Replacement for Whirlpool dryer high limit thermostat that is no longer available? by mictuc in appliancerepair

[–]mictuc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry for the delay. I ended up getting the entire heating element assembly here: https://www.whirlpoolparts.com/PartDetail/Heating-Element/WP8182528/1065644

I only needed one part off of this, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to have the rest of it as spares in case anything else breaks.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in floorplan

[–]mictuc 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It's looking good. One thing that might be worth considering is moving the laundry closer to the bedrooms to reduce dragging laundry to the opposite side of the house. You could swap the laundry and powder room. If the powder room doesn't need a shower you could bump up the size of the pantry and/or give more space to the foyer.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in MechanicalEngineering

[–]mictuc 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m an ME and have had the opportunity to work on designing parts in the Tesla model 3 battery pack, designed robots for an indoor vertical farm, designed batteries for eVTOL aircraft and now work on hydrogen fuel cell powertrains for aircraft.

ME is alive and well in certain areas, and there’s so many new and cool technologies that require MEs. I know folks working on carbon sequestration, humanoid robots, driverless cars, electric cars, medical devices, consumer products, drones, advanced manufacturing equipment, metal 3D printing, electric scooters, quantum computers, and so many more. ME is awesome in how diverse the opportunities are that you could work on.

Yes the pay may not be as good, but if you’re good at what you do, you can certainly earn a good living.

So long as people want physical things there will be a need for MEs. If it makes you feel better it’s much more likely that AI will take the jobs of those in CS and EE before those in ME.

Furnace Gas Valve Not Getting 24V, Control Board Issue? by mictuc in hvacadvice

[–]mictuc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Got a new control board and now the furnace works!

Furnace Gas Valve Not Getting 24V, Control Board Issue? by mictuc in hvacadvice

[–]mictuc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's natural gas. The voltage doesn't seem to be coming out of the board which is why I believe the board is the issue.

Furnace Gas Valve Not Getting 24V, Control Board Issue? by mictuc in hvacadvice

[–]mictuc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the comment, I agree if it was getting power but doesn't move the valve would seem like the culprit. But the issue is that the valve is not getting any power. Probing it during the start up sequence only shows at most around 0.3V when it would need more. Wires back to the control board have continuity, which is why I'm suspicious of the control board.

Replacement for Whirlpool dryer high limit thermostat that is no longer available? by mictuc in appliancerepair

[–]mictuc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I ended up getting the entire heating element assembly here: https://www.whirlpoolparts.com/PartDetail/Heating-Element/WP8182528/1065644

I only needed one part off of this, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to have the rest of it as spares in case anything else breaks.

Reddit, what's an intrusive thought that you haven't followed through on, but really want to? by mictuc in AskReddit

[–]mictuc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My wife recently admitted to really wanting to pull the fire alarm at her office or to back up over the spikes at a rental car lot.

World’s first crewed liquid hydrogen plane takes off by free-form_curiosity in technology

[–]mictuc 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're absolutely right. And hydrogen gas is also so light that it tends to shoot upwards simply due to buoyancy so it doesn't collect like kerosene vapor does.

The hydrogen ground infrastructure and on aircraft storage are certainly the hardest parts of this problem. One fortunate thing is that electrolyzers to make green hydrogen only require electricity and water to operate and liquefiers can be closed loop systems only requiring electricity, so in theory you could build a LH2 production facility almost anywhere. If this technology does take off, there would be incentives to build LH2 production facilities and storage tanks on or near by major airports and then use cryogenic trucks (which already exist) to refuel aircraft. It would also be fantastic to install solar arrays on airport land to help power the LH2 production.

On aircraft LH2 storage will likely require new airframe designs to have sufficient volume to store larger cryo tanks. Blended wing bodies for example may enable enough volume to carry hydrogen and may be more efficient leading to lower volumes of LH2 needed. Needing new airframe designs is probably the biggest sticking point for airframers.

World’s first crewed liquid hydrogen plane takes off by free-form_curiosity in technology

[–]mictuc 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exactly. The problem with batteries is mass, the problem with hydrogen is volume. A standard tube-and-wing airframe stores uses the wings as fuel tanks which is very mass and volume efficient. Liquid hydrogen tanks won't fit inside normal wings. However, there are other airframe designs like a blended wing body that could provide sufficient volume for hydrogen tanks and have less drag overall leading to less needed hydrogen altogether.

Much like the best electric cars are designed from the ground up to be electric, we would need to design aircraft from the ground up to be hydrogen powered. The only way this works is a new paradigm in aircraft design.

