the UV lamp scam

[Jeswin]

I got a air flow hood at work with a UV lamp. This one is special
because it's got zee "microprocessor unit". That makes it 10000x more
expensive to own and therefore operate.

The problem is that the UV lamp has a count-down timer from 1000
hours. Every time you turn on/off the lamp, the unit deducts 1 hour,
regardless if you only set it for 30 minutes or if you press it by
accident. That's no problem except that once it reaches zero, the
power to the lamp is cut off. Then you got to buy their UV bulb with a
serial. You enter the serial into it, and it resets to 1000 hours. I
don't it was clearly explained when it was purchased.

If it wasn't for the serial, we could just use the UV bulb for 1 year,
no problem. They just want you to buy a lot of lamps.

The serial is an 11 digit hex. Is it possible to generate keys if you
have some keys on hand?

[Bryan Bishop]

On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 5:46 PM, Jeswin <phill...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The serial is an 11 digit hex. Is it possible to generate keys if you
> have some keys on hand?

We could look at how it verifies a hex key, then we could generate a
few billion. Is there some software you can show me that is verifying
the number?

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507

[Dakota Hamill]

Is that legal to do?  Even if it is...who would support an evil design plan like that?  That's...terrible, and frustrating that another human would even consciously implement that in the design just to screw people out of a few more dollars.   

I've been dealing with an Epson printer lately, and it turns out they had a lawsuit brought against them (for the same problem I was experiencing) in that they have little chips in the front of ink cartridges, and they were making the printer read them as "empty" even with 30%-35% ink left, so you'd have to go keep buying more ink.  They also don't even allow you to print in grey scale or black if any of the colored print cartridges isn't installed with ink remaining. 

Who are these evil engineers that design these things?

[Cathal Garvey (Phone)]

There might be a really simple hardware solution here: wire-bypass the chip and install a switch/timer of your own!

Oh, and name and shane the company please.

--
Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

[Avery louie]

What kind of bulb is it?  What kind of chip?

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[Patrik D'haeseleer]

On Tuesday, January 22, 2013 3:56:15 PM UTC-8, Dakota wrote:

Who are these evil engineers that design these things?

I assume they justify it by saying that the performance of the UV bulb degrades over time,  and that they can no longer guarantee its effectiveness in killing bacteria after 10,000 hours.

Which may even be true. Of course, it's still a pretty slimy tactic - they could just light up a warning lamp instead.

[Mega]

Planned obsolence... also the first lightbulbs had a lifespann of ca. 3000 hours, but then the cartell decided to reduce it. they did heavy research on how to reduce lifespan.

Could you post a picture of it? As Cathal said it would be quite easy to bypass it. Which voltage?

[Jeswin]

On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 6:56 PM, Cathal Garvey (Phone)
<cathal...@cathalgarvey.me> wrote:
> There might be a really simple hardware solution here: wire-bypass the chip
> and install a switch/timer of your own!
>
> Oh, and name and shane the company please.
>

A i r c l ean 600 pcr wo rk station (model=A C 632 L FU VC) *

I can't take it apart. It was a few grand and only 8 months old.

Yea, their basis is the turning on/off reduces UV efficiency.


*I have my reasons for the obfuscation on a public list.

[Jeswin]

On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 9:00 PM, Patrik D'haeseleer <pat...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I assume they justify it by saying that the performance of the UV bulb
> degrades over time, and that they can no longer guarantee its effectiveness
> in killing bacteria after 10,000 hours.
>

Not 10,000 hours; rather it is set to 1,000 hours. And still it
doesn't count 1 hour = 60 minutes; it uses 1 on/off = 1 hour,
regardless of the time used whether 15 minutes or 59 minutes

[Bryan Bishop]

On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 8:54 AM, Jeswin <phill...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey Bryan,
> I think its verified against a table or something stored within their
> microprocessor unit or maybe calculated on the fly. No internet
> connection or software on the hood.

The program is probably stored on some ROM somewhere. It should be
possible to identify which piece it is and how to read from it. In
addition, there's probably some way to bypass it anyway. Take some
photos and post it.

> I can't really risk opening it up to see what electronics it has.

