On Thu, 2005-05-12 at 08:47 -0400, Roy J. Gromlich wrote:
> I suppose I didn't expect much help from them, but their attitude has 
> been go away & don't bother us.  Quite a shame, really, because they
> make a great product.  However, I could never recommend them to
> anyone after this.

Well then you won't be recommending ANY company that sells electronics
these days, because pretty much every single one of them will behave in
the exact same way.

Nobody "repairs" electronics anymore, at the lowest levels whole boards
are replaced, with many items replacing the item is the way to go. This
is a fact of life.

> As for releasing schematics, I have never really understood the issue.
> In the case of a scanner, most of the complexity and cost is likely to
> be in the optical hardware, and ultimately the firmware controlling the 
> hardware. If I wanted to clone the scanner it would take me longer, 
> and cost a lot more, to duplicate the optical hardware & the firmware 
> than to simply copy the circuit board. 

Releasing the schematic MAY give away some "secret" a competitor might
use. No matter HOW remote this possibility is, this is what causes
companies to just say no. 

And it's not just schematics. Getting specs out of manufacturers for
writing your own OS drivers has been EXTREMELY difficult. It's only
lately that some manufacturers are either opening up or developing
drivers of OSs other then wincrap.

> Let this be a warning to designers - don't rely on an external plug-in 
> regulated supply alone to protect your hardware. Especially when using 
> a standard plug & jack pair as would be found on any unregulated wall 
> wart. Had this scanner had a voltage regulator on the main board, or a 
> different type of power plug to the regulated supply, it would not have 
> mattered if the wrong wall-wart was plugged into it. The regulator might 
> have gotten hot and gone into thermal shut-down, or maybe popped a fuse. 

Obviously you have never been a manufacturer in the market of computer
peripherals. Computer peripheral margins for most areas are EXTREMELY
thin (there are of course exceptions). Yes, the extra $0.50 for a
regulator and associated components is often enough to cause a maker to
decide not to manufacture a product.

Also, you forget, that plugging in the wrong adaptor is NOT something
covered by warranty, and since it's something you did to the product
it's not something you can blame the product for. The average person
will not even enquire as to how much it would cost to fix it (since they
know it would be more then a new item) and will simply go out and buy
the latest and greatest, which rewards the manufacturer for not putting
in the regulator to begin with.

TTYL

-----------------------------
Herbert's PIC Stuff:
http://repatch.dyndns.org:8383/pic_stuff/

-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist