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Where does this crazy idea come from that you have to glue shut a device to make it waterproof? A rubber gasket and a few screws work just as well without compr

by fsh 5y ago

Where does this crazy idea come from that you have to glue shut a device to make it waterproof? A rubber gasket and a few screws work just as well without compromising repairability. Wristwatches have been constructed like this for centuries, while being a lot smaller and lighter than any smartphone. Maybe it would slightly increase the BOM and assembly cost, but considering that it fits in the budget of a 30€ Casio, probably not by much. I guess the real problem is that manufacturers really don't want you to repair your phones and customer's don't care enough for it to make a difference in the market.

ChrisLomont 5y ago
> Where does this crazy idea come from that you have to glue shut a device to make it waterproof? Glue helps with heat dissipation, physical shocks, vibration knocking plugs loose, provides electrical insulation, chemical resistance, and makes the components less able to vibrate over time and knock things loose, makes sensor positioning more stable, and even makes things easier to assemble since less individual fasteners are needed.
- chmod775 5y ago
  Your response doesn't actually address the point you quoted. But yeah. You can either do thoughtful engineering and careful assembly... or you can achieve close to the same thing with glue.
  - giantrobot 5y ago
    The demand for smartphones is hundreds of millions per year. Manufacturing a hundred million of a complex thing is orders of magnitude more difficult than manufacturing ones of millions of a complex thing. A small complex thing with tight tolerances is harder yet. Setting a part in a jig, brushing a dab of glue, and setting a second part on top is much faster than the same process but fastening a couple screws to the appropriate tightness. It's also less error prone and creates a better bond between the parts. Apple and Samsung pump out tens of millions of phones a quarter. The more effort required for each stage of assembly ends up the difference of millions of phones manufactured in the same period of time.
    - passivate 5y ago
      Assuming you've already researched the time and material costs - Why does it matter if more effort is required? We should put the environment and our own interests as a society ahead of the profits of these already obscenely profitable companies. We don't allow industries to pollute the planet, we require expensive filters and waste-treatment for chemical plant effluents and catalytic converters for cars, and what not.
      - giantrobot 5y ago
        > We should put the environment and our own interests as a society ahead of the profits of these already obscenely profitable companies. It's not necessarily about overall profit. Apple profits on iPhones because they sell them for many times their cost. A marginal cost increase in manufacturing wouldn't impact them much. The problem for Apple (and other large manufacturers) is production volume. It is a massive (and expensive) undertaking to mass produce something like an iPhone in the volumes Apple does. There's a lot of orchestration between component suppliers, component transport, assembly, packaging, and channel distribution. Contracts covering all of those things are signed years in advance to reserve capacity. If final product assembly volume drops because a worker has to spend five seconds screwing parts rather than two seconds gluing that back pressure affects everything. Supply chains are such that there's literally no warehouse space available to store backed up components or finished products. That doesn't affect profitability but just economic feasibility of whole lines of products. There's massive demand for smartphones and there's only so many ways to get the production volume to meet that demand. Consider PC shipments in terms of production. The global demand is tens of millions of units a year vs hundreds of millions of phones per quarter. Like I said, there's challenges to making a hundred million complex widgets that simply don't exist at smaller scales. Screws might be fine in laptops but they're a volume killer for phones.
        passivate 5y ago
        I don't agree with your assessment, so we have a disagreement, no biggie :) Car assembly lines were changed to include adding the seat-belt and the catalytic converter, etc, etc due to regulatory mandates. Heck they had to redesign their entire car to include crumple zones for safety! I don't think a screw is all that much. And so, electronics companies will figure out how to optimize their assembly lines to comply with the regulations and they will figure out how to manage the supply chain and everything else. Apple employs tons of smart people, and there are many smart people in the world who can help as well.
