Amateur Engineer Figures Out Why His Kindle Randomly Restarts

[Patrick Dare]

Oh wow, this guy's a super genius! The first thing I thought of when I saw the pictures before even reading the article were the two little metal things on the case. Seems unlikely they'd cause problems but it's the first place I would have looked after realizing removing the case removes the problem. Doesn't seem like a particularly hard thing to figure out, especially for someone who works in the field.

 

[vxicepickxv]

I'd probably just cut a small segment out of the metal bar that holds the two pieces together, and call it good. Now there's an open, and it's not a problem.

 

[Panayjon]

This is cool and all, props on the man for figuring it out... but the title makes it sound like an "Onion" article

 

[insectoid]

Amazon should give that kid a prize.

 

[jonnosferatu]

If it was that easy, somehow I get the impression that Amazon was employing software engineers to investigate the trouble, not electrical engineers. Big difference.

This. If I'd known about the full context of the issue my first thought would have been to take it down to the EE lab and do exactly what he did.

I suspect the issue was more that very few people knew all of the pieces of the puzzle, not that nobody was smart enough to put them together. This is pretty basic stuff (which in turn means that Amazon should be pretty ashamed that it happened).

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Smart guy! Maybe he should consider starting an investigative website looking into why products really fail with no apparent reason?

[small]On second thought, he'd probably get sued; companies hate it when you tell people how much they suck. Maybe he'd better stick with the Connectify gig.[/small]

They would see a lot of libel suits, I assume. If one thing ended up wrong, it would be a cluster fuck, I would think.

I would love if they could do a thing like that, itd be epic

It's only libel if it's not true.

I think you need to re-read what you quoted:

If one thing ended up wrong

That's kind of his point. If such a site made even one error in what was wrong with a product, game over. Especially if the incorrect error was something that made the manufacturer look bad.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Guess who just bought a Kindle and Case for Christmas? Looks like I'm going to have to keep an eye out for wear and tear.

Pro tip:

Wet'n'wild clear coat nail polish. Two dabs on each hook.

Best liquid insulation application ever.

We routinely use it for insulating atomically sharp scanning probe tips.

Also the reason Darth Vader never used Force Lightning.

Also Wet'n'Wild sounds like either a Waterpark or a Porno

We have a theme park here in Australia called Wet'n'Wild, has some bitchin waterslides.

Why didnt they make the hooks out of plastic or someother nonconductive polymer? Would have been cheaper to begin with.

 

[Zaik]

Smart guy! Maybe he should consider starting an investigative website looking into why products really fail with no apparent reason?

[small]On second thought, he'd probably get sued; companies hate it when you tell people how much they suck. Maybe he'd better stick with the Connectify gig.[/small]

They would see a lot of libel suits, I assume. If one thing ended up wrong, it would be a cluster fuck, I would think.

I would love if they could do a thing like that, itd be epic

It's only libel if it's not true.

It's only not libel if you can afford to keep going to court over and over and over about it. :/

 

[fanklok]

Mighty good thing I don't bother with these confangled new age book things. I'll stick with carving pictures into a wall with a mammoth tusk thank you.

Guess who just bought a Kindle and Case for Christmas? Looks like I'm going to have to keep an eye out for wear and tear.

Pro tip:

Wet'n'wild clear coat nail polish. Two dabs on each hook.

Best liquid insulation application ever.

We routinely use it for insulating atomically sharp scanning probe tips.

Also the reason Darth Vader never used Force Lightning.

Also Wet'n'Wild sounds like either a Waterpark or a Porno

What about a porno shot at a waterpark? Or a porno themed waterpark.

 

[Monster_user]

My dad does this all the time.

He used the same devise to find out why his hover broke. he took the whole damn think apart spent half an hour messing around with it and then just sniped of a bit of wire and saved himself a lot of cash.

I am beginning to wonder if this is not how most of these problems get fixed. Maybe "our engineering team" means a few thousand do-it-yourselfers scattered through-out.

