Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s for 12 pairs.
I see what you mean now -- they certainly don't make that obvious.
Milwaukee sells heated work gloves for $150 a pair and they’re real nice at -40.
Overkill objects for everyday life
531–540 of 732 posts
Re: Overkill objects for everyday life
#532I will postulate an opposing view to TFA: Quality consumer goods are better in two key areas. First, they are replaceable. I don’t want a military grade mixer in my kitchen if getting a broken whisk or motor on it is going to require me hunting all over eBay for the specific part hoping it’s available. I was very excited at one point about the idea of getting a commercial dishwasher that can run a load of dishes in l…
I kinda disagree. These aren’t very good examples. Also the dough mixer is for restaurants, not military use. :-) Although I want one now. Here is a kitchen scale I bought. Made in Switzerland, no less. It’s bloody beautiful: https://neil.computer/notes/mettler-toledo-ml3002e-teardown/ Does that mean all consumer grade stuff is bad? No. Leatherman tools and 3M consumer grade stuff is usually great. Nalgene bottles. D…
>>Always buy generic drugs, they're exactly the same.
I'm sorry to say. This is false.
This will be a bit technical but often, generic drugs are a racemic mix (both L and D conformations in some mixture) where as a branded drug may be a specific conformation or specific racemic mix (e.g. 75% L, 25% D.)
The issue comes from the fact that L-conformations may have different (better, worse, otherwise) effects than the D-conformations.
TL;DR Not all generics are the same as their branded counterparts and they might effect you differently. Caveat emptor.
Re: Overkill objects for everyday life
#533Earlier quoted context omitted.
Repairability is a red herring. As a professional, I care about “time in service” and “maintenance cost”. A completely unrepairable tool that is in service a lot longer for way less maintenance? I take that any day of the week. And here’s the thing, I don’t really care that you can repair your Dell. I wouldn’t be able to do so without putting in a lot of time and it would be a little stressful. Reducing that time req…
Presuming a centralized corporate IT department that has 100+ of the same laptop in service, one advantage of repairability over time-in-service is that two half-broken laptops can be made into one working laptop. Very-repairable products are essentially just bags of parts that happen to come assembled; you can buy a few extra, take them apart, and now you have a couple of full sets of parts to use to repair any prob…
If you have a centralized corporate IT department you probably also have a maintenance contract with eg Dell. It's much faster and easier to just keep a stock of ready-to-go spare machines so you can immediately swap out any broken ones, then send those broken ones back to Dell to be repaired or replaced and returned to you to replenish your ready-to-go stock.
This is how it works on most industrial job sites - your drill breaks, you go to the locker and check out another one. When the Hilti guy comes around, he collects the broken ones and they get serviced or replaced.
Re: Overkill objects for everyday life
#534Earlier quoted context omitted.
The cost is negligible, mere cents. A decision such as this is indeed done to deliberately shorten the life span.
For one item maybe, but every item on a BOM for a mass manufactured product is (hopefully) multiplied by many thousands or millions of units. If these types of features mattered to consumers, then one would expect we’d see success from the companies who prioritize it. These companies and products do exist, but they are niche.
These features do matter to consumers.
What consumer wouldn't want a vac that can be fixed easily by putting a new fuse in a socket? The issue is the consumer doesn't know about this possible fix. The Company Engineers this fact into the product AND into the marketing and into the warranty length. Common sense. A human is irrational and lacks knowledge, but a human made aware of his irrationality will usually choose the rational choice.
Companies are just taking advantage of a consumers lack of knowledge, awareness, and intelligence. If you were perfectly aware of two competing vacs and all the actual technical specifications of course the one with a replaceable fuse would be counted as a positive feature.
The problem is that companies that try to market the fuse as a feature will have a hard time communicating this fact to the consumer especially. Thus it is in the interest of every company to engineer shorter lifespans into their products as consumers can't see past 2 years at the point of sale.
Industrial products on the other hand are usually massed purchased and reliability is measured from an accounting perspective. This makes industrial owners more knowledgeable and able to make more rational choices as they have quantitative metrics that effect their profits during accounting time.
Re: Overkill objects for everyday life
#535I love to use professional-grade items where i can, but sometimes "overkill" means a worse product. like the professional-grade fan - it's not just designed for a high duty cycle, it's also probably designed to be operated in an environment where people regularly use hearing protection, so quiet operation is not a consideration.
I purchased a 30-in steel barrel fan from home Depot 3 years ago and I maintain it is the best fan I've ever owned. I put it in a different part of my house entirely pointing out a window and I open a window in my bedroom and it sucks that air right in. It's not even That loud though
And that's probably not even commercial grade, more like pro-sumer.
Re: Overkill objects for everyday life
#536Earlier quoted context omitted.
i my case I shorted it and have been using the vacuum for another 10 years. there was dust in the fan bearings, but i sluiced it out with mineral oil.
