A shocking waste

[Penners]

This is really just a rant, but I'm fizzing at a blatant example of waste that I've just come across.

We've had some trouble with the time-clock on our central heating system. I've finally narrowed this down to a tiny "hearing aid" type of battery on the circuit board, which keeps the clock going when the mains power is switched off, and then gets recharged when the power comes back on. After about 5 years of service, this battery won't hold a charge any more, and needs replacement.

Except that you can't replace it. Instead of being held in a little clip with two spring terminals, it is soldered into the circuit board.

I have even called the manufacturers, to ask whether I could buy a new battery and resolder it in myself, but I was told that they are unavailable individually (in other words, I could probably buy 10,000 without any problem but they don't want the hassle of selling just one).

So, instead of buying a little battery worth, perhaps, a couple of quid, I have to buy an entire new time-clock for £77. And all of the old time-clock - fully functioning LCD display, switchgear, PCB, electronic components and all - is just so much junk. It's a shocking waste, and just one tiny example of the kind of mentality that we have to overcome if we're going to have any chance at all of reducing our carbon emissions.

On the plus side, the heating is now working again, so when the cold weather comes the Penners carbon footprint can return to normal.

 

[Nemesis]

Name names so we can all avoid buying one.

 

[Penners]

H*n*yw*ll

 

[Nemesis]

Hard to avoid, but I am sure we can all try.

Wonder if there is someone there who can be e-mailed?

 

[skier-hughes]

Can't you find the details of said battery and search for something similar, size wouldn't really matter much if you are going to put it in yourslef?

 

[AMc]

I agree the waste is spectacular. You can buy these kind of things if you have the time and patience to work out what you need and where to find it e.g. http://cpc.farnell.com/jsp/search/browse.jsp?N=411+1002103&in_dim_search=true

On a similar note I bought a Wheelbarrow from B&Q a few years back. It did sterling service lugging tonnes of sand, cement (I know, I know) and paving stones for the new patio. Recently I left it in the garage with a heavy bag of compost still in it being too lazy to lift it out. A couple of weeks later I tried to move it, the tyre had gone flat and in my haste I pulled it on the flat tyre, pinching the inner tube and ripping it beyond repair.

So off to B&Q I go to buy a new inner tube. After a few minutes fruitless searching I go and ask where the inner tubes are. A discussion takes place between the two members of staff and a call to the back "We don't do them, but if you bring it back we'll give you a refund.". I reply that the barrow is several years old and I don't have the receipt. "Well I'm sorry, you'll have to buy a new one." :shock: !

Ebay and £3.50 and a week later and a my barrow is as good as new!

 

[Flyfisher]

A worthy rant, but sadly not uncommon. Until a few years ago, the initial start-up settings for pretty much all PCs were stored in similar battery-backed memory with the battery soldered into the motherboard. I once fixed an old PC with a dead battery by wiring in a couple of AA batteries. Of course, there's more space inside the average PC box.

Are you sure it's a rechargeable battery? It might just be a long-life lithium battery. It might also be used to maintain the programme settings in the memory chip so the overall unit should still work OK even without the battery, it's just that you'll lose the settings (and, as you say, the clock time) after a power cut (hardly ideal, I accept).

If you're handy with a soldering iron it should be fairly simple to replace. Is there any identification on the battery, or perhaps on the PCB? Even knowing the voltage would be helpful. You might not be able to find an exact size replacement but it's generally possible to wire in a functional replacement somehow.

I wonder if you could argue for it to be repaired on the basis of being 'unfit for purpose' by failing after just 5 years?

 

[Flyfisher]

Hang on, just remembered that we have an old Honeywell timer in our now-disconnected Rayburn system. I've just checked the model number: ST6300A. It also has a soldered-in battery. What's your model number Penners?

 

[Penners]

FF - thanks very much for the suggestion, but I have already bought and fitted a new clock unit (ST7900). Given the increasingly chilly weather and the risk of domestic strife if second sweaters had to be donned, I took the pragmatic view. I just wish this solution had been as cheap as AMc's!

I did try a bit of a poke about on the electric interweb, to try and find a similar battery, but this wasn't helped by the fact that the soldered-on clips on the battery completely obscured the engraved identification on its surface.

Thank goodness I'm not a cynic. If I were I might have believed that this was carefully engineered to make it essential to buy a new time-clock. But I'm sure that can't be true.

size wouldn't really matter

Graham - how little you know. :wink:

 

[Pford75]

Penners....much as I hate to engage in waste one-upmanship :wink: I think there is an even more dispiriting example.

