Silicon ChipHow to annoy customers and lose them - June 2022 SILICON CHIP
  1. Outer Front Cover
  2. Contents
  3. Subscriptions: PE Subscription
  4. Subscriptions
  5. Publisher's Letter: How to annoy customers and lose them
  6. Feature: Positivity follows the gloom by Mark Nelson
  7. Feature: The Fox Report by Barry Fox
  8. Project: Net Work by Alan Winstanley
  9. Project: Full-wave Universal Motor Speed Controller by JOHN CLARKE
  10. Project: 8-pin 14-pin 20-pin PIC PROGRAMMING HELPER by TIM BLYTHMAN
  11. Project: Advanced GPS Computer by Tim Blythman
  12. Feature: Max’s Cool Beans by Max the Magnificent
  13. Back Issues: Max’s Cool Beans by Max the Magnificent
  14. Feature: Circuit Surgery by Ian Bell
  15. Feature: Make it with Micromite by Phil Boyce
  16. Feature: AUDIO OUT by Jake Rothman
  17. Feature: Electronic Building Blocks by Julian Edgar
  18. PCB Order Form
  19. Advertising Index

This is only a preview of the June 2022 issue of Practical Electronics.

You can view 0 of the 72 pages in the full issue.

Articles in this series:
  • (November 2020)
  • Techno Talk (December 2020)
  • Techno Talk (January 2021)
  • Techno Talk (February 2021)
  • Techno Talk (March 2021)
  • Techno Talk (April 2021)
  • Techno Talk (May 2021)
  • Techno Talk (June 2021)
  • Techno Talk (July 2021)
  • Techno Talk (August 2021)
  • Techno Talk (September 2021)
  • Techno Talk (October 2021)
  • Techno Talk (November 2021)
  • Techno Talk (December 2021)
  • Communing with nature (January 2022)
  • Should we be worried? (February 2022)
  • How resilient is your lifeline? (March 2022)
  • Go eco, get ethical! (April 2022)
  • From nano to bio (May 2022)
  • Positivity follows the gloom (June 2022)
  • Mixed menu (July 2022)
  • Time for a total rethink? (August 2022)
  • What’s in a name? (September 2022)
  • Forget leaves on the line! (October 2022)
  • Giant Boost for Batteries (December 2022)
  • Raudive Voices Revisited (January 2023)
  • A thousand words (February 2023)
  • It’s handover time (March 2023)
  • AI, Robots, Horticulture and Agriculture (April 2023)
  • Prophecy can be perplexing (May 2023)
  • Technology comes in different shapes and sizes (June 2023)
  • AI and robots – what could possibly go wrong? (July 2023)
  • How long until we’re all out of work? (August 2023)
  • We both have truths, are mine the same as yours? (September 2023)
  • Holy Spheres, Batman! (October 2023)
  • Where’s my pneumatic car? (November 2023)
  • Good grief! (December 2023)
  • Cheeky chiplets (January 2024)
  • Cheeky chiplets (February 2024)
  • The Wibbly-Wobbly World of Quantum (March 2024)
  • Techno Talk - Wait! What? Really? (April 2024)
  • Techno Talk - One step closer to a dystopian abyss? (May 2024)
  • Techno Talk - Program that! (June 2024)
  • Techno Talk (July 2024)
  • Techno Talk - That makes so much sense! (August 2024)
  • Techno Talk - I don’t want to be a Norbert... (September 2024)
  • Techno Talk - Sticking the landing (October 2024)
  • Techno Talk (November 2024)
  • Techno Talk (December 2024)
  • Techno Talk (January 2025)
  • Techno Talk (February 2025)
  • Techno Talk (March 2025)
  • Techno Talk (April 2025)
  • Techno Talk (May 2025)
  • Techno Talk (June 2025)
Practical Electronics Editorial offices Practical Electronics Electron Publishing Limited 1 Buckingham Road Brighton East Sussex BN1 3RA Tel 01273 777619 Mob 07973 518682 Fax 01202 843233 Email pe<at>electronpublishing.com Web www.electronpublishing.com Advertisement offices Practical Electronics Adverts Tel 01273 777619 1 Buckingham Road Mob 07973 518682 Brighton Email pe<at>electronpublishing.com East Sussex BN1 3RA Editor Matt Pulzer General Manager Louisa Pulzer Digital subscriptions Stewart Kearn Tel 01202 880299 Online Editor Alan Winstanley Web Systems Kris Thain Publisher Matt Pulzer Print subscriptions Practical Electronics Subscriptions PO Box 6337 Bournemouth BH1 9EH Tel 01202 087631 United Kingdom Email pesubs<at>selectps.com Technical enquiries We regret technical enquiries cannot be answered over the telephone. We are unable to offer any advice on the use, purchase, re air or odification o co ercial e ui ent or the incor oration or odification o designs u lished in the aga ine. e cannot provide data or answer queries on articles or projects that are ore than five years old. Questions about articles or projects should be sent to the editor by email: pe<at>electronpublishing.com Projects and circuits All reasonable precautions are taken to ensure that the advice and data given to readers is reliable. We cannot, however, guarantee it and we cannot accept legal responsibility for