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The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

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Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#221

Post by talideon »

klysm wrote: post #113
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…

That seems like one the least harmful mistakes you could make. Capacitors are sprinkled all over boards in excess’s because it’s probably better than not enough capacitance.

It would probably be an idea to point out here that those are decoupling capacitors used to reduce noise. Capacitance isn't the point with them, but that they pass AC while blocking DC. Not that the capacitance hurts, mind.

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#222

Post by dotancohen »

RulerOf wrote: post #201
sillystuff wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not LED light bulbs specifically, but... "The Phoebus cartel engineered a shorter-lived lightbulb and gave birth to planned obsolescence" https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-great-lightbulb-conspiracy

It's true that the Phoebus cartel arranged to have light bulbs die after a certain number of hours, but bulb lifetime is a trade off between lumens, filament life, and energy consumption. The cartel-defined lifetime limit sits very close to the sweet spot for all of those metrics for incandescent bulbs. Technology Connections explained this well in a video about a year ago: https://youtu.be/zb7Bs98KmnY

  > bulb lifetime is a trade off between lumens, filament life, and energy consumption
At a specific temperature, using specific materials.

There is no reason to suspect that material science would not advance. Or other constraints would change. A specific company choosing that particular sweetspot for a particular product line is fine. But a collusion between companies dictating that specific constraint (in lieu of, e.g., wattage per lumen) is too clear a marker of anti-consumer intent.

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#224

Post by buescher »

anon_cow1111 wrote: post #199
magic_smoke_ee wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electrolytic capacitors are kinda like lead-acid batteries in that they are polarized through manufacturing processes. A voltage is applied in the factory to anodize the anode with a thin oxide layer. For fun, I think it would be possible to buy a quality low voltage cap and reverse the polarity of it in-situ which would remove the anodization from the new cathode and deposit a new layer on the new anode (former cath…

Here's a question for EE nerds that happen to be reading this (maybe in the future). What if I have a stash of big electrolytics that have been out of service for 10+ years? I know that I need to reform them over a few days, but can they even run at spec after so long out of operation? We're talking BIG stuff, 400v, 200+J each

For hobby or laboratory purposes, it’s worth a try. Some probably will come back completely.

But if you wanted to use them in production, and be able to blame me when it didn’t work, I’d say no.

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#225

Post by sgerenser »

Waterluvian wrote: post #84

I spent my mid childhood on an LCIII. One summer my friend brought his Performa over and we tried to play 1v1 Warcraft 2 over the serial port. LocalTalk or something alike? But it just never quite worked right. I remember how frustrated and confused my older brother was. The computers would sometimes see each other but would drop off so easily. Was this that?!

Iirc Warcraft 2 came out well after the LCIII was obsolete (in fact, I’d be surprised if it was ever released for 68k Macs). Official system requirements list PowerPC and MacOS 7.6 as minimum required[1]. Maybe thinking of a different game?

[1] https://www.blizzplanet.com/blog/comments/warcraft_ii_tides_...

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#226

Post by graemep »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #129
magic_smoke_ee wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intentional planned consumption/obsolescence by design. This class of problem is where under-regulation and lack of standards benefits only sellers and cheats buyers. PS: Also, Amazon should be required to test all of the electronic, safety, and food products on its site such that they can prove safety and standards conformance.

I am assuming you are an ee (like myself)...I have never designed a product with a built in expiration, nor have I ever seen any app notes or write ups on the engineering of it - something engineers love to do. What I have seen done is cheaping out on parts in order to get the price as low as possible, because customers shop primarily on price. Not to lash out, but it kind of hits a nerve for me, because people think…

The problem is that consumers cannot tell whether the more more expensive one is high quality or whether it is just the same as the cheap one, just priced higher.

There have been plenty of discussions on HN about brands that used to produce durable products no longer doing so. I mostly buy cheap stuff because I assume that everything will be built as cheaply as possible, so I will get something that will not last anyway.

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#227

Post by Waterluvian »

sgerenser wrote: post #225
Waterluvian wrote: post #84

I spent my mid childhood on an LCIII. One summer my friend brought his Performa over and we tried to play 1v1 Warcraft 2 over the serial port. LocalTalk or something alike? But it just never quite worked right. I remember how frustrated and confused my older brother was. The computers would sometimes see each other but would drop off so easily. Was this that?!

Iirc Warcraft 2 came out well after the LCIII was obsolete (in fact, I’d be surprised if it was ever released for 68k Macs). Official system requirements list PowerPC and MacOS 7.6 as minimum required[1]. Maybe thinking of a different game? [1] https://www.blizzplanet.com/blog/comments/warcraft_ii_tides_...

We tried both WC1 and 2. Played both to death.

WC2 worked mostly well but just kind of slower game speed.

In fact I got Diablo running on the LC3. A level took like 10 mins to load and it ran at 1fps though. :)

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#229

Post by pwg »

magic_smoke_ee wrote: post #142
Workaccount2 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am assuming you are an ee (like myself)...I have never designed a product with a built in expiration, nor have I ever seen any app notes or write ups on the engineering of it - something engineers love to do. What I have seen done is cheaping out on parts in order to get the price as low as possible, because customers shop primarily on price. Not to lash out, but it kind of hits a nerve for me, because people think…

I seriously doubt it's ever a deliberate conspiracy in engineering apart from shenanigans like what happened at VW, but it's net effect of product managers, accountants, and contract manufacturers who modify PCBs and BOMs after it's passed off to them to save money on retail products. And so it's likely unintentional with negligence, but it benefits the company. Except for some Samsung appliances made ~ 2010-2014 whi…

> It's not my fault if other people are too dumb to comprehend TCO because I would buy the $25 bulb if it had a 30 year warranty.

A 30 year warranty would certainly make a difference in the decision making. But more typically you see the $3 bulb, with a 1yr "warranty", next to the $25 bulb, and the $25 bulb either has an identical 1yr warranty, or has a warranty period not commensurate to the price difference, such as a 2yr warranty.

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#230

Post by 1oooqooq »

rvense wrote: post #215
1oooqooq wrote: post #155

what apple era are those machines? is this before or after Jobs shafted the engineering department on the sale and Woz had to give them bonus to keep them on the factory?

This is a good five years after Jobs left...

thanks. apple have been several companies depending on the era. if you're not a fan it's hard to keep track.
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