You can't risk... opening it? what.

[Mega]

Is it "dead" or better: asleep already?

Because then opening it should be no problem...

[Jeswin]

On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 3:26 PM, Mega <masters...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Is it "dead" or better: asleep already?
>

I guess I didn't explain how it is. This is a air flow hood with a
control unit. The boss paid around $3k for it so I can't go around
poking at the internals. I don't want to break it or void any
warranties.

I was hoping there was a way to crack it using the existing keys;
hoping there was some pattern to it.

Anyway, at $40/bulb, the boss didn't feel it was a complete ripoff.
It's just the frequency of replacing the bulbs that bothers me.

I contacted the company and they said that each time you power the
bulb, bulb life is decreased by 1 hour due to the energy needed. I
wonder if any one knows if this is a known fact. Any engineers want to
chime in?

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

On Wednesday, January 23, 2013 2:52:38 PM UTC-8, phillyj wrote:

I contacted the company and they said that each time you power the
bulb, bulb life is decreased by 1 hour due to the energy needed. I
wonder if any one knows if this is a known fact. Any engineers want to
chime in?

There may be some truth to that. I know this used to be the case with the old fluorescent tubes, where their life span depended mainly on number of on/off cycles, not hours used. At one point, I saw an analysis that showed that with the prevailing prices for electricity, it actually turned out cheaper to leave office lighting on permanently, rather than shutting it off at night. That's probabaly no longer true today, with changes in fluorescent technology and changes in electricity prices.

No idea whether this also applies to your UV lamp, but I would imagine so. Once a lamp is fully warmed up, it's essentially at steady state. But each time you turn it on or shut it off, it goes through some very dramatic changes in temperature.

[Mackenzie Cowell]

Transcript of mythbusters episode about the light efficiency

http://kwc.org/mythbusters/2006/12/episode_69_22000_foot_fall_lig.html

Based on the amount of energy consumed turning on the bulb, they were able calculated how long the bulb would have to be turned off in order to make it worth the energy savings, i.e. "It's best to turn off the bulb if you are leaving the room for":

• Incandescent: 0.36 seconds
• CFL: 0.015 seconds
• Halogen: .51 seconds
• LED: 1.28 seconds
• Fluorescent: 23.3 seconds

In other words, its almost always best to turn the bulb off. Even the 23 seconds for the fluorescent lights isn't very long, and the rest of the times are pretty much blinks of an eye.

Bulb Longevity

They tested one final element of this myth: frequently turning lights on and off decreases their life span, thus leading to greater costs. Grant setup a timer and relay to turn the bulbs on and off repeatedly every 2 minutes. After six weeks, only the LED bulb was still working. Based on this test, they extrapolated that it would take five years of ordinary usage to cause the bulbs to burn out.

* busted *

[Nathan McCorkle]

On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 4:54 PM, Mackenzie Cowell <m...@diybio.org> wrote:
> Transcript of mythbusters episode about the light efficiency
> http://kwc.org/mythbusters/2006/12/episode_69_22000_foot_fall_lig.html

> Bulb Longevity
>
> They tested one final element of this myth: frequently turning lights on and
> off decreases their life span, thus leading to greater costs. Grant setup a
> timer and relay to turn the bulbs on and off repeatedly every 2 minutes.
> After six weeks, only the LED bulb was still working. Based on this test,
> they extrapolated that it would take five years of ordinary usage to cause
> the bulbs to burn out.
>
> * busted *

I'd say 'proven'. 6 weeks is 1008 hours, assuming 2 min on, 2 min off,
that's 504 hours. Incandescent bulbs are rated at 1000 hours, CFL
10000 hours, LED 25000

That's not including actual changes in spectra... UV contains more
energy, so if the bulb is getting dimmer/fatigued, I'd expect it to
fall off faster than say green would

--
-Nathan

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

Meh - as I said, this was a while ago. In fact, back when I was still studying EE, so probably somewhere in the 80s. I assume fluorescent tubes were much more expensive and broke faster in those days, and electricity was a good deal cheaper. I'm not surprised that this is no longer true today.

Anyway - the basic principle stands: Yes, certain light bulbs show a significant decrease in life span with each on/off cycle.

