On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 13:22:57 -0500, in sci.electronics.design
jakdedert wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
qrk wrote:
Technology is, many times, a PITA!


You're not supposed to sit on it!


Oh yeah?

http://www.sandman.com/intimst.html

jak
hmm,

the IntiMist must be located within 3 feet of a 110VAC 60 cycle US
style AC power receptacle. It uses a maximum of 465 watts.

Why 3 feet?


martin

"martin griffith" wrote in message
...
the IntiMist must be located within 3 feet of a 110VAC 60 cycle US
style AC power receptacle. It uses a maximum of 465 watts.

Why 3 feet?

Perhaps because the designers figured the bathroom itself was also designed to
accomodate it, and therefore there'll be an outlet immediately adjacent to the
toilet, so a longer cord would just get in the way?

In article ,
says...
"Franc Zabkar" wrote in message
...
I recently went shopping for a washing machine. I only saw one that
didn't have a microcontroller. As an engineer I can appreciate the
gadgetry, but as a tech I also understand the repair cost.

In theory the electronic ones should be more reliable... the traditional
washing machine timer, with a bazillion little detents pressing spring-leaf
switches *will* fail, it's just a question of when.

In practice I wouldn't be surprised if the electronic ones weren't
particularly more reliable. The fact that anyone can easily sit down and
building a washing machine controller or similar in a matter of weeks now
has unfortunately often made reliability something of a secondary concern to
manufacturers, it would seem.

Electronically controlled appliances have had a long history of being
zapped. Mechanical controls are more robust.

--
Keith

On Apr 23, 11:53 am, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:
jakdedert wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
qrk wrote:
Technology is, many times, a PITA!

You're not supposed to sit on it!

Oh yeah?

When was the last time you sat on a hot soldering iron, or the second
anoode lead of a TV that was on? ;-)

I only tried to catch a dropped soldering iron once.

Richard Henry wrote:

On Apr 23, 11:53 am, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:
jakdedert wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
qrk wrote:
Technology is, many times, a PITA!

You're not supposed to sit on it!

Oh yeah?

When was the last time you sat on a hot soldering iron, or the second
anoode lead of a TV that was on? ;-)

I only tried to catch a dropped soldering iron once.


I caught one that rolled of someone else's workbench once. I saw
something rolling off the bench out of the corner of my eye, and caught
it before I realized what it was. I burnt three fingers and the palm of
my hand pretty bad. Luckily, I had some very thick military surplus
"Solenoid Lubricant" which was a very thick silicon grease. I smeared it
over the wounds within seconds, which prevented the burnt tissue from
drying out. Two weeks later there was almost no sign of the burns.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 18:53:38 +0000, Michael A. Terrell wrote:
jakdedert wrote:
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
qrk wrote:
Technology is, many times, a PITA!

You're not supposed to sit on it!

Oh yeah?

When was the last time you sat on a hot soldering iron, or the second
anoode lead of a TV that was on? ;-)

I once had a hot power resistor hanging off the edge of my bench, and when
some guy came up to ask me a question, it melted a rectangular hole in
his polyester double-knits. :-)

Cheers!
Rich

On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:59:39 +0200, martin griffith wrote:
On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 13:22:57 -0500, in sci.electronics.design
jakdedert wrote:
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
qrk wrote:
Technology is, many times, a PITA!

You're not supposed to sit on it!

Oh yeah?

http://www.sandman.com/intimst.html

the IntiMist must be located within 3 feet of a 110VAC 60 cycle US
style AC power receptacle. It uses a maximum of 465 watts.

Why 3 feet?

Power cord limitations, probably. It only gets connected to the
cold water line, and instant hot water can take some kilowatts.

Cheers!
Rich

On Apr 23, 1:49 pm, Rich Grise wrote:
On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:59:39 +0200, martin griffith wrote:
On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 13:22:57 -0500, in sci.electronics.design
jakdedert wrote:
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
qrk wrote:
Technology is, many times, a PITA!

You're not supposed to sit on it!

Oh yeah?

http://www.sandman.com/intimst.html

the IntiMist must be located within 3 feet of a 110VAC 60 cycle US
style AC power receptacle. It uses a maximum of 465 watts.

Why 3 feet?

Power cord limitations, probably. It only gets connected to the
cold water line, and instant hot water can take some kilowatts.


The facrory must have an interesting test department.

"Richard Henry" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Apr 23, 1:49 pm, Rich Grise wrote:
On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:59:39 +0200, martin griffith wrote:
On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 13:22:57 -0500, in sci.electronics.design
jakdedert wrote:
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
qrk wrote:
Technology is, many times, a PITA!

You're not supposed to sit on it!

Oh yeah?

http://www.sandman.com/intimst.html

the IntiMist must be located within 3 feet of a 110VAC 60 cycle US
style AC power receptacle. It uses a maximum of 465 watts.

Why 3 feet?

Power cord limitations, probably. It only gets connected to the
cold water line, and instant hot water can take some kilowatts.


The facrory must have an interesting test department.

I have done lighting work for a number of small-time car dealers in my area.
The industry here is dominated by "Middle Easterners". Those items are quite
popular with them, which flies in the face of everything I've heard about
that "culture".

"Joel Kolstad" wrote in message
...
Hi Pete,

I think you make a good case that, if you're stuck out in the boonies
somewhere, electro-mechanical washers are probably the way to go, since
when they do break you'll have a pretty good shot at being able to repair
them yourself. :-) Electronically controlled machines... not so much
(ok, maybe not at all...).

"Pete Wilcox" wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.60.0704231458490.4081@squire...
Any weak solder joint in the "electronic" equivalent, subject to the same
mechanical forces, can produce an "intermittent" failure mode that can be
an absolute ******* to track down, and result in many hours of fruitless
investigation.

