Oversupply of Models in Consumer ELectronics - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: protopapas86
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: September 09, 2012, 03:55:33 pm
content: Dear All,I am trying to find a good book, that can explain, why there is such an oversupply of crappy consumer electronics (and products in general) that address the general public's fashion wants and at the same time such a scarcity in supplying slightly different alternative products that are truly build to last.For example, try buying a mobile phone for the elderly, or any other product, based only on it technical and life-time characteristics.It seems very clear to me that nowadays, its all about fashion and branding, where in the past (at least I have the impression) this was not the case.When did we switch and why? Why do companies value more their marketeers than their engineers? Why do they keep spitting out un-meaningful new products and series, instead of fixing their previous ones and improving their performance and endurance?Best,Andreas

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 09, 2012, 04:14:11 pm
content: They are after 1 thing : MONEY!!! That's all they want now. If they make a product that lasts, the engineers will be in trouble

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 09, 2012, 04:18:12 pm
content: The industry makes more money by selling a piece of crap, then selling another new piece of crap a year or two later, than it would do by selling a better product on day one but then not seeing that customer ever again.

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 09, 2012, 04:27:33 pm
content: Because it's cheap to make stuff, overseas labor is cheap, and governments subsidize fuel costs so shipping is cheap.It all began with the demise of the vacuum tube (or the invention of the transistor). In the US you rarely saw Japanese audio gear (for example) before the 1970's. In the late 1960's more started to appear until, by the mid 70's, the US was awash in Japanese gear. Why? Because it cost a fortune to ship those big, heavy receivers abroad. With the transistor, it wasn't so heavy and cumbersome any more, and it didn't have to be assembled by hand (as most vacuum tube stuff was).Stuff is cheap, and technology evolves quickly. Why build a cell phone to last 10 years when it will be obsolete in two?

author: bullet308
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 09, 2012, 05:16:59 pm
content: If you really want a book on the subject:http://www.amazon.com/Made-Break-Technology-Obsolescence-America/dp/0674025725

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 09, 2012, 05:21:34 pm
content: Bonus points awarded if the book is printed on tissue paper

author: JoannaK
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 09, 2012, 05:34:47 pm
content: Savin paper.. I'd recommend videos from Story of Stuff -project .. Freely available on their site (and youtube...)http://www.storyofstuff.org/Note that I'm in no way affiliated to that project, nor I'd expext them to even know me.. I just happen to like their videos.

author: MikeK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 09, 2012, 06:34:53 pm
content: I smell spam.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 09, 2012, 06:41:24 pm
content: It all comes down to money. We live in a vile world that values money of the worth of a person and moral responsibility. We are a self destructive race and we will destroy ourselves through greed. I don't give this planet more than 100 years at the outside.

author: gxti
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 09, 2012, 07:27:20 pm
content: Lots of cheerful people in here! Well don't you worry, if you're like me your pessimism will eventually collapse in on itself and you'll start feeling hopeful for society because people are too stupid and incompetent to be really malicious. I call it "misanthropic humanism", and seminars are held every second Thursday.Products aren't cheap and disposable because it makes more money, they're cheap and disposable because people keep buying it. The pendulum may well swing the other way if durable goods become popular again. Vote with your wallet and change may come sooner than you think.

author: mariush
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 09, 2012, 08:07:40 pm
content: If you want to get some good info about planned obsolence , this documentary is very good:

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 09, 2012, 08:47:07 pm
content: Quote from: gxti on September 09, 2012, 07:27:20 pmYes and no. Everyone wants to be better than the next man so has to have a newer gadget and the market knows this and uses this. Vote with our wallets ? yes we all do and most of us choose crap that costs more than it's worth and will soon need replacing either because our mate has a better one or it breaks. I always try to buy good long lasting stuff and often stay a step behind with decent second hand stuff. The average human is stupid and the average stupid human does not care for wider society or long term benefit.

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 09, 2012, 10:00:57 pm
content: What a bunch of elitist crap. I grew up in the 1970s in a fairly comfortable middle class house, and one of the things I recall well about that era is that most households did not have air conditioning. We're not talking comfy California here, we're talking muggy Michigan and Mississippi - and even in the middle class, air conditioning was fairly rare. The schools I attended in the 1960s and 1970s were not air conditioned.A fairly good middle of the road hifi amp cost more than 200 bucks and this was a time when a luxury car could be had for five grand and a pretty nice home for 20. A color TV set cost easily a month of an auto worker's salary. Air conditioners cost well into the hundreds of dollars at a time when gas cost less than half a buck a gallon.Now I can buy an air conditioner for less than that hifi amp cost in 1968. I can buy an android pad for less than the hifi amp cost in 1968 and it will replace the tv of 1968 1000 times over. I can buy a freaking 50" HD plasma monitor for less than the first color TV set my parents bought in the late '60s.Meanwhile, the modern equivalent of that luxury car my dad paid 7 grand for in 1973 (a Buick Electra 4 door) would now cost more than our house was worth at the time - but it also has 3 times the horsepower, double (at least) the mileage and is just getting broken in at a hundred thousand miles where the 70's car was ready for trade in at 60K. The Mustang 5.0 I bought in 1987 went over 300 thousand miles - many of them 1/4 mile at a time - before I retired it, and the drivertrain even then was still in perfect condition. So, although the NEW version of that car would cost over 40K new, I can buy a five year old version of it for a fourth of that and it will still last longer than that NEW car of 1973 - like the 2005 Magnum I bought in 2009 with less than 40,000 miles on the odo for less than $11,000.Not everything is cheap crap, only the stuff that is going to be replaced anyway. Even a crappy entry level car is still going to run a hundred thousand miles; you can buy a cheap $300 Kenmore stove or you can buy a $3000 Viking. Cellphones and computers are cheap crap because they're going to be obsolete in just a few years no matter what. Overall, I think we enjoy a pretty good standard of living in spite of "real wages" stagnating or falling over the last two decades, and a large part of that is because of so many things being available at lower cost.

author: GEuser
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 09, 2012, 11:42:43 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on September 09, 2012, 06:41:24 pmYes and lol on the use of the word Moral , it is of my personal opinion that that word is a combined usage of 2 words and over time has transposed to what it is today , they(back then) knew all about it so it's not new ...Moral , More Alms , Alms being a dollar , so the more money one has the more Moral one is and automatically the opposite , 15-20 years imo ...Thanks for the read....

