Repairing equipment rather than throwing it away
Dear Dell,
Stop being irresponsible idiots. Stop contributing to the worlds problems with waste disposal and excessive consumption, and stop trying to save $0.02c per LCD and start fitting screws to your LCDs instead of using cheap and nasty clips and making them almost completely irrepairable.
Also, isn't it amusing how those pushing for RoHS are contributing to the excessive disposal of prematurely broken equipment? What does RoHS stand for anyway? Rusty old Horrible Solder?
Anyway, if you ever find you want to repair a Dell FP1801 monitor, undo the 4 almost completely useless screws under the mount at the back, then wedge apart the *front* bevel of the panel from the sides rather than trying to pry away the back of the panel (which appears to work until you get to the corners, which don't give until you break the hidden screws holding it on. Nevertheless, you *will* damage the sides where you have to jam a screwdriver into it. It's too hard to pry away otherwise.
Now, to work out how to replace an 10 core 30cm long 0.5mm pitch molex ribbon cable with stuff that won't grow dendritic tin whiskers. How is it that people justify charging 15 US pesos for such a thing? EDIT: Oh fuck, it's contageous to the connector itself. There's no way I can unsolder that. I hate RoHS.
PS. Thanks everyone for turning your lights out for Earth Hour. An entire town/mining community that sprung up a year or two ago to the North West of the observatory, seems to have disappeared tonight, and the sky seems much darker. I guess some businesses would have decided to turn their lights out for the weekend as unlikely as that seems.
Stop being irresponsible idiots. Stop contributing to the worlds problems with waste disposal and excessive consumption, and stop trying to save $0.02c per LCD and start fitting screws to your LCDs instead of using cheap and nasty clips and making them almost completely irrepairable.
Also, isn't it amusing how those pushing for RoHS are contributing to the excessive disposal of prematurely broken equipment? What does RoHS stand for anyway? Rusty old Horrible Solder?
Anyway, if you ever find you want to repair a Dell FP1801 monitor, undo the 4 almost completely useless screws under the mount at the back, then wedge apart the *front* bevel of the panel from the sides rather than trying to pry away the back of the panel (which appears to work until you get to the corners, which don't give until you break the hidden screws holding it on. Nevertheless, you *will* damage the sides where you have to jam a screwdriver into it. It's too hard to pry away otherwise.
Now, to work out how to replace an 10 core 30cm long 0.5mm pitch molex ribbon cable with stuff that won't grow dendritic tin whiskers. How is it that people justify charging 15 US pesos for such a thing? EDIT: Oh fuck, it's contageous to the connector itself. There's no way I can unsolder that. I hate RoHS.
PS. Thanks everyone for turning your lights out for Earth Hour. An entire town/mining community that sprung up a year or two ago to the North West of the observatory, seems to have disappeared tonight, and the sky seems much darker. I guess some businesses would have decided to turn their lights out for the weekend as unlikely as that seems.