Ethics of the TV-B-Gone?

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Agent24
 
Posts: 307
Joined: Sun Jan 24, 2010 6:48 am

Ethics of the TV-B-Gone?

Post by Agent24 »

I know it's a fun device to build, and even more fun to use... but does anyone think about the bigger picture here?

If we continually turn people's TVs off without them knowing what's happening the first thing they will assume is that their TV is faulty.

If it's an older TV they will likely just throw it away or maybe taken to the repair shop, and when no fault is found, probably throw it away if it keeps happening.


So really, the TV-B-Gone can potentially cause perfectly working TVs to go into landfills or otherwise get trashed, which I think isn't cool.


So perhaps if we are doing this, especially to neighbors or small shops with just one TV (big department stores don't count, taking out 20 TVs at once wouldn't make people think they are faulty, unless they are fools) maybe we should tell them after a while, to avoid this problem?

Just a thought....

adafruit
 
Posts: 12151
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2006 4:21 pm

Re: Ethics of the TV-B-Gone?

Post by adafruit »

Agent24 wrote:If it's an older TV they will likely just throw it away or maybe taken to the repair shop...
there aren't any repair shops left ---

:)

vxbinaca
 
Posts: 28
Joined: Thu Jul 22, 2010 5:52 pm

Re: Ethics of the TV-B-Gone?

Post by vxbinaca »

We're the repair shops now. Just make a list of all the capacitors in the TV and then go to Mouser and buy replacements. That usually fixes flat screen TV's.

Agent24
 
Posts: 307
Joined: Sun Jan 24, 2010 6:48 am

Re: Ethics of the TV-B-Gone?

Post by Agent24 »

A real repair shop can do much more than that.

Replacing capacitors only requires educated guesswork and basic soldering skills at best, but that's not to say I don't congratulate anyone who has done this, because it's certainly a worthwhile thing to do :)

The problem I often see (especially on Youtube videos) is that people replace junk capacitors with more junk capacitors. You must use high quality replacements, otherwise you'll just get the same problem another year or so down the line.

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richms
 
Posts: 558
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 3:05 am

Re: Ethics of the TV-B-Gone?

Post by richms »

But by that stage you have flicked the tv on to someone else on trademe and have replaced it with another dirt cheap piece of junk, so you wont have the same problem again with the same TV, someone else will ;)

About all that next electronics would do for repairs is charge the minimum rate, tell you what boards need to be replaced and the price for them and that its not economical and give you the tv back with half the screws missing and all the internal connectors unplugged. Oh, and firmware updates on gear and try to charge you for it despite it being a warranty job.

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