Countless companies and industries enjoy making up scary stories when it comes to justifying their opposition to making it easier to repair your own tech. Apple claims that empowering consumers and bolstering independent repair shops will turn states into “hacker meccas.” The car industry insists that making it easier and cheaper to repair modern cars will be a boon to sexual predators.
Almost got scammed by Rad Bikes this way. Battery mysteriously failed 10 months into their 1 year warranty. Rad Bikes accused me of sabotaging the battery and refused to honor their warranty, but “generously” offered me free shipping on a $300+ replacement battery. Turns out the off-the-rack fuse they use blew; identical down to the manufacturer to the ones used in cars. Replacement fuse was <20 cents and fixed the problem instantly.
Do you recall the specific fuse? There was someone asking about ebike battery fuses on !micromobility@lemmy.world a while back. Wasn’t really sure what to tell them, but automotive fuses make sense.
What tripped the fuse, though?
Rad City support could not or would not explain how my battery might have stopped working, but would only say it was “not covered by warranty”. They could also not explain what sort of causes of battery failure were covered by their warranty. It was pretty clear they just didn’t want to cover the expense of honoring their warranty (the battery is probably one of the single most expensive parts on their bikes).
That’s pretty shitty. They’re probably talking internally about the fuse as if it’s some type of tamper seal. But fuses blow sometimes, they’re literally sacrificial. So somebody has told their support techs that anyone with that fuse blown has tampered with their battery and they’re just repeating that line to customers (some guilt of tampering, some innocent).
Or maybe you just got unlucky with a dumb support tech. If that’s widespread, they deserve to get sued.
Apparently some earlier models of their batteries had a user accessible hatch to change fuses, so I’m inclined to think they intentionally moved from a repairable to non-repairable model.
A blown fuse there is a pretty good indicator that the wrong kind of charger was used, which actually warrants a warranty loss.
Either that or a small power surge happened. Or the battery was defective. There are multiple things that could blow that fuse, and having a blanket “blown fuse = voided warranty” policy is stupid.
Obviously sabotage.
He weaseled his way into the company and changed an engineers documents without them noticing, causing them to over rate the motor controller…
Or just an over current, which could be as simple as surge when connecting due to a discharged capacitor.
Wait a minute, why did the fuse blow in the first place? This might be a safety issue and should be handled by the warranty.
There might be a reason. But if the reason really is a safety issue, then it would also blow the second fuse.
That is what fuses are made for.
[…] Apple claims that empowering consumers and bolstering independent repair shops will turn states into “hacker meccas.”
What does that even mean?
The car industry insists that making it easier and cheaper to repair modern cars […]
Afraid of someone doing a better job than your own service?
[…] will be a boon to sexual predators.
What?
That’s partly why I have a cheap chinese ebike (still wasn’t cheap, but nothing like some of the silly numbers some manufacturers are quoting). The parts are all cobbled together from other chinese manufactures and are pretty much standard. If it breaks, I replace a bit (they sell most of the parts on their website), or upgrade it, depending how I feel. Nothing proprietary there at all.
What bike do you have, if you don’t mind sharing?
It’s a Hitway bk11. One of the most popular on Amazon (well I think the bk6 is).
The display for example is an S866, which are cheap and all over ebay/amazon. Heck, I could even interface an esp32 in there if I can find some documentation for the ubuiquitous ‘communication protocol no.2’…
The car industry insists that making it easier and cheaper to repair modern cars will be a boon to sexual predators.
“I just fixed my own car, now I’m off to go rape someone.”
I’ve never thought about it this way before. This must be why some places refuse to invest in public transport. Just imagine the consequences if they didn’t even need to fix their cars at all
A hacker mecca sounds great!
Yeah, what’s the problem, Apple? Afraid of fostering a little innovation?
The fucking irony of Apple saying that when they literally arose as a company from a hacker mecca. Woz and Jobs were hanging with Cap’n Crunch and got the seed money for Apple helping him run a phone hacking business.
But jobs is dead and Woz was chased out and still an absolute maniac in the best ways possible. It’s not their Apple.
The car EV market is standardizing to NACS connector. Any car with that connector (and those with adapters) can charge. There should be no incompatibility. The e-bike industry needs to follow suit, but take that one step further. Standardize on the battery connector, the chargers, and also on the batteries themselves (kind of like how we have size AA and AAA and C and D).
All these manufacturers complain that the reason bikes are still expensive is because of the batteries. Well nothing will drive down the cost more than one standard type of cell and only a handful of different sizes. Only one type of connector and every charger should be the same.
Well nothing will drive down the cost more than one standard type of cell and only a handful of different sizes.
That assumes that the manufacturers want to bring down prices. If they all keep using proprietary batteries they can use that as an excuse to keep prices high without looking greedy.
Sure, if they want the wraith of the EU on them.
The EU has a tendency to intervene when a market is unable to regulate itself.
