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Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

arstechnica.com

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Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#141

Post by jazzyjackson »

klabb3 wrote: post #120
idop wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So apparently this OceanGate company is a VC-funded startup or some such founded "to make underwater exploration cheaper and accessible to private citizens" (Wikipedia quote). Tells me everything I need to know about how this all came to be.

I don’t think this is (was) a money maker at all. There’s a clip on YouTube where they invited a CBS journalist to join. The CEO, to me, seems like a passionate dreamer who definitely 100% ate his own dog food (ie took huge personal risk). He was onboard this likely final voyage. They didn’t make any profit, at least back then. It’s obviously incredibly expensive and near-impossible to scale such an operation. Look,…

VCs are all about finding someone with a genuine passion and pushing enormous expectations of profit onto them.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#142

Post by HideousKojima »

dmonitor wrote: post #109
leipert wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Logitech “off brand”. They are well known for input devices.

Their controllers are well known for being garbage. People that take video games seriously can tell you all of the different reasons why they "feel worse" or are just less reliable than OEM. It's a $30 controller where the "standard" option is around $60. The "premium" market where they are custom made for important use cases (ie, competitive Melee tournament) can easily reach into multiple hundreds of dollars, using…

I have the wired version of the controller in the article and actually like it quite a bit, but it definitely isn't as rugged as an official Xbox controller would be. The main features I like on it are a way to switch between DirectInput and XInput modes and the ability to swap the left thumbstick and dpad.

Definitely wouldn't trust it for a submarine though.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#144

Post by bigmattystyles »

vlod wrote: post #118
shadowgovt wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was wondering how naval submarines work when they get in trouble. Naval subs in trouble? They go "forever on patrol." A naval sub is an espionage watercraft; signaling an emergency isn't exactly in the playbook for most of their mission cycle. ;)

The alternative is death of 134 odd people. Not ideal. :/ I would expect some e2e encryption satellite communication, however that might be still traceable to the enemy listening posts. Man, I now need to watch "Hunt for Red October" again [0]. lol [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C2tE7vjdHk

"1 ping only" -Russian sub captain with Scottish accent for some reason. It's still one of my favorite movies though.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#145

Post by madaxe_again »

orangepurple wrote: post #93
J_cst wrote: post #13

My 11yo son asked me why they did not connect a buoy to the submarine with a string. Lol

Do the math exercise with him for how much volume 2 miles of string takes up

You’re aware of ROVs? They usually communicate with an umbilical, which is considerably fatter than a piece of string. It’s deployed from the surface vessel, not from the ROV. The same could just as easily apply.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#146

Post by rhyst »

orangepurple wrote: post #93
J_cst wrote: post #13

My 11yo son asked me why they did not connect a buoy to the submarine with a string. Lol

Do the math exercise with him for how much volume 2 miles of string takes up

Using 9mm diameter semi static climbing rope as an example.

For volume: Volume of 4km of rope is 0.009^23.144000 = 1.02m^2 which seems like an amount that would fit on a large spool on a ship.

For weight: rope itself weighs about 60g per meter so 0.06*4000=230kg of rope. It has a breaking strength of 22kN, which is roughly 2000kg static load. Given everything is probably roughly neutrally buoyant seems like enough.

Not saying its practical but it seems like the actual volume/weight of rope would not be a problem.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#147

Post by beachy »

taylorbuley wrote: post #73

If the device into which you are plugging that steering device is a regular old PC, as it seems to be here, then something like a Logitech seems like exactly what one might recommend as the USB peripheral. Redundancy plans become easier, not harder, with consumer-grade hardware that can be swapped out during failure.

> Redundancy plans become easier, not harder, with consumer-grade hardware that can be swapped out during failure.

True enough on the surface. Not in a mini sub. They couldn't carry spares of everything.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#148

Post by dragonwriter »

srmarm wrote: post #3

The US Navy uses an Xbox 360 controller in active service [0] Mass market has a lot of R&D to leverage so it makes sense. Nothing to say this is the cause of the fault and probably going to be more reliable than something hand rolled. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/19/16333376/us-navy-military...

> The US Navy uses an Xbox 360 controller in active service

To control periscopes (“photonics masts”), and some other equipment, not for primary control of manned vehicles, that I can find any indication of.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#149

Post by dragontamer »

WhereIsTheTruth wrote: post #138
srmarm wrote: post #3

The US Navy uses an Xbox 360 controller in active service [0] Mass market has a lot of R&D to leverage so it makes sense. Nothing to say this is the cause of the fault and probably going to be more reliable than something hand rolled. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/19/16333376/us-navy-military...

> Mass market has a lot of R&D to leverage so it makes sense. Nothing to say this is the cause of the fault and probably going to be more reliable than something hand rolled. Consumer grade products aren't built to last, they are built to be cheap so they can sell them to actual consumers We all know how the military ends up using these consumer grade products; lobbying, aka deep state corruption "if that happens in…

> Consumer grade products aren't built to last, they are built to be cheap so they can sell them to actual consumers

Video game gamepads are probably some of the most well designed pieces of equipment I know of, with each part having a guaranteed lifetime of clicks and/or swipes, and other such details.

Video gamers are really obsessive over these details. It wouldn't be surprising to me if the latest hall-effect sensor joypads are the best durability in the world for thumbpads.

That being said: a cheap Logitech controller would be an old potentiometer-based controller with far less durability. I'm sure if I asked around, someone out there knows the specifications and would know when to regularly replace that gamepad after X-hours of use (and I'd expect X-hours to be in excess of 1000 hours, maybe even 10,000+ hours, even for a gamepad like that)

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I think where video gamers are getting wow'd is that... they weren't using like a brand-name controller here. $30 Logitech is low-end. Video gamers know which controllers to rely upon.

Bottom of the barrel $30 Logitech is barely something I feel good about giving to a friend during a gaming session, let alone a life-or-death equipment choice for steering a submarine. You get far more reliable, higher-quality gamepads at the $50 or even $80 levels.

I don't think video gamers would be hating on these guys if they used... I dunno... an 8bitdo + GuliKit Hall Effect controller. We'd all be like "Oh yeah, that's quality stuff" (the Bluetooth is unreliable but I assume some kind of wired version is available somewhere...)

The top end joysticks used in video game tournaments for maximum reliability are easily $200+.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#150

Post by flangola7 »

Flammy wrote: post #107
orangepurple wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do the math exercise with him for how much volume 2 miles of string takes up

Do the math for the weight of a string 2 miles long. Then take a look at how much weight a string can hold up. Then you're ready to be taking on space elevators

Weight and mass are not the same.
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