Re:EU brings in 'right to repair' rules for appliances
by burntoutfire on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @10:34AM
(#21125732)
It's probably the opposite in many cases - new technologies allow to build things that are significantly cheaper, but also less durable. For example, thanks to precise numerical simulations, you can be much more precise in designing the elements so that they are as thin/light and use as little materials as possible. Before the CAD era, you just did it "by feel" and, to be safe, made things much more sturdier (and more expensive).
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Re:EU brings in 'right to repair' rules for appliances
by Gibbon1 on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @05:22PM
(#21130833)
I have an example of that. In the late 1980's early 90's read an fluff piece in Product Design News or some such about a team of engineers at GE that got an award for designing a washing machine tilt sensor. The article then gushed that the reason this was wonderful was the tilt sensor would allow GE to replace expensive metal washing machine drum bearings with inexpensive plastic ones.
Without a tilt sensor they needed to use metal bearing because an out of balance load would break plastic bearings. But now with the tilt sensor plastic ones could be used.