My ties with my Alma Mater remain ever strong

 

L to R : Chew Ping Nan, Andrew Lee, Fong Kai Yew (front), S Thedasidas (back),Gurdeep Singh (Glasses), Yours Truly, Charles Tay (with Mahjong tile), M Chandrakanth, Yap Tzin Haen (Hat with  7  Glasses), Hong Heng Chow (Blue Hat) 

Yesterday I attended the St Andrew's Alumni Annual Dinner held at the School Hall. I graduated from secondary school many decades ago, yet when I meet my school and classmates, I am talking with them like we were still in Secondary 4 !

We swapped stories about who got into trouble with the principal and got caned, who was the top boy of the school (Dux), and who recently became gradfathers. The lovely flow of life.

No airs, no expectations and best of all no comparisons. Just being in the present and talking about the past. 

It was such a lovely and august dinner, many thanks to the managing committee and the Alumni President Terence Han and his team for making this a dinner and a get together to remember.

Up and On !! 

Temperature Shock Tests

 

2 Zone Temperature Shock Tests from QRA International Pte Ltd.

QRA International offers very competitive prices with reports for 2 zone temperature shock tests at our Labs in Singapore. Temperature Ranges :

Typical Test Range from :

- 65 C to 150 C

Cold Zone : from - 80 to - 40 C

Hot Zone   : from + 70 to 200 C

Transition Time : approx. 10 seconds

Number of Cycles (settable) : 100, 500, 1000 

Cycle Duration (typical) : 30 minutes

For more information please contact : 

QRA INTERNATIONAL PTE LTD.

Website : www.qra.com.sg

Email    : mark@qra.com.sg

Why Use Test Laboratory Services ?

 

When your company is a small start up and it is time for Quality Assurance, there will be an internal management meeting, several key questions will come up :

a) Do we test in house of send them to outsource testing ? 

What are the Pros and Cons for outsource testing ?

Pro (For points) 

Outsource testing is very convenient, PROVIDED the Lab service provider is familiar with the types of testing.

+ On call (or social media)

+ On short notice (upon PO and availability of test equipment)

+ No service issues (they take care of the equipment)

+ (BIG) No rental of factory space (the equipment is in their Lab)

+ Reports provided (upon request and additional costs)

+ No big ticket CAPEX purchase (test chambers new costs USD 40K and above each) 

+ No need for trained staff or expertise to hire to ensure machine runs smoothly during duration of test.

+ (BIG) No need to pay increasing electricity bills.

Cons

-  Proprietary data is not exclusive

-  Machines may be booked till a long time later

-  No impressive machines on show to your clients.

Well these are the Pros and Cons as far as I can think for Laboratory Services

Dunning Kreuger - Height of Ignorance and Stupidity - My Own Experience.

 

Many of you would have heard of the Dunning Kreuger effect, or the height of stupidity. Essentially this is the peak of Mount Stupid. You do not even know what you don't know.

I know personally of people who are so ignorant and stupid, yet overstate their abilities until they fall flat on their face, that is when they receive a 'wake up' call that they are out of their league, and maybe then, they will learn from their mistakes.

I had a period where I thought, I knew everything there was to know in the environmental simulation industry and ventured in project management without the proper tools to weather

a) delayed deadlines

b) unfulfilled deliverables

c) very unreasonable customers

d) arrogant procurement 

e) rude top management.

In short, I was ignorant and rather stupid to believe that with a little knowledge and many years of experience, my team and I would be able to weather all the storms of project delivery and compliance.

I also trusted too much on outsource equipment suppliers without proper audit of their full facilities, so the result of the 2 projects which my company secured (each project worth was over S$ 1.2 million at the time of order) was :

> 1 delivered on time, specifications met and slight delay in payment

> 1 delivered on time, specifications not fulfilled, numerous redesigns, numerous meetings and thrash outs, many sleepless nights and liquidated damages, resulting in lower profit margins, weight loss and some mental distress for several months.

That was my Mt. Stupid period (2015-2016). I went to the valley of despair ( end 2015-mid 2016), my other business units were all shut to focus on settling the major project, else, the result would have been catastrophic and business closure, possibly company bankrupcy. 

We made out of it scarred but unbowed. The experience was put to great use, and we went on as a company to deliver many more such systems worldwide.

The slow climb up was arduous, but it was necessary - for me as a person and also for the company.

The lessons learnt ?

Never ever think you are invincible and know more than everyone. Now, I use these strategic steps ever so often in my daily work :

>Under Commit 

- Never give the whole performance away, if its at the edge of the technology spectrum, always talk through the expectations with the customer and try to lower them. It sounds counterproductive as technology always is pushed to the boundaries thats where the legends in tech are made. 

- Can I as the business owner afford to take this risk ? Well the decision above is my answer.

>Over Deliver

- Deliver better than what you promise. Then everything will be 'hunky dory' 

The other way around where 90% of suppliers do is a sure fire way to failure ;

- Over commit on their specifications 

- Under deliver on their deliverables.

