| General > General Technical Chat |
| Right to repair, my problem with it |
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| Fixed_Until_Broken:
--- Quote from: bdunham7 on July 22, 2021, 09:44:17 pm --- Not necessarily and not significantly in the cases of my car and fridge. Progress is these areas, like many others, is 'lumpy' and some products are way out ahead of others--it isn't a smooth continuous improvement unless you are looking at aggregate statistics. --- End quote --- Not only that but tieing back to consumer electronics and such. The lack of repair is anti-competitive. Basically, your consumer product manufacture knows your device is likely to fail with X number of years so they plan their product cycles around this. This is stunting innovation. They don't really have to bring anything special to the table with each cycle. Just make sure your next product is slightly better and is ready to release just in time to keep the consumer. They don't have to compete with last model because its not getting fixed and its old news. |
| CatalinaWOW:
One of the things that amazes me in this discussion is the confidence that the OEM produced a completely harmless device and the fear that any repair will destroy that harmlessness. Neither side of this argument is that black and white. EMI/EMC certification for example. Anyone who has actually been involved in production will find it totally unbelievable that an entire manufacturing run of just about anything has been completed without an ECO (engineering change order), TCO (test change order) or PCO (planning change order). Different organizations have different nomenclature for these, but one controls the physical configuration (layout, parts list etc), one controls the test methods and requirements and the third documents assembly techniques. And a great many of these are done without a re-certification. The wise heads of the organization make a decision that the changes are benign, that the resulting product is substantially the same. Even when those wise heads are totally unaffected by the economic consequences of their decisions there is risk of change creep where a series of changes (each actually inconsequential in their own right) leads to a cumulative effect which is serious. Trust in inspections is another example. As reported by others vehicle inspections in the United States vary widely. Actual safety inspections are somewhat uncommon today, though they were more widespread several decades ago. When emission control equipment started coming into cars and definitely required inspection to keep the air clean many states dropped safety inspections to keep the annual costs of vehicle inspections relatively low. Even when safety inspections were required they were fairly cursory in the states where I experienced them. Fluid levels were checked, belts were inspected, glazing was checked for cracks, brake shoes/pads were checked, tire pressure and tread depth were checked. In some cases front suspensions received a check for looseness. Finally all lights and signals were verified for operation and aim (for some reason it was more important back then to not blind opposing traffic with improperly aimed headlights). Any number of dangerous defects could go undetected in this inspection, although conscientious mechanics also checked for things like failing U-joints, motor mounts, shock absorbers, spring mounts and any number of other potential danger spots. Anyway, the world where the OPs stated concerns are real issues is a different world than I have experienced. Several others on the thread seem to live in my world, and have given several examples. While I can't say that the OP's concerns are totally wrong or baseless, I lose no sleep over them. |
| HobGoblyn:
--- Quote from: langwadt on July 22, 2021, 04:10:29 pm ---when people mention "planned obsolescence" it is mostly nonsense. If people replace stuff every couple of years because they want something new, there is absolutely no reason to spend money and effort on making it last 20 years. All you accomplish is being more expensive and not selling anything --- End quote --- I suppose it depends how we look at things. A washing machine bought 30 odd years ago was serviceable by most competent mechanically minded people. They also lasted (well good brands) years. Many new washing machines fail within 3 years, and very often if you call out a service guy, they tell you it’s beyond economic repair, if it’s under warranty and say the drum bearings have gone, again they won’t repair and will replace the whole machine. Often the machines are designed now so that it’s almost impossible to just say replace the bearings, you would have to replace the whole drum etc. I would say that A) this has been done to make manufacturing as cheap as possible B) this has been done so that due to how they are now designed it’s usually cheaper to buy a new one hence more sales. C) it’s been done because the last thing a company wants is for their products to be easily repairable, if they have people keeping their machine for 10 years plus, no new sales. We are criticised for living in a throw away society with land fills bursting at the seems, lectured on how much harm this is causing the environment, but companies seem to be going out of their way to make things as difficult as possible to be repaired. Mind you, I remember Korg in 1987, I had a vintage Korg synth (Korg Trident mk2) that had a fault. I had taken it into work as we had very good electronic engineers with all the gear, and they offered to look at it for me for a drink. They wanted to know what a certain chip was and if schematics were available. I had bought it second hand, didn’t have any spare cash at that time to pay Korg to look at it. I phoned Korg uk, they refused to tell me what the chip was or let me have a copy of the schematic, their argument was that if my engineer colleagues fixed it, it was doing Korg out of a paid repair job, the fact I couldn’t pay their price was irrelevant. Ended up giving the synth to a friend as it only made a single noise, they go for around 4000 to 6000 euros now lol |
| Psi:
--- Quote from: TerraHertz on July 22, 2021, 12:53:10 pm ---I take a much more extreme view. That the root of the problem is planned obsolescence. --- End quote --- Amen to that. Root cause of problem identified. |
| bdunham7:
--- Quote from: HobGoblyn on July 22, 2021, 10:21:24 pm ---A) this has been done to make manufacturing as cheap as possible B) this has been done so that due to how they are now designed it’s usually cheaper to buy a new one hence more sales. C) it’s been done because the last thing a company wants is for their products to be easily repairable, if they have people keeping their machine for 10 years plus, no new sales. --- End quote --- A) Then why are they (washing machines, etc) so damn expensive? B+C) If a company sells me a washing machine that fails in 3 years and can't be repaired, they sure aren't going to sell me another one, ever! --- Quote ---I phoned Korg uk, they refused to tell me what the chip was or let me have a copy of the schematic, their argument was that if my engineer colleagues fixed it, it was doing Korg out of a paid repair job, the fact I couldn’t pay their price was irrelevant. --- End quote --- That is the R2R cause in a nutshell--the attitude that buying the product gives them the right to future revenue from it. I got the same attitude from an equipment dealer once--they seemed to believe that because I was in their 'territory' that they had been granted by the OEM, they had an exclusive right to extract revenue from me anytime the equipment needed anything. When they found out I had simply bought the parts elsewhere and fixed it myself, they actually had the nerve to visit me, screaming about how I was violating their agreement (that I wasn't party to, of course) with the OEM. If a particular company is the only game in town--if you just have to have a Korg for example, then you pay the price. Otherwise they need to be told to just f*&^ off. |
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