ACEmat's recent activity
-
Comment on Balancing self-expression and parents in ~life
-
Comment on Follow up on the username thread: What Tildes users do you recognize when browsing and, without being rude or inflammatory, what is your impression of them? in ~tildes
ACEmat Link Parent<3 (Noise this if you want I'm still giving him a heart)- Exemplary
<3
(Noise this if you want I'm still giving him a heart)
-
Comment on Morrowind doesn't have any rivers in ~games
ACEmat Link ParentGlad one of us took the plunge, guess I have to now as well. It's just been there... Watching me...Glad one of us took the plunge, guess I have to now as well. It's just been there... Watching me...
-
Comment on We spoke with the last person standing in the floppy disk business in ~tech
ACEmat Link ParentI don't blame him at all, if I made something and it made me a millionaire, fuck that I'm out. Semi related, people got mad at the Valheim devs because they made a shit ton of money but didn't...I don't blame him at all, if I made something and it made me a millionaire, fuck that I'm out.
Semi related, people got mad at the Valheim devs because they made a shit ton of money but didn't expand their team. Like, why would they want to? Sure, I'm sure they enjoy making games for a living, but really, at the end of the day, we're all working so one day we don't have to anymore.
-
Comment on We spoke with the last person standing in the floppy disk business in ~tech
ACEmat Link ParentI thinking using "writes" in the present tense is incorrect.I thinking using "writes" in the present tense is incorrect.
-
Comment on Meta fires staff for abusing $25 meal credits in ~tech
ACEmat Link ParentThese are the kind of rich people I'm used to working with. They make ridiculous amounts of money, but they're cheap as hell, and will argue pricing with you over every nickel. They don't seem to...These are the kind of rich people I'm used to working with. They make ridiculous amounts of money, but they're cheap as hell, and will argue pricing with you over every nickel.
They don't seem to stop being turds until they're making over a couple million. Then something happens after millions and millions of dollars and they turn into scrooge mcducks again, but that's a longer conversation.
-
Comment on No one’s laughing now: ‘Joker Folie à Deux’ falls down with $39m-$40m opening: How the sequel went sideways in ~movies
ACEmat Link ParentI thought it was a very beautifully written comment.I thought it was a very beautifully written comment.
-
Comment on How to build greener, affordable AC for high humidity and hotter summers in ~engineering
ACEmat Link ParentAbsolutely, and Mini Splits are stupidly efficient anyways.Absolutely, and Mini Splits are stupidly efficient anyways.
-
Comment on How to build greener, affordable AC for high humidity and hotter summers in ~engineering
ACEmat Link ParentI'm an HVAC tech, not an engineer, so I only speak from having checked thousands of units' refrigerant pressures and compressor amp draws at all varieties of outdoor and indoor conditions.I'm an HVAC tech, not an engineer, so I only speak from having checked thousands of units' refrigerant pressures and compressor amp draws at all varieties of outdoor and indoor conditions.
-
Comment on How to build greener, affordable AC for high humidity and hotter summers in ~engineering
ACEmat Link ParentI always say if you have the know how to do it yourself, go for it. A lot of companies will use it as an accessory sell and charge a ton for it. Some manufacturers are even having them factory...I always say if you have the know how to do it yourself, go for it. A lot of companies will use it as an accessory sell and charge a ton for it. Some manufacturers are even having them factory installed now.
And this isn't directed at you, but anyone reading this, if your AC stops working, and a company comes out and installs a hard start kit, your compressor is very likely on its last leg. Preventatively they're great, but reactively, they're band aids to limp a compressor along for a bit longer.
-
Comment on How to build greener, affordable AC for high humidity and hotter summers in ~engineering
ACEmat Link ParentIt depends on the climate you're in. If your climate gets humid, like 70% relative humidity or higher, I don't recommend turning it off entirely due to long term mold issues. You can turn it up to...It depends on the climate you're in. If your climate gets humid, like 70% relative humidity or higher, I don't recommend turning it off entirely due to long term mold issues. You can turn it up to like 78 or so to cut down on morning and evening runtimes.
The fact that you have a 10,000 BTU unit for just the upstairs and nothing downstairs, tells me it doesn't get super hot or humid where you live. You're probably fine turning it off, but you'll have to be the judge on that.
-
Comment on How to build greener, affordable AC for high humidity and hotter summers in ~engineering
ACEmat Link Parenthttps://tildes.net/~engineering/1j94/how_to_build_greener_affordable_ac_for_high_humidity_and_hotter_summers#comment-dsv8 -
Comment on How to build greener, affordable AC for high humidity and hotter summers in ~engineering
ACEmat (edited )Link ParentThere is...A lot to address here. Frankly you've disregarded a ton of variables, like AC performance, heat load, variable units, and real world application / everyday usage. In, well, basically...- Exemplary
There is...A lot to address here. Frankly you've disregarded a ton of variables, like AC performance, heat load, variable units, and real world application / everyday usage.
In, well, basically all AC contexts, we're talking about people maintaining a temperature lower than the outdoor temperature, and varying that setpoint, but still below the outdoor temperature. We're not talking about maintaining 85 degrees when it's 85 degrees and working down from there.
Most people have a pattern with their setpoints, so we'll just use some anecdotal averages. If we take average Joe trying to save money on electric but be comfortable, they will sleep with their setpoint at 69 degrees, set it up to maybe 75 during the day while they're at work, then bring it down to 72 when they get home.
But you have some people that do something crazy like have a setpoint of 80 during the day when they're not home, or turn it off entirely, then bring it down to 72 when they get home. Sure, the system wasn't running during the day if it was off, but now the house has spent all day absorbing that heat. And this is where most people's understanding of heat from their high school chemistry class disappears. Heat isn't just the heat in the air. It's an energy, it gets absorbed into everything in the home: walls, carpets, furniture, the water in the pipes in the walls, etc. So now the setpoint gets set to 72 / the system is turned on, and now the AC has to remove all of that excess heat. Since most people are getting home around 5/6, and the sun's still out for a few hours, not only is it removing the excess heat that's been stored in the home, it's also actively trying to remove the heat entering the home.
Now it has to run longer into the evening than it originally needed to, and it has a much higher heat load running across it. When there's a high heat load, it raises the temperature of the whole system. A typically evaporator (the coil that gets cold) might run at 42-45 degrees, but that could rise up to 50 or even 54 degrees depending on how warm it got. When temperature increases, so does pressure, and when pressure increases, now the compressor has to work harder to compress that refrigerant vapor back into a liquid, which results in a higher amp draw, which also hurts the compressor in the long term.
We haven't even touched on humidity yet. When it's humid outside, an ACs cooling capacitance can be as much as halved, so a 3T system is now only putting out 1.5T of cooling, because the other 1.5T is just taking water out of the air. And by leaving the system set high or off entirely, the house is now sitting around 65% RH at minimum --
(which, although a separate issue, is still important, as most people don't realize 65 is the RH at which mold can begin developing depending on the dewpoint at the time, as the walls, floors, and wood in the house will begin absorbing the excess moisture in the air. This is a long term concern but it's one that a frightening number of people do not consider.)
-- anywhere where it gets remotely humid. If there are crappy dehumidifiers in the house, or if the thermostat has a dehumidification setting, now there's increased energy draw to bring that RH back down.
When we talk about maintaining temperature, we're talking about picking a temperature and keeping it there. An AC doesn't have to work harder to maintain 72 than it does 76 unless it's excessively hot and / or humid outside. When a temperature is maintained, all an AC has to do is remove the heat and humidity actively entering the building during the day, there isn't going to be excess stored heat or humidity in any of the furnishings or structure itself, and the amount entering the building doesn't change if the house is set to 72 or 76 (okay, technically the amount of humidity in the air will be higher in a building that's 76 vs 72, as warm air holds more humidity, but I'm not going to get into that level of minutia). This also means that setting an AC to just a high point during the day only means the system isn't running for a little bit longer while the house warms up, but then it will run just as it would have at 75 when it gets to 80 (again, more minutia, as a house gets to much higher temperatures, like 85 degrees and it's 95 outside, the amount of energy absorbed lessens marginally due to the decrease in temperature difference between the outdoors and indoors, but like the humidity above, it becomes insignificant for practical purposes.)
Which, yes, for any onlookers, that means you're not actually saving money at 78 vs 72 (again, unless it's excessively hot, I will get into that later). An ACs runtime is almost exclusively based on how hot it is outside. Yes, it will turn on later in the day, and turn off sooner in the evening, but assuming we're talking hot hot days, which I typically assume is what most people care about, it's not a matter of hours, and it's not going to impact the middle of the day when the heat is bearing down on the house.
This next part ties into your third paragraph as well a little, but the start up process of an AC is the hardest part on the system. If a particularly fiddly homeowner is constantly adjusting the temperature and turning the system on and off, they're putting a ton of wear and tear on their compressor (and thermal expansion valve (refrigerant regulator that actively adjusts) if the system has one, which most do nowadays). Amp draw on a compressor on start up can be 3-4x as high as its runtime amps, which on most residential system is 4-6A, so start up could be drawing 15-20A for a couple seconds. Best case is the capacitor dies early, which relatively speaking is a cheap fix, but if the AC is trying to run while the cap is dead, and the homeowner doesn't realize, because they're used to their home being warm af for their entire evening, this can damage the compressor and the condenser fan motor. Worst case is the start winding in the compressor gets burnt out and shorts (that's a new compressor by the way).
The long and short of that is: ACs are built to run constantly. They're not made to turn on and off all day. Frankly if an AC can achieve a 1 degree drop with a 10% cycle per hour, the AC is ridiculously oversized, or it is very cool outside and it would be better to just open a window. I understand that's an extreme exaggeration on your end, but cycle rates are super important for mechanical health and maintaining humidity. Cooling starts much quicker than dehumidification does, and if a system is only running for 10 - 15 minutes at a time, it's not running long enough to dehumidify. At that point we would call that short cycling. That's a great way to get mold growing around the ducts and registers by the way, as the house is humid because the moisture isn't being removed, but the cold air from the AC across the metal duct system brings the surface temperature of those parts below that of the now very high dew point and generates condensation.
