• caseyweederman@lemmy.ca
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        7 months ago

        Apparently I can watch that video every couple months and still be equally amazed by it.
        Please remind me to watch this again in a few months, it’s super cool.

        • BearOfaTime
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          7 months ago

          Right?

          I’m continually blown away at what 19th-century engineers understood and could do.

      • kholby@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        I knew exactly which video that would be. Such a perfectly clear explanation.

        • BearOfaTime
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          7 months ago

          There’s a bunch of old training vids like that on YouTube. Lots of people could learn how to present from them - they’re so much better than most stuff on YouTube.

        • snooggums@kbin.social
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          7 months ago

          There are a lot of these from back in the couple of decades after WWII when society actually cared about science and knowledge and companies used the spreading of knowledge as a selling point.

    • towerful@programming.dev
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      7 months ago

      https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Around_the_Corner_(1937)_24fps_selection.webm

      Wiki to the rescue!
      It’s a great video from 1937.

      How the automobile differential allows a vehicle to turn a corner while keeping the wheels from skidding. Reverse telecine & introduction edited out.

      And the article has info as well https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_(mechanical_device)

      Modern cars have “traction control”, which detects when a wheel turns more than the other wheel. If it turns too much more, it will engage a “diff lock” and lock the differential which makes each wheel turn with the same power/speed/energy as if the differential was just a solid axle.

      The long & the short of it is that a differential is only “1 wheel drive” when the differential “thinks” (it’s not smart) it should put all the power into 1 wheel - which is when the cars computer locks the differential.

      • BearOfaTime
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        7 months ago

        That’s only some cars.

        Many today still use open diffs. Some use open diffs and braking to produce a result that looks like traction control or a torque biasing diff.

        Some cars use electronically-controlled diffs that can vary pressure on clutches using simple electric servos to bias torque - Bendix is a big supplier of such things to companies like Honda.

        Others use hydraulics, similar to torque converters, to bias torque (e.g. Audi’s original Quattro system).

        And others use gearing to bias torque, such as Quaife differentials.

        Factory systems (with rare exceptions) don’t use locking diffs (GM has one as an option, others may).