I worked at Sony Pencoed's IT department in the late 1990s when they were churning out a million CRT TVs and monitors a year. Thousands of people worked there back then along with thousands more at the nearby Bridgend plant that made the tubes. While there, I wrote a "Mainline operation standards" system that allowed line managers to produce printed documents (using the bill of materials information from the ERP system) showing line workers the order in which through-hole components should be placed on PCBs - down to which of the worker's hands should be used for each step. This video brings back so many memories and shows how much things have changed in the past 25 years, not least the line workers. I had no idea that Sony Pencoed was still operating, given the demise of CRTs. It's nice to know that my many Pis were baked in Pencoed!
Believe it or not, I also worked in Sony Pencoed in the mid 1990's, 1995 - 1998. I worked in New Model Introduction in computer displays. My one and biggest regret in life is that I ever left. It was at the time when monitors were transitioning from CRT to flat screen and I think the decision taken was to invest in a new flat panel factory in the Czech Republic rather than refit the Bridgend plant to produce flat panels instead of CRTs and FBTs (fly back transformers used with CRTs), which I assume would have been a huge cost. I left to got to LG in Newport. Soon after I left though, I remember seeing the Welsh news about redundancies and concerns that the factory would shut, so it looked like I had made the right call. However, it turns out the transition to cameras and later the Pi saved the place. I often wish I'd ridden the uncertainty out and stayed. I've still got friends who started with me working there...good luck to everyone in Sony Pencoed!!
@@abi3751 No, it's not. They are designed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and the units themselves are assembled under contract by Sony, similar to how an Nvidia GPU chip is designed by Nvidia, yet physically made by the semiconductor fabricator TSMC in Taiwan.
I used to work for the company that made the box errector and the box closer. Additinally i can recognise a lot of their stuff on the packing line. Great to see they are still going strong and that some of the deisngs I helped to develpo are still in use.
It was a huge pleasure to meet you and take you on a tour of our facility Jeff! I hope we get a chance to catch up again soon and keep the fantastic video's coming!
How many PIs do you make a week and why are retailers telling us we need to wait between 1 and 3months before you will supply them? The production run must be in the hundreds a week, not tens of thousands as I would expect to see to meet demand. A lot of the retailers say you can't supply what they are ordering, so ask for advance payments stating YOU ask for this before you will make them and send them out. This is something we need to sort out and expose the 2 or 3 main traders that are constantly making excuses and blaming your poor production facility! From what I have seen it is far from poor, so why are retailers saying you can not supply unless paid in advance between 1 and 3months? It's quite obvious the items are available, but retailers are keeping hold of them in order to earn interest on customer money.
Due to my inexperience at the time in using lead-free solder, I faced the 'popcorn' effect on certain through-hole joints. Turns out the right temperature and procedure is important to achieve a good solder joint. Nothing but respect for the engineers out there who had to go through lots of trial and error to achieve the optimal reflow zones.
@@jhoughjr1 Lead free is perfectly fine for production because they have totally dialed processes to use it with. Also helps with obvious health concerns. I'm an Engineer who makes lots of prototypes and I never use it except when forced to, it's awful to work with in manual processes!
@@JeffGeerling don't worry, they had and infinite amount of money and more than 1 person developing those :)... your cool things are made by you alone right>>>
Those ABB Yumi double arm robots are harder to operate compared to single arm as they double the complexity, they can be used to for examble assemble a lego. - my friend from a different department
I was doing SMD manufacturing almost 25 years ago. They were VME/VXI size boards to build a Software Defined (Telemetry) Receiver for NASA. It was all hand placed then run through a then state of the art Heller reflow oven. Then the few through hole were had soldered.
This is a massively powerful video. Thank you Jeff for taking the time to make it. It shows how much effort goes into each Pi. Those factory workers are awesome!
I love factory tour, they are like a amusement park but for really cool engineering challenge also huge respect to all the skilled worker that operate them they quite literally make the word turn
It’s nice to see more location videos by Jeff. I’m excited for all future timing-related stuff. EDIT: And a possible review of the picamera2 library once it’s out of beta.
We now know why there was such a RPi shortage. Jeff caused the line to backup! LOL. Great video man. I love seeing these videos. I've always dreamed of building a DIY assembly line in my basement.
this is cool to see, lets hope they get the supply figured out soon and i cant wait for the pi5 because i know your going to immediately try to plug it into a gpu
I was lucky enough to visit the factory a few years ago to work on an automation project there. I met with Andrew and the rest of the team. Great guys doing great work. They are super passionate about making pi's and as a user for a number of years I was super excited to be there. Great video. Must have been a dream come true to be able to visit for you Jeff.
The guy who looked like you should have had the red shirt on! I was impressed that some of the machines had been assembled from aluminium extrusions, the same ones that many CNC and 3D printers are assembled from!
Thank you Jeff for producing such an excellent video as always! We are delighted to sponsor this outstanding video, which allows more people to truly understand how the Pis are manufactured. As we all believe what a great product Raspberry Pi is! At Seeed Studio, we have been working closely with Pi, serving Pi users, enriching the Pi ecosystem, and exploring more possibilities on Pi. Together, we are also designing, and manufacturing Pi-powered products to empower the IoT, digital transformation, and sustainable development among industries!
The hopper with the GPIO pins is an Electropiezzo motor! They’re so cool. My previous job used them to feed screws head-side up so they were always ready to be picked by the machine as needed.
I'd love to talk to the factory worker who figured that out the first time. So many different factories I've seen have those rotating buckets that seemingly use magic to get weird objects in perfect alignment!
