Ameritron ALS-500 / MFJ Quality Lacks

[K8AXW]

Rickety plywood tables, old run-down assembly areas and offices, and uneducated, unskilled workforce with little or no training = low price & low quality

I watched the Youtube video.  I also watched the television documentary on MFJ in which a tour was conducted throughout their factory.  I paid more attention to the workers and the working conditions second.  I'm familiar with "cleanup before company comes" so my primary focus was  the people. 

Of course work conditions affect moral.... there's no question about that.  However, I didn't see on either the Youtube clip or the documentary work conditions that would result in a demoralized work force.  Two days after the documentary, the place might have looked like an outhouse... I dunno.

With today's high unemployment there is no excuse for hiring people that doesn't SEEM willing to turn out quality work.  There's simply no damned excuse for shoving stuff down the line with conspicuous solder spashes, unsolder joints and blobs of solder on connections. 

If a man makes a mistake, the next guy down the line should see it and stop everything right then and there.  Any kind of squable here indicates an attitude problem and should be corrected. There is definitely no excuse for not powering up the finished product to see if it works. NONE!

The bottom line is that everyone from Jue down to the first man on the line is responsible for turning out crap!  No excuse. 

The really sad part of this whole MFJ thing is that Jue has bought out so many well known and reputable companies and now produces trash under the same iconic name. 

[W8JX]

The bottom line is if you want to maximize profits they are going to try to spend as little as possible. Also I think higher unemployment is hurting them more than helping them in that they can easily find another unskilled person that will work for peanuts to replace those that quit and continue the low quality path. If they would pay workers more they would get better quality in end because they could attract and retain better people but I do not see that happening there.

[KE5JPP]

Rickety plywood tables, old run-down assembly areas and offices, and uneducated, unskilled workforce with little or no training = low price & low quality

I watched the Youtube video.  I also watched the television documentary on MFJ in which a tour was conducted throughout their factory.  I paid more attention to the workers and the working conditions second.  I'm familiar with "cleanup before company comes" so my primary focus was  the people.  

Of course work conditions affect moral.... there's no question about that.  However, I didn't see on either the Youtube clip or the documentary work conditions that would result in a demoralized work force.  Two days after the documentary, the place might have looked like an outhouse... I dunno.

The general cleanliness and organization of the work areas speaks more to the overall philosophy of the company, not necessarily the morale of the work force. That's a separate issue.  It appears they enjoy making old Lincoln scream* at MFJ.  I have been in a few companies like that and I can tell you that QC concerns are not on their radar.  QC concerns don't even exist in their Universe.

Gene

* Making Lincoln Scream - someone who is so tight with money or so cheap that they vigorously "penny pinch", thus making President Lincoln scream.  For those not familiar with US coins, President Lincoln's image is on the US penny.

[W9KDX]

I still chuckle at a very early experience with a Japanese semi conductor company.  Chips were ordered from them for a US company and an error rate of 3% or so was specified.  The order arrived with an additional package of chips marked "defective".  After the communication problems were cleared up, we found that they only supplies chips with a 0% failure rate, but were more than happy to add the additional defective chips (3% of the order total).  However they were very curious as to what we were going to do with defective chips.

[K7NSW]

Gosh - wonder why none of this has ever happened to me?  Lets see - well, I buy from Ten-Tec.  Nuff said.

[W9KDX]

Gosh - wonder why none of this has ever happened to me?  Lets see - well, I buy from Ten-Tec.  Nuff said.

Not really relevant; their Centurion amp is 400% higher than the 811H.  I could probably get a decent amp from Ameritron too, if I bought 4 of them.  For that matter, I could also get a near perfect Ameritron, if I just sent it out for final assembly and inspection and paid a couple of $100 to get it right.  The issue has never been the amp and design, just the lack of quality control in assembly.

[W5WDV]

Guess I'm just lucky, I have two ALS-600 amps, one ALS-500, a bunch of other MFJ stuff and it all works properly. The quality is good inside, the cases look like I made them in my garage but since they all work as advertised, I'm living with that deficiency. Overall with the price considered, I'm happy with my purchases and the on air reports have been great! Now, what they need is someone who has actually used the equipment extensively to write the instructions!
Cheers,
Bill W5WDV

[WB4AUW]

Bill, if you have three Ameritron amps and a bunch of Mfj stuff that all works properly, I'd suggest you get to Vegas immediately. You are on a roll.

[W5WDV]

I probably jinx'd myself and it will all go up in smoke next time I power up!

[W8JI]

I probably jinx'd myself and it will all go up in smoke next time I power up!

I have current data on amplifier failures, all in the same time frame.

