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Bob_cassette_rewinder

github.com

91–100 of 115 posts

Re: Bob_cassette_rewinder

#91
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whole point of convenience stores is to be convenient. Carrying a big ass bag with me for the off chance I go to the store is just silly.

We keep reusable bags in the car for every time we go to the grocery store. I think the entire country would only benefit from banning single-use plastic bags nationally, and I'm not sure how you could have an issue with that.

Well, I suppose that’s perfectly fine if you’re the wasteful sort of person who uses a personal vehicle instead of a bike or public transit.

But what about the responsible people who actually care about reducing their carbon footprint by not unnecessarily carrying 3000 lbs of steel everywhere they go?

Re: Bob_cassette_rewinder

#92

Seeing people defend the cassettes is weird. Here's how I look at it: 1. The company say's being eco friendly is important to them. 2. They manufacture, sell, and ship expensive plastic containers for their detergent. 3. The machines don't necessarily need this specific detergent, and will work fine by leaving in one of the "cassettes" and just using normal dish detergent. This means that the cassettes were never nec…

Maybe seems like "cheating" to refill as it messes with the business model. My experiences are with Printers and ink. A studio I'm a member of inherited a big epson4880 printer. Its a big heavy machine, well built. It came with a "chip resetter" tool for refilling ink carts. The printer seems to know that its using non-epson inks (it warns me on the little display, and I have to click through) but it allows them (rig…

> Companies never seem to want offer more expensive products with cheaper use costs.

Never?

A regular dishwasher has the cost of production built completely into the purchase price, and it doesn't care what brand of detergent is used.

It's the same with some printers, too -- including some Epson printers. Their EcoTank line is refillable: Need more magenta ink today? Just squirt some more magenta in. It doesn't have to be Epson-sourced ink.

Re: Bob_cassette_rewinder

#93
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We keep reusable bags in the car for every time we go to the grocery store. I think the entire country would only benefit from banning single-use plastic bags nationally, and I'm not sure how you could have an issue with that.

Well, I suppose that’s perfectly fine if you’re the wasteful sort of person who uses a personal vehicle instead of a bike or public transit. But what about the responsible people who actually care about reducing their carbon footprint by not unnecessarily carrying 3000 lbs of steel everywhere they go?

I live in central Alabama. Would take over 4 hours to walk or bike to get groceries. Not everyone lives in a huge city and the ones in Alabama are too dangerous to walk around in without concealed carrying a firearm (except for Huntsville).

Re: Bob_cassette_rewinder

#94

Something doesn't add up here. It says £43 for 90 washes, but the picture shows six cartridges which is 180 washes? On top of that, it contains rinse aid and enough deep cleaning for those 180 washes. Compared to dishwasher tablets from the supermarket it looks like 180 would cost from about £15 for supermarket own brand, all the way up to about £32 for the most expensive. Then on top of that you have the rinse aid,…

I'm not familiar with mini dishwashers like Bob, but the full size ones are definitely not a "convenience addiction". You may be capable and skilled at using the two/three-sink method for washing up, but the general population isn't and will instead run the tap and waste far greater amounts of heat and water than a dishwasher would require.

Re: Bob_cassette_rewinder

#95
post #24

I'm fascinated by the design of the rewinder. Could someone provide me with some guidance on where to begin learning how to design a board like this?

It's quite a basic circuit board. Start with an Arduino tutorial to get a feeling of hooking up electronics (Adafruit is probably a good start), once you've got it working look up a KiCad tutorial to turn it into an actual PCB. The trickiest parts here are dealing with the MCU (look for example schematics to copy, they're probably already in the datasheet), sourcing parts (Mouser/Farnell/Arrow are expensive but have…

agree, except for

> stick with through-hole parts, if at all possible

These days it's more work to avoid SMD than it is to embrace it. Many many parts are not available in through-hole, and dealing with 0805 passives and 0.65mm pitch ICs is not that difficult (unless you assume that it is).

As a bonus, you get much easier re-work, access to assembly services, and cheaper components.

