unless there is some type of liability issue they are concerned about.

Of course there are "liability issues." There always are. This is how they all justify their claims. We can't allow you inside your own toaster because once you're in there we can't guarantee that you won't electrocute yourself.

I am currently in a "thing" about this with a European OEM because they refuse to provide the PLC programs for millions of dollars worth of equipment that will become scrap when PLC inevitably dies, if they aren't still in business to sell us a pre-programmed replacement at 500% markup. They won't release the programs because "we can't ensure continued safe operation of the equipment if customer is able to defeat safety interlocks through programming." It has nothing to do with how we are beholden to them for everything software related and have to give them thousands of dollars per day to send out a technician when something goes wrongly enough that someone must look in the black box.

 

It had about a dozen small screws holding it together with most being Phillips, but four had a triangular (tamper proof?) slot that I've never seen before.

https://www.amazon.com/Bestgle-Magn...hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4584070156340173&psc=1

ak

 

https://www.amazon.com/Bestgle-Magn...hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4584070156340173&psc=1

ak

Yup, that looks like them.

 

Another tale from the repair trenches:

I just repaired a toaster where they purposely made it difficult to disassemble.
It had about a dozen small screws holding it together with most being Phillips, but four had a triangular (tamper proof?) slot that I've never seen before.
I have Torx, Philips, square, and hex bits but, of course, no triangular ones.
Fortunately, they were not very tight and I was able to remove them with a small blade screwdriver.

The toaster failure mode was that the activating lever would not stay down,
After a few tests with the open toaster, I determined that the power contacts were not making solid contact when the lever was down, which was supposed to activate them.
So I just had to bend the power contacts slightly to make a good contact, and then reassemble the case (without the triangular screws ).
Failure solved.

I suspect the average person that might try to repair this would likely be frustrated by the (apparently) unremovable screws, and just junk the device.
What a waste that would be for such an easily fixed failure.

Hi,

Congratulations. It's good to see people still doing this type of repair.

The other thing about the failure is that if someone throws it away that's another piece of electronic waste that we are also supposed to be doing something about. Just like cell phones and the batteries in them, this may be another area that has to be covered in order to keep electronic waste down. Maybe this will becomes a bigger issue in the future and the right to repair more appliances will come about.

Also part of the problem i think is that many things these days are simply not upgradable. They say they are, but by the time you want to upgrade too many things about the device are outdated and it is no longer feasible to upgrade, or even impossible, so into the junk pile it goes.

The Earth has a natural way to recycle things, we need to find that road for stuff we make also or else that stuff just gets used up and eventually we run out of it.

 

Maine’s right-to-repair law for cars wins with 84 percent of the vote

​

Both Minnesota and Colorado passed repair laws pertaining largely to electronics and farm equipment, respectively, as well as exemptions for certain modifications in Colorado and specific product categories in Minnesota, including medical devices and motor vehicles. Neither law’s exceptions were as objectionable to right-to-repair advocates as the New York state law passed last year that exempted entire industries and enterprise products.

 

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...-trains-repaired-by-competitors-hackers-find/

An unusual right-to-repair drama is disrupting railroad travel in Poland despite efforts by hackers who helped repair trains that allegedly were designed to stop functioning when serviced by anyone but Newag, the train manufacturer.
...
While Newag has contacted authorities to investigate the hacking, Janusz Cieszyński, Poland’s former minister of digital affairs, posted on X that the evidence appears to weigh against Newag.

"The president of Newag contacted me," Cieszyński wrote. "He claims that Newag fell victim to cybercriminals and it was not an intentional action by the company. The analysis I saw indicated something else, but for the sake of clarity, I will write about everything.

 

Wife's Electrolux vacuum cleaner broke a small plastic piece that holds the hose on. No service manuals, no parts diagrams, and no parts except from dealer. That's one way to keep anyone other than the dealer to repair. Also just found out our 10-year warranty on the LG dishwasher was only for the motor!

 

Wife's Electrolux vacuum cleaner broke a small plastic piece that holds the hose on. No service manuals, no parts diagrams, and no parts except from dealer. That's one way to keep anyone other than the dealer to repair. Also just found out our 10-year warranty on the LG dishwasher was only for the motor!

