Bit rot in micro controllers? (2023 Update)

You think that politicians have a significant influence on the utility companies? You think that users (i.e., the public) can have a significant influence on politicians outside of election season? That would be a nice world, but it's a bit unrealistic.

(I don't have a more helpful answer, unfortunately, but I just can't see "pushing your politicians" as being a serious way to reduce power outages.)

Reply to
David Brown
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People do but many voters are not very smart. The cause here in CA is rather clear. A lot of extreme "green" requirements were foisted on utilities by incompetent or corrupt politicians. The result was neglect of the grid, high prices and frequent power shortages because they had to close fossil-fuel or nuclear plants.

Vote in better ones. But most voters just aren't smart enough for that. As had been very obvious when they didn't recall our governor who reportedly had some strange deals going on with a utility (the one with all the outgages and fires). When reporters questioned him about it in front of cameras his solution was to walk away. Voters should have walked him out of office.

Reply to
Joerg

Ladder logic.

Reply to
jlarkin

Agreed. However a dippy little 1.8 kW would run our place on _average_, but good luck using the dishwasher or the microwave. Even with 4.5 kW, the garbage disposal will trip the genny breaker.

The gas gen cost $500 or so, which makes mild abuse less of a worry, and as a bonus I can drive off to work without making the pipes freeze at home. ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

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Reply to
Phil Hobbs

"Plastics"

Reply to
Rick C

On a sunny day (Thu, 16 Dec 2021 17:22:23 -0800) it happened snipped-for-privacy@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote in snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Yes I remember the PLC guys where I worked used that, never used it myself.

But as with all things, if YOU do not know how to do it, then throwing any language at it will not work either

If I do not know the answer to a question on some subject in English, then translating the question in <name you language> will not help.

But maybe it will all change:

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So you train your oven, hit it if it does not do it right and pet it if OK, after many iterations it will know by itself ?? :-)

It is a strange world really, Many years ago I made this web page

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hold a picture from mars express
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a link to Dr Levin's site
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he was the one from the Viking experiment that tested positive for life on mars. Reaull Vallis...

Yesterday CNN published this:

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Valles Marineris...

I think, when the Viking experiment was denied, it was the religious forces in the US that denied it and sabotaged all next mars missions to look at places were life was as unlikely as possible., like landing in a volcanic crater.

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it conflicts with their beliefs... Life is (IMO) everywhere, just like atoms and other constructs of particles are everywhere my hope is on China to confirm that. US is dead and hampered by religious dogma.

So subject change Some other theories (insights) I had was also confirmed this week. That is really rare..

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how oil formed, just condensed atmosphere, it is everywhere.

And to make the turn back to 'trickety, 2 days ago my 250 Ah 12V lithium power pack arrived from China no idea why no import taxes this time, maybe sender payed it, it is on test for capacity now. With a power converter you could run your oven on it for some time. Let's say to cover the next mains outage for example. Came with charger, nice LCD display.... Or on the boat to a deserted island when ByeThen starts nuking China and Russia ...

You know who I am, you stared at the sun, I am the one who likes changing from nothing to one' - Leonard Cohen

Reply to
Jan Panteltje

It is becoming the same in the UK. We used to have reliable electricity supply but a combination of lack of investment and privatisation has led to a serious lack of infrastructure maintenance so that a stiff breeze will cause total chaos - especially in the North and Scotland.

Problem is that the distribution companies priorities are:

  1. Maximise CEO's bonus
  2. Maximise share price
  3. Maximise dividends to shareholders

Customer service and operational reliability come a distant fourth.

The only thing we can do individually is to have a generator and power blocks for the iToys (since Apple kit is rather tetchy about taking charge from non-Apple in car USB chargers). We discovered that the hard way iPhone was effectively bricked for most of the storm Arwen blackout.

OTOH the night sky was brilliant with no street lamps at all. I could see the milky way and Andromeda galaxy clearly through thin cloud.

I am going to give it a try since the performance of Northern Powergrid was piss poor from beginning to end. They even sent me a text saying "make other arrangements for tonight power will not be back on until tomorrow lunchtime at the earliest" just after power was restored!

I didn't get their first message of that sort until the morning after the night before (arrived 8am). Thank heavens for wood burning stoves!

Reply to
Martin Brown

I appreciate that - and its a challenge in many countries, and many aspects of society. Private companies work well for many purposes, but for nation-wide critical infrastructure, privatisation is insane. Competition and market forces don't work for power grids - it is not as if you can choose to connect your house to a different company's power grid if the one you have is unreliable!

