this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2026
450 points (99.3% liked)
Technology
85212 readers
4066 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Just so you know, the larger gauge wires were to carry more current required by the old halogen bulb and are unnecessarily large for an LED light. A better comparison of how shit is crap these days is that a lot of electronics don't even use copper wire but instead copper clad aluminum that's subject to corroding withing 5-10 years of use. But I love to see you repairing things and "upgrading" along the way with thicker gauge wire! Just wanted to point out the larger power consumption of older appliances is often why they have larger gauge wires. There is nothing better for the environment than fixing and reusing what we have rather than replacing !
To be fair, just because the controlling factor is mechanical strength rather than current capacity doesn't mean the need for heavier gauge wire isn't legitimate.
Thanks for the insight! Yeah, I could've thought about that. Yet, thinner wiring also comes with much poorer wear resilience. Looking at you, headphone and charger cables...
Sure, the wires are larger because they needed to be, but they are still functional, which is what matters.
I'd say one of the issues with repairing things these days is that everything is getting smaller and smaller. Where thick gauge wires were required before, now they use much thinner wire. Where thinner wires were used before, printed circuit boards are often used now. New circuit boards are chock full of miniature surface-mount components which are much more difficult to replace compared to the much larger circuit boards of the olden days. Every step of miniaturisation makes repairs require more skill.
Ugh, that description triggered my PTSD acquired during the latest repairs on a Lenovo Yoga. Tons of printed and taped-on PCB in place of once solid construction.
I guess that's why nowadays, whenever I need to buy new, I first watch a teardown video to see the insides. If things look finicky and hard to access/repair, I'm not buying. Refuse > repair.
Oh God here's to hoping my 9ish year old yoga doesn't give up the ghost anytime soon... At least my Lenovo products have always been rather stout! Only time I have taken it apart was to redo the thermal paste on the cpu cooler and when I did that I realized if something important breaks im probably gonna replace the laptop 😢
Ribbon cables with sub-millimeter slots to insert them into
I swapped screens on a touchbar mac a couple years ago. the screws are so tiny, i either had to use a magnifier or touch to tell which side was up. my phone has bigger screws in it.
Mmmmh! And ribbon cables that you need to manually fold so they'll fit into the slot - what a great chance to break the sub-millimeter copper wiring inside!