Jan. 14, 2018 - Powerful

Transcript

46 comments

Jan

Amber installs her dual graphics cards and promptly overloads the circuit.

I lived in an old building in San Francisco. Whenever the roommate ran the microwave and toaster at the same time, the voltage would drop to 100 VAC and lights visibly dim. I was always nervous having a high-end desktop PC plugged in.

I streamed the drawing of this comic from scratch. You may watch it here: https://www.twitch.tv/cartoonwolf/videos/all

Edit: Twitch deleted the replays. I've uploaded a timelapse here: https://vimeo.com/254109547

jprime • 01/14/2018

So we're just abandoning Wolf's story?

LionkingCMSL • 01/14/2018

A UPS is a acquirement and I'm not talking about "Big Brown". :=3

Jan • 01/14/2018

@jprime Nah, it will be ongoing for a long time.

Bruce Bergman • 01/14/2018

Costco has a nice 1100W UPS, and looks like you need a dedicated circuit just for the computer too as insurance. (And there's 3+ months of strips right there...)

If the house is older with conduits it's easier, no running Romex in the attic... IE No Wolf hindpaw shaped holes in the ceiling...

Tegan • 01/14/2018

our house does the same thing..BUT..the way it's set up, the living room/dining room and half the kitchen are all one circuit. the other half of the kitchen and upstairs are on another apparently.

OmegaWolf • 01/14/2018

Do wonder what kinds of games she plays.

Navarre • 01/14/2018

You may want to watch how closely you hold that candle, Jan.

Panther • 01/14/2018

Remove a graphic card , Amber . And let Jan prepare the meal , thanks for him ^_^

Brighttail • 01/14/2018

You could probably cook dinner on one of those GPUs. :)

Interstate2011 • 01/14/2018

Some consumption.

Panther • 01/14/2018

Hard question ......... What Jan will burn first : fingers or mane ? ^_^"

Iceburgh69 • 01/14/2018

I wonder if the same person wired Tegan's how that did mine. If we ran the microwave, NOTHING could be on in the living room, kitchen, dining room, garage, and one of the bathrooms. It would knock out half of the house.

soriac • 01/14/2018

No problem at all, all the computer needs is an auxiliary power generator, 5000W should be enough (but of course there are always bigger ones...). But don't let Wolf see this or he would try to "enhance" them, which would result in dire consequences. Well, don't mind they would explode, but if he tries to use a different technology like fuel cells or a RITEG (won't be surprised if Wolf would have enough 90Sr lying around his lab..) it would very likely result in a less than desired power outcome, which any serious gamer can't tolerate.

Katnik • 01/14/2018

Ask Wolf if he can get more isotopes - a small nuclear pile will solve the problem.

ndrvr • 01/14/2018

Did Wolf forget to wire-in the Tokamak reactor in the basement...?

MiyuHogosha (aka Swift) • 01/14/2018 • edited

Some poor PSUs or badly assembled PCs could cause this by initial impulse, bleeding enough current onto protection wire when loaded to the brink of their limit (or overloaded, which may quite happen if you upgrade to dual GPU setup ). Though I also met UPSes that do that.. e.g. some PowerComs.

Also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6oilmnu1Lo

Shockwave07 • 01/14/2018

I know of people whose AC and water heater are incompatible with something else running on the same circuit as one or another! ...Though no high end PCs there!

Panther • 01/14/2018

@ Soriac , Katnik and Ndrvr :

If Wolf comes to deal with it ..... The low end : https://www.tigerknight.com/cc/2001-11-10 or the hard one : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxgJCqD0pQ8

Ephesus • 01/14/2018

Priorities, Jan. Who needs food and light when there's a game to be played?

Silverwolf • 01/15/2018

Crap, I run an 8-core liquid-cooled AMD FX-9590 and mine doesn't even draw that much power unless I'm doing 3D modeling/rendering work. We're talking about AutoCAD levels of power. I cooked a mainboard doing an AutoCAD class (northbridge couldn't handle it).

Unless of course they're using one helluva microwave.

