Dan Gelbarts uM mechanical workshop - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: MT
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2021, 04:36:57 pm
content: He has many older videos going trough machine by machine in his machine park.

author: jpanhalt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2021, 04:39:36 pm
content: Also here recently:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/check-out-this-mechanicalelectronics-lab!/Having problems posting the link. Title is: check out this mechanicalelectronics lab, same general chat forum

author: MT
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2021, 04:53:24 pm
content: You meant this one!https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/check-out-this-mechanicalelectronics-lab!/msg3761351/#msg3761351This one mentions his credentials!https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/whats-your-work-benchlab-look-like-post-some-pictures-of-your-lab/msg3765485/#msg3765485And here!https://www.eevblog.com/forum/mechanical-engineering/machining-things-post-here-the-links/msg3722191/#msg3722191and 9 more but only this one has Dan Gelbart as the thread title.(anyhow, didnt know folks already posted about him)

author: duak
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2021, 08:41:26 pm
content: I've known Dan since the late 70s when I started my first professional job at MacDonald Dettwiler (MDA). He left in 1983 to start Creo Electronics with Ken Spencer, also from MDA. I left MDA to join Creo in 1985 and was one of the early employees. Dan and Ken took on various custom electro-optical developments to pay the bills but felt that we needed a product to go big. Creo's big project was to develop the Optical Tape Recorder that would store 1 terabyte, access any data within one minute and read/write at 3 Mbyte/sec. We shipped the first one in 1990 where it was in use for about 5 years to store LANDSAT data. Magnetic disk storage and RAID obsoleted the OTR about that time so we never got up to the 200 units per year planned. The custom work and the OTR allowed us to develop technology and put together the teams and facilities to develop and produce film imagers for the PCB industry and later the Graphic Arts market.Dan is the most amazing person I've ever met and worked with and I learned an awful lot about various things. I had a great time working there and look back fondly. Creo had enlightened employment policies such as employee stock that allowed me to retire in 2009 and fart around with the junk I collected over the years. I last saw Dan a few years ago when he ground a taper on a transmission shaft for me with his precision air bearing lathe.Everyone who knows Dan will have a few Dan stories; here's one: When estimating how long it would take to do some task or project we'd use man-hours or man-days. Dan was usually so much faster than most everyone else that his estimates were measured in "Dan-hours". An ordinary person would then take at least ten times longer.

author: Refrigerator
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2021, 09:18:56 pm
content: Quote from: duak on October 23, 2021, 08:41:26 pmI could tell from his videos alone that he's an amazing person.

author: RJSV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 05, 2021, 01:11:35 am
content: Wonder what other mech labs he tours, on the YouTube channel

author: Homer J Simpson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 05, 2021, 05:10:15 am
content: Another video from Dan.Historical Scientific Instruments