If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#71
|
|||
|
|||
On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 21:39:05 -0500, David Maynard
wrote: kony wrote: My argument was that a 3 year warranty isn't a guarantee that it will work for 3 years, that warranties are a marketing tool Well, the implication you seem to be trying to make that a 'marketing tool' is an otherwise 'useless' thing with no purpose but to 'sell' misstates the case. 'Everything', features, cost, and yes, warranty, is a 'marketing tool' in that people don't buy a product for 'nothing'. These things all have a perceived 'value', and that is what a company is 'selling'. No, I would've came right out and wrote "useless" or similar enough if that were my opinion. I was suggesting that warranty is not an indicator of actual lifespan. the manufacturer would just as soon do away with if possible, Which flies in the face of your subsequent assertion below that it is of "very little cost." Manufacturers generally love 'near free' marketing tools. No, there are many "little costs" a product manufacturer would just as soon do away with if they hadn't done so initially. It is simply one of many expenses. But again, the way you put it gives a distorted impression. Companies sell perceived 'value' and cost, from whatever source, eats away at that. They'd "just as soon do away with" advertising costs, if they could sell just as much without it. And they'd "just as soon do away with" manufacturing costs, if the products would just magically appear on their own. And they'd "just as soon do away with" R&D, if they could sell the same thing forever. Hardly. Product must be advertised if sales contracts aren't secured for sufficient % of target manufacturing capacity. Manufacturing costs themselves are also a very basic requirement of producing this type of good, while a retail lenghtly warranty is not, and futher it isn't offered for same period of time by lower-cost competitors' products. Problem is, all those things, and more, are necessary to do business, stay in business, and sell product. As is a reliable product and a competitive warranty. Yes/no/maybe World's biggest manufacturer, Delta, doesn't advertise retail at all. No 3 year warranties either, yet I'd take a Delta of same wattage over a Thermaltake any day. There is very little cost associated with this, Simply not true, even from simply the direct cost aspect. Throw in reputation and the "who'd buy this piece of junk" potential company killer and it's a quite serious matter. You are completely misreading what I wrote. I made no reference to quality as a design decision, nor of companies reputation, only that the cost of fullfilling waranty is easily offset by a much higher retail price... nothing more than that as it would be pointless to examine every potential aspect of a business model in this thread just as it would be in any other hardware part thread. It costs just as much to make the ones 'lying around' as it does the ones being sold to make profit, except they generate no revenue and, instead, eat up costs for the stocking, before you even get to the cost of the actual warranty replacement. On the surface it would seem to cost as much for the added stock, but it does not. Cost per unit goes down with higher number of units. The higher cost of the unit previously linked (I am confident it's quite high priced compared to other name brand PSU of same amperage specs) is way more than enough to offset warranty replacement costs. One certainly hopes so or else you have a seriously flawed business model. .... which is all I was writing in the first place but it seems you read more into it than I meant. |
#72
|
|||
|
|||
kony wrote:
On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 21:39:05 -0500, David Maynard wrote: kony wrote: My argument was that a 3 year warranty isn't a guarantee that it will work for 3 years, that warranties are a marketing tool Well, the implication you seem to be trying to make that a 'marketing tool' is an otherwise 'useless' thing with no purpose but to 'sell' misstates the case. 