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42
Condor
6y

In electronics there's 3 options.
1. You pay a small fortune to get something decent.
2. You pay a smaller fortune to get crap.
3. You build it yourself and it'll be nicely priced AND decent.

Why is that? I have no idea. Profiteering gluttons perhaps.

Case in point: my watch. A waterproof one, so you'd expect to be able to take it in the shower, which I often did.
But then, le wild drop from 50cm height occurred and the whole thing just popped open, with soapy water rushing in. Luckily it didn't short out, and I quickly evacuated it out of the shower and dipped it with my towel.

Then already I thought.. what the fuck is wrong with the designers of this thing?! I'm all for keeping the inner parts of electronics accessible for self-servicing. But in a waterproof watch you wouldn't expect the backside to pop right off and expose the bloody internals, would you? So that's one thing. While evacuating it I quickly figured that I'd want to remove the battery immediately.. except that fucking thing was screwed in place?! WHAT THE FUCK?!! Use those screws to keep the fucking backside of the watch in place you certified pieces of shit that designed this craptacular piece of garbage!!!

Finished showering, went ahead and troubleshooted the thing. Miraculously it still worked. Except that now the UI of the fucking thing is biting me in the ass. A single button on the watch is used to operate the whole thing, and get it to set itself to the correct time, get radio signal, go in sleep mode (where the watch stops ticking, for storage purposes) and activate itself again. So I dived into the manual.. and still couldn't get it to work properly. So it's got one button just like an iPhone, it craps itself when it's dropped just like an iPhone, its design is shit just like an iPhone, and it's completely unusable when it craps itself just like an iPhone.

And the manual... Oh fucking shit. It specifies that the watch is 3 bar water resistant, yet apparently you can't take it into the shower. 3 FUCKING BAR!!! That's supposed to enable you to take a fucking dive with it! And apparently you can't drop it either.. who would've thought, when they lock it with no more than outwards pressure from the back plate into the main body! How difficult can it be to use fucking screws, and to make it watertight put some rubber bands or whatever?!

CERTIFIED MOTHERFUCKERS!!!

And the watch, it's in the garbage can right now. Right where it belongs!!

rant

certified enganeers

make it yourself or expect shit
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Comments
  • 10
    6y
    Just a note, 3 bar doesn't qualify for diving. Actually, not even for swimming because it is static pressure. Add in motion, and a 3 bar watch is free to take in water even when you are swimming on the surface.
  • 12
    6y
    >>I had a "waterproof speaker."
    >>Took several showers with it.
    >>Fully submerge it once. The effect of water bouncing from the base is wicked.
    >>A few months later, fully submerge it again.
    >>The fucker stops working completely.
    >>Dry it out the best I can.
    >>Cuts on but one of the 4 speakers stops working

    "Waterproof" my left testicle.
  • 3
    6y
    @Fast-Nop Seriously? 3 bar, 3 times atmospheric pressure? Yet it still can't handle a dip? What's the point of having those numbers on there in the first place then?
  • 14
    6y
    @Condor 3 bar is 30m depth, but that is measured by putting it at such (simulated) depth and let it lying around for maybe half an hour or so. Arm movements when crawling can add dynamic pressure higher than that, especially when hitting the surface of the water.

    3 bar means basically spill resistant, not submergible. The reason for such high numbers is marketing. They can sell these watches and technically don't lie, they just mislead the customers.

    See here - you're in for a nasty surprise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
  • 5
    6y
    I admire your hardware skills.
  • 4
    6y
    If you want something really waterproof you should look for ip specifications. Something like ipx7 or so (iirc). If they lie on that you can sue them.
    Bars are not reliable and often used for marketing purposes.
  • 5
    6y
    Why would you keep your watch on while showering though? It's like the most uncomfortable thing ever 🤔
  • 6
    6y
    I have to imagine you half showered in the bathroom working on the inside of the watch :D

    But seriously, as mentioned before, whatever watch that is, you got shit. For waterproof you would need one with 10+ bar, better 20. There are some reliable brands out there, if you want a new one and need some help choosing one, hit me up. (Also night mode so it saves battery? Wtf was running on there, a miningscript?)
  • 4
    6y
    @endor mostly to keep time, so that I don't stay in the shower for too long 😛

