products you hate

[Cubdriver]

As I'm trying to carefully align mating parts, why oh why do these 'helping' hands require both of mine to tighten an elbow?? One for the wingnut and one for the back of the stud.     Tack weld, or otherwise attach the stud to the plate Fercrissake!

Yeah, but that requires sense and adds manufacturing cost!

-Pat

[CraigHB]

I find myself complaining about engineers doing stuff like that a lot.  Is it me or does product design just keep making less sense as time goes by.

[SeanB]

As I'm trying to carefully align mating parts, why oh why do these 'helping' hands require both of mine to tighten an elbow?? One for the wingnut and one for the back of the stud.     Tack weld, or otherwise attach the stud to the plate Fercrissake!

Yeah, but that requires sense and adds manufacturing cost!

-Pat

File to get rid of the chrome, MAPP torch and a drop of silver solder will fix that. Then polish off the now black chrome and put a drop of linseed oil on as rust preventative and you are fine.

[james_s]

A drop of superglue will probably work too, just has to keep the screw from spinning until you get the nut tightened up.

[BradC]

A drop of superglue will probably work too, just has to keep the screw from spinning until you get the nut tightened up.

These days I tend to reach for the epoxy. Quicker and less collateral damage than the oxy and silver solder in non critical applications.

[TerraHertz]

Polyurethane foam, in all its forms and uses. I already hated it when used as padding in expensive instrument cases, for the corrosive, sticky, destructive gunk it eventually becomes.

And now I hate it when used as filter material in oil-mist separators for vacuum pumps. Like these two cartridges for which I need to find or improvise replacements. See pic.
Naturally the bastards managed to use an epoxy that is still hard as a rock to glue the things together, so they can't be taken apart to replace the PU ex-foam with something sensible.

[SeanB]

End caps are bakelite, so a nice soak in MEK solvent ( or paint stripper) will get that epoxy off with no damage to the thermoset plastic, and a drop of CA glue on the break will put it back together.

If they are the right size I will guess a 10 micron spun polypropylene water filter element ( the cheap $5 ones used in 10in water filter units) will fit there and do the same job.  Gast makes some fibre filter elements for the vacuum pumps they make, look for a local distributor and see if they have a similar filter for you Guy, might be easier. I took one, did a little work on it with a hacksaw and a wood file and put it in my vacuum pump as a better oil separator than the nasty glass wolol they originally used, and it does work better now, plus is a little quieter.

[mmagin]

Polyurethane foam, in all its forms and uses. I already hated it when used as padding in expensive instrument cases, for the corrosive, sticky, destructive gunk it eventually becomes.

I think the industrial use and misuse of polymers probably presents a lesson in how a lot of the 'accelerated' aging testing originally done to sell many of these things is a suspect methodology.

At least it seems like in the world of archival materials there's been some attention to this:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerated_aging#Criticism

[sentry7]

Someone mentioned Dell a while back. Anybody see this?

https://youtu.be/yeiI8cd5rO4

[NiHaoMike]

Yeah, right. It's terrible.

breadboards also have the problem that you can't go over 30V... And in some projects you have to use other solutions like veriboards or printed circuit boards.

I built most of a ~600W SMPS for a Kodak xray head on a solderless breadboard once, including the mosfet half bridge fed by a ~330V rail. It's not really advisable, but just because it's rated for 30V doesn't mean you can't go higher if you feel like living dangerously.

A long time ago, I ran well over 1kV on a breadboard albeit very low current. That was around the point where the paper insulator under the breadboard starts to break down, then it turns out that by removing the breadboard from the metal plate, adding a layer or two of packing tape, then putting it back solves that. I built a tiny inverter that ran off a few AA batteries (putting out about 300V peak) and decided to keep adding voltage multiplier stages made out of 10nF ceramic capacitors and 4007 diodes.

I do emphasize on the low current part, though. Short the output and it makes a little snap similar to popping bubble wrap. Touch it and it feels like a static shock. Basically a fun and safe toy for a middle school student. The most interesting experiment I did with it was that it could turn a burned out germanium diode into a tiny UV bulb... (Keep in mind that was well before UV LEDs were affordable.)

[Gregg]

On the subject of things we can hate: the smell of selenium rectifier letting the smoke out, which used to happen way too often. 

[fable]

Chinese 2 component glue ..it has realy hard smell so i always must go outside when i need to glue something.