'Everything', features, cost, and yes, warranty, is a 'marketing tool' in that people don't buy a product for 'nothing'. These things all have a perceived 'value', and that is what a company is 'selling'. No, I would've came right out and wrote "useless" or similar enough if that were my opinion. I was suggesting that warranty is not an indicator of actual lifespan. That may have been what you 'meant' in the first half of the statement but it isn't the implication of the last part. the manufacturer would just as soon do away with if possible, Which flies in the face of your subsequent assertion below that it is of "very little cost." Manufacturers generally love 'near free' marketing tools. No, there are many "little costs" a product manufacturer would just as soon do away with if they hadn't done so initially. It is simply one of many expenses. You say it's a 'marketing tool' and I point out manufacturer's like 'low cost' marketing tools. Which is why I say it flies in the face of it being 'of little cost' because you claim they'd just as soon do away with it. Why? if it's a marketing tool of such little cost? But again, the way you put it gives a distorted impression. Companies sell perceived 'value' and cost, from whatever source, eats away at that. They'd "just as soon do away with" advertising costs, if they could sell just as much without it. And they'd "just as soon do away with" manufacturing costs, if the products would just magically appear on their own. And they'd "just as soon do away with" R&D, if they could sell the same thing forever. Hardly. Product must be advertised if sales contracts aren't secured for sufficient % of target manufacturing capacity. Which is what I said. Manufacturing costs themselves are also a very basic requirement of producing this type of good, Which is what I said. while a retail lenghtly warranty is not, That's purely your opinion. and futher it isn't offered for same period of time by lower-cost competitors' products. And the cost isn't the same and the features may, or may not, be the same and they may sell through different channels. They all go into the product mix and business strategy. Problem is, all those things, and more, are necessary to do business, stay in business, and sell product. As is a reliable product and a competitive warranty. Yes/no/maybe I won't even try to correlate 3 replies into 5 or more points. World's biggest manufacturer, Delta, doesn't advertise retail at all. No 3 year warranties either, yet I'd take a Delta of same wattage over a Thermaltake any day. Is this supposed to 'prove' something? Because all you've done is describe a part of their business model and, presumably, a part of how you make a buying decision, in that particular case. Other companies and people make their own judgments and they're not necessarily the same as yours. There is very little cost associated with this, Simply not true, even from simply the direct cost aspect. Throw in reputation and the "who'd buy this piece of junk" potential company killer and it's a quite serious matter. You are completely misreading what I wrote. I made no reference to quality as a design decision, nor of companies reputation, I didn't 'misread' what you wrote. I'm simply explaining that those things are a part of the warranty, or lack thereof, 'cost' and a company's decision process regarding them, whether you happened to have mentioned them or not. only that the cost of fullfilling waranty is easily offset by a much higher retail price... And how do you come to the presumption that anyone can just arbitrarily raise price? much less 'easily'? Or that the 'high price' isn't a result of other factors, such as volume, increased component cost, etc.. nothing more than that as it would be pointless to examine every potential aspect of a business model in this thread just as it would be in any other hardware part thread. Except that you are specifically making business model assumptions, if not outright declarations, with your assertions of how much someone can arbitrarily raise price, how 'little' warranty costs are, and the rest. It costs just as much to make the ones 'lying around' as it does the ones being sold to make profit, except they generate no revenue and, instead, eat up costs for the stocking, before you even get to the cost of the actual warranty replacement. On the surface it would seem to cost as much for the added stock, but it does not. Cost per unit goes down with higher number of units. If you're making so much 'warranty' stock as to significantly affect your cost per unit ratios then you're in deep doo-doo. The higher cost of the unit previously linked (I am confident it's quite high priced compared to other name brand PSU of same amperage specs) is way more than enough to offset warranty replacement costs. One certainly hopes so or else you have a seriously flawed business model. ... which is all I was writing in the first place but it seems you read more into it than I meant. ANY successful business model is going to have warranty costs covered in the price of the product. That, in and of itself, is not 'revealing' of anything. |
#73
|
|||
|
|||
On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 00:31:39 -0500, David Maynard
