2w ago

Inside China's Mini PC Production: How Tiny Computers Are Made

This post is a bit borderline, so I can take it down if you think it's inappropriate for this community (tag @otter@lemmy.ca for a faster response). These computers are often suggested by various selfhosting tutorials so it might be interesting to see how they're made.

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When a mommy computer and a daddy computer love each other very much...
- What do they do with the daddy computers? All of mine only have female ports.
  
  Never heard of a flash drive? All they provide is the initiation. Mom does all the work
Looks good to me. Venting of gasses, ear protection, two hand safety. It's not prefect and its menial work but it looks like they have certain standards which are upheld.
The one guy hand-soldering and fumes with no PPE or vent 😱
- The one guy hand-soldering and fumes with no PPE or vent 😱
  I can't see the video but I can just imagine. I've had first hand experience with Chinese manufacturing. I used to have the patent on a tool I created for small gas engines. After soliciting US manufacturers for pricing, it was quite evident, even on my small scale, why manufacturing has gone overseas. So we hit upon a guy in China to do a run, I went to observe the process. I'll have to say, it was not what I had imagined. At one point, the 'guide' took us around to vats where they 'washed' off the product in some very caustic chemicals that would physically burn my nose when I inhaled. I'm not sure what the chemicals were, but it would eat all the grunge and any reminent slag off. We come around the corner, and there is this dude, standing in the vat of unknown chemicals, fishing around with his arm up to his shoulder in this muck, trying to unclog the drain, so they could proceed to the next step. I didn't say anything but I remember thinking, for the sake of future generations, I hope that poor guy in the vat doesn't replicate. That would be a genetic disaster.
  
  I'm going to keep manufacture local to the west coast, but yeah, price deltas are almost extreme in comparison.
Think of all the stuff they are breathing...
I have a beelink very similar if not the same as the ones they are building in the video. It's my primary desktop. I purchased it after my tower died. I have an n100 that is my plex, *arr platform and VPN. Works very very well..
I would not think twice about buying another beelink.
The ONLY thing I don't like about it is having to finish the install of windows before you can wipe the ssd.
But other than that. Gravy.
- The ONLY thing I don't like about it is having to finish the install of windows before you can wipe the ssd.
  Why? Can't you get to the bios, change to usb boot loader, boot linux and wipe the disk?
  
  You'd think you could.. but you can't even get to the bios before finishing the install.
  There's probably a way... But I wasn't able to find it.
With tiny hands, obviously.

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