The great "can't fix that" racket

[Nick Jones]

Should be able to update the W7 to W10 FOC. Should you want to inflict W10 on yourself of course.

My old “car-coms“ laptop still runs XP. Has no wifi and doesn’t get connected to the internet so I don’t fuss about security patches..... Have another that is converted to SSD and Linux. Remarkably speedy.

[RedRooster]

The hardwares not up to W10.

 

[RedRooster]

Best thing about Windows 10 is this, makes it look like 7 :-)

https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu

 

[PeteStupps]

On 1/25/2020 at 5:51 PM, Rod1883 said:

Slight tangent perhaps, but we have a very nice Sony Smart tv. A fairly modest in size 42" version, but with a 3D function, purchased at the end of November 2013 - so just a shade under 6 years and 2 months ago. I do not consider this to be old, it is barely out of warranty (5 years), and works well.

I was extremely surprised and disappointed yesterday evening when I accessed to BBC iPlayer to be presented with a screen to say that this tv, amongst other 2012 and 2013 Sony models, would not be supported by the BBC from mid February, and so I would not be able to access the service on it after that date. This is disgraceful in my opinion and is effectively making the tv partially obsolete. The BBC are contributing toward making equipment prematurely obsolete, driving cost and putting pressure on the environment through the requirement to replace and/or purchase alternative equipment.

The Samsung blu-ray / smart TV box thingy I bought in 2018 suffered the same fate in December! I bought the flipping thing cos our telly was too old for all the streaming stuff. Very annoying. Will have to stick to books instead, no software updates required (just the occasional eye test). 

[JohnD]

The internet and YouTube are full of demonstartions that you CAN fix something!    Many are very old, pre-electronic machines, but this one impressed me when the guy started to wind his own coils for the motor in the electric drill he was restoring!

 

[mattius]

In an ideal world when the likes of Sony stop supporting a TV they would make it open source, that way if you could make it work you could, but they are all scared of trade secrets etc.

[rogerguzzi]

Hello All

               I fitted a thermocouple to our gas fire today £11.50 part 

Why do these things not last? I only installed the Boiler/fire unit in September!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1992  HA HA

I asked my son what the cost would be for a gas engineer to fit and clean injectors etc so I could bill the Memsahib!!!!! (he is a gas engineer)

He said £90 + parts

So do you think £50 for cash is ok?  (in my dreams)

But does that mean I can spend £100 on car parts now???

Roger

[John I]

38 minutes ago, rogerguzzi said:

Hello All

               I fitted a thermocouple to our gas fire today £11.50 part ?...........

....................

But does that mean I can spend £100 on car parts now???

Roger

Love your line of thought.........if only it worked that way!  We all would have a garage full of new shinny parts.

[rogerguzzi]

Hello John

                    The unpaid worker again then?

Roger

[John I]

12 minutes ago, rogerguzzi said:

Hello John

                    The unpaid worker again then?

Roger

Hi Roger, you could say that.

However turning the old garage into a studio for senior management was a choice I had and it does earn browning points for exchange later.

As the saying goes if you want a job doing properly do it yourself..............that is providing you have the necessary knowledge (or know where to find it). Thankfully I can qualify in both areas.

[JohnD]

16 hours ago, rogerguzzi said:

Hello All

               I fitted a thermocouple to our gas fire today £11.50 part 

Why do these things not last? I only installed the Boiler/fire unit in September!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1992  HA HA

I asked my son what the cost would be for a gas engineer to fit and clean injectors etc so I could bill the Memsahib!!!!! (he is a gas engineer)

He said £90 + parts

So do you think £50 for cash is ok?  (in my dreams)

But does that mean I can spend £100 on car parts now???

Roger

My central heating failed the other day.     Fortunately, I have a "maintenance" contract with a local firm - in fact they come every year and check it over, and guarantee to come out an fix problems within 24 hours.      They came, they checked - and found a flat battery in the room thermostat!   I gave them them two batteries for it, problem fixed!     But I still got a bill for £50!

[DeTRacted]

13 minutes ago, JohnD said:

They came, they checked - and found a flat battery in the room thermostat! 

I got caught out by that but not to the extent of calling anyone out.  The heating packed up and I checked everything including the thermostat, which showed the normal 'full battery' symbol on the LCD - you know the AA battery-on-its-side one which is all blacked out.  

After some degree of poking around and head scratching I discovered that shorting out the thermostat contacts brought the heating to life.  it turned out that in this particular unit that symbol actually means the battery is flat - when I put in a new battery, the symbol disappeared and we were back in business.  

Whoever designed that needs his knuckles rapped. 

 

[John I]

1 hour ago, DeTRacted said:

 

Whoever designed that needs his knuckles rapped. 

 

Hi DeTRacted, He was just keeping you on your toes!

 

when all else fails read the instructions..........if you can remember where you hid them, (that safe place for all important things).

[DeTRacted]

7 minutes ago, John I said:

Hi DeTRacted, He was just keeping you on your toes!

 

when all else fails read the instructions..........if you can remember where you hid them, (that safe place for all important things).

Instructions?  

The point is we are so used to seeing that symbol meaning exactly the opposite that it never crosses your mind to even look at the instructions. 

[John I]

Very true.....I just need to be reminded what the symbols mean. Analog gauge easy to read and remember, Full 3/4 red line simple and logical. All these digital whim wongs are a bit like emojis new one every time you look at them.

 

[rogerguzzi]

Hello All

                Why not a beep like smoke alarms when battery is low?

Roger

ps I know the service industry would not like it as the money for old rope jobs would dry up!

