15 ms·

> The internal illumination for all those switch panels was accomplished via 1,600 tiny incandescent bulbs that were soldered onto printed circuit boards on the

by cube00 5y ago

> The internal illumination for all those switch panels was accomplished via 1,600 tiny incandescent bulbs that were soldered onto printed circuit boards on the backs of the panels. That's a strange design decision given it'd be known that those incandescent bulbs would need regular replacement. It's a shame they went with a static display rather then add a "ride" aspect. While some may argue this is a museum not a theme park, the more engaging it is the more people will visit and learn.

jacquesm 5y ago
The simulator was designed in the days when white LEDs did not yet exist, and likely the time on display is well in excess of what it normally would have gone through when in use as a training device.
- moron4hire 5y ago
  I don't think GP's comment was about the use of incadescent bulbs, I think it was about soldering them onto the board.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    In vibration sensitive applications that makes perfect sense.
    - moron4hire 5y ago
      I mean, yeah, I wasn't in the room when the Space Shuttle was built. I don't know the "surprising level of detail" involved. I guess it's a round-about way of saying, "I'd like to know what those details were to understand why having to desolder burnt-out bulbs is better than using a spring-loaded, locking fitting."
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        While it is always possible that a whole army of experts would miss something so obvious as the existence of spring loaded locking fittings (aka banjonet bulbs), the safe assumption is that they thought of it and rejected it for valid reasons. Vibration is a very nasty problem.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - jazzyjackson 5y ago
        i dont know that burnt out bulbs are a problem: you can trade reliability for efficiency: don’t burn the bulb at its brightest and it’s unlikely it will burn out
  - dev_tty01 5y ago
    The shuttle experiences severe vibration during launch. You don't want your indicator lights shaking loose during launch, so therefore they should be soldered.
kingcharles 5y ago
LEDs were available at the time the shuttles were built, but were they considered too new to take a bet on? Also, I'm bummed they replaced them because LEDs have a very different feel.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- phire 5y ago
  The only thing you would be using LEDs for in the late 70s would be indicator lights and 7-segment displays. The only colors available are red, green and yellow, and they wen't bright enough to illuminate dials, instrument panels or cockpits. Even if they did use LEDs where they made sense, they would still need hundreds of incandescent bulbs.
- andyjohnson0 5y ago
  > LEDs were available at the time the shuttles were built Assembly of Endeavour, the final STS to be built, was completed in 1990. Blue LEDs appeared in 1993 and white ones several years alter. During the shuttle era, LEDS were invariably red, green and yellow. I'd be surprised if those colours were considered suitable for general illumination of flight instrumentation.
  - Maursault 5y ago
    > Blue LEDs appeared in 1993 Then it is interesting that my father's 1989 Wolfsburg Edition Jetta has a blue LED in the dash "The first blue-violet LED using magnesium-doped gallium nitride was made at Stanford University in 1972 by Herb Maruska and Wally Rhines, doctoral students in materials science and engineering." [1] "In August 1989, Cree introduced the first commercially available blue LED based on the indirect bandgap semiconductor, silicon carbide (SiC)." [2] What you must be thinking of: "Two years later, in 1993, high-brightness blue LEDs were demonstrated by Shuji Nakamura of Nichia Corporation using a gallium nitride growth process." [3] [1,2,3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode#blue_LED https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode#blue_LE...
