When the car goes underwater and the engine dies the lights still work, shouldn't the battery be killed off and the lights should no longer function? If this seems realistic I feel this would be a good addition to the game.
eh you'd be surprised. Basic dc electronics function in water. Computers are complex enough to be fried not the lights that quickly. Battery won't die immediately
not even remotely. It's to do with the water not having a high enough resistance to short the battery immediately and it taking time for the water to seep into the casing. Not seeing anywhere for capacitance to take any hold
For computers it does come down to capacitance. You make little shorts because even tho water is a terrible conductor of electricity, the impurities and minerals in it help a lot. If you had a super clean pc internally and you submerge it in super distilled water nothing will happen. Fun fact.
your radio will go first, trip and most computers, then if you have climate AC that will then go as the pcb is submerged, your windows and door locks should be fine though (for a while) and thats a good thing as otherwise you wont get out because the pressure is acting on the doors (better wind down windows to equalize pressure)
Conductivity is not capacitance. Capacitance is the ability to store a charge, not conduct a charge. Get back to highschool physics class please or do I have to get my spare capacitors out of my drawer here and zap you with them.
wow i was waiting for a dick head response from you. your changing the capacitance between 2 points and thats not good. now electricity supposed to be going here and it goes there. we get it your a genius buddy. good luck zapping me, im behind 7 proxies. please dont tase me. please don't short to ground bro.
You are changing conductivity between 2 points, not capacitance. However the large continuous DC currents involved for a headlight connected via a simple switch operated relay from the battery are largely immune to the change in conductivity of the water, this is a point very easily proven, take a non LED flashlight, dunk it in some water. The rapidly switching electronics within an ECU however are very susceptible to the alternate conductive paths caused by the water and will indeed cease to function (and an LED depending on the exact design of the flashlight may have more complex electronics driving it). Capacitance is an ability to store and *retain* a charge. A capacitor as an electrical component is effectively a rechargeable battery (albeit with nowhere near as large a capacity as even a small battery). Hell most modern motherboards nolonger feature a CMOS battery and instead replace it with a capacitor. The capacitor charges up to approximately 3v or so when the computer is switched on. When the computer is switched off, an electrical charge remains on the capacitor which is utilised similarly to a battery in order to run the RTC module on the motherboard (and historically the CMOS memory used for motherboard settings which was volatile RAM that would be wiped if the motherboard lost power, hence having a CMOS battery. More modern systems while still referring to a CMOS battery (or capacitor) tend to use EEPROM or flash for settings instead which is non volatile. The RTC is the clock and is used to keep track of the change in system time while powered off, logically requires power). Capacitors are effectively batteries. Water, not a battery. Impure water is a conductor and allows an electrical current to flow but has a negligible capacitance. If you want. I can get some capacitors out of those drawer, charge them up to 50v or so and see how you like it. Then try and charge a glass of river water up to 50v or so and see how you like it. Hint, the water will do jack shit, its not a capacitor, only a conductor. And yes I've proven the theory of a light bulb running under water. They are fine until either the battery itself is water damaged (car batteries are meant to be weather resistant, they will withstand the submersion for awhile, not for too long though, the water will get in eventually, although even then there is water inside a car battery anyway) or the water gets into the bulb itself. You wanted the meanie response, nah, you get the response from a guy that does this shit as a hobby.
First one I found with a 5 second google wasnt so much a PC ATX mobo as a laptop but: https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/275899/How+to+replace+the+CMOS+-+PRAM+supercapacitor+by+battery My own motherboard while a budget model appears to have no visible CMOS battery not that I have inspected for one. But the main point here is the entirely different purpose of a capacitor from a simple conductor and how water is not a capacitor or a big interference with something as simple as a light. Have a youtube video uploading of my flashlight running underwater, did have to remove the rubber o ring from the tail cap and from under the lens. --- Post updated --- There we go. The water you may notice in the video (not that camera picked it up well) is not clean. Why, that sink somewhat wrankly had things like dried toothpaste on the side of it and a sachet of salt I had kicking around added. I figured that was perfect for proving the point of non clean water. Torch has both rubber seals removed for waterproofing and runs on 3 alkaline batteries. It is an LED although seems to use a rather simply bypass transistor for current limiting rather than any fancy switchmode LED driver so I figured would be safe to be submerged. Again camera doesnt pick up but it was wet before I submerged it, I did test this before wasting time videoing something one handed. I now have it disassembled on my floor to dry out though, would rather not mist up the lens and am not sure alkaline cells should really be kept damp for long. The flashing you see, that is due to various modes on the torch, I tried to briefly cycle them at one point. Thats not the torch failing.
Huh, interesting. Didn't know that. Never seen a desktop board with a capacitor instead of a battery though, might be a laptop thing. Also, I know it's not the point, just something I hadn't heard of.