It is very rare that we have power cuts here in Norway. Anywhere over a certain size of population (and the limit is not high) has at least two independent lines coming into the area from different directions. There were serious cuts in parts inland in the country fairly recently, but that storm blew down /forests/ (literally leaving them flat), not just a few trees.

Our grid is run by a single state-owned company. No doubt the CEO is ridiculously over-paid. But apart from that, it isn't run to make a profit (but not a loss either) - and if it /does/ make a profit, that goes back to the big melting pot of tax-payers money.

Reply to
David Brown

Do you understand how representational democracies work? Except in a few extreme cases, elections are not decided on individual issues - you vote for the politicians or parties that you think will do the best job overall. No matter how smart the voters (and let's face it, few of them are particularly smart and there is no test for basic political knowledge to qualify for voting), you are always balancing issues. You might disagree entirely with a party in how they stand on electricity generation and distribution - yet vote for it because of their stance on taxes, health, education, or whatever. And you don't get to choose the candidates either - if the party that you think should be running the place has fielded an idiot in your area, tough. (Democracy is, after all, the worst possible system - apart from all the rest.)

Reply to
David Brown

LL is not a language; nothing is typed. The model is a diagram of switches and relay coils, which is very intuitive. There are small PLCs for roughly $100, with industrial-type inputs and outputs. Not a bad way to control a simple machine.

Reply to
jlarkin

fredag den 17. december 2021 kl. 16.18.05 UTC+1 skrev snipped-for-privacy@highlandsniptechnology.com:

you can get cheaper than that, and if you get tired of drawing relays you can reflash the STM32 with something written in C or what ever you prefer.

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Reply to
Lasse Langwadt Christensen

12:56 PM (0 minutes ago)

A notation does not have to be typed to be a programming language. There are strongly typed, weakly typed and untyped languages. Then there is static and dynamic typing. Most (all?) assembly languages are untyped and are considered a programming language. LL does have semantics and syntax. It is considered a visual (graphical) programming language. J

Reply to
Three Jeeps

I think he meant "typewritten". Ladder logic is drawn.

Jeroen Belleman

Reply to
Jeroen Belleman

It doesn't use words or letters. Nothing is typed.

Call that a language if you want. A schematic becomes a language. Building a house from Legos could be a language. Or making a sandwich. Assembly languages are certainly typed. MOVE.B addresses bytes, MOVE.L longwords.

Reply to
John Larkin

Alas, for controlling a stove, or washer, or other appliance, there's a requirement for a suitable display of status, and control settings, as well as switching the currents. That means a full fledged general purpose processor, display, etc. , not just a 'controller'.

My sister's clothes washer has a sticky clock motor, the 'official' parts are unobtainium, and it's near impossible to clean/relube. If it were solid state, could be just as impossible to replace (bad Intel 8039? Maybe, you can scavenge one from an old board?).

The (otherwise functioning) motor, pump, tub, hoses, valves, etc. are going to the dump.

Reply to
whit3rd

Does a pellet stove need a status display page? Include a web server!

I had to replace the drum timer on our washing machine. It wasn't bad at all, after watching some youtubes.

Reply to
John Larkin

I've also seen bad arcing in the "points" lead to an irreparable state.

If the binary is accessible, you could likely *emulate* whatever processor it used in a *cheaper*, more modern, processor.

Amusing (dismaying!) to see how much crud ends up there. Sadly, labor costs to refurbish are too high to be practical. When you lift a $40K electric wheelchair into the tip and note that it's not the *first* (nor the last)...

*But*, we'll know where to scrounge parts when the apocalypse comes!

(e.g., 3-finger Jake's toaster ovens!)

Reply to
Don Y

On a sunny day (Fri, 17 Dec 2021 14:17:23 -0800 (PST)) it happened whit3rd snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

I did that once, replaced the mechanical clock in my old washing machine with a PIC and the temp sensor with some semiconductor. It worked, and then bought a new one, the old one to the dump. The new one (Whirlpool) broke don after 2 weeks, was repaired under guarantee guy let me have the old module, found what was wrong with it, power regulator chip ordered 10 from ebay for 10$ or so, and sure enough bit later same error in my Whirlpool dryer. and then later again in the washer... Was probably mains spikes in the old house, so far here all is working.

Reply to
Jan Panteltje

Sounds like Labview! <gag, retch>

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Reply to
Phil Hobbs

I haven't used ladder logic, but when I looked at it it seemed to be typical of domain specific languages (DSLs): strange but perfectly adequate for common simple applications. But if you try to go beyond the undefined and invisible boundary and you'll feel like you're falling off a cliff.

I imagine all sorts of kludges have been added to basic ladder logic to try to extend its range. Such additions usually end up as incomprehensible cancerous growths.

Reply to
Tom Gardner

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