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THE WAY I SEE IT By NEVILLE WILLIAMS For all practical purposes Mr. Fixit has had his day! For generations, a major raison d'etre for a father, husband or son has been their ability, at short notice, to repair household gadgets. But according to a reader from Berala, NSW, that traditional role is now at risk. Who needs a handyman around the modern home when the best he can do with a faulty electrical appliance is to discard and replace it? To be sure, I have met a few men in my day who never have lived up to the traditional stereotype; who have even boasted of their inadequacy when faced with anything mechanical or technical. But, more commonly, I have been pleasantly surprised at the number of men who have relished the opportunity, at evenings or weekends, to put aside the business suit, the briefcase and the telephone and to get stuck into the mechanical or technical tasks that needed to be tackled around the family home or family car. The reader referred to above is concerned about one specific area but, if I've taken the broad brush approach to his letter, it's because he has struck a sympathetic cord in one who feels frustrated by any gadget which either has to be discarded prematurely or is subject to a daunting minimum service charge and delay for some fault that, not so long ago, would have been readily fixable at home. I quote: Dear Mr. Williams, I wonder whether you, like me, object to appliances which have been assembled with tamper-proof screws? More and more manufac6 SILICON CHIP turers, these days, are putting these screws into their products. What they are saying, in effect, is: "you are prohibited from servicing this device". The situation is now such that I think twice about buying any product fitted with tamper-proof screws. I like to be able to fix anything I buy or at least inspect the inside, if the necessity should arise. After all, what guarantee is there, if the product does finally break down, that the company that made or imported it will still be around to fix it? Consider the simplest of all servicing jobs - the renewing of a power "Who needs a handyman around the home when the best he can do with a faulty appliance is to discard and replace it?" cord. It is annoying enough that most appliance cords now come with moulded plugs, which means that the plug has to be thrown out as well as the cord. Another simple repair job often made difficult is the unclogging of electric hair dryers. When people with long hair use dryers, it is inevitable that hairs occasionally get pulled into the air inlet. Eventually, enough gets wrapped around the motor shaft to stall it. Pulling these dryers apart to clear them is a tricky job. I wonder how many hair dryers have been consigned to the tip for want of this otherwise simple repair. The problem goes even further. I feel sure that some appliance cords are designed to perish prematurely. I am thinking particularly of the removeable cords fitted to electric frypans and the like. They generally have a neoprene or similar synthetic rubber sheath which tends to perish on exposure to the grease and oil which is inevitably present. Why are the newer plastic materials not used here? And just try replacing the cord on a frypan controller. It's impossible! Yet the cost to replace such a controller is around $30 or more. Is that reasonable? I think not. I'd appreciate your views on this subject. S.L. [Berala, NSW). While, as I said, I have a considerable empathy with the sentiments expressed by S.L., in actually commenting on them, I run the risk of sounding like an apologist for the manufacturers of a whole range of household appliances hair dryers, irons, Phil Watson turns the clock back Dear Neville, I was most interested to read your comments in the February issue of SILICON CHIP and your reference to my recollections of the pilfering techniques employed at the HMV factory many years ago. It certainly stirred up a lot of memories. It wasn't only transformers which were dropped on- to the railway embankment; the transformers were often accompanied by the chassis to which they were attached. And, when I say chassis, I don't simply mean a piece of folded metal; they were completely wired and tested receiver chassis, minus only the valves and dial glasses. These would be smuggled out later by a variety of ruses. The drop was usually made from the factory root - second floor level - to which employees had ready access, with very little supervision. The trick was to hold the chassis by the corner diagonally opposite the transformer, so that it landed on the transformer corner. The embankment was manmade, consisting mainly of soft earth bonded by grass roots. Even so, it says something for the ruggedness of these chassis that they were able to withstand .such an unofficial drop test. It's a pity that the company wasn't in a position to boast about it in their advertising! As for the "Trojan Horse" in reverse, it