AES Orlando in just over 1 year, bought 56 amplifiers. They had 6 amplifier warranty returns in the same period. About 11%

Another store bought 262 amplifiers in the same period, and had 7 warranty failures. About 2.7%

A third store bought 114 amplifiers in the same period, and had 6 warranty failures. About 5.3 %

This number includes bad 811A and 572B amplifiers, which looks like somewhere around half of warranty, and includes defects ranging from bad paint to lamps not working.

Even 2% is far too high, but clearly some people grossly exaggerate problems. People are digging into the warranty service history in more detail. I always set the old goal as less than 1% failure, but that probably cannot be achieved today with modern tubes and components. 

As for the low current relay failures, and the remarks here by NM4X and N4ATS that it never happens or is a QC issue, there is an article about FT1000MK V relays on the home page of eHam. Anyone who actually understands relays knows this problem exists, and has existed since the very first relays were ever used.

73, Tom

[N4ATS]

"Even 2% is far too high, but clearly some people grossly exaggerate problems."

Ya , and some people grossly "under exaggerate problems"


Tell this to all the customers (severel thousand) that bought an MFJ product and wrote the reviews on eHam and the average is 2-3 / 5 which is 2%???


THE FACT IS LOOK ON EHAM AT THE FAILURE RATE!!! THE PEOPLE WROTE THEM, NOT ME...


Just simply screen by MFJ , the numbers are ALL there...

And also you don't get back all the failures , who in their right mind would want to wait 6 to 8 weeks to get their rig back? Most intelligent hams fix it themselves or send them to me, we went over this before.

Do your math , an average of 2-3 out of 5 is NOT 2% on MFJ products


Also:
"As for the low current relay failures, and the remarks here by NM4X and N4ATS that it never happens or is a QC issue, there is an article about FT1000MK V relays on the home page of eHam. Anyone who actually understands relays knows this problem exists, and has existed since the very first relays were ever used."

Tom , Simple , Power up your units before you ship them , what is it that you don't understand about this?

[NN4X]

Hi Tom -

Well...I have a couple of thoughts:

1) I don't pretend to speak for AES, but if I were AES, I'd be rather upset about you disclosing my purchase history.  (An aside/observation: I thought you only designed products for MFJ, and did not otherwise have a business relationship with them - odd that you have knowledge of private sales data.  Perhaps my understanding was incorrect, and please accept my apologies in advance if that is the case)

2) Regarding the warranty statistics, these numbers by definition leave out the failures which were fixed by other than MFJ warranty work.  For a true indication of the QC metrics, it would be important to include defective products which were fixed outside of  the MFJ warranty repair channel.  That may be an unknowable number, but we know it's "positive", and thus by definition requires that the failure rate be higher than your published numbers.

3) You are also ignoring the main thrust of Bill's initial posting, which was that product was making it out of the factory that could not possibly have been tested.  I find that even more appalling than problems such as the power supply issues with the ALS-1300; at those require that the rig was working for awhile.

Here's an interesting snippet of a recent e-mail from RFConcepts, which details their QC procedure for amps.   This is just a guess, but I'll bet that no bad soldier joints make it out of that shop, eh?      It doesn't strike me as particularly extreme, or "mil-spec"-y, really.  It's pretty what I'd expect from any manufacturer.  


Subject:    News from Alpha Amplifiers
Date:    Thu, 23 Feb 2012 20:25:06 -0500 (EST)

Meet Glenn Pladsen, AEØQ

Bringing up an 8410 for the First Time by Kathy Foster-Patton and Glenn Pladsen

I would like to introduce Glenn Pladsen who is going to give a tutorial
on how he tunes up an 8410 amplifier for the first time. Glenn (AE0Q)
has been working for RF Concepts, and before that for Alpha  Amplifiers,
for nearly 14 years. He typically does the tune-up on 8410 and 8406
amplifiers, as well as repairs of nearly every type of amp that comes
in the door. Here is what Glenn has to say about the steps that a tech
takes when bringing up the 8410 for the first time.

1.  I start out with a complete visual inspection of the amplifier and ensure that everything appears to be in good order.

2.  Next, I turn on the 5 volt power supply to test the AC wiring. At this time, the microprocessor is powered up on the control board. There is no transformer connected to the amplifier yet; the 5 volt connection is wired directly to AC power.

3.  I then load the latest firmware and ensure that the control board is communicating with an external computer.

4.  I follow with installing the power transformer.

5.  The amplifier is now ready to be turned on with low voltages connected. This tests the transformer wiring and some of the power supplies. As with all amps that use a tetrode tube, the screen voltage is removed from the tube when there is no high voltage.

6.  Next I turn on the amp again with high voltage connected. I calibrate the plate current metering to the microprocessor. This also tests the plate current overload protection, which is the main protection for the power supply and the amplifier.