wrote: No, there are many "little costs" a product manufacturer would just as soon do away with if they hadn't done so initially. It is simply one of many expenses. You say it's a 'marketing tool' and I point out manufacturer's like 'low cost' marketing tools. Which is why I say it flies in the face of it being 'of little cost' because you claim they'd just as soon do away with it. Why? if it's a marketing tool of such little cost? Because no matter how little the cost might be, it is still a cost, one they would gladly reduce or eliminate if done without impact on their bottom line... simple as that. But again, the way you put it gives a distorted impression. Companies sell perceived 'value' and cost, from whatever source, eats away at that. They'd "just as soon do away with" advertising costs, if they could sell just as much without it. And they'd "just as soon do away with" manufacturing costs, if the products would just magically appear on their own. And they'd "just as soon do away with" R&D, if they could sell the same thing forever. Hardly. Product must be advertised if sales contracts aren't secured for sufficient % of target manufacturing capacity. Which is what I said. Manufacturing costs themselves are also a very basic requirement of producing this type of good, Which is what I said. Yes, but the difference here is one of basic requirement. It is a basic requirement to spend the $ on manufacturing the product, perhaps even marketing to a certain extent, but features like a warranty are not absolutely essential, not one that lengthly. When seeking OEM sales there is need to keep quality at a certain standard while warranty isn't the factor it would be to retail. In other words, the focus on their core market. IMO, dropping quality is more of a risk to OEM sales than dropping warranty length would be to retail sales. while a retail lenghtly warranty is not, That's purely your opinion. Name all the power supplies you know of with 3 year warranty. Do they account for majority of sales? Historically there is seldom if ever discussion of PSU warranty length as criterion for selection. Call it my opinion if you like, but it also looks statistically sound at first glance. World's biggest manufacturer, Delta, doesn't advertise retail at all. No 3 year warranties either, yet I'd take a Delta of same wattage over a Thermaltake any day. Is this supposed to 'prove' something? Because all you've done is describe a part of their business model and, presumably, a part of how you make a buying decision, in that particular case. Other companies and people make their own judgments and they're not necessarily the same as yours. Never claimed they were did I? You seem stuck in argument mode again, it's doubtful anything productive will be accomplished at this point. I downplayed the importance of a warranty period and gave an example where it's not needed, yet you throw manufacturing costs into the mix... One can be lowered with less devastating effects than the other, and is. Simply not true, even from simply the direct cost aspect. Throw in reputation and the "who'd buy this piece of junk" potential company killer and it's a quite serious matter. You are completely misreading what I wrote. I made no reference to quality as a design decision, nor of companies reputation, I didn't 'misread' what you wrote. I'm simply explaining that those things are a part of the warranty, or lack thereof, 'cost' and a company's decision process regarding them, whether you happened to have mentioned them or not. Certainly you did misread, as I never suggested cost-cutting to reduce quality as a good alterative, yet that is what you wrote about. only that the cost of fullfilling waranty is easily offset by a much higher retail price... And how do you come to the presumption that anyone can just arbitrarily raise price? much less 'easily'? Or that the 'high price' isn't a result of other factors, such as volume, increased component cost, etc.. How would you come to the presumption that anyone can't? Anyone CAN just raise the price in a free market, and often be successful at that if they differentiate the product, even in ways unessential or detrimental to it's function. When arguing that high-price is a result of volume of such a commodity item, we have a chicken-or-egg scenario. High price reduces sales volume, units are selling so production goes down or ceases... or vice-versa, the limited production in itself artifically keeps price high only due to manufacturer's blunder or limited resources. nothing more than that as it would be pointless to examine every potential aspect of a business model in this thread just as it would be in any other hardware part thread. Except that you are specifically making business model assumptions, if not outright declarations, with your assertions of how much someone can arbitrarily raise price, how 'little' warranty costs are, and the rest. Clearly you made the assumptions of where I was going with my inital posts towards some point you wanted to make. Go ahead and make the point but keep in mind Ithat your summary of my position is not