Chris and Melissa welcome Pete Staples, CEO & co-founder of Blue Clover Devices, for a deep dive into how to plan tests, capture evidence, and debug those mysterious boards that look perfect but don’t work.

Topics include:

• Who is Blue Clover Devices & what’s the PLT?
• Bed-of-nails, ICT, flying probe, and PLT
• What assemblers really need when a board fails
• Production test vs. validation
• Updates on the Stick It Up Your Tube movement
• Ben the Beaver

Links & resources

• Blue Clover Devices — Production Line Tool (PLT).
  Blue Clover Devices
• PLT Reference Docs (test plans, reports, hardware reference).
  docs.pltcloud.com+1
• Blue Clover — Design-for-Test (DFT) Guide (request the PDF).
  Blue Clover Devices

pickplacepodcast.com

After a long break (and a few listener wellness checks!), Chris and Melissa return to catch up on what’s kept them busy and share some updates from around the industry. Then, they dive into this episode’s big topic: who’s responsible for the inevitable fallout when it comes to quick-turn PCB assembly?

Topics include:

• Catching up after six months of growth, hiring, and training
• Andrew Seddon’s appearance on The Amp Hour — and how it ties back to the origins of this podcast
• IPC’s rebrand to the Global Electronics Association
• The ongoing saga of stuck parts in tubes (a.k.a. “Stick It Up Your Tube”)
• Quick-turn fallout:
  • Why some customers expect and accept a small percentage of failures
  • Why others demand 100% working boards
  • How assembly shops handle each scenario (good, bad, and ugly approaches)
  • Practical tips for managing fallout: thermal cycling, batch troubleshooting, and respectful customer–assembler relationships
• Pet Peeve of the Week: LinkedIn (and why it feels so weird)

Links & Resources

• Andrew Seddon on The Amp Hour: CircuitHub 12 Years Later
  
  
• IPC rebrand: Global Electronics Association announcement
  
  
• LinkedIn post – stuck part in a tube
  
  
• LinkedIn post – sustainability rant
  
  

pickplacepodcast.com

Chris will be in California and would love to meet up with anyone interested.

He will be in the San Francisco Bay Area March 11 - March 14 and the Los Angeles/Anaheim area March 16 - March 20.

Email us at contact@pickplacepodcast.com and we'll try to make something happen!

pickplacepodcast.com