Japan to Discourage Sale of Old Electronics

devphaeton writes to tell us Engadget is reporting that after April 1st (no this is not an April fools joke) the sale of old electronics in Japan could become much harder. From the article: "It seems that Japan's government revised its "Electrical Appliance and Material Safety Law" back in April 2001, and added a stipulation that items authorized under the country's old law (the "Electrical Appliance and Material Control Law") couldn't be sold anymore, but granted those products a five-year grace period. Well, if you check your convenient wall calendar, you'll see that the five-year period is about to end, which means that as of April 1, pretty much any electronic gear sold before April 1, 2001 can't be legally resold in Japan." The article also mentions that sellers can continue to sell old gear providing they get certification that the items conform to modern safety standards.

Comments

Closing the "analog hole"

[netwiz]

Sounds like a great way to accomplish exactly what bunches of content owners (note I didn't say "producers") have been screaming at Congress about. Seriously, what better way to guarantee obsolescence and quick turnover for technology if you have to rebuy everything every five years because the old tech is straight up illegal? Maybe I read this wrong, but it seems like a huge windfall for consumer electronics manufacturers if/when this goes into effect...

Re:Closing the "analog hole"

[BewireNomali]

agreed. and to add to that - the rampant consumerism needed to drive modern economies is often diametrically opposed to classic child-rearing --- in Japan anyway. Fewer young women are looking to marry and start families.

isn't it in japan where they're collecting eggs with the ultimate aim of generating state-children?

Re:Closing the "analog hole"

[Sen.NullProcPntr]

IANASE (I am not a safety engineer)
No, a recall only happens if a product is found to fail the standards that it was originally tested to.

This is more like; a '69 Mustang doesn't meet todays safety and emissions standards so you can not sell it.

Or to stay in electronics; your antique tube radio would not meet UL standards today so you have to junk it.

No, I did not RTFM so don't know if private sales are exempt or whatever.

Re:Closing the "analog hole"

[Sen.NullProcPntr]

No, you wouldn't have to junk the radio, you just can't sell it, unless you could make it meet the standards they put forth five years ago and prove it.

True, but do you know what is involved in getting UL certification?
It's mostly about $$. Here is UL's price list for standards (don't remember the relevant standard numbers for consumer electronics).
That's just what you pay for the documentation the testing is extra.

Tinkerers?

[Blazeix]

I know I learned a lot about electronics from taking apart old electronics. I'm sure there are many people out there that did the same. Will this come to an end in Japan?

Re:Tinkerers?

[ioErr]

If the ban is on selling, then in the short term, wouldn't this increase the amount of old electronics people are willing to give you to take apart?

Re:Tinkerers?

[bluelip]

Obviously I can't recall everything I've opened up, but here are some:

The gray box on the outside of my parent's house for the telco demark : I learned that the problem is usually with the end user.

Dismantled the markers for the automatic feeding of livestock on my family's farm : I learned about how an access card works 15 years before I had my own.

A toaster : How resistance generates heat

Tape decks : How the tape stores it's information magnetically

VCRs : How the head is able to read the information from the tape

Transistor radios : How the signal is detected and amplified.

Video game joysticks : how the movement i made was being picked up by basic switches.

Wall Clocks : How a 'C' cell device can be used w/ an 'A' cell battery. I learned about voltage, chemical reactions, and capacity.

Telephones : Red, Right, Ring

Floppy drives : Stepper motor operation.

"Cattle Prods" : voltage vs amperage

Autmatic Lights : CDS components

RC cars : Radio Frequency, Servos, Pulse Duration

Film Projectors : Light to audio conversion

Grain bins : Height/Distance/Weight/Moisture sensors

Kodak Cameras : batteries integrated w/ film packaging, chemistry

Flashlights : Effects of using different bulbs

Batteries : How serial/parallel circuits work.

Speakers : Calculate serial vs parallel resistance

Igntion Coil : volts -> amps

Amateur radios : workings of radio frequenct devices.

TVs : how the screen is drawn by varying magnetic stregths

Boxes of various colors : ADC circuits

Christmas lights : circuit interuption

Flasher for a car's turn signals : heat/relays/switches

Strobe lights : triggers, high voltage

Mouse : optical decoding

Motors : commutators , brushes, etc

Car Alarms : using a piezo buzzer as a motion sensor

Thermocouples : varistors

Dimmer switches : pots / duty cycle

I was lucky enough to have a job since I was 10. This afforded me the ability to buy all of this "junk" and figure out how it worked.

