S F ANGRE and myself at BPL

At BPL I had professional association with an elderly and experienced person by name S F ANGRE. Angre used to work in Colour Television planning department and was a person of Marati origins and used to speak the Marati language well. My first association with Mr.Angre was at the OMR old madras road factory ..on retirement he was re-accommodated at the 80 koramangala transformer shop where we got to know each other even better.He was basically a knowledgeable person.

There was a Supply Chain problem at this place with regards to a lamination used for  a VCR power transformer which was suddenly in short supply. I dont remember the exact type now but must have been type 30 crngo. One Mr.Kamath was a principal supplier of this lamination(and another jyothi industries in Banashankari II stage) but could not keep up the demand which saw me and Mr. Angre in a sourcing difficulty.We set out one morning and visited few suppliers in Rajajinagar Industrial area but most of them could not give a strong assurance of making supplies. the supply of this lamination is dependent on the  electric motor industry ...after the stamping s for the electric motor is cut from the metal sheets the motor companies sell the remnant as scrap and from the corners of the sheet e and i type laminations are stamped by  transformer lamination suppliers. KIRLOSKAR ELECTRIC  and GKW were suppliers if this scrap.  Mr.Angre knew Mr.Ambekar Senior Vice President at Kirloskar and our next task was to meet him and we were inside the Kirloskar plant in Malleswaram. I think Sudindra and Mr.Parthasarathy were the purchase managers at Kirloskar but some how we were in dilemma as they were not of much help to solve our problem.

Almost that afternoon after lunch I was having a stroll in the Koramangala Industrial Area and suddenly saw a company Babji Enterprises who was in the Electrical Lamination business.In Koramangala industrial area itself there was a supplier which we were unaware of. I spoke to Mr.Babji and he said ...any amount of tonnage..i can sevice you...I still remember his confidence.I spoke to Mr. Muddapur plant in-charge of BPL at Bommanahalli and he asked me to take a sample.By evening a sample was given by Babji Enterprises which was tested on a transformer and the no-load-current was exactly what it should be and the price also was less and we took lot of supplies from him thereafter.

This is in 1990 and there were no mobile phones or internet and that I was able to find a supplier on a casual walk through the koramangala industrial area that too who could give a finer quality at a much better price left me and many wonder-struck.

SOLVING THE TRANSFORMER PROBLEM AT BPL

It was somewhere in 1988 or 1989 ..I was working at the BPL Transformer shop in 80 Koramangala Industrial Estate where coils and transformers were made for Television sets.

There were two key power transformers made at this plant and I being basically an Electrical Engineer found great joy in handling these transformers. One of these transformers stepped down 230 volts to 15 volts..the problem started when Sanyo stopped the supply of these transformers and it had to be made in-house.These transformers were used in the LAN model which was a remote controlled TV.

The original Japanese transformer was very concise and elegant and duplicating it would be an herculean task..we tried to reverse engineer one of those transformers but were not successful which bespeaks of the competence of Japanese manufacturing technology.

However a local design was developed...some 3000 turns of 44 gauge  wire on the primary side..and some 300 turns of guage 34 on the secondary side with I think type 17 crngo laminations. I dont precisely remember the design but it was something like this. But the problem was it should withstand 4000 volts which it wasn't.

The problem is that majority of the Engineering personnel at BPL of that time were Electronics people who panicked at this issue but I knew it could be done.

One afternoon I wrapped the transformer tightly with three layers of teraoka tape and the transformer was withstanding 4000 volts. Many batches were made using my prototype and finally we succeeded in orchestrating a full plastic version similar to the Japanese one.

I did something at BPL in retrospect which saved the situation interim.