So, what did Zenith do to make their CRT's fail quicker?

[nasadowsk]

Originally Posted by Carmine

You would be amazed at how many people believe manufacturers build things to "fail" at some pre-determined date.

Let's see:

HP print cartridges that stop working after X pages, even if there's still ink in them...

Cars that turn on the check engine light every X miles to 'remind' you to replace the perfectly ok O2 sensor..

Sealed automatic transmissions, so you can't change the fluid and if there's a leak, you can't add any - new GMs are this way...

The infamously marginal timing belt on Hondas...

Lawnmower engines with plastic camshafts...

My other favorite is car parts where there's one REALLY marginal part, but you can't just buy/replace that, you have to buy a whole assembly.

Even nastier - I tried to get a manual for my new car (Mustang). Factory one? Nope - Ford wanted - get this - $10,000 for the manual set.

[MRX37]

Originally Posted by andy

When all this was happening, I remember reading how Zenith and LG were sinking huge amounts of money into this CRT plant that was a completely new design. It was supposed to produce "high quality low cost" CRTs. Obviously, they never were able to work out the bugs.

LMAO! Yeah obviously not, and those bugs made it into other CRT's as the years went by.

Oh, and here's a smoking gun for my conspiracy on products being designed to break: FUNAI! Need I say more?

[radiotvnut]

Originally Posted by MRX37

I could see a design goof up if the bad CRT's from Zenith stopped shortly after 1992-1993. However, this continued throughout the rest of the 90's at least. Every 1990's Zenith or Zenith made TV I've come across had a weak CRT in it. The one exception was a 27 inch Sentry 2 from 1992. From 1993 onward: bad CRT's, and not just the 27 inch ones. 19 inch CRT's, and even 36 inch CRT's... all weak.

Also, not too long ago I found three JVC TV's from around 2003-2004. not only were the CRT's shot, I couldn't adjust the G2 voltage to brighten the picture very much. The flyback's themselves had something inside them limiting how much the knob could turn. I could turn that knob maybe 1/4 of a turn in either direction.

Finally, A Philips TV from 2005 that i worked on had a "feature" to make it shut down if the screen was too dim. That sure as hell wasn't a cost cutting measure!

EDIT: Also, if a company is trying to save money, why not take a reliable design and stick with it for as long as possible? Why spend the money designing a new chassis and CRT every year? Change the case and update the look/features, but keep the important internal electronics the same.

And don't forget the Sonys that had the AKB blanking circuit that would either blank the video or cause the video to flash when the CRT got weak.

I also had a 2002 JVC "D series" TV with a bad CRT. Then, I had a fairly new 20" RCA Truflat with a toasted CRT. The green was very weak and the blue and red were dead. I think the tube was an LG/Philips. Also ran into an early '00's 19" Orion wal-mart special with a shorted green gun. I was able to swap the tube from another set and save that one.

[Carmine]

Originally Posted by nasadowsk

Let's see:

HP print cartridges that stop working after X pages, even if there's still ink in them...

While I don't think that's a great idea (but I can understand it if I run a large business that needs to schedule maintenance) it's not the same thing as designing a premature failure. Some film cameras re-wind after you take 24 pictures, even though others can squeeze 25 1/2 out of a role. Do I want to take the chance my last picture is screwed up, or know it's done at 24?

Cars that turn on the check engine light every X miles to 'remind' you to replace the perfectly ok O2 sensor..

VERY old government mandate, since made obsolete by secondary O2 sensors that monitor catalyst efficiency. (How did those get developed when they manufacturers had such a good racket going with the earlier system?)

Sealed automatic transmissions, so you can't change the fluid and if there's a leak, you can't add any - new GMs are this way...

Stupid idea granted, but becoming quite commonplace on many cars. (Mercedes, Lexus, etc.) Probably done because so many people are adding the incorrect fluids and ruining transmissions. (Just ask Chrysler about all the "bad" transmissions that suddenly started failing when Mr. Lube techs started adding the wrong fluid. It's been happening to everyone). They all still have methods of removing fluid and filter. There are also fluid level inspection ports, but not easily accessed as with a dipstick.

