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Starting to notice the sheer number of things that can’t be disassembled without breaking. Is there a design term for this?
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repair-hostile is usually manufacturing or form factor efficient, but I'm not sure there's specifically a word for it as it's not really a goal unto itself - it just comes out of prioritizing those other goals
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especially when it comes to cheap chinese products, "never attribute to malice what can be attributed to cheapness" either in physical terms or design time terms - even designing things to be intentionally obfuscating is longer and more technical design thought
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Yea agreed - it's usually just easier, cheaper, and higher performance to do one-way assembly. Adhesives, ultrasonic welding, etc. are better than screws, two-way snap fits, etc.
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I don't think so. Modern landfill is cheap and green, and carbon taxes are cheaper. It also increases the rate of innovation, ie you want to go through consumer goods to push upgrades (and yea, this isn't true for everything, but most candidates for long term are already in use)
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I’ve done some modeling on this. Design for durability makes a huge impact on carbon impact, and design for repairability is one of the big levers there. The landfill is not the problem (sequestered carbon) it’s the fact that new things are made as fast as old things go landfill.
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Maybe give your best and a modest example? If not I remain skeptical of this approach for most things. I'd also watch your repair frequency assumptions along with full cycle manufacturing CapEx payback and incremental batch economics
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