I love assembly lines. Really nice video !!! I worked in a mayonnaise factory with my brother over a Christmas break back in 1975 -- nothing at all computerized about that assembly line back then, but the mechanical gizmos a mechanical / industrial engineer made for the automation were absolutely fascinating to watch as hundreds of empty jars passed through that line every hour. (I was just part of the crew that unloaded frozen egg yolks for the mayonnaise from truck after truck after truck.) I was an undergraduate electrical engineer at the time. I wonder how much different it is nowadays...
Nice video! I went there for an interview in 2019 and I can see that a few steps have been automated. The stage that measured the weight of the box was done by a human before and I remember them wanting to automate it
I love those words at the end of the video which are written over Pis and other computers involved in this factory - "And all watched over by machines of loving grace" ♥
Perfect video! Love it all, especially Pi's making Pi's! And really really impressed by the level of Quality Assurance and Control on these, you've given me an even greater respect and confidence in these boards! Also loved the 3.14 seconds to make a Pi =) I finally sourced a Pi here in Brisbane Australia that wasn't astronomically priced (and didn't want the keyboard version, seems the only thing available for ages), so hoping the return to full speed production shown here results in Pi's availability and market price settle down again. Cheers!
Fantastically produced short feature and superfun insight in the goings on inside a Raspberry factory! :D It's much more clean and organized looking than I imagined. So many little machines and contraptions. And as a Swede it warms my heart to see those ABB robot arms. Congratulations to the raspberry company to have built such a successful business! Looking forward to the 5! :)
Man, I could look at these robots for hours ! Now I finally know how my Pi's are made. We still have RPi gen1 deployed at our customer, logging PM10, PM5 and PM2.5 dust particles measurements from instrument. All we had to change is the SD card :)
Yes and no. The manufacture of Sony's own parts likely is pretty secretative, but the Pi manufacturing side is a bit different - not that they have public tours, and it sounds like Jeff did need to jump through some hoops, but they have thousands of school children visit each year and even have onsite classrooms where they do programming etc. I assume that's as much driven by Pi's ethos, but the fact that Sony have stepped up to actively support that educational aspect is great, and I think goes to the shared values mentioned in the video. A shame that Jeff didn't mention that Sony maintain a good sized nature area with bee hives and raised beds, all tended by factory employees. Not relevant to the production of Pis, but super cool nonetheless and I think it shows that here can be more to these facilities than we assume.
I once worked at Sony Manufacturing Plant in Bridgend and Pencoed when the Manufacturing of T.V's was Produced. Amazing place to work with Fantastic people that I worked with. Oh I do miss it. Happy Memories. Good Luck To everyone at Sony Manufacturing UK.
I lived in wales all my life literally down the road from pencoed yet had no idea we had anything like this! Unbelievable. Thanks for a great video Jeff, so strange to hear my home accent on one of your videos.
@@wayland7150 google sat view might help to find out, they do make other stuff as said in the video, so the entrance to the factory might be small but the floorplan.
@@wayland7150 It's a factory that used to make CRT TVs. CRT production finished around 2005, at which point the factory pivoted to broadcast camera equipment and the like, which is relatively low-volume. However, the fact that they have been able to ramp up the RPi production volumes shows that the factory's capacity was underutilised. To that extent, RPi and Pencoed have both benefited from the relationship.
@@misterflibble9799 yh and bearing in mind South Wales has a very challenging enconomic environment (the shutting down of the collieries in the nearby valleys in the 70's and 80's basically removed all the jobs and they have struggled ever since) the value of high paid, skilled jobs, and all the ancillary jobs in and around Pencoed to facilitate everything cannot be understated.
I live in a different part of Wales, but go to South Wales quite often and have been near the Sony Pencoed factory site a good few times, and it seems a decent size.
This is amazing! Thank you, to you and Sony for giving us an insight into how Pis are baked to perfection. Crazy that you found your doppelganger here as well!
I was so happy when Sony said I could come and film-I was pretty sure I could get a tour of the factory as it worked out with my travel plans and Raspberry Pi were on board, but I wasn't sure whether they'd be okay with me filming. I really wanted to make it so I could share it all with everyone here, because it's more fun that way (even though editing this video was a bit of a nightmare!).
4:00 The REAL dream is that all the jobs are automated AND PEOPLE ARE TAKEN CARE OF. We could have a future of Eternal Makerspace Fun, or we could have The Expanse. Making sure as many people as possible understand the things like what i said up at the top are the only way we cam get there. That and AWESOME OPEN SOURCE HARDWARE! Keep up the great work, this tour was amazing to watch
After such a long shortage we're at the stage where anyone who can buy one will decide to get 3 just in case, as well as any scalpers will ensure that inventory remains low for the foreseeable future. Hopefully when the bellies of the scalpers are full we will once again be able to buy ourselves a Pi4.
Camera based inspection is so fascinating. I'd love to work on factory automation stuff. I feel like I've been interested in that since I was a little kid.
Yay you got to go to Pencoed! I had a factory tour a few years back through work and I absolutely loved it. It's where they made all the Trinitron screens back in the day, and the broadcast camera production and QC lines are a study in carefully refined ergonomics and maximum human efficiency. Hope you also got to enjoy a tour of the full facility, some great broadcasting and electronics history there and many lovely people.
It would be interesting to know the actual manufacturing cost of all that comprehensive automation per Pi, and how cheap that expensive line can make things. It’s amazing and thought provoking. Thanks Jeff, Sony & Pi for letting us in.
