On 11/03/2021 16:38, Jeff Layman wrote:
On 10/03/2021 11:17, John Rumm wrote:
On 10/03/2021 08:49, Jeff Layman wrote:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56340077

Will this make any practical difference? If an SMD integrated circuit
goes wrong in a TV, will making the SMD itself available make the TV
"more repairable"?

Yes, very much so. Currently independent repairers are frequently forced
to buy scrapped boards from various shady dealers in eWaste, and then
scavenge components because there is no official way to buy the part.

Well, it depends if the repairer has the skill and equipment to remove
the old SMD and replace it with a new one. If the original was a
multiconnection device flow-soldered in, I doubt many would be able to
replace it. Then, of course, you might have the issue of a multilayered
PCB where a via or two has failed, or is very close to the smd.

Well let's assume that a professional board repair outfit has the
equipment and skills required. The only thing standing in their way is
lack of official access to parts and data.

Pricing is a very relevant issue. If the smd is priced at a high level,
and you have to add to that the repairer's fee, in the long run it might
not work out much different from a completely new circuit board which
only needs to be plugged in.

If the board is available. On high priced Apple kit its not that
difficult to charge a flat rate £300 no fix no fee deal, even if the
part is £100. Especially when all Apple will offer you is a discount on
something new to bring the price down to £1000.


Or acquire schematics from dodgy Russian / Chinese ftp sites because the
maker will not make them available.

Maybe that's something to be considered for amending legislation. ;-)

(yes Apple I am talking about you!)

Of even if you can get a part, there is no legal way of obtaining the
manufacturers configuration software that would enable the new part to
be "keyed" to the existing system.

I can't see a way round that if it is considered commercially confidential.

You can't really argue that access to a part is commercially
confidential - the internal design of it perhaps.

Even access to a schematic and board view is not really confidential
since once you have access to the physical board, you can reverse
engineer the schematic.

(John Deere being famous for ****ing off lots of farmers with this one)

Or you can get a part but that relies on firmware that the maker does
not make available etc.

Printer cartridges come to mind!

Yup... and many modern cars.

Needless to say the makers will use any argument in the book they can -
say claiming that the product is too dangerous to allow "unskilled"
repair (hoping to conflate unskilled and third party repairers), or they
will erect bogus "authorised repairer programs" like apple did in the US
to try and stave off legislation. Needless to say they hoops one is
required to jump through to qualify to join and onerous, and once joined
the T&Sc actually prevent you from offering a useful repair service in
the first place!)

The first few test cases of non-compliance in the EU/UK are going to be
most interesting!

Yup, I can see a few of those coming :-)

--
Cheers,

John.

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