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iFixit tears down a McDonald’s ice cream machine, demands DMCA exemption for it (arstechnica.com)

submitted 1 year ago by DannyMac@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

38 comments fedilink hide all child comments

McDonald’s soft-serve ice cream machines are regularly broken, and it’s not just your perception. When repair vendor and advocate iFixit was filming a video about the topic, it checked tracking map McBroken and found that 34 percent of the machines in the state of New York were reported inoperable. As I write this, the nationwide number of broken machines is just above 14 percent.

To improve the nation’s semi-frozen milk fat infrastructure, iFixit has done two things. One, as first reported by 404 Media, is to join with interest group Public Knowledge to petition the Copyright Office for an exemption allowing people to fix commercial equipment, such as McDonald’s ice cream machines and other industrial kitchen equipment, without fear of reprisal under Section 1201 of the DMCA.

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[–] RosalieMorgan@kbin.social 44 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There's a comment at the end of the article explaining that the McDonald's machines are somewhat unique in having a nightly pasteurization process that allows them to go two weeks between cleanings instead of requiring nightly cleaning like other machines.

Listeria is a risk if ice cream machines are not properly maintained. Recent case linked to ice cream machines: https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/20/us/tacoma-milkshake-listeria-deaths/index.html

Not that there are not clearly other issues at play. Just a couple important pieces of what's going on that were not covered in the article itself.

[–] roguetrick@kbin.social 39 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

And to be clear, they're mostly down because the nightly boil of the ice cream mixture wasn't completed due to overfilling the machine making it unable to reach the temp. The service company refuses to let the workers know that and the machine doesn't volunteer that information.

[–] mycatiskai@lemmy.one 20 points 1 year ago (3 children)

So if there was a small window with a max fill line this problem would be solved?

[–] roguetrick@kbin.social 10 points 1 year ago

There's lots of ways that you could solve the problem. It's not designed to be solved.

[–] Paradox@lemdro.id 4 points 1 year ago

Or just a line stamped into the metal reservoir tub

[–] Gyrolemmy@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

You could even put an etch mark in the tank if you were the tech to fix the problem after the fact.