Arduino vs 555 reliability

On Sun, Apr 22, 2012 at 07:27:07PM -0400, Mouse wrote: Well, not everywhere ;-) In the EU for instance, the law mandates a warranty period of two years against "defects (inherently) present at the time of sale"[0] and for the first 6 months of that time, the onus is on the seller to _prove_ that the problem isn't a warranty case[2]. So, say, those super cheap caps that will fail after 4 months of continuous operation would be _really_ expensive down the line. Interesting side effect: a short time after that law went into effect, a lot of devices that used to have only soft "off" switches (i.e. TVs, VCRs, ... that you switch "on" and "off" via the remote (and which, obviously, are under (at least limited) power 24/7)) all of a sudden (re)gained hard (switching the mains) power switches. Yup, a noticeable fraction[1] of the devices used to develop faults in the PSUs after a couple of months due to penny pinching designs. Adding hard power switches was downright dirt cheap compared to dealing with the sudden explosion in warranty costs ;-) Kind regards, Alex. [0] IANAL so thats my laymans explanation [1] noticable to sellers & manufacturers, that is [2] And it is good PR not to quibble to much in the next 18 months of the warranty period -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison