Repairing Electronics: A circular economy solution
nextbillion.net
nextbillion.net
I'm well aware that if you air dropped me into a third world village I wouldn't have very much to offer the locals as a dev, but I'd imagine even a small town would appreciate a tinkerer that can fix things, and there's something deeply rewarding in fixing broken things.
Out of all that, the only thing I’m getting repaired is my PS5 for $230 by Sony. Everything else really isn’t worth the $65 bench fee from the local repair shop except for maybe my receiver and that I’m replacing because I was never very happy with it.
I don’t think the economics of life in the US make sense for repairing inexpensive electronics.
I'm one of those friends for many people :) In the last month alone I've fixed several devices. Some of which sex toys which caused great amusement of my makerspace friends - I have some kinky friends :P I already have a job so I just do it for fun, and it is actually quite fun. Every device is another little puzzle.
Some I couldn't repair because they were simply too horribly built though. There was one electrified whip that was dropped once and the paper-thin PCB broke and 3 internal components snapped too, one of which (transformer) had wiring so thin it was like a hair. The whole BOM was a couple dollars at most, and it was sold for almost a hundred. That stuff is really not worth fixing. I feel bad for the engineers being forced to design something that crap. Nobody does that willingly.
But on quality electronics my fix rate is pretty high. Very very often it's simply a worn out electrolytic cap. Even Samsung puts ones with too low a temp rating in 4000+ euro display screens. It's ridiculous. Seriously, caps, connectors "secured" to the board by only the solder joints, sometimes some onboard fuses. Easily make up 50% of electronics failures. It's not rocket science.
Mechanical stuff fails a lot too, often in ways that are clearly designed to fail. Buttons pressing on a stem that's so thin it's clearly designed not to last. I often design and 3D print replacements that will last forever.
In the last month, I've repaired a couple of lighting systems, a television, and two computers for friends.
It's always fun when I replace the failed one and most of the ones at risk as a precaution, and then I tell them what the (120 C rated, usually much higher than the originals) parts cost... :') It's a pain finding the right ones in stock though sometimes.
I always feel so bad when I see a 70" TV beside the trash bin, usually with something heavy on top so the panel is already cracked :( Most people just call the manufacturer, they tell them it's out of warranty and "can't be repaired" and chuck it :'(
Yep, TVs are particularly good targets.
I knew someone who would make extra money by trawling around neighborhoods looking for TVs that have been ditched, recapping them, and selling them.
It's still sitting there at the moment, but it's for the dump unfortunately. (I have a better one to pass on due to my own upgrade, and actually they're renting a new place that will likely come furnished with one anyway.)
Indeed a CCFL is hard to replace, but if it's LED it's probably something in the driving circuitry. Take out the driver board and get someone more electronic minded to look at it, it might still be something simple.
Much as I dislike the waste, as I said there are better options available gathering dust even of I do repair it. Someone may see it and deem it worth bothering at the dump, it's not immediate land-fill/recycling here for things like that. I gather electronics/white goods are generally taken too, for parts salvage if nothing else.
Not just for giving them a lot of business, but because you're saying Look, there's a common failure mode, the same event took them all out - and that's valuable information. It probably is a similar issue in each.
(Ok maybe don't bother with the bulbs..)
Although I suppose depending on your excess you may be better off with an insurance claim.
And it's not like that is a guarantee. You might not find the cause in an hour, or two, or three -- and quickly you approach the cost of a replacement unit.
Sometimes the problem is essentially "critical, proprietary chip/motherboard needs to be replaced" where the only option is to try to find another unit that's broken for different reason and do a transplant.
This is why we need right to repair laws. If the manufacturer's still making a part, you should be able to order it straight from them.
there's a hell of a jump between "right to repair" and "manufacturer has to have SKUs for every subassembly in all of their products, stock them and ship them to random internet people for a price that won't cause the same people to post articles about how $company doesn't really want their stuff to be repaired"
(let's be real, that's the implied expectation)
> end users and independent repair providers should be able to access original spare parts and necessary tools (software as well as physical tools) at fair market conditions
It doesn't necessarily have to be every subassembly. Make the schematics and chips available and repair shops can take it from there.
