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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

#41

Post by jajko »

fragmede wrote: post #33
pkolaczk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t Apple offer a way to re-pair components if they are genuine and not stolen (unregistered from the previous AppleId)?

and Apple will very happily charge you for that privilege

TBH for such a critical piece of our modern lives, I would be more than fine to pay extra to be 100% sure I am getting original parts, put in professionally and in secure manner re my personal data. I wish ie Samsung had such service where I live.

We anyway talk about expensive premium phones to start with, so relatively expensive after-warranty service is not shocking.

This may actually eventually sway me into apple camp. This and what seems like much better theft discouragement.

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#42

Post by shiroiushi »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #34
eru wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because electronics got so much better so much faster, that the vast majority of customers did not want to use old hardware. Especially if customers allowing shorter lifetimes allowed companies to lower the prices.

There are many use cases for which a decade-old computer is still perfectly serviceable and even where they aren't, those computers can be repurposed for the ones that are. Moreover, we're talking about televisions and old Macs. TVs with higher resolutions might come out, but lower resolution ones continue to be sold new (implying demand exists at some price), and then why should anybody want to replace a functioning…

>There are many use cases for which a decade-old computer is still perfectly serviceable and even where they aren't, those computers can be repurposed for the ones that are.

It depends. Older computers usually guzzle power, especially if you look at the absolutely awful Pentium4 systems. You're probably better off getting a RasPi or something, depending on what exactly you're trying to do. Newer systems have gotten much better with energy efficiency, so they'll pay for themselves quickly through lower electricity bills.

>TVs with higher resolutions might come out, but lower resolution ones continue to be sold new (implying demand exists at some price)

We're already seeing a limit here. 8k TVs are here now, but not very popular. There's almost no media in that resolution, and people can't tell the difference from 4k.

For a while, this wasn't the case: people were upgrading from 480 to 720 to 1080 and now to 4k.

>and then why should anybody want to replace a functioning old TV with a newer one of the same resolution?

They probably don't; if they're upgrading, they're getting a higher resolution (lots of 1080 screens still out there), or they're getting a bigger screen. It's possible they might want newer smart TV features too: older sets probably have support dropped and don't support the latest streaming services, though usually you can just get an add-on device that plugs into the HDMI port so this is probably less of a factor.

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#43

Post by ethernot »

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…

The only reason this is an issue for repair shops is they can't sell you recycled stolen parts at bottom of market prices for a sky high mark up. On top of that the "non genuine parts", some of which really are utterly dire, show up in the OS as being not genuine parts. Buying genuine parts, which are available from Apple, eats into the margins. There is very little honour in the repair market, despite the makeup applied to it by a couple of prominent youtubers and organisations.

The amount of horror stories I've seen over the years from independent repairers is just terrible. Just last year a friend had a screen hot snotted back on their Galaxy.

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#44

Post by iknowstuff »

ethernot wrote: post #35

There are so many cases of this sort of stuff it's unreal. But it gets even stupider. I found one a few years back when I repaired a linear power supply. This required me to reverse engineer it first because there was no service manual. I buzzed the whole thing out and found out that one of the electrolytic capacitors had both legs connected to ground. They must have shipped thousands of power supplies with that erro…

Name and shame!

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#45

Post by ethernot »

iknowstuff wrote: post #44
ethernot wrote: post #35

There are so many cases of this sort of stuff it's unreal. But it gets even stupider. I found one a few years back when I repaired a linear power supply. This required me to reverse engineer it first because there was no service manual. I buzzed the whole thing out and found out that one of the electrolytic capacitors had both legs connected to ground. They must have shipped thousands of power supplies with that erro…

Name and shame!

Voltcraft. Can't remember the model number.

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#46

Post by verzali »

rvense wrote: post #39
azinman2 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But when it does, it will probably be the capacitors in the power supply that have dried out.

Is that really the case? Because if so, it seems like simply replacing the capacitors would save a lot of waste and unnecessary purchases of new TVs...

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#47

Post by krige »

codewiz wrote: post #6

Commodore had 3 capacitors mounted backwards on the A3640, the CPU board of the Amiga 4000 with 68040 processors: https://youtu.be/zhUpcBpJUzg?si=j6UFmIJzoC-UDS6u&t=945 Also mentioned here: https://amiga.resource.cx/exp/a3640

Commodore just kept doing this. Just listing shoddy craftsmanship would take forever, and then we get to intentional bad decisions, like giving the A1200 a power supply that's both defective (capacitors ofc) and barely enough to support the basic configuration with no expansions, which is extra funny because PSUs used with weaker models (A500) had greater output...

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#48

Post by Supernaut »

tverbeure wrote: post #38
azinman2 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think it is true at all. There's nothing inside today's monitors or TVs that can't run for at least 10 years. Our main TV, 42" 720p LCD, is from 2008, and I have monitors that are just as old.

Yep. My TV, a 42" Panasonic plasma, dates from 2009 and is still working perfectly. I haven't replaced it, because why would I?

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#50

Post by blitzar »

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.

Last years model only does 4k, my eyes need 8k

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