You're playing a semantics game by trying to differentiate "skilled" and "educated". They are "trained" at the factory off the line. The factories have "classrooms" where they train workers on process, etc. for about 6 weeks.
But even your "educated labor" can get lazy. All the time I will see a worker disconnect his static strap, not trim the excess leg off a component lead, use too hot of a soldering iron, put too many magnetics in a tray to go into the varnish machine so some of the components don't get fully varnished, fail to mask off the ground screw area of the housing prior to painting so the PSU housing is not properly grounded....
I think too many people over simplify the process of building a PSU from the ground up because they think it's simply "put X component in Y location on Z PCB". Statements like that definitely show a degree of ignorance of how PSUs are actually made.
This thread exists, because of semantics between "tiers", perception vs industry definition?
In this context, talking about assembly, there is only "training". They're not skilled, the vast majority can't tell you
why X is done, they just know that their job is to do it, consistently, in a specific timeframe.
I'm sure "educated" and "uneducated" labor get lazy, and issues occur. But I fail to see how that is any different between companies, when they're pulling from the same labor pool?
It's not ignorance, it's an overly simplistic summary admittedly, but the the assembly line workers, that's what it is. "I connect X to Y, on Z and my job is done. NEXT".
The Seasonic critique had to do with remote supply chains and not being able to effectively monitor all aspects of assembly for QC. "Industry leading 12 year warranty" is marketing. It's not a reflection of how long they actually expect the PSU to last. To be fair: I can say the same about Corsair's 10 year warranty.
Can any manufacturer control 100% of their supply chain? Not unless it's their own factories, at which point, they fail to be a "supply chain".
They can make a good effort (perhaps by having 3 people on the ground in a given country?) and QC a certain percentage of a product line, but that doesn't ensure 100% of their supply chain is without error ESPECIALLY when they're using the same pool of skilled/unskilled/trained, adults, children and monkeys?
"Industry leading 12 year warranty" is marketing, sure. It's not false, assuming "industry" is consumer...
But at least you can appreciate that it's an overreach by all companies.
Very similar to "all Japanese caps" to me. Accurate, just not perhaps relevant in all cases.
The entire 'spark' for this thread could be considered along the same lines as "Japanese Caps", in fairness.
So, Seasonic are not always 'better', but you need a crash course in PSU 101 to understand WHY one is better than the other. Or, you could just buy a Seasonic...
The rest of the quote, and
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