It just seems to me that with appropriate quality control and design
(including isolation mounting, etc.), you should be able to design a
washing machine controller board with an MTBF of, say, 100 years.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Electronically controlled washers are typiclaly a lot more water and
electiricity efficient than the old "fixed cycle" designs. This might not
rise to the level of "broken," (although Jim's leftist weenie greenies
would disagree :-) ) but it's close enough that newer machines can be
considered "valid" improvements, IMO.

---Joel


There are high efficiency washing machined which still use the old
mechanical timers. Yes the timer can fail- but it is cheap and easy to
replace. The washing efficiency comes from the mechanical design, more than
the electronics. The most useful electronics involved are in the direct
drive motor control and load sensing- of which the latter can be done with a
manual switch. The electronics, except for control of direct drive motors
doesn't make the washer more efficient. It makes more complexity possible
(often where it isn't needed). For manufacturers, the electronic controls
offer the PR advantage of 57 wash cycles, lots of lights, 20 spin speeds
and 10 temperature settings at little cost over simpler machines but
sellable at a premium price because of these (and typically not used).

Oh boy, it's dark, turn the car lights on: It's raining so the wipers should
be going on- Oh boy, if the driver can't see that it is dark or it is
raining- how did he get a license?
Contrast this with computer control of engine and transmission which
provides useful optimisation of performance.

Having said that, appropriate use of electronics does have advantages but
"appropriate" is the key word. Does it mean more complexity just because it
is possible? I hope not.
Now An MtBF of 100 years for an electronic module in a washing
machine -which is not the "one horse shay" of the poem, is, while possible,
not realistic considering the useful life of the mechanical parts. It can
be done-at what cost? Remember that repair of the electronics is simply the
replacement of the old part by a new part rather- do you expect the repair
technician to do actual fault analysis and repair of the faulty part? Throw
away and replace is the philosophy and has been for many years (not only in
electronics). Customer pays and will pay more for an electronic module than
for a clock driving cams (which actually may cost more to make).
(sorry was burnt on an electronic stove control which, in the middle of the
night, ran a self check and then would beep because something failed
(actually moisture fooling it -poor design)- $300 shot. Initially on
warranty but later it wasn't. Now I have replaced the whole stove and won't
buy a certain well known brand. Still electronic control but better design
for the application)

A lot of devices use "electronic" as sales pitch hype -e.g. toasters. The
fact that there may be no electronics involved doesn't matter.

K.I.S.S. is still and always be a valid approach.
--

Don Kelly
remove the X to answer
----------------------------

On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 23:30:42 GMT, "Don Kelly" wrote:

[snip]

There are high efficiency washing machined which still use the old
mechanical timers. Yes the timer can fail- but it is cheap and easy to
replace.
[snip]

In my poorer days I've been known to replace cam switch springs with
appropriately trimmed safety pins... worked for two more years ;-)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

America: Land of the Free, Because of the Brave

"Don Kelly" wrote in message
news:CkbXh.120046$6m4.44345@pd7urf1no...
The washing efficiency comes from the mechanical design, more than the
electronics. The most useful electronics involved are in the direct drive
motor control and load sensing- of which the latter can be done with a
manual switch.

Sure, but there's clearly a convenience factor involved in building a washer
that can automatically balance itself.

I also imagine that you do some amount of automatic water level/wash time
regulation based on simple electronics, but it seems to me that it should
again become more reliable -- and potentially much more robust -- if you take
some simple sensors and feed them to a microcontroller to chew on.

Another convenience example: In some non-U.S. countries, houses have multiple
power hookups, where one's only active at night and is priced at a lower
charge than the "regular" hookup. Most people have, e.g., their water heaters
on it. For an electric dryer, it's trivial to build an electronic timer into
a dryer so that it can also use that same hookup, whereas for a mechanical
dryer you'd need something like a spring-wound timer that would set the delay
before it started. I'd be quite surprised if the price or reliability of such
a mechanical timer was better than that of an electronic version (you can
literally use a $0.25 microcontroller and $0.25 LCD...).

I do agree that, in many cases, electronic control is used as a marketing tool
to provide additional, largely superfluous, "bells and whistles" that allow
manufacturers to obtain higher margins. This is no different than stainless
steel or just colored enameled appliances also commanding a disproportionately
larger price, the upcharge automobile manufacturers have for leather seats,
etc.

Oh boy, it's dark, turn the car lights on: It's raining so the wipers should
be going on- Oh boy, if the driver can't see that it is dark or it is
raining- how did he get a license?

There's a huge difference between what people know they "should" do and what
they "really" do. Good engineering is giving people as few chances to screw
up as possible, while not unduly limiting their choices.

A lot of devices use "electronic" as sales pitch hype -e.g. toasters. The
fact that there may be no electronics involved doesn't matter.

I'm sure there are still plenty of crappy toasters out there, but I never met
*any* some 20+ years ago that would reliably toast multiple slices one right
after another without allowing the toaster to cool inbetween sets. This isn't
surprising since they were just thermal switches to pop-up the toast, of
course. Today there are electronically-controlled toasters that can easily
perform this feat.

K.I.S.S. is still and always be a valid approach.

Yes, but there's a very wide range of "simple" when you'll selling to a large
market. Look at MP3 players: Part of Apple's success with the iPod is that it
is *very* simple to use, but this also makes it nowhere near as
customizable/tweakable as various non-Apple MP3 players. Many people (myself
included) think of the iPod as a toy meant for grade schoolers -- yet clearly
a very large portion of the market doesn't see it this way at all.

Heck, remember that Joerg sees no value in upgrading to HDTV or even DVDs. :-)

---Joel