John Rumm wrote:
Component level SMD repair is pretty commonly done stuff...

For example, go have a look at Louis Rossmann or Jessa Jones (iPad
Rehab) on youtube, they routinely fix stuff that apple claim can't be
fixed. They have posted tons of detailed walk-throughs of many repairs.

There's a board/component level repair tradeoff.

If it's a washing machine and the board is simple, it might only cost £50.
Not worth doing component level fault diagnosis when you could just swap it
out.

If it's a laptop and they soldered the CPU, the RAM and the SSD to the
motherboard, the board might be £2000 to replace. That's a very strong
motivation to go in at component level, especially if the fix is something
at the simpler end of things (dead charging chips and similar).


In both cases, if the manufacturer refuses to supply parts (that charging
chip is often custom, in the case of Apple) all you're left with is getting
one from scrap. And then you might find you can't pair it because they
fitted DRM, even though there was no actual reason to need to pair it in the
first place.

While certain brands are notorious for this, it's only a matter of time
before their competitors jump on the same bandwagon. Hence needing laws to
prevent this behaviour.

Theo