But stocking subassemblies is indeed my expectation from a well-behaved manufacturer, whether they provide the parts themselves or partner with someone else to. Some examples:
https://shop.fairphone.com/en/spare-parts
https://frame.work/marketplace/parts
https://www.ifixit.com/Parts/Steam_Deck
Clearly this is doable. And let's be real, manufacturers that do warranty repairs already have SKUs for each subassembly, assuming they actually repair the devices and don't just replace the whole thing. They just won't sell them to you, they'll only ship them to their own service centers.
If you don't stock them anymore, sure, you don't stock them anymore. (I would also like to see requirements for longer product support cycles, which would go along with this but is somewhat orthogonal to the part availability concern.)
I don't see people scalping Framework parts for example. They all seem to be available on their site. You seem confident that this is impossible, but it's been done.
Imagine if that was the law. Apple could buy all of one kind of Framework's spare parts. Maybe Framework wants to reserve some so they can continue providing service themselves. Are they allowed to do that?
What does the law say about replenishing stock? Is there a time limit or a minimum quantity? Parts are made in huge production runs with long lead times. Are they going to have to pay for a rush order to comply with the law? Can they afford to have only a few thousand made instead of a million? Can they afford a million?
If such a law existed, there would be scalpers because there would be adversarial artificial scarcity. Either there's a steep penalty that's worth exploiting, or it's unenforceable. So no, it hasn't been done.
> Maybe Framework wants to reserve some so they can continue providing service themselves. Are they allowed to do that?
Yes.
> What does the law say about replenishing stock? Is there a time limit or a minimum quantity?
No. Make a good-faith attempt. The courts can decide what that means in practice. Exempt manufacturers below a certain revenue threshold, to discourage targeting them with spurious lawsuits. Likewise you could define generous thresholds of availability that, if met, can be used to quickly throw out a lawsuit. And:
> Apple could buy all of one kind of Framework's spare parts.
Ban this. It's clearly anticompetitive.
If we wanted to start small, mandate a new conspicuous product label that indicates how long the manufacturer will make replacement parts available. That'd at least raise awareness.
Nobody ever makes it through this line of questioning. Right to Repair has options, but mandating sales isn't one of them.
I'm going to skip over the boring legal questions and ask something that I find more interesting.
Let's say you get your dream bill passed tomorrow. What will happen when products are a single integrated part? Does right to repair fizzle out, or does it force companies to make antiquated shit?
A single integrated part that literally can't be repaired in any way? I find that unlikely. Like I said at the start of the thread, make the chips, schematics, and required software available. Repair shops will figure it out. MacBooks have been trending towards integrated boards for years but they're still what e.g. Louis Rossmann's company works on. Even if repairing it involves SMD rework, it's still possible! Maybe not by a layman, but people specialize.
I do think products shouldn't be made intentionally difficult to open nondestructively though. Think screws rather than glue wherever possible. (Thankfully several companies do seem to be trending back in this direction nowadays.)
Consider chiplets. The initial impetus for them was to improve yields. With lithography development becoming increasingly expensive, packaging is looking like a much better target. This further unlocks options to integrate memory and accelerators like GPUs as chiplets on silicon.
At the same time, the high-speed digital world is bending over backwards to overcome the challenges of woven PCBs. Between chiplets and hand-solderable PCBs are some more attractive options to integrate bare dies on different substrates at smaller scales.
Power modules have completely eliminated packaging altogether. The outsides are ferrite material, which also serves as the substrate, heat spreader, and EMI shield. The only thing holding them back is the PCB. The polymer matrix is a heat insulator, and the distance to the next part requires many capacitors. Even logic chip makers are doing thin-film deposition of ferrites on chips.
For a relatively low-spec gadget like a phone, why wouldn't you integrate all the electronics into one component? It's the economically viable thing to do for now. Then there's only one more step before the whole product is fused.
People take PCBs for granted, but they only exist to connect components that people wish were already connected.
And let's say we do get to the point where the electronics in every single device being sold are one single completely inseparable unit. Fine. Sell whatever the components are! If that means selling the electronics as one part separately from the case, do that. Most manufacturers aren't even doing that. The electronics are going to break in some devices while the case is still perfectly fine, and vice-versa. There will always be a place for repairs.
Find yourself a supply of broken appliances, perhaps at a Goodwill-like store or an online marketplace and get started finding that broken sprocket or stretched belt or bad capacitor.
It’s ridiculously satisfying taking something that’s destined for the landfill and making it live again.
