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Starlink dishes go into “thermal shutdown” once they hit 122° Fahrenheit

arstechnica.com

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Re: Starlink dishes go into “thermal shutdown” once they hit 122° Fahrenheit

#41

Post by toss1 »

reaperducer wrote: post #17
BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it is a beta test after all. This is when the design gets a real life shakedown.

Forget beta. Apple's production iPhones go into thermal shutdown several times a year for me where I live. Most recently, yesterday. You can tell it's getting close because the screen will dim. The tech bubble has never understood that the rest of the planet doesn't have the same weather as San Francisco.

Yup, it's always incredible to see how myopic tge tech bubble is - starting with software that couldn't handle East Coast US 5-digit ZIP (postal) codes that begin with "0". Google Maps never shows the highway exit # until you're nearly there, but that's all we use on the East Coast, since there are many old roads that run parallel to the highways for many miles, so telling me to "get off at Rt110" is hopelessly ambiguous with a dozen exits for that road. I could go on...

Re: Starlink dishes go into “thermal shutdown” once they hit 122° Fahrenheit

#42

Post by gpm »

quanticle wrote: post #38
josefresco wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A line like this (and Reddit sources) makes me question the authenticity of this story.

The Ars Technica version of this story [1] has more detail. The tl;dr is that Starlink dishes have an upper limit of 50°C and a lower limit of -30°C. While these limits are fine for consumer electronics used indoors, they're obviously inappropriate for outdoor electronics. [1]: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/06/starl...

> they're obviously inappropriate

They're unfortunately constraints, but for 95% of people they're workable constraints. If there are difficult problems with bumping these limits (I have no clue), it could just become part of the market definition.

Re: Starlink dishes go into “thermal shutdown” once they hit 122° Fahrenheit

#43

Post by kemonocode »

I wonder why such an aggressive thermal cutoff too, 50C ain't that hot even for consumer-grade electronics. Is it related to all that heat reducing SNR to unacceptable levels? If so, that frankly sounds like a pretty severe design shortcoming.

Re: Starlink dishes go into “thermal shutdown” once they hit 122° Fahrenheit

#44

Post by gspr »

ethanbond wrote: post #30
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #29

Sort of funny that the solution for streaming is to literally turn on a stream of water. On a separate note, even if you don’t live in Arizona, a litmus test for good engineering is whether or not you see reviews of a product melting in Arizona. Yeah, melt. Literally. Phoenix is the fifth largest city in the US. If it doesn’t work here, it’s not mass market.

A good litmus test for good city location is whether or not melting objects/burns from touching objects is a daily concern

Yeah, I agree: the bug here is humans building giant cities in the desert.

Re: Starlink dishes go into “thermal shutdown” once they hit 122° Fahrenheit

#45

Post by toss1 »

kemonocode wrote: post #43

I wonder why such an aggressive thermal cutoff too, 50C ain't that hot even for consumer-grade electronics. Is it related to all that heat reducing SNR to unacceptable levels? If so, that frankly sounds like a pretty severe design shortcoming.

Yup, the basiv spec for this device intended to be used remotely should be summer in the Saudi desert, or at least Death Valley (in the same US state) - with solar heating also expected.

It's nice that they at least check & shut down to protect the device, but this shouldn't have made it out of the prototypes, nevermind Alpha or Beta testing...

Re: Starlink dishes go into “thermal shutdown” once they hit 122° Fahrenheit

#46

Post by gspr »

marcinzm wrote: post #26
j-pb wrote: post #24

I have a starlink beta, and we're currenty experiencing a really bad hearwave here in germany ( I measured 35C in the shade ). Mine works like a charm regardless.

That's not a heatwave by US standards, that's a pretty common summer day for a decent chunk of the US. Arizona can get to around 50C.

I think you know that heat waves are defined relative to the local climate. And recall that all but the southern part of Germany is north of the US-Canada border. AZ should be considered uninhabitable (in a sustainable sense) even outside of heat waves.

Re: Starlink dishes go into “thermal shutdown” once they hit 122° Fahrenheit

#47

Post by andrewmcwatters »

ethanbond wrote: post #30
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #29

Sort of funny that the solution for streaming is to literally turn on a stream of water. On a separate note, even if you don’t live in Arizona, a litmus test for good engineering is whether or not you see reviews of a product melting in Arizona. Yeah, melt. Literally. Phoenix is the fifth largest city in the US. If it doesn’t work here, it’s not mass market.

A good litmus test for good city location is whether or not melting objects/burns from touching objects is a daily concern

Hahaha… yeah that’s probably a bigger concern.
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