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Right To Repair For Non-Technical People.
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SiliconWizard:

--- Quote from: Fixed_Until_Broken on July 18, 2021, 12:56:30 am ---I strongly disagree that Right To Repair has a huge hidden price tag to it. Almost no legalization being pushed actually says that you must design a product to be more repairable(other than serial locks).

--- End quote ---

A right to repair done "right" inevitably has extra cost in various ways: direct costs (more design efforts, you at least need to take this into account and reject many solutions that hinder repairability), often requires extra parts, then often requires a bit more expensive assembly in production, and so on. And there are of course indirect costs: keep in mind that part of the final price of a given product these days is often subsidized by its shorter lifetime. If the customer can't have it repaired (or repaired at a very uneconomical cost), they are a lot more likely to buy new products on a regular basis. That's just how it works these days.

Now what you're saying above, if I get it right, is that the Right to repair, as it is defined at the moment - either by existing laws or proposed laws - doesn't really imply designing a product to be more repairable - and I would agree with you there. There's a similar EU directive and it's far from meaning this either. But that's what I would call a "right to repair" not done right. If it's just a "cosmetic" law that in the end doesn't really help customers to have their product repaired instead of buying new ones, in the end, then it's absolutely worthless.
Fixed_Until_Broken:
 SiliconWizard: Most of the fight is for documentation which I have not seen any laws to help there yet. Either dialing back some copyright law to allow for fair use in repairs or some requirement to sell firmware for repair uses. I am not aware of any existing laws here. To crackdown on monoplization of repair. Yes, laws exist but are not enforced here in the US as they should be. To stop unfair practices such as remarking an off-the-shelf component or making deals with component manufacturers that prevent the sale of a component for repair.

Laws "in the works" or "proposed laws" are nothing to get excited about until they pass.
SiliconWizard:

--- Quote from: Fixed_Until_Broken on July 18, 2021, 06:00:31 pm --- SiliconWizard: Most of the fight is for documentation which I have not seen any laws to help there yet

--- End quote ---

I'm all for it.
What I'm saying is that it will probably have little usefulness in practice, if people, armed with nice documentation and service manuals, can't actually repair the product. (Also see the other thread...)
Fixed_Until_Broken:
I think the problem you have is you can't say no potting because it has its place in high vibration environments and wet/humid. You cant say only use Philips head screws because Torx and others have advantages. You cant ban glueing the screen together because it is superior image quality.
 I do like where you are going but could you articulate the idea more for me? Maybe I am just missing what you are trying to say about designing the board/device to be repairable.
MrMobodies:

--- Quote from: HobGoblyn on July 17, 2021, 11:57:10 pm ---Imagine you have a car.

Main dealer costs the earth, so you take it to a good well known local garage with excellent mechanics.

They find the brake pads need replacing, but the car manufactures will ONLY sell the brake pads to the main dealers, so your local garage can no longer change the pads.

Worse still, these particular brake pads have a little chip on them with a serial number on them, that chip is programmed into your cars computer.  And ONLY the main dealers have access to the software to reprogram them.
--- End quote ---

I remembered some manufacturers did this with bathroom fittings. I once had a power shower about 20 years ago provided and fitted by a builder. They installed I think a Salamder pump somewhere and a Triton single handle thing that sat behind the wall tiles and had a tap that stuck out. Now the hose was cheap plastic and only lasted less than a year and a half and it snapped so I went down to my local plumbing shop which had proper metal hoses off the shelf which were £15 or so. When I showed them the hose and the manufacturer they said to me none of them will fit that tap and shower head and no adapters are available for them and has to be ordered direct from the manufacturer or their approved dealers (which they're not) and told it's worth just replacing it with something better. They explained that what they have done with this particular hose and shower head was patent the fittings and thread to only fit their accessories so if someone attempted to make fittings to make it fit with other hoses and start selling they'd likely go after and sue them.

I think it was £60 direct excluding delivery and vat for this hose and I just used hose as it was for a year.
I was furious at the time not giving in to that and I did try other fittings and yes they were smaller or didn't screw in properly.

I happened be lucky one day when a local bathroom shop which was selling a lot of Triton stuff but was in administration selling things off cheap and I got that same hose for £15 and I brought a couple more. Now I always check the fittings in these things.

That's why I won't buy things like Iphones as I'd want extra parts and batteries that are genuine after the contract or be free to use whatever I want after genuine parts are no longer available.
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