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Right To Repair

Yes, but I'm the type of enthusiast that hi-fi manufacturers hate, given that I run three turntables from the 60's (Garrard 401/Lenco 88/Michell Hydraulic Reference)! The hi-fi industry would be flat on it's feet if it relied on me for sales.
 
Precisely one of the reasons I use and love vintage hi-fi.
My elements will be forever repairable.

What about those silly SMPS power supplies and ridiculous surface mount components?
Once broken they are tip material.

Plus there are no schematics anywhere, let alone service manuals.
 
Daughter had one and found the parts too expensive so back to a cheap Samsung now. A good concept though.

Yeah that's the unfortunate reality here...it's a pricey phone, whose performance is put to shame by similarly priced devices, and the ability to repair/update individual components also comes at a premium. Mostly down to economies of scale, although their commitment to ethical sourcing also probably contributes. For the average Joe/Jane, for whom ~300 currency units is a lot of money, it becomes a difficult decision. I'm currently weighing it myself.
 
Nothing fundamentally wrong with the phone, it just felt a bit primitive.

Really wanted to like it but i couldn't justify paying double solely for the ethics.

I think i'd rather get a cheap phone and give £50 to a relevant charity.
 
Chips in smartphones have a production life of around a year. Everything in them is basically "custom" for the range product cycle
 
It is great to see some real traction and high profile folk like Linus really getting on board. It is starting to move. Louis Rossmann has raised over half a $million in just a couple of weeks and it looks like he is going to let his repair shop run itself whilst he takes on a lobbying role. Here’s his take:

 
Interesting thread!

I have a Focal SW800v W which was the limited model with the W sandwich cones from the 1000 series.
I bought it new along with a CC800Vw centre channel and 826vw main speakers.

At just over 3 years old, the BASH plate amplifier died. By that time Naim were the Focal service agents for the UK which is where Focal France pointed me.
Basically the unit was totally unserviceable. Not bad for a 3 yo £800 sub.

I did end up having various conversations with the Naim service dept and although they were able to give me diagrams, the SMPS was a typical cheap rubbish affair and had a mini bespoke voodoo magic module on it that was never seen before or again. After much research, I took and punt on a BASH 300 plate amplifier as it looked the same. I could only get them from the US and one seller refused to seel to me as it was configured for US 115v and not UK 240v. I tried to explain it was an SMPS and the fact that there were only a couple of small components that needed moving to make it work correctly at 240v but they wouldn't budge.

I did find a supplier in the end. I made the very minor mods to the mains input circuit to accept 240v and tested who whole replacement unit. It was fine. I then swapped the PSU with the one in the original Focal plate so I retained any proprietary filtering specific the driver and enclosure.

I find it incredible that both the manufacturer and the reputable UK service agent thought it was acceptable for me to throw an £800 sub in the bin after just over 3 years and were not able to offer repair.

Interestingly on the flip side of that, I have a large paradigm sub that's probably nearly 25 years old now. Its a traditional power supply that has new mains caps and the driver foam was replaced when it fell apart. Its a monster and I really see no reason it wont be capable of shaking the floor in another 25 years..... I suspect the Focal will be dead again within a few year as the replacement SMPS has already outlasted the original unit!! I hate SMPS lol
 
Interesting thread!

I have a Focal SW800v W which was the limited model with the W sandwich cones from the 1000 series.
I bought it new along with a CC800Vw centre channel and 826vw main speakers.

At just over 3 years old, the BASH plate amplifier died. By that time Naim were the Focal service agents for the UK which is where Focal France pointed me.
Basically the unit was totally unserviceable. Not bad for a 3 yo £800 sub.

I did end up having various conversations with the Naim service dept and although they were able to give me diagrams, the SMPS was a typical cheap rubbish affair and had a mini bespoke voodoo magic module on it that was never seen before or again. After much research, I took and punt on a BASH 300 plate amplifier as it looked the same. I could only get them from the US and one seller refused to seel to me as it was configured for US 115v and not UK 240v. I tried to explain it was an SMPS and the fact that there were only a couple of small components that needed moving to make it work correctly at 240v but they wouldn't budge.

I did find a supplier in the end. I made the very minor mods to the mains input circuit to accept 240v and tested who whole replacement unit. It was fine. I then swapped the PSU with the one in the original Focal plate so I retained any proprietary filtering specific the driver and enclosure.

I find it incredible that both the manufacturer and the reputable UK service agent thought it was acceptable for me to throw an £800 sub in the bin after just over 3 years and were not able to offer repair.

Interestingly on the flip side of that, I have a large paradigm sub that's probably nearly 25 years old now. Its a traditional power supply that has new mains caps and the driver foam was replaced when it fell apart. Its a monster and I really see no reason it wont be capable of shaking the floor in another 25 years..... I suspect the Focal will be dead again within a few year as the replacement SMPS has already outlasted the original unit!! I hate SMPS lol

A much lower cost sub, our Polk stopped working, it was around 4 years old. No spare boards available. The fix was just replacing 2 $0.20 caps on the SMPS board (took a bit of Googling to figure out the issue but saved $300). Was a week for cheap fixes, also fixed our wine storage cooler with a $2 chip and a $1 cap in the SMPS!
 
A couple of weeks ago my Synology DS415+ NAS decided to stop working. As it has a known fault with the Intel processor this was not too much of a surprise. What was surprising is that there are a number of threads on the internet detailing how to fix the problem with a single 100 ohm resistor. I cannot solder for the life of me even though I do own a soldering iron hence I thought I’d give it a go as I had nothing to lose. So I went onto eBay, bought a few suitable resistors and, once they’d been delivered, took the NAS apart following the guide I found and got to work with the soldering iron. Ten minutes later I had a working NAS. Yet Synology do not put the fix details on their website despite it being a simple fix. Which is unforgivable. The success I’ve had might well make me look at trying to fix other things in the future though.
 
Right: one fixed Macbook pro. last of the disassemble-able/'got all the ports and an optical drive' unibodies, for which i max'd the RAM, shoved a 1TB ssd into it (in fact, did those the day I bought it new...) and incidentally replaced the battery earlier this year - over a 1100 cycles,esp having been caned last 12months so worth it - new one (from iFixit) 20% more capacity than the old!

The inevitable happened and about tablespoon of water got splashed over the keyboard Monday evening, killing the top row and few others at random. I swore a lot - then bought a replacement online.

My Wera precision driver has set more than just paid for itself. There are c.70 little screws holding just the keyboard in place- and to get to that, everything comes out...

IMG_6478_600px.jpg


IMG_6479_600px.jpg


2hrs 15; inc taking time to clean casework inside and out with Servisol/ de-fluff the fan and heatsink - and no screws 'left over'

And it works very nicely - this first post from the same :)
 
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Nice job! Which model is it, mid-2012? Where did you get the battery? I guess mine could do with a fresh one by now!
 


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