Tegan • 01/15/2018

@iceburgh69 it's an old SW PA house. it predates most things but doesn't predate when my city formally gave my area streets instead of just being farmland.

it was probably an old barn that became a home (and in the 20s a speak eas

Matt • 01/15/2018

What is she gameing in a fully solid holographic form? which would be something

Verp • 01/15/2018

She just needs her own dedicated fusion reactor. For the shielding I would need a large, thick walled Dutch oven and a large enough reservoir of water saturated with borax to put a foot or more of that between us and the reactor. I will need three old fashioned non-resistor ignition coils, and a long list of parts from from various electronics catalogues to operate it off a dedicated wall socket, although a stove or drier socket would be easier to work with. The coils would be driven, rectified and smoothed out to 100KV to charge the central grid. I could probably build the rest of the reactor using material from the hardware store. I would also need a refrigerator compressor and vacuum pump oil to evacuate the reactor. A small steam turbine would tap some of the power off of it, as the neutron output boils the water coolant/shielding. Get me a small bottle of heavy water and I should be good to go. Put it outdoors so it does not overheat the house. Just keep Wolf away from it, PLEASE.

ndrvr • 01/15/2018

@Panther in case of the latter Wolf only would apologize, "Sorry, i farted...! Damn Chipotle...." ^^.

Silverwolf • 01/15/2018

@Verp: You'd be better off running a liquid lithium shield between the toroidal field coils and the central cavity armor (graphite). Better neutron attenuation, plus you get a nice tritium supply you can feed back into the fusion fuel mixture. The steam can be generated off of the waste heat from the liquid helium compressor, and most of your power generation can come from the bootstrap current off the central solenoid.

And you'll need Wolf around to build the damn thing at a manageable scale (currently, the likely reactor to make the theoretical breakeven is ITER, and at roughly 100' tall, is going to be prohibitively large). Given the physics involved, Wolf is more likely to Wile E. Coyote himself (again) than cause collateral damage.

Panther • 01/15/2018

@ Verp and Silverwolf :

That's it , give ideas to Wolf : he's not enough "dangerous" as actually XD

Robin Bobcat • 01/16/2018

Yeah, know that feeling. I have a small UPS system as a line conditioner. It lasts for about thirty seconds if the power drops completely, but it's great for when the lights dim.

Rocketroo • 01/16/2018

Heh. It's where wiring is not done right or is very old. At work, in a building that is less than 15 years old, we cannot run the toaster and microwave in the lunch room at the same time. Trips the breakers. And neither one of those are 'heavy' units. Pretty lame ones actually. Would love to do dual GPUs in my system as I do some 3-D gaming. But I don't think my power system could handle it either.

Verp • 01/16/2018

Silverwolf: Lithium is unstable, especially around water and not cheap. I am going with electrostatic acceleration at a -100KV central grid using subtle magnetic fields at the top of the ion oscillations to form the ingoing ion beams to miss the center grid. The ingoing beams will organise the outgoing ions into recirculation beams that also miss the center grid geometry. Fusors of your era don't work because the ions are on random trajectories, so center grid vaporizes before surpassing break even. While it is possible to capture the outgoing fusion product ions with electrostatic fields a few orders of magnitude bigger that 100KV and get 95% or better efficiency (think particle accelerators working backwards) using aneutronic reactions, that would take more resources that the average 21st century household has. Magnetic confinement simply thermalizes the ions, so it takes way too big and complex a reactor to be practical. I have the future's hind sight being a time traveling sehlat.

jprime • 01/16/2018

Here, too? I suppose it was time for a change.

Kaelgren • 01/17/2018

booming deep commercial voice "Behold, the power of pleased!"

Ace • 01/17/2018

@iceburgh69 it's an old SW PA house. it predates most things but doesn't predate when my city formally gave my area streets instead of just being farmland.

it was probably an old barn that became a home (and in the 20s a speak easy) . we have modern plugs and stuff. But in the two bedrooms we have--the maste bedroom only has 2, the other room only has 1, living room has 3, dining room has 2, etc.

and yeah our breakers are weird.