It is a sure fire way of failure and the subsequent consequences of that failure will follow. 

>Do multiple Risk Assessments of the Potential paths to take, playing out possible end game  scenarios with realistic expectations of each and every outcome.

Slowly and surely ; 

Up and On. 

    

Can I get 300,000 views by October ?

 

                                               Dear Readers. 

                                   

                                               Make my day. 

28 Sept 2025. - Update 

We have close to 280,000 views. Average daily views of almost 1000. At this rate, hitting 300,000 views by October is definitely achievable and worth celebrating !

 

What a typical PCB experiences day in day out as far as temperature changes go.

 

Imagine this  modern day PCB motherboard, this is a multi-layer one which has numerous materials layered over each other, for example :

1. FR4 ( polyimide substrate)

2. copper foil laminate

3. solder masks

4. silk screen

5. ceramic substrate.

If this is your handphone or laptop PCs, there is daily temperature cycles going on when you power up your PC from sleep, or 'off' more. The temperature will go from (say) 23 C (inside the casing of your laptop) to maybe as much as 40 C in the course of the day.

When it is powered off, the temperature inside the laptop (PCB) will then slowly go back to 23 C in the evening.

Now, the key to this post is this. In the event, during the heatup phase, the temperature of the board rises. The  COEFFICIENTS OF THERMAL EXPANSION is different for all of the 5 different materials above, and hence some would expand faster than others, thereby pulling the neighbouring material.

When cooling down, the reverse effect is there, and hence there will be faster cooling of some materials than others.

When repeated hundreds of times a year (there are 365 days per year) then there is a chance than the incessant heat cool heat cool will result in BREAKAGES in the connection between the materials of the PCB motherboard, resulting in an open circuit and hence non functioning of the PCB motherboard.

Material selection is key and the QA and QC tests of temperature cycles is necessary to ensure that there are no catastrophic failures due to this repeated temperature cycles for at least 10,000 cycles or the expected lifespan of the laptop (say 5 years).

It is advised to do selective temperature cycling of PCB motherboard (powered up no less) in Test Labs or in house BEFORE the boards are shipped out to the next partner in the electronic supply chain to ensure 

> Quality

> Reliability

of the product is upheld.

What do I think of when I run ? A Repost from Nov 2022

This is an very interesting question which I do ask myself from time to time. Do I go into a 'robot mode' and just switch off everything or do I let some thoughts invade into the zonal spaced out state of mind which sometimes freaks me out at the sheer clarity of thought ? The 'Aha moment' which only comes when I am is truly at peace with myself and shut out everything ?

                                               My 8 K run last year on my birthday 

The answer is a bit of both. To be frank, when I set out, I actually zone out and focus on 3 aspects of my self. This is the intial part of my run until I find a rhythm to run at a pace which I am comfortable. 

a) My focus on the road ahead

I am super focussed and just stare straight ahead through my Oakley sunglasses (I have over 20 pairs) and subconsciously avoid the strollers, prams, small children, elderly people and slower runners either going in my direction of coming at me. 

My recent familiar runs are either at East Coast Park (B1 carpark vicinity start) or Pandan Reservoir and the runs are 6 K to 8K in length. 

There were numerous close calls and even one where I caused an aspiring rollerblader to fall flat on his face, much to his girlfriend's angst !

While my pace has slowed down a lot, I am still hopeful of bumping up the velocity or pace to something like 6: 00 mins per km or 10 km / hr. 

b) My breathing.

I usually start out the run by concentrating on my breathing ensuring that each breath is measured and I am amazed by the fresh air I can actually intake. I breathe deeply to the extent that my lungs ache. Which is a good thing, in my opinion. We, so often, take for granted our ability to do the simple task of breathing that when you focus on it, you actually appreciate the one of 3 organs which fundamentally keeps us alive (the other 2 being the heart and brain). 

c) My legs.

I have always had strong and stiff legs. They have been both my boon and my bane. They were and still are very strong. I always thought I had iron legs. In my teenage years, my swim club mates called be "Stiff Austin" (a joke about the 6 Million Dollar Man Steve Austin who had bionic lags haha) because well my legs were really stiff and hard. I recall playing football in the courtyard of the Club way back in the mid 70s and I didn't wear shoes.

So one time, I recall, I kicked hard at the rubber ball at the goal, and MISSED. Instead, my leg kicked the huge exposed root of the 160 year old tree. The bark of the tree actually came off and my leg though sore, was still intact.

Thats how strong my legs were !

After the first 2 things are settled, I will just go into a Zen Like Zone and run without paying much attention to my surroundings. However, as the kms go by my mind will start to wander and normally things so random will just pop into the mindfulness zone.

Here is one such thought. I dreamt up a decision tree process while I was running. Only today 10th July have I had the courage to write it down.

Please take a look at my innermost thoughts when I run.

In a nutshell, running on a Saturday leaves me happy, and ecstatic. So I will run based on my decision tree logic as shown above.