Outstanding work, Jeff. Reminds me (fondly) of my days as an R&D Program Manager on bar-code reader development programs, where I spent a *lot* of time with my QA and Manufacturing engineers working with the robotic production line. My, how things have changed, since the late '90s!
It’s quite fascinating to see you amaze, because we do this kind of thing all the time. I am automation engineer at a SPM ( special purpose machine) manufacturer.😄
Seeed has truly come a long way from the first time I ran into them via their Kickstarter campaign more than 10 years ago. I still have some of those parts laying around. Good work. And for the Sony Tech Center, it is beyond amazing the work they are doing there. Awesome video!
I believe the Raspberry Pi will go down in history as the most significant computing product ever designed for the masses. It just fantastic what we can do with them. I have 9 in all, ranging from APRS Digipeater & PiStar Hotspot for HAM radio to a pi zero in a gameboy case.
No... not for the masses. People like you and I have many of them. Some people have dozens and that limits the penetration of the product: it’s really only for us nerds.. The computing product for the masses, sadly, is the much less flexible iPhone.
Great video, I love seeing how factory works! And it's pretty funny you have a double in that factory 🤣 Next video: Jeff and double exchange identity and live each other's life for a day, haha, that would be fun 😆
Thats a very inspirational video! The Pi shows how an open yet reliable, versatile and perfomand hardware design can be an universal hardware base! The production scale brings the low price and the openes brings the support which feedbacks into many loops of self improvement to become what it is. A win! win! product situation!
Thankyou, absolutely fascinating. I just bought a 4B for school and knowing it was built by these fine folks and their insane QA processes makes me truly appreciate this marvelous device so much more.
Awesome mate! So cool they let you be the human robot! I personally don't know what it would be like to be factory worker, but it would be fun for a few hours then I'd get board! :P
They did cycle through other positions from time to time, and everyone I talked to seemed to be content with their work! Didn't get enough time to really get an idea of every position. But almost all the boring tasks that would get too repetitive are fully automated here.
@@JeffGeerling Good to hear! I often tell my boss I want to leave make better money elsewhere yet I get these odd electrical faults to solve (which I do that others don't solve) and he's a nice bloke that won't dis me if I don't come into work for a bad back. Personally I'd love a factory repair job.
Believe me, my initial cut was a bit longer... the problem is for *some* of us, we could just stare at each process for like 10 minutes, then move on to the next one. But as a consolation, you can just re-watch the whole thing over and over, haha!
It's fascinating, even the older ones still in use many places, it's amazing how quickly they can grab and spit out itty-bitty components, within less than a mm of tolerance, continuously!
I got a little smile seeing some gear from a company relatively local to me (Cognex) being used. It kind of makes me feel like I'm part of something greater.
Wow Jeff that's amazing! What an amazing video! And to think I have (and use) several Pi 4b's here in in my house, and they all came through that production facility. Amazing! What a great video! Thanks for this!!
Moved it to the UK to could avoid the whole chip problem? The selling point of the rpi was its price, now they're almost 200GBP on Amazon direct from the RPI company. That's disgusting. Thankfully I can do everything I need on AVR's, Teensy's and picos. I'm glad I spent that time learning to develop for those platforms. Edit: I was wrong. See comments.
There is no official reseller on Amazon. Those are all scalpers who buy Pis at MSRP from other retailers and then list them on Amazon. Even before the shortages, Pis on Amazon would be sold for 20-40% more than retail. I would only buy from an authorized reseller, or friends, for the time being. Check rpilocator, as there are re-stocks almost daily now.
@@JeffGeerling I can't post links, but it's here on the UK store (makes sense if they're based in the UK). It's the RPI foundation that's selling them, so not resellers. I can assume they'll be more expensive when exporting/importing them to the US?
@@JayJay-ki4mi Can you email me (link is in about on my RUclips, or on my website about page) the link? I'd like to look into that. I was told by RPi themselves they haven't been on Amazon, but it would be interesting to see if the are actually selling on the UK Amazon store. It would seem out of character for them to sell to UK residents at an insane markup when they have their resellers sell at the MSRP.
@@JayJay-ki4mi AHA! If you look at that product listing on amazon.co.uk, it's actually 'Sold by' "MSC Superstore Ltd", which is not Raspberry Pi Trading, Ltd. So... scalpers.
It's amazing seeing the factory floor today versus even 10 years ago (there was another tour from back then, where almost every step had more manual intervention, especially the testing!).
I hope you noticed the big and very expensive Omron PLCs in those electrical boxes doing all of the hard-work. The RPis are probably only doing some performance monitoring and camera feeds - not even the vision systems as they're stand-alone items.
@@Shocker99 Definitely-the Pis are used mostly for monitoring and networking tasks, grabbing data from other systems and pushing them into a larger 'overview' system they have (the main display which I had to sadly blur out towards the end of the video). It gave an excellent birds-eye view (which is remotely consumable!) of every aspect of the line, and I'm sure has more than paid for the time spent building it out. A similar bespoke system using only PLCs and the software from the major players would cost tens of thousands (at least), whereas Sony has a customized and optimized system, built using the computers they make in the factory, giving the factory workers and engineers not only the satisfaction of dogfooding, but also the skills to improve their own process in-house to a degree many manufacturers can't! I also spotted a few Pis in their imaging division, handling some measurement tasks for sensors and OLEDs (even one original Pi that's been in service for a decade!).
Amazing tour, thank you for sharing! Andrew from Sony UK seems genuinely excited to share his knowledge and expertise - I wish I worked with guys like him!