Oh and YouTube. Lots of YouTube. There’s a video for how to troubleshoot and fix just about everything. YouTube has helped me fix a broken stand mixer, dishwasher, dryer, small fission reactor, computer keyboard, sewing machine, ceiling fan, ice maker, and many I’m surely forgetting. And I’m just a clueless web dev!
"tell me you have a 120 IQ without telling me you have a 120 IQ"
You're assuming most people have strong reverse engineering skills, but really only a small fraction of the general population has them. sigstoat implies the high IQ people are more likely to have this skill as raw IQ allows them to quickly learn the skill on the job.
Mostly, it involves making simple machines from scrap electric motors sourced from Japan (they know how to get the good ones). For example, they make a very good wood splitter.
These often work by just pushing wires into open electric sockets -- not even a switch or plug. This puzzled me so I asked about it, it turns out the clients just don't want those things. More advanced technology is available, the farmers are aware of it (e.g. most have smartphones), but they equally realize that the latest IoT agritech startup adds less than zero to their productivity.
In Ho Chi Minh City, tinker shops like this are rare, but there are a couple across the main road from the industrial electronics market. In Ha Noi last I checked we still had at least one actual blacksmith operating, with a tiny furnace and anvil -- not sure about now though.
Anyway, it's true that overall we still repair a lot of stuff here and it's a valued skill. You can make a modest living running a repair/tinker shop, and most neighborhoods have someone doing so -- although it's mostly smartphones, laptops, and televisions.
Whatever happened to those PhD theses I used to see from China on how to build LED lamp power supplies without electrolytic capacitors?
Just take ones that have a decent temperature rating and you're good. Except those cost 5 cents more and the lamp lasts forever which they manufacturers hate :(
Fixing things is a drag on next quarter profits. Buy the upgrade with the ten cent fix at 10% markup over the original because it’s “new and improved”.
We’re just circling old inputs like an LLM trained on itself.
Maybe LEDS are low quality? and therefore fail prematurely?
Higher temperatures cause electronic components to fail earlier in life
2. Edison-screw fixtures are designed for incandescent bulbs. They trap heat inside the fixture, accelerating the death of LEDs. Integrated LED fixtures tend to be more reliable, but installing them is not an option for renters and unskilled homeowners.
Edit: https://hackaday.com/2021/01/17/leds-from-dubai-the-royal-li...
when it comes to LEDs, is a good way to remember it, Dubai vs "don't buy"?
TL;DR: some countries require manufacturers to underdrive the diodes allowing them to last for decades [not "designed obsolescence"].
Planned obsolescence. Because LEDs would otherwise last for decades, they deliberately drive them as hard as they can to get a little more light at the expense of decreased efficiency and massively decreased lifespan. YouTuber bigclivedotcom has made many videos about this.
I think those are really just quibbles though. In the first place that org has boots on the ground and I'm just some rando on a different continent, easy for me to spout off about problems when I'm not involved and trying to fix a problem. In the second place much of the focus in that article was about a repair program for the solar lights they are introducing to rural communities, which is phenomenal, and does qualify as recycling e waste.
Maybe I'm laboring under a different idea of what constitutes electronics waste? I don't think of most of it as being repairable, perhaps I'm just wrong about that.
Most electronic waste is not actually nonfunctional electronics, it's from people and companies upgrading to different electronics. And most of the broken electronics are trivially repairable.
There's a fantastic electronics "recycler" in my town that does great business taking electronic "waste", refurbishing and/or repairing it, and selling it in their store.
It's where I buy 90% of my electronics (and 100% of my cables, mice, keyboard, etc.). Everything they sell works great (and is under warranty) and is mind-bogglingly inexpensive. Then, when I want to upgrade, I just take the old stuff back to them so it can make another round.
The customer accepted offers that did not include the schematics, and the markets delivered.
You can find leaked laptop schematics. They are almost identical between manufacturers and models because they're based on Intel's reference schematics, and I suspect the latter wants to keep them under NDA (they were freely available on the site up until the ~Pentium 4 era.)
It's really so satisfying to see someone repairing their phone/shaver/toothbrush and commenting saying thanks for the help. I did some repairs for a few people and the moment the thing works is really what keeps me going.
One was an interesting experiment doing a live stream helping someone do a rtx4090 pc build.
Many thinks have small defects that make the appliance / device unusable yet they are easy to fix at home.
Plastic welds can fix a lot of things around the home.