Well, maybe it's my first time to start a thread out of ATM (Guys...I'm BAckk!!!). My work is related to Electronics, I fix tv and audio components and other gadgets. But I felt that this new trend in technology is beginning to put us out of 'work'. I can still repair things except those units which seems 'yelling at me', "You can't fix me, buy a new one". Electronic appliances are getting too cheaper now-a-days, specially those 'made in china', seems should not passed the QC but the trend is not durability but more on being 'fancy' w/ a lot useless features. What I like about my job is not so much on money but the challenge to solve a problem...troubleshooting is not merely a skill or talent...it is an art...an art to understand the principles behind new technology. But I'm afraid that these new designs in technologies are putting us humans to become 'obsolete'...what do you think?

__________________
The search for the ultimate truth is man's greatest craving...

Hi, It is increasingly more difficult to find repair components and whole modules as well for all too many things.
I have a range hood which, after many years had a malfunctioning light switch which is part of a multi button control switch. I spent over a week hunting down what everyone told me was an 'obsolete' part.
So..... I simply drilled a nice clean hole in the side and installed a high quality toggle switch from an old high quality 1967 HP test unit ( bone yard of my own) . This unit will now light up my stove untill the cows make their own ice cream! Cost of replacing the range hood? 12 rounds of golf!! I did very well.
Smaller, cheaper, disposable. That is becoming the way of things.
Designed obsolesnce. It is what it is.

Best regards,
Dan

I don't know if this would fall into the category you are addressing here, but I have noticed that DVD players have been getting stupidly cheap, and not in a good way.

I have 3 DVD players in my house, not one of them works. The main problem is the remote controls, either they break, or I got the player without the damn control. And for some reason all of these DVD players have practically no buttons on the actual machine, it's all on the remote. So without a remote the whole machine isn't very useful.

It's damned annoying, I mean how stupid is it to have to by a 4th DVD player if it's probably going to be just as remote-dependent? Is it even possible to fix faulty remote controls?

The best thing we are now doing is 'improvising things', the way danscope done. But the 'thing' is that today's PCB (Printed Circuit Boards) are double-sided, spareparts are micro-chips and most of a time, you can't buy the same spare part or 'cards' as now-a-days term for 'ready to install PCB w' spareparts on it'. Yes, it can still be fixed and if a person is good in redesigning it, it become more durable than the former (except the electronic side of it, which seem impossible to improvise). What I wish to send a message here is why the authorities that suppose to protect consumers from this low-quality products are not doing a thing? Before, when somebody told you that his tv is made in US, Germany or Japan, you are sure enough it is not only high quality but durable. I still has a color tv, made in Japan, Sony, maybe 20 yrs old now and still working good.

__________________
The search for the ultimate truth is man's greatest craving...

If this is today's trend to make everything dependent on a remote controller, it is not good practice on the part of "Technology designers". Yes, they are cheaper, smaller and disposable but are they're not thinking (Technology designers), that they're 'contributing more pollution' to our mother Earth because of these junks?

__________________
The search for the ultimate truth is man's greatest craving...

universal remotes can help
or pick a brand and stay with it
my sony tv remote will run the DVD sat and tape

or just inspect the DVD and only buy a unit that has a play button on the unit

Now that is some real good advice. Always look for the 'manual overide button. No button, don't buy!

Dan

i have a dvd player that i bought back in '97 when they first came out- paid $600 for the thing.
it still works beautifully.
i know people that got dvd players when they hit the $50 price point, and they burn thru a new one about every 6 months. they think i was insane for spending $600 for one, but many of them have got way more than that into dvd players over the last 10 years, and they never know if their $35 players will function when their kids want to watch Spongebob for the 1000th time..

__________________
"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion
The.. Best.. Thread..Ever...

It is in part designed obsolescence, and in part a serious reduction in replacement cost.

My parents bought a blender in 1971. At the time, it cost $49. They use it all the time, and they still have it. But in today's dollars, that's a $261 blender.

