[HN Gopher] Repairing Electronics: A circular economy solution
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Repairing Electronics: A circular economy solution
Author : mooreds
Score : 43 points
Date : 2023-06-13 20:39 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (nextbillion.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (nextbillion.net)
| Havoc wrote:
| 1st world countries should also push laws that facilitate this.
| Easily replaceable batteries, better schematics etc
| explorer83 wrote:
| Agreed. The problem is when citizens come forward to push for
| this, the manufacturer's lobbyist come in say it's too
| dangerous. Both from a trade secrets and a user injury
| perspective (battery packs explode dontcha know). And the
| manufacturers have more money to spend on lobbyist and
| political campaigns than the citizens. Like anything, it would
| take average citizens organizing in significant numbers to
| change anything. And not enough people care enough to actually
| sacrifice their time and money to make such a stand.
| OJFord wrote:
| Massive regression on the latter, early computers and '80s
| stereo amplifiers came with schematics in the manual - what
| happened?
| burnished wrote:
| A little conflicted on this one - shouldnt the solution be not
| sending waste to africa and picking up the mess we left behind?
| And isn't it problematic to set up an economy based on the
| availability of illegally dumped electronics? Not in a moral
| sense but a practical one. And as I understand it most e waste
| reclamation is taxing work that exposes you to various nasty
| things, either picking for salvage or extracting metals.
|
| I think those are really just quibbles though. In the first place
| that org has boots on the ground and I'm just some rando on a
| different continent, easy for me to spout off about problems when
| I'm not involved and trying to fix a problem. In the second place
| much of the focus in that article was about a repair program for
| the solar lights they are introducing to rural communities, which
| is phenomenal, and does qualify as recycling e waste.
|
| Maybe I'm laboring under a different idea of what constitutes
| electronics waste? I don't think of most of it as being
| repairable, perhaps I'm just wrong about that.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > I don't think of most of it as being repairable, perhaps I'm
| just wrong about that.
|
| Most electronic waste is not actually nonfunctional
| electronics, it's from people and companies upgrading to
| different electronics. And most of the broken electronics are
| trivially repairable.
|
| There's a fantastic electronics "recycler" in my town that does
| great business taking electronic "waste", refurbishing and/or
| repairing it, and selling it in their store.
|
| It's where I buy 90% of my electronics (and 100% of my cables,
| mice, keyboard, etc.). Everything they sell works great (and is
| under warranty) and is mind-bogglingly inexpensive. Then, when
| I want to upgrade, I just take the old stuff back to them so it
| can make another round.
| burnished wrote:
| Oh interesting, I'll have to dig around for more information
| then, update my priors.
| Animats wrote:
| They're repairing many LED lights. A more fundamental question -
| why are LED lamp units failing way ahead of schedule? Usually
| it's the power supply. Power supplies fail for known reasons.
| Usually, either overheating, bad capacitors, or bad solder
| joints. It's not rocket science. This ought to be fixable.
|
| Whatever happened to those PhD theses I used to see from China on
| how to build LED lamp power supplies without electrolytic
| capacitors?
| jfkdude wrote:
| Not sure if you noticed but the economy optimizes to toss and
| replace versus fix.
|
| Fixing things is a drag on next quarter profits. Buy the
| upgrade with the ten cent fix at 10% markup over the original
| because it's "new and improved".
|
| We're just circling old inputs like an LLM trained on itself.
| mcculley wrote:
| My team has installed a lot of LED lights in tugboat engine
| rooms. They fail often. They don't seem to handle heat and
| vibration very well.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| The ones without caps usually have terrible PWM, not really
| great.
|
| Just take ones that have a decent temperature rating and you're
| good. Except those cost 5 cents more and the lamp lasts forever
| which they manufacturers hate :(
| katbyte wrote:
| Fwiw I have near 10 year old hue bulbs still going strong. Well
| built ones do seem to last
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| I'm a software developer, but I've thought about taking up
| electronics / small appliance repair as a sustainable 'hands on'
| skill. It's one of the few 'trades' that I could do even with my
| disability.
|
| I'm well aware that if you air dropped me into a third world
| village I wouldn't have very much to offer the locals as a dev,
| but I'd imagine even a small town would appreciate a tinkerer
| that can fix things, and there's something deeply rewarding in
| fixing broken things.
| criddell wrote:
| I had some kind of power surge during a storm last weekend take
| out my PS5, Nintendo Switch, the Ethernet port on my TV, my
| amplifier/receiver, my three network switches, my garage door
| opener, my recliner, a bunch of GFCI outlets, my cordless drill
| charger, LED bulbs, etc...