Hi,

You're lucky. Our warranty was just for the paint on the motor!

 

 

The 3D printer is an amazing boon to self-repair. Even in cases where parts are not available, some clever use of calipers and CAD can have you a completely functional, often improved, replacement part in minutes to hours.

PLA, the most common polymer used in 3D printing thanks to how easily it will work even in inexpensive printers can produce a lot of completely functional replacement parts, but today there is a broad range of engineering materials available and affordable printers that can handle them easily.

These range from extremely string polymers like Nylon, PETG, and others—optionally filled with carbon fiber and even glass—to extremely tough and flexible options like TPU that can be made into parts that require high levels of elasticity.

Making replacement parts that rescue things otherwise destined for the trash is absolutely one of my favorite applications of 3D printing, and amazingly satisfying to do.

 

I recently had to remove six of these tamper proof screws. What was the point of using these screws except to stop someone from opening the unit? It didn't stop me, except slow me down a tad. They were well recessed deep down in a hole.

 

I recently had to remove six of these tamper proof screws. What was the point of using these screws except to stop someone from open the unit? It didn't stop me, except slow me down a tad. They were well recessed deep down in a hole.

View attachment 317058

How did you manage to remove them? Did you have to do some damage to accomplish that?

 

How did you manage to remove them? Did you have to do some damage to accomplish that?

I fabricated my own tool to extract the screws. No damage done. I replaced the six screws with regular Phillips screws for the next person who has to do a repair.

 

I recently had to remove six of these tamper proof screws. What was the point of using these screws except to stop someone from opening the unit? It didn't stop me, except slow me down a tad. They were well recessed deep down in a hole.

View attachment 317058

Very common unfortunately.
I have a few kits for those and others.
https://uk.rs-online.com/web/content/discovery/ideas-and-advice/security-screws-guide

 

I have a set of security screw bits but none fit these screws.
Good to know what they are called. The ones I removed were self-tapping threads, not metric machine threads.

Flanged Button Head Screws

 

I recently had to remove six of these tamper proof screws. What was the point of using these screws except to stop someone from opening the unit? It didn't stop me, except slow me down a tad. They were well recessed deep down in a hole.

View attachment 317058

Several years ago I was working for an expert witness in an patent infringement trial where the plaintiff was suing Google because they believed that the (then available) Google enterprise appliance infringed one of their patents.

The appliance was a blue, 1U rack server. It included a single “high security” screw. There are companies that will make uniquely bitted security screws and the corresponding drivers. This one was by no means the pinnacle of the art, they can get very elaborate, but it was supposed to thwart attempts to open it:

9:00 AM


9:02 AM​

The solution in this case was a pair of needle nosed pliers inserted into the two cuts at 90° and 180°. Had they used threadlocker I’d probably have needed a different method—but it was a certainty it would be removed, non-destructively.

The first time I encountered screw heads like yours, I used a spring-loaded center punch to drive it far enough out to grab with pliers. And then there’s the “Vamplier” or the much more affordable and apparently identical Engineer brand version.

​

 

The head of the screw was deeply recessed in a hole. There was no opportunity to grab it from the sides.
I had to make a tool that fitted the slots.

 

The head of the screw was deeply recessed in a hole. There was no opportunity to grab it from the sides.
I had to make a tool that fitted the slots.

Yes, in your case it my method wouldn’t work—mine were mounted accessibly.

 

I have a set of security screw bits but none fit these screws.
Good to know what they are called. The ones I removed were self-tapping threads, not metric machine threads.

Flanged Button Head Screws

View attachment 317076

Look for system zero security screws.
https://docs.rs-online.com/aaa3/0900766b80b458f2.pdf

https://int.rsdelivers.com/product/rs-pro/rs-pro-system-zero-screwdriver-bit-t3-tip/0542100

 

I recently had to remove six of these tamper proof screws. What was the point of using these screws except to stop someone from opening the unit? It didn't stop me, except slow me down a tad. They were well recessed deep down in a hole.

View attachment 317058

Hi,

Sometimes I wonder if using these "tamper proof" screws has the opposite effect of what was intended. They seem to challenge people to try to get them out, and they certainly do not stop the people that know how to fix things already, and those are the people who would want to get them out. So who are they stopping.