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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

#331

Post by user3939382 »

iamhamm wrote: post #221
wumpus wrote: post #135

Several posters on r/Starlink report that they had seen their dishes at more than 122F, when this topic came up a few days ago. It's entirely possible that this story (and 122 hn comments so far) is about a dish with a loose heatsink, and not a product that always shuts down at 122F.

I have Starlink and I'm in Pahrump, NV. We hit 111F today and my dishy is in direct sunlight on the ground so it was easily over 120F. Hell, my direct sunlight thermometer showed over 130F! Didn't go into thermal shutdown, no disruptions in service, and I didn't have to water it either.

It's sad Art Bell isn't around to test it out, he loved radio technology I'm sure he would have gotten a kick out of it :(

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

#332

Post by jonathankoren »

zaroth wrote: post #231
tyingq wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They put a non-automotive grade LCD in Teslas. I assume because they thought they knew better. I suspect hubris is at play more than full-on incompetence.

The put a non-automotive grade LCD in the original Model S because it was that LCD or nothing. The automotive screens didn’t exist in the size they needed and they weren’t at a stage in their company where they could design their own. They took a risk to achieve the product vision that they were determined to bring into the world given the technical constraints of the age. I’d say overall it paid off. IMO it wasn’t a…

> he put a non-automotive grade LCD in the original Model S because it was that LCD or nothing.

No. It was not no LCD or nothing. It was either an LCD that would melt in the heat of a car on a summer day, or a smaller LCD that wouldn’t.

This is just one of many decisions traced directly to Elon that fly in the face of established best practices. Lest we forget, this is a man who made the factory less safe, resulting in higher than expected workplace injuries, because he didn’t like yellow stripes and beeping forklifts. And of course the intentional misnaming of “autopilot”, and the resulting body count of the wide consumer release of its “beta” software.

So yes, it is arrogance.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/04/tesla-workers-gettin...

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

#333

Post by slipframe »

ineedasername wrote: post #161
dylan604 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just throw a sprinkler on the thing. Yeah, that's a brilliant plan for a part of the world that is severely restricted on water usage and is routinely in drought conditions.

Mount it in a kiddie pool with a pump to reclaim the water. Starlink can sell it as a package deal: dish, pool, pump Extreme Weather package. Complete with puncture repair kit for the pool. Of course there's still evaporation, so you just station a half dozen condensing dehumidifiers around the pool to capture as much as you can in the immediate area and feed it back into the system. And there you go: For just a few…

Dehumidifiers are really just air conditioners, so at that point you might as well cut out the middle men and air condition the dish directly. An air conditioner will set you back a few hundred dollars, plus power costs.

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

#334

Post by nine_k »

tyingq wrote: post #236
driverdan wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX and Tesla are separate companies with different employees. "They" did not put anything in Teslas.

Separate companies with the same CEO, (some) shared board members, joint projects, cross sales of services and equipment, loans of employees, etc. Surely there's significant culture bleed.

I wish more of the SpaceX culture bled into Tesla then.

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

#335

Post by Rapzid »

jrockway wrote: post #206
aaomidi wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your engineering team had to wait for a product failure to realize an item that's going to be outdoors in the sun is going to get hot, what on earth else are they missing?

I doubt that everyone on the team missed the fact that electronics get hot outdoors in the summer. Rather, they probably chose to launch a product that breaks when it gets hot, because it's an easy problem to fix later. Now that something is out in the field, they can debug their network, satellites, RF hardware, installation instructions, management applications, and figure out what kind of customers want to buy thi…

There is tremendous value in procrastinating that is still overlooked even in 2021. Fixing stuff and making decisions "just in time" means reaping value now and in the meantime.

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

#336

Post by rtkwe »

tzs wrote: post #235
tyingq wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They put a non-automotive grade LCD in Teslas. I assume because they thought they knew better. I suspect hubris is at play more than full-on incompetence.

I wonder if they are doing that for other components too, or just the LCD?

IIRC there were issues with the flash memory in the media unit (afaik that means the whole giant center screen) where it would fail to boot after a while because the flash chips were failing. They actually issued a recall for that one at least.

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

#337

Post by nine_k »

froh wrote: post #314
washadjeffmad wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, the units didn't fail randomly, they shutdown. They're beta, so it could be that the thermistor was placed poorly in a redesign, that they intended 122°C instead of °F, that they shipped with a dummy value used in an older fw during testing, etc. All in all, a little embarrassing but not that significant, assuming this is certifiably not a scam.

I dont get the °C vs F one? with 122C youre covered for 122F. 122C = 251.6F and 122F = 50C

The device detects overheating and shuts down orderly.

If they planned to shut it down at 122C (which is indeed close to melting the solder) but by mistake made it shut down at 122F (not that much for most electronics), it would be a completely understandable blooper. It doesn't mean that the hardware isn't capable of operating at 122F.

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

#338

Post by rtkwe »

washadjeffmad wrote: post #267
aaomidi wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your engineering team had to wait for a product failure to realize an item that's going to be outdoors in the sun is going to get hot, what on earth else are they missing?

I mean, the units didn't fail randomly, they shutdown. They're beta, so it could be that the thermistor was placed poorly in a redesign, that they intended 122°C instead of °F, that they shipped with a dummy value used in an older fw during testing, etc. All in all, a little embarrassing but not that significant, assuming this is certifiably not a scam.

The stated temperature range tops out at 104F so I doubt it's a units issue, it's just not designed to stand up to temperatures a good portion of the US reaches over the summer.

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

#339

Post by iamhamm »

sfblah wrote: post #243
iamhamm wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I have Starlink and I'm in Pahrump, NV. We hit 111F today and my dishy is in direct sunlight so easily was over 122F on surfaces. Didn't go into thermal shutdown, no disruptions in service, and I didn't have to water it either.

What do you do in Pahrump, NV!? Such a remote place!

I’m cybersecurity CTO for a fortune 100 company. I told them I was getting out of the bay area and they were fine with it!

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

#340

Post by ffggvv »

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

it’s not about the air temperature. it’s surface temperature. i was at the beach the other day when it was only like 75 degrees but the sand was hot enough to burn my feet.
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