fake PC supplies

[Joel Kolstad]

Pooh Bear wrote:
In my specific area of interest ppl are now expecting 3 yr warranties.
Some
suppliers are offering 5 yrs.

Keep in mind that, in many cases, the power supplies are already 'reliable
enough' (at least in terms of the number of people who actually claim warranty
service -- may or may not correlate with true reliability!) that simply
changing an extra $5 or so for another couple of years warranty may be all
that's needed to profit. No design changes needed whatsoever!

 

[Mike Monett]

Pooh Bear wrote:

[...]

In the meantime, was there anything specific I could help you with regarding a
safety issue ?

Graham

Actually, I was thinking of asking RL if he has access to the ATX
schematics for reference.

Do you know if they are available anywhere? I have Pavel Ruzicka's one at

http://pavouk.comp.cz/hw/en_atxps.html

but it would be nice to have ones for the power supplies I am actually
using

Mike Monett

 

[Franc Zabkar]

On 24 May 2005 15:05:56 GMT, Ian Stirling <root@mauve.demon.co.uk> put
finger to keyboard and composed:

I have approximately 1000 floppy disks, most of which are about 1995 vintage.
Of these, essentially none, not even the verbatim 'datalife' ones will
format without errors.

Last year, I broke open a box of IBM OS2/warp (1994), and extracted the
40 or so floppies.
None of them would format on any of 3 floppy drives I have.

Mould?


- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 's' from my address when replying by email.

 

[Pooh Bear]

Mike Monett wrote:

Pooh Bear wrote:


I have a copy ( a few yrs old ) of BSEN60065 which is pretty similar to 60950.
Note : BSEN = the adopted British standard based on the IEC original. 60950 is
specifically IT equipment whereas 60065 is listed as audio and video equipment
now IIRC.

Graham

Still pricey. BS EN 60065:2002 = $351.26 USD

http://www.techstreet.com/cgi-bin/detail?product_id=1115682

Seems awfully expensive, especially when time and travel for the committee
members are probably paid by their own companies.

So who gets the profit?

You'll have to ask John Woodgate when he returns. He knows all about that stuff I
think.

In the meantime, was there anything specific I could help you with regarding a
safety issue ?

Graham

 

[Ian Stirling]

Franc Zabkar <fzabkar@optussnet.com.au> wrote:

On 24 May 2005 15:05:56 GMT, Ian Stirling <root@mauve.demon.co.uk> put
finger to keyboard and composed:

I have approximately 1000 floppy disks, most of which are about 1995 vintage.
Of these, essentially none, not even the verbatim 'datalife' ones will
format without errors.

Last year, I broke open a box of IBM OS2/warp (1994), and extracted the
40 or so floppies.
None of them would format on any of 3 floppy drives I have.

Mould?

Kept in warm dry conditions throughout.

 

[Chris Jones]

Mike Monett wrote:

Pooh Bear wrote:


I have a copy ( a few yrs old ) of BSEN60065 which is pretty similar to
60950. Note : BSEN = the adopted British standard based on the IEC
original. 60950 is specifically IT equipment whereas 60065 is listed as
audio and video equipment now IIRC.

Graham

Still pricey. BS EN 60065:2002 = $351.26 USD

http://www.techstreet.com/cgi-bin/detail?product_id=1115682

Seems awfully expensive, especially when time and travel for the committee
members are probably paid by their own companies.

So who gets the profit?

The price of standards is something that really upsets me. If I understand
correctly, especially in the EU products are legally required to comply
with standards that are not available to the public except in return for
payment. As far as I can tell the money goes to what is effectively a
private organisation or company, or something that is run like one, which
owns the IP. Many standards which are effectively given the force of law
are copyright by an organisation other than the government - unless I have
missed something. Imagine if the law on automobile registration or
burglary or employment rights were privately owned - I suppose they only
get away with keeping standards as private property because they are of
little interest to the general population.

I don't mind someone coming up with a clever standard and selling it to
people or refusing to sell it to them, what I object to is non-free
standards being given the force of law, so that in effect the price of the
standard is like a licence to produce electrical goods, and that 'licence'
money disappears into a fairly non-transparent organisation.

My proposal would be for the EU to buy out the rights to the standards so
that it owns them, and then give them out freely for downloading. If the
EU wants to pay private companies to develop standards for it that would be
fine by me as long as the work was awarded on a competitive basis - but I
would like the governments to actually own their laws and standards to the
extent that they would be allowed to distribute the documents freely. What
would happen if the copyright owner actually refused to sell further copies
of the standard to the government?

Does anyone know of a legal way to access cenorm and cenelec type standards
without paying? As I understand it, a product which is CE marked in any
one European country may be sold throughout the EU, so it would only be
necessary for one EU country's national standards body to place their
version of the legally required standards into the public domain.

Chris Jones