Patrik

[Forrest Flanagan]

Hey, I think I have that model! I'll head down to the lab tomorrow and take it apart.

[Eugen Leitl]

On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 04:54:17PM -0800, Mackenzie Cowell wrote:

> They tested one final element of this myth: frequently turning lights on
> and off decreases their life span, thus leading to greater costs. Grant
> setup a timer and relay to turn the bulbs on and off repeatedly every 2
> minutes. After six weeks, only the LED bulb was still working. Based on
> this test, they extrapolated that it would take five years of ordinary
> usage to cause the bulbs to burn out.

If you do not use electronic starters, and if the fluorescents
are cold and/or they're designed for high ramp up in brightness
you'd do better to let the tubes run for the working day orelse
get to buy a new starter and/or tube every couple months.

Electronic starters are fine, albeit annoying (you won't get
the full brightness initially with fluorescents).

I notice they did not test metal halides at all, which typically
need 10 min of cooloff time before they can be reignited (unless
you have a special igniter for hot bulbs).

Seems that that myth busting was a bit busted.

[leaking pen]

The marketers do it, and the engineers do what they're told. 

--

[mad_casual]

It's not the engineers or even the marketers. If it were up to the marketers, the hood would never need new bulbs, take up zero lab space, and it would be okay to eat raw chicken out of it.

It's lawyers, accountants and regulators, period. The engineers don't have much choice and, if anything are working with marketers and high school drop-out (the bad kind) lab techs in mind.

[Xabier Vázquez Campos]

UV-sterilizing lamps are low-pressure mercury lamps emitting for this purpose UVC, but they are quite inefficient as they mostly emit in the IR (about 60%). In the UVC lamps we don't care if they turn on or not but that they emit enough in the UVC range to sterilise. Any particle, scratch, etc will cause abnormalities in the emission. But due to the heat produced (they get very hot), the quartz (or better, fused silica) they are made of, tends to vitrify, causing lose of transparency in the UV.

It happens the same with lamps for fluorescence microscopes or UV-Vis spectrophotometers

[Jordan Miller]

I must chime in. regarding bulbs... mercury bulbs to produce short wavelength UV are very extreme and do not fit the mythbusters analysis for any normal light bulb. these bulbs absolutely do decay UV output over time. you typically want to get the hoods checked out at least yearly (for both bulbs and air curtain flow). those are facts.

regarding assertions of "scam" and calls for shaming the company... I think there is a simpler explanation-- maybe you bought the wrong model?

most hoods do not have this kind of timer on the bulbs... ive never heard of this restriction before at any institution I've worked at. so this can only lead me IMHO to conclude that you bought the wrong model.

anything with this extreme of not just planned but scheduled obsolescence is perhaps designed for more dangerous or critical applications than what you have in mind. is it a bsl-2 hood? is it designed for working with cells to be used in clinical trials or with human viruses? If so, in this case I must agree with the manufacturing parameters that there are reasons for expiring the mercury bulbs which can decay quite rapidly and thus perhaps indirectly endanger humans working near the hood or humans to receive the cells being worked on (old bulbs will not put out much UV and so may not sterilize adequately).

GMP (FDA standards for Good Manufacturing Process) may well require hoods with such timers to help enforce sterility, so I can imagine they exist. And I am imagining no one would argue GMP should be more lax.

so... in this train of thought I am guessing you simply bought the wrong model.

thoughts?

jordan

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[Jeswin]

On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 2:58 AM, Jordan Miller <jrd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> most hoods do not have this kind of timer on the bulbs... ive never heard of
> this restriction before at any institution I've worked at. so this can only
> lead me IMHO to conclude that you bought the wrong model.
>

The company has 2 models for PCR workstations: Dead-air box and
Air-flow hood. The air-flow has this strict replacement but the
dead-air box doesn't. We have their dead-air box and I'm guessing we
just bought from the same company.

