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Comment Legal question (Score 5, Insightful) 169

So, legally speaking, is it not the case that if laws are being broken, NDAs are not valid? I mean, my employer could make me sign an NDA that says I cannot say anything about what the company does outside, but if I learn that the company is engaging in illegal actions, that NDA would not hold in court, does not it? Also, could not they unionize? Just asking...

Comment Re: What about blackouts? (Score 1) 434

Yes, that works in cases like the Blackout of 2003. It does not work if the blackout is caused by a hurricane and there are clouds everywhere. Plus it does not give you mobility to go away from the area and you need a really big system to charge one or two cars entirely on your solar. And you need to have a solar system tan can work without grid power.

Comment What about blackouts? (Score 1) 434

The times that a hybrid is really way better is when a natural disaster hits or when a blackout hits. Northeast blackout of 2003 anyone? Some places where without electricity for two days where other more unlucky ones did not have electricity for up to 2 weeks. Cellphone towers depleted their backup generator fuel; people could not charge their phones; internet went down; cable tv died... POTS and Amateur Radio became the norm to rely messages. If that would happen in these times and a Tesla owner gets stuck in New York, he might not have enough range to go to a place without electricity. Whereas pumping gas might be easier to do without electricity (a generator is more efficiently run to pump gas vs charge a car, hand pump, etc) besides it is way easier to store 200 miles worth of travel in gasoline than in electricity (Model 3 battery capacity is 75kWh for 300miles vs 10 gallons of gas for about 500 miles. Storing electricity in a power wall: 13.3kWh and cannot travel with the power wall; two 5 gallon cans allow to travel far more)...

Comment EMC Testing? (Score 1) 173

I wonder if the manual states that you should not place it near a device that produces electromagnetic radiation. I would assume that this device complies with FCC and there is no radiation being emitted which would violate the FCC terms. Failing when the device is near an EMI source might be OK per FCC rules but it looks bad... I would imagine they did full EMC compliance testing. At the company I work for, EMC testing is a big deal. We spend several weeks testing for radiated and conducted emissions, radiated and conductive immunity (the test this monitor might fail), transient on power, ESD, etc etc etc.... Also, I wonder what type of router makes it fail more, in other words, is it more susceptible to the GHz range radiation or the MHz radiation. Or if the router is plugged to the same outlet or if the cables go near them (that would point more to a conducted immunity issue). This is really interesting... I have the impression that it is rare that consumer electronics are THAT affected by EMC.

Comment Enclosure, cooling and connectivity (Score 1) 202

You will need an IP66 enclosure. If your water jets are not that powerful maybe an IP65 enclosure. Search for them, there are plenty (not cheap though). Assuming that power is not a limitation (not a green device by any means), you can use a peltier cell or some of them to actively cool your device. Attach then directly to the steel of the enclosure. Put a heat-sink in each side. On the inside you can put a smaller heat-sink with fan. On the outside, use a bit fan-less heat-sink. You will need a big power supply to power the peltiers. You will need IP66 connectors. There are plenty of connectors (Google, Digikey, mouser are your friends). There are offerings from almost any type of connector (USB, Ethernet, Power). There are also LEDs, switches and other gadgets you could use in your box. Using this will be an expensive solution but you will not have problems with water getting into your computer.

Comment Re:The right enclosure (Score 2) 202

But that is an IP24 so it will not work for his application. So he needs IPX6 or greater (usually you will get IP66). Depending on what he means with "High pressure jet" it will be IP66 or IP65. Something like this: http://www.tteglobal.com.au/tt... And then he could use a fan inside with a heater exchanger, water to the outside and another heater exchanger with a fan outside. All sealed.

Comment Re:The world... (Score 1) 236

I started my career as a Digital Designer. It is difficult specially when you are trying to do things like you described. But you can simulate so much and the results in simulation are normally the results you get in real life. And when real life and simulation does not match is usually because analog problems. With so much digital work being done nowadays in FPGAs, a mistake in the hardware (described in a language) is easy to change (Granted, a big image could take 24+ hours to build, but that is nothing to the 4 weeks + of a board spin) Then I switched to Analog Design. I can tell you, amplifying a signal so that then it can be read by a 24-bit ADC and you get 24 bits of useful data is by no means easy. You can simulate (PSPICE) but you wont get all the parasitic in the PCB, the parts, the way you solder.... There are way more many variables in analog design, variables that so many times are in the margin of your control....

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