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The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

downtowndougbrown.com

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Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#21

Post by PeterStuer »

In the mid 80's I was the head of the CS student chapter. We ran the computer rooms for the science faculty. We had a room with about 20 Mac 128k. I do not know where Apple sourced their capacitors from, but these were not A-tier. A Mac going up in a puff of white smoke was a weekly occurrence. We had a few in reserve just to cycle them in while they were out to Apple for repair.

P.S. still my favorite Mac of all time was the IIcx. That one coupled with the 'full page display' was a dream.

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#22

Post by bee_rider »

duskwuff wrote: post #12
shiroiushi wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This shouldn't be allowed at all: if the product was bad all along, they should be required to fix it, and shouldn't be able to say "well, it's old, so you should just trash it", which means they don't suffer any penalty whatsoever.

I don't think that's a reasonable expectation in general, and certainly not in this case. The affected TVs were all at least 20 years old - that's well beyond the expected useful lifespan of even a modern TV, let alone an older model like these. Nor is it clear what Sony could reasonably have done to repair them; even by 2010, a lot of the parts used in CRT TVs were out of production and unavailable.

It is a legitimate business decision, to sell things that last less than 20 years. Fine, I think it is lame, but it is their choice.

But, we shouldn’t let companies get away with selling products that catch fire after working fine for 20 years.

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#23

Post by phire »

ethbr1 wrote: post #7

Well, today I learned to install one capacitor in reverse orientation on the PCB on a 34 year old computer... Definitely starting Wednesday off productively.

I actually have an LC III in storage, so I might actually be able to make use of this article.

I think this will allow me to classify today as productive.

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#24

Post by azinman2 »

kbelder wrote: post #14
duskwuff wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's a reasonable expectation in general, and certainly not in this case. The affected TVs were all at least 20 years old - that's well beyond the expected useful lifespan of even a modern TV, let alone an older model like these. Nor is it clear what Sony could reasonably have done to repair them; even by 2010, a lot of the parts used in CRT TVs were out of production and unavailable.

> that's well beyond the expected useful lifespan of even a modern TV, let alone an older model like these A modern TV may have an expected lifespan of five years. TVs from several decades ago had lifespans of... several decades. Quality has plummeted in that market.

5 years? Is that really true? I’m currently using an LG from 2017 and cannot imagine needing to change it. I would be shocked if it stopped working.

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#25

Post by shiroiushi »

tobr wrote: post #16
shiroiushi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you're too young to remember, but people used to keep TVs for much longer periods before HDTV and flat panels came out. Also, these TVs are apparently fire hazards. It doesn't matter that they're 20 years old (at the point of the "recall" in 2010). I doubt the parts necessary to fix them were out of production; you can get parts for truly ancient electronics still. Things like capacitors don't become obsolete.…

This. I’ve known a TV that was in more or less daily use for over 30 years. Not sure why we stopped expecting that from electronics.

>Not sure why we stopped expecting that from electronics.

For TVs specifically, the technology changed a lot. For a long time, everyone was stuck on the NTSC standard, which didn't change much. At first, everyone had B&W TVs, so once you had one, there was no reason to change. Then color TV came out, so suddenly people wanted those. After that, again no reason to change for a long time. Later, they got remote controls, so sometimes people would want one of those, or maybe a bigger screen, but generally a working color TV was good enough. Because TVs were glass CRTs, bigger screens cost a lot more than smaller ones, and there wasn't much change in cost here for a long time.

Then HDTV came out and now people wanted those, first in 720p, and later in 1080i/p. And flat screens came too, so people wanted those too. So in a relatively short amount of time, people went from old-style NTSC CRTs to seeing rapid improvements in resolution (480p->720p->1080->4k), screen size (going from ~20" to 3x", 4x", 5x", 6x", now up to 85"), and also display/color quality (LCD, plasma, QLED, OLED), so there were valid reasons to upgrade. The media quality (I hate the word "content") changed too, with programs being shot in HD, and lately 4k/HDR, so the difference was quite noticeable to viewers.

Before long, the improvements are going to slow or stop. They already have 8k screens, but no one buys them because there's no media for them and they can't really see the difference from 4k. Even 1080p media looks great on a 4k screen with upscaling, and not that much different from 4k. The human eye is only capable of so much, so we're seeing diminishing returns.

So I predict that this rapid upgrade cycle might be slowing, and probably stopping before long with the coming economic crash and Great Depression of 2025. The main driver of new TV sales will be people's old TVs dying from component failure.

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#26

Post by shiroiushi »

Throw8394045 wrote: post #15
shiroiushi wrote: post #2

Apple should be required to do a recall for these motherboards.

They don't do recalls even on modern hardware. But soldering hacks are no longer possible, all parts are serialized. Louis Rossmann made many videos on this.

What are you talking about? Capacitor technology hasn't changed substantially in decades, and it's just as possible to change caps with a soldering iron now as it was 20 years ago. I have no idea what you mean by "serialized".

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#27

Post by fragmede »

shiroiushi wrote: post #26
Throw8394045 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't do recalls even on modern hardware. But soldering hacks are no longer possible, all parts are serialized. Louis Rossmann made many videos on this.

What are you talking about? Capacitor technology hasn't changed substantially in decades, and it's just as possible to change caps with a soldering iron now as it was 20 years ago. I have no idea what you mean by "serialized".

not capacitors, but more advanced components, like the camera, have serial numbers embedded in them, and the serial number needs to match, otherwise it won't accept the component. Components off a stolen device are put on a list and won't work in admirer another phone, so stolen phones aren't even worth anything for parts, driving down the market for stolen phones. It also makes the job of repair shops harder, which is collateral damage in Apple's eyes, but is very much material for anyone running a repair shop.

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#29

Post by shiroiushi »

fragmede wrote: post #27
shiroiushi wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? Capacitor technology hasn't changed substantially in decades, and it's just as possible to change caps with a soldering iron now as it was 20 years ago. I have no idea what you mean by "serialized".

not capacitors, but more advanced components, like the camera, have serial numbers embedded in them, and the serial number needs to match, otherwise it won't accept the component. Components off a stolen device are put on a list and won't work in admirer another phone, so stolen phones aren't even worth anything for parts, driving down the market for stolen phones. It also makes the job of repair shops harder, which…

I see. Yes, that is a big problem for component swapping. I was just thinking of electronics with old/faulty caps; those will still be repairable.
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