On Sun, 09 Dec 2012 19:49:14 -0600, flipper wrote:

On Sun, 09 Dec 2012 10:18:28 -0800, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

On Sun, 09 Dec 2012 05:43:40 -0500, Spehro Pefhany
wrote:

On Sat, 08 Dec 2012 22:35:19 -0800, the renowned Jeff Liebermann
wrote:
Yes. The conspiracy theory is that components are selected to survive
no longer than the warranty period.

I think it's more a design spec than a conspiracy.

My first clue of a conspiracy was about 15 years ago, when I was
fixing a Sony CRT monitor (in the days when Sony made complete
monitors). It suffered from the usual electrolytic capacitor
failures. On any other brand, I could replace one or two caps, and it
would work. However, on this Sony, I discovered that a rather large
number of caps failed an ESR test, making repair uneconomical.
Inspecting the components, I noticed that there was a wide range of
rather strange voltage ratings on the electrolytics. In the past, I
would see dozens of electrolytics in a small number of standard
values. In this Sony, I saw a rather wide assortment of values and
voltages. I didn't do any lifetime calculations, but my impression
was that the voltage ratings were calculated for some target lifetime,
and no more. The result was near simultenous failure of all the caps.

What you describe is 'design' and not 'conspiracy'.

One persons idea of proper design is another persons conspiracy. It's
all a matter of perspective. The gray area between the two is a very
awkward place to work. I was asked to cost reduce a product I had
designed about 3 years previously. I did my best but didn't hit the
required "target" price. So, the problem was handed to someone else,
who's idea of cost reduction consisted of removing components until
the radio ceased to operate. I had designed it to work from 10v to
16.5VDC over a wide temperature range. It was better than what was
required. When the cost cutting was done, it mostly worked at room
temperature and would only work between 12.5 and 15.0VDC. I tried to
keep my changes within FCC guidelines, but such radical changes should
have required Part 15 recertification. I kept my mouth shut. Bottom
line is they took a decent radio and turned it into a pile of junk.
When the problems appeared both on the production line and in the
field, I was recovering from surgery and missed the opportunity to
tell them the obvious. Design or conspiracy? I would call it a
conspiracy.

Look, you do not have the choice of making an eternal device because
everything fails sooner or later so you can either Que Sera Sera,
whatever will be will be, or design for a target life.

Question: If I double the useful life of an electronic product, have
I also cut sales in half?

While various organizations pride themselves in recycling eWaste
wherever possible, the same organizations are clueless as to why such
products end up as eWaste in the first place. While various EU
governments are pushing for cradle to grave "ownership" of
electronics, where the manufacturer is responsible for disposal, the
same governments seem to have little interest in extending the life of
products. While various ecologically correct groups are extolling the
virtues of keeping lead out of the environment, the same organizations
are oblivious to the effects of unleaded solder has on the life of
electronic products.

Now, given this fact,

What fact? That failure is inevitable and that we should tolerate
both the causes and the consequences? We all die eventually, but is
that an excuse to live a worthless life?

why would you expect someone to design 'section
A' for life expectancy X and 'section B' for life expectancy Y when,
if either fail, the damn thing is broke?

In the not so distant past, I designed marine radios where the
customers genuinely expected the radio to last the life of the vessel.
The company offered a genuine "lifetime" warranty on it's products.
Over the 10 years I spent at this company, I was seeing many older
radios arriving for rebuilds and repair. Discussing the situation
with management, they indicated that their customers would not buy
their higher priced products without the lifetime warranty. They
didn't want to do it, but it was a business necessity.

Enter Walmart, China manufacture, and cellular phones, all of which
institutionalized the concept that products should be temporary, a
warranty is a good substitute for quality, and that it's perfectly
acceptable to trash 450,000 cell phone PER DAY. When I was doing
radios, I was looking at a product sales life of about 5 years. Todays
computers are sold for maybe 3-6 months before the new model arrives.
I can see a product being recycled after normal wear and tear. I fail
to appreciate the same from intentionally designed obsolescence and
calculated component failure.

If X is too short you've missed the target and if Y is too long you're
wasting money.

So, fix X so that it lasts longer.

True or false?
Products with a longer life are better (for the buyer)?

Unfortunately things are not that 'precise' and failures are 'rates'
rather than a deterministic point in time. This makes things more
difficult for designers and companies but puts the lie to 'conspiracy'
theories because you simply can't design 'so it fails as soon as the
warranty expires', which isn't the purpose of a warranty to begin
with.

The purpose of the warranty has changed over the years. It was
previous a method of dealing with occasional workmanship errors and
oversights. It's now the standard method of dealing with shoddy
construction, design defects, misuse, and clueless customers. Many
products have such a short lifetime, that there's no incentive to fix
production line problems, especially when the next THREE generations
of replacement products are already somewhere in the design cycle. By
the time the complaints come back from the field, the product is
already long obsolete.

Component failures are 'higher' in the 'early hours' of operation,
I.E. infant mortality, drop to a low, and then, as EOL approaches,
increase again. Infant mortality is generally due to some form of
manufacturing defect (which means process improvements can have a big
impact) and is what a warranty is intended to cover so, in fact, after
the warranty one should generally be able to expect more 'trouble
free' life. You are 'over the hump'.

Bathtub curve.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve
The difference is that we never seem to get to the old age, wear and
tear, type of failures. Instead, things literally break quite early
in the curve. Eventually, the flat bottom of the bathtub curve starts
looking like a "V", with the warranty period at the apex of the "V".
If the goal is to sell more gizmos, then that's the ideal. If the
goal is to keep the stuff out of the landfill, it's disaster.

However, since these are all probability distributions over large
sample sizes there will always be 'some example' one can point at to
supposedly 'prove' any 'theory'. There will be 'one' that seems to
last forever, the 'last one to die' (I love these things. Mine lasted
'forever'), and, if you made enough of them, 'one' that failed 2
seconds before, or past, the warranty period.

Yeah, I guess, whatever all that means. Reading between your lines,
I'll guess you're trying to rationalize the current trend in
intentional decreases in product life, durability, and usability. I
would be interested to hear how such things improve the quality of
life, the environment, and the reputation of the vendor.

If we assume that intentionally targeting the product life at slightly
over the warranty period is undesirable, that begs the question "What
can we do about it"? I have some answers, but they all reek of
government intervention and meddling. The best that I can offer is to
give the manufacturers and vendors a counter incentive to NOT make
throw away products. That will raise costs, but since the rate the
consumer buys new gizmos will be correspondingly reduced, the overall
cost to the consumers will be about the same. Creating a fashion
where used products are considered desirable might also be useful. At
this time, shinny new products are some kind of status symbol. If
that could be replace with "used is beautiful" or something similar,
there might be an incentive for manufacturers to extend the life of
their products.

[Q] Is a civilization based on throw away everything sustainable?


--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558