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 10, 2012, 02:34:34 am
content: pop tones your unlikely to ever see a blatant disregard for safety in a entry level car, as when people are investing a few grand in your company you loose business very fast if all your cheapo cars have there brakes leak out in a few months or the motor catastrophically fail within a year,have a look at some of the chinese brands and you will see some of the cheapness is starting to creep in, e.g. greatwall utes have asbestos based parts in the engine bay and cheap wire wrap that is actually very flammable :/ now tell me that is not something being built to a tad too low of a price point :/

author: JonnyBoats
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 10, 2012, 03:08:09 am
content: This is not a new phenomenon. Here is a quote from DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA By ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE published in 1863:"I accost an American sailor, and inquire why the ships of his country are built as to last but for a short time; he answers without hesitation, that the art of navigation is every day making such rapid progress, that the finest vessel would become almost useless if it lasted beyond a few years. In these words, which fell accidently, and on a particular subject, from an uninstructed man, I recognize the general and systematic idea upon which a great people direct all their concerns."

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 10, 2012, 04:36:39 am
content: Of course,"Liberty ships" which were meant to last for a couple of years,were still around 40 years later!

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 10, 2012, 04:43:43 am
content: You know,when I saw "Models" & Electronics" in the heading,I thoughtNiHaoMikewould have brought Tiffany Yep into the conversation by now!

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 10, 2012, 09:13:48 am
content: The real reason that Japanese transistor radios started to appear in the late 60's and early 70's is down to the cold war and the military. The Japanese saw early on that electronics was the way forward even before the war in fact, loosing the war and the peace treaty etc meant that they did not have a large military machine to consume all the expensive electronics so they started on a concerted effort to develop consumer products whereas in the US and UK and of course the USSR the effort was all on the military equipment which sucked up all the available EE's and the manufacturing facility's by the time the west either woke up or had enough EE's or manufacturing base to look to consumer products the battle was already lost to the Japanese and far east, Game over folk's take you eye off the ball and you loose.

author: 8086
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 10, 2012, 10:07:29 am
content: I have a printer that literally told me it had reached it's end of life. A dialog popped up on my PC and the printer refused to print.A firmware hack later and it works just fine again. Ridiculous.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 10, 2012, 11:32:29 am
content: The sort of thing that should be made illegal !

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 10, 2012, 05:44:26 pm
content: Quote from: 8086 on September 10, 2012, 10:07:29 amPlease, name & shame the manufacturer, that's just pathetic. You'd have a strong legal case that the product was defective from day one.

author: 8086
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 10, 2012, 06:09:03 pm
content: Quote from: AndyC_772 on September 10, 2012, 05:44:26 pmI think it was an Epson Stylus C64. (I don't have it anymore)This is the message you get when it decides it's had enough, literally telling you it's reached the end of it's life.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 10, 2012, 06:24:44 pm
content: Ink dump pad is full ( or to be accurate you have poured most of the expensive ink from a few cartridges into it, a lot more than what you put on paper in all cases) and needs to be changed ( you need to have the counter reset and it will work for the same time again without changing the pad, as it is so big that it fills the bottom of the printer, and will absorb almost half a litre of ink in most cases) by an authorised agent who will charge more than the cost of the printer to do so.There is a set of instructions on how to put the printer into a maintenance mode and reset the counter on the Internet......................I still have the cousin of that printer around, mostly because it is so old that the drivers for Win98 were on a disk in the box, and I need the occasional print from this dedicated computer, which will stay 98 till the equipment it is attached to dies.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 10, 2012, 06:54:19 pm
content: Heh. How about a printer that tells you it's dead after 3 years of hardly any prints?Worked great on day 1 but leaked all it's guts out onto the ink dump pad and thus Sean said, god ever knows why they drip like a mad man!

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 10, 2012, 07:24:48 pm
content: Epson Right? The Canon ones are just as bad, and worst of the lot are Lexmark. Good thing is that Lexmark are getting out of the inkjet business. Myself I prefer lasers, HP or Canon ( same printer but different prices for the cartridge depending on the name on the box) as they are slightly more reliable, and are more likely to be supported spares wise.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 10, 2012, 07:44:52 pm
content: Quote from: SeanB on September 10, 2012, 07:24:48 pmCanon. To me that's the worst of the lot.So right now i upgraded once again to a Epson MFP LED, previously 2 canon mfp's inkjets before that a Epson Laser ( all 10kgs of it! )Before that a epson inkjet and before that a canon bubble jet.

author: JamesAus
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 10, 2012, 09:40:43 pm
content: I've worked on pretty much every make and model and type of printer up until 6 or so years ago. Epson definitely made the best inkjets (home & low end commercial) up until about 1999-2000 then the home models became utter shit, just as every other inkjet did. It became a market based purely on price and quick succession of new models, coincidently around the time digital cameras were becoming affordable. Nozzles got smaller to cope with market demand for smaller dot pitch to print those pretty pictures. Hence they blocked more easily, more cleaning cycles required, way more ink wasted. Add to that the endless supply of substandard ink on the market and the whole thing just snowballed really. I can attest to the fact that resetting the ink counter on any Epson or Canon inkjet will double it's waste ink pad "life". I've only ever seen a couple of full waste ink pads and none on cheap shitty printers.As far as laser printers go Canon/HP have been very poorly made (excepting the very high end models) for well over a decade as well and are just as disposable now as the inkjets. OKI are pretty good...although not technically a laser printer since they (did) use an LED array. Kyocera would have to be the pick of the bunch from the small office models up...easily serviced, A-Si drum, proper dual component developer, very cheap to run.As far as high speed / high volume stuff goes, I wont get started on that, there's good and bad about all of them, but they too are definitely a victim of planned obsolescence. They are built for a certain number of pages whether that be 500,000 or up to millions. It's seldom worth keeping them maintained after this point, they simply start to fall apart. There are however a couple of companies in Australia that buy up old machines that are robust and easily maintained and refurbish them to the point of being new machines for developing countries. As a general rule anything after that same point in time (~2000) they are not worth refurbishing and are worth less than the older ones.James

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 11, 2012, 06:21:24 am
content: It annoys me that we have all sorts of "green" policies yet ignore the tragic waste of earths resources in making these products and making them highly disposable by charging more for the cartridges etc than the printers. Same goes in other industries. All that gear that is made and then thrown away, a waste of resources, a waste of fuel shipping it around the world but no doubt they have the governments in their pockets !

