Wotta Waste - Or eco-bollox at its most ignored ... :-)

They have, they've made it illegal to throw anything in the trash with wires attached.

So all the old dead TV sets and such are just dumped in the ally ways and streets when nobody is looking now.

Jeff

That still means that they are actually encouraging recycling rather than repair, though. Although I don't have a problem with the principle of recycling materials, it never-the-less still requires a (disproportionate ?) energy input to carry it out. I feel that many people are forced to replace their goods sooner than they otherwise would, by the fact that they can't get them repaired. Surely, it would be better for governments to deal with the problem directly at manufacturer level, by legislating along the lines of "You wanna sell your goods in our country ? Fine, but you have to make at least service info available."

I can sympathise with manufacturers' positions on spare parts to some degree. These days, it would be a logistic nightmare to try to be able to hold and supply all of the specialist parts used in modern equipment, but so much of this stuff could be EASILY fixed with standard off-the-shelf components, if only schematics even, were made available.

Arfa

It's worse than that. I know several manufacturers that go through considerable effort to make sure their boards are destroyed and NOT recycled. The problem is that they lose control of the boards during the recycling process and that recyclers are the major source of "repairable" boards. These boards are fished out of the recyling bins, repaired (or not repaired) and placed back on the market through various means. When one of these boards fail, the customer goes after the manufacturer and not the repair person. The manufacturer usually has to honor the warranty in order to salvage their reputation. The quantities involved are minor, but the irritations and support load is sufficiently irritating to inspire manufacturers to destroy or crush their boards before recycling. Add to that the counterfeit electronics problem, and little wonder the manufacturers want to retain a strangle-hold on the product from cradle to grave.

Oddly, some vendors require a "core deposit" which is common in the automobile parts busines, before they will sell a replacement board. In the US, repair shops are required to "offer" the old parts to the customer, which usually means loss of any core deposit. It's fairly obvious that the core charge is solely to make sure the customer does not retain the bad board, and later decide to have it repaired.

Some gear seems unrepairable, SD memory socket spring broke in my P&S camera, sent it in to Canon for warranty repair, they sent me next model camera as warranty replacement rather than replace the busted memory socket! Maybe they wanted the cam as QA sample? I think they simply decide what's cheaper, and labour rates are too high, in relation to the consumer goods prices these days. No incentive to repair from owner's PoV?. Dead computer monitor, $90 to repair or $130 to replace -- which way most people go these days?

Grant.

And this is really nothing new. I couldn't count how many times I have spent tracking down parts a service literature in vain. And one bloke who worked for Nady I actually got fired for sending me schematics for a 201 guitar wireless I wanted to re-crystal.

ould

On the other hand, the ABS/Traction control computer in my wife's 1996 car started to give intermittant error indications. A replacement was $250, but would anyone want to rely on an unauthorized repaired board? I don't even want to consider the liability to the repairer should any controller repair contribute to an accident [like the ABS or the boiler controls]. I will not even look further than faulty connections or power supply issues on any equipment that even hints of safety issues!

Neil S.

The situation over here is not quite the same, but there are similarities. But all of that just underlines the point that no matter what would be truly beneficial to the green movement - and simple repair with a twopenny resistor has got to qualify - it really isn't about that, at all. Which is actually just as most of us in the repair game already know ...

Arfa

As you probably know from there is a contributor there who owns a firm which offers exchange re-manufactured boiler PCBs and fans etc.

As I remember things, he says many of these are of poor quality in both design and manufacture, but he is restricted by 'law' to simply repairing them rather than modifying/improving.

Your pal seems to have an odd attitude - replacing something which has failed prematurely by one from the same maker is the best option? ;-)

In a word, lawyers.

Also, if the replacement fails, it's the manufacturers fault, not his.

Having a solid (and well heeled) "somebody else" to blame is a major factor when dealing with lawyers.

Jeff

In the states, I just looked at a defective Hsu subwoofer for a friend. The switched power supply was dead. Electrolytic caps, fets, and the start resistors were all ok so we requested a schematic. They wouldn't sell us a schematic or parts. Our choices were to send in the whole amp assembly for a $160.00 repair or a complete amp assembly swap for $200.00. Just love today's companies customer service policies. Thirty years ago even junk brands like Lloyds, Yorx, and Electrophonic provided parts in a timely manner. Is there anybody out there making a decent living doing repair on modern consumer audio equipment?

Not in the UK.

The manufacturer's liability would be restricted to simply supplying the replacement part. He would have to 'pay' for his own labour himself. So really no different from supplying a different make replacement.

Luckily we don't go down that route in the UK for the likes of this sort of thing.

Yes, I am aware of him, which is part of the reason that I thought my guy might be interested. Part of his problem was that he felt that his customers preferred to see a brand spanking new board come out of a box, with a shiny new manufacturer's warranty. That way, if it too should fail, he was able to blame the problem on the maker, and get yet another brand new one out of them for nothing.

Arfa

Well, I make a fair living doing it as a trade only service. Thirty years ago, every independent retailer had a little workshop out the back of his store, and employed an engineer or two. These days, the ones that are left can't afford such luxuries, so rely on the likes of me to handle their service work for them. It's hard sometimes, and parts and schematics are an ever-present problem, but on the whole, most of us on here and in other groups help each other out in this regard, and get by. My activities are helped by keeping the work as diverse as possible, for instance by repairing P.A. equipment, and in particular tube amplifiers, where there's not a lot of skills around any more. I have also got into fancy DMX controlled pro lighting, where again, there doesn't seem to be too much 'proper' repair expertise. I also do some commercial drinks machine control board repairs. All adds up.

So yes, there is a living to be made still, but it gets a little harder every year, I think ... d :-\

Arfa

I very much doubt many customers would watch the boiler being repaired - or have clue or care what spares were being fitted.

The contract for the repair is with the repair man. He then has a contract with his spares supplier.