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There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape

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Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape

#231

Post by eru »

pjmlp wrote: post #224
pkolaczk wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which is why when folks nowadays say "you cannot use XYZ for embedded", given what most embedded systems look like, and what many of us used to code on 8 and 16 bit home computers, I can only assert they have no idea how powerful modern embedded systems have become. Yet, I still need to wait about 1 second (!) after each key press when buying a parking ticket and the machine wants me to enter my license plate numbe…

What can you expect, when people assume as normal shipping the browser alongside the "native" application, and scripting languages using an interpreter are used in production code? Maybe that ticket machine was coded in MicroPython. /s

Interpreters don't have to be slow.

Forth is usually interpreted and pretty fast. And, of course, we have very fast Javascript engines these days. Python speed is being worked on, but it's pretty slow, true.

Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape

#232

Post by csomar »

pkolaczk wrote: post #217
pjmlp wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why when folks nowadays say "you cannot use XYZ for embedded", given what most embedded systems look like, and what many of us used to code on 8 and 16 bit home computers, I can only assert they have no idea how powerful modern embedded systems have become. Now that it is a pity that when people talk about saving the planet everyone keeps rushing to dispoable electronics, what serves me to go by bycicle to w…

> Which is why when folks nowadays say "you cannot use XYZ for embedded", given what most embedded systems look like, and what many of us used to code on 8 and 16 bit home computers, I can only assert they have no idea how powerful modern embedded systems have become. Yet, I still need to wait about 1 second (!) after each key press when buying a parking ticket and the machine wants me to enter my license plate numbe…

Everyone was locked out in a building am staying at (40 something stories) for several hours. When I asked the concierge if I can have a look at the system, it turns out they had none. The whole thing communicated with AWS for some subscription SaaS that provided them with a front-end to register/block cards. And every tap anywhere (elevators/doors/locks) in the building communicated back with this system hosted on AWS. Absolute nightmare.

Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape

#233

Post by torginus »

GeertB wrote: post #72

For these devices the microcontroller needs to be super cheap. Microcontrollers like the Puya PY32 Series (e.g., PY32C642, PY32F002/F030) can cost in the $0.02 - $0.05 range for the kind of many-million volumes applicable for disposable vapes. These are 32-bit ARM Cortex M0 MCUs, running at a 24 MHz clock or similar, some with 24 KB of ROM and maybe 3 KB of RAM! To put into context: this is 3x the ROM/RAM of the ZX81…

It also stood out to me how little stuff is in there - there's the uC itself, 3 transistors for heating the flavor canisters, an op-amp for the microphones, but other than that I don't really see anything - no external oscillator, no vrm (though a charger/BMS circuit must be in there somewhere).

Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape

#234

Post by csomar »

rob74 wrote: post #148
tombert wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a world we live in; we have gotten to a point where computers are so small and cheap that they can literally be “disposable”. It’s beautiful, I love it.

For my part, I hate anything explicitly labeled "disposable". As the author writes, you're supposed to recycle it, but how many people will do that if it has "disposable" written on it? Even worse, if it was truly disposable they could use a non-rechargeable battery, but because they have to keep up the pretense of it being reusable, they have to include a rechargeable battery with more dodgy chemistry that probably…

> As the author writes, you're supposed to recycle it, but how many people will do that if it has "disposable" written on it?

You need to offer an incentive (ie: discount on new vape if you recycle) and then, from my experience, most people will recycle.

Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape

#235

Post by eru »

rob74 wrote: post #148
tombert wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a world we live in; we have gotten to a point where computers are so small and cheap that they can literally be “disposable”. It’s beautiful, I love it.

For my part, I hate anything explicitly labeled "disposable". As the author writes, you're supposed to recycle it, but how many people will do that if it has "disposable" written on it? Even worse, if it was truly disposable they could use a non-rechargeable battery, but because they have to keep up the pretense of it being reusable, they have to include a rechargeable battery with more dodgy chemistry that probably…

Why recycle things that you can make them cheaper, with less resources and in higher quality from scratch?