So, the end result of having a soldered fuse was exactly the same as a socketed one: it was successfully repaired. I don’t see the justification for the extra BOM item. For the 99% of people who don’t attempt electrical repairs on their vacuums, that fuse socket would be sitting inside of a vacuum in a landfill. Drive around any US suburb on trash night and pick up a couple of appliances. Most of them either still wo…
>So, the end result of having a soldered fuse was exactly the same as a socketed one: it was successfully repaired. I don’t see the justification for the extra BOM item.
You joking? You realize houses and cars have socketed fuses that can be replaced almost turnkey. This is a simple solution to build into the product a UI that let's the user know a socket was blown and allow the user to replace a fuse like replacing a AA battery. FUSES are designed to fail and be replaced. Making those FUSES inaccessible is ALSO a design choice because it's contradictory.
There was a point in time where every phone had a replaceable battery. You think that replaceable batteries disappeared because companies wanted to save costs? Sockets for batteries have been part of the design philosophy for consumer products for decades, the fact that these sockets are removed from phones is not a cost saving measure.
This issue is much more widespread than you think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4
Re: Overkill objects for everyday life
#537Earlier quoted context omitted.
For a while... until it isn't. I've been very poor, and I've experienced very similar things. Traveling everywhere by bike in the freezing cold. I think there is a romaniticization of suffering. I also wanted to show my merit, my worth in some way. I had grown up in a very cushy environment, and I was trying to prove something. Going back in time I would advise anyone against your belief. Anyone who reads this, pleas…
Biking everywhere in the rain is what you do if you live in Copenhagen, and it does make you a better person. It always warms my heart to see my fellow citizens in one of the wealthiest societies in the world, walking and biking to work in the rain and wind that is Danish winter. Or when you go to the beach when the water is 12 degrees and there are already families there, splashing around. That fills me with hope. D…
Sigh, this sounds like a weird spiritual extrapolation from the often used specious aphorism "that which does not kill you makes you stronger", try telling that to someone who's just had a heart attack.
In what way scientifically speaking does biking specifically in the rain make you a "better person"? Biking can definitely help with your health and is certainly a good way to get around, but the rain can obstruct your vision and could cause your breaks to lock up if you had to stop suddenly.
Re: Overkill objects for everyday life
#538Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dishwashers are another example. You could buy a commercial one but it will come with no roll-out trays (you load up different plastic racks for different things and you can load a rack while the dishwasher is running) and it’s designed for an environment with lots of ventilation (you just open it when it is done and let the steam get ventilated away) which people are unlikely to have in their own kitchens. Other ite…
> Dishwashers are another example. Commercial dishwashers, esp. the fast cycle ones beat the living light of any mugs/plates/etc. unless they're plain white. They use way more pressure and heat, and resulting clean is much more aggressive, shortening life of everything inside them. Only plain glass and plain porcelain came out relatively unaffected. All decorations doesn't stand a chance. This is why some mugs denote…
To reiterate for people thinking they might get a commercial kitchen dishwasher for their dream kitchen build: They're not the same thing.
Re: Overkill objects for everyday life
#539Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm considering this very seriously: > The entire consumer market is rotten. TV? It's going to come with smart apps. Get one from NEC that's meant for commercial use. A TV has the potential to be a lifetime purchase, but the software on it can render it obsolete. I can always plug my streaming device of choice into the back of a "dumb TV."
I thought buying a TV was bad, but today I wanted to find a good digital picture frame. What a shit show, it seems that search term has even more fake review sites and SEO spam than other electronics, Amazon is full of Chinese brands with random names selling the same few models, and with even the apparently good ones it's hard to find out what they actually do and what not. And then in the fine print you find you th…
I doubt there will be high quality small frames in the near future. But for 32" plus, Samsung's got you (dunno about the connectivity, though):
https://www.samsung.com/us/televisions-home-theater/tvs/the-...
https://www.samsung.com/us/televisions-home-theater/tvs/the-...
Re: Overkill objects for everyday life
#540I appreciate the link and summary for McMaster-Carr[1]. It is so pleasing to use this site and it is simultaneously full of utility as they stock a wide array of fixtures and hardware that are difficult to search for elsewhere. If you place an order before noon (typically) the box of goods will be in your hands the next day. The user interface is a wonder. It's too good to be true. In fact, using the UI actually sadd…
And you can find stuff like "Nuclear Grade Duct Tape": https://www.mcmaster.com/fastening-tape/nuclear-grade-duct-t...
My curiosity would not let me pass this up. I had to find out what requirements specifically made it nuclear grade, and apparently it is certified to lack chlorides so it won't chloride-corrode (no word on galvanic corrosion) whatever it is slapped onto [1].
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/shutupandtakemymoney/comments/15jwv...