Comment by DyslexicAtheist | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DyslexicAtheist | Hacker News Reader

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DyslexicAtheist

sounds a bit gate-keepy to me. People tell me that I shouldn't repair my own car for similar reasons. Instead I should go to the OEM and have it serviced there for 1000,- a pop. This assures I'm getting genuine OEM branded parts with a 800% profit margin while also reducing the time spent on diagnosing the issue because now whole modules get replaced since cost of human labor is expensive. If I would heed that advise, I'd still have no clue about how a modern diesel engine worked, how to reverse and flash a new ECU firmware, how to find and fix any problem without a mechanic ripping me off, or generally engage in things that (in the eyes of the vendor) are "very dangerous" to myself, my family, or others.

Yet I still make this choice because the alternative is a "John Deer no right to repair" future where we're ruled by chuckeducks and awful people who can't help but quote "rules and regulations" or can't wait to be up in everyone's shit. There is no way I could be convinced otherwise because this is the nature of those who fiddle and tinker in the first place. I'm sure many of the viewers on this channel think likewise because it's not about safety but about my own freedom to spend my weekends in the garage building something and being rewarded with self reliance. And also the freedom to make mistakes big enough to kill myself by accident without somebody going "uhm well ack-shually".

He has a point, but there is a thing you can do to offset some of this: read all of the comments. Plenty of times there will be someone in the comments pointing out what's wrong in the videos.

The problem with Lithium Ion installations of any size is that the batteries are inherently dangerous and mistakes can easily set you back more than you saved on the whole thing. Unlike say your car where as long as you stay away from suspension, brakes and steering the worst that could happen is that you end up stranded by the road side.

Another issue is that when it goes wrong with Lithium Ion it can go wrong fast and it isn't easy, or sometimes even possible, to stop a thermal runaway once it gets going, especially with densely packed cells, besides the fact that you likely won't be watching your batteries 24x7.

There are some people on youtube that advocate for extremely unsafe practices (Jehu Garcia, for instance) and that have a huge following, so Will Prowse is certainly not the worst that you could run into there. It would also be good if he indicated more clearly what his sponsorship relations are and how that relates to the advice that he is giving, quite a few of his videos feel like thinly disguised ads.

very much with you and GP on this. the route I personally take is to learn with small trials and error of what comments and advise is good and what is silly or outright dangerous. Places I frequent for such advise though aren't YT videos but forums where it's easy for others to call out silly ideas (which isn't always the case on YT). YT is at best a gateway to deeper content such as explosion-charts, repair and maintenance manuals, etc. I think batteries here are not too different than breaks, steering or suspension (all components I've grown comfortable to touch although not on my very first DYI project but years into messing and learning about the same vehicle).

I would highly recommend battery university, they have excellent content:

https://batteryuniversity.com/

Another very good resource is http://www.arrl.org/news/new-book-energy-choices-for-the-rad.... The author is more well known for inventing http://www.aprs.org/

His whole thing is no sponsorships...

He had a couple of sponsored videos in the past around building all in one systems, but it's not something he does anymore.

I've zero objections with people learning about power systems and such.

My objection is with people learning it from YouTube, because the ratio of "good, safe, correct information" to "absolute crap" is horrible, and until you're quite solid in the field, there are people very confidently spouting exceedingly wrong and dangerous information (tip: If you ever see anyone soldering to an 18650, assume everything else they're doing is wrong as well, because that's such a huge violation of every manufacturer datasheet - it dumps radically more thermal energy into the cell and plastic separator than they're designed for).

There are plenty of better sources for information on how to do things energy related than YouTube.

It seems that you are approaching Sturgeon's law there.

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