    @jonii haha no, I just put it somewhere else and continued showering. It had only a CR2016 cell in it, so 100 microamps can add up over time. So the sleeping function is for storing it away for multiple months without having to remove the battery I guess. Regarding a new watch, yeah I could use some suggestions actually. I don't really want to spend much more than €50 on it (last one was 30) and ideally it'd be something that automatically synchronises via radio, so that I don't have to fiddle with its dials too much or have to worry about DST (which I hate). Oh and shower survival would be great as well :3
  • 3
    6y
    @Condor off my head I know Casio got a Wave Ceptor model with I think 20 bar and it should be around 50€, but I'll take another look for options tomorrow.
  • 2
    6y
    There's a 4th option - Pay a fortune and get ishit

    P.S. G-Shock ftw 🤘🏻
  • 3
    6y
    What people mostly dont get that their Watches, phones, speakers etc... arent WATERPROOF, they are WATERRESISTANT!!
  • 1
    6y
    @Condor yeah in that price range the best fit would be the Casio WV-200E-1AVEF, if you don't mind the look. If you wanna spend a bit more or try your luck getting a good used one, you can look for some of the G-Shocks that are radio controlled, e.g. GW-M5610-1ER or GW-7900B-1ER

    In general Casio would be your best bet, haven't come across a single model that didn't prove what it promised.
  • 3
    6y
    I have a Casio SGW-100, it's rated at 200m water resist, had a bunch of showers with it, swam in the sea, no issues. Also, if I remember correctly, it's made from specifications of the Belgian army, so should be a tank. So far it has been 😁 it just doesn't have that radio sync feature
  • 2
    6y
    @Condor you'll want 5 bar for something you can swim and shower with, but not too long, and 10 for longer times
  • 1
    6y
    @jonii all hail Casio!
    Seriously I've got a €10 model, it's 10 atm waterproof (tested and true) and indestructible. I love it
  • 3
    6y
    @epse yeah, only had one Casio die on me and that only happened because I did NOT use it :D
  • 1
    6y
    @jonii @wannabee thanks for the suggestions! I'll be going with a Casio then 🙂
  • 0
    6y
    I really disagree with point number 3. Unless you are building some simple stuff or maybe some specialized equipment like regulated lab power supplies. For anything else, you will most likely not be able to make it "nicely priced" (even ignoring you labour costs) and it will probably be not better anyway.

    Think about your watch. And now imagine building yourself a waterproof wristwatch. Depending on how fancy you want to go, it's gonna set you back quite a bit of money for manufacturing the PCB, CNC machining a case, sourcing the parts.

    Or let's think about a simpler product, a single board computer (like an RPi) clone. The PCB (assuming you can do it on 4 layers) and the parts alone will cost you at least 100 USD. And you most likely will never be able to match the performance and software support of an RPi. Especially not for the price.
  • 1
    6y
    @bootleg-dev You are absolutely correct, but that's never been the point. I do not wish to compete with manufacturers. In fact when I showed some past project on Facebook, a woman commented that she wanted one.. my reply? I can't do it for any less than €200. I do not have an assembly line, I do not have highly specialized tools other than a soldering station. I do not have custom PCB's (though I may consider that for an upgrade on that project) or a design team. And most certainly do I not have underpaid workers in China (aside from component manufacturers of course).

    But again, that's never been the point. My point when building electronics is to make something highly personalized, hackable and most importantly, just have fun while building it and learning a thing or two along the way. I don't intend to commercialize that, at least not yet. And since the projects are personal I tend to only add the price of the components in the equation, since the build process is mostly just me having fun building it.. and besides, it's not for anyone else to purchase anyway.

    So yeah, I can't compete with manufacturers. It's not even comparable, since they build consumer electronics on a massive scale, while I build personalized stuff that I can incorporate within just my own environment. That does not however mean that my stuff is worse per se. Oh and regarding Raspberry Pi's, those are amazing boards for their price. I have a couple of them laying around here, and have been very satisfied with them. Especially since they're so hackable.. so that's what I do. I don't try to build a clone, instead I further hack away on the board that has a rock solid foundation. No need to build alternatives to what's already good in the first place.
  • 0
    6y
    @Condor Ahh I see, since you mentioned point 3 and the watch thingy in the same post I kinda assumed you meant more like going into the direction of creating "products" when you mentioned building electronics.
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