I used to race cars, and would over/ under inflate my tires based on the weather and track conditions. Never thought about driving on sand, but that's a super useful tip that I would wager most people have never heard.

[–] Buffaloaf 46 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's not just sand, rock crawlers will deflate tires down to single digits (that's why they use beadlocks) so that the tires actually wrap around the rocks.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (4 children)

I guess you're talking about psi.

(No offense to you, dear Buffaloaf, I just looked it up and thought I might share).

For everyone of the 191 non-USA countries, 10 psi is 0,69 bar or 690 hPa. That's pretty low.

By the way, why is psi written in such a weird way? It should be lbs/ in^2

[–] Wandering_Uncertainty 18 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Because in^2 is generally said "square inches."

So it's "pounds per square inch."

Sometimes "per" will get its own letter, like in PPM - parts per million - and sometimes it's left off, as in PSI.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Thanks, friend :)

I know how it comes to be, I just think it's stupid.

For example, kW times h is not the same as kW per hour. That's why kWh means kilowatt times hour.

If I wrote ms to denote meters per second that would create massive confusion.

[–] Wandering_Uncertainty 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That is an excellent point. Yeah, PSI would totally read as pounds times square inches which would be something else entirely. Adding in the extra P would fix it, too. PPSI. Suppose it's another thing that people just have to get used to, haha.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I would even say, it reads as pounds times seconds times inch

Or pikoseconds times inch

Or pikoseconds times square root of -1 but now I'm being silly

Well, I don't have to get used to it, but some people seam to handle it well.

[–] QuaternionsRock 3 points 9 months ago

Eh, it’s pretty unambiguous. kW/hour is a pretty useless unit. Power surges may be measured in kW/s or something, but they don’t really have any impact over a span of more than a couple seconds.

Likewise, pounds times square inches is equivalent go kg*m^3/s^2 in SI units - which also seems pretty meaningless. Maybe there is a use for it?

What really grinds my gears is that pounds are a unit of mass, not force. The “pounds” in “pounds per square inch” is short for “pounds-force“. It’s the force of one pound of mass accelerating at 1g. Preposterous.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Wait wait Wait, can you give me more on this kWh thing? I thought I understood this already.

A single kW is a unit of power, literally 1000 watts.

A kWh is a unit of energy, as in stored or delivered. Draw 500 watts for 2 hours? That's a kWh. Or have a battery that can hold 1 kWh, then assuming 100% efficiency you could draw 1000 watts from it for an hour before it was empty.

All of this is kW times hour, I would say? But in my mind I would interchangeably say per hour as well, they feel the same.

Obviously I'm wrong, but I'd like to know why lol

[–] HerrBeter 2 points 9 months ago

If you use exactly 20 kW for an hour, it will translate to 20 kWh. But if your power usage varies over time, you can't keep track of it so simple. It's just how it is.

The unit is really watt [W] and the Greek prefix kilo (k) for 1000. This way it's fast and easy to convert to different scales (like Mega, Giga etc) for comparing numbers

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

A watt is a derived unit for a rate of change, an amount of energy used in a unit of time, so P = E / t. A kW per hour would be a rate divided by time, or E / t^2, resulting in another rate.

More colloquially, think of watts/power by analogy to another rate, that of speed. Moving at a speed of 100kph for 3 hours results in 300 speed-hours of distance. Saying 100 kilometers per hour per 3 hours sounds awkward, but is actually a weird way to say acceleration, a rate of change of speed. (And probably a hint to get your car serviced.)

Anyway, the key is to think of a kilowatt as a rate, not a quantity.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Thanks, I guess I still don't understand though.

I see now that watts and therefore kW are rates. So it's silly to add another rate to the end by appending "per hour". But what is the time component of the watt calculation? To me it's essentially instantaneous, even if that's wrong. Even if that breaks the math, it's still essentially true on a macro scale. And if it's instantaneous, or even just close like microseconds, then it doesn't hurt to apend another rate to the end, does it?

So why not use it? Batteries come with capacities rated in Wh and kWh, and it weirdly still makes sense to me because of my usage rate per hour example in my last comment.

And if we shouldn't use it, then what should we use?

Is this problem we're discussing, one that only occurs if you try to get really accurate with the numbers and times? Because for my uses it's always seemed to work well enough.

Not being argumentative, just trying to learn, thanks

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Oh, hey, Jerboa is not so good about updating the Inbox tally...

I was responding to your question about kW per hour, and I was going for the intuitive sense of why that's not right. The more "it's just so" reason is that the math just doesn't work, since the word "per" signifies division. So if we discharge a battery at a rate of 100 watts for 3 hours, that's 100W * 3 hours, or 300 Wh used. If we say 100 watts per hour for three hours, that's 100W / 1 hour * 3 hours. The hours cancel, and the result is 300 watts, which is a rate.

It's totally confusing, I know, because people often use "watts" and "watt-hours" interchangeably, but they're as different as speed and position.

Anyway, the watt is a derived unit in SI, and it's equivalent to kg·m^2^ / s^3^. The per-unit-time is hidden when you write it as a watt, but clearly there when you write it in terms of base units. Of course, the joule is kg·m^2^ / s^2^, so energy also has time in the denominator, and I guess could technically also be a rate, but understanding that is way above my pay grade. 😀

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

And why?

Because we said so.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

As an Aussie I've used metric for everything my whole life, but I've just realised that everything I've ever used to inflate stuff has been metered in PSI. I just know that ~30PSI is good for tyres, ~15PSI is good for soccer balls.

I wouldn't know the conversions because there's no use for it because that's not what the pumps use. Weird.

[–] Buffaloaf 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Sorry, yeah I meant psi. And yeah, pressure units annoy the hell out of me too. There's psi, kPa, Barr, Torr, atm, mmH20, in. Hg, and so on. It's dumb.

[–] camelbeard 2 points 9 months ago

Yeah same I was inflating all the bicycle tires of my family. On most of the tires it says inflate to x bar, but my electric pump only knows psi.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

bar is just the sensible scale for Pascal (1mbar = 1hPa), where 1 bar is about exactly standard atmospheric pressure. Beware though if you see bar scales it's often not an absolute but overpressure scale, if the tyre pressure gauge says "1 bar" it means 1 bar over atmospheric pressure, that is, about 2 bar. 1 bar is also about the pressure of 10m of water.

atm is metric, too, with 1atm being exactly standard atmospheric pressure, toss it for bar. mmHg is only used in medicine, not used for actual calculations back in the days where blood pressure was first measured they did it with mercury scales and there was never any reason to change, on the contrary, changing would only introduce confusion. Torr is the same as mmHg, forget about it. The rest is colonial nonsense.

[–] Hackerman_uwu 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Generally speaking you can hold in the valve for 60 seconds to let out enough air from your street pressure for off-road. It’s better to measure and you really want a 12v compressor to reinflate for the ride home but in a pinch…

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago

Yeah it made me a lot of extra cash when I was in high school. I would park over the on-ramp for beach access and wait for a tourist to inevitably get stuck. Most of the time I wouldn’t ask for money but they’d give me a nice tip since they knew the only other option was to call a tow truck. The park service requires a permit to off road now, and that info is on the permit so fortunately for visitors it happens less often now.