Just been doing the grocery shopping in Tesco today, and in the appliance section they are now selling "plain box" two-slice toasters for £3.70! Yes, you read that right -- Three pounds & seventy pence!

Just how much cheaper can this stuff get? I guess I don't have to tell you where it was made.

Fabrique au Chine, n'est-ce pas?

Pardon My French, But I only speak english and Pig Latin.

I must expand. I'll guess,

China?

Don't they kill their own for no reason and stuff? Why, How can we do Business whith them?

Oh never mind.

Money. Not Morals.
I feel better knowing we have priorities!

I feel even better knowing I have the RIGHT and FREEDOM to SAY THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I once had such a cheap toaster. After about half a year of service it was replaced with a used 1970s model I bought at a flea market for €1. The cheap one would frequently refuse to switch off, burning the toast in the process... never happened with the old one.

That is beacaue the old one was built back when quality and pride meant something. Today is minimal effort, maximum profit.

Just got my copy of E&T throught the post and it has an intresting artical about the upcoming 3D TV..... to replace HD TV

Look out for a free cathod ray TV with your petrol. After all that is what happend to digital watches and pocket calculators

{quote]That is beacaue the old one was built back when quality and pride meant something. Today is minimal effort, maximum profit.[/quote]
And people were willing to pay for quality. After all, some quality items are still in production today, but few people buy them since they're far more expensive.

For example, which customer buys porcelaine body snap switches with a bakelite cover for €30 if s/he can get thermoplastic ones for €5? Customers ask for cheap goods and they get what they pay for. I usually circumvent that logic by buying used.

Hi Paul,
During my hypothetical "spare time" I do the odd electrical appliance or electronics repair, for friends, workmates and family.
I only take on the "simpler" faults, because in this day and age, the problem of getting circuit diagrams or even spare parts, is nothing short of diabolical.
Even so called "big ticket" items like your large TV's and stereo's have little or no service support these days, even with common house-hold name brands.
Manufacturers just aren't interested in having anyone repair an appliance these days, they are built to a price and if it fails, buy a new one.

I will be working on a Philips 34" CTV tomorrow that belongs to my sister, it all of a sudden went bang, only 2 years old, at the time of purchase, it cost NZ$999.
If it is anything too serious, it will be going to the tip.
But I reckon it might have been an electrolytic capacitor in the power supply that failed (I haven't had time to open it up thus far).
Switch-mode power supplies seem to be really hard on capacitors in TV's, this will be the 3rd TV that has suffered this fate, I've had 2 where the switch-mode chip has literally blown to pieces.

People that manufacture this junk seriously need to lift their game, but then again, people buy it don't they?

I'm in the same position Mike. I'll still take a quick look at TVs, VCRs, etc. for friends and neighbors, but even on a "just for fun" basis much of it is now unrepairable. Have you tried getting a replacement line output transformer for a modern TV these days? Even if you can find one, it'll cost at least three times the value of a 5+ year old set. Service manuals or even a schematic -- Forget it.

Most of the VCR mechanisms on the £29.99 supermarket specials (and on a lot of the mid-range stuff for that matter) use so much cheap plastic that after a few years continual use it's all worn to the point that you'd have to rebuild the entire mechanism to get it back to a reasonable technical standard.

I'd rather spend my time restoring old equipment which is worth keeping going because it was built up to a standard rather than down to a price.

Yeah Paul,
The TV is working again, which is due more to good luck than fault-finding/repair skills on my part.
I opened the set up last Sunday and found 4 capacitors had ruptured (all in the PSU area of the PC board), luckily the cases were still intact, otherwise I would have been totally lost, in working out the size of the replacements.

While I had the set open, I noticed that the ultor cap on the back of the tube had been burnt at some time in the TV's life, as it looked like the silicon rubber had melted in places, I checked the connection to the tube and it was loose, I pulled it out and the pins had no "spring" left in them, so I welded a small spring between the pins and the TV works as good as gold now.
It's a tad worrying that a connection such as this (carries upwards of 15kV) could actually be loose and not be noticed.

One thing I must say though, we have certainly gone backwards fast in the methods of building TV's these days, to get the main PC board out to work on it, took about an hour of drawing a diagram on a bit of paper because all the plugs and sockets are the same on the board, get two of these connectors mixed up and it's all over!
Luckily I very rarely ever fix TV's, people that do it for a living must be on anti-depressants.

Paul,
I also like old gear, remember back when TV's had a wooden case and you opened the back and the boards (yes there was more than one) either hinged out or slid out with ample wire length to have a good look at things.

And all the metal parts that held the PC boards in place actually had all the sharp edges taken off!
Everything in an older TV seemed to be bigger too, like resistors and capacitors, the power transformer was always kept well away from everything else.

