3 ms·
I think you have unreasonable expectations. Off-the-shelf components may be more reliable than custom developed products (especially since you can afford a back
by stickfigure 3y ago
I think you have unreasonable expectations. Off-the-shelf components may be more reliable than custom developed products (especially since you can afford a backup or two).
Also, with respect to emergency ballast - cheapness is a virtue. You're supposed to drop it in an emergency, and hesitating because "I don't want to lose my expensive weights" could kill you. This is a consideration for recreational scuba too, instructors recommend buying cheap weight belts (and the companies selling expensive ones usually advertise "free replacement if you use them in an emergency").
- ghaff 3y agoYeah. I'm not sure having Boeing design and build me a $10,000 LED lighting array is necessarily a big improvement and, if you're worried about the reliability of your game controller? Buy two maybe of everything maybe, even three? There can be reasons to use expensive bespoke coffee pots on commercial flights. But going with the gold-plated aerospace version isn't always the answer.
- gchadwick 3y agoThough choice is still important, why that gamepad? Especially if it was the wireless version. Building the controls with wired arcade buttons and an arcade joystick would be a little pricier but you'd get parts designed to take a beating, plenty of real world usage to demonstrate this and no potentially flaky usb/wireless stack that you have no control over to deal with.
- stickfigure 3y agoI could take some guesses. It's cramped with a lot of people; wires invite tangles or damage if someone accidentally yanks on it. Especially if you want to operate the vehicle from both sides of the interior. Those controllers have millions of hours of playtesting by people that are sensitive to the slightest twitch. I'd trust them more than most automotive components. I'm more curious to know how they run the control lines. A thruhull at 400 atmospheres must be something special. Or maybe it's wireless to the machinery outside? But the carbon fibre and titanium enclosure would be a problem.
- Vecr 3y agoI would not actually trust them more than an automotive component, I think most accelerator pedals use Hall Effect sensors (usually two of them in the good designs) that are much less likely to wear out and cause spurious inputs or failure than the basic potentiometers on a game console, especially a very cheap one. Get an X-box controller at least, and have a couple spares wired in, in case the wireless one fails.
- stickfigure 3y agoTo be fair, we don't know that there aren't backup controls.
- jacquesm 3y agoI've seen optical encoders as well for that. Fun when they don't have a hard 'zero' but just differentials.
- erik_seaberg 3y agoDoes a submersible like this only drop ballast weight in an emergency, or every time they’re ready to go home? I know submarines tend to use diving planes and pneumatic ballast tanks (flood with water, or inject air to push water out), but I don’t know if that’s an option down at 400 atm.
- stickfigure 3y agoI heard an interview this afternoon on NPR with David Pogue (the bbc guy who filmed a ride). He said there are 7 different ways of surfacing, including several that do not require electricity and don't even require consciousness. For example, some of the ballast is attached by mounts that dissolve after a certain number of hours in water (presumably less than 96).