Planned Obselescence....A Good Thing?
clare at snyder.on.ca wrote:
On Tue, 16 Jan 2007 16:16:05 +1100, "Rod Speed"
wrote:
clare at snyder.on.ca wrote
lsmartino wrote
Rod Speed wrote
They can do the estimate considering an ambient temperature of
20šC - 25šC. Check the datasheet of any semiconductor and learn
something before you write. Any rise in the temperature will
shorten the lifespan of the product. To me, thatīs a quite
profitable scenario.
Also, you will notice that the same circuit will have
electrolytic capacitors near heat sources, when itīs a well
known fact that heat shortens dramatically the life of
electrolytics caps.
In practice that isnt a significant problem with domestic
appliances. Essentially because you dont see many
electros in that situation with them.
Are you crazy? Have you ever seen a modern SMPS? Try to tell all us
that a SMPS (Switched Mode Power Supply, in case you donīt know
what a SMPS is) donīt HAVE electrolytics caps, and that those caps
doesnīt have a finite lifespan. Even electrolytics are classified
based on their MBTF at certain temperatures. Again, try to find
the datasheet of some electrolitycs caps, and educate yourself.
And just about anything electronic today is using SMPSs
The manufacturer know how to properly design an electronic
circuit in order to provide a long life, but it also it knows how
to design it to fail within a short term under certain
conditions,
No they dont on that silly claim about surviving the
warranty fine, but failing immediately after that expires.
I replace enought ATX computer SMPSs before they hit 3
years - many within 2, and too many within one. And they
are running, in many cases, on protected power supplies.
Irrelevant to the silly claim they are DESIGNED to fail just outside
the warranty so you will buy another from same manufacture.
No one is telling that the product will explode right after
the warranty expires, but that it can be designed to fail
within a short life span, especially with cheap products.
and accordingly they estimate a warranty just long
enough to cover the product for a safe term, a
safe term for the manufacturer, not the user.
Have fun explaining how come not a single electronic device
I have ever owned has died just after the warranty has run out.
And that includes my latest gigantic widescreen TV too.
Of course itīs impossible to predict exactly how many years
the TV will last, but the manufacturer count with statistical
data which says, for instance, that a TV set is turned on
10 hours per day for instance, and taking that into account,
and estimating how long the weakest part of the TV will last
under these conditions, they can determine the warranty lapse.
Pity about the TVs that get left on all the time.
A TV, or a computer monitor left on all the time will last less
time of course. A CRT has a definite lifespan, and if the monitor
or the TV set is a LCD based one, the CFL bulbs used to light up
the screen have a definite lifespan. Did you knew that, Mr. Know
Nothing ?
And certain parts ONLY fail on start-up because of power surges.
Some devices would run litterally forever if never shut off - others
are robust enough to handle starting and stopping but have finite
life devices. My experience with computer monitors (over 17 years)
has
been those left on 24/7 generally outlast those that are started and
stopped several times a day. Phosphor burn used to be the major
problem with 24/7 operation. Today it is SMPS failure. I can't
remember the last monitor I had to replace due to CRT failure.
Quite a few are uneconomic to repair due to an FBT failure, but
again,
thats just bad design, not deliberately designing them to fail just
outside
warranty so you will buy another from the same manufacturer.
My own newest monitor is well over 5 years old now. It is
generally never turned off (just powers itself down when I leave)
Yeah, I used to leave them on all the time and now turn them
off overnight, just because I now have a number of big 19"
monitors and the power consumption isnt trivial.
I dont turn the PCs off tho with the exception of the laptop.
The claim is completely fanciful and those making that sort of
claim have obviously never actually designed a damned thing.
And only the stupidest manufacturer would deliberatly design
their product to die as soon as the warranty has expired
anyway, because the bulk of those who had bought such
a dud wouldnt be buying another from that manufacturer.
How many people who owned Chevy Vegas
bought a second one? THOUSANDS.
Bugger all that had one blow up their face.
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
We'll see...
Before I stasrted innthe computer business I had 25
years under my belt in the automotive service industry.
Ten of those years as a service manager.
Irrelevant to whats involved with repeat car purchases.
I was in the industry when the Vega
was produced and sold. I saw them fail.
Failure UNDER WARRANTY is an entirely different issue to
failure just outside the warranty, with a product designed to
do that so the failure rate just outside warranty is very high.
That didnt happen with the vegas.
AND car buyers came to expect problems covered by
warranty with the steaming turd the US car industry became.
I saw the owners buying new vegas.
But NOT when the car was DESIGNED TO FAIL JUST OUTSIDE WARRANTY.
I saw them buying no Chevies after the vega was no longer made.
