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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

#441

Post by philistine »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #410
Aeolun wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> None of us would have designed a better submarine I dunno. I would never go with wireless over cabled, certainly not as my primary steering method, and it sure as hell wouldn’t be the only method onboard to control the thing. Maybe it’s better if these things are build by paranoid instead of adventurous people?

The use of a wireless input is a bit suspect, but the headline seems rather sensational to me. What’s wrong with using an inexpensive logitech component? The critical systems in my car are filled with cheap off-the-shelf components.

> cheap off-the-shelf components

Your car is filled with cheap off-the-shelf *car* components. There's far more scrutiny given to car parts, even though they're cheap stuff.

But to get back to the controller, while it's not necessarily the worst problem, it is emblematic. That's why people reduce it to that. It signifies immediately what kind of company they were. Emphasis on were.

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

#442

Post by strawhatguy »

fasthands9 wrote: post #415
brutusborn wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is definitely a difference, but it doesn’t really matter philosophically speaking. If people want to take huge risks, then so be it. Whether they build the sub themselves or pay and give that responsibility to a proxy, it is still up to them to make their own risk assessment.

This is not really how the government operates. If this was operating at scale the government would absolutely be involved. You can't just run cruise ship operations and advertising without government involvement. I dont see how this is any different. Perhaps you personally have a "so be it" libertarian view but thats not the view the government takes.

Oh government likes to step in alright. Doesn't mean they should, or that it helps as much for 'safety' as people would like to believe. Just as often rules can cause safety issues as not. But always more expense.

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

#443

Post by numpad0 »

Strom wrote: post #19
tredre3 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally believe using mass market makes sense. I don't understand the criticism I've seen on this website for using off the shelf controllers or camping lights (what do you expect, an LED strip magically engineered by a large aeronautics firm specifically for the sub? and what would that change?). That being said, the difference between a Microsoft controller and a third party is that Microsoft very certainly di…

Logitech has orders of magnitude more experience in manufacturing peripherals than Microsoft. That said, Logitech does make products in a wide price range and the low end isn't competitive with their own high end.

This type/class of wireless controllers are noticeably less dense and flimsier. They are not necessarily built worse, but this is "get what you pay for" product, which is to say it's great for undergraduate robotics projects that Microsoft or Sony designs at ~$65 is either an overkill or too complicated to interface with.

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

#445

Post by spinach »

StillBored wrote: post #315

A lot of people going on about the game controller, which itself wouldn't bother me if there was a direct connection way to control it too (aka via the touchscreens). What bothers me more and is clear as day in those pictures are things like the screws into the carbon fiber pressure hull holding the screens up. There was someone (ex test engineer?) on reddit yesterday talking about a few things, but what really stuck…

Isn't a leak at that depth one of the main causes of implosion?

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

#446

Post by class3shock »

IceHegel wrote: post #283
medellin wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what happens when you take the move fast and break things culture to anything where people die when things break. Really just sad and so stupid.

It’s sad of course, but the early days of flight were also quite dangerous but they lead to rapid innovation and the stable industry of today. It’s a tragedy, but high risk activities are by definition going to have a few.

But risk can be mitigated with proper engineering, testing, and manufacturing process control. These are all quite well understood just seemingly not well implemented by this company.

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

#447

Post by strawhatguy »

craftsman wrote: post #381
javajosh wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is simply unbelievable that the company was even able to get to the point of diving to such depths with humans aboard. As I get older, I see this sentiment as very naive. The tacit assumption seems to be that there is an agency, a government, an organization, that would review and approve such endeavors. But that's just not how the world works. You can't stop people from going to sea, or sending contraptions to t…

As I get older, I see this sentiment as very naive. The tacit assumption seems to be that every individual would review and approve every detail of every endeavor that they personally undertake. But that's just not how the world works. There are plenty of everyday people who want to attempt very reasonable and achievably safe things. You can stop people from taking advantage of others, and if there's any constant in…

Must be fairly young yet.

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

#448

Post by [deleted] »

hunson_abadeer wrote: post #341
rwmj wrote: post #46

There's a BBC documentary from last year which I just watched: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0fpz9zw and honestly a lot of it seems quite amateur hour. One of the steering motors was fitted backwards. When they discovered this, at the bottom of the ocean and a few hundred feet from Titanic, the solution they used was to hold the gamepad at right angles to compensate. That time they proceeded with the tour and mad…

Maybe so, but it's easy to say this after the fact. When kludges like this work, we admire "scrappy" and "ingenious" engineers who are finding ways to launch rockets or build submarines or medical devices or whatever for fraction the price. It's only when it blows up that it turns from "ingenuity" into "amateur hour". People who participated in this knew the risks. They fucked up. None of us would have designed a bet…

[deleted]

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

#449

Post by wongarsu »

Solvency wrote: post #438

"At the meeting Lochridge discovered why he had been denied access to the viewport information from the Engineering department—the viewport at the forward of the submersible was only built to a certified pressure of 1,300 meters, although OceanGate intended to take passengers down to depths of 4,000 meters. Lochridge learned that the viewport manufacturer would only certify to a depth of 1,300 meters due to experimen…

The sub has already survived multiple dives to 4000 meters, and so far nobody has come out with reports of any apparent problems with the viewport. Maybe it failed from an impact or from accumulated fractures from all these pressure cycles, but I'm also completely willing to believe that the depth-rating for human occupancy has enough of a safety factor that going 3 times deeper doesn't lead to failure.

From the pre-accident reports about the sub it seems like hull integrity was the thing they actually cared about the most, with everything else being in an even worse state. My money would be on the sub drifting somewhere with no power or no control or whatever.

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

#450

Post by nocoiner »

dharmab wrote: post #223
leipert wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Their game controllers are low quality. For example, home and professional desktop flight simulators prefer to use VKB or Virpil joysticks instead of Logitech or Thrustmaster.

I’ve owned and used Virpil and VKB, and they’re both terrific (Virpil is just insanely over the top good, though), but I wouldn’t even think to put them in the same sentence as Logitech. And I think Logitech makes pretty good peripherals generally! But that enthusiast sim stuff is just in a different realm.

Anyway, my point is, I wouldn’t necessarily look down on a Logitech controller. Now if it were MadCatz….

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