3 ms·
That classic combination of water with electric current, and tricking a safety sensor to boot. What could possibly go wrong?
by seanhunter 3y ago
That classic combination of water with electric current, and tricking a safety sensor to boot. What could possibly go wrong?
- TheTxT 3y agoIt’s only 250 kilowatts of energy, so nothing really.
- s0rce 2y agopedantically, 250 kW of power
- Reason077 2y agoNothing pedantic about it. We live in an era where people ought to understand the difference between power (measured in watts) and energy (measured in joules, or calories, or watt-hours). But for some reason this is widely misunderstood, resulting in frequent errors and poor decision making. The Times, a generally-reputable UK newspaper, once published a front page headline declaring that electric vehicles would require the equivalent of 20 new nuclear plants to be built in the UK. None of their fact checkers noticed that the entire article was based on an error that confused GWh (energy) with GW (power).
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- phyzome 2y agoAs long as the units are correct and people understand those, I'm not too worried about "energy" vs "power".
- Rinzler89 2y agoMethinks safety sensors shouldn't be designed to be so easily fooled.
- llamaimperative 2y agoThat’s an excellent Darwin Award acceptance speech! Short and to the point.
- ericswpark 2y agoDon't like to see comments like these. I think it violates several HN guidelines, including this one: > Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. Unfortunately there is no report button.
- ndjxhshgf 2y agoFire alarms are easily fooled— just cover them with a wet towel. Does that make them bad safety sensors?
- brewtide 2y agoNot in their use case, which is the entire "perhaps this is a bad idea" take.
- Rinzler89 2y agoThe fire alarm IS the senor, it's an alarm, it's in the name, it's pretty obvious to most people what happens if you fuck with it and what the consequences are, and people still do to combat false positive alarms. But most people have no idea about the senor(s) in tesla charger plugs, since it's a plug, not an alarm. How should it be obvious for the average layman without open disclaimers? People always tend to fuck with stuff they don't fully understand if someone tells them that doing something quirky means extra oomph. And forget about people putting towels on it, what about rain or wet debris falling on it? Seems like edge cases that should have been covered during the concept and design phase by EEs with experience. For something meant to survive and be used outdoor these are not even edge cases.
- dylan604 2y agoAre we confusing smoke detectors with fire alarms? Most people screw with the detectors. A fire alarm is usually triggered when a sprinkler head is set off. And despite what Hollywood shows us, just because one head starts does not mean all of the heads in the system open up.
- NoahKAndrews 2y agoIf the point of the sensor is to keep the handle cool, and the wet towel cools the handle, does it really count as tricking it?
- epistasis 2y agoDepends on whether the important part to keep cool is the part of the handle that the towel dissipates heat from, or if that temperature reading is used as a proxy for the temperature of the entire cable.
- dylan604 2y agoYeah, but since it's charging faster, it'll be done before the inaccurate temp readings allow the actual cable to melt. Or, if it's not the charger in your home and you're using someone else's charger, who cares if it melts. That's someone else's problem as long you get your batts topped off. At least, that's my cynical internal dialog for the world's mentality today.
- CodeWriter23 2y agoDude, you misspelled "higher currents will convert the cable into an unintentional fuse".
- dspillett 2y ago> That's someone else's problem I assume the down votes are from people assuming you agree with, or take part in "because everyone else does so why shouldn't I", that mentality. Of not, then you might want to clarify. Otherwise, I'm glad that in all likelyhood we'll never meet in real life.
- dylan604 2y ago"At least, that's my cynical internal dialog for the world's mentality today." Did that not have the intended effect of stating that's how I feel other people think?
- encom 2y agoNot a lot. As mentioned in TFA, the chargers are designed to operate in the rain.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]