The infamously marginal timing belt on Hondas...

Lawnmower engines with plastic camshafts...

No comment on these related issues.

My other favorite is car parts where there's one REALLY marginal part, but you can't just buy/replace that, you have to buy a whole assembly.

Who stocks parts down to a component level, and when has this ever been commonplace? If a power window motor is supplied to Mercedes by Bosch, do you expect the dealer to carry the internal nylon gear, or complete motors? Should Sony carry individual flyback windings? After all, it only takes ONE bad one to ruin a part.

Even nastier - I tried to get a manual for my new car (Mustang). Factory one? Nope - Ford wanted - get this - $10,000 for the manual set.

You didn't say what year, so I just went with the "new" body style. $65 BIN

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2005-...spagenameZWDVW

I was rather surprised to find they still offered a print version myself. Most are CD-ROM now, and I found that version for $14.99 BIN.

I realize that by being realistic and not joining the "I hate xyz" party, nobody like having holes shot in their conspiracy theories. There certainly are a lot of crappy designs out there, and attempted upgrades (for either the manufacturer or buyer) often have the opposite effect. However, this anti-industry sentiment is changing the western-world from a progress-oriented nation of innovators that graduates engineers, (and invents things like color TV) to a bunch of whiney saps that sit around and point fingers at each others cottage-industry of conspiracy.

I've made my point.

[similost]

Originally Posted by MRX37

Mmmmm hmmmm...

I fixed a car door that fell off because the bolt between the two hinges had been designed with the center much thinner then the rest of the bolt. There was no reason I could find for this choice in design, other then eventual planned breakage. A 25 cent bolt from the hardware store fixed that, and it's still working fine. Lord knows how much the dealership would have charged, and they would have of course used another bolt designed to fail after a few years.

More on topic: pre 1992-1993 Zenith CRT's are still for the most part going strong nearly 20 years later, yet those from 1993 onward are weak and dim, if they're still functioning at all.

I wholeheartedly believe modern products are designed to fail after X amount of hours of usage. I've recapped lots of motherboards with caps that decided to fail right around the time when a new upgrade became available (sometimes as early as 6-8 months)

As far as the bolt.. thinner means less material.. multiply that buy hundreds of thousands of bolts, and you've got a substantial savings. It also could have cut the cost of machining because of the design...

Concerning the motherboards with bad caps. This is a world wide known problem. At one point, a recipe for the goo they fill them with was stolen from a company and many other companies started to use this recipe.. what they didn't know is that an ingredient was left out of the recipe, causing most of the caps made with this recipe to fail... Also, many of these caps that failed were counterfeits... The computer industry was one of the hardest hit by this, although other industries were too

Helps to know the history of things, and understand how manufacturing and business works before jumping off the bridge..

[andy]

000

[MRX37]

Originally Posted by similost

Concerning the motherboards with bad caps. This is a world wide known problem. At one point, a recipe for the goo they fill them with was stolen from a company and many other companies started to use this recipe.. what they didn't know is that an ingredient was left out of the recipe, causing most of the caps made with this recipe to fail... Also, many of these caps that failed were counterfeits... The computer industry was one of the hardest hit by this, although other industries were too

Helps to know the history of things, and understand how manufacturing and business works before jumping off the bridge..

I know all about the history of bad caps. i should have mentioned that LONG after all this was revealed, the bad caps were still being used, and are probably still being used in various designs. The company knows the caps are going to fail, yet they still use them.

[Carmine]

Originally Posted by MRX37

I know all about the history of bad caps. i should have mentioned that LONG after all this was revealed, the bad caps were still being used, and are probably still being used in various designs. The company knows the caps are going to fail, yet they still use them.

While contemptable, that's still not "designed to fail". Designed to fail would be a line of code that shuts everything down after X number of start-ups.

