advertisement


Right To Repair

I'm also doubtful of the 'health and safety' argument. That can be dealt with by methods like ensuring you need tools to open something and giving a clear warning that no-one should do so unless suitably knowledgeable. Similarly, one of the points of issuing circuit and construction details is to make clear what can be done safely. But the reality is that with many modern bits of kit it can be impossible to even decide how a case *could* be opened without breaking it!

In particular as an example, the DAP I use is excellent, but of course at some point its internal battery pack will die, and I can't see any way to replace that as there is no hint how to open the box without breaking the DAP. Yet I can easily open my ancient mobile phone and change the battery in it. Did so a few years ago. Built to accomodate this.
 
As long as you are allowed, as is your absolute right, to wire a 13 amp plug onto the mains lead of an electrical device I’d argue the health and safety argument is null and void. The place for warnings etc is in the documentation, which is the very thing we are asking for!
 
My iPad developed the common sticky home button, so I went into the Apple store to ask if they could fix it, but they see it as a throw way item apparently. So I asked if they would take it as a px toward a new one and was offered 40 quid! You might get more in the exchange shop opposite, the salesman said and they immediately offered £180! I guess it's the economics that dictates you buy a new machine every so many years, with little or no support.
 
And at my age, with aging eyesight I can hardly see an SM resistor, let alone solder to it!

Give me RLR05s any day :D :D :D
 
As both a repairer and a designer and small scale manufacturer I can see both sides of the argument for the making schematics etc available. If making stuff on a very small scale, say 20 units a year, it doesn't take many people making DIY copies of your kit, either by following the schematic or by the Chinese having made a clone knock off board available, for it to kill off your business... you can I believe even buy Chi-fi rip off's of Les's Avondale boards!

You’d almost certainly find documentation and third-party serviceability had the exact opposite effect and gave people far more confidence in your product. Everyone fears paying out good money for undocumented low-volume sole-trader product as what happens when that sold point of failure dies, retires or goes bust?

PS I’d be amazed if any Chinese knock-off impacted Les in the slightest. I’ve not spoken to him for ages, but I bet he already has way more work backed up than he wants or needs. There was always a waiting list for stuff, as there is with almost all single person businesses. Also good high-end audio is pretty much veblen goods where the punter values authenticity and quality far more than a price tag. No way would anyone want a knock-off when they can easily afford the real thing. This really isn’t a budget marketplace. Most of us spend £500+ on a stylus!
 
Surely if a product is so "gob smackingly good" that it is worth copying then that will happen regardless of whether or not circuit diagrams are made available ?
 
As both a repairer and a designer and small scale manufacturer I can see both sides of the argument for the making schematics etc available. If making stuff on a very small scale, say 20 units a year, it doesn't take many people making DIY copies of your kit, either by following the schematic or by the Chinese having made a clone knock off board available, for it to kill off your business... you can I believe even buy Chi-fi rip off's of Les's Avondale boards!

No one copies small scale manufacturers, the reason you can buy clones of naim, quad etc is they have sold tens if not hundreds of thousands of units, so there is a market for them, Les’s Avondale boards AIUI are basically naim anyway.
 
I can see sense in the veblen goods bit but there are plenty of cheap skates and DIYers out there... I made me an Audio research SP8 by having the schematics in the (someone elses) owners manual about 25 years ago... and yes not many would do the same...

William Z. Johnson's comment about this was "If you make one for yourself I'll shake your hand. If you try to sell them I'll take you to court."

(and yes I know a circuit can't really be protected in court...)
 
Keeping surface mount spare parts is awkward. They have a very limited solderable shelf life when the packing is unsealed. This especially applies to PQFP and BGA ICs
 
As you tacitly admit, it can be impossible for the buying customer to tell in advance if they might need to repair something, etc, at the point of initial purchase. Frankly, we might not buy something if we knew when it was going to fail. You can't be 'savvy' when denied relevant information.

I can't see any reason for makers to refuse detailed schematics, etc. And it has already been their *legal responsiblity* under the EU regs to ensure items can be repaired for a number of years after purchase. However they may dodge that in the way I was treated, and then you'd have to take them to court. Which is effectively impossible for most of us when faced with a company based out of the UK of any size.

It's a parallel with the patent/IPR behaviour elsewhere. Big company has the lawyers and the money.
You don't necessarily need such exhaustive information to be savvy, courtesy of the internet we can find out more than ever about others' experiences with the product and conduct of the company to inform our buying behaviours. If you feel so strongly about such things being available you could check whether they are ahead of time and avoid manufacturers who do not provide them, that would 'be savvy.'

In that vein I find it bizarre that you tell of this poor experience of yours in such highly redacted form. You are failing to provide your fellow consumers with precisely the sort of information they need to help inform their choices. I can't for the life of me understand why.
 
I'm also doubtful of the 'health and safety' argument.
Yes, this is firmly a case of the tail wagging the dog. Like a lot of regulation it is actually the large corporations who lobby for it as a way to protect themselves from smaller competitors by raising the cost and compliance threshold for market entry.
 
The issue of simply getting at the gutz really is a problem for a lot of modern consumer electronics - I'm always confused by "reviews" that ding a product for horrible design flaws like exposed bolt heads and can't be bothered to do any electrical testing of the product under "review". OTH -an argument can definitely be made that for the last couple of decades very few pieces of audio electronics have been made that are going to be repairable on the basis of replacing the burned out bits system. Still -we'll pop the covers and hope for something obvious . After a few decades in the audio biz - I'm sure I'm responsible for at least a fair sized hill of discarded packaging -wouldn't it be nice if there were a deposit on shipping containers -you returned to the purchase place to get your deposit back and in my fantasy world could order a 'BOX" anytime you needed one for a move or to resell. Be a interesting design challenge to both figure out say 20 common sizes -then be able to advertise your greenish audio/video component as fitting into a standard model 18axz package with refund once the unit has been shipped to you and returned. I always told customers to retain packaging and they almost always didn't. Be quit the CAD challenge ?
 
I don’t agree with this as we are “allowed” to do so many other things. As examples I built both my bicycles from parts. My word that they are ‘roadworthy’ is enough to ride in busy traffic.
Or in my case (and many other's) build a motorbike from many parts. An MOT is sufficient proof of roadworthyness.
 
William Z. Johnson's comment about this was "If you make one for yourself I'll shake your hand. If you try to sell them I'll take you to court."

(and yes I know a circuit can't really be protected in court...)
Depends on the circuit - protectable via patents (or semiconductor topography rights for ICs)
 
Or in my case (and many other's) build a motorbike from many parts. An MOT is sufficient proof of roadworthyness.
Yes and no, you have legal responsibility beyond just making sure the vehicle passes an MOT...

...I took my car for MOT, passed. Told John I was a bit surprised as the rear shock absorbers weren't absorbing shocks and I only hadn't bothered getting them fixed sooner as the car hadn't moved for a few months courtesy of Covid. Apparently the bounce test isn't on the MOT anymore as it doesn't work with active suspension, they just check it's intact and attached without excessive play along with the rest of the suspension! But you can't ignore something like that just because it's not an MOT fail. The MOT just means it met a minimum standard at the time of test, it actually doesn't necessarily mean the vehicle is legally roadworthy even then! It would have been unlikely to come up unless I had an accident and was daft enough to admit I knew the shocks were bad and hadn't fixed them, but in addition to being an irresponsible asshat it would still constitute a failure of my legal duty to ensure the vehicle was roadworthy!
 


advertisement


Back
Top