this post was submitted on 15 May 2024
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Right to Repair

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Whether it be electronics, automobiles or medical equipment, the manufacturers should not be able to horde “oem” parts, render your stuff useless if you repair it with aftermarket parts, or hide schematics of their products.

I Fix It Repair Manifesto

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Great channel covering and advocating right to repair, Lewis Rossman

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Basic blender went bad (motor ran but spindle wasn't rotating). I wanted to disassemble to see if it could be repaired. Three of the four screws were Phillips head. I had to cut the casing open in order to discover why I couldn't unscrew the fourth. It was a slotted spanner.

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[–] Madison420 1 points 6 months ago (12 children)

There's the way the world works and the way the world aught to work according to xyz.

One is reality the other isn't. Realistically if you don't expect a security screw when taking apart dangerous electronics you probably shouldn't be working on them.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (9 children)

The tamper proof screw is NOT there to protect you, It's there to discourage repairs plain and simple. A warning label is more than adequate on other blenders, why not this one? In fact, there are plenty of dangerous devices I can think of that don't need to be locked down to prevent lawsuits. A lawsuit would require negligence on the part of the manufacture and while you're trying to say by not locking it down it could be considered negligence you'd be wrong. Otherwise I could quit my job and just file lawsuits all day. Let's not try to defend these companies that engineer planned obsolescence into their products. All they want is to be the sole repair option (big profit margins) or have you buy a new over priced high markup item. Nevermind the waste generated by hrowing away perfectly good products that a simple easy repair would fix.

[–] Madison420 -2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (8 children)

The tamper proof screw is NOT there to protect you, It's there to discourage repairs plain and simple.

Point to where I said it was there to protect you. It's quite literally to avoid lawsuits putting the screw there implies it's meant to be taken apart by a professional, not Ted down the street who stopped school in third grade.

All they have to do is point to that screw and the lawsuit dies then and there no further action.

It's also not planned obsolescence in this case, it's a barrier to repair. Literally a hoop too small to jump through that catches the dumbest of the well meaning. It would be planned obsolescence (arguably) if it prevented repair, it doesn't it simply complicates it. It's the same reason your seatbelt part ≈00 is held down by a large torx t50-60 and no longer a 15mm bolt.

[–] lemmyhavesome 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

You lost me on the seatbelt thing. What's going on there?

[–] Madison420 0 points 6 months ago

Nothing they got the point of. Essentially manufacturers use security through obscurity, put in a tamper proof screw in and most people who aren't capable of doing the repair won't have the correct bit and will understandably not attempt to muck around with whatever it is.

Why dude wants to argue with a master tech about tamper proof bits purpose not being to resist tampering is beyond me, next they'll argue how people movers aren't meant to move people but rather to shift lifeforms from place to place....

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