Re: Bob_cassette_rewinder

#96
post #41

I've never heard of liquid dishwasher detergent before, but > With shipping and VAT added, it costs a whopping £43 ($60) for 90 washes! That is 48p (67c) per wash. This about matches the cost of "premium" (think Dreft, Finish, etc.) dishwasher detergent tablets in my country.

You can make your own from e.g. Dawn and baking soda. The reason you can't use pure Dawn is that it would fill your dishwasher with foam.

Why bother? Powder dish detergent is so damn cheap and works just as well as any other dish detergent product, and better than packs because those don't use the prewash cycle properly.

Re: Bob_cassette_rewinder

#97

Seeing people defend the cassettes is weird. Here's how I look at it: 1. The company say's being eco friendly is important to them. 2. They manufacture, sell, and ship expensive plastic containers for their detergent. 3. The machines don't necessarily need this specific detergent, and will work fine by leaving in one of the "cassettes" and just using normal dish detergent. This means that the cassettes were never nec…

Maybe seems like "cheating" to refill as it messes with the business model. My experiences are with Printers and ink. A studio I'm a member of inherited a big epson4880 printer. Its a big heavy machine, well built. It came with a "chip resetter" tool for refilling ink carts. The printer seems to know that its using non-epson inks (it warns me on the little display, and I have to click through) but it allows them (rig…

That sucks, there used to be a company that offered a set of gray gradiants for epson printers for printing digital black and white prints that are some of the best I've seen outside of darkroom prints. I wonder if the drm nonsense killed them off but I can't remember the name atm.

As for the paperweights, I have a pixma pro9000 mkii gathering dust after bad aftermarket carts and official carts being at least $100+. It is cheaper and way less time consuming to let a professional printer handle the work at least for larger prints.

Re: Bob_cassette_rewinder

#98

Something doesn't add up here. It says £43 for 90 washes, but the picture shows six cartridges which is 180 washes? On top of that, it contains rinse aid and enough deep cleaning for those 180 washes. Compared to dishwasher tablets from the supermarket it looks like 180 would cost from about £15 for supermarket own brand, all the way up to about £32 for the most expensive. Then on top of that you have the rinse aid,…

I'm not familiar with mini dishwashers like Bob, but the full size ones are definitely not a "convenience addiction". You may be capable and skilled at using the two/three-sink method for washing up, but the general population isn't and will instead run the tap and waste far greater amounts of heat and water than a dishwasher would require.

Yeah I'm not capable/skilled at playing the piano either because, guess what, I don't play the piano. Are you seriously suggesting washing dishes is some next-level human skill?

Dishwasher manufacturers will eagerly tell you they use less water than hand washing. But they're more quiet about the fact that they use more energy. I've honestly never heard anyone complain about their water bill.

Re: Bob_cassette_rewinder

#99
post #23

It is very ironic that they sell it has "eco-compact dishwasher" when it require disposable chunk of plastic to use it. The amount of water saved will really not make up for the amount of plastic thrash created. From their website: "At Daan Tech, we’ve always believed that a more sustainable and fairer world is possible.", you really have to be cynical to write something like this and then sell a worse washing machin…

Permit me to disagree with about all of your conclusions here. First of all, the cassettes are returnable. This is also mentioned on their website. * https://daan.tech/discover-bob-cassette/ > Each Bob cassette is returnable and reusable. We refill them and put them back on the market. Close the loop, lower your carbon footprint. You're also NOT required to use the cassettes. You can just throw standard dishwasher ta…

Why do you think it's more ecologically sustainable to deliver these cartridges to consumers and then have them be sent back, meaning an extra trip?

It is more eco friendly to have them be put out with the recycling and use a readily recycled plastic.

Beyond that it is far more friendly to just let the consumer use regular detergent from a bulk bottle that can be bought anywhere.

Re: Bob_cassette_rewinder

#100
post #71

I was about to make an argument that "there's no DRM" because it's a simple flash memory chip used to keep track of how much detergent is left, and it's totally unencrypted... But wait, could it be that the reason for the bizarre "xor 0x50" is so that they have a "technological protection measure" in place to trigger anti-circumvention rules? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_and_Information_Soci... )

If a regular consumer can't bypass it by themselves then it's drm.

If it requires a bypass by the consumer at all then it's drm.

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