Mechanical vs Electrical

[StweenyA]

Ok..

In my experience, mechanical products are much more reliable & durable than electrical/electronic ones.

But, if we live in an electric universe, then that means that even the mechanical things are really electrical!
Cause and effect, electric comes first, and mechanic is an effect of electric.

So why then are the electric/electronic things so unreliable?
Is it because our understanding of the mechanical (seen) is better than the electrical (unseen) ?

This is possibly the most childest observation, but at the least, I hope it can invoke some intelligent replies.

PS. As an example, maybe take something well known to most of us - A gun. Would you take the mechanical one, or the one that contains electronic bits which it requires to function?

[mbrownn]

As a mechanical engineer I know that most electrical components have a mechanical alternative, take motors for example, an electric motor or a hydraulic motor. Hydraulic motors are smaller and more powerful but there are some limitations.

Even some IC devices are mechanical such as in hydraulic logic circuits.

Tesla's devices were electro mechanical, not electronic.

The problem lays in electronics and what many have termed as radiant energy. As soon as we get transient spikes the electronics die. I believe this could be solved but to do this we need to know what electricity really is. What is in the text books today is a shortened, simplified and incomplete version of what was known about electricity.

In large generating plants you don't find electronics, its electro mechanical equipment. Just think about it, a relay is an electro mechanical transistor as is a pilot operated check valve.

I don't know if things have changed in the last 15 years but even in the nuclear plants the computer room that controlled the operations was a 1960's type thing with huge boxes with tape reals on. Impossible to infect with the stuxnet virus (another hoax). Safety systems were commonly electro mechanical devices using hydraulics so even when the power failed they hydraulically shut down.

By the way my specialty is hydraulics.

The failures at fukushima were design failures and the fact that those plants should never have been built. On a personal note as a former nuclear worker I think nuclear power should be abandoned.

[citfta]

Don't agree.

I don't agree that electrical things are more prone to failure than mechanical things. I have worked as an industrial maintenance electrician for almost 30 years before I retired. The plant where I worked was a defense contractor for the navy. We had a very large assortment of machine tools from lathes with 40 foot beds to milling machines with 40 feet of travel and a 20 foot table. We had industrial lasers and plasma cutters and many many other types of industrial machines. In the maintenance department we always had at least twice as many mechanics as we did electricians. And many times I would be helping a mechanic because none of the machines were down because of electrical problems.

Back in the 1970's I owned and operated a television repair shop. As the newer solid state electronic circuits started being used in TV's there were less and less repairs to be made. When I started the TV shop there were about 50 shops within a 50 mile radius of the city near where I lived. Now there are only 2 that I am aware of. Electronics have become so reliable there is almost no call for repair people in the home electronics business. Fortunately I was able to sell my business before things got so bad.

Mechanical things wear out. Hoses burst. Bearings freeze up or fall apart. Belts wear out. Electrical and electronics things also blow fuses and motors burn out. But modern electronics are tremendously more reliable than the older tube type electronics. And overall I firmly believe electrical and electronic devices are much more reliable than mechanical devices.

By the way I did work as a mechanic for several years before switching over to electronics.

Respectfully,
Carroll

[ewizard]

I agree very much with cifta. But in the case of a nuke plant like mbrownn mentions I can see how mechanical might be better to have controlling critical systems. An EMP from a weapon or nature (like the Sun) could be very bad for a nuke plant if an electronic part failed from such a pulse.

All in all we are talking in very big generalities. I'm sure a mechanical or hydraulic device can if over built enough be extremely reliable for a very long time. Ditto for electronics. Anything cheaply built can fail in the short term whether electrical/electronic or mechanical. Electronics can even be made to withstand strong EMP. At least I think the box in a box in a box or faraday cage scenario can provide that kind of EMP protection.