[JoeN]

Make Money Flipping Houses! seminars they constantly advertise on radio.  Right night to Make Your Dick Harder With This Fake "Supplement" That Is Not FDA Approved which is also advertised.  However, I have never actually tried the products so I may be totally incorrect about it.  Mostly I just hate the constant ads.

[Housedad]

Any product that fails to perform as expected or advertised and any product that has some cheap assed component that breaks right away after spending a fortune on the dang thing.

[TerraHertz]

End caps are bakelite, so a nice soak in MEK solvent ( or paint stripper) will get that epoxy off with no damage to the thermoset plastic, and a drop of CA glue on the break will put it back together.

Oh well, thanks for the suggestion. They've been soaking in pure MEK for two days now, and the epoxy glue isn't getting even soft. Any other ideas?

Ha ha... I bought 4 liters of MEK, and it came in a 4L paint tin rather than the screw-top tin I'd expected from past purchases. "They ran out of those."  But will have them again in a few days and I can have one then.
A 4L paint tin full of MEK with the lid off is something to see. It's *amazingly* transparent.

[BradC]

Smells good too.

[TerraHertz]

Smells good too.

Yeah, the sweet, fruity smell of 'please give me cancer.' This is why it has to be in a screw-top tin.

I think I'm giving up on disassembling those old filters. Easy enough to make new end caps of soldered copper, and filter sheets using some polyester fiber sheet (cloth store) and wire mesh.

[raspberrypi]

Task manager is quite effective on steam. Or perhaps you need a program condensor...

Some air freshener smells are aweful and chemical smelling, like coconut or "beach" or that one that smells like rotten candy.

Technical stuff can piss me off too. My tablet keeps lagging randomly and my computers wifi likes to cut out then it forgets it even has wifi and I have to searcn for "new" hardware while tapping it hard.

Why would you want to smell the beach? I used to live on the beach which I thought was awesome until my 2nd day;I woke up with a hang over and all I could smell was seaweed and what ever else makes that smell, seagull shit? Dead Clams? Lets make our car smell like that! Oh and I found real "new car smell" its a tan coloured grease GM uses on the rails that the seats slide up and down on. I should market it with seaweed and call it "New Car on the Beach" smell. 

[R005T3r]

Any product that fails to perform as expected or advertised and any product that has some cheap assed component that breaks right away after spending a fortune on the dang thing.

True, like a bad cap on a $1000 tv power supply.

[R005T3r]

Chinese 2 component glue ..it has realy hard smell so i always must go outside when i need to glue something.

I used to cast miniature with epoxies and resins... With epoxy you should definitely wear a mask with a proper filter. And also if you are gluing inside you have to have a good exhaust ventilation system, and if you plan to sand it, be aware that the dust is carcinogenic. 

But, the worst experience I've ever had in term of smell was with polyester resin: it kills you.

[TerraHertz]

Not so much a product, as a practice. I hate the 'mains safety tags' stuck all over things that have been used in commercial/government environments. They are always a pain to remove, but too obnoxious to leave in place.

This bunch of laptop chargers for instance.

Edit to add 'after' (2nd pic.)

Another edit: I hate stickers on mains cords even more. See 3rd & 4th pic, another 'before and after.'
PS. I have the flu. Counting chargers and removing stickers is about all I'm capable of at the moment. Robotic, but takes my mind off how I feel.
Oh, and if anyone wondered, there were 84 laptop chargers, of 8 different types. Less than half as many as the laptops.

PPS. What really sucks, is I actually need one 12V output charger, to build into something I'm making. Needs to be small, and some of these chargers are just the right size. But ALL of them are 18V to 20V output. Absurdly, I'm going to have to buy a charger despite having 84 spare ones.

[mmagin]

Membrane keypads except where absolutely necessary.

[GreyWoolfe]

Bosch America washer and drier.  Expensive bit of crap, the both of them.  They worked OK until the regular warranty ran out and the extended warranty wasn't much help.  SWMBO got Maytag products and made them disappear, thank God.

[P90]

Bosch America washer and drier.  Expensive bit of crap, the both of them.  They worked OK until the regular warranty ran out and the extended warranty wasn't much help.  SWMBO got Maytag products and made them disappear, thank God.

user error
I've never owned a bad Bosch product.

[rdl]

If it's at all possible for "user error" to occur when operating a washer and drier, then it's a very bad design.