I purchased one this summer for $40, which means that over time, I can afford to replace it more than 6 times over before it winds up costing me what my parent's blender cost them in 1971.

I'm sure some of the components aren't as expensive or high-quality as my parents' blender. Some components are plastic, not steel. Mine is noisier than theirs. They both have nearly identical capabilities, though. If it lasts me 7 years, I'll be a satisfied customer, from a cost perspective.

Despite this, there's a lot of stuff I can fix. Radio Shack is my friend! When my vacuum cleaner switch broke after 2 years of use, I bought a simple heavy-duty switch from RS for $4 and that vacuum cleaner has given me another 17 years of use.

When it started screeching in its third year, I did some research, found a waterproof grease in a highly liquifying carrier, inundated the bearings, repeat this yearly, and it hasn't screeched a day since then.

In fact most motors, including that of my blender, get the grease treatment, for if they don't, the bearings are shot in a couple of years. Those that get the grease treatment are still going strong after more than a decade.

As for TVs, I've got a 2002 Sony. Probably won't die on me until around 2027, if my experience with Sony TVs is any indicator...

__________________
If I set the budget, we'd have Ares and more. Unfortunately, I don't set the budget, and Ares is just too expensive and too far out for us to accomplish our goals within the budget we were given.

If we halt the ISS, all versions of Ares, and transport Orion and Altair aboard DIRECTv3's Jupiter family of Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicles, we just might make it back to the Moon by 2020.

that blender from 1971 probably weighs 10 pounds- which is a good thing for appliances like that. more mass means more durability.
ever look at a toaster from 40 years ago compared to the junk you buy today?

__________________
"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion
The.. Best.. Thread..Ever...

LoL! They still have their same toaster, and it works, too, but that was relegated to basement storage in favor of modern style about 10 years ago.

__________________
If I set the budget, we'd have Ares and more. Unfortunately, I don't set the budget, and Ares is just too expensive and too far out for us to accomplish our goals within the budget we were given.

If we halt the ISS, all versions of Ares, and transport Orion and Altair aboard DIRECTv3's Jupiter family of Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicles, we just might make it back to the Moon by 2020.

The denser electronics of today is very hard to work on by hand, most of the stuff is surface mounted, and with pad pitches of 0.5mm or less it gets rather hard to do it by hand, but now there seems to be a movement towards surface mount packages that have all the connections on the underside, mobile phones are full of ball grid array components, for example...

But I suppose it is to be expected, the stuff is pretty cheap to produce, and it is rarely worth it to repair it. And with the current state of accelerated development, people will probably buy a new device before to long, anyway.

There are two possible outcomes of this, as I see it:
1: We contiune using the component based electronics for the popular gadgets, and the cost goes up due to lack of resources, repair will probably get more popular(but may require special microscopic work tools).
2: All popular tech. starts to employ technologies that does not use packaged components, like the depositable/printable circuits and/or nanoelectronics, and repair is pretty much impossible(by human hands, at least). An example could be the Nokia Morph concept, fixing somethinng like that would be rather difficult.

__________________
Game over, you lose, we hope you enjoyed playing the exciting game of Thermodynamics...

New?

Didn't this trend start about 25 or more years ago?

__________________
Ach, mein Sinn, wo willst du endlich hin, wo soll ich mich erquicken? Bleib' ich hier, oder wünsch' ich mir Berg und Hügel auf den Rücken?
Bei der Welt ist gar kein Rat, und im Herzen steh'n die Schmerzen meiner Missetat, weil der Knecht den Herrn verleugnet hat.

HA! New technology has been making peoples skills obsolete since the dawn of humanity.

__________________

I see this as a case where replacement components cost (for a portable house phone) just $5, but where companies make the consumer cost rise well beyond their cost of buying a new system by means of electronic and intentionally-obfuscative menu/help systems.

