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this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2024
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Since the story came out people fixated on "lol he used a shitty gaming controller" but really that is one of the least sketchy design choices in the entire rig. Why reinvent the wheel and make a custom set of controls that are realistically another huge expense and potential failure point, when off the shelf solutions exist for that component?
The corners that were cut are the ones involving the viewport/nose adhesion to the ships frame, and the structural integrity of the carbon fiber hull itself. They had test data suggesting it was a bad idea to engage in repeated dives with their design, and an even worse idea to operate at the depths they chose. They decided to ignore that.
That doesn't explain why they used the wireless version of that Logitech instead of wired to control the thing they were literally inside.
To be fair, they're under water and sharks have been known to chew through electrical cables
I suspect the wired cabling would be to control components inside the sub, not outside. And I say that only because it's unlikely that wireless signals would penetrate the sub walls.
Yes but with this sub the water was on the inside too
Lol
Too dense to pick up on the obvious sarcasm, I see.
i think you’re supposed to say wooosh or something like that
"That doesn't explain why they used the wireless version of that Logitech instead of wired to control the thing they were literally inside."
Yes, that sarcasm is profound and deep.
In case my implied message is unclear, go fuck yourself.
Electrical cables inside submarines?
That's hardcore.
Have you seen pictures of the sub? What makes you think the wiring was all hidden?
It looked worse than cheapest capsule hotel ever built...
I'm mildly claustrophobic and I would have troubles going in that tube even on mainland.
they were building for billionaire pleasure trips, they'd HAVE to go with the no-wires aesthetic.
The same reason you use the wireless version of any controller.
If you run into issues you can simply plug in any wireless controller.
From what I can tell the lawsuit (which is against Ocean Gate, not Logitech) is really just calling out the controller as another example of willfully negligent behaviour.
You're certainly correct that the actual cause of the failure was the carbon fibre hull. Just a terrible idea on so many levels. Carbon fibre, by its nature, is good under tension, not compression. It was never going to function well as a pressure vessel underwater.
There were a litany of terrible decisions made by Ocean Gate, such as not tethering the sub, because it was cheaper to launch it from a towed raft, but none of those bad decisions ultimately mattered once that pressure vessel failed. Those people were dead so fast that, to quote Scott Manley, "You go from being biology to being physics."
You can always bring a second controller for redundancy. I would bet money the game controller had zero impact on the failure and I hate all the shade being thrown on this innocent controller.
That game controller has terrible range, zero compatibility with any other device, and randomly adds inputs when the controller is more than 2 feet away from the receiver. It is reasonable to consider if uncontrolled movement contributed to the implosion, or a loss of control at a critical moment preventing return to the surface.
Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly.
In the context of the lawsuit it's definitely a valid thing to bring up, mostly because it helps you tell the story to the jury. But yeah, in practice it probably didn't represent much of a hazard on its own (though it almost certainly wasn't fire rated)
Having tried to use those, my main issue was the 710 is an unreliable 2.4ghz wireless, when bluetooth controllers all worked much better for me. I couldn't get the 710 to have reliable button presses from more than like 4 feet from my pc, so I ended up just using the 310 wired. Maybe there isn't enough interference on the sub for that to be an issue.
There's going to be no external interference when you're under water. Sea water makes an excellent em shield
True, but that’s hardly an endorsement for their safety. Wireless should never be used for critical life support equipment. It is mind bogglingly stupid they did this.
Wasnt the carbon fiber body rated for like, 1/3rd the depth that they dove to?
It was very NASA O-Ring vibes. "We did it once, so we can do it every time" at least until they cant anymore, and that cant is usually accompanied by regret and poor innocent people being salsafied.
Carbon fiber wasn't rated for any depth. It's shit for compression and you don't need light materials for a submersible.
No, you're right.. I think it was the winshield bubble that was rated for 1/3rd the depth? I know something was rated for a far shallower depth than what the dumbass CEO made the sub repeatedly go to.
Also, these materials compress at different rates.
An off the shelf controller wasn't a terrible idea, but of course it was blue tooth and had pairing issues on previous trips
F710 does not support bluetooth
No, but it supports wireless using 2.4ghz with an usb receiver. it does not support a wired connection at all.
https://www.logitechg.com/en-eu/products/gamepads/f710-wireless-gamepad.940-000145.html
It may be 2.4ghz but it isn't compatible with anything else anywhere and the range is terrible. Like as in if you are more than 2 feet from the receiver it will random spaz.
even bluetooth has pairing issues to this day lol
but i agree, bluetooth range and reliability has improved tremendously in the last years.
It's connection is proprietary and terrible with near zero range. It's objectively worse than bluetooth
Using commercial off the shelf technology without proper testing and certification is absolutely cutting corners. See: Kaprun disaster.
What kind of fire rating did those COTS parts throughout the interior of the vessel have? What kind of redundancy existed? Would you use a Logitech controller for a spacecraft? The requirements of deep sea submersibles and spacecraft are quite similar. Would any of the submersible certification agencies approved this? I think not.
