7 ms·

Logitech F710 gamepad, allegedly contributed to Titan submersible implosion

19 points by type0 2y ago

q_andrew 2y ago
Something I noticed in the lawsuit (complaint 5.12) I haven't heard mentioned about this story: Other than TITAN, no commercial manned submersible has ever suffered an implosion (only early military submarines have done so). That's a pretty damning statement if true. As a land-dweller, I thought implosion was the main concern when using new submarines.
- jmount 2y ago
  I think the idea is: implosion is so scary they work really hard to engineer it out (as long as you don't go beyond your max depth).
  - actionfromafar 2y ago
    "The carbon fibre and titanium, there's a rule you don't do that. Well, I did." (Found the quote on WikiPedia.) It seems insane to me. It's easy to be an armchair anything, but I don't understand why you would do such a thing. It's not like a submersible needs to be light weight, either.
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      I believe because it was substantially cheaper to fabricate than a traditional metal hull.
    - rich_sasha 2y ago
      It is insane, but not entirely pointless. A metal submersible is heavy and negatively buoyant, whereas you want it to be positively buoyant (then add removable ballast). The way you add buoyancy is expensive fancy aerated concrete, or something like that, and a lot of it, since it's not that buoyant. But it is pressure resistant. By making it out of CF, you save on that cost. Not a worthwhile cost cutting exercise but at least there is some reason for it.
    - somat 2y ago
      Engineering a submarine is well above my pay grade, but some of the variables you have to balance are. the walls have to be strong(thick) enough to withstand the pressure (this is obvious, I know) the ratio of wall thickness to void(crew) space determines reserve buoyancy. smaller submarines are stronger than bigger ones. but have a worse buoyancy ratio. The end result is that as you design a submarine to go deeper it has to become smaller with thicker(heaver) walls until past a certain depth it goes negative buoyant and will sink. So you have to add additional buoyancy. not a trivial task given the pressures involved. the Trieste(first submersible to the challenger depth) was built like a blimp, with a tiny crew sphere hung below a massive tank of oil(they used oil because it is lighter than water and will not compress). So a lighter material hull is very desirable, it makes the whole operation much easier. They probably should not have been testing it on commercial passengers however. This is also the benefit of titanium, it is almost as strong as steel with half the weight.
  - consteval 2y ago
    I would think, with how advanced computer simulations are, you should be able to tell if something will implode or not. But maybe I'm wrong.
- sitharus 2y ago
  It is, so it’s taken really seriously. The hulls are made from material with well characterised gradual failure modes - bending and deforming rather than sudden failure. This means metals with thoroughly inspected welds and joints to ensure no internal voids, and a process of gradually diving deeper to check the hull meets the design requirements. Using materials that fail plastically and gradually increasing depth trials means the failure mode is hopefully deformation rather than complete failure, and will happen at the highest depth as possible so a quick surfacing can be achieved. Submarines, along with space, are an area where innovative new methods need a lot of testing before you commit human life to it.
  - jemmyw 2y ago
    If I remember the early reporting correctly, this submarine had plastic deformation on every dive. So it was already failing, they just didn't do anything about it.
- Ekaros 2y ago
  My understanding is that most commercial manned submarines don't actually go that deep. As with depth there isn't that many interesting things... And lot less light. So pressures they are dealing are quite reasonable. Which makes implosions pretty unlikely in normal operation. Common scenario is to operate in areas were sea bed is at depth where implosion is impossible.
_mlbt 2y ago
The Navy uses Xbox controllers in some of their submarines… https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/18/17136808/us-navy-uss-colorado-xbox-controller https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/18/17136808/us-navy-uss-colo...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- syvanen 2y ago
  Yes, as one way to control cameras on top of masts. Replacing periscopes. Not really a comparable to actually steering the boat. Here’s a video from a submarine tour where you can see the Xbox controller in action: https://youtu.be/0StWrXoN8nI?si=Hf5eoGOU-jxDNa2x https://youtu.be/0StWrXoN8nI?si=Hf5eoGOU-jxDNa2x (Edit: added link to video)
  - meowster 2y ago
    Pretty good video if anyone wants to watch it all the way through, otherwise the Xbox controller part starts at 8:38.
jmount 2y ago
I thought one of the narratives was that Nargeolet was a depressed Judas-goat used to bring in the other passengers.
andrewflnr 2y ago
There's no new evidence in the article, about the gamepad specifically or anything else as far as I can tell. We've already argued the implications of the gamepad a dozen times over. > The lawsuit acknowledges the root cause of the implosion may never be known and does not place sole blame on any one factor.
teruakohatu 2y ago
With so many other factors that contributed to the implosion in a big way, this detail seems insignificant. It was a cramped vessel, wireless may have been safer because nobody could yank a cable out, or get twisted up in a cable. It was probably communicating wirelessly over a couple of feet or less in a RF interference free environment.
kstrauser 2y ago
If so, I feel bad for Logitech about that. I don’t recall them advertising for that use case. “This part wasn’t adequate for the task!” “Well, yeah. Our Submarine Parts division doesn’t sell their stuff at Target.”
- beej71 2y ago
  You can bet it's in their TOS now. :)
somat 2y ago
It keeps being brought up. I suspect as a sort of character assassination technique. Sort of the disaster analysis version of bike-shedding. "well I don't know much about the physics of carbon fiber in high pressure environments, but I know a cheap gamepad when I see one." However, I expect that such a commercial off the shelf gamepad to be probably the most reliable well tested piece of equipment on the sub. it is highly unlikely to go bad and is super easy to carry a spare. Also no analysis I have seen actually knows how the sub was controlled or bothers to explain how you would do it better than a gamepad. If I had to guess, the motors and ballast controls went into an array of controller boards in a rack somewhere. the control circuity(probably something like i2c or canbus) tied into a central microcontroller. and then a laptop or tablet is used for the human IO(gamepads and screens). There probably was not much redundancy in the system, but I am not sure that is a bad thing, redundancy massively complicates the design and introduces new error conditions. (look into the causes of the US Navy destroyer John S. McCain collision, it was a highly redundant controller system. and the helmsman failed to realize he had no control, it was really a training issue) often it is better to just have the ability for manual control. that is, go back to the rack of motor controllers and manually start twisting knobs and jumping wires. but none of this matters, because it is not what failed. It cheapens the narrative to go after stupid superficial things like the gamepad, that did not cause or contribute to the fault rather than what actually caused the engineering failure.
- smittywerben 2y ago
  > superficial things like the gamepad, that did not cause or contribute to the fault In the prior dive, a passenger hit the sub into a rock. How does that not contribute?
  - somat 2y ago
    Don't let the passengers drive? that is unfair, teach them how not to hit rocks? Also unfair, sorry can't help myself today. Really I suppose it depends on how hard and where they hit the rock, was it a failure of of the gamepad that lead to the rock hit? that is, dead controls and drifting (those infernal radio gamepads, amiright) If I remember correctly the whole sub had an outer shroud anyway. how much damage to the outer shroud was done? Anyway, I don't really want to be the guy defending oceangate, I think a carbon fiber submarine sounds like a monumentally ill founded idea in the first place, and the move fast and break things attitude they employed in their engineering process should have never gone anywhere near a passenger. but at first thought, at the speeds the sub moved I doubt a rock hit would damage the sub. if I had to bet, it was plastic deformation leading to delamination and fatigue.

