#429 – An Interview with Charles Alexanian

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Welcome Charles Alexanian of Alexttronics!

• Headquartered in Fresno
  • 0h 0m 36s
• History
  • 0h 1m 7s
• Family business
  • 0h 1m 20s
• Father was a QC engineer
  • 0h 1m 25s
• Night scope
  • 0h 1m 44stel
• Irrigation work in Fresno
  • 0h 2m 21s
• Assembling clock dials as a 4 year old
  • 0h 4m 26s
• OEM mfg of timer and controls
  • 0h 5m 0s
• Load sharing of pumps
  • 0h 5m 51s
• Family business – everyone helped
  • 0h 8m 22s
• Reading schematics from an early age
  • 0h 12m 35s
• Helped out on product in 92
  • 0h 15m 34s
• Telrite in Fremont for MFG
  • 0h 16m 45s
• Fear and doubt are a factor in any business
  • 0h 17m 36s
• Started looking outside the business in case it wasn’t viable
  • 0h 18m 24s
• Pedals and amps
  • 0h 18m 59s
• Opened a repair business for amps and pedals
  • 0h 19m 34s
• Manufacturing replacement parts for amps
  • 0h 19m 50s
• Tube amps
  • 0h 21m 23s
• Screen resistor
  • 0h 26m 0s
• Got in contact with studios in town
  • 0h 26m 49s
• uBid
  • 0h 27m 31s
• Thomas register
  • 0h 28m 4s
• War era catalog
  • 0h 28m 44s
• Getting parts was always an issue
  • 0h 30m 10s
• Led in two directions
  • 0h 30m 15s
• Speaker manufacturing was bad
  • 0h 30m 25s
• Don Schmidt sourcing parts
  • 0h 30m 53s
• Sourcing 10″ speakers
  • 0h 31m 32s
• Got burned on sourcing into the market
  • 0h 32m 25s
• Closed up the repair shop
  • 0h 32m 46s
• Kept a couple customers at studios
  • 0h 32m 58s
• Went to school for electrical contracting
  • 0h 33m 42s
• Getting into tubes
  • 0h 35m 6s
• Bought mostly from New Sensor
  • 0h 36m 6s
• Ronnie Elsbury – MU incorporated
  • 0h 37m 0s
• What is a vacuum tube
  • 0h 38m 22s
• Edison effect
  • 0h 39m 32s
• de Forest father of the vacuum tube
  • 0h 39m 57s
• Added the grid
  • 0h 40m 19s
• Certain applications still need tubes
  • 0h 42m 5s
• Radar and microwave requires tubes because of power levels
  • 0h 43m 5s
• Traveling wave tubes
  • 0h 43m 33s
• Varian brothers
  • 0h 43m 57s
• Klystron
  • 0h 44m 7s
• Ion implantation uses tubes
  • 0h 44m 40s
• Ronnie visits Charles
  • 0h 45m 40s
• Ronnie factory does last time buy
  • 0h 48m 56s
• Starting making tubes
  • 0h 50m 11s
• Glasswork is very difficult
  • 0h 50m 55s
• Charles’ talk at Supercon
  • 0h 51m 4s
• Charles’ original article on Hackday about tube mfg
  • 0h 52m 39s
• BA ionization gauge
  • 0h 52m 53s
• Most basic form of tube used for measurement of vacuum
  • 0h 53m 0s
• Philips glassworks videos from the 30s
  • 0h 55m 15s
• Mullard glass video from the 50s-60s
  • 0h 55m 22s
• Videos from bell labs
  • 0h 55m 37s
• Glass slinger on youtubes
  • 0h 55m 53s
• Adam Carolla podcasts
  • 0h 58m 8s
• Fitting out a studio
  • 0h 58m 26s
• Started working in exchange for hanging around racing
  • 0h 59m 23s
• Carolla digital
  • 0h 59m 45s
• Sourcing parts as a small manufacturer
  • 1h 2m 9s
• Spall – the surface falls off
  • 1h 4m 4s
• Ceramic caps
  • 1h 5m 49s
• “Farmers are not a trusting group”
  • 1h 8m 16s
• Small growers are pushing for monitoring in agtech
  • 1h 11m 48s
• MQTT
  • 1h 14m 10s
• Highwire
  • 1h 21m 47s
• brokenspeaker9@gmail.com
  • 1h 25m 52s
• NeoDen4
  • 1h 27m 36s