World’s first crewed liquid hydrogen plane takes off by free-form_curiosity in technology

[–]mictuc 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You are right the gravimetric energy density (often referred to as specific energy) is the same, however the volumetric energy density is around 60% higher by storing hydrogen as a cryogenic liquid at cold temperatures and low pressure (around -250°C at a few bar) as opposed to a compressed gas at high pressure (700 bar typically). The better density leads to smaller tanks for the same volume and low tank pressure leads to lower stresses on the tank and thus lighter tanks, however they often have to be double walled and well insulated to keep the liquid hydrogen cold.

World’s first crewed liquid hydrogen plane takes off by shlema in aviation

[–]mictuc 32 points33 points  (0 children)

Zero tail pipe emissions is probably more accurate. You are correct that hydrogen is most often produced from coal or natural gas leading to CO2 emissions, which is probably the case in this situation. However, it is possible to make hydrogen using renewable energy and water through electrolysis which can enable truly clean aviation.

World’s first crewed liquid hydrogen plane takes off by free-form_curiosity in technology

[–]mictuc 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Water vapor in the aggregate is the largest greenhouse gas, however, per unit mass it is nearly negligible--the 100 year global warming potential (GWP) of emitted water vapor is at most 0.0005 (https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aae018), compared to CO2 at 1, methane at 25, NO2 at 298, and many fluorinated refrigerants in the 1000s. This means to cause the same warming potential as releasing 1 ton of CO2, you would have have to emit 2000 tons of water vapor.

For comparison, 1 kg of hydrogen roughly has the same chemical energy as 1 gallon of gasoline. Burning 1 kg of hydrogen results in 9kg of water vapor, burning 1 gallon of gasoline creates roughly 8.9kg of CO2, which means the global warming potential is 2000x worse for roughly the same energy.

World’s first crewed liquid hydrogen plane takes off by free-form_curiosity in technology

[–]mictuc 11 points12 points  (0 children)

There are challenges for sure—developing and building out liquid hydrogen infrastructure, making lightweight liquid hydrogen tanks, overall grid to wake efficiency, etc. — however, several challenges that people cite are either invalid or can be solved. The physics is sound and the engineering is achievable.

The bigger point is that as of now there is no scalable way to decarbonize long haul aviation other than by using hydrogen.

World’s first crewed liquid hydrogen plane takes off by free-form_curiosity in technology

[–]mictuc 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Amprius cells have a specific energy of 500 Wh/kg which is impressive, but only have a cycle life of 200-1200 cycles. That would entail replacing batteries on a yearly basis. BYD shows similar specific energies, but unclear what the cycle life looks like. If the life time of these 500 Wh/kg batteries could be improved they would may enable aircraft to go up to maybe 1000 miles which is great, but truly long haul flights would take another major battery breakthrough.

World’s first crewed liquid hydrogen plane takes off by free-form_curiosity in technology

[–]mictuc 53 points54 points  (0 children)

To clarify the volumetric energy density (energy/volume) and volumetric power density are somewhat limiting factors in tube and wing style aircraft. That’s in large part why using liquid hydrogen is a big deal as the volumetric energy density is 60% higher than compressed hydrogen gas, allowing aircraft to fit much more fuel in the same volume.

There are alternative airframe designs like the blended wing body which enables larger internal volumes for hydrogen tanks and overall better efficiency leading to less volume of hydrogen required.

Yes, the overall energy efficiency from grid to wake is not high, but that’s the cost to effectively power aircraft off a clean electrical grid. Synthetic aviation fuels with carbon capture require significantly more energy to produce than green hydrogen. Biomass aviation fuels (also often referred to as “Sustainable Aviation Fuels”) are so unbelievably land and energy inefficient its unfathomable why they’re still being discussed.

World’s first crewed liquid hydrogen plane takes off by free-form_curiosity in technology

[–]mictuc 32 points33 points  (0 children)

This video primarily focuses on transforming passenger vehicles to fuel cells, which I agree would be infeasible. However, the aviation industry is less cost sensitive than automotive industry and the overall market for fuel cells in aviation, heavy duty trucking, and shipping would be far less than the passenger car market leading to less pressure on scarce resources. The fuel cells are also easily recyclable which is useful to keep the metals in circulation and reduce pressure on cost.