accurate. It costs just as much to make the ones 'lying around' as it does the ones being sold to make profit, except they generate no revenue and, instead, eat up costs for the stocking, before you even get to the cost of the actual warranty replacement. On the surface it would seem to cost as much for the added stock, but it does not. Cost per unit goes down with higher number of units. If you're making so much 'warranty' stock as to significantly affect your cost per unit ratios then you're in deep doo-doo. Wouldn't that be a "business model assumption" you just made? It would also be only an opinion, without knowing what the cost is to run off a few more units from an assembly line already set up and running, parts already purchased (so many are shared between different models), workers trained and lines running. Cost per unit as an average of total produced is different than cost per unit of an additional run, the former being much higher cost. That is a basic truth in mass manufacturing, disagree all you like as I'm not going to bother arguing it. ANY successful business model is going to have warranty costs covered in the price of the product. That, in and of itself, is not 'revealing' of anything. .... which is basically a restatement of my original point. |
#74
|
|||
|
|||
On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 21:10:11 +0100, "Peter Hucker"
put finger to keyboard and composed: On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:02:25 +1000, Franc Zabkar wrote: However, I have heard of an electrician in the navy who used to locate fused circuits by running two fingers down a bank of fuses until he felt a bite. Not too bad as the current is limited by the appliances. Mind you on a big ship..... No, the current is/was limited by the fuse. That's why it blew. ;-) I think the procedure is not as dangerous as it may first appear for two reasons. Firstly, I doubt whether you are likely to find a good ground on a ship. Secondly, the current would flow from one finger tip to the other finger tip, not directly through the heart. And then there's my former employer who liked to demonstrate his faith in a TV's protection circuits by holding on to the 25kV anode as he powered on the set. AFAIK he's still with us. I didn't know they had protection circuits for that - is that to prevent the flyback from exploding in case of a short? Did he feeel anything or did it take a bit to cut out? The CRT beam current is limited to about 1mA by an ABL circuit. The TV's power supply may also hiccup when the FBT is placed under excessive load. Both protection mechanisms are very fast acting. - Franc Zabkar -- Please remove one 's' from my address when replying by email. |
#75
|
|||
|
|||
kony wrote:
On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 00:31:39 -0500, David Maynard wrote: snip of arm waving If you're making so much 'warranty' stock as to significantly affect your cost per unit ratios then you're in deep doo-doo. Wouldn't that be a "business model assumption" you just made? No. You wouldn't even GET to a 'business model' with those assumptions. It would also be only an opinion, without knowing what the cost is to run off a few more units from an assembly line already set up and running, You were not talking about running of a 'few more units'. You were claiming so many more units that your volume purchasing costs are dramatically affected. SO affected that the replacement units were 'cheap' compared to the ones made for sale. parts already purchased (so many are shared between different models), Doesn't alter the fact that your volume purchasing is driven by manufacturing items for sale and not replacements for defective units. workers trained and lines running. Cost per unit as an average of total produced is different than cost per unit of an additional run, the former being much higher cost. It's an 'opinion' based on experience. Failure rates high enough to necessitate replacement production of that magnitude means your manufacturing and/or design is hopelessly screwed up. That is a basic truth in mass manufacturing, disagree all you like as I'm not going to bother arguing it. I have no problem with 'truth in mass manufacturing'. It's your invention of wholly unrealistic scenarios I dispute. ANY successful business model is going to have warranty costs covered in the price of the product. That, in and of itself, is not 'revealing' of anything. ... which is basically a restatement of my original point. You're trying to argue the merits of fanless power supplies by attacking the purpose and meaning of warranties because the other poster made a presumptive claim regarding them. But it's a non sequitur for BOTH of you, just as arguing how fast a car is by what color it's painted would be. It might actually work once in a while, if people who like fast cars happen to often like 'red', but it's only coincidentally related (compounding the misperception with 'anecdotal' stories) without a direct cause and effect relationship, just as your warranty theory doesn't really apply to your apparent argument over fanless PSUs. You were correct, as I agreed in an earlier post, that a long warranty doesn't say much, if anything, about lifespan but neither does all this arm waving about how 'cheap' a warranty is, your 'marketing tool' characterization, or any of the rest. |
