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

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:Closing the "analog hole"

[MightyMartian]

There must be a serious plague of exploding N64s and MP3 players in Japan.

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.

Only retail

[JanneM]

This is only retail sales, not individuals. And it isn't a ban, it merely requires the retailer to take responsibility that the device is safe according to the new standard. And it involves only the safety of high-voltage (mains-powered) equipment, not electronics.

Here's a link discussing it: http://www.mutantfrog.com/2006/02/22/2nd-hand-elec tronics-sales-will-not-soon-be-illegal-in-japan/

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:Ridiculous...why stop resale?

[SydShamino]

As has been pointed out, this only applies to old electronics that connect to MAINS circuits (e.g. wall outlets, which are 100 VAC RMS in Japan IIRC).

Category II circuit, such as MAINS, as defined by IEC and (in the US) Underwriter's Laboratories, must be designed to tolerate overvoltage conditions such as those caused by transformer shorts or relatively distant lightning strikes. From UL 3121-1, a circuit designed with a working voltage of 100 V DC or AC RMS must tolerate a peak impulse voltage of 1360 V for a few microseconds (from table D.10). This doesn't necessarily mean that the product still has to work after such an impulse; it just means that the product must remain safe to the operator for such an impulse. Fuses can blow, chips can be damaged, but no voltage greater than 60 V DC / 42.4 V AC pk can be exposed to the user.

I assume that Japan's old standard, before 2001, was weaker than this. Thus, older electronics can't be sold because they could theoretically kill the users.

This only applies to products that carried MAINS voltages. (Products with wall-warts limit the high voltage to the wall, and are completely unaffected.) Even then, the old products might have been designed above the standard, and therefore could still be sold anyway.

(Disclaimer: I design high voltage hardware products.)