[Stealth]

My 2 cents

Modern automobiles are less likely to break down because of electrical failure, but they will more than likely suffer an electrical breakdown long before they will ever encounter a mechanical one, with regular scheduled maintenance. Since the early days when automobiles started being built, no electric or electronic machine has been able to overtake the antiquated mechanical behemouth. Some has to do with suppression of technologies, I am sure, but we haven't the technology to make electric autos travel the long distances that most people travel. Batteries are the slowest developing of the elctrical technologies. In the future there may be developed an electrical machine capable of competing with the mechanical ICE. If battery technology could catch up with other solid state electronics, we would have a chance to change the ways we commute. There are some buying and using electric vehicles, but for the most part, these are for short range, in town and city lmit driving. I am not condeming the electric vehicle, I would like to build or buy one myself, if it would work for most of my commuting. Good Luck. stealth

[mbrownn]

You are all right guys, electronics has come forward in leaps and bounds on reliability and yes we still use some mechanical machines that were built in the 1890's in our factories. Its all down to the quality of build and what work it is expected to do.

Electronics semiconductors don't like radiant but it seems thermionic tubes have no problem. It seems to me we should look at tubes again but are tubes electro mechanical?

I know that at the power stations I worked at they would laugh at you when you said replace the big computer with a PC that is a million times more powerful. Their computer never crashed, that cant be said of any windows PC.

What we have to do is choose which type of device to use on its merits alone.

Just think how big your house would be if we were all using Babbage difference engines to email hehe

[Ernst]

It is not whether a device is electrical, mechanical, electronical, hydrolical or what have you.
Look at the year it was build. Many decades ago things were made to last, today things are made to be replaced in the shortest possible time in order to stimulate the market and industry.

It just looks like electronic things are more prone to failure because today there are much more of those than let's say 100 years ago.

I have travelled a lot and noticed that in 'the West' there are many diseases that are virtually non-existant in 'the East'. Especially when it comes to mental disorders (take G.W. Bush for an example ).
To me this proves that also medicine are not intended to (fully) cure you, they cause at least as much problems as they solve. This is all market-induced.
If you could make TV-sets that would never fail, you can only sell 1 per family. But if they would last only 5 years, you can sell 10x more...

When everyone was using 16 or 32 bit computers, in the space program they were still using 8 bit / 1 MHz CPU's...
And please don't get me started on MS software

In short, it is not the type of equipment, it is the year it was build....

Ernst.

[mbrownn]

You summed up the problem there, when accountants (bankers) were able to take control of business they insisted on built in redundancy ie a design life that was limited. Almost everything manufactured today is built with this in mind.

On the electronics there is a problem when we expose it to certain types of electricity, that's the point I am making there.

I like the GW Bush analogy hehehe. The problem with modern medicine is multi facited. First it is designed to suppress symptoms so that we can continue unaffected by them. Second these chemicals are mostly toxic, just look at their side effects from very small doses. Thirdly they are in a form that the body does not like and lastly this is all by design.

Take for example nutrients vitamins and such, these will cure almost ant disease if they come in a natural form but if given in a pharmaceutical form they are less than 10% absorbed and can be even toxic. We all need iron in our diet and there are many foods that contain iron but the best examples of good and bad i will tell you about.

Spinach contains iron and is good for you. Corn flakes are fortified with iron and we are told they are good for you. In truth you can grind up the cornflakes and extract the iron with a magnet as it comes in its elemental form, you cannot do that with spinach.

The body uses iron when it is bound to proteins and amino acids but cannot use it in its elemental form. elemental iron can be toxic especially to men.

Its exactly the same with medicine, these chemicals can suppress symptoms so that we think we are getting better but in truth it is our own immune system that is healing us just as it would without the medicine. For our immune system to work most effectively we need a good diet but the method of food production has given us nutrient deficient food.

Im not saying all medicine is bad but a lot of it is actually causing the disease. psychotropic drugs cause psychotic behavior for example. Going back to bush, the question is was he chemically lobotomized or did he fall on his head