You must not have monkeys working at your LDSs.Equipment repair is, for many shops, a money losing enterprise were it not for parts.
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
You must not have monkeys working at your LDSs.Equipment repair is, for many shops, a money losing enterprise were it not for parts.
That doesn't work well with shop chains (of six stores) where the owner has a habit of telling anyone to pound sand that try to tell him how to run his business (including PADI and ScubaPro). Its kind of comical to observe really. Everyone comes crawling back in order to get back in.Every now and then, Scubapro sends a missive to their dealers warning them that there have been incidents of online parts kits sales and that they should desist immediately “or else”. Very threatrning language.
Then nothing happens and it’s back to business as usual. If they were really serious, they could buy one on Fleabay and actually do something. The letter is really to placate dealers and make them feel like SP is ‘protecting’ them.
I believe most people have no interest in servicing their own gear. I can’t picture someone working in a high pay field thinking they need to get a hold of some parts so they can be ready for their multiple thousands of dollars live aboard trip coming up. I think they drop it off at the LDS to get serviced.Lawyers will certainly find clever loopholes.
I would certainly expect most scuba-shops would gate access, the same way many demand a certification-card before filling tanks. To them it might be a mixture of liability, reputation, commonly-held-ideas of "diy servicing is dangerous," and that it's in scuba-shop's best interests to have you pay them for service. Also the same as practically every open-water class tells you to not service equipment yourself.
Online retailers might be more willing to not be as anal, but there's little stopping someone like Scubapro from cutting off a company that sells parts-kits to consumers, without giving any explicit reason.
With right to repair will come Captain Butterfingers and his home regulator rebuild and a few more posts in the Accidents & Incidents forum
That sounds like an EPA enforcement issue. How does that hurt John Deere (or any other company)? Because right now, farmers really don't have a 3rd party option for repair because firmware and hardware are locked down to requiring a secret key from a manufacturer. You'll see this in newer iPhones. Take two brand-new iPhones out of the case, swap the cameras, and they won't work... There is no benefit to the user from this. Both cameras are legitimate Apple parts, in mint condition. And yet the motherboard only allows the hardware ID of the original camera. The only way to remap it is through proprietary (secret) software directly through Apple (and this sort of stuff isn't only one company, it spreads quickly to others).They also hack the source code to circumvent emissions and install unsafe/questionable add on parts.
Last time I got my regs back from servicing, one of them had a missing O-ring on the SPG.. Like, did they ever think of pressurizing it before handing it back to me? Point is, there seems to be this faulty notion that "authorized" repair is always superior to everything else, including your own skills.Two out of three times I've had my regs "professionally" serviced, I had to return them for tweaking. In one case, my regs literally blew off into free-flow. Seems my LDS used "generic" parts, or as the other shop guy (who rebuilt them properly) said... "I think they used the Home Depot Universal Plumbing Repair Kit for parts..." Good thing I was only in 120' in a rip-ass current.
Indeed, indeed, indeed!The people who are interested in self service are a very small minority. They are the types that will always be into self service no matter how hard the parts are to obtain, they will always find some back alley work around. It’s more than just saving money for them, it’s a way of life and a hobby.
amateurs built the ark with an adze, gopher wood, and no youtube. You can quote me on that!
Neither am I.Now Pete not everyone is religious,
It's the height of ego-centrism that many people think they had to have help from aliens to build them, too. Just because they are so dim, they can't imagine how to do it, doesn't mean our ancestors weren't smart enough to prove them wrong before they were even born.let's go with the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids along with other grand stone structures