(The above is not so much about processors, but about plastics. As long as we are still burning any fossil fuels at all, we are probably better off holding off on recycling and instead burning the plastic for electricity to use ever so slightly less new fossil fuels for power, and instead use the virgin fossil fuels to make new plastics.

Especially considering the extra logistics and quality degradation that recycling entails.

Directly re-using plastic bottles a few times might still be worth it, though.)

Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape

#236

Post by diffeomorphism »

robertjpayne wrote: post #56
smashed wrote: post #3

Many countries have deposits for single use bottles/cans but an electronic device with a lipo battery is seen as perfectly fine to throw away. These things should have 100 times the deposit amount of a can of soda with mandatory requirements for retailers to take the 'empties' back.

Why though? Bottles/cans are easily recycled and I believe the small reimbursement is easily recovered during the recycling costs. It's not profitable to recycle small electronic devices otherwise you'd see heaps of shops doing it. It's toxic, hazardous and labour intensive. 100 times the deposit amount would be like $5-10 USD per-device which is insane. I do agree that any retailers should be required to take back e…

Because they are a fire hazard:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62vk0p5dn5o

Trash compactors break the batteries in these things. A deposit could help to ensure that the vapes are disposed responsibly.

Other option: Add an "electronics" bin everywhere. Though that would be more expensive and less clear how effective it would be.

Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape

#237

Post by eru »

vasco wrote: post #179
rjh29 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Varies widely across country and the type of thing you're recycling. People are so extreme with recycling, it's either "recycle everything!" or "it's a scam, just chuck it all in the garbage"

It varies very widely indeed. In some countries it isn't a scam because it gets burned like Denmark but other than that majority of recycling just means shipping it to a landfill in a poor country that they promise to recycle.

Well, it depends a lot on material.

Metals, especially aluminum, get widely recycled because it actually makes financial sense.

Plastics, well, you are probably better off burning them for electricity.

Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape

#238

Post by eru »

smashed wrote: post #3

Many countries have deposits for single use bottles/cans but an electronic device with a lipo battery is seen as perfectly fine to throw away. These things should have 100 times the deposit amount of a can of soda with mandatory requirements for retailers to take the 'empties' back.

> Many countries have deposits for single use bottles/cans [...]

Yeah, the deposits for cans are a bit stupid: people already widely recycle aluminum (and scrap metals in general) purely for commercial reasons. No need for extra regulation there like mandatory deposits.

Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape

#239

Post by exikyut »

csomar wrote: post #232
pkolaczk wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which is why when folks nowadays say "you cannot use XYZ for embedded", given what most embedded systems look like, and what many of us used to code on 8 and 16 bit home computers, I can only assert they have no idea how powerful modern embedded systems have become. Yet, I still need to wait about 1 second (!) after each key press when buying a parking ticket and the machine wants me to enter my license plate numbe…

Everyone was locked out in a building am staying at (40 something stories) for several hours. When I asked the concierge if I can have a look at the system, it turns out they had none. The whole thing communicated with AWS for some subscription SaaS that provided them with a front-end to register/block cards. And every tap anywhere (elevators/doors/locks) in the building communicated back with this system hosted on A…

I wonder what happened to the building when us-east-1 went down.

Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape

#240

Post by anthk »

eru wrote: post #231
pjmlp wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What can you expect, when people assume as normal shipping the browser alongside the "native" application, and scripting languages using an interpreter are used in production code? Maybe that ticket machine was coded in MicroPython. /s

Interpreters don't have to be slow. Forth is usually interpreted and pretty fast. And, of course, we have very fast Javascript engines these days. Python speed is being worked on, but it's pretty slow, true.

Some Forths are dog slow such as PFE compared to GForth. Meanwhile others running in really slow platforms such as subleq (much faster in muxleq) run really fast for that the VM actually as (almost something slightly better than a 8086).
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