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2012, 07:59:17 am
content: Quote from: JamesAus on September 10, 2012, 09:40:43 pmViscous, quick-drying ink adds to that problem. I've read that using diluted, thinner ink can result in fewer clogs, some CIS users do that. At least Epson printheads were(!) made to last, I've recovered a few that were deemed too clogged to be serviceable by boiling them.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 11, 2012, 11:52:02 am
content: Despite warnings I regularly cleaned my old cannon heads with alcohol and often saved them from the bin, that was in the days when you could change the head instead of throw the whole printer.

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2012, 12:42:13 pm
content: I have cleaned Epson print heads with alcohol and water and washed out the waste sump on them, What anoys me is the amount of ink that is thrown away by these machines, they dump close to 80% of the ink and then refuse to print when there is still 10% or more left in the cartridge.

author: jerry507
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2012, 04:45:00 pm
content: Saying "companies make more money making cheap crap" is really lying to ourselves. Companies don't push cheap crap because they like to, they push it because they know we'll buy it and be happy to have done so.Cell phones are the worst. I currently own a iPhone 4 (not a 4s mind you) and I'm very happy with it. It's fast enough, I can still run all the apps and whatever. I don't NEED anything more from it. I'm only a few months away from 2 years with it. Now tomorrow the iPhone 5 is coming out and damn is it hard to NOT want to buy one. Why should I? I don't NEED it. But it's still hard. Android phones are the evolution of this model. Motorola had what, a dozen models a year coming out? That's just one company, look at HTC. And Android lovers and regular consumers eat them up as fast as they come out. They upgrade because their old phone was a heap of cheap poorly designed crap, or because they just want an extra 5mm of screen size.Whatever the reason you want to throw on it, consumers are the ones buying the crap and we're the ones who are responsible for fixing it. It's not businesses or the governments responsibility, it's ours.

author: M. András
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2012, 06:29:32 pm
content: i have a canon "photo printer"5 catrige one, ip4200, it suddenly turned itself off before printing then it never came on. get out the psu unit from it to check if its working, well its giving out 3 different voltage. but thats all i cant measure it while connected to the printer due to a 5cm cable with a fine pitch connector, cannot disasemble the plastic casing of the unit unless i break apart the front, idiotic design, the ps unit had a tamper proof screw recessed in the plastic, soldering iron+ round nose plier took care of it. and due to the casing i cannot check the rest of the unit. it was around 4 years old. the damn thing used up 2 set of catriges for nothing. and died at the 4th set of black catridges. so it wasnt used at all. but thats for sure nothing with soft power switches will stay plugged in from them anymore

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2012, 06:53:29 pm
content: I can think of many cases for enforced 5 or so year warranties on equipment... I reckon it would lead to longer lasting products being cheaper.Many of the TVs I repair only last a few years due to poor design and inadequate components.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2012, 07:13:00 pm
content: Quote from: jerry507 on September 11, 2012, 04:45:00 pmMr Ignored, do you know that your dear iPhone is cheap crap sold expensive? None of my androids when purchased sensibly has been a "cheap crap" and upgrading to a bigger screen is a nice change.Quote from: JamesAus on September 10, 2012, 09:40:43 pmIndeed. I get smart a little bit and try to AVOID all consumer printers. Well my .. epson led printer isn't consumer crap. At least

author: Pentium100
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 12, 2012, 12:00:23 am
content: Quote from: jerry507 on September 11, 2012, 04:45:00 pmUnless that new phone is vastly better than your current one, why would it be so hard to not buy it? I have a Nokie N93, bought just when they came out (about 6 years ago) and I am still using it even though it is starting to fall apart (3G no longer works for example, I will try to get it repaired eventually). This is because I paid a lot of money for it (~720EUR) and currently have not seen a new phone that is a lot better than this (I also hate the touchscreen-only phones - a good phone should have a keypad preferably with big buttons, the number buttons on my N93 are 10mm x 8mm).As for stuff not being built to last - yea, companies think they will make more money this way. I have two tape recorders that were made in the USSR in 1968 and 1974 - it is really obvious that they were trying to build them as cheap as possible - the output amplifier tube is also the bias oscillator (saved one tube, yay), so no sound through the speaker when in record mode. However, the tape recorders were built using thick metal and still work 40 years later.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 12, 2012, 01:12:18 am
content: Back to the opening premise of this thread:Quote from: protopapas86 on September 09, 2012, 03:55:33 pmI just want to mention what was touched upon, but not explored fully: it is because that is what people seem to want!For example, if there are two products in a shop; one is cheap crap that will fail quickly, while one is slightly more expensive but will perform better and last much longer, people will buy the cheap crap every time. Manufacturers quickly learn that well designed products built to last do not sell. Consumers vote with their purchasing decisions and ask for cheap. So cheap is what they get.

