McDonald’s ice cream machines are notorious for breaking, and iFixit is now petitioning the government to let it create parts required for people to fix them.
The company recently purchased the same machine model used by McDonald’s and spent hours trying to fix it. There were many error codes which iFixit claim “are nonsensical, counterintuitive, and seemingly random, even if you spent hours reading the manual.”
Even though it has “easily replaceable parts,” including three printed circuit boards, a motor and belt, and a heat exchanger, the machine can only be fixed by the manufacturer, thanks to an agreement it has with McDonald’s.
The machine’s error codes (manufactured by Taylor), were also recently investigated by a company named Kytch, who tried to create a product that could read them.
iFixit claims McDonald’s “sent a letter to all of the franchise owners” telling them not to use it. iFixit’s Director of Sustainability, Elizabeth Chamberlain claimed the company want to give it a go, and said “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.”
She is referring to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), preventing people from bypassing controls/digital locks to access a copyrighted work.
iFixit, along with nonprofit Public Knowledge, have filed an exemption for the machines, which iFixit have previously done (and won) with Xboxes, smartphones, and tractors. The company are claiming that even with the exemption, it still won’t be able to distribute a tool for fixing the machines.
Because of this, the company also asking the government to reintroduce the Freedom to Repair Act, a law making it legal to bypass software locks and other measures to repair a product.
