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What do you think about this startup: Lucid Drone (https://www.luciddronetech.com/ https://www.luciddronetech.com/)? They use drones for cleaning houses/buildin

What do you think about this startup: Lucid Drone (https://www.luciddronetech.com/ https://www.luciddronetech.com/)? They use drones for cleaning houses/buildings. It's a part of YC S19 Batch 2.

toxik 7y ago
Interesting idea, but ultimately drones are not strong enough to do what they want. It would need to carry itself, the tube, and counteract the force from the spray. Flight time is probably going to be way low.
- cma 7y ago
  As long as the spray is counterbalanced by a lower pressure higher volume spray in the opposite direction it doesn't need to counter it with throttle.
  - mhb 7y ago
    It still needs to carry the water. And water is heavy.
    - prometheus76 7y ago
      8 lbs. per gallon. Adds up quick in a water line.
      - scotty79 7y ago
        Or kilogram per liter for sane people. ;-)
        prometheus76 7y ago
        While you guys were sitting around coming up with your own arbitrary units of measurement, we were actually inventing the two biggest reasons why America is still on US Customary units: the milling machine (in 1816) and the profile lathe (in 1818). (Two other important inventions from America that also created momentum for our system was the steam engine in 1825 and the platform scale in 1830, but I won't go further into those.) Because the milling machine and the profile lathe were invented in America, they were built around the American measuring system, and accounted for America getting a head start in the Industrial Revolution. Those two inventions enabled rapid and consistent manufacturing of innumerable other inventions and tools at the time. By the time the Treaty of the Metre was adopted in 1875, America's manufacturing infrastructure was already 50 years old. The benefits offered by a decimal-based system of measurement were not and still are not significant enough to justify throwing out an entire interconnected structure of tooling, tools, and machines. I work for a custom fabricator (we focus on making highly customized one-off products that are either prototypes or highly specialized), so I have some insight into what it would take for just our shop to convert. We have milling machines that date back to the 1950s. They still work really well and hold tolerances as well as any similar mill on the market today. We would have to replace them and all the tooling that goes with them. Actually, we couldn't just get rid of them. We'd have to keep them and also double (at least) the size of our facilities to hold the new equipment. Why? Because we have long-term support contracts with many of our customers. That means we'd have to have two sets of equipment and two sets of tooling. Some of our contracts are more than 40 years old, so we would have to plan on having both sets of equipment for at least another 40 years. Also, we'd have to reprogram all our other CNC machines to work on metric units only. We also have to convert all of our drawings to metric, and many of those conversions aren't elegant. Try reading 38.5 millimeters on a measuring tape. Try marking it accurately and consistently. Now, I also have to consider that my employees now need to know two sets of measuring units, and be able to switch between them, because there's going to be a long period where some customer drawings are in US units and some are in Metric. That means that sometimes they'll make mistakes, because humans are very good at switching. So now I'll have more re-work and scrap. In short, we may be "insane", but while the SI countries were trying to figure out how to measure things, we were busy inventing and using the machines we needed to actually usher in the Industrial Age. By the time the metric system was finalized, we already had a 50-year head start on building things. Too late to switch. It will never make financial sense to change.
        toxik 7y ago
        Attributing the success of US economy during the 19th century to the Imperial system is obviously absurd. Standardization needed as a bedrock for progress to be made -- the US simply inherited the British system while European scientists finally converged on a more logical system. The truth is that you likely have to deal with metric units in your machine shop every now and then, just as we deal with imperial units in some places (in my country, pipes and fittings are often in inches even in new residences.) Furthermore, the lathe has been around since at least Egyptian times, and the modern industrial lathe is thought to have been invented in France or the UK.
        prometheus76 7y ago
        You're right. Americans are just too stupid to recognize the brilliance of the metric system. There could be no other explanation.
        prometheus76 7y ago
        I also want to mention that I didn't attribute the success of the US economy during the 19th century to the US Customary system (which is different than the Imperial System, btw). I said that the standard that was in place in America when the Industrial Revolution began was the US Customary system because the metric system was still in its infancy at the time and not widespread. By the time the metric system was established, widespread milling, machining, and lathing in the United States was all built around the US Customary system. There was already too much infrastructure to throw out over a marginal improvement. It's a simple economic problem. Does the cost of throwing out all the old machinery, equipment, fasteners, drawings, and tools justify the marginal benefits of switching to a decimal-based measurement system? So far, the market's answer has been no.
        scotty79 7y ago
        I guess that's the first mover disadvantage. You get the tech first. It's not as good as second gen but you are sort of stuck with it since you already have a ton of infrastructure built around it. When the rest of the world adopts second gen and builds it's infrastructure around second gen and never bothers with first gen you lag behind hoping you'll catch up on third gen or so. The problem with units is that there's no third gen. SI system is just math and physics for the first and last time figured out correctly and that doesn't usually change for thousands of years. In SI world there are still small pockets of old units. Like pipes measured 3/8, 3/4, 1/2, 1. The thing is they are isolated enough that almost nobody cares what the number means. Everybody just know that you need a 3/4 to fit with 3/4 you have. It becomes just a label.
    - cma 7y ago
      It could also spray some downwards for lift.
- swish_bob 7y ago
  If you're carrying a tube connected to a water supply, you're already carrying something you could use to transmit power ...
  - toxik 7y ago
    So you suggest to deliver a couple of kilowatts of DC current alongside the water? Starting to sound like a good old crane is _way_ easier.

