> After seeing the framework, I'm more than a little annoyed that I fell for this.
Me too. An I'm annoyed I fell for the lie that board level repair is impossible. What the manufacturers really should be saying is "it's impossible for us" because it's obviously possible for 3rd parties to do it and make a business out of it.
I'm willing to pay +$100 for something that's assembled with screws instead of glues.
>What makes the framework repairable isn't board-level schematics, its the modularity and access.
why not both?
no one in their right mind can argue that NDAing and walling documentation aids the repair effort.
so.. in other words.. framework is repairable up until the point that it may hurt their bottom-end profits; then you're on your own.
maybe they should get into selling board-level components so that they have a financial incentive to act morally and within their projected image of 'right-to-repair' advocacy.
>2) Modularity keeps the cost of individual components so low that board-level repair is hardly worth it. What would Louis charge me? $350 for shipping and time?
I don't know where you get your numbers, and Louis isn't the only person in the world with the ability to repair this stuff; you can make up a number so that it seems anti-competitive against the idea of modularity and buying a whole new replacement module -- but let it be said that these repairs can be done fairly cheap with some research and a bit of parts gathering. Cheaper than 350 cheap, in most cases.
> And the parts? Just went to iFixit, they‘re all there to buy. I‘m sure anybody serious about fixing these things professionally can source the parts.
> work that requires board schematics also requires exceptional tooling, expertise, and time, and is therefore also quite expensive ($250-$425 was the number quoted upthread).
Stop thinking about the West, the rest of the world exists.
Where do you think your monitor goes when you throw it away because an $1 capacitor has blown? Not into a black hole. Our broken devices get shipped to other countries as e-waste.
There cost of labour is $5 and people want to repair that device and keep it going for 40 years.
If you want ti say 'i dont care about other countries', then you will have to recycle this shit domestically and pay real money for it's disposal- and then repairing will look different economically
> Must be nice to have money to waste if one is willing to spend 10x to 50x replacing a whole motherboard because one of the cheaper soldered parts stops working and can't be easily replaced ...)
It's not this simple and you know it. Finding and replacing a tiny defective component is labor intensive to diagnose and to fix and not guaranteed at all. labor intensive = expensive.
I still stand by my opinion that this is malicious compliance to prevent formal Right To Repair legislation - not necessarily about the tooling (indeed, optionally providing tooling is a good move) but the fact that besides the problems mentioned in the linked comment, the actual selection of parts is minimal, hopefully for the time being.
>Thanks, the damage was and is pretty bad- and long-lasting. But, "be like water" and all that. I'm slowly pivoting to hardware development. Studying welding and CNC operations now also.
Keep at it, you are setting an amazing example here. Very good luck with it all.
Is some of the most fun I have had in ages in making tech do weird shit. I currently have a stepper motor rumnning over optic fibre as the first stage of my new 3d printer build.
> If they can save money by swapping out a component for unknown alternatives, there's some nonzero chance that will happen.
Yeah, I don't tend to go full turnkey unless I'm doing everything in China. At which point, I fully expect that they're going to use the cheapest, crappiest components they can find, and I'm going to just have to deal with it.
Normally, I buy the components and then ship them if I'm using a US assembly house.
>so we have a clear example of them having a superior design available (and most likely cheaper to produce)
This is probably not the case. The blob chip is probably in the pennies. And while I didn't look at the pictures extremely deeply I bet they did part and assembly reduction using the following methodology.
> As you've found it is not actually difficult to do that, just tedious and impractical.
That is the opposite of what I have found; I find that it's "the very devil" to remove these components. And my finding is that the presence of these components is tedious and impractical, and that their absence makes my life better.
> You aren't gaining anything here by removing things.
That is condescending.
I've used machines with these services and I've used machines without. I find it's a gain to not have them. Who are you to tell me whether I do or don't gain anything?
FTR I don't have to build anything; there are alternatives, which I use. Unfortunately these new components are more-or-less rivetted-in, which makes it hard to remove them and replace them. Screws are better than rivets.
> The mechanism I described isn't one to disagree or agree with.
And yet you failed to account for the embodied energy in building the product and the fact that maintaining any appliance or equipment requires repairs. So there is quite a bit to disagree with.
It is much more wasteful to build a product with no methods of repair, noting that a large number of components will statistically fail due to variability of tolerances or usage patterns.
A 50 yr product requires maintenance, replaceable parts and access to documentation. All of these are lacking in our modern consumer environment. You can blame this on complexity, or designs towards sleekness or what not but the truth is that product failure after a short amount of time (planned obsolescence) creates a reoccurring customer base, and the ability to pass off cheaper parts that don't need to be able to handle removal (glue vs. screws, etc.).
> I tried to quickly find information on how to create this board, or how to buy it directly from somewhere, or just how much it may cost to DIY, and I didn't easily see that type of information.
This saddens me, because I put a _lot_ of work into the README for this project. There is a BOM list with all the part numbers you need, pre-made Gerbers for you to send to any PCB house, a vector image for SendCutSend, and step-by-step instructions for soldering and setup. Please give it a re-read and let me know what information is missing.
I'm sorry no one has adopted this board for "mass"-production. It really was a labor of love, and I'm not super into the custom keyboard scene. I could learn how to do some marketing, I suppose.
Thank you for the nice words and praise. It means a lot.
Me too. An I'm annoyed I fell for the lie that board level repair is impossible. What the manufacturers really should be saying is "it's impossible for us" because it's obviously possible for 3rd parties to do it and make a business out of it.
I'm willing to pay +$100 for something that's assembled with screws instead of glues.
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