These days you get a super-thin PC board, loaded with millions of tiny components, I've even seen SMD components in a few new TV's here.
One thing there Paul, line output transformers aren't what they used to be, I've seen a LOT of TV's and CRT monitors die because of the LOPT failing, as you said above, forget trying to get a replacement.

IMO we are being held to ransom by manufacturers that won't supply spare parts at reasonable cost, because it will affect their bottom line.
All TV manufacturers should have the motto "We sell TV's, that's all we do"

Having said that, I've had good results from Samsung here in NZ, you CAN get parts and manuals for their TV's and other gear they make, trouble is, next to no-one buys Samsung stuff here and it also very rarely breaks down!

Very true. How many these days have the PC board held by nothing more than slots inside the plastic casing? When you remove the rear cover, there's then nothing to support the rest of the set without allowing it to rest on the back edge of the PC board. It's a real struggle with those to work on them without risk of damaging something.

Not just tv's.. anything electronic now it seems!
My parents have gone through 2 if not 3 microwave ovens in the past decade, and of each of them had them repaired at least once for the magnetron and circuit boards.. All were Panasonic "inverter technology" as well... Meanwhile the old microwave they bought in 1985, a "Quazar" still happily buzzes away in my kitchen and has never been opened up for servicing!

A.D

Adam,
Did you know that back in 1985, microwave ovens actually used radio-activity to cook food?.
The humming is from the fan that kept the plutonium cool.
I wouldn't be opening that bad boy up either.

I always thought it was the Delorean trying to get up to 88 mph......

Actually Paul,
If you were lucky (or unlucky, whichever way you look at it) and defeated the door interlocks, you could strip wall-paper or paint at 20 yards, you'd want to keep the cat and the kids out of the room at the time.

Sorry I'm only kidding.

You have to remember though that Tesco often sells items below cost to attract attention.
I'd say those toasters are a loss leader.

They may be a loss leader but the low priced ones don't work to good.

One week ago my brand name toaster of many years died at 5am and I went to the 24 hour big box store to buy a new one so I could have breakfast. I paid $6.99 for no name one as I figured why do I need a more expensive one its just a heating element and bi-metalic switch no matter what the price.

After incinerating a half loaf of bread on the lowest setting as the toaster would not shut off and pop the toast out it went back to the store for a refund. I bought a $15 brand name like I had before and it worked the first time.

Unfortunately nothing in the aisle was made in North America including the really expensive toasters.

I guess that's something we'll have to get used too - the former Industrial countries (USA, Western Europe) are going towards a service economy, pushing production into countries where unskilled labor is cheaper. Only special high-tag items (more or less hand made, traditional products) will continue to be produced here.

That's economic reality... mixed with politics. but that doesn't belong here.

Seriously, even household items of the 1970s labeled "Made in Germany" weren't necessarily made there... many of the were actually GDR OEM products.

Or take circuit breakers.... the pretty unique Austrian F&G RCDs were carefully labeled "F&G Austria" but _not_ "Made in Austria"... I didn't even notice that until I saw a GDR made RCD that was a spitting image of the F&G.

On the other hand this is comming back on some employers. A few years ago i was approached by my previous employer and invited to attend an interview for a post with them. Being currious I went along. I knew the job, working on VFT (Varrible Frequency Transmmision) when I asked why they were intrested in me when they could easily get a graduate fresh from uni they said "graduates can only understand electronics they are lost when it comes to vacume valves and the like" So it looks like my old post office training has came in handy. I never took the job

I have to completely agree with Mike and Pauls experience with the substandard built TV's, Video equipment etc. and almost impossibility to repair them.
Schema's are non existent with the user manual anymore like in the good old days.

Flimsy circuitboards with connectors which can easily be transferred. ( I usually mark them with a permanent marker )
and take photo's as I take matters apart.

I do the odd repair for friends and family. Still got 3 older 26" TV's in my garage to fix and are worth the challenge because of vintage mid 80's. with standard components.

The SMPS in newer appliances used have often blown capacitors and these are sometimes underrated 85°C types instead of the 105°C types.

I'm working on a nice Sony TC-730 auto reverse reel to reel at the moment which has a problem with the drive to the reel motors. Very well built machine ( one photo in the gallery ). packed with circuit boards and wiring looms.
I bought two of these on trademe, one working and one DOA, which I was aware off. I like to get them both going again. Nice little project with the real stuff.

I will post some pics of the electro mechanics of this machine.

Regards, Raymond

I hope I can find some hobby repairer here too... I'm tired of my 1970s Hitachi color TV. The image is pretty green on startup and vertical lines always have a green seam on the right. Besides it's flickering awfully... I don't think it always did that. I got it for 7 Euros because of the green hue and bought it because it is a full PAL/NTSC set and I happen to own a NTSC Super Nintendo.