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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

#81

Post by xcskier56 »

1MachineElf wrote: post #75
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #6

I’m always surprised how poor engineering gets exposed in products I purchase being an Arizona resident. No, failing at 122F is not acceptable. If your hardware is exposed to outside conditions, it should operate easily below 32F, and well above 140F. Considering that phones can operate below 0F and near 122F, that’s embarrassingly bad. Same thing in vehicles. If you’re driving consistently at interstate speeds, you…

Interesting. What phone operates at 0F? A few years ago I was in 15F conditions, the batteries in both my phone and my hiking partner's phone would not work at all. Going out briefly in 0F weather and pulling the phone out of the pocket of a warm jacket might be fine, but I'm doubtful a phone could continue to function when thoroughly cooled to 0F. If there's been a recent shift in phone technology, then I'd like to…

I’ve found this is very much a function of how new/good the battery is. I’ve been out skiing in ~0 degrees for a couple hours with a newer phone and not had trouble and I’ve had the same phone a year or two later go dead after 45min in 20 degree weather. My current iPhone 12 Pro lasted 45 min at -15 this winter and didn’t run out of battery. I keep my phone in an unheated water bottle carrier

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

#82

Post by edoceo »

newsclues wrote: post #73
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #6

I’m always surprised how poor engineering gets exposed in products I purchase being an Arizona resident. No, failing at 122F is not acceptable. If your hardware is exposed to outside conditions, it should operate easily below 32F, and well above 140F. Considering that phones can operate below 0F and near 122F, that’s embarrassingly bad. Same thing in vehicles. If you’re driving consistently at interstate speeds, you…

It’s not a safety issue like car regulation, engineering choices have costs. Just because it doesn’t work in your environment doesn’t mean that it’s not suitable elsewhere and the burden of spec changes for your climate may make the cost go up for people elsewhere who don’t have the same requirements

Why build a product for everyone you're marketing to when you can cheaply build a product that works for some but still sell to all. Caveat Emptor after all. Hit my OKRs for the quarter, I'm going to the pub.

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

#83

Post by mjg59 »

MattGaiser wrote: post #77
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #6

I’m always surprised how poor engineering gets exposed in products I purchase being an Arizona resident. No, failing at 122F is not acceptable. If your hardware is exposed to outside conditions, it should operate easily below 32F, and well above 140F. Considering that phones can operate below 0F and near 122F, that’s embarrassingly bad. Same thing in vehicles. If you’re driving consistently at interstate speeds, you…

122F is 50C. How much of the world actually gets that hot? AZ is currently the hottest place in the world at the moment. Not the upper range. The hottest place. https://www.wx-now.com/Weather/WxExtremes?hottest=true

An object in direct sunlight is going to get hotter than the ambient air temperature.

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

#84

Post by andrewmcwatters »

chairmanwow1 wrote: post #79
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #6

I’m always surprised how poor engineering gets exposed in products I purchase being an Arizona resident. No, failing at 122F is not acceptable. If your hardware is exposed to outside conditions, it should operate easily below 32F, and well above 140F. Considering that phones can operate below 0F and near 122F, that’s embarrassingly bad. Same thing in vehicles. If you’re driving consistently at interstate speeds, you…

You live in a desert. I feel like the extremes of your environment are not a useful barometer for a reasonable operating temp.

I also live in the fifth most populous city in the United States. So, yeah, it is.

If anything, you should fully expect, at this point, that how we deal with extreme conditions in Phoenix is a harbinger of what is to come for other parts of the nation.

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

#85

Post by ohyeshedid »

brigade wrote: post #36
slownews45 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Netgear R8500 was 50 watts easily I'd say. My friends gaming computer DEFINATELY uses more than 100W. Basic computer use for cryptomining seems to use a lot more as well. It just doesn't seem like 100W for what this thing does is a ton.

More like 50 watts max, and 20 watts under normal load. The power supply can't even provide more than 60W. And gaming computers are more like 2-5W suspended, 20-50W idle/browsing, 200-500W gaming.

I'm curious about the browsing figures. As someone that used a Surface Pro 3 for browsing, js or flash pegged it. I'm curious on a i7 desktop what the real average is for my browsing habits, and I'm going to have to test this. bah.

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

#86

Post by bart_spoon »

V99 wrote: post #63
gspr wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A reasonably modern air conditioner to cool your house in Phoenix a few months in the summer is more efficient than many of the common ways you'd heat a house from potentially well below freezing in the winter in many other places. And much of our power comes from solar (which is maximally available at the time cooling is maximally needed) and nuclear, while serious heating is often literally burning fossil fuels in…

I actually believe that the opposite is true. It takes much more energy to cool off a home with AC than it does to heat a home in cold weather.

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

#87

Post by turtletontine »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #6

I’m always surprised how poor engineering gets exposed in products I purchase being an Arizona resident. No, failing at 122F is not acceptable. If your hardware is exposed to outside conditions, it should operate easily below 32F, and well above 140F. Considering that phones can operate below 0F and near 122F, that’s embarrassingly bad. Same thing in vehicles. If you’re driving consistently at interstate speeds, you…

I'd say maybe places where the air temperature regularly gets to >110 F aren't meant for human habitation

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

#88

Post by [deleted] »

kelnos wrote: post #52
toss1 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ambig…

I have the opposite issue; Google will tell me the exit number on highways that don't have exit numbers posted.

[deleted]

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

#89

Post by smegger001 »

gspr wrote: post #44
ethanbond wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not really Homo Sapians originated in the hot environs of Sub-Saharan Africa. Most early civilizations were in deserts, like Mesopotamia and Egypt. Their have been cities in deserts longer then there have been temperate climate cities. Humans are built for hot climates we just don't like them.

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

#90

Post by edoceo »

chairmanwow1 wrote: post #79
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #6

I’m always surprised how poor engineering gets exposed in products I purchase being an Arizona resident. No, failing at 122F is not acceptable. If your hardware is exposed to outside conditions, it should operate easily below 32F, and well above 140F. Considering that phones can operate below 0F and near 122F, that’s embarrassingly bad. Same thing in vehicles. If you’re driving consistently at interstate speeds, you…

You live in a desert. I feel like the extremes of your environment are not a useful barometer for a reasonable operating temp.

Millions of humans live there. And loads of other equipment operates. Maybe it's not really at the "extreme" point yet - since all the existing stuff has moved extreme further out.
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