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But K, if you have one company buying up all the cheapie brands, how long before the customers cotton on?
I’ve got customers now who are appalled that after 12 years with their last Logic machine their newish Hoover is a Candy in a skirt – and a disaster.
And Comet got the English Electric name revived so as they could sell Hotpoint’s cheap; but back then they were still a reasonable quality.
It applies all over though. In Germany, you buy a Seimens ‘cos it’s a quality product. If you’re not too flush, you buy a Bosch – it’s cheap. And over here ——— we love Bosch! (Apart from the Spanish Balay ones)
I have a mate who is into mass production electronics (not in this field) and he has from time to time looked at boards I have shown him for a professional opinion; within a few minutes he has (regularly) said that:
1) They are under engineered for current loading.
2) They are under engineered for circuit protection.
3) That, after set up costs, ANY of our digiboards should not cost more than £12-15 to manufacture. That’s UK pricing; no doubt our Italian friends can do it cheaper.So, firstly the product is crap, secondly it’s designed to blow up and thirdly, we’re being ripped off.
I sometimes feel very sorry for our customers. But, Hey, we’ve all got a living to make!
Pessimistically.
PenguinDone it. Mrs P going to go MENTAL when she finds out how much those mugs and tee shirt were. Still, she’s the Ebay captain in this house, and buys computer stuff from all over the world, so I must be allowed a few foibles!
Penguin.Hi E,
That’s about what I was told. It doesn’t work the other way round though (apparently).Penguin.
It’s a funny (peculiar, not Ha Ha) one this. We go to a lot of W series machines with revolving indicators and while it is fair to say that we do get board failures, the great majority are timing out problems – no drain/heat/fill/motor action etc.
The problem is of course cost engineering (or manufacturing down). We used to expect washers to last 7 years; now 3 is typical for a cheapie. How many do we miss out on where the owner says “It was only a cheapie, let’s buy another one”?
And should we say it? Merloni probably don’t WANT us independants in there servicing them, especially in view of EMW and QER not only repairing but upgrading the standard of the FE board to make it more reliable.
I keep telling customer to buy Bosch and I’ll see them to fit some brushes in 4 years time.
Penguin45.
Had one of those late night thoughts. I was told by a Hpt engineer some years back that a 161747 armature will run in place of a 1603071 by swapping the tacho magnet over; but, you can’t do it the other way round. Anyone know about this? If it’s correct, we should hunt down 161747’s and 161747B’s as well as 1603071’s!
Penguin.
This had better be right – I’ve just gone and bought a load and Mrs P is not a happy pengy.
I don’t know about passing motors off as new with an armature; but we had two outfits up here who used to fit “recon motors”. This was of course the old scam of fitting the one in the van with the new carbon sticks in, and taking the old one away. And fitting new cabon sticks ready for the next “customer”. Or should that be “mark”?
Anyway, my biggest brush user these days is the CESET motor, not Hotpoint; which must be a rather sad state of affairs. Nice earner though!
Penguin.
Went to the unfortunate Mrs Davidson on Wednesday; the disillusioned owner of a W103. Hubby went to a shop in town and bought a new drive belt 10 days ago and fitted it. I went out for the leak……. caused by the non-elastic belt breaking all the legs of the pulley, which, while disintegrating, sawed through the back of the tank! Oddly enough, the belt was still on and the pulley still drove the drum. Weird …………
Penguin.
Two thoughts – one simple, one ethereal.
You may recall all those Hoover pumps years ago that broke a coil wire where they joined the brass terminal blade? I keep coming across Askoll type stacks with the same problem. The vibration throws them off the terminal, so they stop and then reconnect when the vibration stops. The Copreci ones seem to be the worst offenders – which is the one generally found in later Hotpoints.The other one is it is a classic transistor failure. A lot of digiboards use transistors rather than triacs for low current switching – pumps, watervalves for example. I can’t remember off the top of my head if this one switches direct off the timer part or through the circuit board, but might be worth investigating.
Hope that helps,
Penguin.KILLER!!!!! , Martin. Can’t show the kids though – might not see Tiny again.
Some years back I was repairing Mr Smallwood’s microwave oven (Remember those days when it was a black art? And the ovens were HUGE! And you couldn’t go to Tesco’s and buy one for £30!), did a board level repair and thought “That’ll work”. Plugged it in, programmed it, thought “Measure thermal increment over designated period (Does it get hot)”, filled metered plastic contained with 500ml of water, opened the door – and huge ginger cat walks out! I nearly died, as cat would have done!!
Never work with children and animals …………..
Penguin.
Flashing light and won’t programme? It’s telling you there’s something wrong; check everything before condemning the board!
Then stick the fault on the error codes forum!
Penguin.