author: jerry507
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 12, 2012, 10:01:23 pm
content: Quote from: T4P on September 11, 2012, 07:13:00 pmI realized after reading your response that I mixed two things into one and I shouldn't have. There is a difference between poorly designing something and designing it to be cheap.When you're pushing a dozen models a year out, there is absolutely no incentive to properly design it. This is the biggest fundamental difference between Apple and Google phones (note I didn't say ANDROID phones...) and android phones. Apple and Google release a few models very infrequently, and put a ton of work into each making sure they last and are quality. Android phones in general are obsolete months after buying them. People buy into it though because it has some minor upgrade to the last one and hey, my two year contract is up!People do want cheap, just as IanB stated. That's why subsidized phones are so popular. If they didn't subsidize them, people wouldn't upgrade nearly as often.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 13, 2012, 01:13:15 am
content: Quote from: jerry507 on September 12, 2012, 10:01:23 pmSpeak for yourself, your iPhone goes obsolete a few months after it's released! and who says android phones have no incentive to design it? Unlike your iPhone which always never has any new significant featuresAT ALL. The reason for so many phones is different features! Yay for 3D! Yay for IPS! (unlike retina ... which is shit at lower resolutions) Yay for fantastic 8megpix cameras! These came a few months in betweenEh?Samsung? That's a crap phone. Same with the crap company making it!HTC? No fool, you're wrong! Bloody well built phones that don't break when you drop them! Unlike the S3 or the crApple iPhone! Which is claimed to have gorilla glassLG? Tough little bastards, they keep on working until the batteries die. I always fondly remember them as always being the first to release a phone, well designed feels tough and are actually faster than similar phones. The Optimus 3D for example? Between that and the G2x was a much faster TI proc at the same clockspeed and of course the first glasses-less 3D phone with 3D camera muxingSony? Always a bit late, but have their advantagesMotorola Mobility? I have NEVER known them for quality, so don't expect MUCH at all.Dell? Well, SHIT. What a heap of shit.AND ASUS. The greatest OEMs of all time, but their QC is dropping.You got stupid twice. no thrice. Shouldn't even have replied to your post AT ALL.Plus most of them actually take time and modify the stock UI. Don't like this? Take another. Don't like that? Take another one.It's not like you are stuck to one bloody money-sucker manufacturer who takes massive earnings from your pocket to produce a crap in china with crap batteries and crap screens along with paying crap wagesYou have to know what you are buying and not being a idiot by sticking to a money-sucker manufacturer

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 13, 2012, 01:26:15 am
content: Quote from: IanB on September 12, 2012, 01:12:18 amThe problem is that products selling at a higher price under a well known name,are made by the same people as the cheap ones.I paid around $50 "on special",for a Sunbeam electric kettle (they were normally $75).It lasted about 5 months,& started to leak water where the plastic level indicator windows were not sealed properly to the stainless steel.Just about every comment on these units on the 'Net was a complaint about the same problem.(except for the few Sunbeam "shills" praising it)I took it out of service & bought an "El Cheapo" for $9,which lasted around the same time,but didn't leak--it just stopped working.I replaced that one with a $12 kettle,which is working OK so far.If we have to change these things like fuses,they may as well be cheap "fuses".

author: johnwa
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2012, 08:08:57 am
content: Yes, part of the issue is that paying more does not necessarily get you something more reliable. Even a technologically experienced person cannot always judge the quality and reliability of an item in the shop. The average consumer has no hope at all. Faced with the option of buying the cheap one, which is probably crap, or the expensive one, which might be crap as well, they go for the cheap one.One nice thing about the short product cycles, is that there is an oversupply of used, working units. Things quickly go from "early adopter", to mass market, then onto the second hand market, then finally become worthless rubbish. The result is that I can frequently pick up things for free, or a nominal price, that sold for thousands of dollars five or ten years ago. They mostly still work, and I figure they must be reasonably reliable designs to last that long.

author: redtails
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2012, 09:57:00 am
content: I fortunately can't recognize any of the comments posted here..My widescreen CRT (JVC) is still working after more than 8 years, the 12 year old washing machine (Miele) is doing just fine, I have an 11 year old laptop that still works (compaq), another 6 year old laptop (acer) and a 4 year old laptop (another acer). I have a >25 year old stereo amplifier, CD player and speakers that are still doing fine despite running at the wrong voltages (designed for 220v, now running on the European 230v net), I have a >30 year old wooden LP player that's still doing fine with its original needle.. My highschool handheld calculators from so long ago are all still doing fine (Casio, TI). I have a bunch of thin-clients from the year 2002 that all still work. All my aquarium-gear (water pumps, air pumps, filtration systems, heater, fluorescent lights) are still doing fine after 8 years. My cellphone from 2007 works perfect (it even has gps!). My fluke multimeters from 15 years ago all work fine.. The list goes on and on...All these items in my house convince me that only poorly-designed and badly-handled products will break down after the warranty is gone. I have an EEE-netbook which I take with me every day; the mechanical harddrive failed for this reason (yet all other componens inside are still doing fine after 3 years). TL-tubes that are often flcked on and off will fail before their planned service life is over, or the driving-circuit fails. A while back I had to replace the driving circuit in an often switched-on light. The harddrive of an ipod video I had crashed after I dropped it accidentally, this is to be expected. My previous cellphone was just ridiculously battered because I handled it roughly.Buy the good stuff and they will last. Surely when needs change, you may want to replace a product, but replacing it for any other reason is just nonsense. I replace my notebook not because it's broken, but because I want to use it with newer apps and games. I replaced my tv because of a huge increase in resolution and quality (and the advance of HD-tv and bluray). The only reason you should replace your stereo is for better audio quality or if it's really broken. I could rant on for ages like this. Just don't buy the cheapest crap and you'll be fine.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2012, 12:39:37 pm
content: Too bad every phone people mostly buy (I'm talking about Apple) is cheap crap sold expensive - That's to say jerry got conned into buying something expensive expecting it to be good but it has never been.about 4-5 years ago my family had a JVC 29" 100Hz CRT that looked incredibly fantastic thanks to the 100Hz but that was also the part (I wasn't a EE back then, of course, i was only a kid) that caused us to throw it out! The 100Hz frequency drive broke down a nick after 4 years (It's actually a graphic card of sorts) and a new one costed 500$ (Overpriced!) so what was the point? Got a Full HD Samsung 5 Series LCD (They weren't expensive and nasty yet! But cheap and decent)

author: jsoderquist
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2012, 02:30:02 pm
content: All text and no "model" pictures in this thread gives me a sad-face.