> anything with this extreme of not just planned but scheduled obsolescence is
> perhaps designed for more dangerous or critical applications than what you
> have in mind. is it a bsl-2 hood? is it designed for working with cells to
> be used in clinical trials or with human viruses? If so, in this case I must
> agree with the manufacturing parameters that there are reasons for expiring
> the mercury bulbs which can decay quite rapidly and thus perhaps indirectly
> endanger humans working near the hood or humans to receive the cells being
> worked on (old bulbs will not put out much UV and so may not sterilize
> adequately).
>
> GMP (FDA standards for Good Manufacturing Process) may well require hoods
> with such timers to help enforce sterility, so I can imagine they exist. And
> I am imagining no one would argue GMP should be more lax.
>

It's rated ISO 5 Class 100 particle filtration. Maybe it is GMP/GLP
compliant but I don't see it on the site.

> so... in this train of thought I am guessing you simply bought the wrong
> model.
>

Probably not but maybe I got too mad for seeing what I thought was
unnecessary overhead. Anyway, thanks for pointing out all this to me.
I'm new to GMP/GLP and I already realize they are extremely strict
with their requirements.

[John Griessen]

On 01/22/2013 05:56 PM, Dakota Hamill wrote:
> Who are these evil engineers that design these things?

They're all over, and it's really their pointy haired bean-counter
bosses, (Dilbert), that set the policies of planned obsolescence.
The engineers just think locally + act locally, raise kids, etc.
It's not an evil conspiracy -- just a tendency of corporate structures.
Most people sleep-walk and don't notice it, are fond of slogans,
and like buying products they're told to.

And then there's safety and regulations as a motivator, like Jordan said.

The purchasing departments of governments and military in the US
have created vast armies of companies promoting fat, slow,
wasteful approaches to product design, plus the regulations
needed to keep them in business. I escaped from
some govt. contractor work in the 80's and it could be the slowness
and indoctrinated love of paperwork sometimes gave me feelings like I
was in a zombie world. Could that be why most of our zombie
apocalypse characters are slow?

Regulations are putting us in a bind, I think.
How can you do cutting edge work with purposely blunted tools?
How can you afford to do cutting edge work if any fool can patent
processes that are obvious, then demand you pay them to work in that area?

Hopefully more open hardware and open research publication will get
us out of the bind, while still allowing safety through more open knowledge
of processes and experimental equipment.

So promote open hardware's innate lack of planned obsolescence when you
can to whoever can hear it.

[Forrest Flanagan]

I pulled my hood apart the other day, it's a custom enclosure by the same company, but it uses the same controller board as any other model. The microcontroller has the code copy-protected, but the rest of the board is really simple. My roomate got a look under the hood with me, and he says writing some firmware on a pin-compatible microcontroller might be an interesting project. 

I don't suppose anyone knows any voltage transient attacks for getting a peek at the code on a PIC16C74? I always just hot-wired the fans and the bulbs, so I don't have Jeswin's experience with hex keys. I'll see if I can't get some more insight into the thing tomorrow.

There's a lot of weirdness to the hardware that I can probably fix. I got this vent hood after it'd been in service for only six months, but the hardware is ancient. I'm guessing they're just building it to some engineer's outdated design. There's a Real time clock chip in it that's potted with a battery, the whole thing has to be replaced when it goes bad. Most of these parts should have been designed out with pin compatible replacements over a decade ago, if not completely reworked.

Here's some pictures: http://imgur.com/a/lkTHO

[Ron Amundson]

Its a mid 90's design, no doubt about it. (I got burned on that Dallas RTC/battery thing back then.) The thing is, most low volume products like this don't get re-engineered until a company has exhausted its stock of last time buy inventory. It often makes sense from a business case, as the cost of carrying multiple years worth of inventory is a fraction of the cost of re-engineering. There may also be issues of regulatory changes where in a grandfathered design is boat loads cheaper than the headaches of jumping the regulatory hoops for something new.

Having spent a fair bit of time keeping legacy designs in production even post last time buy, I've found it often easier to reverse engineer the functions of a board rather than trying to deal with the logistic as well as potentially legal / IP hassles of protected firmware. Even some complex products can be put on a test rig and cycled through their functions to determine a firmware spec such that a newer microprocessor can be daughter boarded onto a legacy main board. (This usually results in some regulatory hoop jumping, but often far less than a completely new design).