3 ms·

The Sharp designers of my microwave [0] couldn't even design the clock to keep accurate time. The built-in clock is fast. It will gain about 3 minutes per week.

The Sharp designers of my microwave [0] couldn't even design the clock to keep accurate time. The built-in clock is fast. It will gain about 3 minutes per week. I'm honestly not sure how they managed to screw that up. 32.768kHz crystal was too expensive? Or just too incompetent to keep track of time correctly? [0] https://www.amazon.de/Sharp-Mikrowelle-Grill-Kompakt-Mikrowellengerät-Tageszeitanzeige-Kindersicherung/dp/B007XS5AEI/ https://www.amazon.de/Sharp-Mikrowelle-Grill-Kompakt-Mikrowe...

paulmd 10y ago
The worst part is you don't even need a crystal for that. Anything that's connected to line power has a built-in 60 Hz oscillator that is adjusted so that it will never gain or lose more than a few seconds... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_clock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_clock My car's clock is also awful about this - it loses something like 3 minutes per month. But at least there you can blame it on the unknown and varying voltage that the battery and alternator provide...
- mdip 10y ago
  Do you drive a Ford Fusion with the Sync radio, by chance? The stereo in my Fusion does this -- about 2-3 minutes/month slow, so after a few months I start thinking I'm on time for things when I'm actually a few minutes late. The older Ford Fusion Sync radios (Microsoft variety) are a perfect example of how not to do a UI. I wanted it because my previous car had Bluetooth pairing and I got used to using my phone for music/entertainment and wanted my new car to have the same experience. Of course, being the MS variety of Sync, it has the buggy Bluetooth implementation, so one out of three times I get in the car, my stereo fails to connect. Thank GOD it's got voice commands because I have no idea what combination of buttons is required to actually switch to the Bluetooth input (which is required to be done every time you start the car again regardless of whether or not you were previously on that input). As long as everyone is silent when I hit that magic button to issue my command, and as long as I tilt my head upward toward the mic and speak very clearly, about half the time it switches the input correctly. Who the hell thought it would be a good idea to make a car stereo so complicated that it pretty much guarantees you're going to take your eyes off the road for long periods of time trying to figure out how to change the station when One Direction comes on (I feel the same way about newer cars that just have the "iPad Screen" style interface -- no tactile anything).
mdip 10y ago
Oh, good point - you made me remember the mystery we solved at my old office. We were convinced that the microwave was a low wattage unit because it would require you to cook things about 25% more than whatever the package said. It turned out that the digital timer was fast. We started the thing for a minute against a stopwatch app and it was off by more than 10 seconds. This thing didn't even have a clock -- it was basically designed to do two things: (1) Bombard food with microwaves and (2) stop bombarding said thing after a specified period of time. It did one of those things about as poorly as it could be done.

paulmd 10y ago

The worst part is you don't even need a crystal for that. Anything that's connected to line power has a built-in 60 Hz oscillator that is adjusted so that it will never gain or lose more than a few seconds... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_clock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_clock My car's clock is also awful about this - it loses something like 3 minutes per month. But at least there you can blame it on the unknown and varying voltage that the battery and alternator provide...

mdip 10y ago
Do you drive a Ford Fusion with the Sync radio, by chance? The stereo in my Fusion does this -- about 2-3 minutes/month slow, so after a few months I start thinking I'm on time for things when I'm actually a few minutes late. The older Ford Fusion Sync radios (Microsoft variety) are a perfect example of how not to do a UI. I wanted it because my previous car had Bluetooth pairing and I got used to using my phone for music/entertainment and wanted my new car to have the same experience. Of course, being the MS variety of Sync, it has the buggy Bluetooth implementation, so one out of three times I get in the car, my stereo fails to connect. Thank GOD it's got voice commands because I have no idea what combination of buttons is required to actually switch to the Bluetooth input (which is required to be done every time you start the car again regardless of whether or not you were previously on that input). As long as everyone is silent when I hit that magic button to issue my command, and as long as I tilt my head upward toward the mic and speak very clearly, about half the time it switches the input correctly. Who the hell thought it would be a good idea to make a car stereo so complicated that it pretty much guarantees you're going to take your eyes off the road for long periods of time trying to figure out how to change the station when One Direction comes on (I feel the same way about newer cars that just have the "iPad Screen" style interface -- no tactile anything).

mdip 10y ago

Oh, good point - you made me remember the mystery we solved at my old office. We were convinced that the microwave was a low wattage unit because it would require you to cook things about 25% more than whatever the package said. It turned out that the digital timer was fast. We started the thing for a minute against a stopwatch app and it was off by more than 10 seconds. This thing didn't even have a clock -- it was basically designed to do two things: (1) Bombard food with microwaves and (2) stop bombarding said thing after a specified period of time. It did one of those things about as poorly as it could be done.