Robots make radios (1940s style).
robots make radios. " It could be a futurist fantasy - a wholly automated factory, with only a few attendants keeping watch. But this is 1947, the bakelite age. For radio and automation expert John Sargrove it is the culmination of a dream. He has designed ECME - Electronic Circuit Making Equipment. It should be a world-beater, but it isn?t. What happened? " Robots make radios (1940s style)
This is a fascinating story from the London Science Museum. Sargrove's (ne Szabadi) system of spraying the circuit and components onto bakelite sheets as part of the construction of the radio set seems to pre-date the printed circuit board (patented by Paul Eisler in 1943). In fact "In the Sargrove method the circuits, resistors, inductances and other components were formed by spraying on to a pre-moulded bakelite panel."
Zinc was sprayed onto a bakelite panel that had grooves mouled into the surface. The metal was then finely ground away to leave material in the lower part of the grooves - forming here in the detailed view part of the inductance or coil used in the tuning circuit of a two-valve set destined for China in 1947.
The attraction of doing it with robots was to minimise losses due to wiring mistakes. When I spoke to people involved in the Australian radio industry during these years a number of them described this issue. Many radio factories believed that women were much better at wiring than men - much better at fine detail with far fewer mistakes. They were presumably cheaper to pay as well.
The production system depended on large numbers and the cancellation of a large order from the Indian government after independence in 1947 signalled the end.
[kellerkind bogenallee 11] pic from Science & Society Picture Library [Stephen Rapley]
6:41:27 AM 
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