Now for some niche caveats:
-- Some ACs are two stage, so they literally have a low cool and high cool mode. High end communicating systems that have variable capacity might have 20 stages of cooling. They can adjust their capacity based on runtime, how quickly the temperature increases, it depends on the system, and that gets absolutely wasted if the system is being turned off or set super high during the day. A variable capacity AC may be able to run in a lower stage and maintain temperature in the house fine, but if the house is super warm and now it's being asked to cool off 5-8 degrees, it's just going to run in high stage, and there goes the money invested into a more expensive system.
-- I also referenced a couple times that extreme outdoor temperatures can have an effect. ACs for example in the SE US are rated for 92 degrees, meaning anything above that and it's kind of hit and miss. Generally an AC can expect to get a serviced area (bunch of factors go into this, I won't get into all of them) about 20 degrees cooler than the outdoor, but if it's say 99 degrees outside, and the system is set to 72 during the day, it might only get to like 76. Well now the AC will need to cool a further 4 degrees once it's cooled off outside to reach the desired 72, so in that situation, keeping the setpoint higher would be advantageous, as one set to 76-78 would not have to run as long into the evening.
-- If a house is going to be vacant for a while, like a weekend or longer, like I said above, keeping it set higher will cut down on the morning and evening run times, but I never recommend turning it off unless the house is located in a drier climate, as that brings us back to humidity and potential mold issues. I've had some customers that had apartments over top their detached garage that nobody ever uses, and I would still recommend keeping the AC set to 78.
Forgive any typos or grammatical errors, I've been typing this up for about 2 hours and it's a little after 2AM at the moment for me. I probably forgot some stuff too. Obviously the climate a person lives in affects things a lot, this is just a general overview for most people who live in temperate climates with humidity and 85+ degree summers.
-
Comment on How to build greener, affordable AC for high humidity and hotter summers in ~engineering
ACEmat Link ParentIf vord doesn't fill you in (he's got a solid grasp of HVAC for not being a technician) I'll swing by tomorrow to give an explanation, I've got a wedding that's going to take up my whole day. But...If vord doesn't fill you in (he's got a solid grasp of HVAC for not being a technician) I'll swing by tomorrow to give an explanation, I've got a wedding that's going to take up my whole day.
But spoilers: you're both right, your friend is wrong
-
Comment on Dockworkers' union to suspend strike in US until Jan. 15, source says in ~transport
ACEmat Link ParentWhy do we blame the unions for the timing of their strike? Like, yeah, they are the ones that decide when / if, but it's not like they just arbitrarily decide to do it on a whim. Like I'm not...Why do we blame the unions for the timing of their strike? Like, yeah, they are the ones that decide when / if, but it's not like they just arbitrarily decide to do it on a whim.
Like I'm not saying you specifically, but there's definitely a wide spread view that ill timed or inconvenient strikes are blamed solely on the union.
-
Comment on Dockworkers' union to suspend strike in US until Jan. 15, source says in ~transport
ACEmat Link ParentThere are a lot of blue collar unions that actively hate their unions. As someone from the Motor City, there's become an adopted view that unions just protect the guys that slack off and do drugs,...There are a lot of blue collar unions that actively hate their unions.
As someone from the Motor City, there's become an adopted view that unions just protect the guys that slack off and do drugs, without any acknowledgement that their wages and other benefits are negotiated by the union itself.
-
Comment on Reddit moderators will now have to submit a request to switch their subreddit from public to private in ~tech
-
Comment on Monster Hunter Wilds | Release date reveal trailer [Feb 28, 2025] in ~games
ACEmat Link ParentBased on the system requirements they released I don't think the Deck is gonna be enough. They recommend a 4060 for Medium graphics at 1080p to achieve 60 FPS with frame generation. I have a 4090...Based on the system requirements they released I don't think the Deck is gonna be enough.
They recommend a 4060 for Medium graphics at 1080p to achieve 60 FPS with frame generation.
I have a 4090 and a 7900X and honestly I'm concerned about 1440p and achieving over 60 FPS.
-
Comment on Up to a quarter of US rental inflation could be due to price-fixing in ~finance
ACEmat Link ParentBut like how do you enforce it when rent prices are public information? "Hm, I don't know what to increase rent by, let's see what Brickway Apartments is charging."But like how do you enforce it when rent prices are public information?
"Hm, I don't know what to increase rent by, let's see what Brickway Apartments is charging."
-
Comment on What small questions do you have that aren’t worth a full topic on their own? in ~talk
ACEmat Link ParentOh I think it's adorable, I just wasn't sure where it came from.Oh I think it's adorable, I just wasn't sure where it came from.
Imma be blunt with you, if it's between expressing yourself and having a roof over your head, it's really a no brainer until you can live independently. Don't risk sabotaging yourself.
I was never allowed long hair when I was younger. Now I live on my own, have long hair anyways, and for a multitude of reasons have not spoken to my father in 10 years.