An interesting 3 part series has started on the BBC:
Dare to Repair - How We Broke the Future - BBC Sounds
Called "Dare to Repair" it discusses why modern gadgets are cheaper to replace than repair. Many factors involved. But old fridges worked for 30+ years. By comparison most modern white-goods appliances now last 6 years.
This creates huge electrical waste disposal problems. Britain apparently produces 22 kg of electrical waste a year per person.
It's all a bit of a con. Most modern mobile phones do not allow you to replace the battery. 400 charges and its broken or finished. A year and a half on average before it goes wonky. Cases are designed to be unopenable. Manuals are unavailable for basic fixes, and the Companies Lawyers come after you if you make a manual available online.
The EU got after the phone makers on chargers. Made Micro-USB and about 3.6V standard instead of the plethora of incompatible chargers on different brands.
Next week discusses the small industry of enthusiasts who just plain like fixing things. But it's getting harder... 🙄
Dare to Repair - How We Broke the Future - BBC Sounds
Called "Dare to Repair" it discusses why modern gadgets are cheaper to replace than repair. Many factors involved. But old fridges worked for 30+ years. By comparison most modern white-goods appliances now last 6 years.
This creates huge electrical waste disposal problems. Britain apparently produces 22 kg of electrical waste a year per person.
It's all a bit of a con. Most modern mobile phones do not allow you to replace the battery. 400 charges and its broken or finished. A year and a half on average before it goes wonky. Cases are designed to be unopenable. Manuals are unavailable for basic fixes, and the Companies Lawyers come after you if you make a manual available online.
The EU got after the phone makers on chargers. Made Micro-USB and about 3.6V standard instead of the plethora of incompatible chargers on different brands.
Next week discusses the small industry of enthusiasts who just plain like fixing things. But it's getting harder... 🙄
This is why I treat my Samsung Galaxy S5 with kid gloves - replaceable battery! I love that old phone.
And that is why I choose to hold onto my 1985 GE refrigerator, my 1971 KitchenAid dishwasher, and my 1984 Maytag washer and dryer.
They were made to LAST, and they still perform like new.
And that 1964 RCA Victor console stereo in the dining room will outlast me!
I agree 100%.
A she cousin of mine was keeping telling me I should change my very old refrigerator.
She finally gave me a quite new fridge, she had no use for anymore in her basement.
I had the trouble to fetch it, move that stuff and replace a broken glass shelf.
After a couple of weeks, I could not stand this damn noisy unit that was mostly running and I could not find a right temperature adjustment.
End of the story, fortunately I had not ditched yet the old fridge, I put it back, confident it will run fine half a century more and be more reliable than any brand new stuff.
Happy regardless of its rusty door, with it's vintage look and the door seal is good..
A she cousin of mine was keeping telling me I should change my very old refrigerator.
She finally gave me a quite new fridge, she had no use for anymore in her basement.
I had the trouble to fetch it, move that stuff and replace a broken glass shelf.
After a couple of weeks, I could not stand this damn noisy unit that was mostly running and I could not find a right temperature adjustment.
End of the story, fortunately I had not ditched yet the old fridge, I put it back, confident it will run fine half a century more and be more reliable than any brand new stuff.
Happy regardless of its rusty door, with it's vintage look and the door seal is good..
Yes. My kitchen is right next to my main listening room, and my old fridge is a bit noisy, but it still works perfectly. I'd like to have a more quiet model, but I'm sure any replacement won't last nearly as long.
Excellent fix tonight to my favourite and most comfortable trousers! 😀
Long story short, the waist button fell off, doubtless due to built-in obsolescence. Orn may claim to be environmentally-conscious folks, but are rapacious, cynical Capitalists like most.
I was not to be defeated by this into buying new trousers at an outrageous £20. Adding another half kilogram to World landfill and annoying the heck out of my distant second-cousin Greta Thunberg.
No. I just sewed on another button. Took a minute. Another 5 years use. Incidentally, I employed stronger polyester button thread. 😎
Long story short, the waist button fell off, doubtless due to built-in obsolescence. Orn may claim to be environmentally-conscious folks, but are rapacious, cynical Capitalists like most.
I was not to be defeated by this into buying new trousers at an outrageous £20. Adding another half kilogram to World landfill and annoying the heck out of my distant second-cousin Greta Thunberg.
No. I just sewed on another button. Took a minute. Another 5 years use. Incidentally, I employed stronger polyester button thread. 😎
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I feel sorry for you, having that distant second-cousin.
HAHAHA!
Indeed, a needle and thread is still a viable solution today.
In peer reviewed medical journals, Beer is cited as the most frequent cause of failed trouser buttons.
So..... to UPDATE things, I copied my earlier post on here so no need to search for it.
And now added some photos....
I felt sorry for an old 1957 4-tube AM portable radio chassis lying on the shelf.
The thing was designed for either 115v AC, or batteries (7.5v + 90v).
After some "tinkering" (I rally hate that word since I'm a professional) I got the chassis to run on AC - and the reception was loud and clear on a lot of channels!
I even picked up stations from Chicago and New York the other night here in Philly.
So......
Today, out in the garage, I started up the table saw and began making a wood cabinet for the old girl. - table radio style of my own design.
Whatcha think?
I designed a whole new front panel, customized some knobs I had, and added the needed graphics.
And now added some photos....
I felt sorry for an old 1957 4-tube AM portable radio chassis lying on the shelf.
The thing was designed for either 115v AC, or batteries (7.5v + 90v).
