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Overkill objects for everyday life

neil.computer

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Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#541

Post by perl4ever »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #386
IgorPartola wrote: post #341

I 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…

You're spot on. I've dated several chefs, and the reality is that "professional grade" in consumer kitchen devices is basically all a fantasy/farce. Real commercial equipment is generally a huge PITA. It's quite capable stuff, but you don't need those capabilities at home, and everything else about them makes them a net negative, in nearly every case. The other obnoxious thing is most of what's marketed as "professio…

Many years ago, there used to be Sysco stores open to the general public.

I was very fond of the commercial potholders from there, but didn't know where to get some of my own since they closed all the stores.

Then one day through the magic of the Internet, I found a supplier of almost the same thing, albeit with their own logo on it.

(I'm pretty sure I bought them from Wasserstrom, but I just checked and I can't find them)

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#542

Post by akiselev »

culturestate wrote: post #477
megablast wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> About 8 years ago I bought the cheapest catering/professional microwave/combioven I could get my hands on. I did this because I got tired of consumer units with overcomplicated UIs designed (apparently) by unregenerate misanthropes, rotating dishes that are a pain in the ass to clean, overzealous bleeps that go off every 30 - 60 seconds after a cycle is finished, peeling enamel, corrosion issues, and that are too s…

> The cheapest microwaves you can get have two dials, one for temp, one for time. Why not buy one of those?? I imagine two reasons: first, the market seems to have decided that simple microwaves must be small microwaves. If you want to heat anything larger than a bowl of soup you’re gonna forfeit the dials. Second, most of the time the dials also suck. Want to heat something for 2 minutes 30 seconds? Good luck with t…

I didn't think of looking at commercial microwaves so I ended up getting the Breville Smooth Wave [1] with its power and time dials. It's ridiculous that the only consumer microwave I could find locally with dials instead of touch controls was also the most expensive one with the exception of the ultra-sleek high end cabinet mounted units.

It's 1.2 cu ft which is on the bigger end and much quieter than the microwaves I'm used to with some sort of ventilation system that keeps going until you've retrieved the food. It's definitely more precise than the cheaper commercial microwaves I've seen without losing any of the "smart sensing" features, if you care for those.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Breville-BMO850BSS1BUC1-countertop-mi...

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#543

Post by yourapostasy »

neilpanchal wrote: post #458
CarVac wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, McMaster-Carr is the best website in existence. The clarity of information presentation is unparalleled.

100%. I've been thinking about writing an article about McMaster-Carr's design and user experience. I've been using it for 10+ years. It's so much deeper than the web design - the moment you place an order, their return process, obtaining technical specs, datasheets and alternate unit system measurement, the entire experience of shopping on McMaster-Carr. Furthermore, their physical catalog design is also exceptional…

I've kind of noticed this in general with MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Operations/Overahaul) organization suppliers in general, and any site that caters to procurement organizations or frequent repeat direct buyers. They tend to be very no-nonsense and streamlined, and very pleasant to work with. This might just be a cultural bias on my part, thought.

Interestingly, Far Eastern sites I've seen, even MRO and procurement-oriented sites, but especially consumer-facing sites, tend to be extremely information-dense. To my Western site-accustomed sensibilities, they feel "too busy", but after awhile I understood the aesthetic (calligraphic script languages tend to have a higher information throughput per unit area than alphabet-script languages, and this seems to bleed over into aesthetics as well).

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#544

Post by alliao »

ReptileMan wrote: post #526
BostonEnginerd wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one good strategy is to buy the highest volume product -- the more of a widget someone makes, the better they are at it. For example, a Ford Focus or Chevy Malibu is a lot more reliable and cheaper to maintain than a fancier and more fun car. Loads of third party parts, etc. Regarding the mixer, I understand they changed the gears to plastic so they would strip without damaging the motor. Easier to replace a…

Actually Hobart and Kitchen aid always had a plastic gear with the purpose of being a fuse if some brainiac decided to make a rocky road icecream with real gravel. What kitchen aid did to decrease their quality was hosting the gear assembly in non metal housing - so you could fuck up your mixer body which makes it harder to repair.