#76
|
|||
|
|||
On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 18:16:28 +1000, Franc Zabkar wrote:
On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 21:10:11 +0100, "Peter Hucker" put finger to keyboard and composed: On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:02:25 +1000, Franc Zabkar wrote: However, I have heard of an electrician in the navy who used to locate fused circuits by running two fingers down a bank of fuses until he felt a bite. Not too bad as the current is limited by the appliances. Mind you on a big ship..... No, the current is/was limited by the fuse. That's why it blew. ;-) What I assumed was he ran one finger along one side o the fuses and the other finger along the other side, hence zero potential difference for a working fuse, but a blown one you are in series with the applicance. Which atually doesn't limit the current as I forgot, there was a fault that blew the fuse in the first place, so he could very well be getting the full supply voltage. I think the procedure is not as dangerous as it may first appear for two reasons. Firstly, I doubt whether you are likely to find a good ground on a ship. As above I assume one finger is live, the other is nuetral (via the (shorted) appliance). Secondly, the current would flow from one finger tip to the other finger tip, not directly through the heart. Feels pretty weird that does, fingers vibrate at 50 Hertz. And then there's my former employer who liked to demonstrate his faith in a TV's protection circuits by holding on to the 25kV anode as he powered on the set. AFAIK he's still with us. I didn't know they had protection circuits for that - is that to prevent the flyback from exploding in case of a short? Did he feeel anything or did it take a bit to cut out? The CRT beam current is limited to about 1mA by an ABL circuit. The TV's power supply may also hiccup when the FBT is placed under excessive load. Both protection mechanisms are very fast acting. So it's not really dangerous at all? Still, it's 25 watts. Not sure how you work out what's dnagerous. -- *****TWO BABY CONURES***** 15 parrots and increasing http://www.petersparrots.com 93 silly video clips http://www.insanevideoclips.com 1259 digital photos http://www.petersphotos.com Served from a pentawatercooled dual silent Athlon 2.8 with terrabyte raid If you can't beat your computer at chess, try kick boxing. |
#77
|
|||
|
|||
"Peter Hucker" wrote in message news:opsbh8amiiaiowgp@blue...
On 21 Jul 2004 13:21:24 -0700, do_not_spam_me wrote: In the process of testing the water cooling, did you put a temperature probe on each of the power components? Transformer saturation is a big concern among power supply designers, and heat makes them saturate at lower power levels. I checked the heatsink temperatures with my finger. Did you measure the voltage on the heatsink before you did this, in case it had 170VDC riding on it? Didn't think anything else would need it. Haven't you ever noticed how other transformers, including those inside AC wall adapters, sometimes run very hot? Even the filter inductors on the outputs of an ATX supply run so hot that temperature sensors are sometimes mounted on them for fan speed vs. temperature control or for thermal shutdown. Kony wrote: Nope, there are ZERO nice new fanless ones. The highest quality, best specs and longest lasting PSU are all actively cooled. Effective passive cooling for a modern system will require such large passive 'sinks that it won't come near fitting into a PS/2 size allocation per the PSU casing or system chassis. Best attempt is when huge fins stick out the back of system, but even then there is no chance PSU will last as long unless quite specifically made with different spec and type components inside, which none have been due to greater cost. Some I saw said 3 year warranty :-) I believe a test of one done by www.silentpcreview.com was not very enthusiastic, probably because the company simply took the same basic 65-75% efficiency design that's been in PCs since 1980 and tried to make it fanless by merely enlarging the heatsinks and adding more vent holes. They should have instead raised the efficiency to around 85-90% because such supplies are common for non-PC purposes. The best I've seen was 96%, but it was expensive. Fans can be made almost silent by balancing them and mounting them on shock absorbers. Balancing can be done by sticking a small piece of copper or steel tape on the fan at the exact right location, but finding that location can require patience, unless you build a strobe light balancer. At the very least, have a fan that automatically comes on if the temperature gets too hot. It won't make nearly as much noise as 15 explosions. |