What do you think about this startup: Lucid Drone (https://www.luciddronetech.com/ https://www.luciddronetech.com/)? They use drones for cleaning houses/buildings. It's a part of YC S19 Batch 2.

toxik 7y ago

Interesting idea, but ultimately drones are not strong enough to do what they want. It would need to carry itself, the tube, and counteract the force from the spray. Flight time is probably going to be way low.

cma 7y ago
As long as the spray is counterbalanced by a lower pressure higher volume spray in the opposite direction it doesn't need to counter it with throttle.
- mhb 7y ago
  It still needs to carry the water. And water is heavy.
  - prometheus76 7y ago
    8 lbs. per gallon. Adds up quick in a water line.
    - scotty79 7y ago
      Or kilogram per liter for sane people. ;-)
      - prometheus76 7y ago
        While you guys were sitting around coming up with your own arbitrary units of measurement, we were actually inventing the two biggest reasons why America is still on US Customary units: the milling machine (in 1816) and the profile lathe (in 1818). (Two other important inventions from America that also created momentum for our system was the steam engine in 1825 and the platform scale in 1830, but I won't go further into those.) Because the milling machine and the profile lathe were invented in America, they were built around the American measuring system, and accounted for America getting a head start in the Industrial Revolution. Those two inventions enabled rapid and consistent manufacturing of innumerable other inventions and tools at the time. By the time the Treaty of the Metre was adopted in 1875, America's manufacturing infrastructure was already 50 years old. The benefits offered by a decimal-based system of measurement were not and still are not significant enough to justify throwing out an entire interconnected structure of tooling, tools, and machines. I work for a custom fabricator (we focus on making highly customized one-off products that are either prototypes or highly specialized), so I have some insight into what it would take for just our shop to convert. We have milling machines that date back to the 1950s. They still work really well and hold tolerances as well as any similar mill on the market today. We would have to replace them and all the tooling that goes with them. Actually, we couldn't just get rid of them. We'd have to keep them and also double (at least) the size of our facilities to hold the new equipment. Why? Because we have long-term support contracts with many of our customers. That means we'd have to have two sets of equipment and two sets of tooling. Some of our contracts are more than 40 years old, so we would have to plan on having both sets of equipment for at least another 40 years. Also, we'd have to reprogram all our other CNC machines to work on metric units only. We also have to convert all of our drawings to metric, and many of those conversions aren't elegant. Try reading 38.5 millimeters on a measuring tape. Try marking it accurately and consistently. Now, I also have to consider that my employees now need to know two sets of measuring units, and be able to switch between them, because there's going to be a long period where some customer drawings are in US units and some are in Metric. That means that sometimes they'll make mistakes, because humans are very good at switching. So now I'll have more re-work and scrap. In short, we may be "insane", but while the SI countries were trying to figure out how to measure things, we were busy inventing and using the machines we needed to actually usher in the Industrial Age. By the time the metric system was finalized, we already had a 50-year head start on building things. Too late to switch. It will never make financial sense to change.
        toxik 7y ago
        Attributing the success of US economy during the 19th century to the Imperial system is obviously absurd. Standardization needed as a bedrock for progress to be made -- the US simply inherited the British system while European scientists finally converged on a more logical system. The truth is that you likely have to deal with metric units in your machine shop every now and then, just as we deal with imperial units in some places (in my country, pipes and fittings are often in inches even in new residences.) Furthermore, the lathe has been around since at least Egyptian times, and the modern industrial lathe is thought to have been invented in France or the UK.
        prometheus76 7y ago
        You're right. Americans are just too stupid to recognize the brilliance of the metric system. There could be no other explanation.
        prometheus76 7y ago
        I also want to mention that I didn't attribute the success of the US economy during the 19th century to the US Customary system (which is different than the Imperial System, btw). I said that the standard that was in place in America when the Industrial Revolution began was the US Customary system because the metric system was still in its infancy at the time and not widespread. By the time the metric system was established, widespread milling, machining, and lathing in the United States was all built around the US Customary system. There was already too much infrastructure to throw out over a marginal improvement. It's a simple economic problem. Does the cost of throwing out all the old machinery, equipment, fasteners, drawings, and tools justify the marginal benefits of switching to a decimal-based measurement system? So far, the market's answer has been no.
        scotty79 7y ago
        I guess that's the first mover disadvantage. You get the tech first. It's not as good as second gen but you are sort of stuck with it since you already have a ton of infrastructure built around it. When the rest of the world adopts second gen and builds it's infrastructure around second gen and never bothers with first gen you lag behind hoping you'll catch up on third gen or so. The problem with units is that there's no third gen. SI system is just math and physics for the first and last time figured out correctly and that doesn't usually change for thousands of years. In SI world there are still small pockets of old units. Like pipes measured 3/8, 3/4, 1/2, 1. The thing is they are isolated enough that almost nobody cares what the number means. Everybody just know that you need a 3/4 to fit with 3/4 you have. It becomes just a label.
  - cma 7y ago
    It could also spray some downwards for lift.
swish_bob 7y ago
If you're carrying a tube connected to a water supply, you're already carrying something you could use to transmit power ...
- toxik 7y ago
  So you suggest to deliver a couple of kilowatts of DC current alongside the water? Starting to sound like a good old crane is _way_ easier.