I love those sacrificial designs. I found one in my whirpool washing machine too; a hard plastic gear.

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#545

Post by kube-system »

neonological wrote: post #536
kube-system wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My above point is was that cost is an example of an engineering tradeoff, not that it is the only engineering tradeoff.

Phone batteries are designed to be replaceable. They’re internal because of design considerations, not cost. In fact, nearly all cell phone batteries are secured with removable adhesive because they’re specifically intended to be replaceable.

Homes have circuit breakers (fuses haven’t been mainstream for a while) because the load is not predefined, and can be occasionally exceeded by the end user. This is not the case for a consumer appliance with a known load. An unexpectedly high load is an indication that another component has also failed. There’s some diagnosis that should be done when replacing a fuse on a system with an unexplained over current situation.

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#546

Post by akiselev »

ReptileMan wrote: post #527
bayindirh wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moreover, consumer items beyond a price point are both very well made and backed by long term warranties anyway. Paying a bit more for a better item which can be repaired or serviced for a very long time makes it cheaper in the long run in my experience, because you buy it once and for life. I love "overkill items for everyday life" point of view, but it comes with trade-offs for noise, ergonomics, size, replaceabili…

I mean I love Victorinoxes, but 35 euro kitchen knife is far from high end. Although theirs and Morakniv Frost have surprisingly good steel and HT for the price and they can get sharp - they are the cheapest real knives in the kitchen (kiwi and some chinesse cleavers excluded), not high end stuff.

Thank you, I was confused by that. If a $40 Victorinox is high end, what does that make stuff like Wusthof, let alone Takeda?

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#547

Post by KamiCrit »

I work in semi heavy industry. The industrial grade consumer items are great, but usually heavy. The latest example I have is buying bookcases from Uline. Not cheap, not light. But full steel and can hold binders easily. Getting more shelves and another matching one down the road is also easy.

Flea markets are also another great source for well built items. Have had great luck buying industrial grade tooling and electrical test/measurement equipment there.

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#548

Post by h2odragon »

elil17 wrote: post #217

Restaurant supply stores are a great place to get kitchenware. Some of it doesn’t work in a home kitchen (for instance, you probably don’t want your smallest Tupperware to be a quart). Some of it, though, is perfect. My favorite purchase has been a huge cutting board with rubber grip material on one side and rulers printed on the other. It’s thick plastic so it’s never warped despite repeatedly putting it in the dish…

stainless steel serving pans and steam table trays are great roasting pans; abusable, scrub clean easily, stackable, etc. "consumers" get enameled oval pans that served our grandmothers as poorly as they do now.

Also caught some lovely cheap "disposable" paring knives that have served in our kitchen for several years and still going strong.

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#549

Post by alliao »

cmendel wrote: post #532
neilpanchal wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-…

thank you!

Re: Overkill objects for everyday life

#550

Post by stordoff »

drewzero1 wrote: post #479
crooked-v wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another obvious example here given the people on this website is servers: if you're going to have a home server, unless you can go put it in a soundproofed room in the basement, you're going to want to use consumer-grade fans that aren't inherently screamingly loud.

I found this out the hard way. Picked up a cheap surplus ProLiant to mess around with, and quickly realized it would be far better for my use case to use a business-class desktop or laptop and avoid the unnecessary noise, space, and power draw of pro server hardware. It sure looked cool, though.

I went for a tower server for those exact reasons - sensible idle power draw and quiet even under full load (I've got an x265 encode running at the moment, and it's not quite silent but there's just a very gentle hum) without losing ECC.

Some of the older dual Xeon servers on eBay were tempting, but the noise/power draw made it a non-starter.

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