sslayer 5y ago
I thought it was a strange restoration decisions to replace them, this was built before led's were around.
phire 5y ago
It wouldn't really have the reliability to be a ride. Theme park rides are designed from scratch for high-uptime usage. Like real aircraft, something like this probably required several hours of maintenance for every hour of "flight-time" back in the day.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  It was often said the the shuttle was more rebuildable than reusable.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
> It's a shame they went with a static display rather then add a "ride" aspect. This simulator is over 50 years old; anyone actively using it, especially unsupervised, would cause damage. I mean I'm all for someone building a newer and more resilient simulator, or reproducing it in VR, but at this point this is a genuine museum piece and the focus should be on conservation, not entertainment.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >This simulator is over 50 years old; anyone actively using it, especially unsupervised, would cause damage. It's expensive and takes up a lot of space. Letting people use it, even if they can't truly "fly" it, is probably the best shot it has at having any staying power in its new home. Sure that'll probably require some motor, lightbulb and upholstery replacements over time but it should be fine as long as they stay on top of it. When the museum comes under hard times a decade or more in the future, after the novelty has worn off, being a cost positive attraction vs a cost neutral use of space that could be used for something that can attract people is likely the difference between the simulator staying or going.
- geoffeg 5y ago
  > This simulator is over 50 years old; anyone actively using it, especially unsupervised, would cause damage. The Delta museum near the Atlanta airport has an old, full-motion, level D 737 flight simulator anyone can pay to "fly". A operator joins you in the simulator and sets up and operates the simulator for you. $425 gets you 45 minutes and it seems to stay relatively busy. I would imagine the operator of a Space Shuttle simulator could charge quite a bit more for the opportunity to fly one of the most famous aircraft ever built.
- t0mas88 5y ago
  It would be cheaper to pay someone like CAE to build a modern hardware space-shuttle simulator if you wanted rides. Then it would be easy to replace parts, since they actively maintain hundreds of aircraft simulators.
nradov 5y ago
Incandescent bulbs can be very reliable when run below the rated voltage. The color temperature will be a bit lower but they last a long time.
- leeter 5y ago
  They are also incredibly tolerant to current/voltage spikes because they are purely resistive, which makes them ideal for situations when power could be 'interesting' as they will still function unless they are run well beyond normal limits. So when it's more important that it just works, it's not a bad design. Also soldering them would be least of the cost concerns for the shuttle program, which had much bigger and nastier cost centers.
  - bumby 5y ago
    I think the concern with soldering goes beyond just cost. Vibrations and micro-gravity do have a lot of concerns when it comes to shorting and other reliability issues.
_moof 5y ago
Just doing some quick back-of-the-napkin math, 1,600 miniature bayonet sockets potentially add up to hundreds of pounds of mass. That may have been a factor in the decision to solder the bulbs directly onto the boards. Especially when replacement probably required disassembling panels, so the soldering isn't really time worth saving. Just a guess though, and the significance varies quite a bit depending on where you set the slider for "mass of one socket." Still, it's the same order of magnitude that they shaved off when they decided not to paint the external tank, so it's plausible.