author: jerry507
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2012, 03:56:49 pm
content: Quote from: T4P on September 14, 2012, 12:39:37 pmYou're really just throwing out your personal beliefs and declaring them to be facts. A great example of the garbage you're slinging: I bought expensive crap. News flash: A Galaxy S3 costs exactly the same as an iPhone 5. They're all 200$ on contract unless you're buying a 2nd tier model or an older model. It's hard for my iPhone to be more expensive when it costs the exact same.Phones have a different model than something like a TV. People don't usually go out and buy a new TV when a new model comes out. The cell phone market has carriers and manufacturers that constantly pump out models (HTC has put out 9 models this year) and then make it look like it's cheap to upgrade every 2 years. In reality it's not cheaper, but up front it looks like you're only out 200$. Are most of these phones DEAD after 2 years? Usually not, aside from accidental drops and that sort of thing. People either don't like it, see some incrementally better feature they "need", or have a poorly designed phone with bugs and other annoying problems.Other commodity manufacturers just don't design their stuff to last. Why use overrated electrolytics when you know they'll still last 2-3 years?

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2012, 06:02:58 pm
content: Quote from: redtails on September 14, 2012, 09:57:00 amI really wish that were true, but in my experience it just isn't.My Bosch dishwasher broke down 3 times in as many years with different faults each time. My high-end Asus laptop died with a complete display failure. A Panasonic TV needed repair after 5 years or so because there wasn't enough solder on the components in the tuner (yes, really!!) and the joints had fractured. My Loewe TV needed a new tube (fortunately under warranty) followed by two flyback transformers (once the warranty had expired). And please don't get me started on Subaru engines.I've more or less given up trying to guess what products are likely to actually last and what aren't. There doesn't seem to be much correlation between price and iifetime, and in certain cases I can't help but feel that cheap, high volume products are actually less likely to have problems than expensive products that aren't made in such quantities and don't undergo the same trial-by-customer QA.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2012, 10:42:20 pm
content: Quote from: jerry507 on September 14, 2012, 03:56:49 pmSo you decided to reply : You're wrong. The iPhone 5 costs more then the S3 where i am. And S3 is a known POS to me i already mentioned it.Get a One X and you won't look back! HTC's finest model that doesn't break after a drop and has every single F******* thing you need! Ass...You think your iPhone is great? It's obsolete every time a new model it's released! (Basically speaking) Your iPhone is always 6months late into the gameYou don't even know your phones well and you want to argue that HTC produces expensive crap, fine. Want to compare my Sensation's shock ability versus your Handicapped iPhone?https://www.eevblog.com/forum/general-chat/apple's-disposable-products/msg122264/#msg122264Eh? Who's the evangelist i smell?

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2012, 10:56:14 pm
content: Many people can't tell the difference...

author: ptricks
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 15, 2012, 01:20:22 am
content: I remember when I was with GE and designing a power supply for a TV. Submit the design with parts that it should have to be good quality. Design is denied and when the engineers question them about why, accounting says that it is too costly, "can't you cut some corners, after all the warranty is only 1 year"

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 15, 2012, 01:37:36 am
content: Quote from: ptricks on September 15, 2012, 01:20:22 amYep. Those accounting bastards always ruins our days! And ultimately the consumer ... so the consumer(even some of ourselves) has grown to become buy-and-throw

author: M. András
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 15, 2012, 07:06:52 am
content: Quote from: ptricks on September 15, 2012, 01:20:22 ami would reply them back of course in your paycheck or design it yourself if you want your name on a shitty quality equipment

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 15, 2012, 07:22:43 am
content: Quote from: T4P on September 14, 2012, 10:42:20 pmI don't get this at all. I have an iPhone 3GS, which I bought to make calls, browse the internet, and help me navigate in unfamiliar places. Those are all the things I require it to do. In that respect, nothing has changed in the last couple of years.It did all those things just fine on day one, and it still does.It's a couple of years old, works perfectly, there's barely a mark on it, and the battery holds a good charge.By what possible definition could it be labelled "obsolete"?

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 15, 2012, 07:52:27 am
content: His comment that says "obsolete" in a few monthsQuote from: jerry507 on September 12, 2012, 10:01:23 pmCheck it out, it's hilarious. I was writing in spite of his statement! He is stupid enough not to find out that the different models cater to different users, not one overpriced phone for an entire marketI don't need to say anything if you aren't a evangelist unlike him there's a reason HTC releases 9 models in a year not to obsoletise the earlier released model and every single iPhone user in my town ( who happens to be evangelists ) change iPhones every 1 year, right after their glass is broken!

author: redtails
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2012, 11:27:14 am
content: Quote from: AndyC_772 on September 14, 2012, 06:02:58 pmThat's terrible to hear, man. In an old desktop computer I used to have, I repeatedly had bad caps. I would seriously have a capacitor explode at least once every month. There's nothing a couple of minutes with a soldering iron can't fix, and the new capacitors never failed, though it still felt pretty bad to constantly fix the manufacturers fault. I found it ironic that some of the caps did absolutely nothing for the functioning of the computer. I could just remove them and everything would still work.Sometimes I wish the EU would enforce a longer warranty to protect consumers against the sort of "planned obsolescence" and "planned failure" type of operations described in this thread. As far as I know, the EU currently enforces 2 years warranty (some manufacturers got particularly angry about this, as they only give very short warranties in all other parts of the world). I mean let's say purely hypothetical that the EU gets a 3-year enforced warranty on everything. After 2 years and 11 months it might be difficult to prove the fault was not caused by the consumer, though it's the task of the manufacturer to prove this (it's currently not up to the consumer to prove their "innocence"). I do wish to believe manufacturers would be more careful with BoM selection criteria, manufacturing process, quality-control, etc. Stuff would really last longer. If you mask such a law under "environmentally sound" and "consumer protection", you'd get widespread support despite further increased product costs! (A product that costs $200 in USA will cost €200 in EU, despite the euro being much stronger than the dollar, go figure).From what I'm seeing now, it's mainly lithium-ion batteries, harddrive, sometimes bad caps and a couple other things that cause planned failures. Products without batteries and harddrives usually last longer than a couple of years in my experience, especially if they're non-replaceable batteries (EU also tries to ban this nonsense).