[Carmine]

Originally Posted by similost

Helps to know the history of things, and understand how manufacturing and business works before jumping off the bridge..

Amen.

[MRX37]

Originally Posted by Carmine

While contemptable, that's still not "designed to fail". Designed to fail would be a line of code that shuts everything down after X number of start-ups.

Mmm, like certain pieces of software that after X amount of days, they shut down and prompt you to upgrade.

MS hasn't tried this yet with Windows, but their more subtle lifecycle policy was put into place simply because software code doesn't wear out, and can be repaired just by inserting the CD and reinstalling.

And honestly: what company WOULDN'T want you to buy a new whirlygig after the old one stops working?

[karmaman]

MRX, I hate to jump into this, but give me an actual example of software meant to fail.

The only software that does this is free demos of commercial software or unactivated versions of Windows.

Also the caps thing... most boards that have shitty caps these days are ECS boards, and those have been known shit since the stone age.. All the good manufacturers have learned their lesson and use good caps (Samxon, Nichicon, Rubycon, Nippon Chemicon, Matsushita).

[Carmine]

Software is a different matter entirely. Those programs that stop working after X number of uses are akin to "trial size" soaps.

The point being made is that just becuase something is a piece of crap (like a Funai) it doesn't mean it was designed to fail. It would actually require a fairly high level of engineering to design a product to fail just outside of warranty, but last long enough not to damage a reputation... More than I would think a company like Funai capable of doing.

I hesitiate to mention it, but it's like those granola-eaters who think GM conspired to buy up all the streetcars/trolleys so people would have to buy private cars. (And please don't bother showing me websites that say it's true... I can find holocaust denial sites too.)

Do you think the average person needs to be "pushed" to drive a private car? You like standing at the bustop in the rain? Riding next to crazy people? Moving on somebody else's schedule? As it is, we subsidize public transport now just to keep it cheap enough for people to use it.

Everybody wants to jump to conclusions, or find the bogey-man in the closet. Hey, Zenith 1993-era screwed up on some part of the manufacturing process where they should have known better on. Then they figured it out and fixed it, but it was too late... Damage done, nail in the coffin.

Nobody ran out to buy another Zenith after the first one failed, they in fact AVOIDED them! I know that to be true because my parents bought my grandparents a 1993 27" Zenith based on the excellent performace of their 1990 27" Zenith (which is still my main TV). When the newer set died, Zenith was off the shopping list.

[Nakdoc]

The dim Zenith CRTs we saw also took a long time to brighten, and even longer for white balance to stabilize. It looked like low heater voltage, but I would guess that something bad happened to make cathode emissions non-linear, like a warped screen grid. There were a batch of bad JVC 26" crts one year, all with shorting guns, and all NAP oem. Oddly, the Magnavox sets using the same crts rarely failed. That always seemed fishy to me.

[akent36]

Around this time frame, CRT manufacturers were trying to reduce energy consumption by lowering the peak temperatures and reducing the length of exhaust and screenbake cycles. In our experiments, life test suffered and we never cut back on our heat cycles during production. I suspect Zenith and some others did and paid the price.

[MRX37]

Originally Posted by Carmine

The point being made is that just becuase something is a piece of crap (like a Funai) it doesn't mean it was designed to fail. It would actually require a fairly high level of engineering to design a product to fail just outside of warranty, but last long enough not to damage a reputation... More than I would think a company like Funai capable of doing.

Companies spend lots of money every year researching and testing potential new designs. Getting a product to fail just outside of its warrenty isn't an exact science, but you can't tell me they don't design their stuff to eventually fail.

I'm working on a convergence board right now from a Philips PTV835. It had several resistors right next to the convergence IC's, which of course get hot. These resistors were a brown color and made of a different material then the rest of the resistors in the TV. They had of course failed.

Were the resistors so close to the IC's because of lack of room? No. There's a ridiculous amount of empty space on this convergence board. It's bigger then it needs to be, yet those resistors were crammed right next to the hot IC's.