The problem is not robots, it is the increased productivity profits going ENTIRELY to capitalists for the last four decades! Disliked 4 being a class traitor
based. but don't worry, 1 guy had to program all this factory from his office, no jobs were lost. and all this people that are poor? lazy bastards, ain't them? now, don't forget to pay for your car monthly subscription or it will drive itself back to us.
All these robots and automated, the packaging line was what I liked the most, no high tech (electronically speaking) in there, just force the cardboard through some very neatly designed tracks and it will fold on itself to form a box, How cool is that😎 Thanks Jeff!
Amazing and had to chuckle at the one pie every '3.14' seconds comment at time 13:18.😊 Thank you for posting this. I really enjoyed watching where my Pi was born.
YES YES YES... I've been waiting for this video!!! So jelious... I would have loved to go see this... Did you crack a whipe and say "WORK FASTER!!! WE NEED MORE PI!!!" ....It's like warm apple pie....
This must be the first detailed look at the Sony production line in the Pi's history. Good one Jeff.
There was one other decent video from maybe 9 or 10 years ago, but the line has changed so much since the first Pi!
props to European manufacturing ;)
@@Kabodankithat explains the shortage ;)
@@rahilarious 🤣
I worked at Sony Pencoed's IT department in the late 1990s when they were churning out a million CRT TVs and monitors a year. Thousands of people worked there back then along with thousands more at the nearby Bridgend plant that made the tubes. While there, I wrote a "Mainline operation standards" system that allowed line managers to produce printed documents (using the bill of materials information from the ERP system) showing line workers the order in which through-hole components should be placed on PCBs - down to which of the worker's hands should be used for each step. This video brings back so many memories and shows how much things have changed in the past 25 years, not least the line workers. I had no idea that Sony Pencoed was still operating, given the demise of CRTs. It's nice to know that my many Pis were baked in Pencoed!
Is this raspberry pi a Sony product or something, I really don't know.
Believe it or not, I also worked in Sony Pencoed in the mid 1990's, 1995 - 1998. I worked in New Model Introduction in computer displays. My one and biggest regret in life is that I ever left. It was at the time when monitors were transitioning from CRT to flat screen and I think the decision taken was to invest in a new flat panel factory in the Czech Republic rather than refit the Bridgend plant to produce flat panels instead of CRTs and FBTs (fly back transformers used with CRTs), which I assume would have been a huge cost. I left to got to LG in Newport. Soon after I left though, I remember seeing the Welsh news about redundancies and concerns that the factory would shut, so it looked like I had made the right call. However, it turns out the transition to cameras and later the Pi saved the place. I often wish I'd ridden the uncertainty out and stayed. I've still got friends who started with me working there...good luck to everyone in Sony Pencoed!!
@@abi3751 No, it's not. They are designed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and the units themselves are assembled under contract by Sony, similar to how an Nvidia GPU chip is designed by Nvidia, yet physically made by the semiconductor fabricator TSMC in Taiwan.
@@RetroJack OK, this facility is in UK isn't it.
@@abi3751 Yep, that's correct.
I used to work for the company that made the box errector and the box closer. Additinally i can recognise a lot of their stuff on the packing line. Great to see they are still going strong and that some of the deisngs I helped to develpo are still in use.
It was a huge pleasure to meet you and take you on a tour of our facility Jeff!
I hope we get a chance to catch up again soon and keep the fantastic video's coming!
Thank you! I was honored to have the tour, and hopefully I can come back again someday, and see even more changes (and maybe another line or two, ha!)
Man, I wish I could come there with my dad. That would be so cool!
How many PIs do you make a week and why are retailers telling us we need to wait between 1 and 3months before you will supply them? The production run must be in the hundreds a week, not tens of thousands as I would expect to see to meet demand.
A lot of the retailers say you can't supply what they are ordering, so ask for advance payments stating YOU ask for this before you will make them and send them out.
This is something we need to sort out and expose the 2 or 3 main traders that are constantly making excuses and blaming your poor production facility! From what I have seen it is far from poor, so why are retailers saying you can not supply unless paid in advance between 1 and 3months? It's quite obvious the items are available, but retailers are keeping hold of them in order to earn interest on customer money.
They're made with magic. And magic is in short supply.
They are made with technology, by cleaver people. Please don't devalue all the hard working people involved by calling it magic.
@@Dust599 obviously a joke
@@Dust599 its magic tho :) they are made by the wizards and witches of the raspberry pi foundation :)
@@Dust599 Clever not cleaver. Two completely different things 😂
@@Dust599 You’re not allowed to call them Cleaver people anymore. We use scissor hands now
Due to my inexperience at the time in using lead-free solder, I faced the 'popcorn' effect on certain through-hole joints. Turns out the right temperature and procedure is important to achieve a good solder joint. Nothing but respect for the engineers out there who had to go through lots of trial and error to achieve the optimal reflow zones.
It's an art! No matter how good you *think* you are at soldering, there's always some joint that'll humble you :D
lead free sucks, but in ensures they always sell new electronics.
@@jhoughjr1 whilst frowned upon by hobbyists, its known effects is one of the main reasons RoHS exists.
@@jhoughjr1 Lead free is perfectly fine for production because they have totally dialed processes to use it with. Also helps with obvious health concerns. I'm an Engineer who makes lots of prototypes and I never use it except when forced to, it's awful to work with in manual processes!
@@peejay1981 agreed. I believe the heath concerns are massively overblown having know many people including myself who worked with lead solder.
Those two armed robots were first used on the HandiCam line in the mid 80s. Their development and tuning was a fascinating story.
I'm amazed how dextrous they are. They put me to shame.
