Make: Noise — Discuss this article

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• Chevrolet not alone, add Craftsman, Sears
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  I had a part failure that would have cost maybe a dollar in a Craftsman Extension cord reel, and could have been replaced in 10 minutes, but they won't sell that part either, nor do they even list it. Instead, a complete replacement of the whole unit and assembly to the tune of about $30 is required. I have a couple of pictures I can share if you like. Good article, and unfortunately, so true. Have a good day and God bless. John

  Posted by ponpilot on October 28, 2005 at 13:23:46 Pacific Time

• Economy of scale
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  It's not cost-effective to make every part for every product available down the retail chain to consumers, especially if products aren't designed to use standard multi-use parts. If it's cheaper to design/manufacture a gizmo to use a special part, most consumers are going to buy from the company that passes that savings down to them.
  
  Think about total cost of ownership for ten thousand owners of a gizmo that has a hundred parts. if part A is the sole cause of failure for two of them, it would probably be cheper for the company to simply send a new gizmo to two customers than to maintain part A in inventory and make sure that it is field-replaceable (if they were under warranty.)
  
  For some reason people are more likely to consider total cost of ownership at the high end of any given product range than at the low end.
  
  As long as it's cheaper to manufacture non-serviceable products, that's what the lowest-common-denominator in the marketplace will be.

  Posted by Aliza on December 10, 2006 at 12:04:58 Pacific Time

• Broken Bits
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  Thanks for the note!
  
  When stuff prematurely breaks, it is so profoundly annoying not to be able to fix it and get your money's worth. This morning I was thinking about stuff that you can buy 'granular level' parts for, e.g. you can buy every tiny component for lawn sprinkler heads. And hose repair kits - for a buck or two you can buy a new hose end and it comes with the tool assemble it.
  
  Your offer of photo sharing is cool. Put it on Flickr, put it in the makepool and tag it ownyourown. I will put up the fuel pump and draw a box around a) the failure (tiny metal tang) and b) what needed to be replaced (whole thing).

  Posted by MrJalopy on October 31, 2005 at 06:31:51 Pacific Time

• Sing it brother!
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  I just bought a new motorcycle and INSISTED that the official factory service manual and parts microfiche were included.
  
  They tried to foist a "Clymer's" off on me, and also said the microfiche was "dealer-only" (it's vital for ordering parts and reassembling stuff)
  
  I was going to walk out when they relented.
  
  I learned a hard lesson from my Camaro where the ABS failed, nobody was able to diagnose it or fix it, and it eventually ended me up in a guardrail and a lawsuit.
  
  The ECU diag code meanings were secret. Never again!

  Posted by Crash_Cash on November 04, 2005 at 13:31:42 Pacific Time

• Another good one...
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  I was going to buy a nice Black&Decker electric lawnmower at Home Depot. I asked the price of a spare blade.
  
  "Oh, we don't sell spare blades for that."
  
  WHAT? You gotta be kidding! Nope.

  Posted by Crash_Cash on November 04, 2005 at 13:37:59 Pacific Time

• Another good one...
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  Don't buy black and decker, at least not for anything large. Our snowblower lacks the capability of blowing snow. The worst for anti-user serviceability is now and has been cellphones. But seriously, standard, ha! Metric or bust!

  Posted by MCPhilip on November 10, 2005 at 20:20:53 Pacific Time

• Another good one...
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  What is this "standard" you guys are talking about? You mean those weird-ass English units? Since when are they standard anything? Metric _is_ standard.

  Posted by leoboiko on January 31, 2009 at 14:19:19 Pacific Time

• Respectfully disagree with your premise
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  a) I don't think we want your rights lists applied universally.
  
  I don't want to pay a premium for a ball point pen to make it user repairable or explorable, because I'm not interested in the innards of ballpoints (others may be) and I'm too cheap. Also, my 68 year old Aunt Ficticious doesn't want to pay a penny extra for her car to enable her to do things she never will.
  
  b) I'm not optimistic that a bill of rights is the right vehicle (pun intended). I don't think manufactures will be inclined to implement these major changes just because we see them as desirable.
  
  c) My proposal would be to have a bill of lading rather than a bill of rights. A, "MF" certification which appears on the label of products, and indicates their degree of maker friendliness.
  
  Here's a first cut: Take the 17 items in your bill of rights, generalize them, masssage as needed, and come up with 16 binary qualities, such as
  1) meaningful and specific parts list is included or on web
  2) users with normal tool set can get access to all parts with a MTBF less than 5 years
  ...
  14) product does not contain a mixture of metric and standard sizes
  15) schematics are included or web accessible to users
  16) usable troubleshooting information is included or web accessible
  
  represent the product's compliance by a hexadecimal string like MF:03AF, and put this on the label. Audit, and certify seller as required. Now I know what I'm getting, and I can decide to pick one product over another based on its MF rating, or one seller over another.
  
  This gives manufactures some incentive to sell products with more MF qualities, because they can sell more of them to geeks like us. And it's more likely to happen if there's monetary incentive.
  
  OK, soapbox dismount, and back to tinkering, eh.
  
  

  Posted by nerdougie on November 12, 2005 at 18:05:05 Pacific Time

• Respectfully disagree with your premise
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  Some good points and some clarifications...
  
  a) Clearly somethings need to be disposable. I am not suggesting Q-Tips should have replaceable cotton. It is great that we live in times of such abundance that we can have disposable pens and sunglasses but cars and computers should be fixable.
  
  And your 68 year old aunt DESERVES to have a repairable, documented car with parts available for reasonable prices and easy repairs. SOMEBODY is going to fix her car and they are going to pass the costs on. Easier to fix, the cheaper it is.
  
  b) Maybe manufacturer's will, maybe they won't. I think lots of manufacturer's try and some are already doing a good job. Having bought replacement rubber bumpers from Sears for 15 year old bumper pool table makes me think some companies think it's worth it.
  
  Manufacturer's spend time thinking about customer loyalty. Being able to repair and expand is part of ownership for lots of people. Your 68 year old aunt may not remember all the particulars of a Chevy fuel gauge repair, but she will remember it was expensive.
  
  c) I agree. This is the next step. To figure out a clever way for manufacturer's to tout their Maker accessibility. But you chopped a Right off the list to fit in a hexadecimal numbering scheme! Base 17!

  Posted by MrJalopy on November 15, 2005 at 16:53:01 Pacific Time

• Score products on their maker-friendliness
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  I like this idea. It might not even need to involve the products manufacturer at all. End users could score products that they own by ticking off how the item rates according to the criteria, and then share these scores someplace central for the community.

  Posted by ike9898 on February 10, 2009 at 13:04:13 Pacific Time

• Not just for Makers
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  I enjoyed your Bill of Rights and the article that accompanied it. However, I don't understand why this is called a Maker's Bill of Rights. My friend may not be much of a maker, but he has every right to be able to purchase an iPod that's accessible enough to replace a dead battery.
  
  I would prefer you call this something like "An addendum to the Buyer's Bill of Rights", because we all need these considerations, not just Maker's.
  
  Cheers.

  Posted by hypergenesb on November 13, 2005 at 10:48:56 Pacific Time

• Not just for Makers
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  It's true. Everybody deserves these rights. Maybe I should have called it 0wner's Bill of Rights or Buyer's Bill of Rights. Or, Mister Jalopy's Bill of Rights! Yeah!

  Posted by MrJalopy on November 15, 2005 at 16:55:24 Pacific Time

• Craftsman is very good in Canada
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  The local Sears parts outlet carries an incredible array of replacement parts for Craftsman power tools and machinery We're still able to keep our 15-year-old garden tractor going because of them. Of course, it helps that it came with full parts information and exploded drawings of everything. :-D

  Posted by gordoncampbell1 on November 15, 2005 at 10:02:56 Pacific Time

• Craftsman is very good in Canada
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  Exploded drawings and schematics - that is really the key. Especially, if the object in questions has 'exploded' and you are trying to get it back together!
  
  The companies that do this stuff the best are - by no coincedence - tool companies.

  Posted by MrJalopy on November 15, 2005 at 16:59:30 Pacific Time

• Craftsman is very good in Canada
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  I worked for Sears, not in Canada, as a repair tech for a few years. While their training was non-existant, their parts site was invaluable. While learning to fix everything Sears sold, I could use the site for not only figuring out what part I needed, but how everything fit back together once I'd torn it apart.
  
  http://www3.Sears.com All you need is a part number.

  Posted by Mshkor on November 26, 2005 at 19:59:07 Pacific Time

• Craftsman is very good in Canada
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  I've found Craftsman and Kenmore (both Sears brands) here in the US to also be good at including parts diagrams and schematics with tools and appliances. That, and the ability to get those parts from the Sears parts website, are some of the main reasons I still buy my tools and appliances from them.

  Posted by TomGeorgoulias on September 21, 2009 at 18:17:35 Pacific Time

• This is quixotic in nature
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  You will never be able to meet any of those requirements for most electronics devices. Most if not all electronics devices use SMT which is nearly impossible to solder without special tools that are expensive. To make the parts easily repairable you would have to use through hole components which are much larger (say goodbye to ipod sized objects). Never mind the fact that the no user servicable parts tag is used by companies to prevent death by idiocy. I remember going to take apart the microwave but then decided against it when I read that I could accidentally kill myself even if it's unplugged.

  Posted by technoextreme on November 23, 2005 at 08:36:20 Pacific Time

• This is quixotic in nature
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  Having accessible hardware does not mean anti-innovation or anti-miniaturization. I do not share your pessimism that modern electronics can not meet any of the rights. Desoldering surface mount components is one thing; changing the battery is quite another.
  
  I think it is superb that the microwave label clearly states the risks of opening. Commented enclosures are brilliant, but there is a big difference between stating the risks and just saying "No User Servicable Parts" - as the later is a lie too often told to be a deterrent.

  Posted by MrJalopy on November 26, 2005 at 17:25:10 Pacific Time

• This is quixotic in nature
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  Im sorry. I agree with the whole easily replacable battery issue. In fact the Ipod battery always confused me. They used a small battery that dies relatively quickly inside a form factor that you can't even take apart easily or obtain a replacement easily. I wonder where the logic for that came from. Nintendo on the other hand appears to use the same batteries in their devices and they are easily accessable to change.

  Posted by technoextreme on November 29, 2005 at 09:19:10 Pacific Time

• ipod batteries
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  Um . . . am I the only one who found replacing ipod batteries pretty trivial, given the plastic tool?
  
  The problem with consumer-replacable batteries is that you have to add the mass and volume of a jacket around the battery to protect it from grubby fingers and sharp things. (These are Lithium Polymer batteries. Puncture them, and they can catch fire).
  
  Also, if digital cameras are any indication, it's a sure thing that the battery form factor would be proprietary. Instead, you have a fairly generic LiPoly battery mounted in there that everyone and their dog sells replacements for *with* the special tools.
  
  Okay, screws to get into the thing would be nice, it's true.
  
  -Jim

  Posted by Happy-Hacker on February 03, 2007 at 18:54:29 Pacific Time