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The "All American Five", & more dangers!!

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schmitt trigger:
Back in the vacuum tube days, if one repaired electronic equipment, one acquired experience by getting  burned, shocked or cut.

Those were the good old days.   ;D

CatalinaWOW:
It all depends on what your definition of terribly unsafe is.  Over the last few decades the decimal point has moved several places.  I now watch national news items wringing their hands about something that has  "doubled the death rate".  From 2.4 per million to 4.2 per million.  Personally, I have trouble worrying about anything that is measured in per million, but that doesn't seem to be the general attitude these days.  Arguments about whether this is a good thing or a bad thing are best done in a pleasant setting with an adequate supply of beer.

james_s:

--- Quote from: 16bitanalogue on April 29, 2020, 05:10:51 pm ---
This goes beyond the Corvair itself. Nader's book sparked the safety revolution in the automotive industry. No one could reasonably argue that what has happened since was for naught.

Per Peter Kohler (retired GM engineer from the video):

"If you know what you are doing you can drive a Corvair." That right there is a red flag that such a car should not be a daily driver. Not only should I have a license, but like Hagerty I should be a race car driver to "know what I am doing." Peter goes on to state that other cars share the same type of suspension and implies that it is not that big of a deal. Sorry, but they are different cars that will have different handling capabilities. Per his own comparison of Corvair vs Porche. This sounds like a bitter, old man yelling at a cloud. These statements are immediately followed from Jim Musser, Head of GM Engineering at the time, "The problem was too much weight transfer to the rear axle...causing oversteering and eventually go out of control."

--- End quote ---

Bullshit.

All cars have handling characteristics that vary from other types of cars, a significant part of driving is knowing what you're doing. A high performance RWD sports car has a tendency to oversteer, FWD cars have torque steer, big older American cars understeer, trucks and SUVs have a high center of gravity making them prone to rollovers, a pickup truck with no load is very light in the back end which adds its own unique handling quirks, I could go on and on. As a driver it is 100% YOUR responsibility to learn the handling capabilities of the car you are driving and stay within the limit. You don't have to be a race car driver to safely drive a Corvair, you just have to be modestly competent and have a basic understanding of physics, something you should have to drive ANY car. The similarly configured VW Beetle he mentioned was safely driven by millions of people for decades. It was nowhere near as safe as modern cars but people somehow managed. The AA5 radios that started this thread, the VW Beetle, the Corvair, the Pinto, these were all designs that were made to satisfy a goal of low cost, (and high fuel efficiency in the case of the cars) making them affordable to as many people as possible. Designs that required compromises to attain these goals within the technology available at the time. Maybe kids these days are just completely out of touch with how things were just a few decades ago before the influx of incredibly cheap technology and toys that we have today.

Yes Nader's book did help kickstart some important changes, but calling the Corvair "unsafe at any speed" is pure hyperbole. Sensationalism to sell books.


Tom45:

--- Quote from: TimFox on April 29, 2020, 04:03:42 pm ---... Consolidated Edison in New York finally ceased DC distribution totally in 2007. ...

--- End quote ---

To be fair to Con Ed, I think they carried on with DC service for such a long time because there were a few elevators in NYC that used DC motors.  Substituting AC motors and controls was apparently deemed to be a bigger problem than just continuing DC service to the few ancient DC installations.

A search brought this article:
https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/off-goes-the-power-current-started-by-thomas-edison/

Apparently the hold outs haven't converted to AC. They just installed AC to DC converters on site.

james_s:

--- Quote from: Tom45 on April 30, 2020, 04:46:18 am ---To be fair to Con Ed, I think they carried on with DC service for such a long time because there were a few elevators in NYC that used DC motors.  Substituting AC motors and controls was apparently deemed to be a bigger problem than just continuing DC service to the few ancient DC installations.

A search brought this article:
https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/off-goes-the-power-current-started-by-thomas-edison/

Apparently the hold outs haven't converted to AC. They just installed AC to DC converters on site.

--- End quote ---

Makes sense. I could see it costing many millions to retrofit the elevators in an old building with a modern system. Assuming the old equipment is still serviceable then installing a rectifier to supply DC sounds like a pretty reasonable option. It's not like you can just swap out the motor, a conversion in a historic building would be opening a big can of worms.

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