An interesting topic Michael. All too often model engineers seem to be too ready to tinker with their faulty products to fix them rather than holding the supplier to account.

Howi

bardwells recently closed its doors

I can remember saving for an ic12 amplifier with a futureistic heat sink on top

Howi

Bardwells took most of my pocket money as well. I remember the throat mikes well, we used them in intercoms on rally cars. Those were the days!!

Peter

Michael's comment reminded me that the Sinclair scientific calculator was the first one I bought. Shame the trig functions were inaccurate, so it was of little use to me as a young engineer. I expect it's still lurking in a drawer somewhere, unused. I see that someone has reverse engineered it:

Sinclair Scientific

I also bought several other Sinclair projects, before I learned my lesson, including a stereo amplifier. It never worked. I was never as impressed by Sinclair as the Press seemed to be.

Bill

I was always tickled by John Stevenson’s fit for purse and fit for purpose. Although we maybe prepared to fettle a machine that falls short of requirements if the price is right, products sold in the UK should be fit for purpose.
Bandsaws at the cheap end of the market seem to be a machine that regularly fall short of our expectations but can be fettled into a satisfactory performance. I doubt that blade life and squareness of cut feature in the claims made for a cheap bandsaw so trading standards may be satisfied by it just cutting metal. It is clear that some people have unreasonable or unrealistic expectations of what they are buying and can be a poor customer but bad traders also exist who take the money and run. A direct import purchase has little protection but some of the sellers seem anxious to please and others will just disappear if there is a problem. I am not rich but I prefer to buy from a supplier in the uk with a face that my needs can be discussed with. I have made many purchases on eBay that have mostly been very satisfactory from mostly genuine people, these days it seems to be a more risky place for fakes and rubbish and a bad place for sellers who encounter bad customers.

Mike

In the old days of tube TVs, valves, and TV repairmen the TV manufacturers issued lists of necessary mods to the TVs that were also compiled into books so the repair man would do the repair and if conscientious all the improvements. This allowed them to start off with a ropey product and gradually improve it. as the consumers road tested it. The manufacturer cared about their reputation to get the next sale and the repair man wanted to give a guarantee and not be called back even though the new failure would not have been due to his previous repair. Peiple expected to have the repair round every couple of years.

Although electronic products are far more reliable now you may be surprised to learn that an initial failure rate of 0.5% is normal and way better than the 2% of 20 years ago. There is a big industry that quietly repairs all this brand new equipment. Overall life hasn't changed much at around 7 years average.

Quality assurance is a big subject, and depending on the desired goal, there are several ways to do it. There is no universal right or wrong way.

Make / inspect / accept quality processes as practised in the past are unpopular today. Although initially cheap and simple to implement stuff gets through the net and the process becomes hideously expensive – too many people checking rather than producing. Characteristic of firms producing 'quality' goods that cost too much.

Instead, much better to build quality directly into the 'Make' phase, expensive at first but fully applied it can eliminate the need for inspectors entirely. The method involves looking closely at every aspect of the manufacturing process and carefully eliminating all sources of error. Skilled men are a major source of error; if they can be replaced by machines, it's done. Most of the time this system works well, and the cheapest way to fix occasional errors is to replace faulty items without fuss.

Quality depends on the market, not on the desires of elderly gentlefolk. The market for hobby lathes is tiny and it consists mainly of chaps who absolutely refuse to spend grown-up money on tools! (What many think of as serious money is actually chicken-feed.) Although quality is wanted, no-one is prepared to pay for it! So there's a market for stuff made down to a price and for second-hand tools where someone else paid big money in the past. It's our own fault. Machines would be much better made if we all started the hobby off by spending £10,000 to £20,000 on a new lathe.

Other markets are different. That for electronics is much larger, highly competitive, fashion conscious, and the technology is moving forward quickly. Last year's model is out of date, but it must work well because reputation matters when competition is red-hot and huge sums are involved. When products like mobile phones sell by the billion and then collect usage revenue, it's well worth driving prices down and quality up. Cars are also highly competitive, with large numbers of customers tending to push quality and features up and prices down. Good news for the consumer, but it does generate an unrealistic expectation that everything we buy can be both good and cheap.

Then there's White Goods. These are designed to last at least 5 years, but then become unreliable. While the customer might want a fridge to last a lifetime, how can the manufacturer stay in business? And there are good reasons why old fridges should be replaced, energy efficiency, CFCs, faults etc.

When modern industry finds it worthwhile, it easily outperforms anything done in the past. Even the recent past! Aerospace, computers, pharmaceuticals, maintenance, medical, etc all better. Unfortunately, the ordinary Joe doesn't get the best at low prices all the time unless the economics are favourable. It's an imperfect world…

Dave

PS I spent most of my life being unable to afford computers, new cars, lathes, and microscopes. SWMBO put top priority on house, food, holidays, children and cushions!