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Comment by marricks | Hacker News Reader

Some of those fridges are refurbished and still around[1]! It's my dream to own one someday when my fridge from the 90's dies.

Every couple years there's a HN link to a blog post about how those appliances were built better in the day. Couple highlights I remember were:

- Parts were dipped in paint rather than sprayed leading to fuller and thicker paint coverage

- Motors had some changes so were actually built to last

Got to imagine fewer electrical/mechanical parts that can fail as well.

[1] https://carolinasantiqueappliances.com/Web/index.php/restore...

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There was a motor teardown linked on HN at some point.

Essentially: electric motors from the 50s were vastly over designed, which meant they were extremely robust to physical failures

The larger point about stuff now vs then is likely the use of capacitors. And specifically, cheap capacitors in consumer electronics.

Absent electronics, you're talking an order of magnitude longer lifespan.

An anecdote...

Bought a Sony receiver around June 2021. The thing has barely had time to get dusty and its never been over ~20W. It's already dead, or dying at least. The power supply caps are bad and it power cycles itself when it tries to drive the speakers.

It's not a high end model; I'm not an audiophile trying to get 0.001% THD at 10KWs. But lunching itself 25 months into a 24 month warranty... wtf.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve - if it's going to break, statistically it'll probably do so in the first few years.

Have you tried bringing it back to where you bought it? Depending on where you live, failing after 25 months may not be okay, regardless of what the warranty says.

> Have you tried bringing it back to where you bought it?

No. And the thought of having to deal with them, whoever they are, makes my skin crawl. I'd rather eat the entire cost of it twice than do that.

> And specifically, cheap capacitors in consumer electronics.

Speaking of reliability, I just replaced the start capacitor in my 20 year-old garage door opener. The replacement failed in less than 3 weeks!

> Parts were dipped in paint rather than sprayed leading to fuller and thicker paint coverage

This doesn't sound right to me... You can apply powdercoats much thicker than wet paint because the lack of an evaporating liquid carrier means much less worry about runs and sags. Modern powdercoats can also be much harder than traditional wet paints, and often more chemical resistant. They're also better for the environment, since you're not filling the air with evaporating solvents.

Hey man, take that up with the post I read 5 years ago on HN and didn’t link to.

More seriously, if I find the time I’ll try to link to it.

I’m sure there’s a better way to paint things now but I think we often don’t for appliances.

>Parts were dipped in paint rather than sprayed leading to fuller and thicker paint coverage

Hopefully not lead paint?

It probably is: lead paint is much more durable and resistant, which is why it was everywhere in the 50s

Aren't there some fancy synthetic paints nowadays that are just as durable as lead paint? (At a much higher price of course)

Well that's a compelling point in favor of modern fridges.

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