Everything's falling apart

I seem to be plagued by electronics breaking down right now.

First office laser printer (multifunction device; printer, scanner, copier, fax) refused to power on after a weekend. Since a printer is absolutely necessary for deliveries and invoicing, first thing I did was to call supplier. Response was what I expected, "old model, not worth repair, buy new similar unit for 400€, we can get it delivered there in two days."

So what an curious engineer is to do, but to open up the old one. And surprise surprise, I found two electrolytic caps that were bulging severely (I'd put in photos, but this was some weeks ago, before I even considered blogging, so I have no photos of that. Sorry.)
So a quick trip to local electronics parts store later I have functioning printer again, for total cost of about 50€ (parts and labor). Time well spent.

Next thing to die was home Blu-Ray player, a Samsung BD-P4600. It could play Blu-Ray disks but not DVDs or audio CDs. Because of this I suspected the laser module itself (which would be pretty much unrepairable), but I decided to open it nevertheless.

The player has external, 12 volt/3 amp power module. Because of this I expected to find several on-board regulators, each with their own electrolytic caps, and I was kinda hoping that one of them would be failing, causing the problem with disks. No such luck; I did find the regulators, but to my surprise main PCB has no electrolytics at all; it was all large chip ceramics. So back to original hunch, and since new players cost less than 100€ now, I abandoned further attempts, but only after admiring the quite beautifully systems-engineered device; everything in it was built nicely for easy assembly (and disassembly).
No photos of that either, but I still have the player somewhere, I'll try to add them later.

And now my home computer display from 2008 is dying (22" 16:10 ratio - I absolutely hate 16:9 displays). I first noticed some flicker on some shades of grey about a month ago, and by now it was getting more serious. Quick search confirmed it; most likely power source is failing. I opened it up, but both power and driver modules look healthy and voltages are stable. Damn. Guess it is time to go display shopping again. In the meantime, I think I'll put it together again and put it in less critical use, waiting it to die. Maybe I can find the real culprit then and fix it.
And third sorry here, no photos of that either, yet.

Getting started

Okay, so here I am, doing something that I never thought I'd be doing - writing a blog.

Full disclaimer first; I run a small business, Trippi oy, in Finland, with main specialization in trip meters - that is, devices that tell very accurately you how far you've driven. That doesn't sound very exciting, doesn't it? Well, there's more; friction measurement (that is, how slippery the road is - very important in icy Nordic winter for maintenance!), taximeters, accessories and so on.

Well, yes, still not exciting. Funny how it is, there are huge amount of businesses that do just one special thing that you - or I - will never even hear about. Until for some reason you need their services, only to be surprised that that small shop, the one just behind the corner with name that doesn't tell you anything actually does this. And you had never heard of them until now.

But this still hasn't explained why I'm writing this. Just bear with me a bit longer now...

Now, I am self-confessed geek. According to my father (he works with electronics too) I picked up soldering iron about the same time I stopped needing pacifier (well, there might some exaggeration there), and I if I recall correctly I've been programming since I was 10 or so. I do all the hardware and software design of devices we manufacture, and due to this I happen to follow technology news quite closely.

Which brings me to patents. The current situation (is US mainly, Europe is only slightly better) is disgusting. For small player, like me, it's a lose-lose situation. Big companies patent everything possible (there's apparently nothing "too obvious") and they are granted them with zero review. They sue and you're bankrupt. Or, if you have patent (no matter how good and valid), if you sue, they throw hordes of  lawyers on your way and you're again bankrupt. Lose-lose.

Did I mention obviousness? As an engineer, if I am given a specific problem, I often can figure out half a dozen solutions, some worse, some better. If same problem is given to ten other engineers worth their salary, they'll figure out very same solutions. This makes those solutions obvious. Yet big corporations will happily get patents for these. So it's actually lose-lose-lose.

So what can I do then? Well, this, for once. Publicly document the ideas for some random problem, no matter how obvious it seems, I happen to think of, with some solutions and dearly hope that in the long run this will ruin some litigious (sp?) lawyers' day and save my sorry behind.

In the meantime I'll just keep writing about stuff (I won't be limiting myself only to things mentioned above, there'll be other things too), which I hope someone will find interesting.