Gigabyte Factory Tour
February 9, 2005 7:59 PM   Subscribe

A thorough tour of the Gigabyte motherboard factory. 20 pages with lots of photos showing the complete motherboard assembly process. The 'wave soldering' techique is pretty cool.
posted by giantkicks (17 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
fixed wave soldering link
posted by smackfu at 8:04 PM on February 9, 2005


That is pretty awesome. I've always had this odd concept of Taiwanese computer companies as operating out of a tin shack, so it's kind of weird to see them IN THIS GIANT MASSIVE BUILDING.
posted by Josh Zhixel at 8:06 PM on February 9, 2005


Yo, giantkicks, what the hell happened? Care to add the rest of the sentence that started, "The"?
posted by soyjoy at 8:22 PM on February 9, 2005


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posted by Dean Keaton at 9:01 PM on February 9, 2005


Awesome post.
posted by Mean Mr. Bucket at 9:05 PM on February 9, 2005


Aw, I wanted a movie of the wave soldering machine in action. Yet what I found was so much more.
posted by fatllama at 9:06 PM on February 9, 2005


I've heard the term before, but I had no idea how it worked. I am in awe.
posted by delmoi at 9:13 PM on February 9, 2005


Oh, and their eight-story robot wearhouse is badass, I must say
posted by delmoi at 9:33 PM on February 9, 2005


Strange. I previewed and checked each link before posting. Looked and still looks fine in both Firefox and IE???
posted by giantkicks at 9:39 PM on February 9, 2005


This was completely fascinating. Thank you for sharing, giantkicks!

Also, excellent find, fatllama. I was also really interested in seeing the wave soldering in action and that .mov certainly hit the spot.
posted by ibidem at 10:21 PM on February 9, 2005


fatlama's link is priceless. Everyone should play the first few seconds just to hear the ridiculous "surfer dude" voice they use to hook the schoolkids this thing is apparently meant for. The fact that they follow this laughable introduction with a narrator informing us that "in this video we'll be introducing you to the key elements of the wave-soldering process: fluxing, preheating, and soldering!" pretty much proves that most grownups don't have a goddam clue what actual kids are like.
posted by Vallenwood at 10:36 PM on February 9, 2005


Link sharing is a pleasure. Glad you're all liking it.

Is Fatlama's link pricey, or are these prices considered normal in the 'educational' video market?

DVD-47, DVD $ 400 (US)
OVT- 47S, MPEG1 Video for LAN, Site License $ 638 (US)
OVT- 47G, MPEG1 Video for WAN, Global Site License $ 1,914 (US)
posted by giantkicks at 10:49 PM on February 9, 2005


fatlama's link is priceless. Everyone should play the first few seconds just to hear the ridiculous "surfer dude" voice they use to hook the schoolkids this thing is apparently meant for. The fact that they follow this laughable introduction with a narrator informing us that "in this video we'll be introducing you to the key elements of the wave-soldering process: fluxing, preheating, and soldering!" pretty much proves that most grownups don't have a goddam clue what actual kids are like.

I don't think the video is meant for 'kids', otherwise why would they have a WAN site license? Rather, it's probably meant for either factory workers, or engineers who are going to be building systems that include waveflow.
posted by delmoi at 11:18 PM on February 9, 2005


This is a corporate instructional video, for adults not children, and yes, that price is typical. You're going to spend thousands of dollars training each new hire; $400 is peanuts next to that.

The "surfer dude" thing is very typical of the kind of "humor" they try to put into these videos to keep the viewers from nodding off. See, the videographers who make it consider themselves creative professionals and they want to make it "edgy" or at least "fun," because some of this stuff can be pretty dry. However, they absolutely cannot offend any client employee or, more importantly, management, so you get the most sanitized, lamest attempts at humor imaginable. You think this is bad, I was once subjected to a Sears paint training video which featured a song titled "Peelings," to the tune of (you guessed it) "Feelings."

The good thing is, the voiceover talent is bound to mispronounce one or two technical terms, as happens here, and that's always good for a laugh.
posted by kindall at 11:24 PM on February 9, 2005


Loved it! Absolutely loved it! Fantastic link.
posted by milkwood at 12:21 AM on February 10, 2005


I checked it out on my Mac. Looks fine, good post.

(You have a double quote at the end of your wave-soldering link which every browser/platform seems able to ignore except MicroSoft's oh-so-professional IE6 on NT.)
posted by soyjoy at 7:44 AM on February 10, 2005


Another cool factory tour is this tour of a computer case manufacturer in mainland China. The conditions are not nearly as high-tech and safety isn't the greatest, but it's still fascinating.
posted by zsazsa at 8:42 AM on February 10, 2005


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