so you have a problem, right?
Oct. 23rd, 2022 05:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdSo y'have a problem, right? and it's an electrical problem.
And you're like, "okay, sure, an electrical problem, I have some ideas, maybe it's partly a design problem, I can work this out," so you start taking the device apart, and you figure out it's definitely related to one particular subsystem, so that's good.
Then you poke at that subsystem for a while, it's very simple, but also, everything is okay? You still don't like the design, but otherwise, it's fine. So you go backwards up the chain, past the control system, up to the power system, and you poke at that for a while figuring that out as best you can, looking for voltage drops and not finding anything.
Now since this is a power issue you try throwing in a little power buffer into the DC side, but that doesn't help at all, which if you're honest about it makes sense at this point because you're not seeing any kind of power issue on that side anyway. Nothing 'til you get to the AC side.
And you figure out how to measure the problem on that side and eventually figure out exactly what's triggering everything and you're kinda getting worried and trying to figure out how big an electrical problem you have, when you go...
wait
...and you think about physics.
And you pull out the right calculator and you plug in all your numbers as best as you can estimate, and your estimates are pretty good since you know all this kit pretty well, and you hit "calculate..."
...and out comes exactly the number you saw in the wall, and you think...
...godt dammit...
...because you don't have an electrical problem...
...you have a physics problem.
And you go fuck, I can't fix fucking physics.
I mean, really, what I have is a design problem. or strictly speaking, what I have is two design problems, in both cases of something I didn't design and can't re-design.
To wit:
1: PWM heating on a 3D printer build plate is kinda goddamn nasty, but also,
2: Dimmable LED lights should not act like drama queens when seeing a cyclic 1.4v drop across a circuit, particularly when that drop only gets you down to 120 volts, @PHILIPS_LIGHTS.
I am just saying.
CREE doesn't act like that. They're fine.
But seriously pwm heating is stupid and going to create problems in residential environments and it sure would be NICE if it DIDN'T but it does.
Anyway...
...guess it's time to buy new lightblubs.
goddammit physics.
And you're like, "okay, sure, an electrical problem, I have some ideas, maybe it's partly a design problem, I can work this out," so you start taking the device apart, and you figure out it's definitely related to one particular subsystem, so that's good.
Then you poke at that subsystem for a while, it's very simple, but also, everything is okay? You still don't like the design, but otherwise, it's fine. So you go backwards up the chain, past the control system, up to the power system, and you poke at that for a while figuring that out as best you can, looking for voltage drops and not finding anything.
Now since this is a power issue you try throwing in a little power buffer into the DC side, but that doesn't help at all, which if you're honest about it makes sense at this point because you're not seeing any kind of power issue on that side anyway. Nothing 'til you get to the AC side.
And you figure out how to measure the problem on that side and eventually figure out exactly what's triggering everything and you're kinda getting worried and trying to figure out how big an electrical problem you have, when you go...
wait
...and you think about physics.
And you pull out the right calculator and you plug in all your numbers as best as you can estimate, and your estimates are pretty good since you know all this kit pretty well, and you hit "calculate..."
...and out comes exactly the number you saw in the wall, and you think...
...godt dammit...
...because you don't have an electrical problem...
...you have a physics problem.
And you go fuck, I can't fix fucking physics.
I mean, really, what I have is a design problem. or strictly speaking, what I have is two design problems, in both cases of something I didn't design and can't re-design.
To wit:
1: PWM heating on a 3D printer build plate is kinda goddamn nasty, but also,
2: Dimmable LED lights should not act like drama queens when seeing a cyclic 1.4v drop across a circuit, particularly when that drop only gets you down to 120 volts, @PHILIPS_LIGHTS.
I am just saying.
CREE doesn't act like that. They're fine.
But seriously pwm heating is stupid and going to create problems in residential environments and it sure would be NICE if it DIDN'T but it does.
Anyway...
...guess it's time to buy new lightblubs.
goddammit physics.
