LVB Trackers - 26 days till 2012 Dayton Hamvention

Saturday April 21st, 11:30am.  Just got home from 2nd breakfast.  First with the early-bird hams at 7am then with my wife and retired work friends at 9:30am.  Walking dog Rufus in between time.

Now I am a free man.  It's raining outside so I will not do yard work.  Hope to spend the rest of the day building button assemblies.  Getting that done would be GREAT progress.  Then all that needs done is to build up 20 more pc boards which is the least time intensive part of the project.  Pending unforeseen issues we should be ready for Hamvention and supply orders at hand.

More as it happens.

11:53am

UPDATE at 12:34pm

Just de-nutted 200 push button switches.  See below:

The left switch is received with the lock washer and nut applied as seen above.  I then have to remove the nut and washer before the switch gets wired and then mounted onto the LVB Tracker enclosure.

 So this is what I end up with...  switches, lock washers and nuts.  Some Chinese person is paid a buck a day to put the washers and nuts on the switches.  Then I spend 30-40 minutes removing the washers and nuts.  Also consider the Chinese person is paid better than I am!  LOL

More as it happens.... bet you just cant wait!
12:45pm

UPDATE at 1:17pm

Just finished the first button assembly.  Will show the process ad nauseum:

First mount the switches onto a jig made from scrap aluminum.

Next attach the COMMON wire.

Followed by the RIGHT wire.

Then add the DOWN wire.

Now add the LEFT wire.

The last wire "UP" is added.

Small piece of shrink tubing is applied to 3 of the wires to neaten things up.

Crimp on the connector terminals.  (whatever ya call them?)

Add the connector shell...

Remove from the jig and we have a BUTTON ASSEMBLY!

When I get into a groove I can do one of these every 8 minutes.   When I blog it takes 1 hour and 10 minutes.  So I am done blogging until I have 30 of these buggers done.

1:58pm