|
| Out of all that, the only thing I'm getting repaired is my PS5
| for $230 by Sony. Everything else really isn't worth the $65
| bench fee from the local repair shop except for maybe my
| receiver and that I'm replacing because I was never very happy
| with it.
|
| I don't think the economics of life in the US make sense for
| repairing inexpensive electronics.
| OJFord wrote:
| Obviously OEM repair is prohibitive, but surely there's some
| local or semi-local shop that would do _the whole lot_ for
| something more reasonable in total?
|
| Not just for giving them a lot of business, but because
| you're saying Look, there's a common failure mode, the same
| event took them all out - and that's valuable information. It
| probably _is_ a similar issue in each.
|
| (Ok maybe don't bother with the bulbs..)
|
| Although I suppose depending on your excess you may be better
| off with an insurance claim.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| They do when you're the one doing the repairing. Or a friend
| you repay with a couple of beers. Pretty common in the 80s,
| and this is what we should go back to. Sure, electronics has
| become a lot more complex since the 80s but we also have a
| lot better tools for the job now.
|
| I'm one of those friends for many people :) In the last month
| alone I've fixed several devices. Some of which sex toys
| which caused great amusement of my makerspace friends - I
| have some kinky friends :P I already have a job so I just do
| it for fun, and it is actually quite fun. Every device is
| another little puzzle.
|
| Some I couldn't repair because they were simply too horribly
| built though. There was one electrified whip that was dropped
| once and the paper-thin PCB broke and 3 internal components
| snapped too, one of which (transformer) had wiring so thin it
| was like a hair. The whole BOM was a couple dollars at most,
| and it was sold for almost a hundred. That stuff is really
| not worth fixing. I feel bad for the engineers being forced
| to design something that crap. Nobody does that willingly.
|
| But on quality electronics my fix rate is pretty high. Very
| very often it's simply a worn out electrolytic cap. Even
| Samsung puts ones with too low a temp rating in 4000+ euro
| display screens. It's ridiculous. Seriously, caps, connectors
| "secured" to the board by only the solder joints, sometimes
| some onboard fuses. Easily make up 50% of electronics
| failures. It's not rocket science.
|
| Mechanical stuff fails a lot too, often in ways that are
| clearly _designed_ to fail. Buttons pressing on a stem that
| 's so thin it's clearly designed not to last. I often design
| and 3D print replacements that will last forever.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Or a friend you repay with a couple of beers.
|
| In the last month, I've repaired a couple of lighting
| systems, a television, and two computers for friends.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Yeah especially TVs right? Every single one of them it's
| been the caps. People mount them right up to the wall,
| the heat can't get out, and the caps dry out. Then they
| stop turning on, or start flickering, or randomly failing
| during high brightness scenes. Always the same story.
|
| It's always fun when I replace the failed one and most of
| the ones at risk as a precaution, and then I tell them
| what the (120 C rated, usually much higher than the
| originals) parts cost... :') It's a pain finding the
| right ones in stock though sometimes.
|
| I always feel so bad when I see a 70" TV beside the trash
| bin, usually with something heavy on top so the panel is
| already cracked :( Most people just call the
| manufacturer, they tell them it's out of warranty and
| "can't be repaired" and chuck it :'(
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Yeah especially TVs right? Every single one of them
| it's been the caps.
|
| Yep, TVs are particularly good targets.
|
| I knew someone who would make extra money by trawling
| around neighborhoods looking for TVs that have been
| ditched, recapping them, and selling them.
| dfox wrote:
| LCD TVs and even computer displays are somewhat notorious
| for dodgy power supply designs. I assume that it is
| because CRT TVs and displays were essentially an one
| giant SMPS and that reasoning was reused for later LCD
| based designs.
| OJFord wrote:
| I tried to repair a TV recently, I really thought it was
| going to be a cap (not that I've repaired one before) but
| seems it was a backlight issue, and that it's common for
| the model. Although in a way that it could somehow detect
| it seems, and refuse to do anything. Front light
| behaviour etc. wasn't normal, it wasn't merely that it
| was unlit.
|
| It's still sitting there at the moment, but it's for the
| dump unfortunately. (I have a better one to pass on due
| to my own upgrade, and actually they're renting a new
| place that will likely come furnished with one anyway.)
| JohnFen wrote:
| Also, if you have an interest in electronics, I think one of
| the best ways to learn about it is to try to fix broken
| devices.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| If you're interested in volunteering, look if there's a 'repair
| cafe' near you
| burnished wrote:
| 'Tool libraries' might also be a good hit
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(page generated 2023-06-14 23:00 UTC)