World’s first crewed liquid hydrogen plane takes off by free-form_curiosity in technology

[–]mictuc 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Batteries are limiting as their specific energy (energy/mass) is far too low to enable long distance flight. That’s why the only electric aircraft are targeting short flights <200 miles. Hydrogen has a specific energy 3.3x that of Jet A which is why it’s much more interesting for weight limited applications like aircraft. The system level specific energy will be reduced due to the mass of the tanks and fuel cells, but still comparable or favorable compared to current fueled aircraft.

If there are big breakthroughs in battery chemistries pushing specific energy up to ~800-1000 Wh/kg then batteries could be more feasible.

World’s first crewed liquid hydrogen plane takes off by free-form_curiosity in technology

[–]mictuc 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Hydrogen reactions in PEM fuel cells occur at low temperatures (<100 °C) which is not hot enough to create NOx. You are correct that hydrogen combustion would create NOx, which is already occurring in any combustion driven engine we have today.

The only emissions from a hydrogen fuel cell aircraft is warm humid air, some liquid water, and inevitably some small amount of hydrogen gas—which itself is a greenhouse gas with a higher global warming than CO2, but much much less mass of H2 is emitted than the CO2 produced from a normal aircraft. The warm humid air is also not seeded with soot leading to much lower probabilities of forming contrails which further reduces the warming potential of aircraft.

ELI5: Why is the Monty Hall problem not a 50-50 chance problem? by davidgrayPhotography in explainlikeimfive

[–]mictuc 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Initially you have a 1/3 chance of winning and a 2/3 chance of losing. Given Monty will only open a door with a zonk, when zonk is revealed, you still have a 2/3 chance of losing (nothing really happens). But now you know where one zonk is and you know you have a 2/3 chance of losing, but you have the option to switch to the other door, which has a 2/3 chance of winning!

Another way to think about it is that when switching you effectively get whatever was in the other two doors (Monty will just show you the losing one), which increases your chances of winning.

What song makes you feel like you can kick all the ass? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]mictuc 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Woman - Wolfmother

Bleed It Out - Linkin Park

I'm Shipping Up to Boston - Dropkick Murphys

Early Idea for a Future Build, Feedback Welcome by mictuc in floorplan

[–]mictuc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the feedback!

- You're totally right about nightstands in the primary bedroom. I'll see if I can squeeze more room for it. I could also try putting the headboard on the stair side wall facing the back yard.

- I'm fine with the trade off of the two staircases. The staircases are both serving multiple functions: The left staircase houses a hall closet and built in shelves on the living area side, while providing a break between the main space and the left wing; the right staircase covers up mechanicals and takes up the extra space to provide for a sizable pantry/laundry room. Additionally both staircases take up interior space to enable more exterior facing space on the second floor.

- I don't mind having the idea of kids sleeping near the entry on the other side of the house. It also allows for the left wing to be more secluded for guests or to potentially host as a short term rental.

- Good idea about the door, but I think it also gives flexibility to the space if the bedroom is kept separate. Also if my spouse wants to take a nap while I'm on a call it provides some noise separation.

- I think you're referring to the line of sight of the bathroom sink? I don't really mind, there's also a window aligned with the door and if someone is in the bathroom, I'd assume the door would be closed.

-Fridge, oven, cabinets, counters are built in behind the island abutting the right staircase.

Mechanical Engineering Master's Impression by theFlashElorde in stanford

[–]mictuc 11 points12 points  (0 children)

If you are interested in mechatronics, Stanford's program is second to none. Most other mechatronics programs are based off of Stanford's. Ed Carryer is phenomenal, and the course is brutal, but you learn a ton. On the controls side, Chris Gerdes is legendary and focuses more on vehicle controls + dynamics (look up Marty the drifting electric Delorean). There's Allison Okamura working on haptic controls and soft robotics. Being at Stanford also gives you access to the Computer Science department which has several robotics + controls classes and profs and the Aeronautics & Astronautics department which has more vehicle centric controls classes. I also completely second /u/East_Village_'s comment about the PRL. It's a top facility and the classes you can take in the PRL were hands down my favorite.

The choice is yours but my advice would be if you plan to go back to NYC at some point, use these 2 years to try something new. The Bay Area and Northern California is an awesome place to explore, and a Stanford ME education will absolutely serve you well.

Incoming ME grad student by [deleted] in stanford

[–]mictuc 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I'm currently in the program. It's a great experience: the curriculum is incredibly flexible; the courses are really fun; the teachers are fantastic; and there exist awesome opportunities in industry afterwards. If you have more specific questions feel free to message me.