- fsh 5y ago
  None of this makes any sense. In modern smartphones, the PCBs (i.e. the parts that get hot and contain the sensors and other components) are usually screwed into the frame without any glue. Only the battery, display, and back covers are glued in. This makes repairs of the most commonly damaged parts much more difficult without providing any functional benetfits.
  - ChrisLomont 5y ago
    You ignored a significant part of the list. The list is not mine - it's listed on manufacturing process feature availability when you source things.
- passivate 5y ago
  You're saying "glue helps" but you seem to mean "glue is required". Those are not identical concepts. Yes glue may help, just like using bolts screws and gaskets may help. The entire point is that glue is not _required_ to achieve those goals.
  - ChrisLomont 5y ago
    What is glue is cheaper and works better at achieving all those disparate goals?
    - passivate 5y ago
      It doesn't though. It fails when it comes to repairability, re-use and reduction of e-waste. This is the topic of the primary article, and therefore the context for this thread. You can also weld an entire car together to make it cheaper, but this is not something we should celebrate or promote if it impacts the environment in terms of repair. But yes, I value your opinion so don't want to shut you out of the discussion, I'm just saying there are more important things than making sure an executive at Apple or Google pockets a few more $100 bills.
      - ChrisLomont 5y ago
        >It fails when it comes to repairability, re-use and reduction of e-waste Around 1.5 billion phones are sold a year. What percent of phones are thrown out due to breaking versus people want an upgrade? Then compare to the costs and waste of using inefficient assembly techniques. It's also not hard or terribly expensive to get most broken phones fixed at plenty of repair shops. I think you vastly overestimate the number of phones that become waste due to using glue on parts. > I'm just saying there are more important things than making sure an executive at Apple or Google pockets a few more $100 bills I think this type of simplistic framing makes the discussion end, not pointing out that there are good engineering merits for using glue. I've worked on enough hardware design that needs MIL-SPEC ratings that I know it is highly non-trivial to make things rugged. And that things like glue go a long way towards making it so. How much increased waste would there be if phones were significantly easier to break?
scientismer 5y ago
Can you present me a sleek smartphone design with a rubber gasket and screws? I'm genuinely curious what you have in mind.
JoshTko 5y ago
Look at this comparison. Fairphone has a smaller screen but is larger, heavier, lower quality screen, and is not dust/waterpoof, and costs double compared with the Galaxy S8. Fairphone only matches or loses on all other specs. https://versus.com/en/fairphone-3-vs-samsung-galaxy-s8 https://versus.com/en/fairphone-3-vs-samsung-galaxy-s8
- operator-name 5y ago
  But also look at the AirPods Pro vs Galaxy Buds+: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/AirPods+Pro+Teardown/127551 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/AirPods+Pro+Teardown/127551 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Samsung+Galaxy+Buds++Teardown/132702 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Samsung+Galaxy+Buds++Teardow... One has a zero whilst the other has a 7 by ifixit's rating.
  - JoshTko 5y ago
    Buds are heavier, larger by volume, and are less water resistant.
    - operator-name 5y ago
      Weight isn't an important metric unless it's greater than the threshold of uncomfortableness. The majority of the weight difference comes from the extra battery which is a tradeoff. Similarly for volume, in which the case dimensions is the important metric. Once again the volume is a battery tradeoff. As for water resistance yes, the buds+ are IP2X versus IP4X. Under normal use this isn't important, but if argued this is the better point than bulkiness. https://www.rtings.com/headphones/tools/compare/samsung-galaxy-buds-truly-wireless-vs-apple-airpods-pro-truly-wireless/792/1625 https://www.rtings.com/headphones/tools/compare/samsung-gala... The point is that these are comparable devices and repairability doesn't have to make the drastic tradeoffs as your example of the fairphone 3.