Brand loyalty has proven to be a surprisingly strong factor in the latest economic woes, and companies are capatalizing on that left and right.

Put simply, when threatened or scared, some people run to what they know (brand loyalists). Others run to whatever's cheapest (market predators).

I just bought a 10-lb bag of potatoes for $5. That's thirty cents a meal...

__________________
If I set the budget, we'd have Ares and more. Unfortunately, I don't set the budget, and Ares is just too expensive and too far out for us to accomplish our goals within the budget we were given.

If we halt the ISS, all versions of Ares, and transport Orion and Altair aboard DIRECTv3's Jupiter family of Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicles, we just might make it back to the Moon by 2020.

Frankly I think Dean Kamen or Ed Begly need to start a line of durable goods that lives up to that name.

It's all very well having throw-away DVD player which only cost £30 or something in the first place. The problem is expensive electrical appliances, which in the past were simple, without any electronics. They tended to carry on working perpetually, and/or only had simple faults, often ones that even I could identify and repair. I've had boilers that were still running fine after 25 years without any attention. I have a 20-yr old TV that is still fine (it had to be mended after it got wet in a flood 14 yrs ago, but hasn't needed attention since) And a 20-yr old spare fridge in the garage, somewhat rusty, but works fine and has never needed attention. My old washing machine finally died only after 18 years without attention.

Today many appliances have electronics and sensitive detectors in them and all that. This may make them more efficient. But if when they break down they are so difficult to fix, because things like the electronics are beyond fixing and uninterpretable, having to spend large sums of money fixing them can quickly wipe out all the efficiency savings of a decade.

When we finished extending/redecorating our house 2 years ago, we bought 4 new kitchen appliances, as I had held off replacing the aging ones until this point. 3 of them were Siemens, which has one of the highest reputations for reliability.

The freezer went first, after about 6 weeks. All contents lost as we had gone away for the weekend. PCB failed. What's a PCB even doing in a freezer? It doesn't really need one. It's an unnecessary source of unreliability.

Next the dishwasher went. Some mechanical component in the back.

Now the fridge-freezer is broken. It has a frost-free freezer section, and some essential fan is inclined to freeze up. At least that is what the repairman said (confirmed by internet research), but his repair didn't work, and he is coming back later today to try again. I suspect the fan is actually burnt out.

Then there is the boiler. I'm used to old boilers that carry on working for decades. They don't have PCBs or fussy bits or that. But 5 years ago I put in a super-efficient condensing boiler, which broke down after about 3 years. As we had a 15-month old baby and it was very cold weather, I wanted to get early attention. The first guy I got in (who would come out instantly) could only order spare parts when he thought they were necessary, and as it became clear he had no idea what was wrong with it. After 3 visits, I had to sack him after paying him over £400 to achieve nothing. Then I got in a guy from the company that made it who had a £300 "we'll fix it whatever it takes" service, but I had to wait another week shivering for him to come out. He ended up replacing every spare part that could be replaced on it. Amusingly, when he replaced the PCB, he had to put it in the oven to warm it up... Eventually, when he finally replaced some completely irrelevant-looking non-moving part that didn't even look if there was anything wrong with it, it worked again. No one can say why.

My parents have a cooker. But the grill can overheat and fry the electronics in the control knobs immediately adjacent. It even comes with a heat deflecter you have to fit when you use the grill on the highest setting. Also the oven won't work if the clock hasn't been set, and as short powercuts are not infrequent in that area, you need to know how to reset the clock. It is one of those totally non-obvious tricks you'd never guess unless you read the manual. What poor design.

There's one thing I can feel good about. I bought a cooker when I first got into the house about 9 years ago. But in those boom days I had such a problem getting anyone to come to do such a small job as install a cooker that it ended up sitting in its packaging, for probably nearly 7 years. In the end, it got left until the redecoration. It is an unusual width, 70cm, which was the gap I had at the time. When we came to redesign the kitchen, it turned out a 70cm cooker was just perfect to make a symmetrical design. Now I'm worried that many a 70cm cooker would be difficult to replace. But at least the thing is old enough it has no damn electronics in it, and so is likely to carry on working for decades.

