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Right To Repair

I have to admit I've not read all the comments so please excuse me if I repeat anything someone may have written.

The right to repair should not even be up for debate.

If I buy something and it runs out of warranty I will fix it myself, or try to.

I own it, I can do what I like with it. If I can't fix it I will either replace it or get it repaired.

What big tech companies are doing is adding features to products that are directly tied to the operation of that product when they have no need to be.

e.g. Making it impossible for a third party (me, my phone) to take a battery out and replace it with a new one from the original manufacturer.

I recommend everyone buys their future 'tech' from Toys-R-Us next time if you wish to avoid that sort of nonsense, at least they allow you to change the batteries in your item from time to time.
 
Jamie said:
What peeves me a bit is electric rechargeable toothbrushes. After a few years, they fail to hold charge, so you have to buy a new one, with another charger you don't need.

Surely it is not beyond the wit of man to design one with a screw base to be able to replace batteries? Slight complication from the charging coil in the bottom, but some spring contacts and a single start thread should sort it? An O ring in the base to waterproof. Job done?
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Braun will replace failing batteries for toothbrushes and shavers. At a price; unless you can convince them that it's still under warranty...;)
 
MikeMA said:
A "right to repair" victory for me today!

My kitchen TV - an 8 year old 20" LED Linsar - died suddenly on Friday. Given its age I was resigned to chucking it out and buying a new one, but couldn't see any I liked locally, or on the internet, so rang a local repair bloke. He diagnosed the problem over the phone - correctly as it turned out - as a dead power supply and said he'd pop round at 10:30 Sunday morning and fix it for £30, and he just did! Four replacement diodes and I have my telly back working :).

Anyone in the Hastings/East Sussex area need a TV repair man just google "1066 TV Solutions" and call Mike!

I guess the moral of this story is that there are still people out there who can fix stuff, and without it costing an arm and a leg.
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Thanks for posting .. it gives hope
 
I've just discovered there's a Repair Cafe started up near me, so have volunteered my services, been looking for something like this to volunteer at, quite excited!
 
Brian Ellis said:
This is a prime example of obscene wastefulness, there should absolutely be a way to replace the battery's in most rechargeable devices.
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Most electric toothbrushes are designed to enable battery removal for recycling. This often allows for repair. The Philips Sonicare ones can be opened without damage with a little care and batteries can be swapped. Not trivial but it is possible (and does require soldering). I've got one from around 2015 that's had a replacement seal and a new battery using parts from eBay that's in daily use.
 
dan m said:
I Tried Apple’s Self-Repair Program With My iPhone. Disaster Ensued.


https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/25/...gram-iphone.html?referringSource=articleShare

Subscription required I suspect. Seems to be a political move by apple to provide the self repair option.
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Two things.

1] Don't subscribe to the NY Times unless you're really committed. Trying to leave the Church of Scientology is a simpler and less traumatising process than cancelling a subscription to the NYT.

2] A response to the article: https://daringfireball.net/2022/05/grave_insult
 
Great news, as a retired A/V service techie, seeing the throw away society it had become caused me to be seriously depressed, landfill, what a f'in waste of land.

Costs will rise for audio and video units, white goods and domestic appliances but will be made more reliable to gain respect and reputation.

Spare parts will also be better quality, I hope.
 
My son's calculator has given up the ghost. Only about 3 years old, Casio FX 85GT X. Tried a new LR44 battery, no luck. Took the back off. The PCB is fixed by pillars coming through the board, which are then "mushroomed" by some sort of heat process. So not easy to get into. Ordered an identical replacement (it's the "standard" school one), but in the meantime, I have got out my trusty FX-350 from 1981 that I got during my HND at Newcastle Poly for him. Still works fine for a 41 year old machine! On-off switch is slightly dicky, but should not take much to sort. It's so old, it has Made in Japan on the back.

I might take his old one apart when I have a bit more spare time....
 
I’ve got a mid-70s Sinclair Oxford 100 that still works! It has a crazy divide by zero bug where it just gets stuck in an infinite loop, but that’s just what they all do. My main calculator for totalling up orders etc is a lovely 1980 Toshiba BC-1270 desk calculator, and again that works perfectly too. I guess I should recap it for the hell of it given it is over 40 years old, but it seems absolutely fine. Nice bright and clear green VFD display.
 