My father-in-law's cooker (Neff) had a built in clock enabling the oven to be set automatically etc. This clock unit failed and the solution was the replacement of the entire cooker. He never used the clock function, but without it, the cooker would not start at all!!! Luckily this was under warranty, but was sufficient to ensure I will never buy a Neff oven

 

[chuckey]

I had to replace the soldered in battery on my Potterton timer some years ago. I got a replacement from my plumbers merchant!. Must be a good earner for them. The thing about these batteries is that they are about 1.3 V per cell, if its a single button = 1.3V. The polarity must be strickly observed though.
FWIW my son who lives remotely from me phoned me up to complain that his PC would not boot at all. I suggested REMOVING the BIOS battery - it worked, Old battery had gone short circuit. Of course it went back to the factory defaults, but it ran.
Frank

 

[Flyfisher]

It's a widespread problem with most consumer electronic equipment; highly integrated circuitry + tiny surface-mounted components + very low overall cost = not economical to repair. If it breaks, buy a new one - it'll probably be better and cheaper anyway. It's also good for the economy for people to keep buying stuff, though hardly sustainable.

 

[Schoolmarm]

Creda cookers are the same, we have just had to replace ours for the same reason, non working clock.

 

[AMc]

I did try a bit of a poke about on the electric interweb, to try and find a similar battery, but this wasn't helped by the fact that the soldered-on clips on the battery completely obscured the engraved identification on its surface.

Standard non-rechargeable coin cells are generally described by a number, the first two digits are the diameter in millimetres, the second its thickness in 1/10ths of a millimetre (sorry forgotten the proper term) e.g. a CR2025 is 20mm across and 2.5mm thick. The voltages will always be in the 1.3-1.5V range but the capacity in mAh can vary but you could try a few before you got near the replacement cost of the timer.

I appreciate it's all academic now but I figured I'd share some experience I gained working on WHSmith's pen counter back in the 80's!

 

[MdB]

I know this is too late now but if anybody else is in the same situation, I can get hold of quite a large range of button / coin cells with and without solder connections. The most expensive is £0.91...

 

[Penners]

It's also good for the economy for people to keep buying stuff

It's not very bloody good for my economy. According to MdB's figure, I've spent £76.09 too much! :evil:

 

[Flyfisher]

Sorry, I forgot the irony icon. But I entirely agree. Modern cars are one of my pet hates - too complex by far, most of them. I'd bet that the £450 engine management unit I had to have replaced last year probably failed because some t'uppeny ha'penny component inside broke. But 'car mechanics' these days only seem capable of replacing entire assemblies, not actually repair anything. They just plug in a computer and it tells them which bits to change. Meanwhile, the 'garage' looks more like an operating theatre with no trace of oil or grease and the 'waiting room' is a luxury lounge complete with a massive flatscreen TV, complimentary coffee and pastries and wi-fi internet access. I just want my car fixed, not have half the innards replaced while I lounge around watching telly.

In contrast, my 37 year old tractor still works fine and can be serviced by a 5 year-old.

Apologies for the rant, but you started it.

 

[Penners]

the 'garage' looks more like an operating theatre with no trace of oil or grease and the 'waiting room' is a luxury lounge complete with a massive flatscreen TV, complimentary coffee and pastries and wi-fi internet access.

It's not quite like that up at Richard's shed, just outside the village. You get to sit on a greasy old chair, and read a well-thumbed, grimy copy of Motor Sport, dated February 1987. There is a coffee machine of sorts, but I suspect it's been topped up with Castrol GTX 15W/40.

But he does a good job, doesn't charge the earth, and will always help out regular customers in a crisis, regardless of how busy he is.

That's worth an awful lot of free pastries.

 

[Flyfisher]

Sounds just like the (very good) village garage I used in Hertfordshire until it closed down a couple of years ago. And last year our Norfolk village garage also closed down, although not the forecourt. In both cases the owners retired but couldn't sell the business as a going concern. I'm expecting to see new 'executive luxury homes' spring up on the cleared sites as soon as this recession-thingummy is over.

I suspect it's the increased complexity of modern cars that's driving such places out of business. The required investment in computerised diagnostic tools must be quite high, and I'd bet they are different for different manufacturers so an independent garage would have to buy more than one. The Herts garage I mentioned stopped doing diesel MOTs when all the new emission tests were brought in because they didn't have the necessary equipment. Slippery slope I guess.

 

[Nemesis]

Motor Sport, dated February 1987.

Road impressions of the VW Golf GTI.




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