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Comment by seltzered_ | Hacker News Reader

It's neat to see this, but there has to be some discernment around what will be component 'replacing' versus 'repairing'.

The more interesting repairs people like Rossman, ipad rehab, and others do can involve IC replacement or circuit trace repair and some of their complaints around sourcing ICs, not just larger assemblies like a display.

This also flows into expertise and tools around such repairs - you need some knowledge of the PCB schematic (in which there's a cottage industry around selling them like http://www.laptop-schematics.com/ ), how to use board rework tools (you need more than just a soldering iron). I sorta dream of a prosumer 'makerspace' for people to do these things but in practice feel like anyone with these skills just asks to use their employer's lab in the off-hours for such things or tends to their own private homelab.

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> The more interesting repairs people like Rossman, ipad rehab, and others do can involve IC replacement or circuit trace repair and some of their complaints around sourcing ICs

Asking manufacturers to stock and sell the individual ICs they use to build products is completely untenable. The number of people who can actually execute such repairs is vanishingly small.

The reason the independent repair shops would want availability of the raw materials is so they can capture the profit of doing intensive manual repairs instead of swapping out a main board in a few minutes.

I have all of the equipment to rework dense PCBAs with small SMT components, and I’d still rather buy a replacement main board in most cases than do a hand rework operation myself. Machine assembly and factory validation is best.

>>Asking manufacturers to stock and sell the individual ICs they use to build products is completely untenable. The number of people who can actually execute such repairs is vanishingly small.

The problem that Rossman was trying to highlight was that it appears as if Apple goes out of their way to make sure people like him can't get components. As an example - macbooks use a specific chip to control the USB-C charging, and that chip frequently burns out. Until some time ago, he could just buy it from the manufacturer in China, no problem, at like 10c a piece. But then from a certain revision onwards Apple requested a custom version of the same chip from the manufacturer, which as far as Rossman can tell is identical, except the pin layout has been swapped. And of course the manufacturer won't sell you that Apple-specific chip, so now he has no way of fixing a fried chip, other than buying the entire motherboard.

Like yes, I agree, it's untenable to expect Apple to sell you their own ICs individually, but it appears like they specifically swap publicly available ICs for their own versions for no other reason other than to try and prevent repairs. Of course there might be another explanation, but if there is we don't know it.

Are the new ICs burning out as frequently? (And how frequently is frequently?)

In any case it's certainly possible the new pinouts enable better routing that could reduce failures.

Besides, how many people are able and willing to do component level repairs on a charging chip that it would be worth Apple's time to reroute part of their boards just to screw 'em?

I don't know - all I mean is that this was Louis' argument - that more and more repairs that he could do with a 10c chip are now impossible due to changes Apple is introducing. Whether the reasoning behind those changes is solid I don't know and I'm not sure he knows either.

>Asking manufacturers to stock and sell the individual ICs they use to build products is completely untenable.

We can settle at not forcing IC manufacturers into contracts prohibiting third part sales.

>Machine assembly and factory validation is best.

You mean like the time Apple "factory certified refurbished" by gluing a piece of rubber instead of reflowing detaching ICs? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaGHcBZjmWA

Or maybe ICs would start to become more standardized if there was regulatory pressure to keep them in stock for at least 5 years.

There is huge price difference between replacing a single chip vs whole board. Sometimes 5x to 10x.

I won't hold my breath when it comes to proper component-level repair, but I'd also argue that component-level repair is already possible (with manuals from grey-area sources).

This is good news for at least being able to order legitimate "consumable" parts such as batteries which are difficult (or dangerous) to obtain unofficially, or easily-broken parts such as screens.

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