Are products designed to fail?

cepheus

Mankysteve wrote: »

Good old planed obsolescence.

Sorry this remark is lost on me, perhaps Jenna or yourself could explain what you mean.

pumpkinlife

My OH had the same Toshiba TV for about 13 years. It was still working but had a band of purple distortion down the side where it had been sat next to speakers for so long. It had also suffered a lot of abuse in student digs and being moved back and forth.

Not even 2 years ago we replaced it with a brand new Toshiba that didn't come cheap. Two months ago we tried to turn it on using the pushbutton, but it just seemed to be moving in and out. When we took the button out, we found that instead of hitting the connection that turned the TV on directly, it hit a thin brittle strip of plastic (which had broken), which then pressed the connector that powered up the TV. I can't believe that stupid little bit of plastic did anything other than make the TV unusable as quickly as possible after the warranty ran out. So yes, things are designed to break. 'Quality' retailers sell clothes that can't stand up to their own washing instructions, with loosely sewn buttons and seams. Shoes are designed to last a season, not a few years. Everything is about quantity and fashion and newness, the label and not the quality.

Ben84

I've always found inkjet printers to be unreliable and a pain in many ways. I replaced mine with a laser printer and have been very happy with it for about five or six years now, and I use it a lot, in the range of 3,000 sheets a year. Buy one that's easy to refill, because even if you use their branded toner cartridges now, later if they stop selling them or they're hard to find, you have an alternative that doesn't involve throwing it out and buying a new one.

cepheus

Ben84 wrote: »

I've always found inkjet printers to be unreliable and a pain in many ways. I replaced mine with a laser printer and have been very happy with it for about five or six years now, and I use it a lot, in the range of 3,000 sheets a year. Buy one that's easy to refill, because even if you use their branded toner cartridges now, later if they stop selling them or they're hard to find, you have an alternative that doesn't involve throwing it out and buying a new one.

Ive been advised this elsewhere, how often do these have to be serviced or toners replaced, refilled etc. I don't use my printer much, I'm thinking of doing without one and using the library

cepheus

Guess what. I've just cleaned both cartridges on both sides of the electrical contacts and that is all it was! A friend suggested this, and HP also do with their printers!

However, the cartridge shop wanted me to buy another printer (and throw all the other cartridges away since they don't fit any new printers) and Canon was only interested in whether I had bought one of their cartridges, cleaning the heads or sending it back to them for a service.

It is not the printer which is designed to be thrown away, but the crap advice!

This makes you wonder how much hardware could be saved by very simple but unbiased advice, and money made by business by avoiding it!

GetRealBabe

Hi

Glad you got your printer working. Did you clean the electrical contacts by hand?

GRB

Mankysteve

cepheus wrote: »

Sorry this remark is lost on me, perhaps Jenna or yourself could explain what you mean.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence


When designing a product. They dilperatly plan how to get
you to replace the item. Most use one of these two

1. By useing customer marketing imformation they deigns there
products to fail after a set time while not upsetting the customer
so they come back and buy the same brand of product


2. Style obsolance they deisgn a product to be very stlyish now
but in full knowledge that in 12 mounths time they'll come out
with an even more stylish version. Apple are master at this one.

Excuse the bad spelling no spell checker on uni pcs and iam too lazy to type out in word. :-)

cepheus

GetRealBabe wrote: »

Hi

Glad you got your printer working. Did you clean the electrical contacts by hand?

GRB

Yes distilled water from the fridge and a strong tissue. To be honest I wasn't being very careful since I had almost given up on it!

I sent a complaint to the printer shop and copied it to the sustainable development commission, no doubt they had a laugh! Couldn't be bothered to inform trading standards or consumer groups, no damn Email, only those stupid forms.

It is all quite a fuss for one printer, but these have failed on me so many times and this was the final straw! Unless most people adopt this attitude, they will keep designing crap printers, redesigning cartridges so they are incompatible across printers, and encouraging us to replace rather than repair.

See http://printerinkcartridges.printcountry.com/canon-printers-canon-printer-ink-cartridges-articles/canon-pixma-printer-customer-complaints/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence

Yes, this is a good article I have seen this before. Just thought someone was having a go at me. Now I'm paranoid!

GetRealBabe

cepheus wrote: »

See http://printerinkcartridges.printcountry.com/canon-printers-canon-printer-ink-cartridges-articles/canon-pixma-printer-customer-complaints/

Yes, this is a good article I have seen this before. Just thought someone was having a go at me. Now I'm paranoid!

Hi

That was a interesting read. I must be lucky that my Canon Pixma MP810 still works. (What happened to the complainants hasn't happened to me, YET-My printer has a silent option but I've never used it and I just printed the article using duplex printing and grayscale. I also use chipped compatible ink cartridges to keep the costs down.)

Agree with some of it as after a year, a paper-feed problem killed off my Canon IP2600.:(

When my printer finally gives up I'll probably buy another Canon Printer. I've had Epson and HP printers but I still prefer Canon.

GRB

cepheus

People tell me my printers fail frequently simply because I use them seldomly. I might go several weeks without printing anything. I use compatible ink to keep costs down, this is the other reason often cited.