by cube00 5y ago

jacquesm 5y ago

The simulator was designed in the days when white LEDs did not yet exist, and likely the time on display is well in excess of what it normally would have gone through when in use as a training device.

moron4hire 5y ago
I don't think GP's comment was about the use of incadescent bulbs, I think it was about soldering them onto the board.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  In vibration sensitive applications that makes perfect sense.
  - moron4hire 5y ago
    I mean, yeah, I wasn't in the room when the Space Shuttle was built. I don't know the "surprising level of detail" involved. I guess it's a round-about way of saying, "I'd like to know what those details were to understand why having to desolder burnt-out bulbs is better than using a spring-loaded, locking fitting."
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      While it is always possible that a whole army of experts would miss something so obvious as the existence of spring loaded locking fittings (aka banjonet bulbs), the safe assumption is that they thought of it and rejected it for valid reasons. Vibration is a very nasty problem.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - jazzyjackson 5y ago
      i dont know that burnt out bulbs are a problem: you can trade reliability for efficiency: don’t burn the bulb at its brightest and it’s unlikely it will burn out
- dev_tty01 5y ago
  The shuttle experiences severe vibration during launch. You don't want your indicator lights shaking loose during launch, so therefore they should be soldered.

kingcharles 5y ago

LEDs were available at the time the shuttles were built, but were they considered too new to take a bet on? Also, I'm bummed they replaced them because LEDs have a very different feel.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
phire 5y ago
The only thing you would be using LEDs for in the late 70s would be indicator lights and 7-segment displays. The only colors available are red, green and yellow, and they wen't bright enough to illuminate dials, instrument panels or cockpits. Even if they did use LEDs where they made sense, they would still need hundreds of incandescent bulbs.
andyjohnson0 5y ago
> LEDs were available at the time the shuttles were built Assembly of Endeavour, the final STS to be built, was completed in 1990. Blue LEDs appeared in 1993 and white ones several years alter. During the shuttle era, LEDS were invariably red, green and yellow. I'd be surprised if those colours were considered suitable for general illumination of flight instrumentation.
- Maursault 5y ago
  > Blue LEDs appeared in 1993 Then it is interesting that my father's 1989 Wolfsburg Edition Jetta has a blue LED in the dash "The first blue-violet LED using magnesium-doped gallium nitride was made at Stanford University in 1972 by Herb Maruska and Wally Rhines, doctoral students in materials science and engineering." [1] "In August 1989, Cree introduced the first commercially available blue LED based on the indirect bandgap semiconductor, silicon carbide (SiC)." [2] What you must be thinking of: "Two years later, in 1993, high-brightness blue LEDs were demonstrated by Shuji Nakamura of Nichia Corporation using a gallium nitride growth process." [3] [1,2,3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode#blue_LED https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode#blue_LE...

sslayer 5y ago

I thought it was a strange restoration decisions to replace them, this was built before led's were around.

phire 5y ago

It wouldn't really have the reliability to be a ride. Theme park rides are designed from scratch for high-uptime usage. Like real aircraft, something like this probably required several hours of maintenance for every hour of "flight-time" back in the day.

rbanffy 5y ago
It was often said the the shuttle was more rebuildable than reusable.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago

> It's a shame they went with a static display rather then add a "ride" aspect. This simulator is over 50 years old; anyone actively using it, especially unsupervised, would cause damage. I mean I'm all for someone building a newer and more resilient simulator, or reproducing it in VR, but at this point this is a genuine museum piece and the focus should be on conservation, not entertainment.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>This simulator is over 50 years old; anyone actively using it, especially unsupervised, would cause damage. It's expensive and takes up a lot of space. Letting people use it, even if they can't truly "fly" it, is probably the best shot it has at having any staying power in its new home. Sure that'll probably require some motor, lightbulb and upholstery replacements over time but it should be fine as long as they stay on top of it. When the museum comes under hard times a decade or more in the future, after the novelty has worn off, being a cost positive attraction vs a cost neutral use of space that could be used for something that can attract people is likely the difference between the simulator staying or going.
geoffeg 5y ago
> This simulator is over 50 years old; anyone actively using it, especially unsupervised, would cause damage. The Delta museum near the Atlanta airport has an old, full-motion, level D 737 flight simulator anyone can pay to "fly". A operator joins you in the simulator and sets up and operates the simulator for you. $425 gets you 45 minutes and it seems to stay relatively busy. I would imagine the operator of a Space Shuttle simulator could charge quite a bit more for the opportunity to fly one of the most famous aircraft ever built.
t0mas88 5y ago
It would be cheaper to pay someone like CAE to build a modern hardware space-shuttle simulator if you wanted rides. Then it would be easy to replace parts, since they actively maintain hundreds of aircraft simulators.

nradov 5y ago

Incandescent bulbs can be very reliable when run below the rated voltage. The color temperature will be a bit lower but they last a long time.

leeter 5y ago
They are also incredibly tolerant to current/voltage spikes because they are purely resistive, which makes them ideal for situations when power could be 'interesting' as they will still function unless they are run well beyond normal limits. So when it's more important that it just works, it's not a bad design. Also soldering them would be least of the cost concerns for the shuttle program, which had much bigger and nastier cost centers.
- bumby 5y ago
  I think the concern with soldering goes beyond just cost. Vibrations and micro-gravity do have a lot of concerns when it comes to shorting and other reliability issues.

_moof 5y ago

Just doing some quick back-of-the-napkin math, 1,600 miniature bayonet sockets potentially add up to hundreds of pounds of mass. That may have been a factor in the decision to solder the bulbs directly onto the boards. Especially when replacement probably required disassembling panels, so the soldering isn't really time worth saving. Just a guess though, and the significance varies quite a bit depending on where you set the slider for "mass of one socket." Still, it's the same order of magnitude that they shaved off when they decided not to paint the external tank, so it's plausible.