Earlier quoted context omitted.
This shouldn't even be considered "pushing the envelope" it's not that hot.
Not that hot? It's 122°, 134° is the highest ever recorded on Earth, it's pretty hot.
In the shade.
Starlink dishes go into “thermal shutdown” once they hit 122° Fahrenheit
431–440 of 516 posts
Re: Starlink dishes go into “thermal shutdown” once they hit 122° Fahrenheit
#432Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is that for condensation control or because you're hitting the low end of your temp range?
It’s some data center in Nordic region, and during winter it gets so cold the servers can’t heat the place.
It'll be incase of an emergency shutdown.
Can't have the servers freezing when turned off.
Re: Starlink dishes go into “thermal shutdown” once they hit 122° Fahrenheit
#433Starlink is in beta. The entire purpose of the beta is to find stuff like this. They found something, and I'm sure that the next iteration of this before it goes to mass market will account for it. You're just seeing the system work.
Speaking from experience in this same industry, this is the wrong way to look at it. They significant amount of engineering goes in to designing the ground systems such that it can tolerate all different types of environments. Currently with Starlink you are only seeing probably less than 5% of the environments that it would be rolled out in. This is mainly due to how they are targeting RDOF areas to appease the gove…
SpaceX is known for using less than ideal products during test phases and working in parallel for the improved/final versions. it depends on what they are trying to test. and in this phase they are trying to test the network and will use the cheapest dishes that can do for this purpose.
I mean they practically used a water tower to test their starship engines. while in parallel they worked for rocket design just to test the first flight/landing and yet in parallel another deisgn for orbital flight tests etc. It seems a waste but this aproach has allowed them to be years ahead of ULA in rocket design. In this case I think they have demonstrated how they work and it's fair to assume that these problems are not engineering miscalculations but deliberate "go with the fastest thing you can test" decisions.
Re: Starlink dishes go into “thermal shutdown” once they hit 122° Fahrenheit
#434Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a subsystem with three major sections, a working fluid , and its own heat rejection requirements. A resistive heater contains two parts - a properly placed wire and a switch.
Still say “sophisticated reverse heat engine” is a needlessly verbose way of saying refrigerator or heat pump. Also how sophisticated is something that is mass produced for devices sold under $100 in every big box retailer.
A refrigerator for a kitchen has drastically different constraints. The outside temp will always be something between 15-30 °C, the inside temperature will usually stay relatively constant unless you dump hot stuff in there.
Cooling for active outdoor technology has extremely variable outside temperatures (basically anything from -20 to 60 °C, or more if you take direct sunshine into account) and a constant generation of heat to be taken away.
Re: Starlink dishes go into “thermal shutdown” once they hit 122° Fahrenheit
#435Re: Starlink dishes go into “thermal shutdown” once they hit 122° Fahrenheit
#436I’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
Even in Northern Europe, a car parked in direct sunlight can easily get to 70C (160F) inside. In winter the same car may be expected to start up straight away without issues at -30C (-22F).
Re: Starlink dishes go into “thermal shutdown” once they hit 122° Fahrenheit
#437Re: Starlink dishes go into “thermal shutdown” once they hit 122° Fahrenheit
#438Earlier 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?
Do aircraft engineers get a pass? > the Bombardier CRJ aircraft used on some shorter routes have a maximum operating temperature of 118 degrees. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/20/533662790...
Is that plane temperature, or air temperature in the shade? Probably the latter?
In the case of Starlink's dish, it's not clear which temperature they mean.
Re: Starlink dishes go into “thermal shutdown” once they hit 122° Fahrenheit
#439Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surprisingly, the heating element built in appears to be pretty solid, or at least that's been the responses on /r/starlink. You're definitely right that people are hating on it. Most of the people I know in real life that knocked it have access to land based internet. Once you get out into rural areas where 4g is the basis for your internet, it's amazing.
Many of these folks are used to internet going out because the wind is blowing too hard, or it's raining, or snowing, or a cow is stepping on the fiber link. https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/how-cows-caused-s...
People are always surprised when I describe how bad the internet connection I have is here in the UK. 3meg down 0.2 up.
If it rains or is too windy the connection dies. I’ve spoke to bt and openreach hundreds of times but it never gets any better. I’m the last house on the end of a copper line and there is no interest in fixing it. Four years ago the village was supposed to get fibre, recently “delayed” again. I rely on the 3G signal, which isn’t much better tbh.
My Starlink arrives next week :) I’m so exited to be able to finally download some photos I put on google drive a couple of years ago.
Re: Starlink dishes go into “thermal shutdown” once they hit 122° Fahrenheit
#440I’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…
Samsung used to guarantee their smartphones to operate down to -4°F. Not sure they still do. Having trouble finding current information online.