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2012, 12:08:28 pm
content: Meh. I don't understand either.Good caps don't even cost alot more and they prefer to use Samwha or even CapXon caps ...Well what's their reason? they want planned obsolescence so they can earn more money! ... Plus most consumers have grown the habit to buy and when it fails, throw it out of the door or even throwing it out when it's still workingI call them 'idiots' who have too much money on their hands and those who changes a iPhone/Androids every year (They have a serious problem or are evangelists that they think the iPhone's/Samsungs are value-for-money)

author: Pentium100
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2012, 08:20:07 pm
content: Quote from: redtails on September 16, 2012, 11:27:14 amI have a tape deck and some time ago the capacitors started going bad (the Soviets made crap caps in the 80s/90s), I had to contantly replace them until one day I was fed up and replaced all the remaining caps - no problems ever since. So now if I buy a device made in the USSR in the 80s/90s I replace all electrolytic caps in it.Same thing with motherboards - if "CrapCap" brand capacitor blew up, it is wise to replace all "CrapCap" capacitors of that brand, because if you don't, the others will start blowing up too.At least the (good) PC power supply manufacturers use good caps - and even write that on the box as a marketing point.Hard drives and batteries wear out, this is why any competently designed device should have a way of replacing them. After all, a whole lot of parts in a car wear out over time, but they can be replaced. You can't make a spark plug (or a clutch, brake pads, distributor cap) that lasts forever, but you can make them relatively easy to replace when they wear out. This was done with electronics that used tubes - the tubes wore out, but were easy to replace. A battery should be easy to replace too.

author: perfect_disturbance
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2012, 08:36:00 pm
content: Quote from: T4P on September 16, 2012, 12:08:28 pmTo the contrary on almost every major carrier (in my area the only decent ones) in the US $20-30 a month of your bill goes to subsidizing a new phone and if you don't get a new phone every two years (even if you just turn around an sell it while keeping your old one) is like throwing $500 away.

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2012, 08:46:48 pm
content: It's not just bad / cheap equipment that gets capacitor problems.My 'scope is a fairly old Tek 754D, which was state-of-the-art in its day and had a price tag well into 5 figures. Almost every other model in the range uses electrolytic caps throughout the processor and acquisition cards, and they leak corrosive electrolyte after a while which eats through the copper on the PCB. These days there are a lot of faulty scopes around, and the fix is to replace all the capacitors, clean the board thoroughly, then find and repair the broken traces.Fortunately by the time the 700 'D' series came out, towards the end of the range's production run, the electrolytic caps had all been replaced by tantalums, and they're fine - but it took years' worth of production to determine that there was a problem. That's a lot of very expensive ticking time bombs out there.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2012, 09:04:34 pm
content: Consumables are a part of modern electronics, something we have to live with, so anything which is such should be replaceable.I think a fine in such a way for throwing out repairable electronics should be imposed - perhaps encourage more repair work to be done on TVs and such? The amount of LCD/plasma TVs at my local dump that go to scrap (guy said they just crush 'em) with likely very repairable problems is shocking.

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2012, 09:09:02 pm
content: Hang on... a company produces a poor quality product, and the customer ends up having to either pay a technician to investigate a fault or pay a fine to scrap the product? That's just a tax on not being able to afford quality products in the first place.Besides, you can be absolutely certain that no product would ever be dumped with a repairable fault. Everything would accidentally fall out of a top floor window first.

author: Pentium100
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2012, 01:22:47 am
content: I agree, a fine for not repairing a TV would be unenforceable.However, a fine for dumping the TV as regular garbage and a tax on recycling the TV should encourage people to repair them and not letting them fall out of windows (since the tax would be applied whether the TV could be repaired or not).That and fine the manufacturers that use low quality capacitors - the fine should be more than they saved by not buying good caps.

author: pickle9000
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2012, 03:25:11 am
content: I'd rather see a quality rating system, one based on components that a manufacturer didn't have to pay for. That anyone could send a product in and have it rated. That way even if they didn't want to take part it could still be rated. As a manufacturer it would potentially make or kill a product.I guess lawsuits would follow a poor rating.In reality people buy what they want.

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2012, 05:51:16 am
content: Quote from: Pentium100 on September 17, 2012, 01:22:47 amThis is what the WEEE directive was supposed to achieve. Manufacturers of electronic products are indeed obligated to take back products for recycling, free of charge to the customer, each time they supply an equivalent product (eg. recycle the customer's old TV when they sell a new TV). Alternatively they may pay to support a take-back scheme run by a 3rd party recycling company.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2012, 10:01:14 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on September 16, 2012, 09:04:34 pmHang on ... my Samsung LCD TV bought back in 2008 developed a entire screen fault ... i'm not sure what's going to happen next.Quote from: AndyC_772 on September 16, 2012, 09:09:02 pmEven if you buy the much more expensive japanese models they seem to develop a fault just after warranty

author: Pentium100
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2012, 04:36:54 am
content: I was replacing a belt on my LD player and noticed that the player has a switching power supply, but all caps are still working - so it is possible to make electrolytic capacitors (that can be used in a SMPS) that last 20 years or more. Yet for some reason newer capacitors (which by all logic should be better than the 20 year old ones) in a lot of devices fail pretty quickly.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2012, 06:10:56 am
content: I have many devices which have switching power supplies that still work.BBC Micro, my old HP digitising scope (since sold, but it was about 18 years old), several 10 year old VCRs...All still functioning.I think the main problem with poor quality caps surprisingly isn't poor quality. It's -intermittent- quality. I've seen CapXon - by far the worst capacitor manufacturer - fail within 1 year but also within 5 years, with all the others good, and no one else reporting problems with that particular model, etc.

