My original Black and Decker 12V battery mower was great. I loved its performance, and it was always reliable. The mower lasted through two batteries, never giving me any trouble. But when the 28V model came out, I thought, “This is great. This mower should be twice as fast, and twice as strong.” Yet things are not always as they seem with products these days.
I took the mower home and found that the "key" was a loop of wire with two spade connectors in a molded handle. Hmm. The charger plugged in where the key did, and it used the same spade connectors. I often spent 30 seconds to a minute getting it plugged in. I usually accomplished this by pushing and wiggling at various angles while wondering if I could find the design engineer and have him come over to my house once a week to take care of this for me.
The same thing happened when I tried to plug the charger in. After a year of this pushing and pulling, wiggling and turning, one of the spades broke off and pushed up inside the handle. I took the handle apart and put a toggle switch and coaxial power connector in it. This wasn’t that difficult, since there was plenty of room. I have used the mower without any trouble since. But really... spade plugs?
This entry was submitted by Paul H. Dolton and edited by Rob Spiegel.
Tell us your experiences with Monkey-designed products. Send stories to Rob Spiegel for Made by Monkeys.
I know someone who is a degreed EE who, as a brand new EE, was given the task by his boss of taking apart an LED based replacement for 4ft fluorescent tube made by a competitor and copying it, but cheaper.
Not black-box reverse engineering it, not challenged to make something better. Just to copy it while finding a way to make it even cheaper to build. He tells me that there is no one else there to ask as it is very cut-throat at that company, and that most are in the same boat as he is. No or low experience, and no-one to mentor him.
He didn't choose to become a potential "made by monkeys" engineer, but has become one by his boss's demands.
When someone posts a problem with a gas mower I wish they would include brand or at least type. I have gotten years of service from power mowers with both Briggs or Tecumseh 4 cycle engines. But I did have some problem with a Lawnboy 2 cycle engine. I also torched a 2 cycle Mercury outboard and the mechanic told me the addition of ethanol into our gasoline causes a break down in the gas/oil mix which in turn causes excessive engine wear. Perhaps that was a contributer to the Lawnboy issue.
I do not know how true that is, but the marina where I store my current boat only sells gasoline which does not contain ethanol. I do enjoy the ease of starting electric, but it is totally impractical in my yard which is 3/4 acre and gets mostly mowed by a riding lawn mower, also a 4 cycle engine.
I had a gas mower that lasted over ten years and was still running when I gave it away, but...... I had to rebuild the carburetor every couple years. The carburetor body of the Briggs and Stanton engine appeared to be made of nylon and metering was performed by an odd, neoprene baffle separating the two halves of the carburetor. The neoprene part would wear out and needed to be replaced, which meant pulling the carburetor off, disassembling it, and replacing the neoprene part every couple of years. I bought a handful of the strange little baffles and kept them in the garage so I could replace them whenever the mower started chugging.
Another case of going cheap; carburetors used to be made of metal and the metering was performed by needle valves that yielded years and years of surface before cleaning was required, and that was cleaning, not replacing. I went electric too, and then gutted the charging electronics to go solar.
There is a good lesson to be learned here. It doesn't matter how much of your heart and soul you put into a design, when it comes down to it, your shortcuts will destroy your reputation. I am sure the mower was designed very well and worked as advertised, but all this goes down the toilet when you design the part that every customer will deal with almost every day to be flimsy, ugly, bothersome, unwieldy, or otherwise Mickey Mouse (no offense to the king of mice). The little things will kill you!
When you buy something that is packaged well, good looking, nice graphics, and so on, you suspect that you have a quality item. You buy a Mercedes, you expect and get a loaner car, and your car is returned vacuumed and washed. When you buy a Craftsman tool, you expect to return it for a new one if it breaks. When you shop at a great grocery store like Price Chopper, Whole Foods, etc., you get and expect great produce and good service. When you buy a name brand item, like Black and Decker, you expect a good product with good features. You don't expect a piece of wire to be the key. Shame on them! There goes a piece of Americana...
I agree with you about the problems with gas mower starters, Gsmith120. I haven't owned a gas mower that didn't evenaully have problems with getting it started. That's why I turned to electric mowers.
I had no idea gas mowers lasted longer. I've had no problems with my electric mower, kind of looks like a little car with its lazyman start. It was a nice change from the gas one I used on my family's farm , which didn't have an easy starter.
Nah.. Don't need three hands to feed to line out on the weedeater. Just make sure you spool the string nice and flat. Don't criss-cross the string on the spool and no backlash. It should work perfect everytime. I wish I could fine a tap-and-go line feed for my weed eater. I hate cutting small lengths to carry around in my pocket only to find they fell out somewhere along my trek around the yard.
I worked as a component supplier to Dewalt in the late 90's when they introduced 24 volt tools that they thought would sell like wildfire. I do not know the exact numbers, but we did not supply to them as many components as was planned. Consumers thought that they were too heavy and too expensive and bought the time tested 18 volt instead.
The water soak is a trick that pro landscapers use to get high life out of their line. One word of advice is that all troimmer lines arenot the same. All are mostly nylon, but some are 6 and some are 66. Usually the higher the cost the tougher the line.
When your lab is only one scope, one meter, and one homebrew function generator and power supply, the scope is stage center. But this one wasn't working right.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
Early in my career, I worked as a draftsman and remember the days of drawing on vellum with numbered pencils and Mylar with plastic lead. This was a fun experience in the sense that I ...
I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
To save this item to your list of favorite Design News content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
If you found this interesting or useful, please use the links to the services below to share it with other readers. You will need a free account with each service to share an item via that service.
Tweet This
14 