by fsh 5y ago

ChrisLomont 5y ago

> Where does this crazy idea come from that you have to glue shut a device to make it waterproof? Glue helps with heat dissipation, physical shocks, vibration knocking plugs loose, provides electrical insulation, chemical resistance, and makes the components less able to vibrate over time and knock things loose, makes sensor positioning more stable, and even makes things easier to assemble since less individual fasteners are needed.

chmod775 5y ago
Your response doesn't actually address the point you quoted. But yeah. You can either do thoughtful engineering and careful assembly... or you can achieve close to the same thing with glue.
- giantrobot 5y ago
  The demand for smartphones is hundreds of millions per year. Manufacturing a hundred million of a complex thing is orders of magnitude more difficult than manufacturing ones of millions of a complex thing. A small complex thing with tight tolerances is harder yet. Setting a part in a jig, brushing a dab of glue, and setting a second part on top is much faster than the same process but fastening a couple screws to the appropriate tightness. It's also less error prone and creates a better bond between the parts. Apple and Samsung pump out tens of millions of phones a quarter. The more effort required for each stage of assembly ends up the difference of millions of phones manufactured in the same period of time.
  - passivate 5y ago
    Assuming you've already researched the time and material costs - Why does it matter if more effort is required? We should put the environment and our own interests as a society ahead of the profits of these already obscenely profitable companies. We don't allow industries to pollute the planet, we require expensive filters and waste-treatment for chemical plant effluents and catalytic converters for cars, and what not.
    - giantrobot 5y ago
      > We should put the environment and our own interests as a society ahead of the profits of these already obscenely profitable companies. It's not necessarily about overall profit. Apple profits on iPhones because they sell them for many times their cost. A marginal cost increase in manufacturing wouldn't impact them much. The problem for Apple (and other large manufacturers) is production volume. It is a massive (and expensive) undertaking to mass produce something like an iPhone in the volumes Apple does. There's a lot of orchestration between component suppliers, component transport, assembly, packaging, and channel distribution. Contracts covering all of those things are signed years in advance to reserve capacity. If final product assembly volume drops because a worker has to spend five seconds screwing parts rather than two seconds gluing that back pressure affects everything. Supply chains are such that there's literally no warehouse space available to store backed up components or finished products. That doesn't affect profitability but just economic feasibility of whole lines of products. There's massive demand for smartphones and there's only so many ways to get the production volume to meet that demand. Consider PC shipments in terms of production. The global demand is tens of millions of units a year vs hundreds of millions of phones per quarter. Like I said, there's challenges to making a hundred million complex widgets that simply don't exist at smaller scales. Screws might be fine in laptops but they're a volume killer for phones.
      - passivate 5y ago
        I don't agree with your assessment, so we have a disagreement, no biggie :) Car assembly lines were changed to include adding the seat-belt and the catalytic converter, etc, etc due to regulatory mandates. Heck they had to redesign their entire car to include crumple zones for safety! I don't think a screw is all that much. And so, electronics companies will figure out how to optimize their assembly lines to comply with the regulations and they will figure out how to manage the supply chain and everything else. Apple employs tons of smart people, and there are many smart people in the world who can help as well.
fsh 5y ago
None of this makes any sense. In modern smartphones, the PCBs (i.e. the parts that get hot and contain the sensors and other components) are usually screwed into the frame without any glue. Only the battery, display, and back covers are glued in. This makes repairs of the most commonly damaged parts much more difficult without providing any functional benetfits.
- ChrisLomont 5y ago
  You ignored a significant part of the list. The list is not mine - it's listed on manufacturing process feature availability when you source things.
passivate 5y ago
You're saying "glue helps" but you seem to mean "glue is required". Those are not identical concepts. Yes glue may help, just like using bolts screws and gaskets may help. The entire point is that glue is not _required_ to achieve those goals.
- ChrisLomont 5y ago
  What is glue is cheaper and works better at achieving all those disparate goals?
  - passivate 5y ago
    It doesn't though. It fails when it comes to repairability, re-use and reduction of e-waste. This is the topic of the primary article, and therefore the context for this thread. You can also weld an entire car together to make it cheaper, but this is not something we should celebrate or promote if it impacts the environment in terms of repair. But yes, I value your opinion so don't want to shut you out of the discussion, I'm just saying there are more important things than making sure an executive at Apple or Google pockets a few more $100 bills.
    - ChrisLomont 5y ago
      >It fails when it comes to repairability, re-use and reduction of e-waste Around 1.5 billion phones are sold a year. What percent of phones are thrown out due to breaking versus people want an upgrade? Then compare to the costs and waste of using inefficient assembly techniques. It's also not hard or terribly expensive to get most broken phones fixed at plenty of repair shops. I think you vastly overestimate the number of phones that become waste due to using glue on parts. > I'm just saying there are more important things than making sure an executive at Apple or Google pockets a few more $100 bills I think this type of simplistic framing makes the discussion end, not pointing out that there are good engineering merits for using glue. I've worked on enough hardware design that needs MIL-SPEC ratings that I know it is highly non-trivial to make things rugged. And that things like glue go a long way towards making it so. How much increased waste would there be if phones were significantly easier to break?

scientismer 5y ago

Can you present me a sleek smartphone design with a rubber gasket and screws? I'm genuinely curious what you have in mind.

JoshTko 5y ago

Look at this comparison. Fairphone has a smaller screen but is larger, heavier, lower quality screen, and is not dust/waterpoof, and costs double compared with the Galaxy S8. Fairphone only matches or loses on all other specs. https://versus.com/en/fairphone-3-vs-samsung-galaxy-s8 https://versus.com/en/fairphone-3-vs-samsung-galaxy-s8

operator-name 5y ago
But also look at the AirPods Pro vs Galaxy Buds+: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/AirPods+Pro+Teardown/127551 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/AirPods+Pro+Teardown/127551 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Samsung+Galaxy+Buds++Teardown/132702 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Samsung+Galaxy+Buds++Teardow... One has a zero whilst the other has a 7 by ifixit's rating.
- JoshTko 5y ago
  Buds are heavier, larger by volume, and are less water resistant.
  - operator-name 5y ago
    Weight isn't an important metric unless it's greater than the threshold of uncomfortableness. The majority of the weight difference comes from the extra battery which is a tradeoff. Similarly for volume, in which the case dimensions is the important metric. Once again the volume is a battery tradeoff. As for water resistance yes, the buds+ are IP2X versus IP4X. Under normal use this isn't important, but if argued this is the better point than bulkiness. https://www.rtings.com/headphones/tools/compare/samsung-galaxy-buds-truly-wireless-vs-apple-airpods-pro-truly-wireless/792/1625 https://www.rtings.com/headphones/tools/compare/samsung-gala... The point is that these are comparable devices and repairability doesn't have to make the drastic tradeoffs as your example of the fairphone 3.