After some "tinkering" (I rally hate that word since I'm a professional) I got the chassis to run on AC - and the reception was loud and clear on a lot of channels!
I even picked up stations from Chicago and New York the other night here in Philly.
So......
Today, out in the garage, I started up the table saw and began making a wood cabinet for the old girl. - table radio style of my own design.
Whatcha think?
I designed a whole new front panel, customized some knobs I had, and added the needed graphics.
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And who says the lot of us are aesthetically challenged! Nice job!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------Rick...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------Rick...
So is wire, solder and a hot iron....see post#1476
Looks cool, but if that front panel is metal, I would add a 3 wire power cord and ground it. If that 64 year old OPT springs a leak someone could be in for a shocking experience. You know where I worked for 41 years. Hint, Golden Voice, and Golden View were their trademarks long before Quasar.....Short happens.
Thanks.
However, since this is a "hot chassis" type set, I implimated several Safety Features to it, to comply with electrical codes.
1 - The metal front panel is electrically isolated from any connection to the chassis and speaker frame.
2- The chassis itself is wired ground to neutral, and the "hot" side is fused with a 500mA fast blow fuse.
3- The knobs are also isolated from any chassis contact.
4- A super-sturdy strain relief insures that the polarized line cord is well connected against abuse or stress.
5- Although the radio only draws about 10-12 watts, sufficent ventilation is designed in from the thick fiberboard back panel.
The absolute only way this radio could ever be dangerous is if you tossed it into grandma's bath-tub with her in it.
Trust me, being a veteran technician for decades, I'm well aware of code violations and never build anything that is potentially dangerous.
At least in the US, there is a push for a bill called Right to Repair that attempts to address some of the issues. I don't have a whole lot of confidence that the bill is going to get passed (and even if it does, it probably wouldn't do anything), but I do slowly see a bit of a movement forming in this regard. Hopefully things change for the better.
It's all well and good to hang on to old appliances, but doing so negates the advances made in efficiency over the last 30 years.
Advances made in efficiency huh?
Perhaps, to some degree, but more inclined to support the efficient emptying of consumer's bank accounts.
Some call it a needed cash flow to help the economy.
Others, like me, call it brainwashing/training of the masses, leading to such things as the "throw away mentality".
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I cannot help adding....Programmed obsolescence.
Bulged/cracked electrolytics. I have two screen monitors on repair clearly bad from it.
From a Canon printer, that stopped powering on, given to me, it seems, I got a winner.
So far, it is not the PSU; It could be more cleverly programmed, from comments I have read.
Bulged/cracked electrolytics. I have two screen monitors on repair clearly bad from it.
From a Canon printer, that stopped powering on, given to me, it seems, I got a winner.
So far, it is not the PSU; It could be more cleverly programmed, from comments I have read.
A substantial amount of computer-related products suffered from the early 2002-2005 "Bad Cap" era.
Some of those older products are still waiting for those caps to show their ugly heads.
I've read that that Bad Cap stuff even reached as far as our NASA equipment, and military devices.
I had a top of the line dual CPU Dell industrial PC under my desk at work from 2005. It cost about $3000 when new. A memory DIMM died somewhere around year 3 or 4, after that it just worked. I opened it several times for upgrades, and just to vacuum out the dust once a year or so. That huge motherboard had about 100 of the "crapcaps," many of which had vented, or split at the vent. I guess there was enough extra caps to cover the loss, because it just kept on running. Slow compared to new PC's, but I used it to read email and babysit some ATE. No speed needed and it always worked.
The IT department had declared all XP machines to be banned from the network as on March 31, 2014 due to loss of the corporate support contract (switched to W7). They had even ordered me a new machine and delivered it, but I refused to swap out the old Dell. Why? March 31, 2014 had already been determined to be my last day of work, so why should I do the new guy's job.
It would have been nice to take the old Dell out to the gun range, but the security guys would not agree. Some of that top secret research might survive a few clips of .223's through the hard drives.
The PC that I'm typing this on was built by me about 7 years ago. Intel is shipping 10th gen core chips, but I'm still running a 4th gen core i7. Again it works fine so why mess with success.....The PC that I use for DAW and video editing does run a Ryzen 7 that's less then 2 years old, but some real processing power is needed for those applications.
So I'm currently "fixing up" an old 3rd Gen core i5 PC to rum W10 for my grandson's 16th birthday. It will replace the old Vista box with a Core 2 Quad that I gave him a year ago. I built that box over 10 years ago and it's still working, but won't play whatever trendy game that he wants now.
The IT department had declared all XP machines to be banned from the network as on March 31, 2014 due to loss of the corporate support contract (switched to W7). They had even ordered me a new machine and delivered it, but I refused to swap out the old Dell. Why? March 31, 2014 had already been determined to be my last day of work, so why should I do the new guy's job.
It would have been nice to take the old Dell out to the gun range, but the security guys would not agree. Some of that top secret research might survive a few clips of .223's through the hard drives.
The PC that I'm typing this on was built by me about 7 years ago. Intel is shipping 10th gen core chips, but I'm still running a 4th gen core i7. Again it works fine so why mess with success.....The PC that I use for DAW and video editing does run a Ryzen 7 that's less then 2 years old, but some real processing power is needed for those applications.
So I'm currently "fixing up" an old 3rd Gen core i5 PC to rum W10 for my grandson's 16th birthday. It will replace the old Vista box with a Core 2 Quad that I gave him a year ago. I built that box over 10 years ago and it's still working, but won't play whatever trendy game that he wants now.
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It's amazing how many electrolytic bypass caps don't absolutely have to be there...