My wife and I were out recently looking at ceiling fans to replace the one in our dining room, which has committed no crimes, other than having the appearance of being very much from the 1980s.
I was taken aback by how few of the fans had replaceable lightbulbs! In the entire store there were maybe three or four options with a replaceable bulb!
Call me crazy, but a nonreplaceable LED is a complete dealbreaker. I go through so many LED bulbs! I don't know if my electricity is like particularly bad or if that's just normal? The first LED bulb I ever bought (Shout out EarthLED) in 2008 for like $30 is still going strong, but every bulb I buy these days lasts like two years tops.
I had a car that had non replaceable light bulbs in the rear blinkers, just a strip of led integrated deeply in the tail light assembly. Of course the blinker died. Replaced the whole assembly. (And replaced the whole car later). Apparently some enthusiasts do disassemble them and replace just the led strip, probably requiring soldering etc. This company had designed cars for about 120 years at that point but still seemed to commit easy mistakes...
> This company had designed cars for about 120 years at that point but still seemed to commit easy mistakes…
Oh take a look at the recall list of any car company in the world and you will find they all make simple mistakes, constantly. Probably a consequence of price pressure at all times. While cars are lasting longer than they used to on average, I feel like it’s been getting worse in some ways with cars lately turning into computers and good car/engine companies lately turning into bad tech companies without that much tech experience who outsource important parts and do lousy integration. And yeah, building assemblies or modules with non-replaceable parts is becoming more common.
Mistakes, or careless at best? I'm thinking of a couple of scenarios I've had in personal vehicles, where I'm positive the design decision was the unreviewed work of some co-op student's summer project.
Case 1: Ford Taurus wagon, my wife calls in a panic because it's blowing all hot air, and the dash is awash in lights. I get her to shut it off, wait a bit, and limp the last few km home. Turns out the serpentine belt goes around a pulley, the center bolt of which is screwed into the engine block. When the bearing started to go, there was friction, and the belt spun the bolt out and it fell off. It could have been reverse threaded, like one pedal on every bike, ever. But no. If it had, the bearing would screech, we'd get it replaced, instead of just silently falling out with potentially catastrophic consequences.
Case 2: Chevy Venture van, where the lights on the rear door all stopped working. Turned out the wiring harness for them ran through this accordion hose at the top, plugged into the bottom of a rain gutter across the top. So as soon as that hose broke its seal with the trough, the whole harness is shorted.
Funny, I have never experienced this sort of stupidity in the Toyotas and Hondas that have followed these last couple American-branded vehicles.
donatj · · focus · HN ↗
I was taken aback by how few of the fans had replaceable lightbulbs! In the entire store there were maybe three or four options with a replaceable bulb!
Call me crazy, but a nonreplaceable LED is a complete dealbreaker. I go through so many LED bulbs! I don't know if my electricity is like particularly bad or if that's just normal? The first LED bulb I ever bought (Shout out EarthLED) in 2008 for like $30 is still going strong, but every bulb I buy these days lasts like two years tops.
Anyway, we did not buy a fan.
Gravityloss · · focus · HN ↗
dahart · · focus · HN ↗
Oh take a look at the recall list of any car company in the world and you will find they all make simple mistakes, constantly. Probably a consequence of price pressure at all times. While cars are lasting longer than they used to on average, I feel like it’s been getting worse in some ways with cars lately turning into computers and good car/engine companies lately turning into bad tech companies without that much tech experience who outsource important parts and do lousy integration. And yeah, building assemblies or modules with non-replaceable parts is becoming more common.
tlavoie · · focus · HN ↗
Case 1: Ford Taurus wagon, my wife calls in a panic because it's blowing all hot air, and the dash is awash in lights. I get her to shut it off, wait a bit, and limp the last few km home. Turns out the serpentine belt goes around a pulley, the center bolt of which is screwed into the engine block. When the bearing started to go, there was friction, and the belt spun the bolt out and it fell off. It could have been reverse threaded, like one pedal on every bike, ever. But no. If it had, the bearing would screech, we'd get it replaced, instead of just silently falling out with potentially catastrophic consequences.
Case 2: Chevy Venture van, where the lights on the rear door all stopped working. Turned out the wiring harness for them ran through this accordion hose at the top, plugged into the bottom of a rain gutter across the top. So as soon as that hose broke its seal with the trough, the whole harness is shorted.
Funny, I have never experienced this sort of stupidity in the Toyotas and Hondas that have followed these last couple American-branded vehicles.