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India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops

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Re: India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops

#51

Post by Saigonautica »

nxobject wrote: post #9

I’d love to learn some of the advanced rework skills they need to work on modern motherboards - especially BGA part replacement. And how to build a workshop on the cheap! I’m always in awe at the skills they need to learn that are nonexistent in the western world.

Here are some good "value for money" tool brands I use (I live in Asia):

1.Yihua combined hot air rework station + soldering station.

2.Pro's Kit multimeter, tweezers, and wire snips.

3.Uni-T hand-held oscillosope (quite optional).

4.Mechanic brand solder paste. Get the one in a plastic syringe. The tubs dry out.

5.TS100 soldering iron as a spare. Heats up so fast at 24V!

I use them mainly for prototyping, but they are equally handy for repair. I don't re-ball BGA though. I've seen vendors do it with a machine that's mostly just a holder for the chip, and the hot air gun. Plus some templates and the solder balls.

Re: India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops

#52

Post by tommica »

nyanpasu64 wrote: post #25
tommica wrote: post #4

Honestly cool, though it really sucks that they don't have any safety from all those harmful chemicals.

What's the chemical exposure from laptop repair? The biggest thing that comes to mind is flux smoke, which needs a fan or ideally a fume extractor to keep out of your face. Modern devices use lead-free solder, though I understand solder is mostly a concern for scrapping electronics for gold rather than repairing it (unless you don't wash your hands after soldering). I've gotten nasty effects from isopropyl/acetone va…

Article did talk about lead

Re: India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops

#53

Post by zoobab »

pjmlp wrote: post #33

I remember up to the early 1990's we had repair shops all over Portugal, we would buy devices for life, and any kind of malfunction would be rescued at one of those repair shops, unless it was really a death sentence for the device. Now in a throw away society with planned obsolence devices, most of those shops are gone and the repair knowledge gone with them. Unless goverments fix the planned obsolence culture it is…

"The throw-away society is a human society strongly influenced by consumerism. The term describes a critical view of overconsumption and excessive production of short-lived or disposable items over durable goods that can be repaired."

— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throw-away_society

Re: India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops

#54

Post by soco »

pjmlp wrote: post #33

I remember up to the early 1990's we had repair shops all over Portugal, we would buy devices for life, and any kind of malfunction would be rescued at one of those repair shops, unless it was really a death sentence for the device. Now in a throw away society with planned obsolence devices, most of those shops are gone and the repair knowledge gone with them. Unless goverments fix the planned obsolence culture it is…

We still have here in Switzerland "repair cafes" run by volunteers, where mostly elderly bring their usually outdated devices to be repaired, while having a coffee and socializing. It works, as long it works...

Re: India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops

#55

Post by nxobject »

Saigonautica wrote: post #51
nxobject wrote: post #9

I’d love to learn some of the advanced rework skills they need to work on modern motherboards - especially BGA part replacement. And how to build a workshop on the cheap! I’m always in awe at the skills they need to learn that are nonexistent in the western world.

Here are some good "value for money" tool brands I use (I live in Asia): 1.Yihua combined hot air rework station + soldering station. 2.Pro's Kit multimeter, tweezers, and wire snips. 3.Uni-T hand-held oscillosope (quite optional). 4.Mechanic brand solder paste. Get the one in a plastic syringe. The tubs dry out. 5.TS100 soldering iron as a spare. Heats up so fast at 24V! I use them mainly for prototyping, but they a…

Thanks for the recommendations! I have a Yihua soldering station - such a solid budget option - I’ll shell out on a hot air rework station too, maybe one with a board preheater.

Re: India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops

#56

Post by magicalhippo »

sidkshatriya wrote: post #47
magicalhippo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Norway, electrical and electronic (EE) goods are taxed extra and that money goes to recycling and cleanup[1]. Importers and producers are required to be a member of a approved company handling returns, like RENAS[2]. Shops selling EE goods are required to accept returned EE goods from individuals of the type they sell. So if you sell fridges you have to take my old fridge and handle it in accordance with the…

This is a good design. The company that manufactures the product does not need to be necessarily responsible for the cleanup. The cleanup is done by another company and the costs are added on customer checkout. But this is open to abuse as you mentioned -- some companies may take short cuts or the cleanup companies may become an oligopoly and charge unreasonable prices that add a lot of cost to the products. Also, wh…

> Does Norway still get to add tax for cleanup on these imported goods ?