was part of a much more serious offence, involving pilfering on what might be termed theft on a "commercial" scale. A team of characters was involved. Only recently employed, they must have regarded the company's goodwill as a gift from the gods. Many components were involved but mainly valves. It was wartime and valves were in short supply. For domestic receivers, they could only be bought with government approval and on a strictly limited basis. It often happened that a batch of several hundred receivers would be completed before all the valve types required came to hand. The receivers would be given a final test and rough alignment, using test valves in place of the missing types, then stored on racks on the factory floor until the missing types came to hand. There could quite happy to invite the comtoasters, can-openers, electric jugs, kettles, portable cookers and so on. plainants to "have a go" themLike it or not, we have to face the selves in the marketplace and see fact that, by and large, manufachow they get on. turers produce items of the kind S.L. nominates the use of tamperthat purchasers vote for, with proof screws as his pet hate, along with the implication that buyers plastic cards, at the sales counter. As buyers, we tend to favour pro- neither have nor need right of acducts which have instant supercess into their own property. ficial appeal: non-cumbersome, Maybe the real implication is that slick and streamlined in apthere is no need for anybody to gain pearance, backed by a known com- access: owner, vendor, service pany and competitively priced. mechanic or manufacturer; that the That description implies mass proproduct can reasonably be exduction using plastic mouldings and pected to outlast the warranty. If it associated economy measures, doesn't, rather then fix it, it's automated assembly with a . easier and cheaper to replace it minimum labour content, and the with a new one, for free or pro rata. smallest possible allowance for After warranty, well ... A classic example, it would seem, spare parts and service. I would imagine that, if pressed is that of household steam irons, · to revert to the old way of doing . mentioned to me recently by a things, with bins full of components, handyman relative. Time was, he tediously hand-assembled with nuts complained, when you could and bolts, manufacturers would be dismantle irons and gain access to well be a hundred or more chassis lying around with one, two,· three or even four valves in them, of which there was no simple record. So valves discretely swiped from here and there would not be immediately noticed. In fact, the operation had an unhappy ending for the main culprits. The scale of theft was such that the police were called in and, "acting on information received", eventually raided these characters' premises. And what a haul they scored. As well as items . that the HMV factory had not even missed, there were swags ·of others swiped from several other factories where the culprits had previously been employed. The sour note was that the rest of us could no longer borrow a signal generator for the weekend for a spot of unofficial servicing. So we all paid the price for a small number of rogues. Here's hoping that this may add a further small insight into the notso-official history of the Australian electronics industry. Keep up the good work. Philip Watson, Jannali, NSW. the faceplate and element for cleaning and repair. But no longer. The latest models use plastic studs which are heat formed. To gain access, you would have to butcher them. Unlike hair dryers, which S.L. classifies as "difficult", my aforesaid relative has given up on certain brands of iron, which he classifies as "impossible" - even though they still exhibit the failings of their breed. Yes, S.L., I too have a collection of power cords with moulded plugs, salvaged with the fond idea that they might come in handy some day. But they never seem to do so, even as 3-metre extension cords. The price of one-off cord-grip sockets, these days, is generally such that it's easier and cheaper to buy a complete, imported pre-packaged lead and leave the salvaged cords in the junk box! And that reminds me. I also have JUNE 1988 7 THEWAYI SEE IT - CTD a growing collection of freestanding electric can openers that still work - except for one small detail: they no longer reliably open cans! One would judge that a slight re-positioning of the support and cutting wheels would make all the difference but there appears to be no provision either to do it or to have it done. Says the retailer: "All you can do is buy a new one sir. It so happens that we currently have this line on special ... ! Go ahead. Tell me I'm lousy but, even more than discarding cords and plugs, I hate tossing into the garbage perfectly serviceable 240V drive motors. As for frypan controllers, I seem to have been fortunate so far; maybe it's just as well. I'll leave open for comment the correspondent's suggestion