Lenovo has computers that are "TCO certified" (Total Cost of Ownership) in other words TCO = purchase price plus maintenance costs minus resell price. This means they are repairable and do not cost as much over the time you own it. And if you look hard enough you can find the service manuals on their website. Must be a leftover from when IBM owned the PC division before selling it to Lenovo.
 
As I understand it you can’t really generalise Lenovo as the business class machines (T and P ranges) are very good indeed but the lower consumer ranges nothing special. There is certainly a good repairability aspect to the business ranges and I understand the brand have certainly retained some of the IBM ethos here. To be honest if I wasn’t stuck in the Apple ecosystem I’d run a Framework, Lenovo business-grade, or Panasonic Toughbook. Nothing else gets close as far as I’m aware. None are cheap, but they are still very competitive with Apple from every perspective aside from RtR where they clearly win.

As an ex-IT manager I always think in TCO terms which is one reason I buy Apple as I know I’ll get at least 6 years if I don’t do anything stupid (guaranteed by statutory consumer law which Apple accept without issue) and Apple kit is always supported at current OS for that length or longer (unlike say Android phones etc). It also holds its value surprisingly well if kept in mint condition, which I tend to have no problem doing. I’m currently way over that with my mid-2012 MBP which has to be getting on for its tenth birthday now. It has been an amazing computer, though it is likely getting towards time to retire it as it is long-orphaned from the current OS version etc (I’m running Mohave as I don’t like Catalina, and it can’t go any further!).
 
Tony L said:
As I understand it you can’t really generalise Lenovo as the business class machines (T and P ranges) are very good indeed but the lower consumer ranges nothing special. There is certainly a good repairability aspect to the business ranges and I understand the brand have certainly retained some of the IBM ethos here. To be honest if I wasn’t stuck in the Apple ecosystem I’d run a Framework, Lenovo business-grade, or Panasonic Toughbook. Nothing else gets close as far as I’m aware. None are cheap, but they are still very competitive with Apple from every perspective aside from RtR where they clearly win.

As an ex-IT manager I always think in TCO terms which is one reason I buy Apple as I know I’ll get at least 6 years if I don’t do anything stupid (guaranteed by statutory consumer law which Apple accept without issue) and Apple kit is always supported at current OS for that length or longer (unlike say Android phones etc). It also holds its value surprisingly well if kept in mint condition, which I tend to have no problem doing. I’m currently way over that with my mid-2012 MBP which has to be getting on for its tenth birthday now. It has been an amazing computer, though it is likely getting towards time to retire it as it is long-orphaned from the current OS version etc (I’m running Mohave as I don’t like Catalina, and it can’t go any further!).
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Hi Tony - I was not 100% clear: I was referring to the business line of computers that Lenovo has. I'm impressed with their Yoga Thinkpad. After I'de the A31 and T61 I moved to Apple Mac Mini with their Intel CPU's and ran windows on those (I've got one application that needs to run on Windows, never found something equivalent for OSX). But when Apple started to use security torq screws in the bottom and non-replaceable / upgradeable memory I moved away from Apple. Had a HP business laptop before trying a Yoga Thinkpad.

FWIW Before my health collapsed I was an IT director / senior system & datawarehouse architect and had a lot of staff.
 
I have just brought back to life a friend's old Pioneer SX400-L tuner/amp - it must be old as the only inputs are phono & tape! Intermittent off on one channel, controls very crackly. Turned out it just needed a spray of contact cleaner in the right places and it is back to full function. For testing I was feeding it a signal from my Chord transport/DAC which was perhaps overkill.:rolleyes: The lady owner is chuffed to bits.
 
My Denon DBT-3313 Blu-ray player packed up after 2.5years just out of warranty. I was so annoyed I pulled out the power supply myself and checked the output voltages against a service manual I found online. Surprisingly it was straight forward to troubleshoot as the procedure was well documented. After finding myself at the point the manual,said ‘Replace power supply board’ I ordered one from Spares2Repair. Turned up after 5 weeks and once installed the player was fixed. I surprise myself sometimes :)
 
Many DVD players were made with power switches that operated the power supply output, so the PSU was on all the time. The result is worn out electrolytics after a few years
 
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