19 points by type0 2y ago

Something I noticed in the lawsuit (complaint 5.12) I haven't heard mentioned about this story: Other than TITAN, no commercial manned submersible has ever suffered an implosion (only early military submarines have done so). That's a pretty damning statement if true. As a land-dweller, I thought implosion was the main concern when using new submarines.

jmount 2y ago
I think the idea is: implosion is so scary they work really hard to engineer it out (as long as you don't go beyond your max depth).
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  "The carbon fibre and titanium, there's a rule you don't do that. Well, I did." (Found the quote on WikiPedia.) It seems insane to me. It's easy to be an armchair anything, but I don't understand why you would do such a thing. It's not like a submersible needs to be light weight, either.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    I believe because it was substantially cheaper to fabricate than a traditional metal hull.
  - rich_sasha 2y ago
    It is insane, but not entirely pointless. A metal submersible is heavy and negatively buoyant, whereas you want it to be positively buoyant (then add removable ballast). The way you add buoyancy is expensive fancy aerated concrete, or something like that, and a lot of it, since it's not that buoyant. But it is pressure resistant. By making it out of CF, you save on that cost. Not a worthwhile cost cutting exercise but at least there is some reason for it.
  - somat 2y ago
    Engineering a submarine is well above my pay grade, but some of the variables you have to balance are. the walls have to be strong(thick) enough to withstand the pressure (this is obvious, I know) the ratio of wall thickness to void(crew) space determines reserve buoyancy. smaller submarines are stronger than bigger ones. but have a worse buoyancy ratio. The end result is that as you design a submarine to go deeper it has to become smaller with thicker(heaver) walls until past a certain depth it goes negative buoyant and will sink. So you have to add additional buoyancy. not a trivial task given the pressures involved. the Trieste(first submersible to the challenger depth) was built like a blimp, with a tiny crew sphere hung below a massive tank of oil(they used oil because it is lighter than water and will not compress). So a lighter material hull is very desirable, it makes the whole operation much easier. They probably should not have been testing it on commercial passengers however. This is also the benefit of titanium, it is almost as strong as steel with half the weight.
- consteval 2y ago
  I would think, with how advanced computer simulations are, you should be able to tell if something will implode or not. But maybe I'm wrong.
sitharus 2y ago
It is, so it’s taken really seriously. The hulls are made from material with well characterised gradual failure modes - bending and deforming rather than sudden failure. This means metals with thoroughly inspected welds and joints to ensure no internal voids, and a process of gradually diving deeper to check the hull meets the design requirements. Using materials that fail plastically and gradually increasing depth trials means the failure mode is hopefully deformation rather than complete failure, and will happen at the highest depth as possible so a quick surfacing can be achieved. Submarines, along with space, are an area where innovative new methods need a lot of testing before you commit human life to it.
- jemmyw 2y ago
  If I remember the early reporting correctly, this submarine had plastic deformation on every dive. So it was already failing, they just didn't do anything about it.
Ekaros 2y ago
My understanding is that most commercial manned submarines don't actually go that deep. As with depth there isn't that many interesting things... And lot less light. So pressures they are dealing are quite reasonable. Which makes implosions pretty unlikely in normal operation. Common scenario is to operate in areas were sea bed is at depth where implosion is impossible.