If you import as a private person AFAIK no. Consumers have very good consumer protection on goods bought from domestic shops, so there's a strong incentive to do that rather than import.

Though all that Temu junk is another story...

But companies importing EE goods have to report to the return company they're a member of, and pay them accordingly.

Can't recall offhand if there's special "flag" on the import declaration or if they just go by HS code. And presumably they get audited on this.

IIRC it used to be more directly linked to the import declaration but they streamlined it.

Re: India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops

#57

Post by Cthulhu_ »

saidinesh5 wrote: post #15

During my middle school days, we lived in a small town for a little while (read: A place where i was allowed to take my bicycle out onto the main road). After school, I used to spend a lot of time just hanging out around some TV and radio repair shops and just watched them work. They used to be friendly and gave me parts like spare motors, lights that were lying around from broken Walkmans they wouldn't repair. I too…

My dad has set up a repair cafe near where he lives, and they're popping up in loads of places now. While some electronics are hard / impossible to repair, sure, there's still a lot that can be done with the rest. Household appliances, for example.

The main issue of course is cost; these places are volunteer run, but to make a living out of anything you need to charge an X amount per hour, and if the repair is more expensive than a replacement it's simply not worth it.

All the e-waste going to e.g. India like in the article is stuff where repairing it where it comes from is not worth it.

Re: India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops

#58

Post by Cthulhu_ »

ryandrake wrote: post #21
blackoil wrote: post #13

It's simple, the labour cost for repair is lower than the replacement cost, we also have people scavenging for valuables in landfills. As/When India will become rich enough, this will become uneconomical. Long term solution is to force companies to build products with repairability in mind.

Companies should have to bear the full cost of cleaning up, repairing, or disposing the products they unleash upon the world. If I have to throw away my laptop because it broke, Lenovo should pay the cost of disposing (or repairing) it and bringing the environment back to the condition it was in before the product existed. When my car dies, Toyota should have to tow it away, part it out and reuse what it can. We've s…

> Companies should have to bear the full cost of cleaning up, repairing, or disposing the products they unleash upon the world.

Where I live, you pay a "removal fee" when buying electronics or appliances for just that. If you're buying a new washing machine for example, the party delivering your device is obligated to take the old one with them.

Of course, that's only part of it, your country also needs to have good waste processing and ideally not export it.

Re: India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops

#59

Post by [deleted] »

robocat wrote: post #45
magicalhippo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Norway, electrical and electronic (EE) goods are taxed extra and that money goes to recycling and cleanup[1]. Importers and producers are required to be a member of a approved company handling returns, like RENAS[2]. Shops selling EE goods are required to accept returned EE goods from individuals of the type they sell. So if you sell fridges you have to take my old fridge and handle it in accordance with the…

> there's money to be made by skipping steps, and some do You must be joking. "Fifteen major car manufacturers have been fined almost €600 million by the European Commission and the British government after Mercedes-Benz blew the whistle on a cartel that fixed car recycling costs and processes." https://www.dw.com/en/eu-and-uk-fine-carmakers-millions-over...

[deleted]

Re: India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops

#60

Post by more-nitor »

sidkshatriya wrote: post #27
ryandrake wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies should have to bear the full cost of cleaning up, repairing, or disposing the products they unleash upon the world. If I have to throw away my laptop because it broke, Lenovo should pay the cost of disposing (or repairing) it and bringing the environment back to the condition it was in before the product existed. When my car dies, Toyota should have to tow it away, part it out and reuse what it can. We've s…

This is a fair and valid view of looking at things. Though the trick is to not get too heavy handed. At what point does regulation become too stifling ? The American way is to possibly put too few responsibilities on manufacturers. The European way seems to be to saddle them with just too many regulations -- possibly killing so much innovation. One way to approach this would be to put more responsibilities on large e…

but ryandrake's comment might be the solution to what trump/republicans/rust-belt wants:

1. employment-rate for Americans. 2. bringing back industrial capacity in US.

If large companies are forced to recycle/repair INSIDE USA, that ultimately means employment for Americans, and bringing back industrial capacity back to US.

(which could mean forcing Chinese manufacturers settings up whole industrial complexes in US...)

btw, this would be a much easier/lesser-side-effect measure than "tariff on everyone" situation

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