[R-390] Stewart Warner production numbers..?

[Jordan Arndt]

Hi group...

While I'd like to have a somewhat larger sample size, I'd like to thank Gary, Jacques, Larry, Tom et al for the info I have received.

>From what I can discern thus far, my belief is that the 1959 and 1960 SW production was actually a single production run spread out over 2 contract numbers.

The reason I believe this to be the case is that the serial numbers of the modules and front panels do not work under any other scenario, unless it was common to have many hundreds or thousands of spare or excess modules and front panels produced, which makes no economic or manufacturing sense.

For example, the 1960 SW I've been slowly restoring has mainly 1960 production modules and front panels all of which are numbered well over 5,000, while the high known S.N. for that run is 4,572. Eg. the front panel is number 5266 and the remaining 1960 SW modules are all within a few hundred either way of that number.

What I believe is that the serial number on the ID tag is actually a serial number the final assembly of the various modules and chassis, and was likely re-set to zero sometime in early 1960, which makes a great deal of sense both for record keeping and production as I've experienced in ISO-900x manufacturing.

When I was involved in the production of optical mark reading equipment which were to be installed in lottery terminals, every CRT, power supply, ckt board and mechanical structure or device was assigned a particular serial number for record keeping for QA/QC and ISO tracing.

After passing QA/QC burn-in and testing, these assemblies and modules were later installed into the terminal unit and then the entire terminal unit assembly was then given a serial number and was tracked throughout its use along with the installed modules.

If one of the modules failed, it was returned for examination and repair where possible, and the modules list of the terminal unit was changed to show that a module(s) had been replaced and the listed serial number changed to that of the replaced module.

I believe that I can say with some certainty that no production engineer or manager would ever even attempt to have the various module/assembly serial numbers match on any production "unit" because that would be almost impssible to implement without slowing production to an absolute crawl. The logistics of that would be egregiously complex and very expensive to implement.

Obviously, I can't account for what happened in the field after delivery given Depot module replacement and/or swapping, but I'd expect some type of similar record keeping would have been in place. Does anyone have that type of information...?

Interestingly, the reason that I started looking into this is that I am trying to determine what an appropriate ID Tag for the 59 and 60 SWs I have might be...

I'll likely post a 2nd part of my spiel, but I would appreciate any comments or info which you folks might provide...!

73 for now...Jordan VE6ZT


----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Larry H 
  To: Jacques Fortin 
  Cc: Jordan Arndt ; R-390 Forum 
  Sent: Friday, May 27, 2022 8:02 PM
  Subject: Re: [R-390] Stewart Warner production numbers..?


  Yes, the date on this file is 3-18-2022.


  Regards, Larry


  On Fri, May 27, 2022 at 1:03 PM Jacques Fortin <jacques.f at videotron.ca> wrote:

    I believe that the latest info available is here:
    https://www.r-390a.net/R390a%20R390%20R391%20Production%20Notes.pdf

    73, Jacques, VE2JFE in Montreal

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