Viewsonic monitors

On Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:44:10 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, clare at snyder dot ontario dot canada quickly quoth:

Suckage on the monitors, eh?

I'm running an Acer now and it's the best comp I've had in a long while. It's whisper quiet, the fan coming on only for heavy graphic or processor work. I really, really love that. I need to add more memory, though. I ended up buying a Viewsonic VA1912wb to go with it because the Acer monitor had twice the pixel latency time and was not well received.

-- Learn to value yourself, which means: to fight for your happiness. -- Ayn Rand

Reply to
Larry Jaques
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all that old stuff was made to last and be fixable. That's not the case with modern electronics.

Reply to
Cydrome Leader

Reminds me of what I heard a preacher say, "You can *still* buy four gallons of gasoline for a dollar, just like you could in the fifties." The difference is in the dollar - not the price of gasoline. In the fifties we had *silver* dollars and today a

*silver* dollar will still get you four gallons of gas.

Not only is someone stealing the silver out of our currency. They are removing the nickel from the "nickels" and the copper from the pennies. If we still had half cents they'd be stealing something out of them! :-(

Al

Reply to
Al Patrick

I believe that is an unintended consequence of Surface Mount Technology, specifically thermal stress cracking. I've worked on the R&D side of electronic development and seen the shift from thru-hole to SMT up close (literally & figuratively). In the lab a good tech can replace almost any part with an iron or hot-air machine. But prototypes don't suffer from environmental stresses like production units, and temperature cycling a single hand-made example doesn't predict the failure rate of 10,000 repaired units. I didn't hear the dictum that consumer-grade SMT boards were to be considered unrepairable until they had been out for several years. Higher-value assemblies such as the medical battery packs I worked on recently are still repaired.

Old stuff has the problem of parts availability. Often they only stock an later model's equivalent part which isn't quite an exact replacement. I am slowly becoming the parts maker for the old washing machine and lawn mower.

Jim Wilkins

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

Agreed - its a known problem, if designed PROPERLY it can be avoided - as you say, heart pacemakers dont fail after 3 years (with monotonous regularity)

. I've worked on the

I havent - as a working tech, I don't see them till they fail - strangely enough, at about the 3 year mark - a 3 year warranty is a good marketing tool as the probability is there will be minimal claims because thats how long it will last anyway. And they keep on making the same old design "errors" after, what, 50 years of solid sate - cheap flexi bendable PCB's, low grade electrolytics (with known failure curves) heat generating components with inadequate heatsinking, even to the point of making the pads they connect to too small...this ain't Rocket Science, its a way to make a cheap product with a guaranteed short lifespan....(I think its called Stress Engineering...)

In the lab a good tech can

They don't need to - they know, from engineering knowledge, how long it will last. Automated production machinery wil take care of the tolerances involved and make a "perfect" product...

I didn't hear the

True - but there has been an after market, second or even third supplier sourcing of spares for yonks - this is getting worse, I will concede, due the decreasing model life of new consumer products, which, strangely enough, are different inside from the previous model....

Often they only stock an later model's equivalent part which isn't quite an exact

Funny that - oh, and BTW - when they can charge you more than the cost of the appliance for a spare part, they can say they have honoured there spares supply obligation......like, say, the $10 fusible resistor....and as for custom VLSI ic's - pick a number, any number, bang a few zeros in there, and add exorbitant shipping and handling to it...

I am slowly becoming the parts maker for the old washing

Good On Ya - thats what RCM should be, and is, all about - to develop the skills to do this stuff ourselves...its "not economical" but we do it for the sheer joy of beating the system.

Maybe its an age thing, but it rankles with me that perfectly good gear has to be thrown out because a 10c part is No Longer available - thats why I got into metalworking, so I could make the 10c part.... (its turned into another bloody obsession, which I dont need, but what the hell...)

Regards,

Andrew VK3BFA.

