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Tesla model Y 4680 battery pack not very serviceable!

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james_s:

--- Quote from: Psi on August 19, 2022, 01:53:45 am ---The only downside to making a product more repairable is cost.
The initial design/RnD cost a little more to make it easy to take apart and production costs are a little
higher for screws instead of glue etc.

--- End quote ---

It's more complex than that. I am greatly in favor of products being repairable, however using glue instead of screws can result in lighter weight, smaller size, higher durability, better water resistance and perhaps other advantages. The simple fact of the matter is that no matter how repairable something is made, 99.9% of them are never going to be repaired when they break. Those of us like myself who repair things are a tiny, tiny minority of the population and when something can be made cheaper, it is more cost effective to replace than to pa somebody to repair.

Miyuki:

--- Quote from: james_s on August 19, 2022, 02:38:36 am ---
--- Quote from: Psi on August 19, 2022, 01:53:45 am ---The only downside to making a product more repairable is cost.
The initial design/RnD cost a little more to make it easy to take apart and production costs are a little
higher for screws instead of glue etc.

--- End quote ---

It's more complex than that. I am greatly in favor of products being repairable, however using glue instead of screws can result in lighter weight, smaller size, higher durability, better water resistance and perhaps other advantages. The simple fact of the matter is that no matter how repairable something is made, 99.9% of them are never going to be repaired when they break. Those of us like myself who repair things are a tiny, tiny minority of the population and when something can be made cheaper, it is more cost effective to replace than to pa somebody to repair.

--- End quote ---
It is a complicated problem and really depends on the type of product
Say you manufacture an automotive dashboard and switch from fasteners to glue and plastic welds
It makes it significantly cheaper but makes it unserviceable
And it starts to have issues after 10 years
Manufacturer and customers are happy because both saved a buck and the buyer does not want to hold this car longer than 10 years
But then we have an issue. The majority of the people do not use a new car, but a car over 10 years of age

It is significantly different for things like cellphones or home electronics.
For appliances like fridges, washers, and stoves it is somewhat mixed. It depends significantly on country wages as it affects the cost of repair vs buying new.

It makes a huge difference if service personnel takes 200, 20 of just 2 $ per hour

Ice-Tea:

--- Quote from: Psi on August 19, 2022, 01:53:45 am ---
--- Quote from: Siwastaja on August 17, 2022, 06:04:14 pm ---But do note, products should be made reliable, to have long life, and without planned obsolescence. This is totally orthogonal to being repairable, and making a product less repairable tends to open doors for making the product otherwise better - including more reliable.

--- End quote ---

I don't agree, making something repairable doesn't make it unreliable or give it less lifespan.
Can you give an example of where you think that is true?

--- End quote ---

Funny thing is that Munroe kinda gives an answer to that. He harps on the unreliability of fasteners in an automotive environment in pretty much all of his videos. So, in come the plastic snaps and glue ;-)

Siwastaja:

--- Quote from: Psi on August 19, 2022, 01:53:45 am ---
--- Quote from: Siwastaja on August 17, 2022, 06:04:14 pm ---But do note, products should be made reliable, to have long life, and without planned obsolescence. This is totally orthogonal to being repairable, and making a product less repairable tends to open doors for making the product otherwise better - including more reliable.

--- End quote ---

I don't agree, making something repairable doesn't make it unreliable or give it less lifespan. Can you give an example of where you think that is true?
--- End quote ---

Example: modular design to allow repairs by replacing modules: now there are connectors which not only increase cost, but also can fail. Also each module is now more complex, may need their own power supplies etc. Given products have some price target, savings on the connectors alone would enable buying better quality electrolytic capacitors, and size savings due to better integration would improve cooling.

I do design electronics and I always try to go for maximized integration. It is significant improvement for reliability, performance and cost, but indeed hinders "repairability".


--- Quote ---But the cost isn't much, maybe 10-20% at most.
--- End quote ---

It is quite revealing you don't think 10-20% is a lot. Given that <1% of repairable products are repaired anyway, 10-20% cost increase is a 10-20x net loss.


--- Quote ---"Longer lasting products = more sales and more profit"

--- End quote ---

I agree with this, but repairability is not the key, good original design is. As you say, longer lasting products. But WITHOUT having to repair it, because people want convenience, not extra costs during the product lifetime.

The problem with repairs is, it is very inefficient. To repair a $100 gadget, you need to basically spend $100, unless it's a really trivial fix. Further, because there must be some reason why the device failed in the first place, the "repair" (not being a redesign) does not fix that, and chances are really high the repair is worse than the product when new.

Being someone who actually designs electronics, and does failure analysis and repair-for-education of devices designed by others, repairing properly is difficult and expensive. Understanding of the original design, possibly beyond the level of the original designer, is needed.

The proof is in the fact basically no one repairs anything. You can blame the manufacturers until cows come home, but you are wrong. Whatever they do to make repairs easy, still 99% do not repair. It is wasted effort.

Instead, the same effort needs to be directed to make things high quality and reliable. I'm not even against regulating it; say mandate companies to give 5-year guarantees or whatever is needed to get the quality up. Sanction poor quality shit. Whatever.

Yet some people seem to think the key is in repairability and requiring companies to make product repairable. It's not, even if they managed to mandate this, still <1% gets repaired, because it is expensive, inefficient, and inconvenient. It is much much easier to just design products that rarely fail to begin with.

tom66:

--- Quote from: james_s on August 19, 2022, 02:38:36 am ---It's more complex than that. I am greatly in favor of products being repairable, however using glue instead of screws can result in lighter weight, smaller size, higher durability, better water resistance and perhaps other advantages. The simple fact of the matter is that no matter how repairable something is made, 99.9% of them are never going to be repaired when they break. Those of us like myself who repair things are a tiny, tiny minority of the population and when something can be made cheaper, it is more cost effective to replace than to pa somebody to repair.

--- End quote ---

I don't think it's as low as 0.1% of all products.

Even here you can get say £20 for a broken smartphone at a high street shop, which suggests that this is worth buying for someone to repair or at least extract parts from to repair others. 

Cars will be worth repairing until they're not - but for many this would be 15-20 year lifespans in countries which do not use road salt, maybe 10-15 years is ones that do.  (Incidentally, there are a few places trying a mix of brine and beet juice instead of just salt, to reduce corrosion, so cars may begin to last even longer.)

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