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Video on planned obsolescence.
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Buriedcode:
One of the problems I see when the phrase planned obsolescence is brought up is the vast difference in the examples.  Light bulbs, cables, tools, laptops etc..   it makes it almsot impossible to compare these.

Different products have different uses, different "duty cycles" (how often does one use/move a USB cable to charge a phone, vs a HDMI cable that sits behind their TV static for years), different enviroments, different operating parameters etc.. Add to this that pretty much all products - save a few niche ones - have markets that cater for a wide range of budgets.  Holding up the most high-end of one products, and comparing it to the absolute lowest is silly.

Example: light bulbs, LED or otherwise..  Outdoors or indoors? mounted down or up? Turned on/off how many times a day?  On for how many hours at a time? Humidity?

Other things can further muddy the waters making such discussions hard to draw conclusions from.
For example: one could assume that generally, with products that have several "teirs" of quality based on price point, the higher the price - the better the "quality" and therefore, presumably the greater the chance of that lasting longer.  But with certain products that are considered high-end (for example, Apple macbooks), they are marketed towards those who have a higher disposable income and are more likely to "upgrade" or obtain the latest gadget, meaning the lifetime of their product - for that particular demographic - can be rather short.    One could easily argue this is planned obsolescence, and perhaps it is, but is it a conspiracy?  The engineers are after-all meeting their spec - which includes the way their consumers will use the product.

Designers could then take this into account and improve functionality at the cost of longevity.  Reducing cost could be done, but then it would no longer be targetting the high-end market.  Lifespan is part of the spec.

And the much greater range of quality we have these days makes many points about "things were made to last" somewhat moot, as there were often very few choices in quality, if at all, so of course there were more products that lasted longer - if half were cheap and failed in a few years, the other half were the "high end" and lasted much longer.

Again I'm not claiming that planned obsolescence isn't a thing, I've no doubt it is - making things last forever isn't a great business model (unless that is the entire point of your product), but it is very difficult to know how much planned obsolescence there is when there's little in the way of similar operating conditions.

helius:
It has very many convenient fig leaves to hide behind, in other words.
While physical objects are great examples that, well and truly, they don't make them like they used to, the new frontier (for decades already) has been planned software obsolescence. There are many examples in the "Eagle will be part of Fusion360" thread.
amyk:

--- Quote from: David Hess on April 09, 2021, 02:22:36 am ---
--- Quote from: james_s on April 09, 2021, 02:01:22 am ---
--- Quote from: David Hess on April 09, 2021, 01:53:12 am ---I could make the same statement about electronically commutated motors which replaced shaded pole motors in refrigerator evaporators because of EPA requirements.  I have never had one of these shaded pole motors fail, but I have had to replace the electronically commutated motor in my new refrigerator 6 times now in 10 years, and they cost $30 each.
--- End quote ---

I'm kind of surprised to hear they're THAT bad. Did you look into what actually failed? I've had the shaded pole motors fail before but it was only the bearings. My friend had a fridge in a rental house that would make weird chirping noises, I immediately identified it as bearing failure in the evaporator fan motor but they had no clue what it was.
--- End quote ---

Bearing wear after a year is insignificant.  The electronics are failing.  The original and all of the replacements except one come from Switzerland but the most recent one, which has lasted the longest so far, was made in China.   :-//

--- End quote ---
I suspect power surges may be killing them. There's a video about those you might like:
james_s:

--- Quote from: JohnnyMalaria on April 10, 2021, 08:41:47 pm ---
--- Quote from: Zero999 on April 10, 2021, 04:52:56 pm ---
--- Quote from: David Hess on April 10, 2021, 04:31:19 pm ---
--- Quote from: Zero999 on April 10, 2021, 11:05:15 am ---There is no fan in my refrigerator. The evaporator is in the top of the enclosure and cools by convection. It's much more reliable than a fan. I have seen refrigerators with a fan, but I doubt they're more efficient, because the extra energy used to circulate the air, will probably outweigh the tiny saving in improved evaporator efficiency.
--- End quote ---

Frost free freezers use forced air convection so require a motor for the evaporator.

--- End quote ---
I don't have a problem with frost in my fanless refrigerator.

My freezer does frost up, but every couple of years, I take all the food out, cover it in bubble wrap and switch it off for an hour or so, with a bucket near the door. The ice quickly melts and can easily be removed using a butter knife. I don't see why anyone would bother with a frost free freezer. Doing this every year or two, is of little inconvenience.

--- End quote ---

Ambient humidity plays a role. In spite of the complaints, it never gets that humid in the UK.

--- End quote ---


We have a cabin that is on an ocean inlet and a few years ago the defrost thermostat failed intermittent open so it stopped defrosting. The evaporator froze into a solid block of ice and then without air circulating past the thermostat that controls the fridge temperature that ran constantly until the refrigerator section was frozen and a bunch of cans of soda exploded. I cleaned it all out and thawed the thing and then after only about 3 months it froze into a solid block of ice again and after that I figured out what was going on. In a high humidity environment not having automatic defrost would be a real pain.
james_s:

--- Quote from: SilverSolder on April 10, 2021, 05:23:26 pm ---Exactly - this is the stroke of genius behind the coiled filament: it runs hotter for a given thickness of wire.   So, you can increase the thickness and length a little, which will lower the brightness a little - ending up where we were, but with a thicker filament that will therefore last longer!

The next step in the evolution was never taken by the cartel...  is the coil (or double, triple coil) really the last word in what is possible with this concept?

--- End quote ---

The advantage of the coiled coil filament is that it takes a very long filament which would have high thermal losses into a small package that not only has lower thermal losses (which is what you just referred to) but it also enables a much simpler support structure. Early tungsten lamps used a cage filament where it zigzagged up and down between an array of radial support wires at the top and bottom of a stem. Expensive to manufacture, and high losses, not only from the lengthy exposed filament but from the large number of support wires conducting heat away.

The next step in evolution was the IR reflecting coating, it was taken and it did work, but it was too little, too late. Shortly after it was refined into a really good product LED bulbs started dropping in price and it was obvious that tungsten lamps were never going to compete even if massive gains were achieved. Several other innovative lamp types suffered the same fate, Electron Stimulated Emission, essentially a crude flood gun CRT with a lighting phosphor, electrodeless induction, ceramic metal halide and other HID lamps were all displaced.

It's a lot like the way carburetor development pretty much ceased once fuel injection became affordable. It was obvious that no matter how much development went into creating better carburetors they were never going to compete with EFI. Carburetors still have their uses, as do incandescent lamps, but they are no longer mainstream and it is not due to conspiracy but because other technologies offer compelling advantages in mainstream applications.
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