it. A number of projects and circuits published in Practical Electronics employ voltages that can be lethal. You should not build, test, modify or renovate any item of mains-powered equipment unless you fully understand the safety aspects involved and you use an RCD (GFCI) adaptor. Component supplies We do not supply electronic components or kits for building the projects featured, these can be supplied by advertisers. We advise readers to check that all parts are still available before commencing any project in a back-dated issue. Advertisements Although the proprietors and staff of Practical Electronics take reasonable precautions to protect the interests of readers by ensuring as ar as ractica le that advertise ents are ona fide the magazine and its publishers cannot give any undertakings in respect of statements or claims made by advertisers, whether these advertisements are printed as part of the magazine, or in inserts. The Publishers regret that under no circumstances will the magazine accept liability for non-receipt of goods ordered, or for late delivery, or for faults in manufacture. Transmitters/bugs/telephone equipment We advise readers that certain items of radio transmitting and telephone equipment which may be advertised in our pages cannot be legally used in the UK. Readers should check the law e ore uying any trans itting or tele hone e ui ent as a fine confiscation o e ui ent and or i rison ent can result ro illegal use or ownership. The laws vary from country to country; readers should check local laws. Practical Electronics | June | 2022 Volume 51. No. 6 June 2022 ISSN 2632 573X Editorial How to annoy customers and lose them I recently had a chat with my friend Steve, who is in the market for a set of Hi-Fi-quality headphones with both wireless and noisecancelling capability. After considerable research he liked the look of a pair made by a well-known UK speaker manufacturer. He can be a little obsessive – in a good way – when it comes to researching expensive purchases, and was concerned that there seemed to be no obvious way to replace the headphone’s rechargeable lithium polymer battery. LIPO is a good technology – long lasting and energy dense – but like all rechargeable batteries they have a limited lifespan, certainly much more limited than a pair of headphones. This worried him and he dug a little deeper. Internet research showed this was a problem that others had faced, proving to be especially challenging if batteries died after the warranty had expired. They’d turned to the manufacturer for help, who offered to fix the problem for £299… on a pair of headphones that currently cost around £310 (as per Amazon). You can imagine the frustration of those reporting this problem on the web. Distinctly underwhelmed with the UK approach, my friend tried a well-known and respected US rival. He emailed them and they replied that in their headphones, ‘the battery is non replaceable’. At this point, my friend turned to me because I already owned the previous generation of wireless headphones from the UK firm he initially liked. He asked if I knew about this problem. It was news to me, and somewhat irritated I decided to do my own research – but this time from an engineer’s perspective. Had anyone on the Internet fixed a broken set of ‘my’ headphones, and how could I undertake a DIY battery replacement? Just to be clear, we are not talking about tiny in-ear ‘earbuds’, but large over-ear headphones with plenty of space for normal-sized parts and which should – in theory – be fixable. Mine have soft leather pads that clip with magnets onto the speaker housing. Removing a pad reveals the thin speaker grill surrounded by even thinner stick-on fabric, but no way to get into the ‘speaker cabinet’. However, someone on the Internet had discovered that scraping off a little of the fabric reveals assembly screws that give you easy access to the innards. In other words, a totally pointless application of a cheap sticky-backed material was there to deliberately mask how to fix a very expensive purchase. It gets worse. The online repairer shared a photo of the battery in the headphones. It’s nothing special; Amazon sell it for a tenner. In other words, a respected UK audio manufacturer now thinks it’s good customer relations to charge £299 for five minutes work and a £10 part – thereby ‘encouraging’ you to buy new headphones, which presumably join the others in landfill two or three years hence. Electronic waste is a global problem. Is it too much to ask that manufacturers design products that last, are genuinely fixable – and are honest about repair charges? Matt Pulzer Publisher 7