This one time I found a work-around for a problem with Diner Dash on my iPod, and I sent an e-mail to the developers. That work-around was posted shortly thereafter, while they worked on a fix.

Some things just get overlooked, and hindsight is 20/20.

Admittedly, this one should have been pretty obvious, given all of the facts. However, Amazon probably was having trouble getting the right facts to their engineers...

 

[My name is Fiction]

atomically sharp scanning probe tips

What is that? want to know because its so specific.

 

[Balgus]

Guess who just bought a Kindle and Case for Christmas? Looks like I'm going to have to keep an eye out for wear and tear.
We have a theme park here in Australia called Wet'n'Wild, has some bitchin waterslides.

Why didnt they make the hooks out of plastic or someother nonconductive polymer? Would have been cheaper to begin with.

Because all they have to do is not put in the light at the end of the process. It still takes the same route on the bulk manufacturing process and it's cheaper just to paint it rather than set up an entire new manufacturing line just for one feature of the product. Not to mention it's also probably stronger and longer lasting than a plastic hook that will wear away with time.

 

[thenumberthirteen]

Mighty good thing I don't bother with these confangled new age book things. I'll stick with carving pictures into a wall with a mammoth tusk thank you.

Guess who just bought a Kindle and Case for Christmas? Looks like I'm going to have to keep an eye out for wear and tear.

Pro tip:

Wet'n'wild clear coat nail polish. Two dabs on each hook.

Best liquid insulation application ever.

We routinely use it for insulating atomically sharp scanning probe tips.

Also the reason Darth Vader never used Force Lightning.

Also Wet'n'Wild sounds like either a Waterpark or a Porno

What about a porno shot at a waterpark? Or a porno themed waterpark.

I'm sure the first one already exists, and I wouldn't like to visit the second one.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Can someone explain to me why an e-book reader is more useful than a book, an audio book or just a .rtf file on your phone?

Because everything I've seen seems to say to me that it's less useful, easily steal-able and you only rent the books?

 

[Delusibeta]

Why couldn't they use plastic with a hole drilled through for cabling?

 

[Petromir]

If it was that easy, somehow I get the impression that Amazon was employing software engineers to investigate the trouble, not electrical engineers. Big difference.

This. If I'd known about the full context of the issue my first thought would have been to take it down to the EE lab and do exactly what he did.

I suspect the issue was more that very few people knew all of the pieces of the puzzle, not that nobody was smart enough to put them together. This is pretty basic stuff (which in turn means that Amazon should be pretty ashamed that it happened).

Except since the guy did it at home, he hadnt sent it back, therfore whoever was looking into it may well have had amazons own ones there, which may not have been chipped.

The real mistake here was QA probably only tested the light based one electronically in lifetime tests, the basic cheaper one doesnt have any electrical issues to go wrong the thinking probably thought, so to save time and money. Sounds likely to be the QA management trying the hardest part of engineering, working to cost, and so chose to cut out a test regime that doenst seem nessery.

The irony is the lighted cover would have had such testing performed, including wear on its connections, affecting conduction.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

I really think Amazon should give him something for saving his ass and fixing what was easily just a simple but ultimately massive oversight.

 

[DTWolfwood]

Can someone explain to me why an e-book reader is more useful than a book, an audio book or just a .rtf file on your phone?

Because everything I've seen seems to say to me that it's less useful, easily steal-able and you only rent the books?

consider a bookworm and your technologically illiterate person. Its cheaper than a smart phone, also a much bigger screen, and can "carry" more books than just a book.

I don't assume its a very large market but the market is there.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Because all they have to do is not put in the light at the end of the process. It still takes the same route on the bulk manufacturing process and it's cheaper just to paint it rather than set up an entire new manufacturing line just for one feature of the product. Not to mention it's also probably stronger and longer lasting than a plastic hook that will wear away with time.

I wonder if they will alter the manufacturing process because of this, or if they will keep sending out replacements that have nothing wrong with them.