this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2023
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[–] [email protected] 40 points 11 months ago (3 children)

The explaination of how differentials work was painfully wrong. An I lost confidence in this author's ability to explain the topic.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Ok. Care to elaborate, please?

[–] [email protected] 30 points 11 months ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Right?

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago
[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://piped.video/yYAw79386WI

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago
[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

That was awesome and perfectly explanatory. I learned something new today

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Around_the_Corner_%281937%29_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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 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).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Came here to say this.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

It was sooooo wrong. Painful is right.