Yes, some specialized ICs have come about. For the most part, the components are still there, they're just smaller. The concepts are still in our current devices, if someone has the ambition to learn from them.

If nothing else, go spend the 40 bucks or so on the ARRL handbook and examine the ciruits in it. Looking at a schematic is in some ways better than looking at the actual device.

Re:Tinkerers?

[evilviper]

thing is in the last decade or so (possiblly longer i'm unsure when this started) most consumer electronics has become so complex and/or miniturized that you don't stand a chance of figuring out whats going on without a circuit diagram or a lot of electronics knowlage.

Things have gotten more complex, in general, but that doesn't mean there isn't still a tremendous ammount to learn, and fix!

What are the biggest problems with consumer electronics these days? Dead capacitors, loose solder connections, etc.

Sure, you can't learn as much as you were once able to, but what you learned a few decades ago hasn't made it possible for you to fix your DVD player, either ;-). The whole world has changed, and the things people don't learn from taking apart electronics these days, are the things that aren't relevant these days...

So, instead of learning how a tube works, kids are learning how a microcontroller works. So, instead of building crystal radios and amplifiers, kids are building circuits which allow them to directly drive an ISA videocard, or modifying a 'free' satellite reciever.

Just because things have changed, doesn't mean they've gotten worse. It's just nostalga.

Driving consumerism & export development

[EmbeddedJanitor]

This has been an ongoing thing in Japan. It drives the Japanese imported car idustry in places like New Zealand. Forcing local consumption also helps Japan develop new products in its quest to export. For an interesting read http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/Economics/Japan/J apanYes. I don't endorse or condemn what's written here, not that my endorsement or condemnation are worth jack.

No used electronics for them means more for me

[yppiz]

I suspect that if electronics are harder to re-sell in Japan, we're going to start seeing some neat cheap used electronics coming over to foreign markets. I wouldn't mind if some of the "made for the Japanese market only" notebooks and appliances became available used in the US.

--Pat

Vintage Audio

[HowIsMyDriving?]

People in Japan over the last 30 years have been draining Vintage tubed audio equipment and horn loudspeakers from the US like no other country. If you were to go over to Japan with an old Western Electric 300b Based tube amp, you could get thousands of dollars for it. An example of a Mcintosh MC 30 6l6 based amp going price in the US is around 600-1000 dollars per mono bock. If I were to take the amps over there, I could get 5-10k for a set. The same with Altec, JBL, Klipsch, Western electric speakers. This will hurt a huge tubed audio and vintage audio industry in Japan. Most of their high end audio gear is still tubed based, and they often love to use vintage caps, resistors, transformers, for they think they have better sound. This will put lots of people out of business.

Re:Actually lead based solder bans make no sense

[evilviper]

Of human lead disposal, the vast majority, over 90%, is car battries. Solder is only a fraction of the remaining fraction.

Car batteries have enough value that you can be sure they will practically ALWAYS be recycled properly.

Lead solder, however, gets tossed into landfills all the time, in the form of discarded stereos, computers, etc.

Eliminating lead solder, while keeping lead car battries, is like saving power by turning off a table lamp, while leaving your windows open and AC on.

Wow, what a terrible analogy... Comparing the ban on lead solder, to an example of blatantly wasting energy...

1) Higher melting point. Means more components get fried

I have to say, after many, many years of soldering a lot of electronics with heavy-duty soldering irons, I have NEVER fried ANYTHING. Not once. I can only imagine this problem comes from people using low-powered (<20w) soldering irons, leaving them on components for much longer periods of time. I've never, never seen a single case of this with high-power industrial soldering irons (>40w).

and more joints don't form properly in creation, leading to more stuff for the junk heap.

I'm not so sure. In fact, the additional strength of tin (well, as compared to lead anyhow) should mean less solder points breaking after repeated stress, either from tempurature change (computers, TVs, monitors, etc.) or from physical stresses (surface-mount connectors, etc.). Perhaps we'd never have heard about blowing on a videogame cartridge, if Nintendo had used tin solder?

Really, this is not only a solution to a non-issue, it just makes things worse over all.

I'd say, at the very least, you're exaggerating. It has the potential to cause new problems, just as any material change does. However, there's plenty of reason to believe it could lead to an improvement in reliability, as well as meaning far less lead in the environment.