dexterity, and Situational Awareness
Folks, I have been following advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous vehicles (AV) for some time now. At first, I was a cautious, then...
Pareto Chart: Crucial in a Continuous Improvement Plan
Folks, The Pareto Chart is a simple way to plot failure data that gives priority to the failure modes with the highest number of fails. ...
A Simple Explanation of Why the Commonly Used Equation for Alloy Density is Wrong
It still surprises me that my most popular blog topic in the 15 years (yikes!) that I have been blogging is how to calculate solder alloy density havi...
Test Your SMT IQ
Folks, Mary had worked at a small SMT “mom and pop” shop for 12 years. Business was always good and she moved up to CFO of the 60 per...
The Holy Grail of Soldering: Low-Temperature Reflow – High-Temperature Use
Folks, soldering enables modern electronics. Without solder, electronics would not exist. Copper melts at 1085°C, yet with solder we can bond copp...
The Limits of Mixing: A Real World Example
Folks, some time ago I posted on the limits of mixing. In modern manufacturing, there may be some applications that require two metal powders to be ev...
Calculating Small P Values in Hypothesis Testing
Folks, Let's continue watching Patty help Mark to determine small P values in hypothesis testing. The first part of this story is here. Patt...
In Hypothesis Testing, the P Value Can't Be Zero.
Folks, we haven't checked on Patty in a while… As Patty walked into her office, her phone rang. “Hello, this is Professor Coleman,...
Tin Pest in Medieval Culture
Folks, Readers may remember that I have had an interest in tin pest for some time. Tin pest can occur if nearly pure tin is exposed to cold temperatur...