Exploding Consoles Of Doom Explained At Last

[blssdwlf]

^^ The "rocks" are what happens to TNG-era building materials zapped. Must be the new materials

@mickmike - a memorial plate with the lost crewmember's name stamped onto the console section that exploded could be a morale killer

[mickmike]

i was actually thinking more of a massive like 20 foot tall statue at starfleet hq.

those who had their eye balls melted deserve nothing less

[Christopher]

Flashover wrote:

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What baffles me is the fact that some consoles seem to be full of ROCKS.

WHAT THE HELL.

Solid-state circuitry.

[Flashover]

Christopher wrote:

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Solid-state circuitry.

And if you divert power from the warp drive to the main viewer do you end up with a plasma-screen?

[seekertwo]

Why not have the crew wear rubber gloves during Red Alert?....

[SicOne]

Christopher wrote:

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Solid-state circuitry.

"101 Uses For A Dead Horta"...hey, they have to have SOME contribution to the Federation, yes?

[George]

What about transistors? As of now, they're just easy-to-melt metals, but I would imagine that by the 24th century the Federation would have come up with some kind of viscous liquid conductor which reacts with the material of which the wire casing is made to form a hyperinsulating gas.

I mean, it would be similar to burning wood, sort of. C (s) reacts with heat and O (g) to form CO (g).

Similarly, if we let the viscous liquid used in the wiring be X, and let the material of the inner tubing of the wires be Y, then X (l) reacts with heat and Y (s) to form XY (g).

In other words, the inner wiring would turn into gas as soon as too much power is flowing through it, say, 25 megawatts (i.e. for example, 5000 V * 5000 A).

So, if this kind of transistor were to be inserted into every wire going into and out of the shield systems and hull, no panels would explode.

And since there are replicators, it can be synthesised at no cost, and wouldn't affect the building of the ship.

Of course, there could be several problems, eg. the viscous liquid might be very corrosive, or extremely toxic, but I'd say the likelihood of that is relatively low.

[137th Gebirg]

Flashover wrote:

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I was goaded into joining this forum by a fellow Trekker after I explained to him in extreme detail how surge-protectors and insulator devices fail under heavy loads. I used the example of the Exploding Consoles Of Doom from Star Trek to make my point.

The insulator devices I manufacture have a certain rating that we call the flashover rating. On paper we need to maintain a specific sized gap between the power line and the support structure. This way a surge induced by lightening or a transformer switching error won't jump from the line to the pole. If that happens, the surge can damage other devices like telecommunication devices, switches, street-lamps... and in extreme cases it can destroy the support structure.


We're talking about ratings of up to 35,000 volts during "normal operation..." During a lightening-induced surge the the voltage can increase to well over 300,000 volts.

Our product is designed to prevent an arc from forming, and if it does it is deigned to burn away forming a quenching and non-conductive gas that immediately arrests the arc.

What you are seeing when a console explodes is the failure of the insulators and surge protectors. Just like the product I work with, Starfleet Issue Protective Isolators would have a maximum rating.

During combat, lets face it... both sides are slinging massive amounts of power around trying to make the opposing side explode. Eventually one or more isolators are going to be overwhelmed and an arc is going to jump between the power-carrying components of the ship and the frame... and all that power has to go somewhere.

Sometimes it dissipates harmlessly, other times it causes things to fail catastrophically. Frankly given the power levels we are talking about I'm surprised there aren't more internal explosions.


Now for whatever reason nameless guest-extras seem to attract these surges... I am trying to isolate this property and incorporate it in our Generation IV design. I think it has more to do with blood-thirsty writers, Screen Actor Guild contracts and the VFX department more than any physical property.... however testing is ongoing as I speak.

Makes perfect sense. Thanks for this explanation!

I guess this would also explain that the starboard power coupling has a flashover rating of zero, then.

[Herkimer Jitty]

Nerys Ghemor wrote:

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Why is it not more frequent to discharge the energy back out onto, say, the shields, the way DS9 did in "Civil Defense"? Or into space, if the shields weren't up at the time? Might this not be preferable to exploding consoles?

Yeah, but that's nowhere near as exciting as:

-Blaring klaxons
-Blinky red lights
-Benign white smoke

and...

-Exploding consoles


Speaking of which, just what the hell is that benign white smoke?

[Flashover]

Herkimer Jitty wrote:

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Speaking of which, just what the hell is that benign white smoke?

All electronic devices are powered by smoke of various colors. If you put too much power into said devices the smoke will be displaced and the device will stop working.

Also happens if you reverse the polarity.

Good example would be that old Athlon 1800+ chip I destroyed this afternoon. I was overclocking it, and I turned up the Vcore voltage too high, and sure enough the smoke came out. Without that smoke the chip is useless.

[The_Baron]

How come then, that the consoles can explode, killing the user...but continue to be perfectly useable for the replacement operator?

[Flashover]

The_Baron wrote:

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How come then, that the consoles can explode, killing the user...but continue to be perfectly useable for the replacement operator?

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NEXT QUESTION PLEASE.

[Captain Rob]

Flashover wrote:

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NEXT QUESTION PLEASE.

Built-in replicator? Beats the hell out of me.