Tom VerbeureIs it ethical to repair test equipment before selling it at the flea market?
You’re depriving the buyer of hours of entertainment…
(Weekend! Let’s get back to my scopes!)
Robert Jan Schutten@tom_verbeure You’re a monster!
@rjschutten I've decided to upgrade only 1 of the scopes from 600 MHz to 1 GHz so that the buyer still has something to do.
Greg Bell@tom_verbeure yes but you have to affix a note to it saying "Works! (sorry)"
@ferrix Great idea. You better believe that I will do that.
Ewen McNeill@tom_verbeure I think you’d probably have to disclose “already repaired” when selling it, so no one gets their hopes up 😉
@ewenmcneill Or disconnect a bunch of cables...
tntUndo the repair (or create other fault) and include the "solution" in a sealed envelope :)
@tnt @ewenmcneill In the eighties, a Dutch consumer advocacy TV program bought 20 Philips TVs, waited until warranty expired, cut the same wire, and sent them to official Philips service centers for repair.
They then compared the bill to fix it, which varied wildly.
A Philips spokesman argued that finding an issue like that depends on the technician’s experience and some luck and that they charge by the hour.
I still think he had a point.
Geert Uytterhoeven@tom_verbeure @tnt @ewenmcneill IIRC, they cut a lead of a resistor on a module.
Which already led to another discussion about what was the best way to repair the TV: replace the faulty module (high part cost, low hour cost), or just the faulty component (low part cost, high hour cost).
Which already led to another discussion about what was the best way to repair the TV: replace the faulty module (high part cost, low hour cost), or just the faulty component (low part cost, high hour cost).
@tom_verbeure @tnt @ewenmcneill Reading the schematics of these old modular Philips TVs also teaches you why Philips came up with the I2C bus.
@geert @tnt @ewenmcneill My previous manager told me the story about how his colleague at Natlab walked into his office telling about his new invention: a 2 wire bidirectional multi-master/multi-slave bus.