#78
|
|||
|
|||
On 23 Jul 2004 01:53:04 -0700, do_not_spam_me wrote:
"Peter Hucker" wrote in message news:opsbh8amiiaiowgp@blue... On 21 Jul 2004 13:21:24 -0700, do_not_spam_me wrote: In the process of testing the water cooling, did you put a temperature probe on each of the power components? Transformer saturation is a big concern among power supply designers, and heat makes them saturate at lower power levels. I checked the heatsink temperatures with my finger. Did you measure the voltage on the heatsink before you did this, in case it had 170VDC riding on it? The heatsink that was bolted the the earthed PSU chassis? No. Otherwise I would have done, as banging my head on the underside of the desk when I got a shock would not be very nice! Besides which, I'd be passing 170 volts through the water cooling system to the CPUs! Didn't think anything else would need it. Haven't you ever noticed how other transformers, including those inside AC wall adapters, sometimes run very hot? Even the filter inductors on the outputs of an ATX supply run so hot that temperature sensors are sometimes mounted on them for fan speed vs. temperature control or for thermal shutdown. I found one hot inductor/coil/transformer/whatever it is (just two wires to it) that was warm, I put a passive heatsinnk on that and it kept it at less than doby temperature. Kony wrote: Nope, there are ZERO nice new fanless ones. The highest quality, best specs and longest lasting PSU are all actively cooled. Effective passive cooling for a modern system will require such large passive 'sinks that it won't come near fitting into a PS/2 size allocation per the PSU casing or system chassis. Best attempt is when huge fins stick out the back of system, but even then there is no chance PSU will last as long unless quite specifically made with different spec and type components inside, which none have been due to greater cost. Some I saw said 3 year warranty :-) I believe a test of one done by www.silentpcreview.com was not very enthusiastic, probably because the company simply took the same basic 65-75% efficiency design that's been in PCs since 1980 and tried to make it fanless by merely enlarging the heatsinks and adding more vent holes. They should have instead raised the efficiency to around 85-90% because such supplies are common for non-PC purposes. The best I've seen was 96%, but it was expensive. 75% to me sounds rediculously low, but then I don't know much about the design of switched modes. I thought switched modes gave of a lot less heat than the old ones? Fans can be made almost silent by balancing them and mounting them on shock absorbers. Balancing can be done by sticking a small piece of copper or steel tape on the fan at the exact right location, but finding that location can require patience, unless you build a strobe light balancer. At the very least, have a fan that automatically comes on if the temperature gets too hot. It won't make nearly as much noise as 15 explosions. I have actually got a thermostat here and some large fans to try this with. If they come on a lot, or are too loud at 5 volts, then perhaps I'll go and buy some panaflows which Kony claims are very quiet. -- *****TWO BABY CONURES***** 15 parrots and increasing http://www.petersparrots.com 93 silly video clips http://www.insanevideoclips.com 1259 digital photos http://www.petersphotos.com Served from a pentawatercooled dual silent Athlon 2.8 with terrabyte raid Before marriage, a man yearns for the woman he loves. After marriage, the 'Y' becomes silent. |
#79
|
|||
|
|||
On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 03:25:39 -0500, David Maynard
wrote: snip This is drifting off-topic and with no possible productive outcome since you still assume you know what I mean without my ever writing it. Since it'd pointless to argue in this way I'll leave you to your assumptions. |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
basic power problem | BrianBloodaxe | General | 19 | July 26th 04 08:48 PM |
help, please, with Compaq Presario power supply problem | Jacques Clouseau | General | 6 | June 9th 04 06:44 PM |
power supply, or ...? | ynotssor | General | 10 | June 1st 04 01:19 AM |
How can I make motherboard to restart after power loss automatically? | Amiran | General | 1 | September 24th 03 11:35 PM |
Power Supply on its way out? | w_tom | General | 5 | July 31st 03 03:43 PM |