Reply to
vk3bfa

Are *silver* dollars realy worth aprox $16. now?? I guess maybe I should look up the ones I got in change back in the 50s out west on vacation (lived in PA) and kept for the novelty then. I suppose some of them may be sort of rare and worth more. :-) ...lew...

Reply to
Lew Hartswick

I've been out of the loop for several years already, but...

Motorola's new radio equipment all had to be shipped back to the factory for the first several months. They simply wouldn't release service info (we were an authorized Motorola Service Center) nor any parts for them. They wanted to see every failure at the factory to determine what was failing and why (so the story went).

When they did finally release service info, many small parts couldn't be had, only assemblies. Many times the schematics were only block diagrams of these module/assemblies. Parts pricing was such that it wasn't worth fixing a lot of the time.

I don't think Motorola was doing anything much different than everyone else and I sure things haven't changed much since I got out (shrug).

If you can't get service info (schematics, operation explained) and parts, it isn't worth fixing...

Reply to
Leon Fisk

I've always heard it called "planned obsolescence".

Reply to
Leon Fisk

On Thu, 14 Aug 2008 08:02:07 -0600, with neither quill nor qualm, Lew Hartswick quickly quoth:

I wonder if I can turn in my Silver Certificates for silver dollars...

-- Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don't fight them. Just find a different way to stand. -- Oprah Winfrey

Reply to
Larry Jaques

On Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:00:12 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, Leon Fisk quickly quoth:

Ditto. I went through Coleman College's Computer Electronics Technology course back in '88 and worked as a test tech for an electronics company until '91. We were taught to test to the component level and replace said components both at school and at Palomar Technology. I was just getting a grasp on electronics when they were bought by SKF. I had a chance to bail rather than working for a big corporation (and all the bullshit that comes along with it, including a couple hour commute to Sandy Eggo daily) so I took it. After starting my own company and troubleshooting hardware for several years, I discovered the fun of software troubleshooting and training. After I built my first website, I found that even -more- fun and that became the focus of my company. The t-shirts and glare guards came later, during times of boredom.

To make a short story longer, I got out of electronics in 1991-92, shortly after getting in.

On one hand, I can see why they wanted to do that. On the other, since you're authorized, why should they want to do all the work? Strange.

Suckage. My friend Bob works as a tech for Hobart (no, their foodservice division) and has to go with assemblies most often, even if he knows which particular component failed. Companies who charge $100/hr+ find it cheaper for their clients to replace assemblies. (They wouldn't lie to him, would they? ;)

I'm sure it has only gotten worse.

Too often true! The smaller the pieces, the harder it is to get the magic smoke back inside.

-- Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don't fight them. Just find a different way to stand. -- Oprah Winfrey

Reply to
Larry Jaques

That's why the Myford's in the corner of the garage. Don't need to make many "unavailable" parts to make a $1500 lathe a bargain.

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Reply to
clare at snyder dot ontario do

Pacemakers operate at a constant temperature until they are no longer needed... The gear in the ambulance certainly doesn't, I've examined the internal data logs of field returns. It's real obvious when the thing was left out overnight in Toronto or all day in Phoenix. (They took it well, BTW)

Critical equipment is tested in burn-in chambers. I built them for the auto and electronics industries back in the 70's. GM parts were cycled rapidly between -25C and +125C while operating. They had CO2 plumbing all over the factory for their temperature-shock chambers. Condensation makes high volume cold testing for commercial-grade products difficult.

There isn't any one THEY behind this. What you describe is a compromise between conflicting requirements. The PCB designer picks a library of component decals that may fit someone's idea of a solution to his particular problems rather than industry 'standards'. Whoever bought that library probably hadn't test-driven it. Very likely the pads were sized for packing density and manufacturability on a certain brand of pick-and-place machine. People solve their own problems first. For prototypes I generally extend the pads half a millimeter in one direction so I can hand-solder a replacement without overheating the chip.

Thermal calculations are handed off to an ME who is too busy to care. They are really quite hard because of all the uncertainty, especially flatness and surface finish. If the heatsink is adequate someone will object to the cost and size. You can design for a Belleville washer properly torqued, then see a flat washer overtightened with an air tool later on the production line. Dilbert isn't fiction.

