Hello,
The information in the topic is a bit misleading and it has to do with the "Truth in Television" as real life ships consoles operated by humans would never explode from power surges, as it would obviously be unsafe and in most special purpose ships(like an exploring star ship would be) these systems would have redundant backups. In reality they would either become inoperable, signal a fault and/or then signal the startup of a backup system, if it exists.
I propose the following sentence be removed:
"Exploding Consoles of Doom" is actually an example of Truth in Television. An electrical engineer posting on the Trek BBS message board explains what happens to cause a so called "Exploding Console of Doom"."
Explanation:
In the linked forum post the poster is talking about high voltage installations which are used to transporting current not using it. For example we could not have toasters running at 24.000 volts because they would be a few times bigger since the insulation required for them to be safe and not harm humans would need to be considerable(insulation required is proportional with voltage). In reality such high voltage installations would be controlled via low voltage applications(ex: a switch that drives a small motor which will open and close the high voltage circuit contacts, trough mechanical means, as required - the reality is a bit more complex but that's the basic principle). Later the poster himself admits there is protection for this kind of situations.
On nowadays water faring ships power circuits are separated from control consoles via the use of what is called a control circuit. These control circuits would close and open contacts to main power circuits, mechanically, to do anything from running a pump to operating a weapon. In the case of a failure the control console will simply do nothing when actuated, it could display some kind of failure signal or. in the case where a backup system exists, start said backup system in order to replace the main one. In case the power circuits who are usually situated in the middle of the ship would suffer damage, it would be contained within that safe space where there are multiple means of controlling the ensuing fires.
In conclusion if there would be electrical power grid surges within a star ship's power systems, at worst the fires and explosions would be contained in the engineering section, the surges might be dumped in the warp core on the current feedback loop(electrons are put in motion by a power source, arrive at a consumer and return to the power source) or be dumped in special circuits designed for protection in such cases. In nowadays warships excess current would be dumped into such protective circuits(essentially resistors/capacitors/inductors/drives with high enough capacity rating who can withstand such surge discharges for a given time). In a failure scenario for these protective circuits they would be first destroyed and in case of repeated malfunction destroy the main power circuits as well. In the absolute worst designed system the events in the power circuits would melt the wires leading to the consoles in effect making the console inoperable acting as another means of protection.
Hello, The information in the topic is a bit misleading and it has to do with the "Truth in Television" as real life ships consoles operated by humans would never explode from power surges, as it would obviously be unsafe and in most special purpose ships(like an exploring star ship would be) these systems would have redundant backups. In reality they would either become inoperable, signal a fault and/or then signal the startup of a backup system, if it exists. I propose the following sentence be removed:
"Exploding Consoles of Doom" is actually an example of Truth in Television. An electrical engineer posting on the Trek BBS message board explains what happens to cause a so called "Exploding Console of Doom"."
Explanation: In the linked forum post the poster is talking about high voltage installations which are used to transporting current not using it. For example we could not have toasters running at 24.000 volts because they would be a few times bigger since the insulation required for them to be safe and not harm humans would need to be considerable(insulation required is proportional with voltage). In reality such high voltage installations would be controlled via low voltage applications(ex: a switch that drives a small motor which will open and close the high voltage circuit contacts, trough mechanical means, as required - the reality is a bit more complex but that's the basic principle). Later the poster himself admits there is protection for this kind of situations. On nowadays water faring ships power circuits are separated from control consoles via the use of what is called a control circuit. These control circuits would close and open contacts to main power circuits, mechanically, to do anything from running a pump to operating a weapon. In the case of a failure the control console will simply do nothing when actuated, it could display some kind of failure signal or. in the case where a backup system exists, start said backup system in order to replace the main one. In case the power circuits who are usually situated in the middle of the ship would suffer damage, it would be contained within that safe space where there are multiple means of controlling the ensuing fires. In conclusion if there would be electrical power grid surges within a star ship's power systems, at worst the fires and explosions would be contained in the engineering section, the surges might be dumped in the warp core on the current feedback loop(electrons are put in motion by a power source, arrive at a consumer and return to the power source) or be dumped in special circuits designed for protection in such cases. In nowadays warships excess current would be dumped into such protective circuits(essentially resistors/capacitors/inductors/drives with high enough capacity rating who can withstand such surge discharges for a given time). In a failure scenario for these protective circuits they would be first destroyed and in case of repeated malfunction destroy the main power circuits as well. In the absolute worst designed system the events in the power circuits would melt the wires leading to the consoles in effect making the console inoperable acting as another means of protection.
Edited by GeorgeS