@@JeffGeerling don't worry, they had and infinite amount of money and more than 1 person developing those :)... your cool things are made by you alone right>>>
the Robot arms were from ABB and according to @outofspec they make EV car chargers or dispensers (I can't remember what)
@@lovedfriend2020 ABB makes a ton of cool robots!
Those ABB Yumi double arm robots are harder to operate compared to single arm as they double the complexity, they can be used to for examble assemble a lego. - my friend from a different department
I was doing SMD manufacturing almost 25 years ago. They were VME/VXI size boards to build a Software Defined (Telemetry) Receiver for NASA. It was all hand placed then run through a then state of the art Heller reflow oven. Then the few through hole were had soldered.
Thanks Jeff for this video, as well to the Sony staff - so encouraging to see this production done in Europe!
Sadly, Wales isn't in Europe anymore
@@samaitcheson7057 did they move Wales? again?
@@samaitcheson7057 the UK is still very much Europe, just not the European Union
@@samaitcheson7057 There were political shifts but not geographic ones. Accordingly, Wales is still in Europe but no longer in the European Union.
@@samaitcheson7057 Wales is definitely still in Europe.
This is a massively powerful video. Thank you Jeff for taking the time to make it. It shows how much effort goes into each Pi. Those factory workers are awesome!
Im even more grateful and amazed how cheap below 50euros one Pi can be despite being produced in high quality way. Good work!
I love factory tour, they are like a amusement park but for really cool engineering challenge
also huge respect to all the skilled worker that operate them they quite literally make the word turn
It’s nice to see more location videos by Jeff. I’m excited for all future timing-related stuff.
EDIT: And a possible review of the picamera2 library once it’s out of beta.
It will be _time_ for a new timing video sometime around LTX 2023 :)
@@JeffGeerlingDad joke?😂
@@JeffGeerling LTT collab confirmed?
@@infinitytec Heh, not exactly. But it's ironic... a couple hours ago a _second_ box from Timebeat arrived 👀
Excellent video. Really enjoyed this. Thanks Jeff.
Thank you, and hopefully we may work together on a video this year or next!
We now know why there was such a RPi shortage. Jeff caused the line to backup! LOL. Great video man. I love seeing these videos. I've always dreamed of building a DIY assembly line in my basement.
this is cool to see, lets hope they get the supply figured out soon and i cant wait for the pi5 because i know your going to immediately try to plug it into a gpu
I mean... isn't that the first thing you do with any tiny SBC?
@@JeffGeerling Only you, Jeff, but that's what makes you special, and we love you for it 😛 one day it'll work
I was lucky enough to visit the factory a few years ago to work on an automation project there. I met with Andrew and the rest of the team. Great guys doing great work. They are super passionate about making pi's and as a user for a number of years I was super excited to be there.
Great video. Must have been a dream come true to be able to visit for you Jeff.
The guy who looked like you should have had the red shirt on!
I was impressed that some of the machines had been assembled from aluminium extrusions, the same ones that many CNC and 3D printers are assembled from!
Aluminium construction profile system was invented for industrial and lab equipment in the first place
@@Mr.Leeroy I read it was invented by the Chinese for 3D printers.
@@AndrewAHayes you are mistaking it with V-slot variation that introduced rollers.
"1986 US patent (#4,607,972) by Donald C. Hennick"
@@Mr.Leeroy I think you may be right!
Thank you Jeff for producing such an excellent video as always! We are delighted to sponsor this outstanding video, which allows more people to truly understand how the Pis are manufactured. As we all believe what a great product Raspberry Pi is!
At Seeed Studio, we have been working closely with Pi, serving Pi users, enriching the Pi ecosystem, and exploring more possibilities on Pi. Together, we are also designing, and manufacturing Pi-powered products to empower the IoT, digital transformation, and sustainable development among industries!
Thank you for the sponsorship! I'm excited to test the reTerminal DM a bit more in my new office space!
And thank you Seeed - sponsoring Jeff makes me glad I’ve bought gear from you.
The quality assurance in this process is insane. No wonder you never hear about any Pi dying from a defect.
Definitely the most tested little product I've ever seen, they test every interface and feature in that little fixture!
I almost have my pi dying on all of my project and have to always prepare extra… but maybe that’s cuz the one I have aren’t the official version
I had a defective Pi Zero W once. I was able to get a replacement easily enough though.
Yeah compare that to a walk-through of something like Adafruit. Not a single static charged Tupperware container to be seen hahaha.
7:30 "Oh my goodness! Shut me down! Pis making Pis! How perverse!" Thank you for this very cool video! I love factory tours!
connect the creator-machines directly to the emergent AI and we humans are screwed... 😂
Suddenly my blood runs cold...
I'm always fascinated by assembly lines - thanks for taking us along Jeff!
Importance of standartized products is so high. It makes this kind of high automation possible. Impressive.
5:53 Jeff backed up the line. I'll blame him for any continuing shortage ;-)
Heh, only for a minute!
@@JeffGeerling That is about 19πs short for the day
The hopper with the GPIO pins is an Electropiezzo motor! They’re so cool. My previous job used them to feed screws head-side up so they were always ready to be picked by the machine as needed.
I'd love to talk to the factory worker who figured that out the first time. So many different factories I've seen have those rotating buckets that seemingly use magic to get weird objects in perfect alignment!
I love assembly lines. Really nice video !!!
I worked in a mayonnaise factory with my brother over a Christmas break back in 1975 -- nothing at all computerized about that assembly line back then, but the mechanical gizmos a mechanical / industrial engineer made for the automation were absolutely fascinating to watch as hundreds of empty jars passed through that line every hour. (I was just part of the crew that unloaded frozen egg yolks for the mayonnaise from truck after truck after truck.) I was an undergraduate electrical engineer at the time. I wonder how much different it is nowadays...