There aren't enough capable and willing engineers to complete the boring end of the design process. They move or are pushed on to the next project while co-ops or lab techs manage the details. From what I've seen, the board designer at a contract house almost never understands the circuit well enough to get the subtle details right and they are under too much pressure to finish it yesterday even if they did.

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I try to buy either older, repairable expensive equipment or cheap, disposable new stuff, like a $30 DVD player. That's difficult with cars but my welding machines all have large transformers and fairly simple schematics. My machine tools don't even have DROs.

Custom VLSI chips are probably a good part of why electronics are disposable. They are a real pain even at the factory. Most of the board's logic is hidden, you don't have the internal schematic or source code and the programmer quit years ago. I've designed a couple myself and a year later couldn't easily reconstruct how they worked. What's the point of troubleshooting a bad $4 chip anyway? The repair paperwork time costs more than shipping a new board.

I know how I do and don't use the thing and make a simple functional replacement rather than a full copy of a molded part. It isn't as pretty and may need greasing or tightening or replacement more often than the original. For example, I build up car starter contacts with brazing rod. The brass might last only 40,000 miles but it's easy to do over. The washing machine now has a plug to add transmission oil so I don't have to pull the agitator, and a slinger cup on the bottom where the oil leaks out, to keep it off the belt. The reel lawn mower sits on tires from cheap replacement wheels turned down to fit its hubs (messy!). The ball bearings from those wheels are part of my sawmill, the metal hubs are baseplates for a hoist.

Someone else's loss is our gain. Yesterday I acquired a free pool pump motor that doesn't always start. I showed him where to whack it to shift the armature but he wants it to run on the timer.

Jim Wilkins

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

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$1000 bags = $9414.40 right now and prices are way down. Now is the time to buy because in a few weeks the metals will probably take off again and silver will be possibly go to $20 or more per troy oz.

"spot" is supposedly $12.80 right now, but the same folks showing that are asking about $15.80 per oz. for less than 20 oz and you still have shipping to pay.

Check gas prices in your area and multiply for four. You'll not be far off from what APMEX is asking for an oz of silver.

Al

Reply to
Al Patrick

Back in the 90s I used a lot of them. Not as nice as my NEC multisyncs but a solid monitor for a decent price. Glad they still are in business.

Wes

Reply to
Wes

I'm running a bottom feeding Optiquest now. Bought it cheap when my economy priced NEC crt died. Latency, leared all about it trying to view a movie. Still, 19" 155 bucks back in 2006. I'm still happy with it. Getting things dialed in switching from CRT to LCD as a pita though.

WEs

-- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

Reply to
Wes

One of the happiest days in my working life was when I got the magic part number for a fanuc robotics manual that had board level diagrams. Due to the solid construction of the old RF series controls, I never got to put the manual to use before the firm I was working at closed but having it on the shelf was a comfort.

Wes

-- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

Reply to
Wes

I converse with people running older cnc controls. Not cutting edge, pardon the pun, but for the most part maintainable and still productive. Outside of sources that recycle components, getting a replacement chip that is likely VLSI for the newest stuff in the out years will make a make a lot of the most modern marvels scrap when some special chip isn't available unless you want to refit a newer control to it.

Wes

-- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

Reply to
Wes

Palm M10x had this problem, Phillips dvd players also. Been there, r and r'd the capacitor(s). Seems to be an recurring issue with China. Bad product, does anyone know if WTO rules allow banning products from countries with poor QA?

Wes

-- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

Reply to
Wes

The latest series of coffee brewers don't seem to last much longer than 18 months. No matter what US sounding name is on the box, china is on the back somewhere.

Is the same thing happening to you on your side of the Pond?

Wes

-- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

Reply to
Wes

How does ROHS (may have got that acronym wrong) figure into this? Lead/Tin seems to be the optimum for soldering and the lead free seems like something no one would embrace unless forced to do so.

Wes

-- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

Reply to
Wes

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