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There was a motor teardown linked on HN at some point.

Essentially: electric motors from the 50s were vastly over designed, which meant they were extremely robust to physical failures

The larger point about stuff now vs then is likely the use of capacitors. And specifically, cheap capacitors in consumer electronics.

Absent electronics, you're talking an order of magnitude longer lifespan.




An anecdote...

Bought a Sony receiver around June 2021. The thing has barely had time to get dusty and its never been over ~20W. It's already dead, or dying at least. The power supply caps are bad and it power cycles itself when it tries to drive the speakers.

It's not a high end model; I'm not an audiophile trying to get 0.001% THD at 10KWs. But lunching itself 25 months into a 24 month warranty... wtf.


See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve - if it's going to break, statistically it'll probably do so in the first few years.

Have you tried bringing it back to where you bought it? Depending on where you live, failing after 25 months may not be okay, regardless of what the warranty says.


> Have you tried bringing it back to where you bought it?

No. And the thought of having to deal with them, whoever they are, makes my skin crawl. I'd rather eat the entire cost of it twice than do that.


> And specifically, cheap capacitors in consumer electronics.

Speaking of reliability, I just replaced the start capacitor in my 20 year-old garage door opener. The replacement failed in less than 3 weeks!




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