3D printing: electronics should become freely usable and repairable

The Greens demand a right to repair electrical appliances from the washing machine to the smartphone. In an application of the Bundestag faction, the Süddeutsche Zeitung is available, is it[called:"Users should in principle have the right and the opportunity to freely use electrical appliances they have purchased and have them repaired or repaired themselves."

The application states that electrical appliances must be constructed in such a way that they can be repaired. Important or particularly vulnerable components such as batteries may not be firmly installed, replacement parts and repair instructions should be available. The Federal Government should introduce information obligations over the minimum useful life of electrical appliances as well as a label, which identifies, how long spare parts and software updates are made available. After this period, manufacturers should provide building instructions to the general public. "For example, users can create spare parts themselves using 3D printing and thus maintain and maintain their devices"said Tabea Roessner, spokeswoman for network policy and consumer protection of the Greens parliamentary group. Also, according to the Swedish model, only the reduced VAT rate on repair services should be charged.

But not only for hardware, but also for software should apply the right to repair: "For IT security reasons, for example, information about how long software updates are being provided for electrical appliances needs to be available." "We want to make the manufacturers of electrical appliances more responsible for this"Rößner said.

Built-in break points

Holger Krumme, chief technical officer at the Bensheim test house HTV, named concrete examples of planned obsolescence in electronics in June 2013. HTV awards a seal of quality for durable models.

"We have a variety of examples of products that we believe incorporate built-in break points: the use of highly heat-sensitive components in close proximity to heat sources is especially noticeable." With a wide variety of displays or LCD televisions, electrolytic capacitors are right next to power components that warm up to over 100 ° C "Krumme said. The operating time of the capacitors would amount to only a few thousand hours. "After two to three years, they will fail, with the result that the entire screen will go to waste due to high repair costs."

The strong aging of capacitors at high temperature is also applied in his view with computer boards of renowned manufacturers, where these components are located exactly in the hot air flow of the processor cooling.