(this was to continue my previous statement which i accidentally cut off)

Panther • 01/17/2018

@ Ndrvr and Silverwolf :

All things Wolf tries to do finishes the same way : https://www.tigerknight.com/cc/2001-04-07

That's why all his friends enjoys him a lot WHEN HE DOES NOTHING XD

Ephesus • 01/17/2018

Sorry, I omitted to make a Trek reference based on that last panel. "Full power to fragging systems. Reroute power from replicators and weapons if you must!" That sounded wittier in my head... I'll go on and post anyway~

Silverwolf • 01/17/2018

@Verp: True, lithium is unstable, but it's lithium, not cesium. It's also essential as shielding to capture the fast neutron flux. This makes the D-T fusion cycle feasible, and it reduces the amount of energy input required for the thermal requirements of Lawson's criteria. The magnetic confinement isn't supposed to satisfy the thermal requirements of Lawson's criteria but rather the plasma density and plasma confinement time. Also, the "random trajectories" of the fusion plasma are largely confined to the toroidal circuit by the field coils.

I think you might be talking about neutral beam injection as a heating source, which also has the added advantage of being a fuel injector if you use hydrogen isotopes as the particle source. General Atomics has been experimenting with these devices.

I suppose you might be able to use an aneutronic reaction cycle if you incorporate an inertial fusion system as a "sparkplug" to give the plasma that initial thermal kick.

Vulpis • 01/18/2018

...I suddenly get the mental image of poor Jan on the classic bike/treadmill-generator, going "This huff isn't puff what huff L-ion puff power means!"

WB101 • 01/18/2018 • edited

Fitting user name that is... and did somefur go a bit overboard with the overclocking? O_o

in best Quartermaster Sergeant’s voice Pawfleet Command just got a requisition to install a Class 2 warp drive... for WHAT?!?

Guess it’s time for Jan to pull out the old Gilligan's Island bike generator... ;)

Verp • 01/19/2018

@Silverwolf: I'm using the Farnsworth approach to accelerate ions up to speed via electrostatic fields at 100KV, which is more than enough for D-D fusion. The only problem with his fusor is that 5% of the ions smack into the central grid. The ions that miss simply continue to swing back into the fusion zone like pendulums. The grid, even when made of tungsten, evaporates long before you can get enough ions in there to make up for the 5% loss each pass. If you can redirect the ions into coherent beams with subtle magnetic fields, (strong fields cause too much loss via synchrotron radiation) they miss the grid structure its self. You get the added benefit they stay in synch and don't end up thermalizing each other to the point where you no longer have them travelling at a uniform speed to more likely collide at fusion energies. If you can do that, a bit more than a magnitude increase in grid voltage gets you into the H1-B11 and other aneutronic reaction energies. Works for Starfleet.

Panther • 01/19/2018

WOW ! We have two good engineers , with Silverwolf and Verp . Maybe Jan should hire both of you to teach Wolf ? ^_^"

Verp • 01/19/2018

I am just trying to build a workable fusor using stone knives and bearskins. Wolf is more of a some knowledge is a dangerous thing type. I would need to reach into his mind and stabilize his judgement before I would teach him anything that could get out of hand. His enthusiasm I would recommend he keep. Sehlats are very cat like, but our minds more resemble social canid minds, so I could probably get inside his head relatively easily. I have been compared favorably to a Newfoundlander with an IQ of 180.

passerby • 01/20/2018

My classmate used to have a similar problem with his first computer. It was an IBM PS/2 without a Reset button, and switching it on and off (when a game freezed) flipped breakers about 1 time out of 4.

jprime • 01/20/2018

@passerby The word is "froze", not "freezed".

iceburgh69 • 01/21/2018

My house was built in 1974. Even then, I don't really see a reason to put half of the house on one circuit, and then piecemeal the rest.

Griswald • 01/24/2018

Funny thing is, my trusty 2012 ASUS notebook- without any graphics cards, extensions, just itself, open it and play 60 watts maximum- can handle monster games and things like World of Tanks.

Silverwolf • 01/25/2018

@Verp: The problem here is that we still have to get the plasma up to temperature to meet Lawson's criteria. That's why scientists are looking at D-T fusion...while your accelerators would definitely help with the plasma ion density, the problem then becomes plasma temperature...and remember, we've got a temperature battle going on here. We need the plasma to be really hot, while the confinement magnets need to be really cold.

Verp • 01/27/2018

@Silverwolf: This is not thermonuclear fusion; heat has too much randomness. thermonuclear fusion has only worked to achieve practical breakeven in stars and large masses of fusionable materials compressed by atomic bombs. Fusors use velocity space in the 100KV range, because high enough uniform speeds increase the likelihood of fusion when compared to thermal plasmas: http://www.fusor.net/ .

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