that some power cords are designed to perish prematurely. I really have nothing to go on but I would prefer to think that the problem has more to do with ignorance or first cost, than with calculated exploitation. Those plastic pillars! If I seem to be treating S.L's protest in a rather fatalistic manner, it's probably because there 's another aspect of modern massproduced plastic technology that annoys me even more than the matters he has raised: it's the way that the cabinets of electronic devices are held together by self-tapping screws driven into integral plastic pillars. The method is used alike in little cheapie devices and units costing hundreds of dollars. Brackets, brass pillars or brass insets are presumably much too fiddling and expensive, when you can get away with integral moulded pillars and simple holes to accommodate self-tapping screws. The idea works - provided the screws are driven home, first up, by an accurately set tension driver and subsequently handled only by people with a suitably sensitive touch. But they aren't and, when faced with anything but new moulded cabinets of this type, it comes almost as a pleasant surprise to find even a majority of the assembly screws still functional. To misuse an in-phrase, the remainder just manage "to hang in there". For example, the top shell of a computer printer that I sometimes use is held in place by four (or is it five?) self-tapping screws, inserted from beneath into moulded pillars, hanging like stalactites from the underside of the top shell. In this model, the top has to be lifted off to gain access to the mode switches and, naturally, I've always been pretty careful in so doing, when a switch needs to be reset to suit another computer. There came the day, however, when the printer had to be returned for major service and it subsequently became apparent that, in addition to fixing the fault, somebody had over-tightened and stripped all but one of the self-tapping assembly pillars. When I complained to the service manager about this apparent carelessness, he was singularly unrepentant. "It happens all the time", he said. "We just stick a plug of wet paper in the hole and retighten the screw as normal! '' Whether he realised it or not, his company had just lost my further custom. Plugging the hole may sometimes suffice in non-critical situations and, in others, it may just be possible to substitute a heavier gauge screw - but you can't count on either measure. What a boon if someone could come up with a way of re-lining the hole or, better still, inserting a sleeve to receive a stan- dard small metal-thread screw. He/she would deserve a (plastic?) medal! The safety aspect But, getting back to S.L's original theme, I have the uncomfortable feeling that the progressive denial of access to domestic appliances is not only contributing to a throwmentality, but is also likely to influence the perception about who needs, or has, the right to repair anything plugged into the power mains. While this may already be spelled out by existing rules and regulations, they are not readily enforceable at a handyman or professional odd-jobber level, where physical access has traditionally been easy and repair has required little more than a modicum of familiarity, common sense and the odd spare part. But close off this existing "grey" area for any reason and, almost by definition, we will begin to expose the borderline as to who has the legal right to repair what, in relation to anything plugged into the power mains. Should this right be reserved for licenced electricians only, or can anybody carry out repairs, provided they do not compromise the specifications on which the device was granted type approval in the first place? Looking ahead, it opens up quite an area for speculation, extending to that very nasty one, in this age of increasing litigation, where individuals can find themselves financially accountable for any harm caused by activities which are arguably negligent or illegal. Pursue that one and you could finish up questioning the role of husbands, handymen, odd-jobbers - indeed, anyone without an electrician's licence! This is nonsense In the meantime, a reader from Nelly Bay, Qld, has something more Go ahead. Tell me I'm lousy but, even more than discarding cords and plugs, I hate tossing into the garbage perfectly serviceable 240V drive motors. 