Awesome tour of the factory. Also so cool to see it all work love the automation :) Thanks for the cool video.
Nice video! I went there for an interview in 2019 and I can see that a few steps have been automated. The stage that measured the weight of the box was done by a human before and I remember them wanting to automate it
I love those words at the end of the video which are written over Pis and other computers involved in this factory - "And all watched over by machines of loving grace" ♥
Soon they'll replace remaining humans in the factory, including Andrew, if not already. :D
@@GhostsOfSparta then those humans are free to explore better work and work on even harder problems. That's how we upgrade our civilization ♥️
Glad to see some content from Wales! No clue the factory was nearby where I am! Croeso!
Perfect video! Love it all, especially Pi's making Pi's! And really really impressed by the level of Quality Assurance and Control on these, you've given me an even greater respect and confidence in these boards! Also loved the 3.14 seconds to make a Pi =)
I finally sourced a Pi here in Brisbane Australia that wasn't astronomically priced (and didn't want the keyboard version, seems the only thing available for ages), so hoping the return to full speed production shown here results in Pi's availability and market price settle down again.
Cheers!
Fantastically produced short feature and superfun insight in the goings on inside a Raspberry factory! :D
It's much more clean and organized looking than I imagined. So many little machines and contraptions.
And as a Swede it warms my heart to see those ABB robot arms.
Congratulations to the raspberry company to have built such a successful business!
Looking forward to the 5! :)
Would you recognise a raspberry bush if you saw one?
Man, I could look at these robots for hours ! Now I finally know how my Pi's are made. We still have RPi gen1 deployed at our customer, logging PM10, PM5 and PM2.5 dust particles measurements from instrument. All we had to change is the SD card :)
That's awesome that Sony let you in and take a tour of their dedicated Raspberry Pi assembly lines. Sony is normally very secretive.
They were great to work with! But it did take some doing :)
Yes and no. The manufacture of Sony's own parts likely is pretty secretative, but the Pi manufacturing side is a bit different - not that they have public tours, and it sounds like Jeff did need to jump through some hoops, but they have thousands of school children visit each year and even have onsite classrooms where they do programming etc. I assume that's as much driven by Pi's ethos, but the fact that Sony have stepped up to actively support that educational aspect is great, and I think goes to the shared values mentioned in the video.
A shame that Jeff didn't mention that Sony maintain a good sized nature area with bee hives and raised beds, all tended by factory employees. Not relevant to the production of Pis, but super cool nonetheless and I think it shows that here can be more to these facilities than we assume.
@@JeffGeerling how many pages was the NDA lol
This was just beautiful… Great job, Jeff!
Hello HardwareHaven!
Great factory tour. Also interesting to see that the manufacturer trusts the reliability of the PIs enough to rely on them in an industrial setting.
12:42 that's satisfying where that incoming box slides into place just as the bar returns
Many parts of the line were mesmerizing like that, could sit and stare for hours.
Now we know how Jeff keeps all his filming and project videos schedule so regular even with his Crohns and four kids - Jeff 2 from the UK fills in 😂
Haha, if only! Would be nice to be in two time zones!
@@JeffGeerling one more Jeff and we've got 24 hour coverage at least.
11:35-11:49 They even have a piston that blesses the boards!
I once worked at Sony Manufacturing Plant in Bridgend and Pencoed when the Manufacturing of T.V's was Produced. Amazing place to work with Fantastic people that I worked with. Oh I do miss it. Happy Memories. Good Luck To everyone at Sony Manufacturing UK.
I lived in wales all my life literally down the road from pencoed yet had no idea we had anything like this! Unbelievable. Thanks for a great video Jeff, so strange to hear my home accent on one of your videos.
The PI is quite small so I expect the factory is too.
@@wayland7150 google sat view might help to find out, they do make other stuff as said in the video, so the entrance to the factory might be small but the floorplan.
@@wayland7150 It's a factory that used to make CRT TVs. CRT production finished around 2005, at which point the factory pivoted to broadcast camera equipment and the like, which is relatively low-volume. However, the fact that they have been able to ramp up the RPi production volumes shows that the factory's capacity was underutilised. To that extent, RPi and Pencoed have both benefited from the relationship.
@@misterflibble9799 yh and bearing in mind South Wales has a very challenging enconomic environment (the shutting down of the collieries in the nearby valleys in the 70's and 80's basically removed all the jobs and they have struggled ever since) the value of high paid, skilled jobs, and all the ancillary jobs in and around Pencoed to facilitate everything cannot be understated.
I live in a different part of Wales, but go to South Wales quite often and have been near the Sony Pencoed factory site a good few times, and it seems a decent size.
Thanks!
This is amazing! Thank you, to you and Sony for giving us an insight into how Pis are baked to perfection. Crazy that you found your doppelganger here as well!
The people at Sony are awesome, and amazing tour!
Thank you for letting us take the tour with you. Love it ❤
I was so happy when Sony said I could come and film-I was pretty sure I could get a tour of the factory as it worked out with my travel plans and Raspberry Pi were on board, but I wasn't sure whether they'd be okay with me filming. I really wanted to make it so I could share it all with everyone here, because it's more fun that way (even though editing this video was a bit of a nightmare!).
@@JeffGeerling What film did you use: Kodak, Agfa or Fuji? And where on earth did you get it developed and converted to video??
@@JeffGeerling We’re really grateful for the work, Jeff.
4:00 The REAL dream is that all the jobs are automated AND PEOPLE ARE TAKEN CARE OF.