[rogerguzzi]

pps ME a cynical  never !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Roger

[mpbarrett]

We have a very nice 2011 Peugeot campervan based on a Boxer chassis so 9 years and has only done 25000 miles. It cost over £30k and after 3 years Is still worth that much, campervans hold there value..

Air bag light has come on. Cant read it with a basic ODB2 reader so call out an auto electrician. Airbag ECU is dead (a known problem with this model). Take unit out send it off for repair.
Cant be repaired as it has too much corrosion on the PCB.
So try to get a new module, about £300 pounds. But the new version has to be "Proxi aligned", basically copy all the main CPU data about the vehicle into the ECU so that it will be recognised.
Original auto electrician cant do it, his software only work with vehicle made after 2012. Main dealer cant find the part number and says he will have to contact Fiat (who made the part), cost is £350 for the unit, £126 for an hours workshop time and over 4 weeks to get the data to reset the ECU.... 
Tried a specialist independent Peugeot garage, wont touch any unit unless he supplies it, give him the part number and he tells me it  was never fitted to this van, I point out it was taken out of the van and he says I have got the number wrong..... cost will be £300 for the unit and £100 to fit it and weeks to get the data from Fiat...
Go back to the company who have tried to repair the unit and they say if I can get a similar age unit they can read the EPROM data and clone the unit. So find a ECU on ebay, with the right part number, in Lithuania, buy it and am waiting delivery..... Will then send to the repair shop and hope they can clone the unit and put it back in the van.. Cost will be £100 for the ECU and another £70 to clone it (plus £60 for the original auto electrician and £70 to diagnosis the ECU cant be repaired,,)... Hope it will work. MOT runs out in April and it wont pass with a airbag light on....

SO if you own an old Peugeot (or Fiat) van  which has airbag ECU fault it probably not worth repairing it any more even if it a good usable van.
The big car companies have got it fixed so you cant repair stuff anymore. Put an ECU into everything, keep the data confidential and you have a get closed captive market.

Feeling very pissed off after spending the whole day trying to sort out this mess....

Mike

 

 

 

[Nick Jones]

Very frustrating and not an untypical story unfortunately.

My A8 went through two MoTs with the bulb out of the warning light. On one of them I got an advisory saying the light wasn’t working.....

I wasted alot of time trying to fix it. Got the fault list down from two pages (ECU/trigger was fried) to one fault replacing several parts along the way. Diagnostic code swore the warning lamp was faulty, though clearly it wasn’t as it was on!  Wiring (loom like mating anacondas) appeared to be ok so assumed it was the instrument cluster. Gave up. Didn’t have any secret code issue to overcome though.

Hope it all works out.....

[DeTRacted]

Unfortunately this is why no modern car will last long enough to become a classic. The electronics will be obsolete and unobtainable long before the mechanical bits are. Somehow I can't see anyone reverse-engineering the ecus to produce aftermarket parts. 

[Nick Jones]

Ultimately you are probably right. This particular car though has been faultless electrically. I have never had an ECU warning light or even an error code. Admittedly it’s fairly basic. - only 5 ECUs......

It’s simple mechanical attrition (alot of it!) and age.  It’s slightly older than my older son and he’s been driving 6 years.  The S6 variant is already considered a classic and rising prices reflect this.

[richy_rich]

8 hours ago, DeTRacted said:

Somehow I can't see anyone reverse-engineering the ecus to produce aftermarket parts. 

You'd be surprised what goes on on some off the less reputable forums... People are actively working away on reverse engineering all sorts of things, although little of it will be of much help to your average home mechanic.  I managed to make a nice side income for a while designing and fitting circuits to 'fool' ECUs into thinking things were working when they weren't, nothing dodgy mind (like airbags etc...although do-able for race cars).. usually it was a last resort when things were beyond the point of rational, economical repair or parts no longer existed.  

But there are people out there keeping pace with the changing technology, especially the closer to russia you get, for some reason.

[richy_rich]

11 hours ago, mpbarrett said:

Go back to the company who have tried to repair the unit and they say if I can get a similar age unit they can read the EPROM data and clone the unit. So find a ECU on ebay, with the right part number, in Lithuania, buy it and am waiting delivery..... Will then send to the repair shop and hope they can clone the unit and put it back in the van.. Cost will be £100 for the ECU and another £70 to clone it (plus £60 for the original auto electrician and £70 to diagnosis the ECU cant be repaired,,)... Hope it will work. MOT runs out in April and it wont pass with a airbag light on....

This is the sort of thing I was talking about above actually...  Might even be easier to de-solder the eeprom out of the old one and into the new one, if it's salvageable (must be if they can read it).   Still, I'd personally be wary about doing this with anything safety related (airbags or abs etc.) even if the owner assumed the risk and said they were fine with it potentially not working I would probably try to go down the coding in a new one properly route.  I only ever did that kind of thing on my car(s) or cars that were going on the track.

But yes, the fact that all this stuff is so opaque/unavailable is kind of forcing people to either make potentially dangerous modifications to keep their cars on the road or scrap them and buy a new one, which doesn't seem great.  The situation is kicking off a bit in the agricultural world too, where the same thing has been happening but they're a community that's very used to maintaining and fixing their own kit (unlike the majority of modern car owners) and they're fighting quite hard for the 'right to repair'.

[yorkshire_spam]

As my "Other hobby" I fix/maintain late 1970s and 1980s arcade games... so I also have to fix and maintain the test gear required to do it...

So when my eprom programmer developed a fault I had to figure out how to fix that. Thankfully in the old electronics world and the classic arcade world schematics and specs are included in the manuals and there's an active community building up online archives of them all.

[richy_rich]

My goodness, we had those at university.. But yes, similar, I fix/maintain old synths and drum machines and it's similar, sometimes the things even had the schematics printed on the inside of the case.