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Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
Over the last year, we've noted the surge in so-called "right to repair" laws, which would make it easier for consumers to repair their electronics and find replacement parts and tools. It's a direct response to the rising attempts by companies like John Deere, Apple, Microsoft and Sony to monopolize repair, hamstringing consumer rights over products consumers think they own, while driving up the cost of said product ownership. John Deere's draconian lockdown on its tractor firmware is a large part of the reason these efforts have gained steam over the last few months in states like Nebraska.
In New York, one of the first attempts at such a law (the "Fair Repair Act") has finally been making progress. But according to New York State's Joint Commission on Public Ethics, Apple, Verizon, Toyota, Lexmark, Caterpillar, Asurion, and Medtronic have all been busy lobbying to kill the law for various, but ultimately similar, reasons. And they're out-spending the consumer advocates and repair shops pushing for this legislation by a rather wide margin:
"The records show that companies and organizations lobbying against right to repair legislation spent $366,634 to retain lobbyists in the state between January and April of this year. Thus far, the Digital Right to Repair Coalition—which is generally made up of independent repair shops with several employees—is the only organization publicly lobbying for the legislation. It has spent $5,042 on the effort, according to the records."
Source: techdirt.com
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @01:26PM (10 children)
I do side work for a family run forklift repair business. Father, son, and daughter run it out of a small building. Father started it in the 70's after he was forced to retire from the police force as he was badly burnt saving a woman from a burning car. Like Caterpillar and John deere, the fork lift makers have filled their machines with "proprietary" electronic components which only dealerships get the tools to repair. Why not become a dealership then? Well first off, the major brands already have dealerships in their territory. Second, you'd have to be a dealership for all the major brands to be able to survive as a small business. They used to have some pretty good contracts with warehouses full of machines but those all dried up once they could no longer service them. Whereas before they were simple machines with an engine, transmission/pto, hydraulic pumps, hoses, and valves. That was easy stuff to repair regardless of the make. It's similar to working on a really small, really heavy car. Now they all have electronics in them requiring specialized tools to repair. So what are they supposed to do? Obviously go out of business. And that is what they are looking to do.
I also spoke with the owner of a vacuum pump repair shop (vacuum as in industrial and scientific stuff). One story he told me was when IBM bought new Edwards (largest vacuum equipment maker in the world) dry vacuum pumps for their semiconductor plant in NY. One of them broke down and he was called to service the pump. Turns out a temperature sensor was bad. He calls Edwards who informs him that part is proprietary and they had to either ship the pump to Arizona for repair or fly out a tech to replace the part. Now the pump isn't exactly small, we're talking 1000lbs. And the cost for the tech was about $2000/day. All to replace what hew said was a sensor that couldn't be more than a few dollars with two wires coming out of it. What used to be a simple mechanical pump with the only electronic bits being perhaps a motor and maybe a thermal cutout or oil solenoid valve is now equipped with a VFD, closed loop speed controller and electronic monitoring. Maybe don't buy Edwards? That would be great save for the fact that the EU decided to allow Atlas Copco to buy both Edwards and the second largest vacuum manufacturer, Leybold. Atlas Copco is also busy buying out a shit load of compressor reapir shops and distributors in the USA (http://www.atlascopcogroup.com/investor-relations/key-figures/acquisitions-and-divestments [atlascopcogroup.com]). So now you have a behemoth who dominates the market and is moving all service and repair in-house forcing independent dealers and service companies out of business.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Thursday May 25 2017, @02:25PM (6 children)
Emulate the pressure sensor? and install generic control boards that replace the whole proprietary blob and is then configured with a laptop?
How much does that 1000 lbs vacuum pump cost to buy?
(Score: 4, Informative) by mhajicek on Thursday May 25 2017, @03:56PM (3 children)
And spend how much to reverse engineer the original hardware? And then get sued for how much for copyright infringement?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday May 25 2017, @04:14PM (2 children)
A simple PID loop should be easy. Reverse engineering by automated measurements which is then feed into a generic control board. Selling a generic control board unprogrammed is unlikely to be vulnerable to legal attack. Everything that can be expressed in bits can float around anonymously.
Emulating a sensor as a one off repair is unlikely to be known to the manufacturer or enable any suing.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Friday May 26 2017, @09:41AM (1 child)
With the "internet of Things", it will come to pass that manufacturers are aware of every modification or use of their products, with accompanying terms of service, licensing agreements or such.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday May 26 2017, @10:31PM
Oooh.. "malfunction" .. "very good sir, no idea, works very good," ;)
Or just chop the connection and replace as necessary with emulation.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Friday May 26 2017, @12:08PM (1 child)
That's exactly the thing I have helped a few local businesses with around here using these little Arduino-compatible boards I design. I build an industrial version, where I have more noise immunity, and isolated inputs/outputs.
I'd love to go into business and sell these things, but frankly, I have not figured out how to make mine nearly as cheap as one can get one from Fry's.
I am reticent to place devices without sufficient isolation into industrial equipment. I like to see things completely galvanically isolated. If something fries, the extent of the damage is limited.
Last one I helped was a pizza restaurant with a 50 year old Hobart dough kneading machine. It would cost about $15,000 to replace it. The mechanical stuff was in perfect condition... that old thing is made like a tank, but the electrical stuff was pretty dated. It now has new solid-state relays and timer. Optical control switches.
And it all fit where the old mechanical timer used to be. However, I did have to make a new aluminum panel.
It took me a little time. I got free pizza from then on. ( I could not take the man's money.. he was a friend of mine and had just bought the restaurant, and was already having a serious cash flow problem. He made me an offer that if I fixed the thing, he would treat me right for pizza. )
My current project is building a powertrain controller for my diesel van. There has been all sorts of talk on the web about problems people are having, and I am convinced the E4OD transmission is a really well built device. I just need to control it carefully, and it should last me the rest of my life. Just don't burn it up letting it slip! There are just so many things I want the computer to help me with, that I finally decided it best to make a project out of it, and make my dream come true.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday May 26 2017, @10:44PM
Interesting regarding the dough kneading machine. Any photos? maybe that could be a thing. Salvage old machinery can give them a new controller card? Old fridges worked for decades so that may be worthwhile to refurbish.
Do your solid-state relays give galvanic isolation? and no leakage current that matters?
As for Arduino. Maybe it's worthwhile to go for 32-bit ARM? the price difference is small these days.
Regarding cars, have a look at this DIY electric car [triplepundit.com] for 12 900 US$. That outperforms the 20 times more expensive high end model S P100D. The key seems to be recycling of batteries.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @03:43PM
For cars (atleast) EU mandates that manufacturers need to make the software and tools available to all maintenance shops, not just dealerships.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by linkdude64 on Thursday May 25 2017, @04:55PM
Rtd? Only so many things it could've been. My solution would be to find a good working one, take some resistance readings at different temperatures, and search for those figures in NIST charts
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @05:13AM
Start your own forklift company?