OT: car insurance after 3 points for "careless driving"

In message snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net>, at 15:13:26 on Wed, 4 Mar

Best way to clear a windscreen is to blast it with AC-air, not heated air.

Or have an electrically heated windscreen!

Heated AC air is even better at clearing misty windscreens, because in addition to the mechanism of drier air taking up the moisture, the warmth will supply the latent heat of vaporisation needed to get the moisture from the liquid phase into the vapour phase. Otherwise the windscreen will supply the heat needed and so fall in temperature possibly leading to further misting-up if the air-stream is then reduced or terminated.

A further benefit of using heated AC air for this task is that the rise in its temperature prior to blasting the windscreen will also lower its relative humidity, enabling more water-vapour to be removed after the LHoV has had its own effect. It will also leave the windscreen warmer and therefore less liable to subsequent re-misting.

An easy method of supplying instant heat to a misted windscreen is to gently pour lukewarm water over its external surface.

Of course, if the vehicle is an EV, heat and aircon are almost immediately available, if not already programmed-in as part of its overnight charging regime, sometimes as a result of engaging the windscreen symbol on the climate-control system, that blasts the warm dry air over the windscreen.

If the vehicle has an electrically-heated windscreen, just engage that to get it cleared.

Driving with a misted windscreen can get the driver awarded a DC10.

In message snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net>, at 09:00:06 on Fri, 6 Mar

AC-air is quicker.

In message snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net>, at 09:23:40 on Fri, 6 Mar

My ICE car does that automatically, having sensed the situation. Although the mist is usually gone long before the AC-air warms up.

Or do away with windscreens and wear goggles. There's too much of this namby pamby coddling of modern drivers.

Just your location would suit me: I would _really_ like to know what part of this country nowadays has enough police to stop cars for an offence like that (and to spot it happening?). Here where I live in Northumberland we used to have a good sprinkling of traffic police on our roads, but for at least 10 years now I hardly ever see police cars. I think they follow the tenets of commercial supply and demand "Just In Time" -- terrific, if you're delaing in toilet rolls, or beans, or

AJ

Most police forces decide to have a purge on some "Crime du jour" - drink driving in the run up to Christmas is an obvious example.

My guess would be something like this happened.

That's what tends to happen. Occasionally around my way the Police van will be parked by the side of the road and half a mile away along the road with no turn-offs will be another couple of police cars pulling in individual motorists. Probably checking for no insurance or tax.

I've also seen "traffic Surveys" where basically the car is eyeballed checked for road worthiness (tyre tread etc.) rather than the driver just being asked about his journey.

Then there are the mobile speed cameras positioned at the bottom of a hill or around a blind bend :(

I suspect with the OP he was driving too slowly or erratically for the road conditions and aroused the suspicion in a following police car.

Metallic objects in the microwave are basically a bad idea.

If you were to stick a handful of nails (sharp points), you would see arcing off the tips of the nails. The microwave cavity is the "antenna" of a radio station. What you stick in the microwave, makes it a moderate-performance antenna. But placing metal in there, the standing wave ratio is bad, the voltage peaks are high, and the result can be arcing.

The smartphone is a small package full of metal bits, the metal bits have small dimensions, there would be arcing between the metal bits. The ICs are only rated for voltages a hundred times less than that arcing. The ICs get blown by the discharges. if the smartphone stayed in the microwave long enough, the lithium battery could explode (thermal reasons).

Another demo material, is fine china with that gold coloured ring around the outside. That should attract the arcing as well. And the china can be such, if it has a water content (moisture), the china can become blazing hot, making the item a "poor indeed" thing for heating a meal.

This is why we have "microwave-safe" items at the store. The material matrix does not intercept the microwaves and heat excessively. Or, if the material is pre-stressed, maybe it can take large temperature changes without cracking or shattering.

The desiccant method works, and a mild heat helps convert the liquid inside the smartphone, into a vapour (a mild heat makes a slightly higher vapour pressure). If dropping the item down the loo, you'd rinse in a stream of tap water, and maybe finish off with some distilled water (available at the automotive store, used for diluting antifreeze concentrate). I usually have one jug of distilled here (does not get used often). That swirling around in the distilled, is intended to reduce the chlorine content.

Desiccant is only meant to remove small quantities of water vapour, and if you expect it to absorb "a gallon" of water, you would attempt to force the water out mechanically so you no longer hear sloshing, before placing the smartphone in your desiccator. Repeated recharging of the desiccant and enough time, it should dry down. It depends on whether there are any "functional gaps" in the unit, whether there is any chance for mass transport of a liquid, out of the thing. If it had some crazy IPxx rating, maybe not, and the desiccant alone will have to do the work.

The smartphone could be damaged, if you stick it in a vacuum chamber. That might ruin the display if you took it down to 1 torr. The desiccator in a chem lab, has a glass tube available on the side, to encourage the user to combine vacuum pump with desiccant. I've never been instructed in a chem lab to apply vacuum like that, but it has a fitting as if intended to do that. You'd probably have trouble getting the greased ground-glass lid off the desiccator if you did that. That would be a reason we would not try vacuum on it. And the smartphone is not designed for vacuum work anyway, so that's not a good prospect as a drying method.

So generally speaking, a smartphone is a "delicate mechanism". Doing a violence to it, isn't going to have a positive outcome. It's not as robust as a 2x4 stick of wood.

Take my experiences trying to fix keyboards. My old membrane keyboard, you open that up, it has three plastic membranes, and some "plastic welds" to retain precise alignment (nice!). You rinse that in tap water, let the membranes sit in room air for a day or so, it's dry, you can screw it back together. You could do that forever if the keys didn't wear out.

Contrast that with a fancy Apple keyboard, the heavy one. You open that, to find steel rivets holding the assembly together. You cannot achieve any improvement in rinsing capability, as the rivets prevent it. You can rinse that until you are blue in the face, then dry that with a "low heat", just a lukewarm breeze. Took about three days of that. Reassemble and... Well, three of the keys were still sticking. The new keyboard (identical model) costs 150. I didn't spill anything in *that* one :-/ Knowing that even the most thorough rinsing method, won't work properly. The cheesy membrane keyboard (costs a lot less than 150) just laughs at liquid spills, after a moderate amount of rinsing. A lesson in the value of goods.

Paul

A gold rim on china is at least fairly evident, but also watch out for (e.g.) jugs which have a metallic glaze. The metal content is not immediately obvious so treat them with caution.