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2012, 06:39:16 am
content: Amid all this doom and gloom, I'd like to say 'thanks' to Monitor Audio for supporting their products above and beyond the call of duty.Earlier this year one of the tweeters in my 12 year old speakers got damaged. MA had a replacement in stock, and I was back up and running within a few days.Last week the other one got damaged too. MA are sending me out a pair of replacements today, and at a pretty good price too. I figured I should probably keep a spare in stock this time!They could easily have said 'sorry, sir, that model has been discontinued for over 10 years', but I was pleasantly surprised.Compare and contrast with Tektronix, who last year quoted me about £4000 to change the CMOS backup battery in my scope, and who have also just quoted me over £2000 to replace one of the knobs on the front panel of another unit. Standard repair charge to chuck out and replace the entire PCB in both cases, apparently.Stuff that, I'm getting a demo from Rigol UK tomorrow.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2012, 03:16:50 pm
content: Andy, a 12V 5W festoon bulb in series with the tweeter wires does wonders..........

author: jerry507
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2012, 04:07:07 pm
content: Quote from: T4P on September 15, 2012, 07:52:27 amIt's comments like this that sort of automatically throw you into the "evangelist" category. Calling people stupid because they buy something that caters to their desires? Sounds a lot like the behavior you attribute to those fanboys...They're releasing 9 models a year to keep selling phones. You're absolutely right, they're appealing to different people. The more iterations you have, the more people you can hit who are coming up on their two year mark. They're not going to upgrade from one HTC phone to another if it's just trading one thing for another. It's got to have a different screen tech, slightly bigger (have you seen these tablet phones they're making these days? sheesh) or some little thing to entice people to switch. After all, they're subsidizing the phone so you're wasting money if you don't switch!Not that Apple doesn't do the same thing, they just do it at a different pace. I'm perfectly willing to apply the same thought process to both (unlike you who thinks that Android phones are Gods gift to the planet and iPhones are satans same gift).As far as capacitors go, they simply don't properly rate them to last. Capacitors are very expensive and rating them properly just makes them even more expensive. So they either use poor quality and have QC issues or underrate them and have long term issues. Those are the two basic tradeoffs they make to save money.

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2012, 05:40:57 pm
content: Quote from: SeanB on September 18, 2012, 03:16:50 pmNot if the problem is a clumsy cat kicking the tweeter as it tries to jump from a table onto the top of the speaker cabinet!

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2012, 05:48:45 pm
content: Covers for the tweeters or a new cat...............

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2012, 06:33:56 pm
content: Quote from: jerry507 on September 18, 2012, 04:07:07 pmAnd entice every evanglist to buy their overpriced POS that isn't anywhere durable? The evanglist speech is coming from this mouth of yours.Right i forgot you're a software engineer to caught up in his own world that he refuses to see that HTC does things right. Does my phone break on impact? Nope.Was my phone more expensive than the iPhone at the time of release? Nope. Is it better than the iPhone 4S? (the 4S came AFTER) Definitely.Wanna fight my 1.2GHz Snapdragon S3 to a duel? and my gorilla glass?How about actually meeting the needs of customers huh? People want to buy a phone, they don't want to buy the most overpriced POS but unfortunately they are all like you! Too stupid to look elsewhere.

author: gregariz
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2012, 07:55:17 pm
content: Quote from: AndyC_772 on September 17, 2012, 05:51:16 amThere I was thinking that we throw all our working and non working old crap into containers and "sell" it to west africa as "used" equipment.

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2012, 08:31:43 pm
content: You must have seen the same documentary as I did, then... guys in Lagos burning the insulation off copper cables at night, because it's illegal to produce toxic, choking clouds of smoke during the day

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 19, 2012, 03:37:35 pm
content: Illegal hare, but not exactly enforced. Every scrapyard has a burn zone near it where this " conversion" occurs. The less than legal ones take burnt copper ( stolen cable) while I only deal with those that do not do so.

author: redtails
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 22, 2012, 12:56:02 pm
content: I never understood copper dealers accepting wire that's obviously been stolen, just for a couple of bucks per kilogram of profit.Where I live, the overhead train wires (yes, the LIVE wires) sometimes get stolen, scrapped and sold to the nearest metal dealer. A couple years back, there was also a surge of bronze statues being stolen. Which metal dealer is crazy enough to convert such things into raw materials? It sounds like the filthiest way of making money, everI can also back up the concept of long-lasting capacitors. Many of my older gear (>15 years, some of it >25 years) has never been serviced or have their capacitors replaced. In the past, the capacities were a lot lower, that might be a strongly influencing factor. I also noticed the margins for error have been a lot lower the past couple of years: 6.3v caps for 5v applications, 16v caps for 12v applications.. In the past I'd see them using 16v caps for 5 and 25v or 35v caps for 12v. If space allows it, I use higher values than is theoretically required all the time. I mean no wonder a 6.3v cap explodes on a 5v rail; the filthy switching-psu only needs to hick-up a couple of times for those things to bang. I'd love to see a big international scientific study about the longevity of capacitors; it's a major environmental factor after all. I'm willing to bet money on it that a majority of chucked out devices have exploded or otherwise damaged capacitors. The longevity of capacitors is probably correlated to the longevity of many products.I'm glad manufacturers still use through-hole capacitors, though. SMD electrolytics are so difficult to replace.Edit: a quick look on sciencedirect reveals tons of previous electrolytic-capacitor failure studies conducted from as early as the 60s (and probably earlier). Interesting reads are "Failure analysis of composite dielectric of power capacitors used in distribution systems" by Farag et al, "Thin films in electrolytic capacitors"by Jackson and Campbell and there's even an entire scientific journal called "Electronics reliability & Microminiaturization", though my uni doesn't have a subscription to that one I'm afraid. I'm not an EE, so I'm not sure if these sorts of journals get peer-reviewed or not, and what sort of conditions must be met before the articles are published.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 22, 2012, 01:39:22 pm
content: You never met Sony, they tend to use them at the limits, so you find a capacitor rated at 3V used on a 3.3V rail, and many times they have been forced to recall entire production lines or repair them for free as the caps fail. I have a very nice Sony radio I got for free, as the speaker does not work ( common fault) and someday will take the 3 hours to strip it down ( got the detailed instructions as well online) and replace the 5 faulty caps. In the interim I use headphones.......

