clare at snyder.on.ca wrote
Rod Speed wrote
clare at snyder.on.ca wrote
Rod Speed wrote
lsmartino wrote
Rod Speed wrote

It would **** the environment much more to have every
low level component easily unpluggable and replaceable.

Please explain why.

It should be obvious. Try counting the cost of all those sockets for
all the ics, let alone what that would do to the size of the device etc.

You couldnt even use surface mount anymore either.

No reason subassemblies can not be replaceable.

No point when there is only one with stuff like
an ipod, electric toothbrush, cellphone etc.

Connectors today can be made extremely compact,

And still cost signifcantly more than no connector at all.

With the failure rate with PCs so low, its a complete waste of money.

and with LSI the active components can all be put
into one plug-in component worth a couple of dollars.

What they actually do is surface mount that on a single component and
allow what is needed for the owner/monkey to press to be connected etc.

SMT could still be used on the "backbone" which
could also be a low cost field replaceable part.

Why would it be low cost when its the bulk of the product
like with an ipod, a cellphone, a cordless phone, etc etc etc.

Because even the way they are built today they are "low cost".

Pity thats true in spades of the device itself.

And I'm talking things like 2000 dollar large screen TVs like the Sony
mentioned thad had the drivers in the non-replaceable cable to the screen.

Thats just bad design.

The circuit in question likely costs Sony less than $3 to install where it is.
Add $10 to make it readilly replaceable, and you increase the cost by 0.5%

Sure, but its just another example of bad design.

There is absolutely NOTHING that cannot be made
serviceable in the consumer electronics arena.

Yes, but what is the point of making it easy to replace the
vast bulk of the device when the failure rate is so low ?

The failure rate is plenty high enough - even if you limit it to "infant mortality"

Nope, the modern reality is that is a hell of a lot cheaper overall to
just toss those in the bin and stamp out another in the asian factory.

Thats been the case for decades now with the cheapest domestic
appliances like toasters and the point at which it makes not sense to
increase the cost of the design so you can replace modules continues
to move up from the cheapest products to the more expensive ones.

Failure within the lifespan of the display panel is likely well over 5%.

Depends entirely on how you define the lifetime, and those are
mostly repairable by module swapping with laptops, notebooks,
TVs etc, tho its often quite a marginal proposition to do that
now with the cheapest laptops and notebooks that may well
need a new battery as well before its discarded etc.

On some brands of laptop computers it's a whole lot higher than that.

Sure, but thats the inevitable consequence of maintaining
stocks of spares and using expensive first world skilled
labor to swap the failed component.

PCs are still very modular indeed with the exception of the
motherboard and they still mostly have the cpu socketed,
even tho hardly anyone ever sees a cpu failure or a need
to upgrade the cpu either.

Yes, it makes sense to have cellphone batterys readily
replaceable, and the front cover etc, because batterys
do have a limited number of recharge cycles and people
do bugger up the covers quite often, but there isnt any
point in having more than a single module with all the
electronics on it with a cellphone or even a PC motherboard.

Will it cost more? Likely Does it have to? Not necessarily.

Corse it has to over no connector at all.

There are ways of doing things that add functionality without adding cost.

Nope, not over just one component.

Which is why you cant generally open plugpacks to repair
them anymore and why its been like that for decades now.

Would people buy it? Smart people would.

I doubt it when they have adequate information on the failure rate.

I suspect some on this list would not.

Its not a list, they are newsgroups.

OK. picky, picky.