7.  If all is good, I warm-up and test the amplifier on one or two bands, and put it into burn-in. This step includes calibrating the input and output wattmeters.

8.  The amp burns in overnight, sending dashes at 15 wpm at full power.

9.  After burn-in, I calibrate the reflected wattmeter readings for each band. I check the tube bias settings, which change a little during burn-in when the tubes are new.

10. Finally, I tune the amp on each band, calibrate the input wattmeter and output wattmeter and save the settings for each ham band. While adjusting the wattmeter on each band, I also adjust the input swr on each band.

11. The amp is then ready to go and I wheel it over to the shipping area.

 ---------------------------------

3) If people are truly "digging into the warranty service history in more detail", then that's fantastic news!  It indicates that at least a few people care, and leads one to hope that they may want to take steps to improve their QC.  It'd take this opportunity to point out that what they need to do, if nothing else, has, at absolutely no cost to them been provided on this very thread!  TURN ON THE AMP AND TEST IT AFTER YOU'RE DONE BUILDING IT.  If they wanted to really embrace "Quality", they'd of course develop documented, repeatable processes to build the quality in while the products are being produced, rather than at the end of the assembly line.

4) Regarding your strange obsession with wetting current and relays: Tom, I've been a Ham since 1977.  I've owned quite a few radios and amplifiers over those years.  The only problem I've ever had with relays was with my FT-107M, and that was because my Dad (I was still in college, and living at home) decided that he wanted to use an indoor kerosene heater.  This created a less-than-clean air quality and the relays started gumming up and required cleaning.  That's it.  The numbers go up if you include outdoor coax switches, but I'm not going to include those due to the myriad variables such as lightning, and weather which come into play.

So, there you have it: My opinion, for whatever it's worth.

The good news take-away from your posting is that at least one person cares enough to be researching the issue more thoroughly, and leaves me with hope that perhaps things will improve, and "shake tests" will be a thing of the past.

73,

Steve
NN4X

I probably jinx'd myself and it will all go up in smoke next time I power up!

I have current data on amplifier failures, all in the same time frame.

AES Orlando in just over 1 year, bought 56 amplifiers. They had 6 amplifier warranty returns in the same period. About 11%

Another store bought 262 amplifiers in the same period, and had 7 warranty failures. About 2.7%

A third store bought 114 amplifiers in the same period, and had 6 warranty failures. About 5.3 %

This number includes bad 811A and 572B amplifiers, which looks like somewhere around half of warranty, and includes defects ranging from bad paint to lamps not working.

Even 2% is far too high, but clearly some people grossly exaggerate problems. People are digging into the warranty service history in more detail. I always set the old goal as less than 1% failure, but that probably cannot be achieved today with modern tubes and components.  

As for the low current relay failures, and the remarks here by NM4X and N4ATS that it never happens or is a QC issue, there is an article about FT1000MK V relays on the home page of eHam. Anyone who actually understands relays knows this problem exists, and has existed since the very first relays were ever used.

73, Tom

[W8JI]

Mike,

No one is disputing you had problems with two ALS500's. Those amps show in the service records, and they never should have gone out. That does not mean ALL amplifiers are bad.

All I can do is give the numbers, as they are. Unfortunately some people clearly shoot from the hip in some cases.

My point is some people exaggerate, for whatever reason, or make things facts that are not facts. That is why we have to look at the actual data or numbers. There is a clear example right now in another thread, this time where Yaesu is picked on.

You can read about exaggerated, unfounded, Yaesu claims in this thread:

http://www.eham.net/ehamforum/smf/index.php/topic,81293.15.html

This is a pattern with some posters. Earlier the very same person claimed a meter protection diode in the AL811 caused tuning issues from harmonics, or some other pure nonsense. This is why we have to stick with actual data, or at least say it is a guess or feeling.

The numbers are what the numbers are.

73 Tom

[N4ATS]

"All I can do is give the numbers, as they are. Unfortunately some people clearly shoot from the hip in some cases.

My point is some people exaggerate"

Tom , Then why do keep doing it? The Ratings are POSTED on eham , the people wrote them , Are you saying all the thousands of ratings from MFJ customers are exagerated and those people are stupid?

Please stick to the main point and it will be over soon .

TURN ON THE UNITS BEFORE SHIPMENT

Thats ALL you need to do.

[NN4X]

Tom -

Why do you seem to be attempting to turn this discussion into an attack on N4ATS?

The subject of this thread is "Ameritron ALS-500/MFJ Quality Lacks", and I believe that's been established beyond doubt; you've admitted as much.

Why not instead use this for positive publicity for MFJ, and report here what steps MFJ is taking/considering taking to improve their quality, now that they seem to be aware that folks are upset about it?

73,
Steve
NN4X