author: M. András
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 22, 2012, 04:17:16 pm
content: now if you mention again sony i wonder what the hell causes the brand new tv smps to whine while in standby and the logitech speakers in standby and every other smps at night. im very sensitive for higher pitch noises, but that smps in the tv i doubt it works in the auidible region most likely over mhz range. when it starts at first there is a slight whine from them, then its getting louder then stops and starts again and this goes for around 3-5 hours every night voltage seems in range every time peaks on the multimeter within the dayly numbers other than this i cant measure anything i would like to hook up a power analyzer for a day to see what the hell causes this

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 23, 2012, 05:22:29 am
content: Simple, that is the SMPS rapidly switching on and off ( runs then stops running as the output is over the set voltage) in no load region.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 23, 2012, 06:00:18 am
content: Quote from: SeanB on September 22, 2012, 01:39:22 pmYeah,Sony used to be an Engineering based company,when their equipment was well made & reliable.Nowadays,it's like everybody else,run by "suits".When I worked at the TV studio,we just kept refurbishing the Sony Broadcast stuff,as you couldn't kill it .Some of the Picture monitors were 15 years old & the picture was getting a bit bad.A new tube,(or when times were tough,a re gunned tube),replace the Electrolytics, set up the convergence,etc,& you were good for another 10,at least!They definitely had their moments,though,like when a 5 year old BVM1410,decided to get upset because the factory had swapped over the 240V & 120V degaussing thermistors.Bang! & a fireworks smell.I swapped the correct thermistor to where it should have been,& away it went.That one must have been cursed,as a couple of years later,the Switchmode went bang in a big way,burning holes in the board,so I had to rebuild the thing,gluing bits of board in with epoxy,using different components,etc.Away it went,back into service again!I think the first thing Sony did when a new EE started work,was to get him to design a switchmode power supply!Just about every model I saw had a different design,whereas Sanyo supplies were all alike.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 23, 2012, 07:48:29 am
content: Sony gear is usually decently well designed; usually good brand caps, and so forth. But, they are an evil company, as said above, run by suits, plus they are losing money, well duh, you can't sell a 40" LCD TV at £700 and expect to make many sales.Older and more expensive newer Panasonic plasmas/LCDs, and high end Toshiba, Sharp and JVC LCDs are usually made with good caps. However, the lower end Panasonics now come with crappy Aishi caps. I've pulled a few from CFLs and don't trust 'em. The newer Toshiba, Sharp and JVC smaller screen LCDs (<=46") are usually built by Vestel or UMC, so have very poor build quality (same company that makes budget "supermarket" TVs etc.)It's rarely voltage that kills caps. You can run most 16V caps at around 18-20V with no problem; they have a surge margin. I have pulled apart an old Sony clock radio - a budget model, by any means - and found it to be full of Elna caps. Nice quality there. What kills caps is a combination of poor manufacture/chemistry and high ripple current in lower-cost SMPS designs.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 23, 2012, 08:57:41 am
content: Quote from: SeanB on September 23, 2012, 05:22:29 amThey could fit a bigger minimum load resistor, but that probably draws too much power to please the "green" people.Except that there's nothing greener than a hard off power switch:zeroconsumption when off!

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 23, 2012, 09:13:56 am
content: Sony repair kits for certain TV models ( when they actually did supply a kit to replace those horrible GTO thyristors that they loved in the original Trinitrons) actually did in some cases come with a small PCB, either you cut out the original section if burnt to a crisp, or just soldered in a few wire links and stood the board on top of the original after removing all parts in the area and cutting the traces. There were many unofficial mod kits for those TV sets, some much better than the Sony kit, some worse. Many were to replace the really unreliable tuning board with a set of presets and a more stable 33v supply.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 23, 2012, 09:34:25 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on September 23, 2012, 07:48:29 amThanks for clarifying tom, my 46" new Sharp is on the high-end market and i don't see any signs of poor qualityQuote from: amyk on September 23, 2012, 08:57:41 amCareful there! I once read somewhere here that cheap crap TV PSUs can't withstand more than 2-3 inrush currents a day

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 23, 2012, 10:13:13 am
content: You can tell a Vestel because the input panel looks like one of these.I think there's one for Vestel's thin LED sets but I haven't found it yet.Also Sharp at least have some pride, they usually don't stick Aquos on their cheap rubbish Vestel re-badge jobs. Toshiba will happily use Regza however.Inrush current - I don't think it's that bad. There's probably a set number of times the thermistor can withstand it but it's going to be better than 2-3 times a day. The newer Vestel don't use inrush thermistors - of course that would cost too much. I wonder how long the bridge recitifer, PFC diode, and bulk cap will last, and also the contacts on the side on/off switch.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 23, 2012, 11:13:21 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on September 23, 2012, 10:13:13 amI doubt the cheap ones will have thermistors at all ( well like you said "expensive") and yeah the back panel is protruding

author: M. András
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 23, 2012, 02:57:09 pm
content: thats a big monitor thats for sure

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 23, 2012, 03:25:26 pm
content: PTC thermistors are used in the LED traffic signals. They have to cope with the flashing mode the signal have, either in fault or as a flashing signal. Not going to worry most thermistors i have met. The regular power cycling from you turning it off at the wall will quickly kill the input bridge rectifier, as most are just barely adequate for the permanently on condition, so are much more likely to fail than the PTC. Only time i managed to kill a PTC on mains was when I accidentally connected it across the power rails with a 30A breaker.... Smoke ands a pop as it broke in 2 parts, oops and use the VDR and replace it with another of the pack of 5 from RS.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 23, 2012, 03:56:48 pm
content: It should be an NTC. A PTC would drop out of circuit after warming up, like for a degaussing coil, but an NTC needs to appear like a short circuit after hitting the right temperature.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 23, 2012, 04:10:57 pm
content: Sorry, brain on holiday, it is a NTC device......... Was thinking of the PTC fuse replacements that often are abused in mains applications .......