why don't phone manufacturers make deliberately phone repairs harder for profit? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: aqarwaen
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2022, 11:50:45 am
content: my question is,why don't phone manufacturers make deliberately phone repairs harder for profit?with this I mean scratching all chip markings.covering all electronic with export and gunk to make repairs even harder.instead regular chip packages manufacturers would start using cob,to make repairs even harder.I wonder why phone manufacturers like Apple,Samsung don't do it so less people would even try reapir their and instead buy new phone.in the end it would mean more profit for phone manufacturers if they taken such measures to prevent devices.

author: Ranayna
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2022, 12:35:29 pm
content: Component level repair on modern phones is virtually not done at all.The chips are highly integrated proprietary components anyway, you will not be able to get legitimate replacements. You may get them used, but the major chips, at least on apple phones, have serial numbers that need to be verified by apple. You cannot just swap a chip and expect the phone to work.So there is no reason to wipe off part numbers. A replacement will not work anyway.And for less integrated stuff wiping off part numbers may delay reverse engineering, but will not stop dedicated attempts.So it would be an additional process step that needs to be paid for that has little benefit.As a manufacturer, you might also want to be able to repair stuff yourself. If you gunk up the phones, replacement is the only option, often way more expensive than module swap for, say, a broken camera.And again, gunk costs moneyFor Apple devices, the replacement modules are fully under control of Apple. For the longest time it was absolutely impossible to get genuine Apple replacement parts. And third party parts are often deliberately crippled, since they fail the DRM security checks. You can now get genuine Apple parts. For a similar price as that repair would cost at an Apple store. So disregarding logistics cost, Apple may make more money on a part than on a repair.And finally, there is still some kind of reputation attached to repairability. That may not be important to many customers, but for some it is important. And there are increasing demands to essentially outlaw deliberate attempts to make repairs more difficult or impossible.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2022, 02:20:55 pm
content: lol factory with no part IDthey did this kind of crap when electricity was new, the government got involved. tons of conspiracies related to power line frequencies, light bulb types and connectors all getting proprietary. they realized its bad for a nation. this equipment being cheap, available and known assists in the functioning of the economy. It also has to do with the public trusting a system.how much of a burden is 50/60 hz and voltage levels in different countries to exports ? those scars run deep

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2022, 03:12:52 pm
content: Quote from: aqarwaen on October 06, 2022, 11:50:45 amWhat planet have you been living on for the past several years?Take two brand new identical phones and swap a part from one phone to the other. The swapped part won't work in the other phone, even though it is the identical genuine part.Your question is wrong. It is not "why don't they?", it is "why do they?", because obviously they do.Scratching chip markings or covering with gunk has no relevance to modern electronics. It was never a sensible idea anyway.

author: Infraviolet
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2022, 02:49:39 pm
content: "how much of a burden is 50/60 hz and voltage levels in different countries to exports ?"Minimal a burden thesedays, because most devices thesedays have a transformer based power supply which can take any plausible voltage or frequency (either by a switch between modes or automatically) which then supplies the low voltages (24/12/5/3.3V) that the device actually uses internally.

author: Alti
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2022, 05:33:05 pm
content: Quote from: Infraviolet on October 09, 2022, 02:49:39 pmA switching converter that operates under wide range of input supply voltages and frequencies is needed. All this input variability incurs additional costs. It might be cheaper to do wide input voltage design than to do a two range switch but it does not mean this comes for free.Also, this trick only applies to low power gear. Above some power you need two dedicated hardware designs.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2022, 05:57:14 pm
content: Not sure I get this thread.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2022, 07:59:36 pm
content: Quote from: Infraviolet on October 09, 2022, 02:49:39 pmyeah because it got standardized when it was already almost too late. read about the history like 1910's. They had every frequency you can imagine and the power company sold you motors n shit that ran on their frequency only!And dude it still sucks if you worked in design you know that it always makes it harder because the voltage level of the parts and stuff. It occupies someones time, even if the methods are well figured out. Resources, regulations, tests, etc. For instance you need a stupid variable frequency inverter in most design labs that do mains just to test it. It raises the barrier to entry.The point is not that its hard, but that its overhead and extra work.Imagine that frequency range was 10-200Hz between 80 to 350V, for regular houses.

author: strawberry
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2022, 09:37:29 pm
content: Quote from: Ranayna on October 06, 2022, 12:35:29 pmpeople do :ceramic capacitors and power circuits and feature controllers

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2022, 09:42:12 pm
content: Quote from: IanB on October 06, 2022, 03:12:52 pmjust to play the devils advocate, it could be argued that that prevents stolen phones becoming a source of hard to get or expensive partscan you do much else with a stolen phone?

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2022, 06:11:00 am
content: Quote from: langwadt on October 09, 2022, 09:42:12 pmThat's an interesting point. Given that a stolen phone can be locked, making it impossible to activate, a stolen phone becomes more or less worthless. I discovered this not long ago, to my own amusement, when I found that even doing a factory reset and attempting to reinstall the OS from scratch would not work without using an appropriate unlock key. Basically, without valid authentication, the phone was bricked.Luckily I was an authorized user and had access to the unlock key, but it was an enlightening discovery.

author: strawberry
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2022, 12:32:23 pm
content: is there statistics 'stolen vs forgot damn key' ?they dont think that demand for this LCD will increase by 15% and need to focus on this modelthey think that they will get some 10USD to buy crack or pay dept (countless stories people sold everything for pennies)

author: antenna
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2022, 08:17:24 pm
content: We need to save the planet! Go Green! Buy an electric car!!!...And make sure you have the latest and greatest $2400 disposable phone so you can sneak in the trash 2 years from now.I guess with how things are going, by 2030, we will probably need the landfill lithium from the phone and auto industry seeping into the groundwater anyhow just to keep people "level". They point at the air and tell us we need to fix it while they pollute everything under it making bank on generating solid/soluble wastes. Removing the right to repair is China's payback for recycling.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2022, 08:57:26 pm
content: Quote from: coppercone2 on October 09, 2022, 07:59:36 pm50 vs. 60 Hz gave Japanese electrical manufacturers an advantage, since roughly half of Japan's territory is on 50 Hz (including Tokyo, thanks to AEG) and the other on 60 Hz (including Osaka, thanks to GE).The Japanese factories I visited always had both power frequencies available for production test.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2022, 09:19:55 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on October 12, 2022, 08:57:26 pmIt surprises me that they haven't merged this by now. Most 50Hz gear will work just fine on 60Hz although the other way around is not always true. These days inexpensive point of use frequency converters are feasible for things like clocks and timers.

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2022, 09:56:19 pm
content: Quote from: antenna on October 12, 2022, 08:17:24 pmthink lithium is worse than lead? there's only about 5kg of lithium in a Tesla battery

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2022, 10:27:07 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on October 12, 2022, 09:19:55 pmThe factories I visited made higher power equipment, where the frequency matters and one needs to verify that the equipment works on the supplied line frequency. There are lots of high-power motors out there in industrial applications that need to be specified for the line frequency. It was my opinion that this gave the Japanese companies an advantage when exporting to both 50 Hz and 60 Hz countries.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 13, 2022, 06:30:13 pm
content: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_frequency#History-london had 10 different operating frequencies before regulationand this are also somewhat relevanthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartelhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_currents