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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

#51

Post by PittleyDunkin »

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.

> that's well beyond the expected useful lifespan of even a modern TV

What? That's nuts. Why bother buying a tv if you're immediately going to throw it in the trash

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#52

Post by ahoka »

shiroiushi wrote: post #42
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

A decade old CPU would be a Haswell, not a Pentium 4.

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#53

Post by likeabatterycar »

The author seems to misunderstand PCB design flow. This is neither a "factory component placement issue" nor a silkscreen error. The error is in the schematic.

The layout CAD is often done by a different team that follows the schematic provided by design engineering. Automated workflows are common. The silk screen is predefined in a QA'd library. It is not their job to double check engineering's schematic.

The components are placed per the layout data.

Both those teams did their jobs correctly, to incorrect specifications. In fact, the factory performing assembly often is denied access to the schematic as it is sensitive IP.

If you're going to cast blame on a 30 year old computer, at least direct it at the correct group. It wasn't soldered incorrectly at the factory. They soldered it exactly how they were told to - backwards.

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#54

Post by m463 »

fredoralive wrote: post #40
PeterStuer wrote: post #21

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 tim…

With things like the Mac 128k, reliability issues may partly be down to Steve Job’s dislike of cooling fans.

To be honest, cooling fans never get the attention they deserve and end up whiney or buzzy.

That said, apple did a really good job with mac pro cooling fans where the shroud spun with the blades.

I think it did better than the the best PC cooling fans like noctua.

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#55

Post by rwmj »

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

ZX Spectrum +2 shipped with transistors backwards: https://www.bitwrangler.uk/2022/07/23/zx-spectrum-2-video-fi... This even caused visible artifacts on the display, which was apparently not enough for the problem to be noticed at the factory.

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#56

Post by yetihehe »

PeterStuer wrote: post #21

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 tim…

On the other side, we had intern at our (very small) company and he used his own mac. One time he had to debug a mains-powered device. He decided that he will try connecting it to both mains AND programming dongle without separating transformer. He fried the dongle (it literally exploded, plastic lid banging on desk in sudddenly silent office is the most memorable thing), the company provided monitor and device, but somehow his private mac mini survived all this while being in the middle.

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#57

Post by liontwist »

ethernot wrote: post #43
fragmede wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 app…

> they can't sell you recycled stolen parts at bottom of market prices for a sky high mark up

What represents a more efficient economy. The one where broken phones get reused for parts or the one where you have to throw them away?

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#58

Post by grujicd »

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.

Well, until today I didn't even know capacitor can have orientation! So more productive Wednesday than yours. In entry level electronics class I had decades ago it was always treated as a component that works the same way no matter in which direction the current flows.

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#59

Post by fredoralive »

grujicd wrote: post #58
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.

Well, until today I didn't even know capacitor can have orientation! So more productive Wednesday than yours. In entry level electronics class I had decades ago it was always treated as a component that works the same way no matter in which direction the current flows.

There are polarised and unpolarised capacitors. Stuff like basic decoupling capacitors tend to be unpolarised.

Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory

#60

Post by Filligree »

grujicd wrote: post #58
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.

Well, until today I didn't even know capacitor can have orientation! So more productive Wednesday than yours. In entry level electronics class I had decades ago it was always treated as a component that works the same way no matter in which direction the current flows.

Ceramic capacitors don't have polarity. Electrolytic ones do. Thing is, electrolytic capacitors have far higher capacitance for their size -- though also higher resistance.

It's something to check, but the polar ones should be clearly marked as such.

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