We could have a future of Eternal Makerspace Fun, or we could have The Expanse. Making sure as many people as possible understand the things like what i said up at the top are the only way we cam get there.
That and AWESOME OPEN SOURCE HARDWARE! Keep up the great work, this tour was amazing to watch
Im loving this rpi in person content!
After such a long shortage we're at the stage where anyone who can buy one will decide to get 3 just in case, as well as any scalpers will ensure that inventory remains low for the foreseeable future. Hopefully when the bellies of the scalpers are full we will once again be able to buy ourselves a Pi4.
4:55 Didn't realise this guy wasn't Jeff until I saw Jeff standing next to him.
Hope you are well. ...
Thank you for doing all you do for the community
Camera based inspection is so fascinating. I'd love to work on factory automation stuff. I feel like I've been interested in that since I was a little kid.
Yay you got to go to Pencoed! I had a factory tour a few years back through work and I absolutely loved it. It's where they made all the Trinitron screens back in the day, and the broadcast camera production and QC lines are a study in carefully refined ergonomics and maximum human efficiency. Hope you also got to enjoy a tour of the full facility, some great broadcasting and electronics history there and many lovely people.
Loved this edition of How It's Made by Jeff Geerling :D
Great stuff Jeff! Also a Pi 4 every 3.1s, maybe I will finally be able to buy one at MSRP
It would be interesting to know the actual manufacturing cost of all that comprehensive automation per Pi, and how cheap that expensive line can make things. It’s amazing and thought provoking.
Thanks Jeff, Sony & Pi for letting us in.
I wouldn't be surprised if they had a separate part of the factory where they just have a bunch of people baking raspberry pies
🥧
Welcome back, Pi. I hope you can find a place in the hearts and minds of everyone who has moved on since you left.
Jeff is so awesome. Hope all is well with you. Great vid!
Outstanding work, Jeff. Reminds me (fondly) of my days as an R&D Program Manager on bar-code reader development programs, where I spent a *lot* of time with my QA and Manufacturing engineers working with the robotic production line. My, how things have changed, since the late '90s!
And in 20 years we'll look back on this and again marvel at the changes :D
"We make a Pi every 3.14 seconds." I see what he did there. Perfection?
Probably the best Raspberry Pi video ever made.
I wonder if Eben ever imagined the sheer amount of technology and engineering that would be needed for his project...
It’s quite fascinating to see you amaze, because we do this kind of thing all the time. I am automation engineer at a SPM ( special purpose machine) manufacturer.😄
Very nicely produced video Jeff. Well done.
Seeed has truly come a long way from the first time I ran into them via their Kickstarter campaign more than 10 years ago. I still have some of those parts laying around. Good work. And for the Sony Tech Center, it is beyond amazing the work they are doing there. Awesome video!
I believe the Raspberry Pi will go down in history as the most significant computing product ever designed for the masses. It just fantastic what we can do with them. I have 9 in all, ranging from APRS Digipeater & PiStar Hotspot for HAM radio to a pi zero in a gameboy case.
No... not for the masses. People like you and I have many of them. Some people have dozens and that limits the penetration of the product: it’s really only for us nerds.. The computing product for the masses, sadly, is the much less flexible iPhone.
This is great. Mine sits in my closets after I have done a few pet projects.
Great video, I love seeing how factory works! And it's pretty funny you have a double in that factory 🤣
Next video: Jeff and double exchange identity and live each other's life for a day, haha, that would be fun 😆
Thats a very inspirational video! The Pi shows how an open yet reliable, versatile and perfomand hardware design can be an universal hardware base!
The production scale brings the low price and the openes brings the support which feedbacks into many loops of self improvement to become what it is. A win! win! product situation!
Jeff's Doppelganger will be hosting the next video because Jeff refused to leave the factory.
😂😂😂
Thankyou, absolutely fascinating. I just bought a 4B for school and knowing it was built by these fine folks and their insane QA processes makes me truly appreciate this marvelous device so much more.
Awesome mate! So cool they let you be the human robot! I personally don't know what it would be like to be factory worker, but it would be fun for a few hours then I'd get board! :P
I see what you did there lol.
They did cycle through other positions from time to time, and everyone I talked to seemed to be content with their work! Didn't get enough time to really get an idea of every position. But almost all the boring tasks that would get too repetitive are fully automated here.
@@r3tri3ution_z3nith_point_z6 Pun intended :P
@@JeffGeerling Good to hear! I often tell my boss I want to leave make better money elsewhere yet I get these odd electrical faults to solve (which I do that others don't solve) and he's a nice bloke that won't dis me if I don't come into work for a bad back. Personally I'd love a factory repair job.
I had no idea they were manufactured in Wales! So good (and weird) to hear a Welsh accent in a RUclips video about tech ❤🏴
Great to see how Pi are baked! 🥧 Hopefully they’ll manage to output more that the price gougers can eat.
Wow! I used to work on test robots for hard disk platters in the late 80's. What a long way they've come!
so theres a baking oven, thats why its called raspberry pi.
Super cool behind the scenes look at the Raspberry Pi production lines.
Great video Jeff!
Sorry Jeff we need you out of there! You just aren't fast enough! 😂
Been looking forward to this! Thanks Jeff
a really interesting video thanks Jeff. my one criticism, it is way too short 😄
Believe me, my initial cut was a bit longer... the problem is for *some* of us, we could just stare at each process for like 10 minutes, then move on to the next one. But as a consolation, you can just re-watch the whole thing over and over, haha!