_mlbt 2y ago

The Navy uses Xbox controllers in some of their submarines… https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/18/17136808/us-navy-uss-colorado-xbox-controller https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/18/17136808/us-navy-uss-colo...

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
syvanen 2y ago
Yes, as one way to control cameras on top of masts. Replacing periscopes. Not really a comparable to actually steering the boat. Here’s a video from a submarine tour where you can see the Xbox controller in action: https://youtu.be/0StWrXoN8nI?si=Hf5eoGOU-jxDNa2x https://youtu.be/0StWrXoN8nI?si=Hf5eoGOU-jxDNa2x (Edit: added link to video)
- meowster 2y ago
  Pretty good video if anyone wants to watch it all the way through, otherwise the Xbox controller part starts at 8:38.

jmount 2y ago

I thought one of the narratives was that Nargeolet was a depressed Judas-goat used to bring in the other passengers.

andrewflnr 2y ago

There's no new evidence in the article, about the gamepad specifically or anything else as far as I can tell. We've already argued the implications of the gamepad a dozen times over. > The lawsuit acknowledges the root cause of the implosion may never be known and does not place sole blame on any one factor.

teruakohatu 2y ago

With so many other factors that contributed to the implosion in a big way, this detail seems insignificant. It was a cramped vessel, wireless may have been safer because nobody could yank a cable out, or get twisted up in a cable. It was probably communicating wirelessly over a couple of feet or less in a RF interference free environment.

kstrauser 2y ago

If so, I feel bad for Logitech about that. I don’t recall them advertising for that use case. “This part wasn’t adequate for the task!” “Well, yeah. Our Submarine Parts division doesn’t sell their stuff at Target.”

beej71 2y ago
You can bet it's in their TOS now. :)

somat 2y ago

It keeps being brought up. I suspect as a sort of character assassination technique. Sort of the disaster analysis version of bike-shedding. "well I don't know much about the physics of carbon fiber in high pressure environments, but I know a cheap gamepad when I see one." However, I expect that such a commercial off the shelf gamepad to be probably the most reliable well tested piece of equipment on the sub. it is highly unlikely to go bad and is super easy to carry a spare. Also no analysis I have seen actually knows how the sub was controlled or bothers to explain how you would do it better than a gamepad. If I had to guess, the motors and ballast controls went into an array of controller boards in a rack somewhere. the control circuity(probably something like i2c or canbus) tied into a central microcontroller. and then a laptop or tablet is used for the human IO(gamepads and screens). There probably was not much redundancy in the system, but I am not sure that is a bad thing, redundancy massively complicates the design and introduces new error conditions. (look into the causes of the US Navy destroyer John S. McCain collision, it was a highly redundant controller system. and the helmsman failed to realize he had no control, it was really a training issue) often it is better to just have the ability for manual control. that is, go back to the rack of motor controllers and manually start twisting knobs and jumping wires. but none of this matters, because it is not what failed. It cheapens the narrative to go after stupid superficial things like the gamepad, that did not cause or contribute to the fault rather than what actually caused the engineering failure.

smittywerben 2y ago
> superficial things like the gamepad, that did not cause or contribute to the fault In the prior dive, a passenger hit the sub into a rock. How does that not contribute?
- somat 2y ago
  Don't let the passengers drive? that is unfair, teach them how not to hit rocks? Also unfair, sorry can't help myself today. Really I suppose it depends on how hard and where they hit the rock, was it a failure of of the gamepad that lead to the rock hit? that is, dead controls and drifting (those infernal radio gamepads, amiright) If I remember correctly the whole sub had an outer shroud anyway. how much damage to the outer shroud was done? Anyway, I don't really want to be the guy defending oceangate, I think a carbon fiber submarine sounds like a monumentally ill founded idea in the first place, and the move fast and break things attitude they employed in their engineering process should have never gone anywhere near a passenger. but at first thought, at the speeds the sub moved I doubt a rock hit would damage the sub. if I had to bet, it was plastic deformation leading to delamination and fatigue.