Last week I was asked, as a favour, to look at a portable electric heater that was not turning off (a potentially unsafe condition). It was less than two years old and came with a two year warranty. The heater looked like it had hardly been used, probably because the owner spends time overseas. Unfortunately the sales receipt was not available so the retailer would not replace it.  The box had a sticker of $49.95 on it but they apparently sold for as low as $6.00 so the retailer had no idea how much to refund.  (Hmm, but why would they not simply replace it?)

The heater was marketed by Kent, a well known New  Zealand company.  When I approached them they were unsympathetic and they did not supply spare parts for the unit.  So I decided to have a go at fixing it.  It turned out that the rotary on/off selector switch, which I managed to dismantle, had been assembled incorrectly at the factory.  One of the switch contacts was laying at 90 degrees to the position it should have been in and therefore always making a closed circuit.  I doubt that it could have become dislodged during use so it looks like production and quality control both failed on this failed unit!

Speaking of faulty goods I chanced across this video clip about a shoddy Chinese made USB hub (I think the presenter may be a fellow New Zealander).

A really bad bit of Chinese electronics

Not a video on my usual subjects this time… This 4 port USB hub has to be the worst bit of electronics I’ve ever seen come out of China. China has revolutionized the electronics industry by delivering useful products to the world at previously unbelievably low prices but at the bottom of the market, some of the stuff they ship is absolute crap.

It is of shocking quality (pardon the pun) and was faulty from new. Politicians, consumers, and manufacturers are all complicit in this sad state of affairs. Consumers demand cheap products, manufacturers make cheap products, and politicians (as well as government agencies to some degree) allow it to happen.

Consumers and the environment are loosing out.

The sales of smartphones topped one billion units in 2013.  That’s a lot!  That means one out of every seven people on the planet purchased one last year.  Gee, if only I could get to repair a millionth of that volume my profits would look pretty damn good!

It seems that the way some of the importers of appliances get away with not having to supply spare parts is by offering a replacement warranty of say two or three years. After that you are expected to throw it away if it fails. Given that appliances often contain proprietary components means that they cannot be fixed.

This is another reason why the service industry is in decline and why there is increasing amounts of e-waste.

I had an inkling that there was a trade in counterfeit electronic components.  I have just now come across this video put together by the AAA Components Test Lab about how it is done.

Electronic Components Refurbishing Process

Refurbishing process of electronic components created by AAA Components Test Lab.

As a technician and an environmentalist this sort of stuff is really annoying!  I am all for the reuse of components if they are as reliable as new ones but looking at the substandard “refurbishment” process of these semiconductors makes me mad! Firstly, the process of “blacktopping” where the parts are given a new label is downright dishonest.  Secondly, where are the antistatic precautions?  The components are thrown in plastic buckets and plastic bags.  That is going to make the parts really unreliable and shorten their service life.