8 SILICON CHIP Advertising slogans a nonsense I noted with interest your remarks on the reluctance of some dealers to provide service on the electronic goods they sell. They advertise extensively, using such slogans as "we stand behind the products we sell". This is nonsense. Most electronic retailers are in the business purely to sell merchandise. They will bend over backwards to make a sale but, as soon as the item becomes unserviceable, they no longer want to know you. There are a few decent retailers, maybe one in each city. We must get to know them and maintain contact. I have learnt through bitter experience that it is best to give to say on the matter of routine backup service. His comments appear in the panel at the top of this page. When I wrote that first article, it was with the full expectation that some readers, at least, would be anxious to defend themselves as retailers or to insist that the picture, as pairited, was altogther too gloomy. But this latest letter merely adds to by far the majority opinion that back-up service facilities for electronic equipment are · in deep crisis. I commend the reader's advice, learned the hard way: seek out a supplier in your area who has a good reputation in this regard and stick with them. You may have to walk away from a few "bargains" in the process but clearance items may not be all that attractively priced if, in a few weeks or months time, you find yourself lamenting the day you bought them! Radio factories in the '30s My comments on conditions in Australian radio factories during the '30s have brought to light a couple of letters, one of them in the accompanying panel from a former confrere, Phil Watson. The other is from a Victorian reader who, I would judge, will not mind me using his name in full. Of particular interest is the fact that he worked in the Melbourne Eclipse factory, about which we junior Sydneyites one dealer all your business. He will get to know you and give you satisfaction, should you ever require service. In another area, project kits are fllso traps for the unwary. The parts are often wrongly selected, certain parts are missing, or the illustrated instructions are so badly printed that it is impossible to read the diagram. What you wrote was no doubt distasteful to you but it had to be said eventually. Maybe a few dealers will be motivated to "pull up their socks". (Signed but initials withheld by request). in the '30s knew very little. We simply assumed that it was much like all the rest. Here's his letter: Dear Mr. Williams, Your article in February's SILICON CHIP certainly reawakened some memories for me. I had just left school in 1936 at the tender age of 15 and spied an advertisement in the daily paper reading: "Boys wanted to learn the radio trade, apply Eclipse Radio." [There were obviously no equal opportunity laws in those days) . Since I had mode a few crystal sets and was fascinated by radio, I prevailed upon my father to allow me to apply. The pay was fourteen shillings ($1.40) for a five and a halfday week (44 hours) and I had to travel 50km from home to work. Conditions were poor and the factory was old and depressing. I worked in the loudspeaker department where Saxon loudspeakers were made. My particular task was to twist together the four loudspeaker leads so that someone else could solder a plug on the ends. I would then carry the finished loudspeakers to the test booth wh e re an "engineer" would apply test tones. Any rejects would have to be carried back to the assemblers. We would clock in and out morning and evening and, from time to time, there would be a search for stolen parts. When word was passed back along the waiting queue that a search was in progress, the boys would empty their pockets and a variety of parts would litter the ground. I stayed about two months and what I learned about radio was harmless. Fortunately, my experiences did not totally quench my enthusiasm, although it was another 25 years before I trained as a technician. Ten years later, I was teaching electronics to other young hopefuls though few of them could be said to be enthusiasts. Thanks for your writings over the years. They have been appreciated. Noel Jackson, VK3CNJ, (Kilsyth, Vic). Many thanks, Noel, for your letter and for the glimpse inside the Eclipse factory. My only real contact with Eclipse products was when I first joined Reliance Radio in 1933. Prior to commencing manufacture on their own account, they had been selling Eclipse receivers in Sydney and a few of them came back through the factory for service or as trade-fns. While I would scarcely have been qualified to pass judgment on them, we juniors certainly didn't hold them in any kind of esteem. Gold spray notwithstanding, they seemed tizzy and tinny in the American manner, as distinct from the stolid, solid, battleship grey, British/Australian approach. Saxon loudspeakers were no great prize either and the trade-in chassis were full of leaky capacitors and clumsy glass-tube resistors that could never be taken at face value. But my most vivid memory was the wiring, done with white, rubber-covered hook-up. Depending on the age and environment, it would variously have hardened and fractured into a sequence of tubular beads, and/or have gone all gooey and so permeated the wire strands as to render them completely impossible to re-solder. Maybe they weren't as bad as all that but, at the time, they seemed to be! Thanks Noel and thanks again, Phil, for your very worthwhile contributions to the " living history" of the Australian radio industry. ~ JU N E 1988 9