1y ago

iFixit wants Congress to let it hack McDonald’s ice cream machines

www.theverge.com iFixit wants Congress to let it hack McDonald’s ice cream machines

iFixit wants to fix McDonald’s ice cream machines for good.

iFixit wants Congress to let it hack McDonald’s ice cream machines::McDonald’s ice cream machines are notorious for breaking all the time, so iFixit wants to help people repair them without the help of the manufacturer.

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1y ago

iFixit wants Congress to let it hack McDonald’s ice cream machines

www.theverge.com /2023/8/29/23850595/mcdonalds-broken-ice-cream-machines-ifixit

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TechNews @radiation.party

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1y ago

VERGE

iFixit wants Congress to let it hack McDonald’s ice cream machines

www.theverge.com /2023/8/29/23850595/mcdonalds-broken-ice-cream-machines-ifixit

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40 comments

- Well hopefully it won’t be up to McDonald’s.
  
  Let me introduce you to lobbying, and also hiring some lawyers to argue in the company's favor.

If I remember correctly I saw a video explaining this. Same goes with the device. Apparently the company that makes the machines and McDonalds have some sort of agreement where McDonald’s gets the machine at a huge discount but they have to use that company for repairs and only them. Win win for both. Company also added script to stop the device from working. Something like that.
Either way im at the point where I completely forget that McDonald’s has ice cream.
Here’s the video: https://piped.video/SrDEtSlqJC4?si=F9x-GPjuXEaSk7zO
- Company also added script to stop the device from working. Something like that.
  I don't think it's quite that devious. That kind of "feature" would probably be racketeering and ripe for lawsuit. I think it's more that the machines are temperamental as fuck and the methods to fix the machines are kept under a very tight lid.
  
  Yeah, an incorrect cleaning procedure can cause a error that requires maintenance personnel to reset the error. They don't need to do anything else though, it's completely fine to just do the cleaning again. Stuff like that.
  
  Yeah, sounds more like a feature of cheap ice cream machines than malicious intent.
  
  https://piped.video/SrDEtSlqJC4?si=F9x-GPjuXEaSk7zO
- They also have birthday ice cream cakes
- https://piped.video/SrDEtSlqJC4?si=F9x-GPjuXEaSk7zO
  
  That’s the one!
- I’m pretty sure the video you’re referring to. Really good watch.
  https://youtu.be/SrDEtSlqJC4?si=XlQTvDjUa2fo7fTA
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/SrDEtSlqJC4?si=XlQTvDjUa2fo7fTA
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.

This is the best summary I could come up with:
But now we may have some glimmer of Shamrock Shake-flavored hope: not only has iFixit performed a teardown of McDonald’s machines, but it’s also petitioning the government to let it create the parts required for people to fix them.
As shown in a video posted to YouTube, iFixit purchased the same ice cream machine model used by McDonald’s and spent hours trying to get it up and running.
The machine spit out numerous error codes that iFixit says “are nonsensical, counterintuitive, and seemingly random, even if you spent hours reading the manual.”
Despite consisting of “easily replaceable parts,” such as three printed circuit boards, a motor and belt, and a heat exchanger, the ice cream machine can only be fixed by its manufacturer — Taylor — due to an agreement it has with McDonald’s.
While a company called Kytch attempted to remedy this by creating a product to read ice cream machine error codes, iFixit says McDonald’s “sent a letter to all of the franchise owners” instructing them not to use the device.
“We’d love to be able to make a device like Kytch that can read error codes on the ice cream machine we have, but we can’t because of copyright law,” Elizabeth Chamberlain, iFixit’s director of sustainability, says in the video.
The original article contains 405 words, the summary contains 213 words. Saved 47%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
- Love the right to repair laws

Is this a US only thing? I've travelled all over europe and americas and I always try to go to each country's Mcdonalds to see if they have anything different. NEVER have I encountered a broken ice cream machine.
- https://mcbroken.com/
- Broken ice cream machines are a regular thing here in the UK.

Do they really break all the time or they just don't fucking clean them when they should and they refuse to keep working
- There's a 4 hour heat cycle it has to go through as part of the cleaning. In addition, the machines are apparently very temperamental and throw errors a lot, but the error codes are (arguably intentionally) obscure so typical employees just aren't going to know what's wrong with it. Also machine servicing is done exclusively by the machine manufacturer, so if any work needs to be done to it they've gotta schedule a tech call-out.
  
  I have no clue about the McDonald's ice cream machine but the one I used to have to use when I worked at Burger King could have various issues, for instance the most common reason it went down was it getting low on mix and someone not refilling it, if that would happen for about 30+ min it would freeze the thing solid and at that point you have to turn it off for hours, and you still probably have to tear it apart and run hot water through it which would make a huge mess just to get it in unfroze. Worst part is I was a closer, and if the people on the shift before me weren't keeping up with it, I could come in to it being frozen... I hated that thing
- Both I’m sure
- https://piped.video/SrDEtSlqJC4?si=F9x-GPjuXEaSk7zO

I was under the impression that the maintenance was a pain in the ass and McDonald's workers are payed less than the cost of living so therefore aren't doing shit like that.
- I think it is more malicious then that on the manufacturers part. It is more that when something goes wrong it just gives a cryptic error message and the workers have no clue what went wrong and so don't know what to do to fix it or stop it from happening again. For instance, it seems one issue is that if you overfill the hopper and out it through a (4 hour long) cleaning cycle it will fail to reach the required temp and then refuse to work until it has gone through the cycle (for safety reasons). But all it spits out is a cryptic error message and the workers are clueless as to what is wrong. Then they need to call out a technician to diagnose and fix it at a fairly high hourly cost, even though it is something the works could solve if they know what was wrong (ie not filling up the hopper so much).
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4 goes into a deep dive of the problem. And note that the problem is only with McDonalds ones - other chain using the same basic machine don't have the same issues. Likely due to some old partnership between the manufacturer and McDonald screwing over the franchise owners.
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.

Cmon MegaMan.EXE let's bust the Viruses in the Ice Cream machine
- His jumpsuit is so hot

The ice cream machine at my local McDonald's always works. I eat their ice cream somewhat regularly and never been told it's down.
- Guess we're done here folks. This guy says it's not a problem so it must not be!
- At any given moment about 10-13% of machines are down in the United States. Just go to the mcbroken website to see
  By the way, the one near me has been down for like two years…I think they just don’t want to pay the extortion fee to fix it. Or maybe they are too lazy to clean it properly. Apparently corporate doesn’t give a damn because I’ve complained and they still never have ice cream
  
  According to the video (it's elsewhere in the thread), the standard for uptime for industrial machinery is amazingly close to 100%. Given a million opportunities for such a machine to have a fault, you should want less than a handful of times that it actually craps itself.
  McDonald's machines are down more than 10% of the time.
  If I was a big industrial conglomerate like GE, VDL or Samsung and I had a machine that was down 10% of the time, and the error reporting was opaque and forced me to call the manufacturer for a service technician, AND all the critical operating parameters are behind some special manual that only their service technicians are allowed to have, I'd fucking sue the manufacturer.
  
  I very much suspect that the ones that have their machines down more often are just struggling/refusing to pay the repair fees.
  One near me that rakes in more than almost any other in the country always has their machines working. Yet the one that's always empty about 20 miles away almost never has their's working.
- That's pretty interesting if it's true, makes me wonder if they're doing anything differently from the other stores that keeps their machine working.

40 comments