For repairing/modifying the denser commercial stuff, yeah. There are some actual benefits for hobby stuff, though. You can just print a 1-layer circuit, transfer to a board, etch, and go right to soldering without painstakingly drilling holes all over the place with fine, fragile, and expensive drill bits. Also, with such a board, you mostly work on the same side of the board as the components, so you're not constantly flipping back and forth between the top and bottom sides and trying not to wire something backwards...a benefit even if you're using proto boards.

The soldering itself...there are some actual benefits. Odd but helpful effects with surface tension crop up at that scale. You can just drag a blob of solder across the leads of an IC package, and get it soldered down much quicker than you can solder a through-hole package pin-by-pin. BGA packages are notoriously hard to prototype with, but you can apply solder paste, place the components, and reflow the board on a hot plate or with a toaster oven...surface tension pulls the components into alignment with the pads. Tiny resistors and capacitors are a pain, but you can use the leaded ones when you don't need huge density. But yeah, that's hard to do when you have to work with a commercially produced high-density board.

Finding and replacing a shorted capacitor or something on a cell phone is not very practical. However, such failures do not happen often with modern electronics. It's generally no longer practical to trace a circuit out on paper, but you sometimes can do a lot more just by finding an I2C or SPI bus, and sometimes there's test points and things like JTAG interfaces...

Well, it seems there would be no more hobby stuffs in the future...designers are 'monopolizing' their circuit designs so that it become impossible to replicate them. No more happy days for electronic hobbyists...

__________________
The search for the ultimate truth is man's greatest craving...

A friend of mine bought a 63" plasma TV a few years back. After about 2 years it died on him. Fortunately he had Costco's extended warranty. They sent him to a local repair center, and after 4 weeks he got a phone call telling him what was wrong with it. They only specified the problem down to which board it was, not which component. In the end, Costco gave him a brand new 65" TV since it was considerably cheaper than ordering the replacement board from Philips.

Myself, I have a 50" Philips that is sensitive to humidity. When my wife makes a pot of soup it won't turn on until I open windows and ventilate the house. Unfortunately it's out of warranty. I pulled the back cover off and aside from the power supply, there's not much of anything that looks serviceable, even by a pro. I noticed a few BGA chips, along with a liberal use of custom ICs (which I'm sure aren't available for purchase at any price, even if you did have the soldering skills to swap them out.)

Then there's my 10 year old GMC Jimmy. Once every 3 or 4 weeks it will just die while your going down the road. Now, I know my way around under the hood of a car. When I got my first car it didn't run, I had to do a complete rebuild on the engine, which I did with no help other than a service manual. But this Jimmy? I can't even begin to figure out why it dies. My professional mechanic friends who have looked at it can't figure it out. 3 seperate dealerships have failed to figure it out. The only part left to replace will cost me more than it would to just buy another truck of the same year and model.

So, yeah, there are a lot of these things these days that are flat out unrepairable. A lot of it is because of spare parts that cost more than the entire device you're trying to fix, and a lot of it has to do with proprietary parts that can't be purchased at any price.

I'm ok with throwing a $40 blender away and running to Wal-Mart for a new one. But when I drop 2 grand on a TV, I expect it to last more than 3 years. And if it doesn't, it's completely inexcusable for spare parts to be either unavailable or cost prohibitive.

And I agree, sirjon, it's sad that an entire category of employment is becoming extinct. There are a lot of highly skilled people out there that are going to be put out of work simply because there's no market for doing a $2500 repair on a $2000 item.

I feel your pain. The company I work for is part of another entire industry that's dying. I don't expect it to exist 6 months from now (I've already had paychecks bounce on a few occasions).

I have had a tube television for many years. Better off with that.