@@JeffGeerling how about a longer cut for the real nerds among us? 🤞🏻
I have always loved watching chip shooters. It is amazing to see how they have evolved even just in the last 20 years.
It's fascinating, even the older ones still in use many places, it's amazing how quickly they can grab and spit out itty-bitty components, within less than a mm of tolerance, continuously!
Did anyone else see the "FAIL" on the screen at the top at 10:25 😆
I got a little smile seeing some gear from a company relatively local to me (Cognex) being used. It kind of makes me feel like I'm part of something greater.
This was/is truly fascinating. 3.1 seconds per pi. Too bad it isn’t 3.14. Gracias 👏👏👏
well spotted, perhaps it's a deliberate move by the factory
he did say 3.14
automation really is king, let the humans do more interesting and less repetitive tasks :D
Agree!
Wow Jeff that's amazing! What an amazing video!
And to think I have (and use) several Pi 4b's here in in my house, and they all came through that production facility. Amazing!
What a great video! Thanks for this!!
Haha I was just thinking the same thing - quite cool to see where all my Pis were created!
Moved it to the UK to could avoid the whole chip problem? The selling point of the rpi was its price, now they're almost 200GBP on Amazon direct from the RPI company. That's disgusting. Thankfully I can do everything I need on AVR's, Teensy's and picos. I'm glad I spent that time learning to develop for those platforms.
Edit: I was wrong. See comments.
There is no official reseller on Amazon. Those are all scalpers who buy Pis at MSRP from other retailers and then list them on Amazon.
Even before the shortages, Pis on Amazon would be sold for 20-40% more than retail.
I would only buy from an authorized reseller, or friends, for the time being. Check rpilocator, as there are re-stocks almost daily now.
@@JeffGeerling I can't post links, but it's here on the UK store (makes sense if they're based in the UK). It's the RPI foundation that's selling them, so not resellers. I can assume they'll be more expensive when exporting/importing them to the US?
@@JayJay-ki4mi Can you email me (link is in about on my RUclips, or on my website about page) the link? I'd like to look into that. I was told by RPi themselves they haven't been on Amazon, but it would be interesting to see if the are actually selling on the UK Amazon store.
It would seem out of character for them to sell to UK residents at an insane markup when they have their resellers sell at the MSRP.
@@JayJay-ki4mi AHA! If you look at that product listing on amazon.co.uk, it's actually 'Sold by' "MSC Superstore Ltd", which is not Raspberry Pi Trading, Ltd.
So... scalpers.
@@JeffGeerling I have emailed you. Lmk if that's the same one.
This has to be my favorite video of all time
Factories evolve they are not created from scratch. Also they put their money where their mouth's are by using raspberry Pi's to make raspberry Pi's.
It's amazing seeing the factory floor today versus even 10 years ago (there was another tour from back then, where almost every step had more manual intervention, especially the testing!).
I hope you noticed the big and very expensive Omron PLCs in those electrical boxes doing all of the hard-work.
The RPis are probably only doing some performance monitoring and camera feeds - not even the vision systems as they're stand-alone items.
@@Shocker99 Definitely-the Pis are used mostly for monitoring and networking tasks, grabbing data from other systems and pushing them into a larger 'overview' system they have (the main display which I had to sadly blur out towards the end of the video).
It gave an excellent birds-eye view (which is remotely consumable!) of every aspect of the line, and I'm sure has more than paid for the time spent building it out.
A similar bespoke system using only PLCs and the software from the major players would cost tens of thousands (at least), whereas Sony has a customized and optimized system, built using the computers they make in the factory, giving the factory workers and engineers not only the satisfaction of dogfooding, but also the skills to improve their own process in-house to a degree many manufacturers can't!
I also spotted a few Pis in their imaging division, handling some measurement tasks for sensors and OLEDs (even one original Pi that's been in service for a decade!).
Funny, I'm in an SMT line watching an SMT video. What a time to be alive.
Man, those are fast placement
Amazing tour, thank you for sharing! Andrew from Sony UK seems genuinely excited to share his knowledge and expertise - I wish I worked with guys like him!
baked pis5...pee... Wait this isn't a NileRed video...
haha
Best Raspberry Pi video I've seen ... under the hood, behind the scenes, where the voodoo meets the cursed. Love it.
The problem is not robots, it is the increased productivity profits going ENTIRELY to capitalists for the last four decades!
Disliked 4 being a class traitor
based. but don't worry, 1 guy had to program all this factory from his office, no jobs were lost. and all this people that are poor? lazy bastards, ain't them? now, don't forget to pay for your car monthly subscription or it will drive itself back to us.
Wow, what a privilege to get to see you visiting inside the factory that makes such a significant product.
All these robots and automated, the packaging line was what I liked the most,
no high tech (electronically speaking) in there, just force the cardboard through some very neatly designed tracks and it will fold on itself to form a box, How cool is that😎
Thanks Jeff!
The adhesive dispensing in there to glue the box together is much more high tech than you probably think.
@@aleksandersuur9475 I know, but comparing it with the other things it looks something I can digest in my brain.
Amazing! Thanks for that wonderful documentary! I've always wanted to know how RPI's were assembled.
Amazing and had to chuckle at the one pie every '3.14' seconds comment at time 13:18.😊
Thank you for posting this. I really enjoyed watching where my Pi was born.
YES YES YES... I've been waiting for this video!!! So jelious... I would have loved to go see this...
Did you crack a whipe and say "WORK FASTER!!! WE NEED MORE PI!!!"
....It's like warm apple pie....
What a great tour! Thank you for sharing this!
Love the enthusiasm. Really made me happy that i get to enjoy my Raspberry pis.