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O Holy Crap

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Re: O Holy Crap

#141

Post by gottebp »

Breville coffee grinders fall into this category, and were impossible to get OEM internal parts for. When mine failed a few years back, I designed a 3D printed upgrade for the main wear-part in their BCG800XL SmartGrinder and it was not too much extra effort to document it on iFixit[0] with ShapeWays[1] as an easy way to get the part. I think there is a lot of room to do this for all kinds of stuff that would otherwise go to waste, and make a little bit of passive income on the side (enough to cover coffee indefinitely in my case).

[0] https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/BCG800XL+Grinder+Jamming+due+to...

[1] https://www.shapeways.com/product/NASLAGCCP/impeller-replace...

Re: O Holy Crap

#142

Post by rightbyte »

armenlos wrote: post #117

In my student home, we own a stubborn cheap, little coffee grinder. I estimate it has grinded over 100kg of coffee beans in over 10 years time. Expected one of there parts to fail: - The motor - The cable - The button - The safety switch that detects the lid I wonder what happened to the employee who designed this grinder. Maybe they got fired because they should have used cheaper components to generate more profit.

Retirement? I got a feeling the prior generation or two of engineers had room for more pushback versus crappyness. I.e. could say no and that was it.

It could also be the effect of attrition. Mechanical engineers nowadays maybe never have the time to become grinding experts before they switch job.

Re: O Holy Crap

#143

Post by jtbayly »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #128
jtbayly wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a joke?! Are you a fridge salesman or something? You do understand that many of us would pay more for that fridge and gladly pay way more in electricity to have it perform its job reliably, right?

Replaced my 30yo appliances. My electric bill dropped in half. Sure you have the resources to burn all the electricity you want for convenience, you do you.

But how much did that cost, and how long ago was it? Have you recouped the cost yet? I ask because if it’s a 5 year payback, that’s ignoring the cost of food spoilage from your new fridge that quits after 6 years.

Re: O Holy Crap

#144

Post by rajman187 »

Perhaps the price of globalization, where it’s considerably more profitable to import cheaply produced goods with the consumer happy about lower prices. I assume with inflation taken into account and price of raw materials that juicer from 70 years ago wouldn’t be very affordable for the majority

Re: O Holy Crap

#145

Post by rightbyte »

Maxburn wrote: post #24

The downward spiral of shopping by purchase price. If it can be made cheaper it will sell and here we are. Commercial kitchen equipment is out there and available if you want it, designed to last. It will seriously cost you to get it though.

Is it just me getting older or has this trend reversed? I don't the cheap brags anymore when people buy crappy cheap stuff you could hear in the 00s.

Re: O Holy Crap

#146

Post by crystaln »

Pyrex is a great example of the problem here.

Original PYREX was borosilicate glass which is extremely resistant to shattering due to temperature differences and therefore excellent for cooking.

The brand and reputation of quality was established. Time to profit. The brand was sold and gutted.

The material was replaced with cheaper soda lime glass, which if you google “exploding Pyrex” you will discover is dangerously far less resilient to temperature changes.

Presumably out of shame the brand changed to pyrex from PYREX except for lab glass which retains the capital letters.

Re: O Holy Crap

#147

Post by crystaln »

robinsonb5 wrote: post #14
bambax wrote: post #8

> Many blamed these problems on the government. They believed it had crippled certain products (major home appliances, especially) This is a claim that was already present in Death of a Salesman . Here's the quote: > I am always in a race with the junkyard! I just finished paying for the car and it's on its last legs. The refrigerator consumes belts like a goddam maniac. They time those things. They time them so when…

The difficulty is that the abundance of cheap crap often makes finding the good stuff like finding a needle in a haystack. Yes, price is the first indicator, but there are plenty of chancers who are quite happy to sell the cheap crap at the premium price point.

Also the expensive stuff is often built to last a few years instead of decades.

Re: O Holy Crap

#148

Post by crystaln »

nosianu wrote: post #82

I don't quite know what to say to what I found near the end in this article: > Recently, my wife needed a carrot peeler. She needed one rather quickly. Off to Target. The one she bought (the only one on sale)... I stopped at the phrase "the only one on sale". Inevitably the next part reads: > looked handsome enough, and the brand was one she recognized, but it failed in the useful department, miserably. It wasn’t sha…

So a high quality brand on sale should be presumed to be low quality?

Re: O Holy Crap

#149

Post by lordgroff »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #55
lordgroff wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a matter of shopping wisely and, at least sometimes, of spending more money up front. People always reach for the smelling salts when I tell them how much my (hand) coffee grinder cost, but that thing is almost certain to outlast me.

I've got my selling salts, please tell me which coffee grinder you own? And by the way, since the topic of "where do I find the good stuff" keeps coming up, why is there no site that is your one-stop recommendation destination for finding quality appliances, tools? We all know we can no longer trust Amazon reviews. Consumer Reports has been around for ages but I don't feel they've kept in lockstep with the changing t…

https://eightouncecoffee.ca/collections/hand-grinders/produc...

And yeah for products like these you really need to search prosumer forums for the specific area in question, Consumer Reports would be useless.

Re: O Holy Crap

#150

Post by cosama »

chrisweekly wrote: post #43

Can anyone recommend a large room humidifier that might actually work reliably (assuming proper care and maintenance, no weirdly hard water) for multiple winter seasons? The last FOUR I bought from diff brands failed either DoA or within a couple weeks. Willing to pay for actual basic quality.

In my opinion there is only one humidifier that is worth the money, the honeywell warm mist humidifier [1]. It works great for us, just put it in a little tray in case it leaks. It also got one of the best written customer reviews on amazon I ever saw [2]. TL;DR, they use it on McMurdo station in Antarctica and love it.

Don't buy a ultrasonic humidifiers, they actually reduce the air quality considerably [3], you need to get an evaporative humidifier and frankly there aren't that many.

[1] https://www.honeywellstore.com/store/news/honeywell-warm-mis...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R911WGTC1OHLL/ref...

[3] https://learn.kaiterra.com/en/air-academy/humidifiers-cause-...

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