They bought Chevy Cavaliers ten and 15 years later. They bought
new ones when the head gaskets blew and the heads cracked.
Man, it takes a lot of bad Ju-Ju to get a died in
the wool Chevy man to switch brand loyalty!!!!!!
The car industry has always been different with
some chosing to turnover their cars are a high rate.
Now there ARE lots of people who will buy anything - don't
mater who made it - but in North America there are Ford
people who will never own anything BUT a Ford. There are
Chevy people who would never buy a Pontiac or a Buick.
That happens everywhere.
Make any sense? Nope. Even people who quit buying Chrysler
products when they could no longer buy a Plymouth. Buy a Dodge?
Not on your life.Old habits die hard - particularly with old guys and cars.
Doesnt happen much with other domestic appliances.
And how many who bought Vega bought another Chevy?
Thousands and thousands and tens of thousands.
Bugger all that had one blow up their face.
And the average Vega did NOT make it through warranty.
Irrelevant with cars where most expect to need to make warranty
claims before the Japs put a bomb under the US manufacturers.
How many people who had their Cadillacs in the shop
more than in their driveway bought another Cadillac? Thousands.
Sure, there are a few niche markets with buyers that stupid.
Jaguar in spades. Aston Martins, etc etc etc.
And a few, after the second or third, got smart and bought a Lexus.
Yep, clearly most buyers noticed how the Japs had
put a bomb under the US manufacturers and got a clue.
Happened to Rolls Royce too.
It took a friend 7 or 8 Caddies over 3 years to finally make the
change. He figured it had to just be his luck untill he talked to
enough other owners to be convinced it was the CAR, not him.
Sure, there will always be some that stupid.
Doesnt happen much with domestic appliances tho.
Plenty have decided that Sony products are now steaming turds to be
avoided.
Tell that to the manufacturer of Coby products, for instance.
They have quite a long time selling trash that fails quite quickly.
They quote the useful lifetime of a hardrive in MTBF hours.
That is calculated, not measured. Convert that MTBF
to years and you will discover why they cant possibility
have tested them to get those numbers.
Donīt answer "itīs impossible" if you are not prepared to give
a real explanation. Samsung, Seagate, WD... any decent hard
drive manufactures gives an estimate lifetime of their
products. These estimates are provided in the datasheet of
each harddrive.
And they are ESTIMATES, not measured results.
Educated guesses. Finite Element Analysis.
Pretty accurate predictive methodology.
And NOT the claimed TESTING.
Exactly, these are estimates,
Pity the claim was about TESTING, which doesnt happen, like I
said.
and most of the time very accurate,
Like hell it is. Have you actually tried converting
the MTBF of a current hard drive to years ?
It can be something like 15 years or more of constant
use, without a stop. And I have seen hard drives
surviving at least more than 10 years of hard work.
specially those concerning the maximum number of startups/stops
the drive can tolerate before the heads get completely worn.
Wrong again. Its such a round number it cant have been produced
by TESTING, and the number of starts and stops dont produce
any wear of the heads with modern hard drives anyway.
You are wrong again. When the platters stops, the heads contact the
platters. While the platters are spinning at full speed, the heads
are separated from them by a small air cushion formed by the
rotational speed of the platter. As soon the HDD is turned off, the
platters loses speed, and eventually the air cushion dissapear,
thus the heads make contact with the platters. The same happens in
reverse sequence when the HDD starts. Thatīs why start / stop
cicles have a definite impact in any HDD. Have you ever wondered
why a HDD last less in a home environment than in a office
environment?
ANd Hard drives that are never shut off generally DO last
significantly longer than those that get powered down
They do indeed.
(which is why I disable power management on my servers).
I do on all systems except laptops where it does help time on
battery.
And even MS has noticed and thats the default now with XP with
desktops.
I have a set of 10 year old scsi drives in one of the servers that
will likely go another 10 years if I don't scrap the server. That
server has not had
a SINGLE FAILURE over those 10 years. It cost about $10,000 new.
The drives were likely over $1000 each. They are 8gb?
The EIDE drive I just installed is 160gb and cost $79.00. Will it
last 10 years? Not likely!
Bet it will or more strictly last till it gets discarded because its
too small or too slow.
I've only ever had one PC hard drive failure, and thats with a hell
of a lot of drives.
Not a shred of evidence that anyone is actually stupid enough
to deliberately attempt to design a drive which fails just outside
warranty to be replaced by another from the same manufacturer.
The spectacular duds the PC industry has seen, the IBM 75GXPs,
the 60GXPs, the Fujitsu MPGs etc have all been massive footshots
that were unintended, like most footshots are.
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