Not just because you saved yourself 80¢ by using cheap, low temperature capacitors in your expensive big screen TV, but because then you made the circuit boards harder to pull out than Imperial Japanese soldiers on Okinawa.
It's not too much to say that the Mitsubishi DLP television series is the GM Cutlass diesel of big screen TVs. And the '79 4.3L diesel, not the "good" 5.7L that would at least take you 60,000 miles before shattering into shards.
Engineering classes should teach fledgling designers that this is the express lane to customers who will never, ever buy anything with your logo on it again. You can call the class "Die Screaming In A Fire, You SOB 101". I expect there's enough material for a 102 class as well.
Companies seem to deal only in large aggregate numbers at the top - "We saved $250,000 on xyz last year" - even while selling 1 million xyz - without paying attention to the idea that customers might even be willing to pay 30¢ more for the better product. Or wouldn't even notice the difference in price.
ReplyDeleteThe simulation said the caps were OK. That made the caps OK. EEs are mostly (only) computer operators anymore.
Q
How can I tell if my Mitsubishi TV is among the problem models?
ReplyDeleteQuizikle, the problem for the company is that they positioned this as a luxury item, costing a couple grand. Bad place to save a buck.
ReplyDeleteTheAxe, the only way I know about is if you find that one day all you see is the Green blinking light of death. Hope you're luckier than I am.
Since(when) they lost the format war I bought a Toshiba when they were selling on the downside. It's preformed magnificently, honoring the Emperor.
ReplyDeleteSO, it sounds like their TV design is about as good as their truck design... Sony Bravia- Had TWO in the last 20 years, and never a problem with either one!
ReplyDeleteSamsung isn't much better. I've put 3 LEDs in mine for over $1200 on a $2400 TV. Down for a power supply now.
ReplyDeleteGateway did this about the P-4 time frame. We got a lot of new systems that were dead 18 to 24 months later. A wholesale switch to Dell happened. It was pathetic. The fact that they were under warranty just stopped mattering.
ReplyDeleteThey would boot, sometimes. If you took the cover off and ran a fan right up into the case, you might get the data off before they blue screened. I purchased an external hard drive case and just put the drive to save the user's data.
Do you think they saved 40 cents a machine using cheaper capacitors?
I did some research on capacitors when my dinglydell monitor died. It turns out that industrial espionage is rife in the far east and that Taiwanese manufacturers had broken into the networks of Japanese competitors and had stolen the secrets of how to make the new fangled ones. Or they thought they did turns out they had been allowed to find the other plans the ones with the wrong ingredients. So a little while later Dell runs off to buy the now cheaper components from Taiwan which as planned all die within 6 months to a year, seriously pithing off dinglydell and ruining the name of the Taiwanese manufacturer.
ReplyDeleteA rather evil plot methinks.
BP:
ReplyDeleteTake comfort in the fact that many of the Mitsubishi designers' ancestors died in Zeroes spiraling downward in cataclysmic balls of flames!
I have a Samsung 40" TV that quit powering up when you pushed the go switch. Turns out there are 4 capacitors involved that needed replacing. You had to call them to find this out & they did send someone 65 miles to do this. Caps changed- TV works-- for a while. Now when it won't start up you pull the plug till the lights go out then plug it back in & presto-- TV workee.Works about half the time.
ReplyDelete