I see the Logitech controller, the carbon fiber hull, and so many other decisions he made as symptoms of the same corner cutting, “move fast and break things” mentality he had.
I just read the wikipedia article; thanks for mentioning it.
I'm not sure it's a good example of your point, though. Notably:
The fan heater is the only off-the-shelf technology listed here, and there's no suggestion that it was part of the train's design. It seems likely that a train conductor brought it on board to keep the compartment warm through the workday. Still a bad idea in a train, especially on a 30° slope, but not an example of the designers cutting corners.
Edit:
Thanks to others for linking photos and a report (in German) that show how the heater was installed. It was clearly not a case of a conductor just setting the heater on the floor, but the installation still looks very much out of place. Perhaps corner-cutting was involved, but this doesn't look like something done by the train designers. Even an expensive industrial heater seems like it would be an extraordinarily bad idea in that location, right up against high-pressure hydraulic oil lines. Does someone have the details behind it? It looks more likely a (very foolish) modification made by someone else, like maybe the train operators.
For anyone else following this, those hydraulic oil lines that the heater was nearly touching were apparently pressurized at 190 bar, which I think is about 2700 pounds per square inch.
It’s an example of uncertified consumer grade equipment used in a commercial environment to disastrous results, outside of its original designed purpose. It’s one of the most well known examples of why you don’t use consumer grade hardware in a commercial/industrial setting.
It was not brought on board by the conductor or someone else, it was permanently installed in the train in place of commercial grade heaters they couldn’t source. It was installed in the wall during assembly.
I’d argue it is an example of cutting corners, they didn’t want to find / pay more for commercial grade heaters. It was not compliant with the original design nor fire safety standards.
Wow. That's creepy in a fascinating way. Cutting corners costs lives, and this is a perfect example.
It was not a train conductor that brought it with him, it was build into the train by the train manufacturer. See this page: https://155.at/der-heizluefter/
What makes you think the train manufacturer did it? Is that on record someplace? Because the installation and materials don't look at all like the surrounding work. Looks more like a handyman hack job. Now that I've seen the photos, I'm curious about what actually happened there.
It was not the train manufacturer, but a body shop (Swoboda Karosserie- und Stahlbau GesmbH, now Carvatech), which was recruited by the Gletscherbahn Kaprun (GBK) for renovations. It might have not had so large repercussions if anyone of the actors during those renovations had done his job correctly tho:
On top of all that, because the cable cars were made of aluminium, they were deemed inflammable. This did not take into account that any installed equipment or passengers and their luggage might NOT be fireproof.
This lead to: no fire exits, no emergency signage, no training for employees how to react in case of fire. (which might have saved a lot of people: the 12 survivors were the people who went downwards, passing the fire, because they listened to a fireman onboard the cable car.)
it was a single malfunctioning heater, but the Kaprun disaster had many fathers.
I found a nice paper regarding the different actors written by a student of the University of Virginia here, well sourced.
Very informative. Thank you!
I need to cite the German Wikipedia article, which I’ve read. It’s a good read and very long.
Exactly this. When you procure custom hardware, you’re paying (a lot) for the vendor to ensure that each unit meets the specifications you provide. If you validate off the shelf hardware like this, there is no guarantee that another batch of the same sku will also meet your requirements. Imagine training on these controllers then a certain batch of them has wildly different sensitivity.
Using off the shelve components is not an issue, even NASA does it but they have very precise procedures on how to select them.
https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/cots.pdf
This particular model of controller is notoriously terrible, unreliable, and prone to contact failure. Anyone reading the amazon reviews would know it wasn't even a good choice as a player2 little brother controller.
Dude, the F710 is legitimately a terrible controller with a tiny range and a manufacture flawed nano receiver. I mean it's not the steepest corner they cut but you can get a rock solid drone remote with ridiculous range for barely twice the price of an f710.
It was a stupid choice that they actively ignored the results. Like i said, ANYONE who uses this controller for more than an hour will directly experience how terrible it is.
Add to that that the carbon fiber and metal nose shrink at different rates under pressure. That adhesive litteraly was being torn apart at depth
Weren't they using it wirelessly too?
At the very least, maybe use a Xbox elite controller
using a wireless controller to manage life critical functions is the acme of stupidity.
The game controller is not managing life critical functions, that's called a computer. The game controller plugs into the computer. The great thing about that is that you can bring a second (or even a third) game controller for redundancy.
It's just that the engineering choices that caused the failure are difficult to understand or communicate in sentence so the game controller is something any idiot can harp on about and sound smart.
oh, it doesn't control ascent and descent, angle of attack, etc? it's not used to turn or operate the craft, that's all 'done by computer'?
pfft.
bluetooth and other wireless interface protocols aren't meant for life critical applications. give me a hardwired input - even a game controller - any day when it comes to life or death shit.