Made in China

I have UPSs on just about everything "electronic" here is the house. Other than loosing something I'm typing when the power goes off I don't have a problem with loosing power. The problem is that around here when we loose power we never know when it's coming back on. Too often when the power goes off it comes back on in half a second or a second later and the electronics goes crazy. I have a UPS on the entire entertainment center which has the R-15, TV, etc. and the computers are on a UPS. That way when the power goes off and comes right back on I don't get the power surges through the equipment. If it stays off I can then turn everything off and wait for the power to come back on a stabilize before I turn things back on again. Most TVs now have a computer running in them. I've got three APC brand UPSs and have been happy with them.

I understood your "raised hackles" comment in the manner you meant it.

Thanks Don.

BTW I prefer your current look, but that may be because that's the only one I've known  ;D

"Everybody knows" about the hazards of lead based paint.  Well, maybe not everybody in China.  It's entirely possible that the information about the health hazards of lead have not reached to every village.  For centuries, the very best paints contained lead, since lead prevented wood rot, and extended the life of wood frame buildings.  In the forties, pure white lead was used on wood mating surfaces in building wood boats.  It would easily double the useful life of the boats.
Art

Woody said:

... since the Reagan years many of the oversight type gov't agencies have been gutted by budget cuts.

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Woody, after many years of dealing with regulatory/oversight agencies and government inspectors on several continents, I think you might be overstating their usefulness and effectiveness. Back in the Reagan era I was constantly complaining to DOD about the incompetence of their field inspectors and other staff. The response was usually "what can I do? I can't fire them.".

Later in that era an industry association to which I belonged made a number of formal proposals to DOD, one of which was to do something about those field inspectors. DOD eventually did - they upgraded all the positions and promoted all the incompetents, giving them pay raises. So the same incompetent folks were still incompetent, doing the same jobs incompetently and getting paid more money for it at taxpayers' expense.

Note: There may have been competent folks in the field, but I didn't run across them. Apologies to the ones I didn't meet. OTOH I used to enjoy a good technical rapport with some of the folks at some of the DOD sites. These folks occasionally came into the field and they were more likely to know what they were doing.

Tom:

      Years ago, I taught Quality Control in construction.  How's that for a joke?  Actually, it's like most everything else.  There is really little control.  Most is simply verification of the end product.  In many cases, it's too late to do anything to correct the quality.  I pushed a different approach, that being, create processes where it can't be done wrong.  It sounds far fetched, but with more attention given to manufacturing processes, much can be done with the concept, but no one wants to invest enough time and energy to accomplish it.

Tom said:

Keep on dreaming Ron and don't forget to look closely at where the components are made and the unit is assembled 

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I know it may not be possible to find a made in USA microwave anymore but I can wish.  I would feel better with one made in Korea or Japan if there is such a thing anymore.  The LG is korean and may have some possibilities.

Ron M,

You managed to say quite concisely what I believe. I also taught that stuff many (30) years ago, but eventually found it was more effective to coach and train at the local level, be that in-house or at suppliers.

Kenneth said:

I heard the owner of the factory which made the toys , killed himself two days after the recall.

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Probably thought death at his own hand was better than what he seen in his near future.

Ron, you can forget Japan. As you know, it's way too expensive to manufacture consumer goods there and Japanese companies have been moving manufacturing to Asia for a number of years.

Alaskansnowbirds said:

The subject didn't raise my hackles as much as loosing the reply that I spent 15 minutes writing and before I could post it the power here at the house hiccuped and the UPS didn't pick it up. Just checked and it's been 6 years since I changed the batteries in the UPS so I guess a trip to Batteries Plus is in order this weekend.

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Welcome back the Don we all know and recognize.

Your correct quality cannot be inspected in. Actually it is a team effort and it takes and effort from all levels. in manufacturing.

Tom said:

Ron, you can forget Japan. As you know, it's way too expensive to manufacture consumer goods there and Japanese companies have been moving manufacturing to Asia for a number of years.

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Unfortunately you are correct but one could hope. ;D

Tom said:

I can't help thinking the U.S. government is on a witch hunt to discredit Chinese manufacturing.

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I agree.  I think American companies know exactly what materials are being used in their products, and they are ok with it until they get caught.  Then when they are busted, they can blame it on the Chinese.  With toys and notebooks, I think they are gambling that the product will be used and worn out long before there's a liability issue.  If they want to eliminate the problem, don't let tainted products get to the store shelves.  They could take a random pallet of goods and pull some samples to test, but that would take too much time when they could be making money.

Before we get too hyped about  Japanese products, I'll share one of my (many, true) Japanese quality, not stories....

Shortly after joining a small U.S. corporation I was asked to visit several large Japanese corporations. I walked into one of the meetings, held in Tokyo, and immediately knew they were going to unload both barrels. I patiently listened to a director complain and hurl insults at me for two hours. His (apparently) favorite line, while thumping the table, was "This is Japan and we insist on quality". He was grandstanding in front of his employees.

When he was done, I sincerely apologized for the problems he'd had and agreed they should continue to insist on quality. I then explained that the problems they'd experienced were all the result of poor processing at a few suppliers and all of those suppliers were divisions of his large Japanese corporation 

After a lot of chatter in Japanese, I said "If you'll join the team, we (small U.S. corporation) will help you (big Japanese corporation) to fix your quality problems". His attitude towards me sure changed.

I never went to one of those meetings unprepared or without knowing the facts 

Lesson for Mr Japanese director - as someone once told me, when there's one finger pointing forward there are three fingers pointing back.

Another reason Ron should cross Japanese microwaves off his list. Now let me think of some of my Korean stories; I have a few of them too  ;D

Having lived in Japan for 6.5 years I think I have a pretty good hand on the quality there.  But I also have had similar experience in Japanese meetings.

Japanese quality definitely isn't what it's hyped up to be. There have been numerous examples of major issues, such as the laptop batteries that would catch fire, but most of their "recalls" are done quietly/unannounced. You typically don't see a full corps press when there's an issue with their cars but, next time a car into a dealer for service, the repair/replacement gets done without any fanfare. I only found this out by observing a mechanic changing something I hadn't asked to be changed and he explained about the "silent recall".

But at least the fix it that is better than some of the American manufacturers,  The one that come to mind is Cummins and their fix of a manufacturing defect of installing an idiot light to warn you that failure is about to occur.

Ron, it looks like you might need to buy your microwave from India.

Tom said:

Unfortunately, many products we buy are made in China, or a portion originates there.

LG is a Korean company, but I have no idea where they build their products. Even many Japanese companies build their products in China.

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LG is a "Company Town" (Listen to the song 16 Tons, and you will get the idea) in Korea,  and when it comes to Microwaves, Well, Goldstar used to make a model that had no "Start" or "Cook" button.  You put your food in, closed the door, twisted the timer knob and it started... Now, if you were me, if you took your food out before the bell rang, you turned the Knob back to ZERO.

But most folks are not me, they put the bag of pop corn in, twisted the knob, when the corn stopped popping they opened the door, took it out, closed the door and set fire to the office.

Thankfully a co-worker (happend when I was off-shift) grabbed an extinguisher and prevented any actual damage to the office.

I'd told them not to buy Goldstar.. And I still do not care to buy them.. Sadly, Guess who makes

1: Zenith VCR's (I can remember when the quality went IN before the name went on,  and once the LG name went on..> Well the Zenith VCR in this rig is trash can bound cause it don't work! (Well properly that is)

2: Dometic Microwaves.

Yup, LG  Oh yes, the microwave has never worked properly either